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Archbishop of Canterbury urges Starmer to ditch ‘cruel’ two-child benefit cap

Head of Church of England Justin Welby tells Observer that ending policy would lift thousands of UK children out of poverty

The Observer view: Labour must tackle this scourge
Gordon Brown: People haven’t woken up to this
Torsten Bell: We can easily end child poverty

Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, has issued an impassioned plea to the government and Keir Starmer’s Labour party to scrap the two-child limit on benefit payments to families, branding it as a cruel and immoral policy that plunges hundreds of thousands of children into poverty.

The intervention by the head of the Church of England will place particular pressure on Starmer to make a firm commitment to end the policy, which he has so far refused to do, as he tries to position Labour as being responsible with the public finances.

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Sat, 18 May 2024 17:00:11 GMT
Thousands in Devon no longer have to boil drinking water, says supplier

But authorities say households in some areas need to continue safety measures amid waterborne parasitic disease

Thousands of people in Devon can now safely drink their tap water again without having to boil it first, the region’s water supplier has announced after a parasite outbreak.

South West Water said about 14,500 households in the Alston supply area could use their tap water safely, although about 2,500 properties in Hillhead, the upper parts of Brixham and Kingswear should continue to boil their supply before drinking it.

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Sat, 18 May 2024 16:28:29 GMT
Israeli abuse of jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti ‘amounts to torture’

With thousands now held without charge, lawyers say Israel is
signalling that no detainee is safe

Marwan Barghouti spends his days huddled in a cramped, dark, solitary cell, with no way to tend to his wounds, and a shoulder injury from being dragged with his hands cuffed behind his back.

Barghouti holds almost mythic status within Palestinian politics, seen as a figure whose potential to unify different factions has only grown during his 24 years in prison.

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Sat, 18 May 2024 12:00:08 GMT
Chelsea thrash Manchester United to win WSL title as Hayes bids farewell

The screams of delight from the departing Emma Hayes in her technical area, the roar and chest-thumping of the injured Sam Kerr sat high above the dugout, and the chaotic flailing arms from the jubilant corner of fans in blue. Chelsea are Women’s Super League champions for a fifth time in a row having thrashed the FA Cup winners Manchester United 6-0 in style at Old Trafford.

Those scenes came within 10 minutes. That’s all it took. In the end it was all a little anticlimactic, Chelsea’s two goals inside those eight minutes enough to give them an almost insurmountable four-goal lead on goal difference over title rivals Manchester City. By half-time, despite City going 1-0 up at Aston Villa, Chelsea had doubled their tally and extended their advantage, going in four up – Sjoeke Nüsken and the utterly unplayable Mayra Ramírez adding to the latter’s opener and Johanna Rytting Kaneryd’s goal. Melanie Leupolz added a fifth after the break as they ran up the numbers and there was an emotional sixth from departing record goal-scorer Fran Kirby, but it wasn’t needed, with City limping to a 2-1 win.

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Sat, 18 May 2024 16:23:31 GMT
Georgian president vetoes ‘foreign influence’ law

Salome Zourabichvili says bill contradicts constitution but ruling party is expected to override her action in coming days

Georgia’s president has vetoed a “foreign agents” bill that has split the country and appealed to the government not to overrule her over a law she said was “Russian in sprit and essence”.

Salome Zourabichvil followed through on her stated intention to use her veto on Saturday although the governing Georgian Dream party has the votes to disregard her intervention.

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Sat, 18 May 2024 15:16:50 GMT
£30,000 raised for Wirral ‘local legend’ denied UK citizenship

Nelson Shardey, 74, became tearful on hearing of support for effort to gain settled status after 50 years in UK

A retired 74-year-old newsagent who has lived in the UK for nearly 50 years said “tears were running” from his eyes after strangers fundraised more than £30,000 to support his legal fight to remain in the country.

Nelson Shardey, who has been described as a Merseyside “local legend”, is pursuing a legal challenge against the Home Office after he was refused indefinite leave to remain, despite living and working in the UK since 1977.

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Sat, 18 May 2024 13:08:15 GMT
‘Is this what people wear now?’ Sewing Bee host criticises M&S jumpers and socks

Patrick Grant says rise of low-cost retailers means new clothes ‘haven’t got cheaper, they’ve just got worse’

While filming The Great British Sewing Bee, the presenter and clothing entrepreneur Patrick Grant found himself in need of a pair of black socks.

The production team bought a pair from the Marks & Spencer shop close to where the popular BBC show was being filmed. Grant said: “They went to everybody’s favourite high street store, that used to sell on the basis of quality and value, and they bought me their Autograph socks, which are supposed to be their best socks.

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Sat, 18 May 2024 13:04:08 GMT
Slovakian PM remains in serious condition as suspect appears in court

Second operation to remove dead tissue has ‘contributed to a positive prognosis’ for Robert Fico, health minister says

Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, remained in a stable but serious condition as the man accused of trying to assassinate him made his first court appearance.

The Slovakian health minister, Zuzana Dolinková, said on Saturday that a two-hour surgery to remove dead tissue from multiple gunshot wounds had “contributed to a positive prognosis” for Fico.

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Sat, 18 May 2024 13:42:40 GMT
Fewer than one in 10 arts workers in UK have working-class roots

The cultural sector falls short on other measures of diversity too, with 9o% of workers white, says new report

Six in 10 of all arts and culture workers in the UK now come from middle-class backgrounds, compared with just over 42% of the wider workforce, according to new research.

And while 23% of the UK workforce is from a working-class background, working-class people are underrepresented in every area of arts and culture. They make up 8.4% of those working in film, TV, radio and photography, while in museums, archives and libraries, the proportion is only 5.2%.

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Sat, 18 May 2024 17:00:13 GMT
‘I put his matchstick men in the bin’: Lowry’s lost sketches go on display for first time

When on holiday in Berwick the artist often gave his work away. Now a new exhibition reveals the value of drawings that survived in a shoebox

A 1958 drawing of a family with their dogs by LS Lowry from one of his many holidays in Berwick-upon-Tweed is to go on public display for the first time. But the sketch is lucky to have survived: it was kept in a shoe box for 43 years, emerging somewhat creased because its recipient had little idea of Lowry’s significance.

The signed and dated drawing on headed notepaper from the Castle Hotel, where the artist stayed for most summers from the 1930s until the 1970s, was given to hotel receptionist, Anne Mather. “I didn’t think much about it, and only after he died did I remember it,” Mather told the Berwick Advertiser in 2001 when she put the sketch up for auction. “He was quiet and reclusive, but I can still visualise him in the lounge. He would sit and doodle, with his glasses at the end of his nose.”

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Sat, 18 May 2024 14:00:08 GMT

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