Educators worry about absenteeism and smartphones as NAEP report shows scores at lowest levels in two decades

The average reading and math scores of American high school seniors fell to their lowest levels in two decades in 2024, according to new national data released last week.

The results, from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), found that, on average, reading scores for 12th graders were 10 points lower in 2024 than they were in 1992, when the test was first administered, and that math scores fell to their lowest levels since 2005, when the math assessment began.

Boy’s body was found Friday after he drowned in family’s vehicle when it was swept off the road by flood waters

A two-year-old drowned in a vehicle that was swept away by flood waters in southern California, and the child’s father had to be rescued by authorities, officials said Friday.

The deadly emergency unfolded amid sudden heavy rain east of Los Angeles that unleashed mudslides which plowed into homes and trapped drivers for hours on roadways.

Three teenagers and one adult arrested in Renton after an alleged attack left a 39-year-old woman hospitalized

Four people – including three teenagers – are accused of a hate crime in Washington state after being arrested in connection with an alleged attack on a transgender woman that left the victim hospitalized, according to authorities.

The Renton police department said the four suspects in the case first argued with the 39-year-old woman on Monday evening – then beat her after she saw them again later. Investigators say they hurled homophobic slurs at the victim, who was attacked on a street near a transit center in Renton and suffered serious injuries.

Police say the ABC10 building was occupied when shots were fired into the lobby but ‘no one was injured’

Police have arrested a man suspected of shooting into the lobby of Sacramento’s ABC affiliate on Friday.

Though the shooting occurred just a day after protesters gathered outside to the station to condemn ABC’s suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talkshow, Sacramento police said the motive in the case remained under investigation, with it not being immediately clear whether the gunfire was targeted or random.

Chancellor’s invitation criticised as ‘strange timing’ with Treasury looking at whether to raise duties on £12bn sector

The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has been urged to cancel plans to be the guest of honour at an event hosted by the chief lobbyist of the gambling industry while the Treasury is in the midst of a review of taxes on the £12bn sector.

Reeves is slated to appear at a “private reception” for business leaders, organised by the corporate communications company Brunswick, at the forthcoming Labour party conference in Liverpool.

Officials fear widespread unrest amid violence and intimidation of ethnic minorities

Northern Ireland faces a “permacrisis” from recurring race riots and may need to use military bases to shelter people burnt out of their homes, government documents reveal.

Officials fear the region faces prolonged instability and that a single incident, local or international, could spark widespread disorder.

Attack raises questions over security as Brussels and Berlin airports’ check-in and boarding systems also affected

Flights have been delayed and cancelled at three major European airports – including London’s largest, Heathrow – after the company behind the software used for check-in and boarding said it was hit by a cyber-attack.

Airports in Brussels and Berlin are also experiencing delays and disruption after the issue affecting Collins Aerospace, which works for several airlines at airports across the world.

The producer and DJ, real name Keith McIvor, had been diagnosed with an untreatable brain tumour earlier this year

JD Twitch, the Scottish DJ and producer celebrated as one half of the duo Optimo, has died aged 57.

The artist, whose real name was Keith McIvor, had been diagnosed with an untreatable brain tumour, which he announced in July. He died on Friday in Glasgow’s Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice, his DJ partner Jonnie Wilkes (AKA JG Wilkes) announced.

Event comes a week after the largest far-right event in decades took place in London

Anti-immigration protesters have clashed with anti-racist counter-protesters in tense scenes in Glasgow this afternoon, a week after the largest far-right event in decades, organised by the activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson, took place in London.

The statue of Scottish statesman Donald Dewar, father of the Holyrood parliament, was surrounded by union flags bearing the words: ‘Stop the boats’, and ‘Unite the kingdom’.

Held since 2020, India’s most prominent political prisoner has become a symbol of repression under the Modi regime

“There is indeed something about captivity that makes one feel like a state of somewhere between life and death,” wrote Umar Khalid in June in a letter penned as his fifth year languishing behind bars approached.

Few understand the purgatory of jail like Khalid. For five years – since his arrest in September 2020 under a draconian terrorism law – he has remained India’s most prominent political prisoner, to many a potent symbol of the systematic crushing of dissent under the dominant Hindu nationalist regime of the prime minister, Narendra Modi.

Israeli military says aid infrastructure could be targeted after order to ‘all Gaza residents and inhabitants’ to leave

Humanitarian workers in northern Gaza have been repeatedly warned by the Israeli military that only hospitals will be considered protected sites and all other aid infrastructure could be targeted.

In messages and conversations with aid workers in recent days seen by the Guardian, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said an order to “all Gaza residents and inhabitants” to evacuate Gaza City, the biggest urban centre in the territory, applied “to all humanitarian locations [there], except hospitals” and warned that “to defeat Hamas [Israeli troops] will operate … with great force”.

Plans to improve the world heritage site for tourists put its living culture at risk, say locals and campaigners

By noon, the sun is high over Petra, bleaching the coloured sandstone cliffs and temporarily emptying its celebrated ruins of tourists. Vines and a canopy keep the terrace of Mohammed Feras’s cave home cool despite the searing summer heat rising from the rocky valley.

“I have lived here all my life. I’ve never been anywhere else and I cannot imagine not living here. This area is part of who I am and I cannot leave it,” the 44-year-old farmer and sometime tourist guide said.

Iranian foreign ministry urges further diplomacy and says return to pre-2015 measures are unlawful and unfounded

The UN security council failed to pass a resolution on Friday that would have prevented the reimposition of UN sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme before the deadline for the “snapping back” of punitive measures.

UN sanctions on Iran will be re-established at the end of the month unless the nine-member security council agrees to further extend sanctions relief. Friday’s resolution, put forth by South Korea, received support from only four countries – China, Russia, Pakistan and Algeria.

Press freedom group says ‘brutal and unjustified attack’ is deadliest since 2009 Maguindanao massacre in Philippines

Thirty one journalists and media staff were killed by Israeli strikes on newspaper offices in Yemen last week in what the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said on Friday was the deadliest attack on journalists in the last 16 years.

Israel struck a newspaper complex in Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, which housed three Houthi-connected media outlets on 10 September. At the time, members of the Yemeni army’s press arm were finishing the weekly print edition, according to the publication’s editor-in-chief, which increased the number of journalists present during the strike.

Distinctive and critically acclaimed films and drama series from ‘a big hub of talent’ are appealing to audiences around the world

When it comes to film-making, Norway has long been left watching on while its Nordic neighbours Sweden and Denmark put out hit after hit by luminaries such as Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg and Ruben Östlund.

But after years in the shadows, the country has finally found its place in the international spotlight with a number of distinctive, relationship-centred and critically acclaimed films and television shows in what many are describing as a Norwegian “golden age”.

This blog is now closed, you can read more on the war in Ukraine here

At least 10 flights were cancelled out of Brussels airport and another 17 delayed by over an hour after the system was hit by a “cyber-attack” overnight on Friday, the airport said.

EasyJet, among Europe’s biggest airlines, said it was currently operating as normal and did not expect the problem to impact its flights for the rest of the day, Reuters reports.

Information on the situation is being continuously gathered, and Polish authorities are in contact with authorities in other countries.

Exclusive: Alexander Stubb says a plausible deterrent and ‘American backstop’ are needed in the event of a future peace deal

Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb, has said security guarantees for Ukraine, which are being discussed by the so-called “coalition of the willing”, would compel the European countries that sign to fight Russia if Moscow launched military action against Ukraine again in future.

“Security guarantees in essence are a deterrent. That deterrent has to be plausible and in order for it to be plausible it has to be strong,” Stubb told the Guardian, in an interview in Helsinki before travelling to New York for the UN general assembly.

Emergency calls were offline for nearly 14 hours, during which four people died – including an eight-week-old baby

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A fourth person died during Optus’s network outage on Thursday, its CEO has confirmed.

Stephen Rue said in a statement released on Saturday afternoon that the telco was “saddened to learn of a new fatality in Western Australia, which appears to have occurred during the outage period”.

Former PM, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and conference chair Warren Mundine among right faction heavyweights urging conservative voters to unite

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Tony Abbott has urged conservatives to give the Liberals “one last chance” and apologised for the party’s 2025 election drubbing, joining a host of high-profile Coalition figures at a major political conference in imploring voters not to abandon the opposition for right-wing minor parties.

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, recently dumped from the shadow frontbench, exhorted the Conservative Political Action Conference (Cpac) in Brisbane to stick with the Liberal party, and encouraged her parliamentary colleagues to dump a net zer