Exclusive: ‘like’, ‘bare’, ‘that’s long’ and ‘cut eyes at me’ among terms showing up in pupils’ work now vetoed in classroom
A London secondary school is trying to stop its pupils from using “basically” at the beginning of sentences and deploying phrases such as “oh my days” in a crackdown on “fillers” and “slang” in the classroom.
Ark All Saints academy has produced lists of “banned” language which includes “he cut his eyes at me”, which the Collins dictionary says originates in the Caribbean and means to look rudely at a person and then turn away sharply while closing one’s eyes dismissively.
Ermmm …
Because …
No …
Like …
Say …
You see …
You know …
Basically …
He cut his eyes at me (he shot me a withering sidelong glance)
Last year 15,444 cases of domestic violence were reported but only 250 people were prosecuted and 100 convicted. Victims deserve better
A woman is beaten every 30 seconds in Papua New Guinea, and more than 1.5 million people experience gender-based violence in the country each year.
On 3 September in Mt Hagen, one of the country’s largest cities, three men were released from prison after being accused of murdering a 31-year-old woman, Imelda Tupi Tiamanda. One of the men was her husband.
SpaceX founder, who in April won a contract from Nasa, took a jab at Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin for suing when it lost out on deal
Elon Musk intensified the feud over lawsuits and rocket sizes with space rival Jeff Bezos this week, kicking off the latest round in the billionaire battle over humanity’s return to the moon.
The SpaceX founder, who in April won a contract from Nasa to build the next-generation spacecraft to take astronauts to the moon’s surface for the first time since 1972, took a jab at Bezos for suing the US government when his company lost out on the deal.
The woman at the centre of a human rights claim against police gives her response to the ruling
It is 10 years since I first sat down with a group of eight women to discuss bringing an assault case against the Metropolitan police. We were reeling from the discoveries that men we had loved never existed. I was tricked into a relationship with a man I knew as Mark Stone, who turned out to be a police spy, Mark Kennedy. The Met had sent serving officers into our lives to deceive us into sexual relationships and to spy on our political campaigns.
It quickly emerged that those relationships, which had at first felt like personal betrayals, were in fact part of a systematic practice, spanning decades, of police officers deceiving women into sex and targeting leftwing political organisations in order to undermine dissent.
There was also a rise in prescriptions for ivermectin being filled, despite no evidence either drug is effective against the virus
The amount of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin dispensed from Australian pharmacies increased significantly in 2020 as the Covid pandemic took hold, according to new research.
Analysis of six publicly subsidised drugs – including hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, corticosteroids and the common antibiotic azithromycin – found Covid-related changes in prescription patterns in Australia.
Some of Victoria’s lowest socio-economic areas are still lagging behind on Covid-19 vaccination rates as the wealthiest local government areas surge ahead, creating a stark divide across the state.
The disparity has community leaders and epidemiologists worried the virus will sweep through some suburbs when the state opens up, if the vaccination rate does not pick up in vulnerable areas.
Campaigners say continuing violence has dashed hopes of rapid change to make the streets safer
This week, as the grim details about what happened to Sarah Everard in her final hours were revealed at the Old Bailey, there has been a sense of despair among women, and the campaigners pushing to make society safer for them.
The hope that Everard’s murder would bring about rapid change has all but evaporated. On 18 September, nearly seven months after the 33-year-old was killed, a member of the public found the body of the schoolteacher Sabina Nessa in Cator Park, south-east London.
Victim of raid on flat in Minsk in which one officer also killed named locally as Andrei Zeltser, aged 31
A 31-year-old man shot dead by Belarusian security forces this week in a raid on an apartment block in the capital Minsk was an employee of US-based software firm Epam Systems, the company has said.
Footage shown on state television showed plainclothes officers breaking down an apartment door and a man firing at them as they entered.
As pressure to reduce Australia’s emissions to net zero by 2050 increases, there has been a slight shift in language from the Morrison government on its climate targets. But as the PM points to a roadmap for reduced emissions, Morrison must appease his Coalition counterparts. Lenore Taylor and Adam Morton speak to Gabrielle Jackson about the shifting politics of climate action
Group of whistleblowing doctors gave 10,000-page dossier to investigators last month with allegations against Prevent Senior
One of Brazil’s biggest healthcare providers has been accused of covering up coronavirus deaths, pressuring doctors to prescribe ineffective treatments, and testing unproven drugs on elderly patients as part of ideologically-charged efforts to help the Brazilian government resist a Covid lockdown.
CCTV footage released by the Metropolitan Police shows the moment Wayne Couzens stopped Sarah Everard. The then Metropolitan police officer later burned her body to try to hide his crimes, including kidnap, rape and murder.
Couzens used his warrant card and handcuffs to ensnare Sarah Everard under the pretence she had breached Covid rules before killing her with his police belt, a court was told at the opening of a two-day sentencing hearing.
Couzens pleaded guilty to the kidnap, rape and murder of Everard at earlier court hearings.
Southwark Playhouse, London Iva Toguri’s trial for treason, accused of broadcasting Japanese propaganda to American troops, forms the backbone of this production
This real-life story of Iva Toguri tells of an innocent young woman caught in the tangle of historical and wartime bigotries. Toguri, who came to be known as “Tokyo Rose”, was an American citizen who visited Japan in the 1940s and became a radio DJ. Her return to the US sparked public uproar among those who – wrongly – accused her of broadcasting Japanese propaganda to American troops. Charged with treason, she was imprisoned for more than six years with a presidential pardon only coming decades later in 1977.
This musical brings her appalling story of injustice to the stage. Directed by Hannah Benson, it has a book and lyrics by Mayhee Yoon and Cara Baldwin (with additional book by Benson, Jonathan Mann and William Patrick Harrison, who is also its composer). Delivered as a courtroom trial in San Francisco with flashbacks to wartime Japan, it is a bumpy performance that eventually pays off in its power.
Eruption destroys 650 properties including house which had managed to hold out against flows
A steaming pyramid of black rock has emerged from the Atlantic waves off the coast of the Canary island of La Palma after lava from the volcanic eruption, which began 10 days ago, finally reached the sea late on Tuesday.
The eruption – which began on 19 September on the Cumbre Vieja ridge, one of the most active volcanic regions in the archipelago – has destroyed more than 650 properties, forced the evacuation of more than 6,000 people, and devastated La Palma’s banana plantations.
While Australians have focused on the Covid waves in Sydney and Melbourne, many of Australia’s neighbours have recently experienced their largest outbreaks so far. This includes Fiji, Indonesia, Malaysia, Timor-Leste, Vanuatu and even Singapore.
Singapore surpassed Australia’s vaccination target weeks ago, but was now seeing more than a thousand cases a day. Fiji recently had one of the highest rates of Covid cases per capita – peaking at 1,850 cases in the middle of July. But the nation of 889,000 was now regularly administering more than 10,000 new vaccinations a day.
The majority of period underwear available in Australia perform well, but the more eco-friendly alternatives to tampons may not suit everyone, a review by consumer advocacy group Choice has found.
In an Australian first, Choice recruited 56 volunteers to test which undergarments give women the best bang for their buck. The review, which trialled 10 different pairs from brands Bonds, Modibodi, Thinx, Eco Period and Love Luna, comes in response to what Choice sees as a “growing market” for blood-absorbing intimates.
Australia’s Pacific neighbours risk a “lost decade” following the Covid pandemic, with the region facing its greatest economic contraction in four decades, according to a new report into foreign aid.
The latest Lowy Institute Pacific Aid Map, which sets out aid spending and donations to the Pacific Islands regions shows US$2.44bn in foreign aid reached the Pacific in 2019, which is about 8% of the region’s GDP.
New Zealand’s prime minister has essentially turned a blind eye to the pact – she knows taking the moral high ground leads to punishment
New Zealand defence hawks reacted to the announcement of the Anglophone security pact Aukus this month by complaining this country had been sidelined. In order to stay close to traditional allies, the hawks suggest New Zealand needs to either increase defence spending to compensate, or overturn New Zealand’s long-held ban on nuclear-powered vessels.
On the opposing side, there have been plenty of doves celebrating that New Zealand isn’t involved in Aukus. For example, editorials from the three biggest newspapers all took this stance, which probably reflects the general view of most New Zealanders.
Wednesday: international travel unlikely by Christmas without clarity for airlines around key issues. Plus: climate crisis talk is ‘blah blah blah’ to Greta Thunberg
Good morning. Rising Covid cases continue to put pressure on hospitals and health workers. Support payments for workers will end when vaccination rates hit 80%, and political talk on the climate crisis is all “blah blah blah” with no action, according to Greta Thunberg.
International tourism is unlikely to resume by Christmas, according to foreign airlines, who say there’s too much uncertainty surrounding quarantine requirements and vaccine passports. The Board of Airline Representatives of Australia said the federal government’s speculated timeline was “simply an unworkable proposition” for airlines without clarity around key issues, including how many passengers they will be allowed to carry and how vaccine statuses will be checked. One airline source said it was “naive” to expect pre-pandemic travel so soon.
General and other military leaders in heated cross-examination
Milley defends loyalty to country and rejects suggestion to quit
The withdrawal from Afghanistan and the evacuation of Kabul was “a logistical success but a strategic failure,” the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff has told the Senate.
Gen Mark Milley gave the stark assessment at an extraordinary hearing of the Senate armed services committee to examine the US departure, which also became a postmortem on the 20-year war that preceded it.
37 min: Mahrez slips De Bruyne into the box down the right. From a tight angle, De Bruyne spins and shoots towards the near post, where Donnarumma claims easily.
36 min: A brief pause as Mendes goes down feeling his calf. He’s back up on his feet again soon enough.
Eight women have been burned to death or lynched in South Kivu province this month, say officials
Murders of women accused of witchcraft have surged in a troubled eastern province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to officials and rights campaigners.
Eight women have reportedly been burned to death or lynched in three districts in South Kivu province this month.
Covid disaster payments for lockdown-affected workers will end after states and territories reach the 80% vaccination mark – even if some regions end up being locked down again as a result of an outbreak.
The federal treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, will announce on Wednesday that after paying out more than $9bn in disaster payments to 2.16 million people since June, the government will begin to wind up the payments once vaccination rates reach 70% of the adult population.
One in three people infected with coronavirus will experience at least one symptom of long Covid, a new study suggests.
Much of the existing research into the condition – a mixture of symptoms reported by people often months after they were originally ill with Covid-19 – has been based either on self-reported symptoms or small studies.
He has the most evoked name in Australia thanks to the Covid-19 modelling that bears it. Features editor Lucy Clark recommends Paul Daley’s profile on Peter Doherty, which ranges from politics, books, misinformation and that tweet
Trial of the singer had theme of Kelly using his fame and power to subject his victims to sexual and physical abuse
R Kelly’s conviction on racketeering and sex trafficking charges came after a trial that shocked the US and opened the eyes of a nation to claims of shocking, decades-long abuse that predominantly targeted young Black girls.
Jurors in a New York federal court heard from multiple witnesses over the weeks-long trial of behavior by the singer, with a common theme of Kelly using his fame and power to subject his victims to sexual and physical abuse.
At the White House on Monday, Joe Biden donned a black surgical mask, rolled his shirt sleeve to his shoulder and received a third dose of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine as a “booster” shot.
With a more normal awards season on the way, it’s time to sift through what’s been loved and hated and look forward to what performances could make an impact
As we all edge slowly closer to something vaguely sorta kinda resembling a loose idea of normality, so too does Hollywood, its relatively fixed annual schedule going from blurry to a bit less blurry. After an almost normal summer, the fall festivals followed and while they weren’t quite back up to snuff (some had a semi-virtual element, some big films were notably missing), there was a dramatic improvement from 2020 and, importantly, they were pulled off with very few infections.
Animal welfare experts urged officers to let deer find its way home but police say they were left ‘no option’
A rare white stag was killed by police on Sunday evening after it spent hours running through a Merseyside town, despite animal welfare experts urging officers to let it find its way home.
Merseyside police say that they were unable to find an organisation who could help safely recover the deer from Bootle, and so were forced to euthanise it out of concerns for motorists.
A Senate inquiry has been told Australia’s disability payment rules need to be ‘rewritten’ as people struggle for months, or even years, before receiving support – with some draining their super, relying on charity or accruing thousands of dollars of credit card debt to get by. Many are also forced onto the lower jobseeker payment, with government data showing that 36% of jobseeker recipients are sick or have a disability.
Laura Murphy-Oates speaks to 28-year-old Natasha Thomson, whose two-year battle to access the payment ended up at the top level of the administrative appeal tribunal, and inequality editor Luke Henriques-Gomes, about the barriers to accessing the disability support pension and the push for reform
Sculpture based on the poem The Gleaner of Sapri was unveiled by former PM Giuseppe Conte on Saturday
A statue depicting a scantily dressed woman from a 19th-century poem has sparked a sexism row in Italy.
The bronze statue, which portrays the woman in a transparent dress, was unveiled on Saturday during a ceremony attended by the former prime minister Giuseppe Conte in Sapri, in the southern Campania region.
The 25m-year-old fossil reveals ancient eagle had features unlike any seen among modern hawks and eagles
A 25m-year-old eagle fossil discovered on a remote outback cattle station in South Australia has been identified as one of the oldest raptor species in the world.
Palaeontologists discovered the eagle fossil on the shore of a dry lake known as Lake Pinpa in 2016, and have since identified it as a new species, Archaehierax sylvestris, in a study published in the journal Historical Biology.
Louis Watkiss, of Sutton Coldfield, was injured in incident at SnowDome in Tamworth on Friday
Police have named a 12-year-old boy who died in an incident at an indoor ski and snowboarding centre. Louis Watkiss, of Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, was fatally injured at the SnowDome in Tamworth on Friday evening, Staffordshire police said.
The force said in a statement: “Police were called at 6.40pm on September 24 to reports that a child had been seriously injured at the SnowDome. Officers attended the location, along with ambulance crews. Sadly, Louis, died of his injuries shortly afterwards.
Could the calamity unfolding in Britain happen in Australia? Is a net zero target to blame, as the deputy PM claims? Adam Morton looks behind the Nationals leader’s claims
While we wait on the latest signal from the Morrison government on whether it might shift its position from “preferring” to reach net zero emissions by 2050 to joining the 129 countries that have set an actual target, it is worth considering the language of a man central to that decision: the deputy prime minister.
In recent days, Barnaby Joyce has told journalists he was perplexed that Australia was not spending more time discussing the plight of the UK given it had, in his words, “completely botched it” on energy and was “having to go back and recommission coal fired plants to keep the lights on”.
Monday: A Victorian legal challenge aims to lower the eligibility for the age pension for Indigenous people. Plus: the Bird of the Year poll is back
Good morning. The Guardian/BirdLife Australia bird of the year poll is back. A legal challenge seeks to lower the pension age for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. A group of 70 former diplomats has warned Scott Morrison that failing to act on climate change will “cost us dearly”. In Germany, Social Democrats edge ahead of Angela Merkel’s CDU in the federal election as the vote count continues.
The vote for the Australian bird of the year kicks off today with a lineup of 50 Australian native birds, featuring some unique and much-loved species threatened by climate change and a few urban “bullies” that dominate as cities grow. Sean Dooley, the national public affairs manager for BirdLife Australia, says the 2019-20 bushfire season brought a “seismic shift” for Australia’s birds because the disaster was so extensive, affecting so much habitat, particularly in NSW. “The damage to a lot of bird populations from something like this would take decades to recover and that’s assuming we have good conditions,” he said. “And we know that’s not going to happen, this will only get worse.”
Germany is set for weeks or even months of protracted coalition talks after the race to produce a successor to Angela Merkel after 16 years in power failed to produce a clear winner, with the centre-left Social Democrats and the centre-right conservative alliance in a tight first and second.
Republican tweets picture just of George W Bush after Trump pac sends out image that spliced Cheney with former leader
One of the less dignified spats in US politics rumbled onwards on Sunday, as the Wyoming Republican Liz Cheney responded to a bizarre insult from Donald Trump.
A 30-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of starting the blaze that grew explosively in hot and gusty weather
Firefighters were gaining the upper hand on Sunday on a forest fire that displaced thousands and destroyed more than 100 buildings near Shasta Lake in northern California.
Lighter winds and cooler temperatures slowed the Fawn fire as it moved toward the shores of California’s largest man-made lake and away from populated areas north of the city of Redding, allowing crews to increase containment to 35%, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.
Alan Partridge star will take on ‘complex’ character of notorious paedophile in The Reckoning
Steve Coogan will play Jimmy Savile in a forthcoming BBC drama series about how the high-profile presenter spent decades living a double life as one of the country’s most notorious paedophiles.
The Alan Partridge star said the decision to portray Savile on screen was not one he “took lightly” but the series has “an intelligent script tackling sensitively an horrific story which – however harrowing – needs to be told”.
The Australian government should establish a fixed-price carbon trading desk for small farmers, and fund practical advice and research for livestock producers if agriculture is going to thrive in a net zero future, a report says.
Australian farmers should also benefit from actions that reduce emissions and limit climate damage, Melbourne-based thinktank the Grattan Institute found in its paper, launched ahead of the global climate conference in Glasgow in November.
As New South Wales hospitals brace for the peak in admissions and overwhelmed intensive care units next month, the voices of those on the frontline are strangely muted.
Often it is family members, union representatives, professional bodies and patients who are providing a window into what life is like for frontline staff in NSW hospitals.
Victorian regions plunged into a seven-day lockdown will find out today if restrictions will lift amid concerns over case numbers in Geelong and Mitchell Shire. Follow the latest updates live
Speers and Joyce are going back and forth on what his position is around Australia hitting net zero by 2050. On the one hand, Joyce appears to say that the world is moving on from coal. On the other hand, he says he wants coal jobs protected.
Speers:
I’m trying to establish what your position is here. As you say, the world is moving on. Coal - the world will stop using coal at some point, do you agree and how can you protect those jobs indefinitely?
Well, let’s say that that’s - let’s work that statement out. If it does, people will stop buying it off us and that’s the progression.
Shouldn’t be you helping the transition of the industry now and those jobs in those regions?
That’s part and process of anything As technology moves on, I’ve got no problems on that. But to make a statement, “oh, the world is moving on from coal today,” it is just not right. We have the highest prices and highest volumes in the sale of thermal coal and because they’ve completely botched it in theUK unfortunately they’ve had to go back and re-commission coal-fired power plants to keep the lights on.
OK, but Speers wants to know how net zero discussions can be happening if Joyce says that he doesn’t want any jobs in coal lost.
Speers:
I want to be clear on this. As I say, pretty hard how you agree to any net zero 2050 or any time if you are demanding the protection of all coal jobs. This is the bottom line for you: no coal jobs lost?
It is not the bottom line. As I say, I won’t go to the particulars and I do credit your astuteness process of trying to see if I do. What I can say – you would believe the world is moving on from coal, and if that’s the case, there won’t be any demand for the product and of course, you clearly understand, the listeners understand that that is our biggest export. If you start shutting down your biggest export, the government has less money. So when you want money for more pensions or the NDIS, schools hospital, the ABC, you have to accept that we’ve made a decision that we will bring in less money, so there is less places for the government to spend it on. As simple as that. You can’t just keep borrowing money and thinking that’s not ending. Everybody looks at that and economically says, “Hey, guys, Australians, how do you pay us back?” What product are you selling the world that the world wants and if we haven’t got that product, we’re in strife.
Speaker sends letter to party at mercy of warring factions
One reporter observes: ‘Well, this is raising the stakes’
In a letter to Democrats on Saturday the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, set her sights high, saying Joe Biden’s $3.5tn spending package, a bipartisan infrastructure deal worth $1tn and a measure to expand government funding “must pass” next week.
In what’s been described as a ‘paradigm shifter’ for psychiatry, clinical trials are exploring the therapeutic use for illegal substances
It was out of desperation that Michael Raymond found himself sitting in a remote retreat in the Peruvian Andes, sipping a cup of bitter tea.
Raymond had reached breaking point. His 16-year career as an electrical engineer in high–security situations for the Australian air force had seen him deal with near-death experiences, crashes, casualties and “the aftermath of human remains”.
The country’s pandemic policy has left many of its overseas citizens feeling alienated – a failure to amend election law could cement that
What makes a New Zealander outside of New Zealand? An accent (which can be lost), or a passport (which can be bought)? Is it a set of irrevocable rights, an identity that anyone can claim and no one can question? Or does it depend on how often you go back?
It was a busy start to last week for Anjali Sharma. The year 11 student, who is studying two extra year 12 subjects, found that all her teachers had assigned work or set tests for the same time.
It would have been a difficult enough juggle for any 17-year-old. But Sharma has more to juggle than most, and as she was taking a walk between maths and global politics exams last Thursday, another sphere of her life intruded when she checked her phone for the time.
EVCL Chill goes into administration hit by severe driver shortages and loss of customers
More than 400 jobs are at risk after a chilled food delivery business collapsed into administration – in part as a result of by the driver shortage.
EVCL Chill, based in Alfreton, Derbyshire, had struggled after the loss of a number of customers over the past year and severe driver shortages, administrators PwC said.
