Treaty came into effect at midnight, eliminating border controls on land frontier with British overseas territory
Spain and Gibraltar are celebrating the fall of the last frontier fence in western Europe after the signing of a post-Brexit deal that brings an end to border checks for residents, tourists and the thousands of Spanish workers who cross into the British overseas territory every day.
The agreement, which was signed in Brussels on Tuesday and came into effect at midnight, marks the conclusion of more than four years of negotiations between the UK, Spain, Gibraltar and the EU after Britain’s departure from the bloc.
Continue reading...Treaty came into effect at midnight, eliminating border controls on land frontier with British overseas territory
Spain and Gibraltar are celebrating the fall of the last frontier fence in western Europe after the signing of a post-Brexit deal that brings an end to border checks for residents, tourists and the thousands of Spanish workers who cross into the British overseas territory every day.
The agreement, which was signed in Brussels on Tuesday and came into effect at midnight, marks the conclusion of more than four years of negotiations between the UK, Spain, Gibraltar and the EU after Britain’s departure from the bloc.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed – our latest full report is here
For a second day in a row, US strikes targeted Iran’s southern port city of Bushehr, home to the country’s only civilian nuclear plant, according to the state news agency IRNA quoting a local official.
“In continuation of the brutality of the American enemy, three points in the city of Bushehr were attacked today,” Mohammad Mozaffari, the governor of Bushehr, was quoted as saying.
In the recent attacks on the southern part of the country, more than 30 civilians lost their lives. While expressing our condolences and sympathy to the bereaved families, we honour the memory of the fallen. The government will stand by the people with all its might. The south of Iran is the beating heart of this land. The south of Iran, the soul of Iran.”
Continue reading...Divine Playhouse promoter and founder says venue faces significant operational, legal and financial challenges
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A former church turned arts venue at the centre of a culture war is exploring legal action after receiving a notice from its landlord that forced its organisers to close the space and cancel planned events.
Divine Playhouse is facing possible eviction, with its landlord ordering the venue’s organisers, Heaps Gay Events, to stop “engaging in offensive trade”, days after religious groups protested its opening night.
Continue reading...Police investigating Hamish Tait – who faces 329 child abuse charges – have released list of 55 locations where he worked or attended
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A federal police investigation into an accused paedophile facing more than 300 child abuse charges has expanded to a remote community in South Australia.
Hamish Tait, 35, faces 329 charges of child abuse between 2009 and 2025 while working across 62 centres.
Continue reading...This nifty addition to your makeup bag will give the impression of a person with time, skill and polish – with every little effort
A liquid eyeshadow is the answer to all your eyeshadow misgivings, and I will die on this hill. One neutral, long-lasting shadow gives the impression, however false, of a person with time, skill and polish, when in fact its effort:effect ratio is a joke.
Just daub on to the middle of your lid from lash line to socket, avoiding the inner and outer corners in the first instance, then take a clean fluffy shadow-blending brush and buff in a windscreen wiper motion to spread across to the corners and soften any hard lines.
Continue reading...Children’s worlds have been shrinking and it’s harming their mental health. It’s time for parents to be brave and allow them a little independence
In books and movies that pack a wallop you will usually find a “charged object” – an item crucial to the plot and freighted with emotion. The slipper in Cinderella. The apple in Adam and Eve. And today, in the story of what has gone wrong with childhood: the smartphone.
It’s not that phones aren’t a real problem. We have all seen it. Kids glued to their phones in a restaurant. Kids glued to their phones at the bus stop. The other day I saw a girl swinging on a swing – the classic summer pastime – glued to her phone. And oh, the content! This study alone will give you pause: ParentsTogether Action reports that children see sex and drug content every few minutes on Snapchat. If only we could take away their phones, a happy childhood would be restored – or so it can seem.
Lenore Skenazy is president of Let Grow, a nonprofit promoting childhood independence and resilience, and founder of the Free-Range Kids movement
Continue reading...The much-loved presenter had 10 years on This Morning before suddenly deciding she had to get out of there. She discusses sexual harassment, tabloid intrusion, Phillip Schofield and the power of forgiveness
On the daytime TV behemoth that is This Morning, Fern Britton always had an appealing mix of warmth, no-nonsense capability and a hint of danger, as if she could decide to blow it all up at any moment. And then she did.
On the day she resigned in 2009, Britton didn’t know she was going to do it, but amid rumours of a feud with co-host Phillip Schofield, she took the scorched-earth route and walked away from her high-profile, high-paying job with nothing to take its place. Was she not worried about what she would do next?
Continue reading...In a new book, Isaac Butler goes back to the 1980s to trace how battles started against the arts, from Piss Christ to Mapplethorpe, and looks at what we can learn for today
Isaac Butler is limbering up for an event at Politics and Prose, an independent bookshop and venerable Washington institution, but still has time to explain his arm tattoos.
They variously depict: a logo from his grandparents’ company in the 1960s; a satellite that his father worked on at Nasa; a “jaunty crab” for his wife, who finds crabs “hilarious”; an iris by Japan’s Utagawa Hiroshige for Butler’s daughter, Iris; a drawing of a scene from a production of The Seagull by the Russian theatre maker Konstantin Stanislavski; and an artwork by the American painter and photographer David Wojnarowicz that shows a house on fire.
Continue reading...Not everyone supports the country where they were born or grew up. Sometimes fans are won over by a player, place, population or style of play
Footballers need to be born in a country or have a family tie to that place to represent them at the World Cup, but those rules do not apply to supporters. Sometimes fans are won over by a team, a star player or even a country. Here six fans tell us why they decided not to support the country of their birth and instead root for teams with whom they have no family ties.
Continue reading...Organisation’s experts say pledge puts pressure on UK public finances and ‘adds significant fiscal risks’
Labour should ditch the triple-lock pensions promise to help tackle the UK’s straitened public finances, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has urged.
In its latest survey of the UK economy, the Paris-based club of industrialised nations added its voice to those calling for an end to the pledge, which uprates the state pension each year by whichever is the highest of wage growth, inflation or 2.5%.
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Trump's nominee faces the Senate health committee for her confirmation hearing on July 15. If confirmed, she will lead an agency dealing with workforce and leadership shortages and new layers of political review.
(Image credit: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)

AI is a fast-growing business expense. Some companies are cutting costs by switching to cheaper Chinese AI models.
(Image credit: Imen Ben Youssef/Hans Lucas)

Dani Bensky and a group of women who were abused by Jeffrey Epstein have formed a bond they call a "survivor sisterhood." They live in two worlds, of advocacy and everyday life and motherhood.
(Image credit: Corrie Aune for NPR)
Blanche won Senate confirmation early in President Trump's second term to serve as the No. 2 official at the Justice Department. Now he's facing a contentious hearing as he seeks the top job.
(Image credit: Win McNamee)
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to appear for confirmation hearing, U.S. restarts blockade against Iran amid standoff over the Strait of Hormuz, ICE suspends traffic stops after deadly shootings.
Annual results show struggling firm’s net debt has risen to £19.7bn, up from £17.7bn a year earlier
Thames Water increased its bonus payouts to £4.1m for senior managers, despite warning over “material uncertainty” over its future as it scrambles to recapitalise to avoid nationalisation.
The water company also gave a pay rise to its chief executive, Chris Weston, and drew the ire of Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, for paying him a previously deferred bonus of £99,000 – despite a ban on bonuses because of pollution failures.
Continue reading...From maggots to viruses, this gross-out compendium also manages to celebrate the awe and inventiveness of nature
When Craig Venter, one of the mappers of the human genome, set out on a sailboat cruise to map DNA in seawater all across the globe, he found that a teaspoon of seawater contained on average 50m viruses. While this doesn’t sound particularly reassuring, the bad news is mitigated by the fact that most of these are phages that infect marine bacteria and have no interest in us.
Viruses are parasites, and like all their parasitic kind, they get a free ride from living organisms. The whole point of multicellular life is to create a cosy environment for cells to live in, and evolution has invented all manner of stowaways that want this comfort and manage to get on board, either outside or sometimes inside the cells themselves. While it is not generally in the best interest of a parasite to kill its host and be forced to find a new home, some come dangerously close. Most diseases in the developing world are connected in some way or another to parasitic infections.
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