General news

• China reaffirms ties with North Korea in high-level meeting

  13-04-2024 22:39 via theguardian.com
  
  Top-ranking Chinese official Zhao Leji met Kim Jong-un during three-day visit to PyongyangA top ranking Chinese official reaffirmed ties with North Korea during a meeting in Pyongyang on Saturday with the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, China’s state media reported, in the highest-level talks between the allies in years.The visit by Zhao Leji, who ranks third in the ruling Communist party hierarchy and heads the ceremonial parliament, came as North Korea has test-fired missiles to int
  
  Read more

• Last of 174 people rescued from stranded cable cars in Turkey

  13-04-2024 19:45 via theguardian.com
  
  Passengers had been trapped in mid-air overnight after a pod hit a pole and burst open, killing one person and injuring othersThe last 43 of 174 people stranded in cable cars high above a mountain in southern Turkey have been brought to safety, nearly 23 hours after one pod hit a pole and burst open, killing one person and injuring 10 when they plummeted to the rocks below.The interior minister, Ali Yerlikaya, announced the successful completion of the rescue operation on X, formerly Twitter, on
  
  Read more

• New Brexit checks will cause food shortages in UK, importers warn

  13-04-2024 15:39 via theguardian.com
  
  Rules due to come in this month will impose new handling fees – and experts say small suppliers are already being driven awayMinisters’ decision to impose Brexit import checks on 30 April will lead to shortages of some foods, flowers and herbs, industry leaders have warned.In the week after the government was accused of blindsiding the British food industry by giving 27 days’ notice that every consignment of items such as camembert, steak, tulips and chives would be subject to
  
  Read more

• 'I saw him running with the knife': Witnesses tell of Sydney stabbing horror

  13-04-2024 14:38 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Shoppers describe scenes of panic as a deadly knife rampage unfolded at Westfield shopping mall.
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Revealed: the picture sneaked by employee into a German gallery

  13-04-2024 14:27 via theguardian.com
  
  Technician, who hung his own picture in an exhibition about art world glitches, has been sacked and given a three-year banThe first picture that greeted visitors to the first-floor exhibition space in Munich’s Pinakothek der Moderne gallery on 23 February may not have immediately grabbed their attention.The 60cm by 120cm artwork was a retro-looking photograph of a family of four, with the background and parts of the faces and bodies roughly painted over in white. It was unassuming compared
  
  Read more

• Dozens stranded after fatal Turkey cable car crash

  13-04-2024 14:17 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Passengers fell to the ground when a cabin collided with a broken pole near Antalya, officials have said.
  
  Read more

• Iranian troops accused of seizing Israel-linked ship

  13-04-2024 14:13 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The MSC Aries was seized by troops descending from a helicopter early on Saturday, the ship's owner says.
  
  Read more

• Five arrested after baby's remains found

  13-04-2024 14:08 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The suspects aged between 20 and 70 are held on suspicion of concealing a death and unlawful burial.
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Veteran trans campaigner: ‘Cass review has potential for positive change’

  13-04-2024 14:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Stephen Whittle talks about life for young trans people in the 1970s and now, and the influence of ‘anti-trans’ views todayWhen Stephen Whittle transitioned as a teenager in 1975, he was one of only a handful of young people in the UK to be offered hormone treatment and, later, surgery.Almost half a century later – much of it spent fighting for trans rights – he said there was “masses” he agreed with in this week’s review of the NHS’s gender identi
  
  Read more

• Palestinian Islamic Jihad spokesman reveals group’s Gaza propaganda playbook

  13-04-2024 14:00 via foxnews.com
  
  JERUSALEM — A spokesman for Gaza’s second-largest terror group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), shared inside information on the organization’s propaganda tactics and its cynical manipulation of the media during an interrogation with Israel’s military intelligence agency following his arrest at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City last month.An eight-minute video of the interrogation of Tariq Salami Otha Abu Shlouf, a spokesperson for PIJ’s political burea
  
  Read more

• Free cash programs spread as more cities expand the anti-poverty safety net

  13-04-2024 14:00
  
  City-led guaranteed income programs are delivering unrestricted payments to more households that don’t qualify for other support. Conservative critics are pushing back.
  
  Read more

• Democrats bank on abortion in 2024 as Arizona and Florida push stakes higher

  13-04-2024 14:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Focus on reproductive rights has yielded big wins and Democrats hope threat of more Republican bans will mobilize votersKamala Harris’s Friday visit to Arizona was planned before the state’s top court upheld a 160-year-old law that bans almost all abortions. But the news galvanized the vice-president’s message, one that has already yielded stunning victories for liberals since Roe v Wade fell nearly two years ago.That message is simple: abortion bans happen when Republicans are
  
  Read more

• Dartmouth researchers look to meld therapy apps with modern AI 

  13-04-2024 14:00
  
  An experimental, artificial intelligence-powered therapeutic app that its creators hope will drastically improve access to mental health care began its first clinical trial last month.
  
  Read more

• Come Dine With Me winners part of drug import plot

  13-04-2024 13:56 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Members of a gang to import cannabis were foiled after reports of a theft, police say.
  
  Read more

• Iranian special forces seize ship in Strait of Hormuz, state media reports

  13-04-2024 13:55
  
  Navy special forces from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps used a helicopter to board and seize a container ship near the Strait of Hormuz, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.
  
  Read more

• Middle East crisis live: Iran’s state media says vessel ‘linked to Israel’ seized by Revolutionary Guards

  13-04-2024 13:53 via theguardian.com
  
  Israel has warned that Iran will bear consequences for any escalation in the region as ship boarded in strait of HormuzSee all our coverage of the Middle East crisisThe search for a missing Israeli teenager resumed on Saturday in the occupied West Bank, where settler attacks on Palestinian villages have left at least one dead and dozens injured, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP) citing sources on both sides.The Israeli army said it was still looking for Benjamin Achimeir, 14, who went missing e
  
  Read more

• Sydney stabbing live updates: Westfield Bondi Junction attack leaves seven dead, including attacker shot by police, and multiple people in critical condition

  13-04-2024 13:49 via theguardian.com
  Six people killed by attacker in shopping centre in Australia, while others remain in critical condition in hospitalWhat we know so farFull report: seven people dead in Sydney stabbing, including attacker shot by policeAttacker had ‘big blade’, witness tells 9 NewsJason, a shopper evacuated from the centre, told 9 News he saw the alleged attacker with a “nice big blade”. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Top Labour figures met financial services firms after £150k donation

  13-04-2024 13:36 via theguardian.com
  
  OpenDemocracy investigation names attenders, including Keir Starmer, at Edinburgh meeting to discuss party’s banking policiesUK politics – latest updatesSenior members of the shadow cabinet have held a private meeting with a group of financial services companies to discuss the party’s banking policies just weeks after one of the companies donated £150,000 to the party.Six senior Labour figures – including the leader, Keir Starmer, the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeve
  
  Read more

• Extreme financial pressure on hospices, says boss

  13-04-2024 13:35 via bbc.com
  
  Marie Curie says it's "under the most extreme financial pressure" due to cost of living crisis .
  
  Read more

• Sydney stabbing: seven people dead, including attacker shot by police at Bondi Junction shopping centre

  13-04-2024 13:34 via theguardian.com
  
  Six people in Australia were stabbed to death in Bondi Junction Westfield shopping centre before attacker was shot dead by police officerAustralia stabbing live updates: seven dead in Sydney attack at Westfield Bondi JunctionBondi Junction stabbings: what we know so farShoppers tell of horror as they fled attackerSix people have been killed and numerous others injured, including some in critical condition, after a man went on a stabbing spree at Westfield shopping centre in the Sydney suburb of
  
  Read more

• Man in serious condition after car park shooting

  13-04-2024 13:26 via bbc.co.uk
  
  A man in his 40s has been arrested after another man was shot in the abdomen on Friday night.
  
  Read more

• Vessel reportedly seized by ‘regional authorities’ in strait of Hormuz

  13-04-2024 13:12 via theguardian.com
  
  UK maritime agency says incident took place off UAE coast as Iran claims responsibility for actionMiddle East crisis – live updatesA vessel has been seized by “regional authorities” in the strait of Hormuz, 50 nautical miles off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, it has been reported.The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency said in a post on X that the incident had taken place north-east of Fujairah. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Police officer who shot Bondi Junction attacker wielding a ‘massive’ knife hailed as a hero

  13-04-2024 13:08 via theguardian.com
  
  Anthony Albanese has praised a lone police officer who pursued a man on a stabbing spree through a shopping mall, saying ‘there is no doubt that she saved lives through her action’Full report: Seven people dead, including attacker shot by police at Bondi Junction shopping centreI thought I was going to die’: Australian shoppers tell of horror of Bondi Junction mass stabbingBondi Junction stabbing: seven people dead in Australia and baby injured in Sydney attack – videoA N
  
  Read more

• A Palestinian is killed as Israeli settlers storm his village and troops fire on stone-throwers

  13-04-2024 13:05
  
  JERUSALEM — Dozens of Israeli settlers stormed into a Palestinian village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Friday, shooting and setting houses and cars on fire.
  
  Read more

• Teen arrested after death of pensioner in Glasgow

  13-04-2024 13:00 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Police arrested the boy after reports of an assault on a man on the city's Victoria Road on Friday.
  
  Read more

• ‘Shhh or I’ll shoot you’: family of jailed Christian woman tell of Israeli raid

  13-04-2024 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Troops took Layan Nasir away at gunpoint from her home in the West Bank and her parents haven’t been told where she is The Israeli troops arrived at about 4am last Saturday to take 23-year-old Layan Nasir away at gunpoint from her parents home in the West Bank town of Birzeit. There was no arrest warrant or charges, and her parents haven’t been notified where she is held.The only Palestinian Christian woman currently in Israeli detention, her case has been raised by the archbishop of
  
  Read more

• Rise in US executions masks deep divide between states on use of death penalty

  13-04-2024 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Some of the 27 states that have the death penalty have not executed anyone in years but others still do – and the divide is rooted in historyThe execution of Brian Dorsey in Missouri on Tuesday, despite an extraordinary campaign asking for his sentence to be commuted, brought into focus the issue of the death penalty in the US – one of the few countries in the western world that still uses corporal punishment.Dorsey, 52, was executed for the 2006 murders of his cousin and her husband
  
  Read more

• Planet Fitness outlets receive bomb threats after far right derides gym policy

  13-04-2024 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  More than 40 locations across the US reported the backlash after rightwing account stokes anti-trans rhetoric about its rulesMore than 40 Planet Fitness locations across the country have received bomb threats after a conservative movement against the gym’s trans-inclusive locker room policy went viral online.In the weeks since the backlash against the gym chain started in March, at least 43 locations in Connecticut, Florida, Alabama and other states have received bomb threats, according to
  
  Read more

• North Carolina superintendent race reignites controversial debate over cameras in classrooms

  13-04-2024 13:00
  
  The controversial issue of whether to require cameras in classrooms has emerged as a flashpoint in the politically charged race to be the top public education official in North Carolina.
  
  Read more

• Democrats see recent abortion rulings as an opening to galvanize Latino voters

  13-04-2024 13:00
  
  Democrats see recent state court rulings on abortion as a galvanizing moment to mobilize Latino voters in key states and battleground House districts.
  
  Read more

• Challenge Cup: Clermont in control against Ulster

  13-04-2024 12:53 via bbc.co.uk
  Follow Radio Ulster audio commentary and live text updates as Clermont take on Ulster in the European Challenge Cup quarter-finals.
  
  Read more

• More than 40 stranded after deadly cable car accident in Turkey

  13-04-2024 12:27
  
  More than 40 people remain stranded in cable cars high above a mountain in southern Turkeyafter one pod hit a pole and burst open, killing one.
  
  Read more

• Trump derailed Oval Office China talks with Stormy Daniels rant, book says

  13-04-2024 12:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Then AT&T chief Randall Stephenson says president spent most of meeting about Beijing and tech on diatribe about women and sexDonald Trump has made antipathy to China a cornerstone of his campaign to return to the White House next year, but according to a new book, he allowed another obsession, over women and sex, to derail a White House meeting with a senior US tech executive meant to address Chinese threats to US telecoms networks.“You don’t say no to the president,” Rand
  
  Read more

• Government still buying properties along HS2 route – despite scrapping scheme

  13-04-2024 12:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Following Rishi Sunak’s decision to cancel the leg, taxpayer has spent £1.4m on properties for a line that is no longer being builtThe government has paid more than £1m to buy properties along HS2’s northern leg since Rishi Sunak announced he was cancelling the scheme, the Observer can reveal.The prime minister used his party conference speech in Manchester last year to announce he was axing the line that would have brought it to the city. It angered some senior Tories, w
  
  Read more

• Bates looking at Post Office private prosecutions

  13-04-2024 11:52 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Alan Bates, who has led a campaign for justice for decades, says he wants people to be held to account.
  
  Read more

• Post office operators may prosecute to hold officials to account, says Alan Bates

  13-04-2024 11:45 via theguardian.com
  
  Campaigner demands clarity from Horizon IT inquiry that those responsible for wrongful convictions will face justicePostal workers falsely accused by the Post Office of theft and fraud may have to bring their own private prosecutions to get justice, a leading campaigner has said.Alan Bates, the former post office operator whose role in seeking justice for hundreds like himself was portrayed in a television drama that helped put the Horizon IT scandal in the spotlight, said he would begin crowdfu
  
  Read more

• Corach Rambler seeks repeat Grand National win

  13-04-2024 11:40 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Last year's winner Corach Rambler is among the leading contenders for Saturday's Grand National at Aintree.
  
  Read more

• Varada Sethu to join Doctor Who in role as second companion

  13-04-2024 11:36 via theguardian.com
  
  Actor in Disney+ series Andor will appear onscreen alongside Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson next yearVarada Sethu will join Doctor Who as one of the Doctor’s two companions for Ncuti Gatwa’s second series in the role, it has been confirmed.She will appear onscreen in 2025, alongside the former Coronation Street actor Millie Gibson after speculation over her character Ruby Sunday’s future on the sci-fi show. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Sunak urged to stop Braverman speaking alongside far right at Brussels convention

  13-04-2024 11:08 via theguardian.com
  
  Former home secretary will rub shoulders with populist right from across the globe, including Hungarian prime minister Viktor OrbánRishi Sunak is being urged to stop his former home secretary from attending a rightwing convention featuring figures who have been under investigation for extremism, in the latest sign of his waning control of his party.Suella Braverman, who has been a central plotter against the prime minister since she left the cabinet, is set to be one of the keynote speake
  
  Read more

• ‘I’m here to get an abortion’: Arizona women dodge protesters before the window closes

  13-04-2024 11:00
  
  Women dodge protesters at clinics in Phoenix before the short window closes on abortion access in the state following the state supreme court's ruling.
  
  Read more

• Eighty-five-year-old Idaho woman saves herself and son from burglar in ‘heroic act’

  13-04-2024 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Christine Jenneiahn shot and mortally wounded a man who broke into her home at night and handcuffed her to a chairAt 85-years-old, Christine Jenneiahn might have seemed particularly vulnerable to the man who broke into her Idaho home, pistol whipped her and handcuffed her to a chair.But investigators say Jenneiahn saved herself as well as her son – whom authorities described as disabled – from the intruder by grabbing a revolver she had hidden under her pillow, shooting and mortally
  
  Read more

• Deaf fans to feel part of match with vibrating kit

  13-04-2024 10:34 via bbc.com
  
  Two Newcastle United fans try out "haptic" shirts at the home game with Tottenham Hotspur.
  
  Read more

• Are Rayner's troubles a sign of what's to come for Labour?

  13-04-2024 10:23 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Angela Rayner is seen as a major asset for Labour but a police probe will cause problems for the party.
  
  Read more

• 'Beavers can bring a tree down in a night'

  13-04-2024 10:17 via bbc.com
  
  A group of volunteers in a Highland Perthshire town are trying to protect trees from beavers.
  
  Read more

• Family's lucky escape after motorhome wrecked in storm

  13-04-2024 10:16 via bbc.com
  
  The rented vehicle rolled over several times with the family of four and two dogs still inside.
  
  Read more

• Murderer poses clear threat if freed, family warns

  13-04-2024 10:03 via bbc.com
  
  The victim's family say Victor Farrant's case has been passed on to the prison governor.
  
  Read more

• European cities hope jet-setting Taylor Swift fans will splash the cash for Eras tour

  13-04-2024 10:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The superstar arrives in Europe next month – and Swifties, tourist boards and venues are already preparingTim Brown, 44, and his wife, Marcella, 34, may not consider themselves bona fide “Swifties”, but when it was announced last June that Taylor Swift would be visiting their corner of the globe this summer they could not resist joining the scramble for a pair of tickets.A post-pandemic appetite for live music events has fuelled huge worldwide interest in the American singer-so
  
  Read more

• Six dead and baby in surgery after multiple stabbings at Sydney mall, police say

  13-04-2024 09:37 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Police in the city confirmed a 40-year-old man had been shot dead by an officer at the scene.
  
  Read more

• Stabbing rampage at Sydney mall leaves at least seven dead, including attacker

  13-04-2024 09:26
  
  Seven people are dead, and others are in serious or critical condition after a stabbing rampage in a mall in Sydney, Australia, on Saturday, according to police.
  
  Read more

• 'I was told it might be better if my baby died'

  13-04-2024 09:11 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Sheila Brill is a campaigner for safer childbirth after her daughter was starved of oxygen during labour.
  
  Read more

Follow @newslock_news on Twitter!