NSW police watchdog to oversee investigation into arrest of Indigenous man with disability in Taree

Teenager remains in custody and faces seven charges, including hindering or resisting a police officer

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The New South Wales police watchdog will oversee an investigation into the violent arrest in Taree last week of a handcuffed Aboriginal teenager with a disability.

The Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC), an independent watchdog that has oversight of NSW police, has confirmed it is involved in the force’s internal inquiry and that police have received a serious misconduct complaint about the incident.

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"Remove all the curbs on a majorly driven and walked-across urban street.That'll be safe." "Sure, thing Lou" [Scary]

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‘Why is my child gone?’: family demands answers after teen found dead in Atlanta cell

Noni Battiste-Kosoko died days after her 19th birthday, amid a series of deaths in Fulton county custody

Noni Battiste-Kosoko was found alone, face down and unresponsive in her cell at the Atlanta city detention center, managed by the Fulton county jail, on 11 July. Her death came just six days after her 19th birthday.

The Fulton county sheriff’s office announced the death a day later, saying the teen had “no apparent signs of injuries”. Now, her family is demanding answers from Fulton county, which has found itself embroiled in a civil investigation after a series of deaths happened in its custody.

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Western Australian MP admitted alleged child sexual abuse to wife before charges laid, court told

James Hayward, 53, has pleaded not guilty to the abuse of an eight-year-old girl

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A Western Australian MP on trial for child sexual abuse admitted the crimes in an email to his wife before he was charged, a court has been told.

James Dorrin Hayward has pleaded not guilty to four offences relating to the alleged abuse of an eight-year-old girl.

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Most Popular College Major By State

Americans across the country primarily rely on higher education to learn that they are dumb and broke. The Onion examines the most popular college major in every state.

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Quiz: Are You Ready For College?

The transition to college life can be tough on even the most prepared among us. Here’s a quiz to test whether you’re ready to head off to higher ed!

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USDA announces $667 million in rural broadband funding

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The US Department of Agriculture announced nearly $700 million in funding Monday to expand high-speed broadband access in rural communities across the country.

The USDA’s ReConnect Program is providing $667 million in grants and loans for broadband projects in 22 states and the Marshall Islands in areas that lack access to speeds of at least 100Mbps down and 20Mbps up. Recipients of this funding will be required to build out infrastructure capable of providing upload and download speeds of 100Mbps, surpassing the Federal Communications Commission’s current speed minimums of 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up.

“The reality is, we have faced some challenging times in rural places”

“The reality is, we have faced some challenging times in rural...

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Iron railway bridge that ‘changed the world’ to return home to Durham

Curators at National Railway Museum at Shildon say they are delighted and proud to get Gaunless bridge back

It may not look like it helped change the world but the 200-year-old Gaunless Bridge did just that, its supporters say, and its name deserves to be shouted from the rafters.

Locomotion, the National Railway Museum at Shildon in County Durham, is preparing to welcome home what is the world’s oldest surviving iron railway bridge.

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Lucy Letby faces life in prison as sentencing hearing set to start – live updates

Neonatal nurse was found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill six more

Lucy Letby, the worst child serial killer in modern British history, faces spending the rest of her days in prison when she is sentenced later today for murdering seven babies and making seven more attempts to murder children at the Countess of Chester hospital.

The former neonatal nurse would become only the third woman to be given a whole-life order should the judge pass such a sentence, as has been suggested, at the hearing at Manchester crown court.

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Radio presenter Chris Evans diagnosed with skin cancer

Disease is in early stages, broadcaster reveals on Virgin Radio show, and says he has been told it is treatable

The broadcaster Chris Evans has revealed he has been diagnosed with skin cancer.

Speaking on his Virgin Radio show on Monday morning, he confirmed the disease was discovered in the early stages and that he was told it is treatable.

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Weather tracker: tropical storm makes landfall in California for first time in 84 years

Storm Hilary expected to cause severe flooding, as other parts of US and Mexico put under extreme heat warnings

For the first time in 84 years, a tropical storm has made landfall in California. Tropical Storm Hilary, with maximum sustained wind gusts of 130mph and a central air pressure of 943mb, advanced towards the Baja California peninsula this weekend as a category 4 hurricane, before arriving as a tropical storm in southern California late on Sunday. The last time a tropical storm made landfall in southern California was in 1939, when it flooded Los Angeles and killed nearly 100 people.

Hilary triggered California’s first ever tropical storm warning, extending from the Mexican border to just north of Los Angeles amid rainfall totals estimated to have reached 70-150mm (3-6in) across southern California. This amount of rainfall is expected to cause life-threatening flooding, and would amount to more than a year’s worth of rain across parts of California and Nevada.

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Only 8% of voters think Rishi Sunak deserves credit for inflation falling, poll suggests – politics live updates

YouGov poll finds few people think PM deserves credit for falling rate, despite fact he made cutting inflation one of his five key priorities

Good morning. The second half of August is normally the worst time of the year for political news, because the summer media campaigns pre-cooked by the political parties (like small boats week) are running out of steam, but today we will at least be hearing from Rishi Sunak, who has a visit planned.

Much of the focus this morning will by on the sentencing of Lucy Letby. It is primarily a horrific crime story, but there are implications for government and this morning Claire Coutinho, the education minister who has been doing an interview round, has been defending the government’s decision not to make the inquiry into the case a statutory one (a non-statutory one would be quicker, she argued) and insisting that ministers do want to change the law to try to stop offenders like Letby not attending court for sentencing. We will be covering these developments in detail in a separate live blog on the Letby proceedings.

A YouGov poll for the Times found that only 8% of voters credited government policy for the fall in inflation, which dropped to 6.8% last month, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics last week.

More people, 17%, believe the Bank of England is responsible despite criticism of its response to high inflation. In June Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, blamed flaws in the Bank’s economic forecasting after it failed to get a grip on runaway inflation.

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Last rites for the UK's Online Safety Bill, an idea too stupid to notice it's dead

Snoopers Charter: Dead cows don't snitch

Opinion Information wants to be free. This usefully ambiguous battle cry has been the mischievous slogan of hackers since early networking thinker Stuart Brand coined it in the early 1980s. Intended as part of a discussion about the inherent contradictions of intellectual property, it has bestowed irony in many other places since.…

Bizarre Accounts of Vampires in Great Britain

There are some areas of the paranormal and unexplained that certainly stand out more than others, and seem to be more embedded in legend and folklore than anything else, yet which also sometimes come tearing through into the possibly real. Undoubtedly one type of creature that lurks in the shadows and seems as if it must only inhabit fiction and the imagination is the vampire. However, even though the idea of real bloodsucking immortal fiends seems as if it surely must be pure myth, there are occasionally cases brought forward as real encounters with these creatures, and Great Britain has long been a wellspring of such things.

China cuts key interest rate amid economic slowdown

Central bank reduces one-year loan prime rate but surprises analysts by leaving five-year rate unchanged

China’s central bank has cut one of its key lending rates but left another unchanged, surprising economists who had expected more forceful action to support economic growth amid widespread concerns over its path.

The world’s second-largest economy is in the midst of a slowdown, and has slipped into deflation with prices falling year on year as slowing domestic spending weighs on the country’s post-Covid economic recovery.

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USA's most advanced new warship to be held together by a series of tubes [Misc]

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Mother’s pleas for antibiotics for toddler who died of sepsis were ignored, Victorian court told

Miranda Jowett, who sought treatment for daughter Dio Kemp six times, tells coronial inquest into her death she was made to feel like an ‘overly concerned parent’

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A Melbourne mother who sought medical treatment for her toddler six times before the child died of septic shock has told an inquest that her pleas for antibiotics and further tests were ignored and that she was made to feel like an “overly concerned parent”.

The Victorian coroners court on Monday began an inquest into the death of Dio Kemp, three, who died after she was taken to Monash Medical Centre four times and to her GP twice over eight days in late 2019.

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Lucy Letby may face life in jail when she is sentenced for murdering seven babies

Nurse could become only third woman to be given whole-life order amid calls for change in law to force defendants to attend court

Lucy Letby faces spending the rest of her life in prison when she is sentenced on Monday for murdering seven babies and attempting to kill six more at the Countess of Chester hospital.

The neonatal nurse, the worst child serial killer in modern British history, would become only the third woman to be given a whole-life order should the judge pass such a sentence, as has been suggested, at the hearing at Manchester crown court.

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Anti-corruption campaigner wins Guatemala presidential election by landslide

Bernado Arévalo’s victory comes amid growing concerns over state of democracy in Central America

The Guatemalan anti-corruption crusader Bernardo Arévalo has been voted in as president, according to preliminary results, a victory that until recently seemed impossible and which many voters hope will end years of rule dogged by allegations of corruption and authoritarianism.

Arévalo, a 64-year-old ex-diplomat and son of a former president, had a 58% to 37% lead over the former first lady Sandra Torres with 99% of votes counted.

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Lesson 1: Keep your mind on the ... why aren't the servers making any noise?

Quest for redundant cables almost resulted in a redundant techie

Who, Me? Ah, dear reader, yet again it is Monday, arriving with the same relentless regularity that has made it the bane of human workers and cartoon cats since time immemorial - or at least the early 1900s. But fear not, for The Reg is here to ease your passage into the working week with another instalment of Who, Me? in which we cushion the arrival of the working week with tales of the working weak.…

Snort cocaine? Smoke weed? Balloon pilot: why not both? [Fail]

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UK home sellers slash prices at fastest rate since 2018; China cuts key interest rate – business live

Asking prices for UK homes have tumbled by 1.9% in August, according to Rightmove data, while China cut a key lending rate amid an economic slump

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.

We kick off with news of further woe for UK home sellers this morning.

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Anthony Albanese says ‘my son is not a public figure’ after questions about PwC internship

Reports claim PM discussed position with firm’s former government relations boss before Nathan Albanese went on to secure two-week, unpaid placement

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The prime minister Anthony Albanese has said his son “is not a public figure” in response to media reports claiming that he helped Nathan land a two-week, unpaid internship at consultancy firm PwC Australia.

On Monday, the Australian Financial Review cited multiple sources who they say claimed Albanese had discussions with the firm’s former government relations boss Sean Gregory about a position when Albanese was opposition leader in 2021.

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South Korea's biggest mobile telco says 5G has failed to deliver on its promise

Inflated expectations and an underdeveloped ecosystem have led to consumer disappointment

SK Telecom, South Korea's dominant mobile carrier and sibling of chipmaker SK hynix, has declared that 5G was over-hyped, has under-delivered, and has failed to deliver a killer app.…

‘Kissing Trump’s butt’ won’t help Republicans beat him, rival warns

Will Hurd hasn’t qualified for this week’s Republican debate, but he’s pulling no punches in his attacks on the ex-president

Offering “free advice” to his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, the former Texas congressman Will Hurd said: “If Donald Trump is leading in the polls, and he’s your opponent, then kissing his butt is not going to help you win.”

Trump is indeed leading national and key state polls by wide margins, despite facing 91 criminal charges under four separate indictments for election subversion, retention of classified documents and hush-money payments to a porn star.

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