Top World News

Unions had demanded a higher 6% pay increase after last month’s budget projected inflation reaching 5% in the year to June. Follow today’s news liveGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe foreign minister, Penny Wong, has announced new sanctions by the commonwealth over three Israeli individuals and four entities in response to “escalating settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank”.The entities will receive targeted financial sanctions while the individuals will receive travel bans to Australia.For the first time, designated entities now include farming outposts that serve as hubs for settler violence.Settler violence is used to displace Palestinians and perpetuate the settlement enterprise, through destruction of property, displacement of families, beatings, sexual assault, and torture, resulting in serious injuries and deaths.This is another beat up. It’s not unusual in tax legislation for the definitions to be settled in what’s called legislative instruments. Continue reading...

This blog is now closed. See our full report: Trump says Hezbollah and Israel have agreed to ‘stop all shooting’The exchange of strikes between the US and Iran reflects the fragility of the current ceasefire, which has seen repeated violations even as American and Iranian officials try to negotiate a deal to extend it.Iran has maintained its chokehold on the strait of Hormuz, disrupting global energy supplies as a fifth of all oil and natural gas traded once passed through the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf. The US continues to enforce its own blockade on the strait, as it pressures Tehran to reach an agreement. Continue reading...

Lively’s legal team are suing her It Ends with Us co-star for legal fees and damages, reigniting a years-long court battleAttorneys for US actor Blake Likely were back in front of a New York judge on Monday to demand legal fees and damages from It Ends with Us co-star Justin Baldoni, after a settlement was reached last month in their years-long legal battle.The 38-year-old actor’s legal team argued that the defamation lawsuit brought against her by Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios, was a retaliatory move prohibited by California law. Continue reading...

Democrats decry president’s ‘most brazen act of self-dealing yet’ and vow to challenge fund in CongressDonald Trump is reconsidering whether to keep pressing for a $1.8bn fund to compensate his allies, a person familiar with his thinking said on Monday, as the justice department paused the program to comply with a court order.Trump’s “anti-weaponization” fund has faced legal setbacks since it was announced two weeks ago. The idea has also faced a mounting political backlash from Republicans concerned by a lack of oversight and the possibility of payouts to participants in the January 6 2021 riot at the US Capitol. Continue reading...

The overnight rescue operation took place in the Grotta dei Cinghiali Volanti (Cave of the Flying Wild Boars), one of Italy's main caving areas.

Kyiv has increased attacks on Russian energy facilities in recent weeks, hitting targets as far as the Urals.

Net zero industry accounts for more than a million jobs and benefits whole country, according to CBI EconomicsMore than a million jobs, higher wages, nearly half a trillion pounds in investment in the pipeline – the UK’s green economy is powering ahead, according to research by the country’s leading business organisation.The net zero economy, which is worth more than £100bn a year, benefits all of the UK, according to the CBI Economics analysis commissioned by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit thinktank, despite critics who want to abolish the UK’s net zero targets. Continue reading...

Party could struggle to push ratings as strategy increasingly focuses on views held by minority of voters, research findsReform UK is becoming increasingly reliant on socially conservative views for political support, and therefore could struggle to push its poll ratings much higher, a large-scale research project led by the leading psephologist John Curtice has found.A study of Nigel Farage’s party carried out as part of the British Social Attitudes report found that while Reform supporters were disproportionately more likely to be unhappy with politicians and public services, recent recruits had seemingly more robust attitudes in areas such as diversity and welfare. Continue reading...