With flags still flying at half mast in North Macedonia, grief over a fire that tore through a nightclub killing dozens of people turned to anger as thousands took to the streets in protest. In Kočani, the town where the fire destroyed the Pulse venue early on Sunday, demonstrators demanded justice for the 59 people … Read more
Key events Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature Patrick Commins The Paris-based OECD – a 38-member grouping of rich countries, including Australia – on Monday evening issued a more downbeat assessment of the global economy, laying the blame on Trump’s tariffs. The OECD’s economists slashed their estimates for Australian … Read more
An operation is under way to retrieve thousands of plastic pellets from the North Sea that were spilt in a collision between two ships last week, in which one man died. The coastguard said the pellets, made of plastic resin and known as nurdles, were spotted by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and have … Read more
Fossil fish so exquisitely preserved that scientists have been able to reconstruct their final days from up to 16m years ago have been discovered in central New South Wales. Several fossils of small freshwater fish, embedded in an iron-rich mineral called goethite at the McGraths Flat fossil site, have retained microscopic structural features including their … Read more
It’s getting to be quite a habit. Reform send out an invitation to attend a press conference with the promise of a “special announcement”. The media attend with high expectations only to be rewarded with a crushing sense of anticlimax. One special announcement turned out to be a 30-minute whinge from Nigel Farage about some … Read more
The British Red Cross had to use hundreds of thousands of pounds from its funds earmarked for disasters to provide basic clothing for asylum seekers in the UK in what it described as an unprecedented intervention. The charity is the largest UK provider of services to refugees, asylum seekers and other vulnerable migrants. It said … Read more
More than £4bn has been wiped off the value of Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer stock since Friday amid fears that rival Asda will step up the grocery price war. Tesco, the UK’s biggest supermarket, took the biggest hit as its share price fell more than 12% on Monday, while second-place Sainsbury’s was down … Read more
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, expressed disappointment over US funding cuts to Radio Free Europe and said the EU could not automatically fill the gap. The US Agency for Global Media stopped grants over the weekend to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), which was founded during the cold war and broadcasts to 23 … Read more
Staff cuts and a freeze on international collaborations at a leading US science agency will have a “chilling effect” on climate science and may “severely degrade” Australia’s ability to accurately forecast the weather, scientists have warned. The Trump administration fired 880 workers at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) on 27 February, and … Read more
Another day, another trip to Downing Street for the nation’s regulatory chiefs as the chancellor attempts (again) to “kickstart” growth and chop back red tape. A novelty this time was the suggestion that the Competition and Markets Authority would be told to restrict the number, or at least the type, of deals it investigates. There … Read more