Top story: House price boom helps wealthy extend gains

Morning everyone. I’m Martin Farrer bringing you the top stories from Britain and around the world.

Research by a leading thinktank has confirmed what every middle-income young adult already knows – the chance of them owning their own home has “collapsed” over the past 20 years. For 25- to 34-year-olds earning between £22,200 and £30,600 per year, home ownership fell to just 27% in 2016 from 65% two decades ago, the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows. The impact will be felt on social mobility. Middle-class young adults born in the 1980s now have no greater prospect of home ownership than people lower down the pay scale. Middle-income young adults born in the 1970s were almost as likely as their peers on higher wages to have bought their own home during young adulthood. The IFS notes that the children of people on high incomes are now significantly more likely than others to own their own home. The chancellor, Philip Hammond, abolished stamp duty for first-time buyers in his budget to help younger people. But the maths of housing affordability are against him. Average house prices have grown about seven times faster than the average incomes of young adults since 1998, according to the IFS.

‘Massacre, then a McDonald’s’ – The suspect in the Florida school shooting fled the scene by dropping his gun and backpack and blending in with fleeing pupils, officials have revealed. Nikolas Cruz, 19, then went to a Walmart, purchased a drink at a Subway restaurant and visited a McDonald’s. He was eventually arrested about 40 minutes after he left the fast food restaurant. Cruz, who has been charged with 17 counts of murder, appeared in court for the first time on Thursday dressed in an orange jumpsuit, with his hands cuffed at his waist. He spoke only to confirm his name while his lawyer said he was “remorseful” and a “broken human being”. As questions continued to be asked about how a teenager known to have mental health problems could buy an assault rifle lawfully, civic leaders and law enforcement officials in Florida called for action to prevent another massacre. Students at Stoneman Douglas high school recalled stories of heroism during the attack but also called for tougher gun controls. Donald Trump, in an address to the nation, emphasised tackling mental health issues rather than limiting access to guns. But he came under pressure to change his tune when the conservative New York Post made a surprise plea for him to act to “stop the slaughter”.

Finally, some perspective on the shooting. Research by our team in the US shows that there have been 1,624 mass shootings in the country in the past 1,870 days. That is defined as four or more people shot in one incident, not including the shooter.

Bennell warnings ‘ignored’ – Manchester City face questions about why they ignored warnings from one of their own coaches that the convicted paedophile Barry Bennell was a risk to children in their youth system in the late 1970s. The club was told it was “general knowledge” that Bennell, who was found guilty of abusing 50 boys yesterday, was a danger to youngsters. Yet he continued to work for the club for several years despite the warnings from youth team coach Steve Fleet, who says it was widely accepted in coaching circles that Bennell was “dodgy” and urged the club not to give him a job. City have set up a QC-led inquiry into the Bennell affair and Crewe Alexandria, where he worked after leaving City in 1985, are also under pressure to investigate which club officials knew about Bennell’s activities and when. Bennell faces spending the rest of life in prison when he is sentenced at Liverpool crown court on Monday.

‘Inept and damaging’ – Australia’s coalition government is at war with itself after an extraordinary week of political drama. It began with news that Barnaby Joyce, deputy prime minister and Johnny Depp nemesis, had left his wife for a former staffer nearly 20 years his junior, who is now pregnant with his child. But after days of discussion about whether Joyce could survive the scandal, the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, launched an unexpected attack on his deputy on Thursday, accusing him of a “serious error of judgment” and henceforth banning ministers from having sex with their staff. The urbane Turnbull, leader of the Liberals, doubled down on his attack on Friday only for Joyce, the more rumbustious leader of the junior coalition party, the Nationals, to accuse the PM of being “inept”.

Golden ticket – The organisers of the Man Booker prize have decided to mark its 50th anniversary by handing out a Golden award for the best-ever winner. The face-off will pit literary heavyweights such as Peter Carey (Oscar and Lucinda, True Story of the Kelly Gang), Margaret Atwood (The Blind Assassin) and Arundhati Roy (The God of Small Things) against each other, although the one to beat could be Salman Rushdie whose Midnight’s Children won the best-of-Booker prize on its 40th and 25th birthdays. This morning briefer can’t claim to have read all 49 winners but it would plump for the 1996 winner, Last Orders by Graham Swift.



Winter Olympics

Dom Parsons, a 100-1 outsider, has won Britain’s first medal at the Games after claiming a bronze in the men’s skeleton. Helped by a game-changing skinsuit, the PhD engineering student held his nerve to pip a Latvian racer, Martin Dukurs, to the podium. There are still medals to be won in cross-country skiing and speed skating today. You can follow all the action from Pyeongchang with our live blog – and keep up by subscribing to our special daily recap email during the Games.

You’d think that a ski shop owner in Pyeongchang would be making money hand over fist at the minute. But Jong Cheon-lim says his business is facing ruin with takings down 80% thanks to the closure of the slopes to accommodate the Games. He’s so incensed he’s taken his protest to the president’s seat in Seoul with a banner proclaiming “Olympic kill us!”.

Lunchtime read: Kremlin buries memory of fallen mercenaries

Up to 200 Russians are believed to have died in a US-led coalition bombing raid in eastern Syrian last week. If confirmed, it would be the most lethal clash between US and Russian citizens since the end of the cold war. But, writes our Moscow correspondent Marc Bennetts, you’re not going to hear much about it from the Kremlin because the victims were mercenaries employed by private contractors. The families of the dead men are angry at the Kremlin’s silence and fear they may never find out what happened to their loved ones. “They just threw them into battle like pigs,” said Yelena Matveyeva, the widow of Stanislav Matveyev, a 38-year-old mercenary who is believed to have died. Another widow said it was “political game” she didn’t understand.



Sport

Arsenal’s European ambitions warmed up in freezing Östersund with a 3-0 win that left Henrikh Mkhitaryan confident that his new club can go all the way and win the Europa League. Given Celtic’s defence has been subject to derision and occasional torture by top-level European opposition, keeping a clean sheet in a 1-0 win over Zenit St Petersburg may have pleased Brendan Rodgers as much as taking a slender advantage to Russia. And Chris Froome has admitted he will not target victory in his first race since a failed drug test last year became public knowledge but he insisted turmoil off the bike was not a factor in him being slightly below par.

Business

World stock markets appear to have put last week’s mini-crash behind them to post fresh gains on Thursday. Asian markets followed the US and Uk lead overnight, rising for the fifth straight day. The pound is buying $1.413 and €1.126.

The papers

Both the Telegraph and the Mail have the same splash – the end of the home-owning dream for young adults. The headline on the broadsheet is: “Middle-class millennials priced out of housing”.



The Guardian splash is that Manchester City ignored abuse warnings and allowed football coach Barry Bennell to continue training junior teams. The Mirror leads with news that police twice asked football star Gary Speed, who was coached by Bennell and later took his own life, whether he had been abused.

The Times leads with news that the government is to allow thousands of prisoners out early in order to relieve pressure on the nation’s jails, while the FT says Standard Life Aberdeen has been hit by the loss of its “£109bn Lloyds contract”.



The Sun has an almost indescribable story about the winner of The Apprentice and an exotic dancer dressed in a police uniform.

For more news: www.theguardian.com

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