Minns government bill says presumption known as doli incapax can be overturned if child knew conduct was ‘seriously wrong’

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The Minns government is seeking to create a loophole in a law meant to provide protection against the incarceration of children, which could mean more children will be locked up.

On Tuesday, the New South Wales government announced it was strengthening protections for children aged 10 to 14 by legislating a common law presumption known as doli incapax, which means children cannot commit an offence because they do not understand the difference between right and wrong.

Brown University researchers run joint-and-drink study to find alcohol consumption falls after smoking cannabis

It turns out that going “California sober� may actually help you stay away from alcohol, according to new research published in the the American Journal of Psychiatry.

A team of Brown University researchers conducted a study in which participants were given marijuana joints to smoke and then sent out to a controlled “bar lab�, in which they then were given the choice to have up to eight mini alcoholic beverages. The experiment was conducted three separate times: once with 7.2% THC cannabis, once with 3.1% THC cannabis and once with 0.03% THC cannabis, which was considered a placebo.

Samantha Niblett highlighted government’s multi-billion-pound deals with Microsoft and ‘getting locked in’

Microsoft has “ripped off the NHS�, it was alleged in parliament on Wednesday, as MPs called on ministers to divert more of the government’s multibillion-pound computing budget away from US technology companies and towards British alternatives.

The Seattle-based firm’s UK government contracts include a five-year deal with the NHS to provide productivity tools reportedly worth over £700m, while the wider government spent £1.9bn on Microsoft software licences in the 2024-25 financial year alone.

My mother, Pamela Zinkin, who has died aged 94, was a consultant paediatrician credited with saving the lives of children all over the world. She was also a lifelong campaigner for the NHS.

In 1977, by then a single parent with two young sons, Pam moved to newly independent Mozambique to work as a senior paediatrician, then head of paediatrics, at Maputo central hospital. The country’s healthcare was in a precarious state, with 80% of its doctors having left after independence in 1975. Within five years, Pam and her team had reduced mortality among the 8,000 annual child admissions from 25% to 4%.

Exclusive: New federal guidelines advise GPs to provide additional care to patients with higher breast density, which can make cancers harder to detect in mammograms

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When Krysty Sullivan had a routine mammogram in 2019, she was given the all-clear.

Eleven months later, she felt a lump.

Treatment of terrorist with known mental health needs said to have contravened prohibition on inhuman or degrading treatment

Shabana Mahmood and David Lammy have been found to have breached a prohibition on inhuman or degrading treatment with respect to a prisoner who spent months segregated from other inmates, in what is believed to be a legal first.

Sahayb Abu was confined to his cell at HMP Woodhill in Milton Keynes, for 22 hours a day and prevented from associating with other prisoners for more than four months after Hashem Abedi, the brother of the Manchester Arena bomber, allegedly attacked prison officers at HMP Frankland.

Nearly two-thirds of ‘prevention of future deaths’ reports by coroners are not acted upon, say researchers at King’s College London

The advice given by coroners in England and Wales to help prevent maternal deaths is not being acted upon, research suggests.

Academics at King’s College London looked at prevention of future deaths (PFD) reports issued by coroners in cases of pregnant women and new mothers who died between 2013 and 2023. They found these reports were not being “systematically used nationally�.

No one suffers a cold like I do. Drops and brandy don’t touch the sides – but thanks to a friendly singer, I’ve learned a more extreme regime for countering the snuffles

This time last year, I was on a TV programme with three singers. There was a rapper of Ghanaian heritage, a big pop star, and a famous mezzo-soprano. It was deep midwinter. The night before, I’d been at an old friend’s 60th birthday, crammed into the function room of a pub somewhere in Surrey. It had been a good night, but now, just for something to say, I wondered how it was possible to avoid catching a cold when half the people at the party were players in a symphony of coughs, sneezes, snuffles and nose-blows. By the way, how come some people have nose-blows like trumpets, and others don’t? A question for another day.

At mention of my night out, this trio of troubadours in the TV green room did two things. First, they shrunk away from me slightly. Second, they engaged in a feverishly enthusiastic discussion on how to avoid catching colds which, naturally enough given their line of work, was something of an obsession for them. I get that, but I have skin in this game too – I must avoid colds at all costs because the colds I get are worse than anyone else’s. I don’t have a medical certificate to confirm this, but I know it to be true. My colds last longer. My nose is more blocked, my throat is scratchier, my coughing fits are louder, barkier and apparently endless. My family, wise to the couple of quick throat-clearances which herald the coming storm, either kick me out of the room, or clear the room themselves. Back when I presented football on ITV, my poor colleagues in the studio gallery grew attuned to the warning signs. “Cans off!� the studio director would holler to his team, before I deafened them all, blowing the wiring in their headphones.

The council is rolling back Thatcher’s flagship policy by buying stock from private landlords. Other local authorities should take note

On a windswept housing estate by the Channel, Jacob Taylor surveys the latest addition to his property empire: a mixture of one-, two- and three-bedroom flats, built on the playing fields of an old private school.

They might not look like much but these neat rows of redbrick homes are an important acquisition – not for an offshore investor or a real-estate mogul, but for the Labour-run Brighton and Hove city council, where Taylor, its deputy leader, is taking a trailblazing approach.

Economists on all sides agree: rather than incremental changes, this deeply unfair market needs a ‘big bang’ moment

• Josh Ryan-Collins is professor of economics and finance at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose

The UK’s property tax system is both inefficient and unfair. There is consensus among all political parties that something needs to be done. On the efficiency side, stamp duty is the main culprit: as a lump sum tax on property wealth paid at point of purchase, it discourages people to move as frequently as they should. It prevents people from realising their full economic potential by finding the right job, in the right area, or moving into a home suitable for their household size.

In combination with high interest rates and sluggish growth, tax is contributing to UK property transactions reaching near record lows. Meanwhile, over a third of English households live in homes defined by the government as “under-occupied�, with two or more spare bedrooms; 90% of these are homeowners. Reforming stamp duty to free up some of these under-occupied properties – mainly concentrated in the baby-boomer generation now hitting retirement – could enhance growth, productivity and, potentially, the affordability crisis.

Josh Ryan-Collins is professor of economics and finance at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose

Many autistic people face barriers due to stereotypes and ableist assumptions, including the belief that the neurotypical way of working is the only right way

Although I started my first full-time job when I was 15, it was more than three decades before I asked for an accommodation at work. This was not because I didn’t want or need changes in my workplace.

I had struggled with aspects of the workplace since my first job at the age of 15. I knew that the bright lights in my office and in meeting rooms made it difficult to concentrate and gave me severe migraines. I knew that the artificial air blowing through the air conditioning vents caused my skin to itch and made me feel ill. I knew that I struggled to shut out the background noise and focus on important conversations. But the idea that it didn’t have to be that way – or that it wasn’t that way for everyone else – was beyond my imagination.

Molecular profiles will give detailed snapshot of person’s physiology and predict diseases from diabetes to cancer and dementia

The world’s largest study into key substances in the bloodstream has paved the way for a swathe of pinprick tests that can detect early signs of disease more than a decade before symptoms appear, researchers say.

Work on the tests follows the completion of a project by the UK Biobank to measure the levels of nearly 250 different proteins, sugars, fats and other compounds in blood collected from half a million volunteers.

Study calls for depression treatment to be suspended for more research after reports of heart problems and emotional blunting

Electroconvulsive therapy could be causing a wider range of adverse effects when used to treat depression than previously understood, according to a paper that calls for the practice to be suspended pending more robust research.

Although short- and long-term memory loss is widely known to result from ECT, the research identified 25 further concerning side effects, which included cardiovascular problems, fatigue and emotional blunting.

Elizabeth Taylor fully backs industrial action and feels that doctors have been taken advantage of for decades; Dr Natasha de Vere would not consider striking

I totally support the resident doctors’ strike (Why the NHS doctors’ strikes look set to continue, 14 October). I am a retired consultant anaesthetist who worked in the NHS for 40 years. Throughout my career, I felt that I was totally underpaid for my work.

As a junior doctor in the 1970s and up until my consultant appointment in 1991, I was paid a pittance for working excessive, unsafe hours – often 80 to 100 hours a week. Accommodation and catering were minimal. Overtime was paid at a much lower rate.

Private appointments, tests and operations are a grave threat to the future of the health service, writes Margaret Greenwood

Gaby Hinsliff is right to ask if the government’s reorganisation of the National Health Service will be the final nail in its coffin (Wes Streeting’s gamble with the NHS is greater than any play for Downing Street, 14 November). Such large‑scale redundancies are bound to create problems.

There are other threats to the delivery of NHS services too. The privatisation of the NHS is happening in plain sight. Last month, the government proudly announced that “A total of 6.15 million appointments, tests and operations were delivered by independent providers for NHS patients this year�, an almost 500,000 increase on last year, which it says is “helping to cut waiting times [and] free up NHS capacity�.

Elderly residents of care home left anxious after Reform-led county council started consultation over plans for its closure

For Marjorie Aspden, 95, Woodlands care home in Clayton-le-Moors in Accrington was the perfect place to spend her twilight years. When she looked out from the window of her room, she saw the woods that she played in as a young girl and felt a sense of contentment.

Now she and hundreds of other elderly residents are facing uncertainty after the Reform-led Lancashire county council announced it would consult on plans to close care homes in the area.

Donald Trump signed order creating ‘Foster the Future’ to develop opportunities and online hub for resources

Melania Trump, the first lady, is spearheading a new initiative aimed at improving career and education opportunities for children raised in foster care.

Her husband, Donald Trump, signed an executive order on Thursday that creates a “Fostering the Future� program that brings together federal entities, non-profits, educational institutions and the private sector to develop those opportunities for foster youth.

More than third of profits analysed went to firms owned by private equity or based in tax havens, research finds

Private companies operating care services in just three regions of England have taken more than £250m in profits in three years, with more than a third going to providers owned by private equity firms or companies based in tax havens.

New analysis by Reclaiming Our Regional Economies warned that public money is being rapidly funnelled out of the care system into the hands of private companies, rather than reinvested to improve services.

Questions about potential conflict of interest as council’s cabinet member for social care owns private care company

Lancashire’s Reform-run council has been accused of “selling off the family silver� through its plans to save £4m a year by closing five council-run care homes and five day centres and moving residents into the private sector.

One of the care home residents, a 92-year-old woman, said she would leave only by “being forcibly removed or in a box�.

Thorough reform of how flooding is managed is necessary to reconnect people to their watery environments, says Dr Ed Rollason. Plus a letter from Moira Robinson

John Harris correctly identifies that the UK is hopelessly unprepared for flooding, but is wrong to suggest that the public is not told about the threat (Flooded and forgotten: the UK’s waters are rising and we’re being kept in the dark, 16 November). In fact, the UK has some of the most detailed and accurate flood-risk information in the world. The Environment Agency publishes comprehensive flood-risk maps and impact information that is searchable by address, and regularly undertakes public-information campaigns.

The north-east of England has also pioneered community flood-resilience officers, whose sole purpose is to engage with at-risk communities and to encourage the development of “community resilience�, a model increasingly being mirrored in other regions.

Tom Pickup confirms he was member of group in which one participant allegedly called for ‘mass Islam genocide’

A Reform UK councillor has been suspended for participating in a WhatsApp group where members allegedly called for a “mass Islam genocide�.

Tom Pickup, who was elected to Lancashire county council in May, confirmed to the Guardian he was a member of the group set up by a rightwing activist.

Evidence of waste from primary schools and local authorities in south-east England points to possible large-scale corruption, expert says

Waste from local authorities in the south-east is among the vast mound of rubbish dumped illegally next to a river in Oxfordshire, it can be revealed.

The finding provides evidence of possible large-scale corruption in waste management, a legal expert has warned.

If the promise of a better private rental sector is to be realised, councils will need new staff as well as stricter rules

Tenants need rights. Apart from food and water, shelter is the most basic human need and relevant to almost everyone all the time – unlike, say, healthcare, which most people do not use on a daily basis. A rebalancing of the law towards renters and away from landlords, which the government has done in its Renters’ Rights Act, was sorely needed. Failures and abuses of power have been ignored for too long.

With no-fault evictions outlawed from next May, and tougher oversight from a new ombudsman to follow, life should be about to get better for England’s 4.6m households in the private rental sector. But will it? Troubling analysis by the Guardian shows that two-thirds of councils in England have not prosecuted a single landlord in the past three years, while nearly half didn’t issue any fines either. Over the same period, fewer than 2% of complaints led to enforcement of any kind. Just 16 landlords were banned from letting homes – a shockingly low number, given the volume of complaints and what has been revealed about the sector by the worst scandals.

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Making volunteering compulsory for refugees slammed as exploitative, bureaucratic and un-British

Hundreds of charities have said they will refuse to cooperate with “immoral� government plans to force refugees to undertake mandatory volunteering as a condition of being allowed to settle in the UK.

The charities said that compelling refugees and asylum seekers to volunteer would be exploitative, bureaucratic and un-British – and would undermine a fundamental principle that volunteers give their time and skills freely.

My father, Dick Harris, who has died aged 71, spent a lifetime working and volunteering in the disability sector, using his own experiences to encourage independent living.

He was born in Wrexham, north Wales, to Edna Harris, an unmarried teacher, and never knew who his father was. Under the circumstances in those days he would normally have been given up for adoption, but he was born with cerebral palsy and at the time it was difficult to place disabled children with adoptive parents.

Jon Fitzmaurice says the charity’s considerable resources could be used to counteract the dearth of social housing

I was most interested to read your report about the decision made by Crisis to start directly providing accommodation for homeless people (Crisis charity to become a landlord in attempt to rectify ‘catastrophic’ housing in UK, 10 November). Faced with the growing impossibility of securing accommodation via housing associations or local authorities, Crisis sees this as the most direct way of helping. Isn’t it time that Shelter, with its history of supporting other homelessness organisations, arrived at a similar conclusion?

Many people are under the impression that Shelter houses homeless people. Despite having financially supported many frontline housing organisations and related projects during the 1960s and 70s, it pulled back from this role in the 80s. It now works with its 900-plus staff and its £80m income to provide housing advice and to undertake research and campaigning.

My wife, Marianne Rigge, who has died aged 77, was a passionate public advocate for the interests of NHS patients, and a pioneer in creating ways of giving people easier access to medical and health information.

The daughter of a GP, she founded a national charity, the College of Health, with the renowned social entrepreneur Michael Young, in response to their experiences as patients and in the consumer movement. Young was the inspiration behind organisations including the Open University and the Consumers’ Association, which he launched in 1957.

Analysis of new-builds in Birmingham suggests all-electric homes not only use less energy but vary in peak usage

Some of the first homes in the UK designed to meet new building standards put less pressure on the electricity grid than expected, a study has found.

The all-electric properties in Handsworth, Birmingham, have heat pumps, which use electricity to provide heat rather than oil or gas.

Taylor Wimpey chief Jennie Daly calls for revival of help-to-buy equity loan scheme to revive property market

The boss of one of Britain’s biggest housebuilders has urged the government to announce more support for first-time buyers to revive a property market that has cooled in the “very long shadow� of the looming budget.

Jennie Daly, the chief executive of Taylor Wimpey, also warned against an “accumulation of regulation�, arguing that a “perverse outcome� of green measures could be that it becomes unviable to build new homes in poorer areas of the country.

Commons committee report challenges ‘lazy narrative’ used by ministers that scapegoats wildlife and the environment

Nature is not a blocker to housing growth, an inquiry by MPs has found, in direct conflict with claims made by ministers.

Toby Perkins, the Labour chair of the environmental audit committee, said nature was being scapegoated, and that rather than being a block to growth, it was necessary for building resilient towns and neighbourhoods.

The government is focused on building new homes for floating voters, while landlordism is discouraged and homes stand empty

As opera-goers trooped into the London Coliseum this week, three helpless drunks were camping on the adjacent front steps. One was struggling to stop another pulling down his trousers – or possibly helping him. In Chandos Place around the corner, half a dozen more were bedding down out of the rain. Over the road, staff at the hallowed St Martin-in-the-Fields homeless charity were under siege.

There is only one housing crisis. It is not the lack of somewhere nice to live. It is the lack of somewhere to sleep. Rough sleeping is vagrancy, and illegal in England and Wales under the Vagrancy Act. It means the police can “move you on�. The government promised to “develop a new cross-government strategy� to “put Britain back on track to ending homelessness� in its election manifesto, so next spring it is scrapping the 19th-century act. Rough sleeping will be decriminalised. Presumably that is considered a problem solved.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist