Parents rejoice as Home Office reverses decision to send children back to Brazil

Officials had sent letter warning Guilherme Serrano, 11, that staying in UK could lead to him being prosecuted

A family is celebrating after the Home Office reversed its decision to send two young children back to Brazil while allowing their parents to remain in the UK.

The Guardian previously reported on the case of Guilherme Serrano, 11, and his brother Luca, eight, who have spent most of their lives in the UK with their mother, Ana Luiza Cabral Gouveia, a senior NHS nurse, and father, Dr Hugo Barbosa, a senior lecturer in computer science at the University of Exeter.

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Continue ReadingParents rejoice as Home Office reverses decision to send children back to Brazil

My father, the fake: was anything he told me actually true?

Michael Briggs was a well-known scientist - and a fantasist. When his daughter Joanne began digging into his past for a memoir, new lies kept emerging ...

Growing up in the 1960s, Joanne Briggs knew her father, Michael, wasn’t like other dads. Once a Nasa scientist, now a big pharma research director, he would regale her and her brother with the extraordinary highlights of his working life.

If he was to be believed, he had advised Stanley Kubrick on the making of 2001: A Space Odyssey, smuggled a gun and a microfiche over the Berlin Wall and, most amazingly, conducted an experiment on Mars that led to the discovery of an alien life form. This was in addition to earning a PhD from Cornell University in the US and a prestigious doctor of science award from the University of New Zealand. Quite a leap for the son of a typewriter repair man who grew up in Chadderton, a mill town on the road from Manchester to Oldham, before getting his first degree from the University of Liverpool.

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Continue ReadingMy father, the fake: was anything he told me actually true?

Football transfer rumours: Ferran Torres to swap Barcelona for Aston Villa?

Today’s tell-all is faxing in its offers

Fresh from selling their women’s team to their wholly separate, er, parent company, Aston Villa feel in the mood for waving their wedge about, with Ferran Torres their target. The Spanish site Fichajes says that Barcelona, no strangers themselves to imaginative accountancy flexes, have been sounded out for a £43m move for the forward.

Eberechi Eze to Arsenal seems to have acquired some momentum since the Mill first mulled it over on Tuesday, and the Sun is now touting the Gunners as clear favourites to gazump their rivals Tottenham to the Crystal Palace attacking midfielder’s signature. Palace are holding out for £68m but Arsenal’s sporting director, Andrea Berta, has apparently held talks with Eze’s people as interest is stepped up.

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Continue ReadingFootball transfer rumours: Ferran Torres to swap Barcelona for Aston Villa?

Russia launches major attack on Ukraine after Trump’s criticism of Putin – Europe live

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia attempted to strike 741 targets with 728 drones and 13 missiles

We’re getting big news from France as the far-right National Rally’s president Jordan Bardella says the headquarters of the party led by Marine Le Pen have been raided by police this morning.

He said the police entered key offices of party leaders and seized files related the party’s latest election campaigns, although he noted the party did not know “the precise grievances that form the basis for this action.”

“Since 8:50 this morning, the headquarters of the National Rally – including the offices of its leaders – have been subject to a search conducted by about twenty financial brigade police officers, armed and wearing bulletproof vests, accompanied by two investigating judges.

All emails, documents, and accounting records of the leading opposition party are being seized, without us knowing at this stage the precise grievances that form the basis for this action.

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Continue ReadingRussia launches major attack on Ukraine after Trump’s criticism of Putin – Europe live

‘We must unite’: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s rallying cry at Nigerian literature festival

Author’s keynote speech calls for preservation of Igbo worldview, culture and traditions amid separatist movement turning increasingly violent

As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie took to the stage in a hall in the south-eastern Nigerian city of Enugu, dressed in a vibrant burnt orange African-print outfit, her hair styled in an elegant afro, the audience clapped and ululated in appreciation.

“It’s always a homecoming when I return to the south-east,” the novelist, who was born in the city, began. “But it no longer feels like home – the calm, the warmth, the essence seems to have faded,” she added, in an allusion to the violence associated with an armed separatist movement in the region – where 90% of people are from the Igbo ethnic group – and a recent rise in ritual killings.

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Continue Reading‘We must unite’: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s rallying cry at Nigerian literature festival

TV freelancers fearful of speaking up, union leader says after firing of Gregg Wallace

Bectu chief says junior staff in industry feel vulnerable and she is not surprised by further claims about Wallace

Vulnerable freelance workers in television feel “real fear” about coming forward to complain about stars like Gregg Wallace, the head of the broadcasting union has said.

Wallace was fired from MasterChef on Tuesday after fresh allegations to the BBC about his behaviour from a further 50 people.

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Continue ReadingTV freelancers fearful of speaking up, union leader says after firing of Gregg Wallace