Presidential spokesperson says all those abducted from a Catholic school in Niger state last month are now free
Nigerian authorities say they have secured the release of a further 130 schoolchildren kidnapped from a Catholic school in November, after 100 were freed earlier this month.
“Another 130 abducted Niger state pupils released, none left in captivity,” presidential spokesperson Sunday Dare said on X, in a post accompanied by a photo of smiling children.
MPs and next of kin of prisoners Amu Gib, 30, and Kamran Ahmed, 28, call for immediate government intervention
Two Palestine Action-affiliated prisoners taking part in a hunger strike have been taken to hospital, as their next of kin and MPs expressed concern over prison conditions and called for immediate government intervention.
Amu Gib, 30, who was being held at HMP Bronzefield in Surrey while awaiting trial, is on day 50 of the hunger strike and 28-year-old Kamran Ahmed was being held at Pentonville prison in London and on day 42 of his hunger strike. The two are the latest of eight prisoners who have been admitted to hospital since the hunger strike action began on Balfour day, 2 November, according to Prisoners for Palestine.
The England and Wales Cricket Board is eager to avoid a mass clearout of England’s senior leadership in the wake of another humiliating away Ashes series defeat.
England’s hopes of winning the urn were expunged inside 11 days for just the fourth time in the contest’s 143-year history with Sunday’s 82-run defeat in Adelaide, and a fourth Ashes whitewash is on the cards in Melbourne and Sydney, unless the tourists can arrest a dismal 18-match run without a win in Australia that stretches back to 2011.
Saturday’s arrivals were the most on a single day in December and take the annual total to 41,455
More than 800 people crossed the Channel in small boats on Saturday, a record for a day in December, according to the Home Office.
December is traditionally one of the quietest months for Channel crossings, as a combination of low temperatures and stormy weather makes the journey particularly difficult. Poor visibility and less daylight have also been cited as factors influencing the crossings.
The hosts and favourites got off to a winning start after goals from Brahim Diaz and Ayoub El Kaabi
The teams take to the field in Rabat, the stadium looks close to full, the home fans are expectant. Can Morocco set a standard?
On the field at Rabat, at the Complexe Sportif Prince Moulay Abdellah, CAF President Dr Pratrice Motsepe has takes to declare the AFCON open. Sadly, UK coverage of the opening ceremony has been non-existent.
Well they were off to a slow start. The running back quickens matters with a mazy run through to the left then back across the field to avoid two free defenders. They just can’t quite bring him down and Cook levels it up.
Official indicates vessel is subject to sanctions after Trump’s ‘blockade’ on sanctioned tankers in and out of Venezuela
US Coast Guard officials said on Sunday that they are tracking an oil tanker in international waters close to Venezuela, according to media reports, marking the second such action over the weekend – and the third within the past week.
One official who spoke to Reuters, who first reported the pursuit, indicated that the tanker is subject to sanctions but did not provide the vessels precise location. An official also confirmed Sunday’s pursuit to the Associated Press, and said that it involved “a sanctioned dark fleet vessel that is part of Venezuela’s illegal sanctions evasion”.
There is simply no stopping this Aston Villa machine, cylinders pumping, exclusively handcrafted by Unai Emery, the manager who reacted to Morgan Rogers’ winning goal against Manchester United by launching his jacket into the night sky. “Birmingham, are you listening?” came the chorus from the home support but this was another victory with wider implications.
For now Villa, third and three points behind Premier League leaders Arsenal, are firmly in the title race, two more brilliant Rogers goals earning a 10th straight win in all competitions and rendering Matheus Cunha’s well-taken equaliser nothing more than a consolation. A frustrating defeat for Ruben Amorim was compounded by his captain, Bruno Fernandes, being forced off through injury at half-time.
Unexpected arrival is a boon for birdlife in New Zealand, where there are only 500 takahē left
A pair of rare native New Zealand takahē birds who were believed infertile have stunned staff at the world’s largest urban eco-sanctuary, after hatching a “miracle” chick.
The roughly seven-week old chick was discovered inside Zealandia, a fully fenced eco-sanctuary 10 minutes from Wellington’s city centre, in November, but its arrival has been a closely guarded secret to ensure its safety.
Photos suggest former Duke of York served as Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s pass to British high society
The former Prince Andrew at Sandringham lying across the laps of five elegantly dressed women as Ghislaine Maxwell looks on; Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein on a shoot near Balmoral; the three of them peering down from the royal box at Ascot.
The images are just some of the “Epstein files” released by the US Department of Justice on Friday.
Survey adds to experts’ concern about addiction risk and highlights support for plan to ban sales to under-18s
One in eight teenagers aged 14 to 17 have used nicotine pouches, a survey has found, adding to health experts’ concern about their growing popularity.
Users hold the small sachets, which look like mini-teabags and are often flavoured, in their mouths to enjoy the release of the nicotine they contain. They are also known as “snus”.
Kane scores again in Bayern’s 4-0 rout of Heidenheim
Barcelona secured a composed 2-0 La Liga victory at Villarreal on Sunday thanks to goals from Raphinha and Lamine Yamal in a match that tilted firmly in the visitors’ favour when the hosts were reduced to 10 men just before the break.
It took just 12 minutes for Barcelona to take the lead from the penalty spot after Santi Comesana blocked Raphinha with his back as the winger tried to break through and the Brazilian calmly converted the spot-kick.
All the incentives in Westminster politics militate against confronting difficult issues, but a failing government may as well try honesty
The formula for stable government, according to Britain’s constitution, is a big parliamentary majority and divided opposition. Sir Keir Starmer’s predicament proves that those conditions are not sufficient.
The prime minister’s inability to convince voters that he has an agenda for national renewal, and the demoralising effect that has had on the Labour party, make a leadership challenge look plausible after local elections next May. Maybe sooner.
Cutting-edge therapies exist, but the market cannot deliver them cheaply. Britain must build NHS capacity so that cures become collective goods, not expensive products
Just a small fraction of our 20,000 genes can cause disease when disrupted – yet that sliver accounts for thousands of rare disorders. The difficulty is: what can a doctor do to treat them? In a common condition such as type 2 diabetes, the underlying biology is similar for millions of patients. The doctor can prescribe metformin. But with a genetic disorder, the mutation might only affect a small number of people worldwide. In many cases, doctors won’t even know which mutation is responsible, let alone how to fix it.
Novel gene-editing breakthroughs are making headlines. But therapies are expensive and complex to develop. The cost of bringing any new drug to patients is now around $2bn, in part because, as Brian David Smith notes in New Drugs, Fair Prices, the “success rate, from discovery to market, is tiny” and there are approved treatments for “less than 10% of the 8,000 diseases that affect humans”. Commercial incentives, he argues, skew innovation towards lucrative cancer drugs and long-term treatments for large populations. Complex gene therapies for very rare conditions are seen as too costly to develop and too small to profit from.
2018 champion talks mental health following 3-1 win
‘I’m guilty of not expressing myself to people I trust’
Rob Cross doesn’t want to say what he saw at the children’s hospital in Cologne a couple of weeks ago. Some of the stories were “horrific”, he confides, but in any case they’re not his stories to tell. All he knows is that he went along with a few other players, after appearing in an exhibition the previous night, and it changed him.
“You see what people are going through,” he says. “And it puts life in perspective for people whose lives are sort of OK. Whose kids are OK. Sometimes we have to find a bit of good. It made me realise how lucky I am in life. There’s always someone out there going through something worse than what you’re going through. That’s why you need to talk.”
Putin’s top foreign policy aid says proposals could prolong conflict as talks with US negotiators are held in Miami
Russia has renewed its criticism of efforts by Europe and Ukraine to amend US proposals to end the war in Ukraine, saying they did not improve prospects for peace.
Vladimir Putin’s top foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters on Sunday that the proposed tweaks to Washington’s plan could prolong the conflict.
Striker hurt by Van de Ven tackle when opening scoring
MRI scan results to reveal length of spell on sidelines
Liverpool fear their record signing Alexander Isak has sustained a significant injury and is facing a lengthy period on the sidelines.
The league champions are waiting on the results of an MRI scan after the £125m man was injured against Tottenham in Saturday’s Premier League game. The 26-year-old sustained the problem while scoring the opener against Spurs – his second league goal of an already injury-hit debut season – in the 2-1 win after defender Micky van de Ven slid across and caught his leg as the striker planted it on the ground.
Decision takes the total number of new settlements to 69 in past few years as construction binge continues
Israel has approved a proposal for 19 new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank as the government pushes ahead with a construction binge in the territory that poses a further threat to the possibility of a Palestinian state.
It brings the total number of new settlements over the past few years to 69, a new record, according to the far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who has pushed a settlement expansion agenda in the West Bank. The latest include two that were previously evacuated during a 2005 disengagement plan.
People, including druids and pagans, come from across world to watch sunrise on shortest day of the year
Thousands of revellers gathered at Stonehenge in the early hours of Sunday morning to celebrate the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year.
Crowds amassed in the dark around the historical site in Wiltshire to watch the sunrise, with some dressed in traditional pagan clothing, just as they did to mark the sun rising on the summer solstice six months ago.
Emulating the bike-friendly highways enjoyed by our continental neighbours will take a lot more money and political will
Ever since Team GB’s velodrome successes at the 2008 Olympics, campaigners and government ministers have confidently predicted that Britain is about to become a nation of cyclists. There is just one problem: for the most part, it has not happened.
Apart from a very concentrated spike in bike use during Covid, the level of cycle trips in England has stayed broadly static for years, and things do not appear to be changing.
2 min United win a throw-in on the right, and then a free kick, which comes to nothing.
We have a minor celebrity in the tunnel! Kelly Osbourne, daughter of the late lamented Ozzy, is there and she’s wearing a Villa shirt. Is she playing? No, her son Sid is a mascot today. He’s not holding hands with John McGinn in the traditional fashion – he’s in his arms.
Exclusive: Thinktank’s findings undermine successive home secretaries’ statements about misuse of system in England and Wales
Asylum seekers are not abusing the modern slavery system in a widespread manner, according to a report from a centre-right thinktank that undermines statements from successive home secretaries.
The report from Bright Blue finds limited evidence that asylum seekers are falsely claiming to have been the victims of modern slavery to stay in the country, despite several home secretaries blaming the system for stopping them deporting more people.
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