Senior civil servants to get bonuses for first time to reward ‘doers, not talkers’

Updated code of practice covering England, Wales and Scotland also relates to changing rooms and follows supreme court rulingSingle sex toilets and changing rooms in England, Wales and Scotland must exclude transgender men and women, according to a new code of practice from the equalities watchdog.But the long-awaited guidance also says that businesses and service providers have to offer practical alternatives such as gender-neutral toilets for people who don’t wish to use services for their biological sex. Continue reading...

Boys physically overpowered and then filmed attacks on teenage victims in separate incidents in HampshireThree teenage boys convicted of knife-point rape and other serious sexual offences against two teenage girls in Hampshire have not been given custodial sentences because the judge said he “should avoid criminalising these children unnecessarily”.The boys, who were aged between 13 and 14 at the time of their offences, physically overpowered and sexually assaulted the girls, who were aged 14 and 15, in separate incidents two months apart. Continue reading...

Sarah Kellen told lawmakers that convicted sex offender ‘sexually and psychologically abused me … and gaslit me’Sign up for the Breaking News US newsletter email One of Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime assistants has fiercely denied she was an accomplice of the convicted sex offender during a congressional interview, claiming she was “sexually and psychologically abused” by the late financier.“I am here today to answer your questions, to dispel rumors and conspiracies, and to tell you the truth,” Sarah Kellen told lawmakers on the House of Representatives oversight and reform committee on Thursday morning, as part of its ongoing review of the federal investigation into Epstein. Continue reading...

Court throws out state’s challenge to judicial finding that inmate convicted of murder is ineligible for death penaltyThe US supreme court on Thursday threw out a challenge by the state of Alabama to a judicial finding that a death row inmate convicted of a 1997 murder is intellectually disabled and thus ineligible under the US constitution for the death penalty.In this highly unusual move, and in a single-sentence, unsigned order, the court dismissed Alabama’s petition for review in Hamm v Smith without deciding it, effectively undoing its earlier decision to take up an appeal by state officials to the method used by a lower court to determine that Joseph Clifton Smith was intellectually disabled and therefore could not be executed. Continue reading...

UK’s largest police force says Palantir is only company that can supply what it needs. Is that worth the controversy that comes with it?London mayor Sadiq Khan blocks £50m Met police deal with PalantirIt’s bot vs bobby. The row over whether the controversial US AI company Palantir should be paid £50m to help the Metropolitan police hits to the heart of how public services will be delivered in the coming years.A similar dynamic is playing out in hospitals, schools and town halls, but right now police chiefs are turning to AI to escape a fiscal bind. The UK’s largest police force is shrinking; a £125m funding shortfall means it faces cutting 1,150 posts. Scotland Yard wants to use AI to deploy Palantir’s systems to comb through human intelligence reports, email caches, phone records and the rest of the torrent of digital evidence trail left by 21st century crime. Continue reading...

Music is banned on Wednesdays on island of Stromboli where Rolling Stones frontman was celebrating wrapping a filmPolice on an Italian island stopped a party attended by Mick Jagger – because music is banned on Wednesdays.The Rolling Stones frontman was on Stromboli, the volcanic island among Sicily’s Aeolian archipelago, for the production of Three Incestuous Sisters, a film by the Italian director Alice Rohrwacher in which he stars. Continue reading...

Africa CDC says restrictions could increase public health risks and highlight ‘deeper structural injustice’ in global healthA US travel ban for people coming from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda or South Sudan in response to the Ebola outbreak could make the situation worse, critics have warned.Declared a public health emergency of international concern on Sunday, the outbreak continues to spread with a new case reported in the DRC’s South Kivu province, an area under the control of armed rebel groups. Continue reading...

Burnham and Streeting’s latest stances confound caricatures of left and right as party faces electoral bindThe Labour party has seemed to inhabit three parallel worlds over the past fortnight.There is a prime minister celebrating good news on the economy and lower migration figures and breezily insisting he will fight the next election, but with his party intent on deposing him. Continue reading...

Travel firm exits partnership after Panorama revealed allegations by three women against on-screen husbandsThe travel operator Tui has ended its sponsorship of the UK and Australian versions of Married at First Sight on Channel 4 after contestants on the former made allegations of rape and sexual misconduct.An edition of the BBC’s Panorama programme this week revealed allegations by two anonymous women that they had been raped by their on-screen husbands on the show. A third woman, Shona Manderson, accused her on-screen husband of sexual misconduct. All three men deny the claims. Continue reading...

DHS issued ‘Bolo’ for Ben Palmer, whose videos of calls with members of the public who thought they were reporting immigrants went viralThe Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has circulated a “Be on the Lookout” alert to law enforcement nationwide, targeting a comedian whose satire of US immigration enforcement went viral.The subject of the alert, known as a “Bolo”, was Ben Palmer, a Nashville-based standup comedian and prankster who created a parody anti-immigration tip website. His revealing videos of calls with members of the public who thought they were reporting immigrants to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have garnered millions of views on TikTok and YouTube. Continue reading...

Charles conferred LVO after his US visit on James Roscoe who had been standing in for Peter MandelsonA top diplomat who abruptly left his post at the British embassy in Washington earlier this week after standing in as interim ambassador for Peter Mandelson has been honoured by King Charles.No reason has yet been given for James Roscoe’s departure. An investigation is now under way into the leak of discussions at a meeting of the UK’s national security council. Continue reading...