Backlog in NHS genome service leaves families facing long wait for results

Exclusive: Experts say delays of more than a year risk children not getting relevant treatments or support Families of children with rare genetic disorders are being made to wait more than a year for genome sequencing results under a flagship NHS programme, the Guardian has learned. Senior doctors said worsening backlogs in the Genomics Medicines … Read more

Eastern Australia gas outlook improves but winter shortfall still possible for south, watchdog says

ACCC says better 2023 forecast due to increase in production estimates and less uncontracted LNG that can be exported Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast Eastern Australia’s gas supply outlook has improved, but there is still the prospect of a winter shortfall for southern states without piped supplies … Read more

Australian firearms registry ‘one step closer’, with cabinet decision expected mid-year

Renewed calls for database to track guns across the country sparked by fatal 2022 Wieambilla shooting Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast The creation of Australia’s first national firearms register “is one step closer to reality”, the attorney general Mark Dreyfus has declared. Dreyfus made the remark after … Read more

Majority-Black Georgia town fights to prevent railroad from seizing land

Sparta residents are trying to stop the Sandersville railroad and its influential owners from building a spur to a nearby quarry A majority-Black rural community in Georgia is battling to stop a railroad company from seizing private land for a new train line they say will cause environmental and economic harms. Residents of Sparta, a … Read more

‘The dominating issue’: judicial election will decide fate of abortion in Wisconsin

Control of state’s supreme court will ultimately decide fate of 1849 abortion ban that was revived in June, after Roe was overturned One weekend in late March, McKenzie Schroeder offered to drive her friend across the Wisconsin border into Illinois to get an abortion. Abortion has been illegal in Wisconsin since June, when the US … Read more