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‘Anywhere, anytime’: Victoria police and PSOs to get random stop and search powers after Labor backflip

Premier Ben Carroll adopts Coalition’s stance on Jack’s Law, which gives police and PSOs power to randomly search people for knives with metal detectors The Victorian premie has made another policy backflip, announcing a re-elected Labor government would give police and protective services officers the power to stop and search people for knives using handheld metal detectors – despite experts warning of a lack of evidence the measure reduces violent crime. Ben Carroll on Wednesday announced he would match a commitment made by the Coalition opposition last year to introduce Queensland’s Jack’s Law , named after 17-year-old Jack Beasley, who was fatally stabbed in Surfers Paradise in 2019. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Benita Kolovos Victorian state correspondent24m ago

Slave-trade wealth was embedded in Britain’s financial system, research finds

Dozens of Bank of England directors and founding subscribers invested in trafficking of enslaved Africans The Bank of England and the British financial system were for centuries deeply involved in the enslavement and transatlantic trafficking of millions of African people, according to new research on Britain’s slavery history. Research by historians compiling the Register of British Slave Traders has found that the scale of the financial system’s involvement in enslavement is greater than previously known or acknowledged. The Bank of England, the central bank owned by the government since nationalisation by Clement Attlee’s Labour administration in 1946, had dozens of financiers involved in its foundation who were also significant investors in the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans. Continue reading...

The Guardian•David Conn Investigations correspondent28m ago

Revealed: the UK towns with the fewest jobs for young people

Rotherham has 46 online vacancies for every 1,000 young people but there are 288 in Cotswold district council area Young people in Rotherham face a local jobs market with the fewest suitable opportunities in Britain, according to a report that warns stark regional divisions are fuelling a crisis in youth work. As ministers push to combat rising youth unemployment, the analysis from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) showed young people faced a tougher challenge in some parts of the country to find work than in others. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Richard Partington Senior economics correspondent28m ago

Fresh evidence of C of E’s role in enslavement uncovered as church wrestles with reparations debate

Register of British Slave Traders shows clergymen financed company that trafficked enslaved Africans on hundreds of voyages Nearly 250 years after the abolitionist Ottobah Cugoano made the Christian case for reparative justice, the archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, visited the Ghanaian shore where he was enslaved as a boy. After witnessing the dungeons beneath the chapel at Cape Coast Castle, once run by the Royal African Company (RAC), Mullally recommitted the Church of England to its “journey of repentance” for its role in slavery. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Chris Osuh Community affairs correspondent. Photography by Wayne Crichlow28m ago

Squid ink tomato pasta and honey and fig semifreddo: Chris Leach’s Italian recipes for the end of summer

Cooking at this time of year is all about low-effort, maximum-impact options. This savoury dish comes together quickly but looks striking, while the dessert showcases figs at their most flavoursome The secret to late-summer/early autumn cooking is to keep things relatively low-effort, not least to assuage those back-to-work/school blues. And that rule applies across the board, whether you’re making a midweek meal, entertaining or serving up a long, slow Sunday lunch. The sauce for this pasta dish, for example, comes together while the pasta is cooking, while the semifreddo pudding makes the most of ripe figs when they are at their absolute best. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Chris Leach28m ago

Plantwatch: The insect-eating alpine plant that proves Darwin was right

Study shows Saxifraga candelabrum traps and digests midges – just as the evolutionary biologist predicted back in 1875 In 1875, Charles Darwin predicted that Saxifraga candelabrum , a small alpine plant, could eat insects. Its leaves, petals and stems are smothered in tiny, sticky hairs and – just as the evolutionary biologist suspected – the sweet glue on the hairs can lure and trap midges before digesting them with an enzyme. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Paul Simons28m ago

People protecting nature and land set up self-defence units amid threat of murder

Defenders of forests and rivers killed at rate of one every three days in 2025, with 85% of deaths in Latin America Nature and land defenders were murdered at the rate of one every three days last year, prompting many communities to set up self-defence units, according to the latest annual death toll by the independent watchdog Global Witness. Organised crime groups or professional killers were implicated in more than a third of the 124 killings of defenders in 2025 as narco-trafficking activities overlapped with intrusions into indigenous territories and environmental crime, such as illegal logging and wildcat gold mining. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Jonathan Watts28m ago

UK mathematician debunks myth around Parthenon’s optical illusions

Study challenges belief that temple’s curves were designed to correct optical illusions that would have ruined its clean lines A mathematician has uncovered what may be one of the longest-running myths in history after studying optical illusions and the Parthenon, the famed Greek temple that overlooks Athens. Scholars have marvelled at the building on the Acropolis hill for more than 2,000 years and heaped praise on its architects for their clever use of geometry. Its subtle curves are said to correct optical illusions that would have otherwise ruined the Parthenon’s clean lines. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Ian Sample Science editor1h ago

The girl with a will to live: the love, hope and pain of raising Elsie – my one in 163 million daughter

She was born with an ultra-rare genetic disorder. After my decades working in film PR, I now face the biggest campaign of all: the fight for her life My daughter Elsie has beautiful curls – blond like a little Botticelli cherub’s, hair that someone dark like me could only ever dream of. She laughs a lot, has a cheeky sense of humour and soaks in all the sounds around her – rustling leaves, the sea, a dog barking, children playing around a pool, me impersonating the alarm clock every morning, me impersonating monkeys. Indeed, me impersonating any animal. Sound is important for Elsie because she has a visual impairment and, while we know she has some peripheral vision, is legally classed as blind. As a result, she uses her tongue to check her environment. When she’s excited it sticks out, tasting the air around her, licking anyone close, sensing space. And when she likes the taste of something she keeps her tongue out until you give her more. This is how we know she likes lollies. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Christelle Randall1h ago

Airlines should pay for CO2 removal if Heathrow expands, say climate advisers

Climate Change Committee says government cannot expand airport without requiring aviation industry to clean up its emissions Heathrow airport should be allowed to expand only if airlines pay for the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the government’s climate advisers have said. Building a third runway and new terminals , as some in government want to do , would breach the UK’s carbon budgets and make reaching net zero by 2050 impossible, on current policies, according to the Climate Change Committee . Continue reading...

The Guardian•Fiona Harvey Environment editor1h ago

To understand the threat to our real democracy, watch Putin's fake one | Rafael Behr

As Russians vote this weekend, remember that Britain is not immune to the cynical tactics and corrosion of trust that keep him in power Millions of people will participate in elections in Russia this weekend and a new parliament will be chosen, but not necessarily in that order. The purpose of the exercise is to maintain Vladimir Putin’s authority over the political process, which means United Russia, the president’s party, will retain control of the Duma. That much is settled before the polls open, although the scale of the government’s victory won’t be declared until the votes are counted. A portion of seats is available for other “systemic parties” that function as Kremlin licensed-opposition, padding out the pretence of pluralism. They serve as a pressure valves for public frustration and parliamentary proxies when rival factions within the ruling elite want to nudge Kremlin policy in one direction or another. Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

The Guardian•Rafael Behr1h ago

Students in Gaza ‘devastated’ after plan for them to study in Belgium fails

Belgian government unable to agree on evacuation of 13 students to take up scholarships at universities Students who are unable to leave Gaza and take up scholarships at Belgian universities have said they are devastated after Belgium’s government hit deadlock on a plan enabling them to leave the war-torn territory. Ahmed Abujami, a 28-year-old doctor in Gaza, said he was “deeply disappointed” after Belgium’s five-party coalition government last Friday failed to agree on an evacuation plan for 13 students and researchers in the territory. Abujami has a scholarship to do a one-year master’s degree in public health at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp. He hopes to gain skills and experience to rebuild Gaza’s shattered health system . Continue reading...

The Guardian•Jennifer Rankin in Brussels1h ago

Expect even more potholes on UK roads after summer heatwaves, says RAC

Extreme weather has made brittle road surfaces more likely to crack, increasing strain on infrastructure The UK’s dilapidated roads are expected to get even worse, with motorists warned to expect a jump in the number of potholes as result of the country’s hottest summer on record . Potholes are commonly assumed to be caused by cold or wet weather, but long periods of heat can also create long-lasting damage on the roads, according to the RAC. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Amee Joshi and agency1h ago

The rubbishscapes of Essex: why our buried trash is back to haunt us – podcast

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, from 2023: Landfill sites have swallowed many a beauty spot along the Thames estuary in the past 50 years. Now, as those dumps start to disgorge tonnes of mouldering detritus into the river, it truly feels like the Age of Consequences By Tim Burrows. Read by Sam Swainsbury Continue reading...

The Guardian•Written by Tim Burrows and read by Sam Swainsbury. Produced by Nicola Alexandrou and Joshan Chana. The executive producer was Ellie Bury1h ago

‘We weren’t shy. We were queers in leather!’ Sunil Gupta on his momentous photographs of gay life

From Delhi to New York, from the street to the bath house, he has captured clandestine moments, risked his freedom – and even referenced Romantic painters. Ahead of a major show, the photographer relives his landmark shots ‘I’ve been very promiscuous,” Sunil Gupta says, reflecting on his experiments with photography since the 1970s. Gupta, who was born in India, brought up in Canada and moved to the UK in 1978 after two years studying in New York, has documented and described queer lives for five decades. In his work, he’s quietly tried to find new ways of seeing, exploring the potential of photography to blur fiction and reality, public space and intimate, clandestine moments. His work explores the ways we love and relate to one another, set against the ever-shifting tides of politics and society. He photographs with love – but it hasn’t been without risk. An exhibition in India was once shut down by the government, and in his early days in the UK, when he was working with fellow photographer Tessa Boffin, he recalls curators “physically shrinking away when we walked in the room – two queers in leather were too much for them! But we were quite aggressively upfront with our sexualities, we weren’t shy about it.” Continue reading...

The Guardian•Charlotte Jansen1h ago

Los Angeles helicopter crash kills at least three people with others injured

Officials said incident occurred near the site of a deadly bus crash from earlier in the day A helicopter crash in Los Angeles has killed at least three people, while another person has been taken to hospital with their condition unknown, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. The crash occurred near the site of a deadly bus crash from earlier in the day, officials said. Continue reading...

The Guardian•The Associated Press1h ago

Jeremy Greenwood denies giving ‘ridiculous’ evidence to Icac about ‘mum’s perspective’ from premier’s sister-in-law

Counsel assisting inquiry suggests Anita Perrottet’s alleged advice on vaping and greyhound industry was already on public record from other sources A Liberal factional figure has rejected a suggestion he gave “ridiculous” evidence that Dominic Perrottet’s sister-in-law shared in $660,999 for giving a “mum’s perspective” on lobbying clients, the New South Wales anti-corruption watchdog has heard. Jeremy Greenwood told the Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac) on Wednesday it was not relevant that Anita Perrottet’s children were under five at the time she provided advice on vaping among minors. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Penry Buckley2h ago

Alice Springs heavy metal music venue raises $1m in donations in fight to stay open

Supporters from around Australia back the Black Wreath, a volunteer-run centre far off the beaten touring track Alice Springs has a population of 34,000 and exactly one dedicated live music space: a heavy metal venue called the Black Wreath. It has hosted hundreds of bands from around the country over the past decade – despite being 1,500km from the nearest city. For musicians in central Australia, the Black Wreath is a one-of-a-kind resource. So when its operators were informed last year of the owners’ plans to sell, they negotiated a stay of execution and began devising a fundraiser that could save the desert venue. A month-long crowdfunding campaign, which called for donations that would let the team behind the Black Wreath buy the venue and place it in a trust, hit its $1m target on Friday. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Katie Cunningham2h ago

The Palestinian school under siege – podcast

At least five pupils at a village school in the West Bank have been killed in the last year by settlers and soldiers. Emma Graham-Harrison reports on how the school found itself on the frontline, while a teacher explains what life is like for staff and students. Waheed Abu Naim is an English teacher at the Al Mughayyir boys’ school in a village in the West Bank. He loves his job, he says. “I am happy to be a teacher. Although we don’t get lots of money, because my students, especially in the morning, wait for me when I enter the school to shake hands, to smile at me while going inside their classes. So it’s a happy life.” But the last year has been anything but happy for Waheed. His village is now surrounded by settlers, while the military has blocked off every road except one, which has a checkpoint on it. Teachers who live in neighbouring villages cannot always come to work. But worse are the attacks on the village by settlers. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Presented by Annie Kelly with Emma Graham-Harrison; produced by Ivor Manley and Brian McNamara; executive producer Homa Khaleeli3h ago

Saudi Arabia warns of ‘red line’ after Houthi drone intercepted close to holy city of Mecca

The Iran-aligned militant group rejected the suggestion it had targeted Mecca, while the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation condemned the attack Saudi Arabia’s air defences intercepted and destroyed a ⁠Houthi drone south of Mecca on Tuesday before it entered prohibited airspace over the holy city, according to a ⁠spokesperson for the ⁠Saudi-led military coalition which is fighting the Iran-aligned group in Yemen . The security of Islam’s two holiest sites and of pilgrims was a “red line”, ⁠coalition spokesperson Turki al-Malki said early on Wednesday, adding that the coalition would take necessary deterrent measures against the ⁠Houthis. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Agencies3h ago