The Guardian

Amid financial pressures on household and school budgets, the theatre company is expanding access with free plays Six young actors step into the spotlight as a reverent silence descends on the hall at City Academy in Bristol. A boy steps forward to pose a central question: “What does it mean to be young in Britain in 2026?” Union jack flags flash across the backdrop as three girls excitedly debat…

Development by UK firm Nscale heralded by ministers as largest of its kind in the country loses its anchor tenant The development of a huge AI datacentre hailed by the UK government has received a fresh setback after Microsoft pulled out of the project over concerns about power supplies. The development by the British firm Nscale, heralded by ministers as the country’s largest AI datacentre when …

Exclusive: rules on same-sex wards could lead to delays in care, discrimination and animosity between groups, finds internal assessment Trans people could face delays and a greater risk of “corridor care” under new NHS England guidance that means they will no longer be able to use same-sex wards, according to an internal report. An NHS England impact assessment, seen by the Guardian, stated that …

Agency changes wording on website as Texas-based chemical firm continues manufacture of plastic containers The Environmental Protection Agency has quietly backtracked on a claim that the US has phased out two of the most dangerous Pfas compounds – Pfoa and Pfos. The EPA has found that virtually no level of exposure to either in drinking water is safe, and the International Agency for Research on …

States like Missouri and Iowa are choosing to not take up exemption designed to help low-income people keep coverage during hardship Some conservative states that have rejected hardship exemptions for the new Medicaid requirements may be choosing not to due to political reasons, experts say. New federal work requirements for Medicaid, slated to come into effect on 1 January, mean that adults enro…

Hundreds at Lisbon tent camp demand action on housing, as Giorgia Meloni says march in Italian capital exploited by ‘hooligans’ The angry protests that have convulsed Spain and France in recent weeks have spilled over to Italy and Portugal, with rioters clashing with police and setting property on fire in Milan, and a tent encampment springing up in Lisbon over the weekend. A march in central Mil…

Lengthy meeting heard grumbles about ‘blue wall’ policies and ‘Ming vase’ tactics but no real rancour As political showdowns go, this week’s gathering of Liberal Democrat MPs, billed by some as a crunch moment for Ed Davey, was a touch underwhelming. “I had expected a damp squib,” one attender put it. “It was damper than I thought.” Far from generating a mass of opposition to Davey’s leadership, …

Large cordon in place around Angel Row area of city centre after ‘shocking incident’ in the early hours of Sunday A police officer is in hospital after being shot in the foot in Nottingham in the early hours of Sunday. Nottinghamshire police said the officer had approached two suspects in the city centre when he was struck by a bullet. The force said the two suspects, a woman and a man, had fled …

Style of emceeing based on high-octane, ad-libbed vocals has flourished thanks to its unique way of captivating crowds For the 2015 freshmen cohort of the history degree programme at the University of Lagos, their classmate’s first-semester presentation was so captivating that they began calling him Toby Shang, after the 16th-century Chinese dynasty he had focused on. His crowd engagement that da…

France’s worst protests in years saw buildings set ablaze across the country and record numbers of people arrested In case you are still catching up with the news from yesterday, my colleagues Kim Willsher and William Christou have this report. More than 1,200 people were arrested in France on Saturday after protesters supporting high school students clashed with police, with some demonstrations …

A girl called Àìná was captured by an African king and later taken to England to become Sarah Forbes Bonetta, protege of the imperial monarch When she was seven years old, Bayo Randle’s great-great-grandmother Sarah Forbes Bonetta was presented to Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle as a “diplomatic gift” from an African king. Victoria would go on to pay for Bonetta’s education, approve her marriage…

Markus Zusak’s novel The Book Thief secures second place, while Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universe rounds out podium dominated by men Cloudstreet, Tim Winton’s sprawling Australian family epic, has been voted Australia’s favourite book in a poll run by ABC Radio National. The broadcaster announced over the weekend the results of a nationwide poll to determine a list of readers’ top 100 Australi…

For more than three decades, Michael Gove has been a leading figure in British Conservatism. As a journalist, government minister and now editor of the Tory bible the Spectator, he has helped shape the right even as it has moved further rightwards. In the latest episode of Radical Thinking, Gove joins Aditya Chakrabortty to discuss the future of the right, his record on Brexit and austerity, and …

Facing a slump in the polls, Argentina’s president is making economic attacks on the islands’ oil industry, and suggesting its key fisheries industry could be next A dozen local people and a uniformed military police officer (“Do you mind if I sit in?”) took their seats at the back of the handsome wood-panelled courtroom that doubles as the Falkland Islands’ legislative assembly. Outside, it was …

Birth happens days before Labor and Coalition block bill to ban ‘barbaric practice’ of shackling incarcerated women during childbirth Get our new political email , free app or daily news podcast An incarcerated Indigenous woman was shackled to a hospital bed in Queensland while she was in labour last weekend, an advocacy group has said. The birth happened just days before Labor and the Coalition …