Retail sales in Great Britain were weaker than expected in November despite stores starting to cut prices early as part of Black Friday discounting in the run-up to the key Christmas shopping season. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said sales volumes rose 0.2% month on month in November, falling short of the 0.5% that…
The media tycoon Richard Desmond is set for a courtroom showdown with the Gambling Commission that could cost good causes tens of millions of pounds, the Guardian has learned, after he rejected a settlement offer linked to his failed bid to run the National Lottery. Desmond launched a high court challenge in 2022 after the…
Sara Sharif’s father has told a court he takes “full responsibility” for the 10-year-old’s death and admitted beating her with a cricket bat and a white metal pole. Urfan Sharif told jurors he accepted everything that he had told police in a 999 call and a handwritten confession after his daughter’s death. During cross-examination by…
The Post Office plans to close 115 branches and says about 2,000 jobs are at risk as part of a plan that will see post office operator pay increase by £250m over the next five years. The Post Office confirmed on Wednesday that it is seeking to offload 115 branches that it currently centrally owns,…
Roy Haynes, a drummer who was one of the last remaining musicians of jazz’s swing and bebop eras, has died aged 99. His daughter Leslie Haynes-Gilmore said he had died following a short illness. Haynes’s energetic style, which also encompassed fusion and avant-garde jazz, earned him the respect of many contemporaries across a career that…
Lithgow hospital briefly lost power on Wednesday as “dangerous” thunderstorms continued to rumble across eastern Australia, with giant hail and flash flooding on the cards for several areas according to the Bureau of Meteorology. It issued severe weather warnings for Queensland and New South Wales forecasting “isolated very dangerous storms are possible about south-east Queensland…
Five years after a damning report on the failings of the New South Wales child protection system recommended sweeping changes to prevent harm and trauma to vulnerable Indigenous children and families, an independent review has found that only 12 of its 126 recommendations have been fully implemented by the Minns government. Aboriginal organisations across NSW…
The evangelical Christian barrister John Smyth abused as many 130 boys and young men in the UK, Zimbabwe and possibly other African countries but an independent review has said there remains little concrete information on his time in South Africa. The review into the Anglican church’s handling of Smyth’s abuses said he might have been…
The Victorian Electoral Commission has referred allegations of suspected postal vote tampering in two Melbourne council elections to police. The VEC on Wednesday afternoon said it had detected a high number of multiple returned votes in Knox city council, in Melbourne’s east, and Whittlesea city council, in Melbourne’s north, after voting closed in the state’s…
A man will be charged after allegedly carjacking a 70-year-old woman before breaking into a Melbourne home and holding a father and his toddler inside in an hours-long siege. A 26-year-old Snake Valley man, known to police, allegedly carjacked the woman in the western Victorian town about 2.30pm on Tuesday. He led air police on…
