‘I have sacked Robert Jenrick from the shadow cabinet, removed the whip and suspended his party membership with immediate effect,’ Tory leader says
Nigel Farage, speaking at his press conference in Scotland, has said that “of course” he has had conversations with Robert Jenrick, who was sacked by Kemi Badenoch this morning for planning to defect.
UPDATE: Farage said:
I have had conversations with a number of very senior conservatives over the course of the last week, the last month. A lot of them realise that for all the talk on 8 May the Conservative Party will cease to be a national party. They will be obliterated in Scotland, Wales, the red wall councils.
As far as Mr Jenrick is concerned, of course I have talked to Robert Jenrick. Was I on the verge of signing him up? No. But we have had conversations.
This morning I removed the Conservative whip from Robert Jenrick after dismissing him from the shadow cabinet.
I was very sorry to be presented with clear, irrefutable evidence, not just that he was preparing to defect, but he was planning to so in the most damaging way to the Conservative party and shadow cabinet colleagues.
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© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
A summit between Greenland, Denmark and Washington has done nothing to calm our fears as the US steps up its efforts to take control of my country
The year has started out in familiar fashion for Kalaallit – the people of Greenland. The US president has once again threatened to take control of the world’s biggest island, just like he did back in 2019 and in 2024/25. Yet it feels different this time.
This time it seems as if there are more concrete plans being shaped within the Trump administration to annex Greenland. Trump wants to “take” it “whether they like it or not”, as he stated at a recent White House press conference. And the only option he seems to be offering currently is to do it “either the nice way or the more difficult way” – whatever that means. These are obviously plans for the forceful theft of Indigenous land and a self-governing territory; they are loud threats against our democracy – threats that are coming directly from the US president, again and again, through the media. That is scary. And the Greenlandic people do not feel safe.
Malu Rosing is a Greenlandic writer and an Arctic adviser at the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs
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© Photograph: Kristian Tuxen Ladegaard Berg/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Kristian Tuxen Ladegaard Berg/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Kristian Tuxen Ladegaard Berg/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
These maps show the growing strategic importance of Greenland as Arctic ice melts due to global heating
Lying between the US and Russia, Greenland has become a critical frontline as the Arctic opens up because of global heating.
Its importance has been underscored by Donald Trump openly considering the US taking the island from its Nato partner Denmark, either by buying it, or by force.
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© Composite: AP / The Guardian / Guardian design
© Composite: AP / The Guardian / Guardian design
© Composite: AP / The Guardian / Guardian design
Former Uefa president – caught between moving on and settling scores – talks candidly about his downfall, Infantino and the snakepit of the game’s governance
“There are millions and millions of romantics in football,” Michel Platini says. He has been asked whether, after a decade frozen out of the game, its lustre has vanished for him. “Millions who share the ideas that I have. But in the end, it’s big business.”
It is an industry whose peaks Platini scaled before, in one of football’s biggest falls from grace, it spat him out. He maintains he would have become Fifa president if he had not been banned from football over an alleged unlawful payment made to him in 2011, when he was running Uefa, by Sepp Blatter. The scandal led to a criminal case but both men were acquitted for a second time, definitively so, by a Swiss appeals court last year. Nothing hangs over Platini any more, bar a conviction that he was cheated.
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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
US president’s friend Ronald Lauder – who first proposed Arctic expansion – is now making deals in the island
One day during his first term, Donald Trump summoned a top aide to discuss a new idea. “Trump called me down to the Oval Office,” John Bolton, national security adviser in 2018, told the Guardian. “He said a prominent businessman had just suggested the US buy Greenland.”
It was an extraordinary proposal. And it originated from a longtime friend of the president who would go on to acquire business interests in the Danish territory.
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© Photograph: Sean Zanni/Patrick McMullan/Getty Images
© Photograph: Sean Zanni/Patrick McMullan/Getty Images
© Photograph: Sean Zanni/Patrick McMullan/Getty Images
Long criticised as overcrowded and filthy, the city’s Zando marketplace has had an elegant and sustainable redesign
Selling vegetables was Dieudonné Bakarani’s first job. He had a little stall at Kinshasa Central Market in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Decades later, the 57-year-old entrepreneur is redeveloping the historic marketplace that gave him his start in business to be an award-winning city landmark.
Bakarani hopes to see the market, known as Zando, flourish again and reopen in February after a five-year hiatus. The design has already been recognised internationally; in December, the architects responsible for it won a Holcim Foundation award for sustainable design.
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© Photograph: Martin Argyroglo/THINK TANK architecture
© Photograph: Martin Argyroglo/THINK TANK architecture
© Photograph: Martin Argyroglo/THINK TANK architecture
Defender frustrated by lack of playing time this season
‘We need to see option to stay or if there’s options to go’
Andy Robertson has said his Liverpool future remains unresolved despite his contract expiring in five months and admitted this season’s limited playing time has been a frustration.
Liverpool have held talks over extending their vice-captain’s outstanding Anfield career but, with no firm offer on the table, Robertson’s next step is uncertain beyond competing in Scotland’s first World Cup for 28 years. The left-back, who turns 32 in March, turned down Atlético Madrid last summer and is likely to have several options should he become a free agent.
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© Photograph: Adam Davy/PA
© Photograph: Adam Davy/PA
© Photograph: Adam Davy/PA
‘Godfather of AI’ Yoshua Bengio says firms building powerful systems without appropriate guardrails
• Musk’s X to block Grok AI from creating sexualised images of real people
The scandal over the flood of intimate images on Elon Musk’s X created non-consensually by its Grok AI tool has underlined how the artificial intelligence industry is “too unconstrained”, according to a pioneer of the technology.
Yoshua Bengio, a computer scientist described as one of the modern “godfathers of AI”, said tech companies were building systems without appropriate technical and societal guardrails.
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© Photograph: Yui Mok/PA
© Photograph: Yui Mok/PA
© Photograph: Yui Mok/PA
Trump and his top advisers have previously hinted at their willingness to work with acting president Delcy Rodríguez
There are a few reasons that Donald Trump – now self-anointed acting President of Venezuela, as well as the United States – might be so excited about appropriating Venezuela’s oil.
Trump may be counting on some boost from cheap oil to the US economy: he is obsessed with the price of gas. As the midterm elections approach, he has become concerned about unemployment. Deeply imprinted memories of scarcity during the oil crises of the 1970s may prime his belief that cheap oil cures it all.
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© Photograph: Mandel Ngan,odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Mandel Ngan,odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Mandel Ngan,odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images
Conservative leader says she had ‘irrefutable evidence’ shadow justice secretary was plotting to defect in most damaging way
Robert Jenrick has been sacked from the shadow cabinet and suspended from the Conservative party after Kemi Badenoch said she was presented with “irrefutable evidence” that he was planning to defect from the party.
The shadow justice secretary was Badenoch’s leadership rival and had long been said to be prepared do a deal with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
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© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
Executive meeting moved to meet with interim manager
Martínez ‘didn’t want to play any more’ after knee injury
Sir Jim Ratcliffe and at least one of the Glazer family are at Manchester United’s training base on Thursday to support the interim manager, Michael Carrick, before Saturday’s derby with Manchester City.
United were due to hold an executive committee meeting of senior management at a different location but this was moved to Carrington so that they could speak to Carrick before the first game of his second caretaker tenure.
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© Photograph: Ash Donelon/Manchester United/Getty Images
© Photograph: Ash Donelon/Manchester United/Getty Images
© Photograph: Ash Donelon/Manchester United/Getty Images
Accounts removed or restricted on Twitch, Kick, YouTube, Threads, Facebook, Instagram, Snap, X, TikTok and Reddit in world-leading ban
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More than 4.7m social media accounts held by Australians who platforms have judged to be under 16 years of age were deactivated, removed or restricted in the first days after the ban came into effect in December, the prime minister has said.
After the social media ban came into effect on 10 December, the eSafety commissioner sent questions to each of the platforms covered by the ban asking how many accounts had been removed in order to comply with the law.
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© Photograph: Hollie Adams/Reuters
© Photograph: Hollie Adams/Reuters
© Photograph: Hollie Adams/Reuters
Amid grumbles, a winless run and negative banners, there are signs of life for Köln after a narrow loss to the champions
We didn’t see this coming, and not only because of the fog of pyro lingering over the RheinEnergieSTADION field that furnished us with 11 minutes of first-half stoppage time. In October’s equivalent fixture in the DFB Pokal, Köln had really rattled Bayern Munich in the first half and even taken the lead through Ragnar Ache – and still ended up on the wrong end of a 4-1 scoreline.
The world around Geißbockheim has not been a particularly happy place since. Effzeh came into this Englische Woche on a run of seven games without a win, which was even harder to swallow after an extremely promising start. Worse still, head coach Lukas Kwasniok – who started this season embracing the city and the club’s spirit with his wearing of replica shirts on the touchline – was recently targeted by Köln fans in Saturday’s draw at Heidenheim, with a banner reading “Kwasni Yok” (“yok” being no in Turkish), credited to the Wilde Horde ultras group.
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© Photograph: Christof Köpsel/Getty Images
© Photograph: Christof Köpsel/Getty Images
© Photograph: Christof Köpsel/Getty Images
As Tehran’s internet blackout means names of those killed in the uprising are only starting to emerge, the diaspora is reacting with shock, sadness and anger
The families of Iranians killed by the regime in its crackdown on anti-government protests over the past week have told the Guardian of their devastation on learning of their relatives’ deaths.
More than 2,500 people have been killed so far, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, but the death toll is expected to rise substantially as the regime eases a communications blackout imposed since 8 January.
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© Composite: courtesy
© Composite: courtesy
© Composite: courtesy
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