2026/08/15 Daily Edition

Partners say they ‘don’t recall’ leaked papers and are accused by lawyers of being misleading as more whistleblowers come forward Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast KPMG staff misled colleagues who tried to investigate leaks of confidential client information, a parliamentary inquiry has heard. The audit and consulting firm and leading clients such as Westpac, Macquarie and Optus faced a grilling on Friday. Westpac’s representative threw his weight behind the Labor-led inquiry’s calls for the Albanese government to reform the big four firms...

Dominic Sessa plays Anthony Bourdain in a fun biopic, and the ever-danceable UK funksters are back with a sun-dappled new album Tony Out now This comic biopic of Anthony Bourdain focuses on the celebrity chef and documentarian’s late adolescence, as he gets a summer job at a restaurant in Cape Cod at the age of 19. Dominic Sessa (The Holdovers) plays Bourdain, with Matt Johnson directing. Rich Sommer, Leo Woodall and Antonio Banderas also star...

A young woman battles social strictures in 1890s Australia in a charming period drama series, while the sonic experimentalist drops the drone metal for goth rock. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews..

Avoid getting into debt at university with tricks to save cash, earn extra funds and have a good time Over the past two years university student Erin has been giving Martin Lewis a run for his money when it comes to hunting down the best hacks, tips and tricks to save cash and earn money. The 21-year-old has seen Oasis for free; earned tickets to race days; made money from selling secondhand clothes (£200 in one weekend alone); and enjoyed cut-price treats with friends...

Palestinian residents of three houses in Qusra near Nablus in the occupied West Bank say they have been effectively cut off from food and other supplies since the siege by Israeli settlers began on Sunday. But the Israeli military has not done anything to remove the settlers. "We are seeing the cracks of Israeli politics, including a paralysed prime minister’s inability to condemn basic filmed violent acts, play out in the West Bank," says FRANCE 24 correspondent Noga Tarnopolsky.

The British writer is known for his unique ability to get inside the heads of serial killers. But a Guardian investigation reveals multiple accusations of assault and child sexual abuse. What is the truth about the man described by his own daughter as ‘absolute evil’? Warning: this article contains descriptions of sexual abuse and violence From the outside, it looked like the sort of happy family home a child might draw. Red brick, surrounded by rolling countryside, in Curdridge, near Winchester. Here lived the true crime writer Christopher Berry-Dee, with his second wife, Tracey Dee, and their two young daughters, Zoe and Sasha, in the early 1990s. Inside, it was a house of horrors, full of murder memorabilia. In a wardrobe were the clothes a nine-year-old girl had been murdered in. One afternoon, Zoe was playing when she found them. The now 38-year-old council worker from Romsey says she remembers “putting it all on … going downstairs and everyone being absolutely traumatised”. Later, another gruesome memento was added to the collection: the Austin Metro that convicted murderer Michael Sams had used to transport a body in 1991. Bloodied sections of the seatbelts had been cut out for forensic tests. Berry-Dee was the serial killer man. He wrote to convicted murderers in jail and befriended them. They told him everything. Through them he saw the terror in their victims’ eyes, watched their anguished death throes, heard their final screams. He listened to tapes of their confessions in his study. Zoe grew used to hearing them echo through the house. “It would always be on,” she says. “At the time, it felt normal.”..

There is dignity and tenderness to this drama based on the real story of the Sixties Scoop – the scandal of First Nations children who were forcibly taken from their parents and adopted by white families Here’s one you’ll like: a man comes home to find his wife handcuffed to the wall and his young children missing. They have been taken by child protection services due to the lack of a fridge in the house, which is treated as a sign of neglect. When he confronts law enforcement officials outside, they beat him to death. Decades later, one of the children, now adopted into a Jewish home in Montreal, goes looking for the family she lost, risking the collapse of her new life to do so. I never said it was a joke. Although it turns out there was a fridge, behind the house. Watching Little Bird (18 August, 9pm, Sky Atlantic), I was reminded that TV is capable of more than mere entertainment, something we lose sight of when we think of it as a purely profit-or loss-making enterprise. I felt the visceral anger and sadness of this story of a First Nations woman caught between cultures, robbed by forces beyond her control and stonewalled by the authorities. Set in Canada, the attitude, if not the events, feel shamefully familiar...

Published for the first time this month, the Irish writer’s record of his months in pre-war Germany is a fascinating insight into his understanding of, and unease with, Nazism War was not yet on the immediate horizon when Samuel Beckett visited the German city of Hamburg in October 1936, but after watching the apoplexy that Adolf Hitler’s braying induced in ordinary Germans, the Irish playwright was certain that peace could not last. “They’ll need to fight soon (or burst),” he noted in his diary on 6 October. The six notebooks that Beckett compiled during his six-month journey across Germany between late September 1936 and April 1937, published for the first time by German publisher Suhrkamp on 20 August this year, put paid to a commonly held view of the author of Waiting for Godot as a poet of pure pessimism, interested in despair and stasis but unconcerned by real-life politics...

The BCI Council subsequently modified the Chairman’s order and said that all NALSAR 2026 graduates would be entitled to enrol with the State Bar Council of their choice

Police bust illicit liquor stockpiling operation; van driver arrested, key accused under scanner. Seizure as part of Operation Toofan

China has “strongly condemned” Japanese leaders for visiting the controversial Yasukuni Shrine and making an offering on the 81st anniversary of Japan’s announcement of surrender in World War II. Beijing lodged a formal protest after Japanese defence chief Shinjiro Koizumi visited the shrine on Saturday. China and many other countries in Asia view the site as a symbol of Japanese militarism. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi did not visit the site in person but she sent a ritual offering to...

M.r Abdullah said the people in PoK would have been fighting to join Jammu and Kashmir if the Centre had not revoked the special constitutional guarantees in 2019

Notably, Vande Mataram song was not played at the function in accordance with direction of Union government

Greenhouses and rented plots are lifelines for Gaza farmers, helping them grow crops despite the extensive destruction.

A powerful 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck off Indonesia’s eastern Flores island early Saturday, leaving at least 20 people dead and several others trapped beneath collapsed buildings. Emergency crews are racing to reach affected communities as landslides blocked roads and residents fled to higher ground amid fears of a tsunami.

Addressing soldiers through Akashvani on the eve of the 80th Independence Day, Mr. Singh highlighted the transformation of the defence sector over the past 12 years under initiatives such as ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ and ‘Make in India’

"What a shame that those who oppose CJP chose India's Independence Day to try to muzzle our voice. We will not be intimidated by such cowardly acts!" the outfit said in a post

Murder cases fell by 10.1%, dacoity by 31.32% & riots by 18.97%. More than 50,000 appointments made into police force in the past one and half years.

The government has been taking a fortnightly review to ensure domestic availability of the retail fuels

We are launching a nationwide talent hunt for children aged 5 to 15 to identify prospects in every corner of the country. They will get special training to become world class athletes, says Prime Minister Modi.

The Prime Minister also warned against individuals with Maoist mindset — “dimagi Naxals” as he termed them — who have entrenched themselves within the corridors of power in the country for decades

Assembly Hall, Edinburgh Can you dance flamenco to Eye of the Tiger? Of course, says the company Yllana, in a flamboyant celebration of breaking down barriers You don’t need to know anything about flamenco to enjoy Flamenc Oh!! That overuse of exclamation marks gives you an idea of the subtlety of this fun/silly dance-comedy by Spanish company Yllana, based on flamenco’s battle between tradition and modernity (which is a real thing in the flamenco world, with its division between purists and progressives). Here is our patriarch with his straight spine and authoritarian streak, banning all music other than flamenco from his family. There’s mother and daughter in polka dots and frills, the son forever trying (and failing) to impress his dad, and their hunk of a cousin who has returned from his travels with some new guitar chords and a love of the blues, ready to upset the status quo...

US President Donald Trump threatened to declare the Strait of Hormuz US territory after vowing to “finish defeating” Iran in a New York rally on Friday. Tehran rejected the claim on Saturday, with Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi saying the strategic waterway “will remain Iranian” and can be opened or closed only at Iran’s command. Follow our live blog for the latest updates.

Morocco has added barbed wire and more police near Spain’s Ceuta enclave after online calls for another mass crossing.

Taiwan parliament ends deadlock, ensuring vital drone programme funding amid rising cross-strait tensions with Beijing.

Displaced by Sudan’s war, Sahra now leads a refugee school where education offers children safety and hope.

Government has announced a bonus of ₹4,500 to government employees and teachers. Employees not entitled to the bonus will be eligible for ₹3,000 as special festival allowance

Russia is confounding expectations that its influence in the Middle East would drastically decline after the downfall of Syria’s Assad regime in 2024. At the time, Moscow operated about 100 military facilities in the war-torn country, following its intervention in the Syrian civil conflict from 2015 to prop up then president Bashar al-Assad in alliance with Iran and its regional proxies. When Assad was forced to flee to Moscow, and control of most of Syria was seized by Islamist rebels led by...

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung proposed talks with North Korea to formally end the long-running Korean war, as Pyongyang deepens ties with Russia while asserting its status as an “irreversible” nuclear state. The two Koreas remain technically at war because their 1950-53 conflict, triggered by a North Korean attack, ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty. Lee made the proposal in his speech at a ceremony marking the anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japan’s 1910–45...

“We have made a new Parliament, a new PM house. Why have we not been able to build new schools in our villages? Do we not consider the children of farmers and labourers the future of our country?”, Abhijeet Dipke asked.

The arrest is part of Project Zero, a Statewide initiative launched by Vigilance department to curb corruption in government offices

Updates from second Test between the Wallabies and Brave Blossoms Kick off time in Townsville is 3pm AEST/2pm JST/6am BST Any thoughts? Get in touch on email Just the five changes from Eddie Jones after his team’s promising display last weekend. Among the quintet coming into the starting lineup is Harry Hockings, born a couple of hours along the Bruce Highway in Prosperpine. 1 Takato Okabe, 2 Hayate Era, 3 Shuhei Takeuchi, 4 Harry Hockings, 5 Warner Dearns (c), 6 Ben Gunter, 7 Tiennan Costley, 8 Faulua Makisi, 9 Naoto Saitō, 10 Ryunosuke Ito, 11 Yoshitaka Yazaki, 12 Dylan Riley, 13 Shunsuke Uenobo, 14 Haruto Kida, 15 Takuro Matsunaga. Reserves: 16 Mamoru Harada, 17 Sojiro Otsuka, 18 Izi Sword, 19 Jack Cornelsen, 20 Michael Leitch, 21 Itsuki Kamimura, 22 Samisoni Tua, 23 Kazuma Ueda...

The US President has brushed off reports of dire conditions and a mental health crisis aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.

FM Abbas Araghchi says Iran is working with Oman on routes, but Hormuz shipping depends on US meeting conditions.

The controversy surrounding “Mega” DSC-2025 has led to 335 cases being filed in courts, including three cases in the Supreme Court and three PILs concerning various aspects of the recruitment process

French, German and British diplomats are working on a format for future negotiations — even if Russia has shown little interest.

Deaths spiked in northwest Europe in June, where countries were unprepared for extreme heat that hit much of the continent.

The Taliban have Afghanistan in a chokehold that spares no one. But threats are starting to crack their veneer of stability and control.

A June heat wave in Belgium and neighboring countries exposed a lethal lack of readiness. That’s a risk as another wave hits Europe.

Ageing facilities offering daily refuge face funding threat as record temperatures parch the countryside Suzy Bernard took a breath and jumped into the deep end of her village swimming pool with a splash. “There’s a wonderful feeling of wellbeing in the water,” said the former hospital healthcare assistant, who recently learned to swim aged 75 and was now gliding along with her daughter and grandson...

India marked its 80th Independence Day at Delhi’s historic Red Fort.

The US claims it destroyed Iran’s missile capability, but a former White House adviser calls that a “pipe dream".

ADNOC confirmed that one of its vessels was attacked while transiting the Strait of Hormuz on the evening of August 14, 2026

Trinamool leader repeatedly claimed a crowd had gathered outside the circuit house chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’

President’s remarks assume significance against the backdrop of the recent student-led protests over demands for systemic reforms following irregularities and paper leaks in competitive examinations

An Army band played the tune of ‘Vande Mataram’ as the guests present on the occasion sung the national song

PK Narayanan, one of the few remaining performers of the Raveli pattu, is striving to keep the oral tradition alive

The murderers, who were drugged, had used rods, logs and other weapons; it had happened in a broad daylight close to the college grounds in Coimbatore district, said A. Kathir executive director of Evidence, an NGO

Sexual violence is not the preserve of ‘monsters’. It can also emerge from ordinary assumptions about flirting, persistence, seniority, alcohol, women’s accommodation of male behaviour, and men being disinclined to intervene when another man crosses a line

On August 15, 1947, Congress and Communist workers defied restrictions to hoist the tricolour, while the Nizam’s supporters celebrated ‘Independent Hyderabad Day’

US President Donald Trump said he will “soon” declare the Strait of Hormuz a US territory.

As detainees granted 'alternative' to imprisonment, US welcomes release as crucial step for Venezuela's reconciliation.

For years, the conventional wisdom in Washington was that America’s China policy was moving in one direction: tougher. But walk into a classroom at Georgetown, Rice or another US university where the next generation of diplomats and foreign-policy professionals is being trained, and the picture looks less settled. A generation that has grown up with China’s rise is increasingly sceptical of the idea that Beijing should be treated primarily as America’s great strategic rival. That matters because...

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Saturday sent a ritual offering to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, while the country’s defence chief Shinjiro Koizumi visited the site as Japan marks the 81st anniversary of the end of the second world war. Sources have said Takaichi, a conservative, is likely to refrain from visiting the war-linked shrine on the war anniversary. The shrine honours Japanese leaders convicted as war criminals. Visits by Japanese prime ministers and lawmakers...

Authorities urge coastal residents to move inland or to higher ground following the quake near Flores Island.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh says Rahul’s comments, made at a Congress event, had been 'extremely low-level and condemnable’; Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Health Minister J.P. Nadda to condemn remarks

This strait will be opened and ⁠closed only under Iran’s command, and so long as you do not accept the reality of defeat and stop indulging in fantasies, Iran will continue to enforce the blockade, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said

With 119 EROs endowed with quasi judicial powers set to adjudicate over 94 lakh cases in this short window, they would get less than a minute’s time to verify each elector even if they worked 24 hours a day

The nation will is commemorating the 80th Independence Day, a red-letter day in the history of India

Locals in impoverished areas say the insufficient government response after the earthquake speaks to a broader trend.