Home Office drive to stop small boats crossing Channel is handing more power to people smugglers, report finds

The UK’s policy to stop asylum seekers from crossing the Channel in small boats has led to an increase in violence, deaths and smuggler control, but has not deterred arrivals, according to a report by human rights organisations.

The 176-page report from Humans for Rights Network, includes contributions from 17 refugee and human rights organisations operating in northern France and six in the UK.

Exclusive: Justice secretary to announce measures aimed at countering illicit finance as well as bribery in public services

The UK will no longer be a haven for dirty money and dictators’ laundered assets, David Lammy is to promise as he announces a new anti-corruption strategy also aimed at tackling bribery and other misconduct across government and public services.

Setting out the plan in a speech in London on Monday, Lammy, the justice secretary and deputy prime minister, will announce a series of initiatives including extra funding for an elite anti-corruption police unit.

Gunmen abducted 315 pupils and staff last month from St Mary’s school in Niger state as part of spate of kidnappings

Nigerian authorities have secured the release of 100 kidnapped schoolchildren taken by gunmen from a Catholic school last month, a UN source and local media said on Sunday, though the fate of another 165 students and staff thought to remain in captivity remained unclear.

In November 315 students and staff were kidnapped from St Mary’s co-educational boarding school in north-central Niger state, as the country buckled under a wave of mass abductions reminiscent of the infamous 2014 Boko Haram abduction of schoolgirls in Chibok.

• Forward may be dropped from Champions League squad

• Saudi clubs set to renew interest during transfer window

Mohamed Salah could be omitted from Liverpool’s Champions League trip to Milan to play Inter on Tuesday after his outspoken attack on the club and Arne Slot.

Salah’s future at Anfield is in question after the incendiary interview he gave at Leeds on Saturday, in which he accused the club of throwing him under a bus. The 33-year-old also claimed he no longer has a relationship with Slot, who omitted the forward from his starting lineup for a third game in succession.

Police say the Edenderry home was deliberately set alight, leaving two dead and a third person seriously injured

A murder investigation has been launched after a 60-year-old woman and a four-year-old boy died in a fire in County Offaly in the Republic of Ireland.

Emergency services extinguished the blaze at a house in the town of Edenderry at about 8pm on Saturday but were unable to save the woman and child.

Dodgy character names, zero subtlety, a dubious approach to female roles … Russell T Davies’s show about fishfolk is entertaining – but feels like a wasted opportunity to make genuinely great TV

The fishmen cometh. Or, to put it another way – The War Between the Land and the Sea, the long-awaited Doctor Who spin-off from Russell T Davies concentrating on the adventures of Unit rather than the double-hearted man from Gallifrey, is finally here.

RTD stalwart Russell Tovey stars as Barclay, an everyman figure who soon – two excellent puns incoming – finds himself out of his depth, nay a fish out of water, as he is forced to take the lead in the geopolitical crisis that surrounds him. Barclay is a low-level clerk with Unit who, through the kind of bureaucratic snafu that you may in your salad days have believed was confined to fictional romps aimed largely at children over the festive period until age and experience poured slugs into them, ends up being part of the operation sent to deal with the discovery by a group of Spanish fishers of – well, fishmen. Fishfolk.

Georgia lawmaker says colleagues who made fun of president before 2024 win now support him out of fear

Republicans in Congress privately made fun of Donald Trump only to come around to support him when he won their party’s 2024 White House nomination, outgoing GOP House member Marjorie Taylor Greene said on Sunday.

“I watched many of my colleagues go from making fun of him, making fun of how he talks, making fun of me constantly for supporting him, to when he won the primary in 2024, they all started – excuse my language, Lesley – kissing his ass,” Greene, a Georgia Republican, said in a clip of an interview that is set to air on Sunday on CBS’s 60 Minutes program.

West African Ecowas forces sent to country after group of soldiers announced dissolution of government on state TV

West African troops were deployed to Benin on Sunday after what the country’s president described as an unsuccessful coup attempt.

Benin’s president, Patrice Talon, said on Sunday that the situation was “totally under control” after security forces acted to end a coup attempt by a group of soldiers who attacked state institutions.

Trump team faces mounting pressure as members of Congress allege that the deadly attack was unlawful

US Democrats on Sunday pushed the Trump administration to release video of a second strike on an alleged drug boat incapacitated in the Caribbean, continuing to escalate pressure on the Pentagon amid accusations the attack was unlawful.

Eleven people died in the 2 September attack, including two men killed in a follow-up strike as they reportedly clung to wreckage for an hour. That killing has been met with intense scrutiny and accusations of war crimes after the Washington Post reported defense secretary Pete Hegseth gave an order to “kill them all”. Adm Frank Bradley of the US navy, who oversaw the attack, told lawmakers on Thursday there was no such order – and the Pentagon has defended the legality of the attack.

• Reporters and photographers barred from Amex Stadium

• Guardian says reporting is in the public interest

Brighton & Hove Albion have banned the Guardian’s reporters and photographers from attending matches at the Amex Stadium after it reported on allegations relating to the Premier League club’s owner, Tony Bloom.

The club notified the Guardian on Sunday to say it felt it “would be inappropriate for journalists and photographers from the Guardian to be accredited to matches at the Amex, starting from Sunday’s game against West Ham”. The move follows reports in the Guardian that have raised questions from MPs about the activities of Bloom, a billionaire who has made his money from gambling.

Open valve in heating system affects 300 to 400 items just weeks after a brazen jewel theft raised security concerns

A water leak in late November damaged several hundred works in the Louvre’s Egyptian department, the Paris museum said on Sunday, weeks after a brazen jewel theft raised concerns over its infrastructure.

“Between 300 and 400 works” were affected by the leak discovered on 26 November, the museum’s deputy administrator, Francis Steinbock, said, describing them as “Egyptology journals” and “scientific documentation” used by researchers.

Pushing for the release of the jailed leader could prove central to the peace that Donald Trump claims to seek in the Middle East

In a sort-of ceasefire, the killings – including of children – have slowed, not stopped. Israeli military operations continue to displace hundreds of families in Gaza. Aid has increased but Israel is still blocking vital supplies. Palestinians desperately require security, humanitarian relief and reconstruction. But they need and expect a political horizon too. Donald Trump’s plans make only the vaguest and most conditional reference to a Palestinian state, and Israelis – as well as their ultra-right government – have entrenched their opposition since the atrocities of 7 October 2023. Yet after two years of annihilation, Palestinian nationhood has won international support that many thought unimaginable.

The political fate of Palestinians is bound to the personal fate of Marwan Barghouti. After more than two decades in an Israeli jail for murder, the charismatic 66-year-old is by far the most popular Palestinian leader, widely regarded as the only figure capable of uniting factions riven by ideology and enmity. Though a member of Fatah, Mr Barghouti has criticised abuses by the Palestinian Authority and has won respect within Hamas ranks. He has led Palestinian prisoners, while the PA’s old guard are seen as self-serving, ineffective, unaccountable and essentially as security contractors for Israel in the West Bank.

• Wing’s late try key to Northampton 35-27 away win

• Charlie Atkinson’s late tries help Gloucester see off Castres

George Hendy’s late try ensured a winning start for last season’s beaten Champions Cup finalists, as Northampton saw off Pau 35-27 at the Stade du Hameau.

With the score locked at 27-27 with two minutes remaining, wing Hendy raced in at the corner to edge Saints ahead before Fin Smith’s penalty in the dying moments sealed his side’s thrilling win in their opening pool game.

Appointment marks a rapid political transformation for a former Tory donor and potential candidate for MP

The formerly Conservative-supporting boss of the supermarket Iceland is to be made a Labour peer when the party appoints another 25 representatives to parliament’s upper house later this month.

Keir Starmer will appoint Richard Walker to the House of Lords, the Guardian understands, the culmination of an unusual and rapid political transformation for someone named as a prospective Tory MP candidate a little over three years ago.

Tech moguls may foolishly hope to stay forever young, but others could benefit too from evidence of the human body’s dynamic and varied journey through life

Ageing can feel remarkably sudden. One morning you awake to find new aches, or lapses in strength and memory that you could swear were not present just a few days prior. We do not literally age overnight, but as research is increasingly showing, we may not do so in a steady, linear path either.

Over the past decade a multitude of studies have suggested that ageing – at least for certain organs and bodily systems – may actually consist of long periods of stability, punctuated by inflection points or periods of rapid biological change. This shift in thinking has raised hopes for anti-ageing medicines. But it could also make us rethink our attitude to ageing in general, viewing it as a dynamic and varied journey – rather than simply a slow march of attrition and breakdown.

• Steelers edge Ravers in key AFC North match

• Get in touch with Graham via email

It’s GOOD! Ravens 3-0 Steelers 10:58, 1st quarter

Tyler Loop boots one from 36 yards to give the Ravens an early lead in the battle for the AFC North.

• Champions’ 1-0 loss first league reverse since May 2024

• Manchester United beat West Ham; Spurs see off Villa

Chelsea’s record-breaking unbeaten run in the Women’s Super League was brought to an end with a shock result as Everton won away against the defending champions, who had not lost any of the previous 34 league matches.

Everton’s 1-0 victory inflicted Sonia Bompastor’s first defeat as a WSL manager after a remarkable 18 months in charge, and was Chelsea’s first loss in the league since going down 4-3 at Liverpool on 1 May 2024 when Emma Hayes was still at the helm.

Exclusive: Watchdog finds 14% of cases not put on hospital waiting lists, with many reporting worsening health and rising anxiety

One in seven people in England who need hospital care are not receiving it because their GP referral is lost, rejected or delayed, the NHS’s patient watchdog has found.

Three-quarters (75%) of those trapped in this “referrals black hole” suffer harm to their physical or mental health as a result of not being added to the waiting list for tests or treatment.

There will be ample time to assess adequately whether or not Wilfried Nancy can succeed as the manager of Celtic. In the meantime, it is worth pondering how on earth the club got into this pickle.

By the time Kieran Tierney cracked home a stoppage-time goal against Hearts, ordinarily the trigger for a cavalry charge by those in green and white, the stadium was all but empty. Hope had been abandoned by a supporter base who seem – rightly – to flick between mutiny and bewilderment.

There are raindrops depicted on Manchester City’s third kit, with a deliberate nod to the often unsettled weather. Seeing the strip, what catches the eye first, though, is the fluorescent, neon green socks. You cannot fail to notice them and that is now also true of Manchester City in this season’s Women’s Super League title race; a team that quietly went under the radar initially, scarcely being spoken about as contenders, are now unmissable as they keep on winning, shining bright with a six-point lead at the top of the table.

Their latest victory, their ninth in a row in the league, not unlike the climate their kit honours, was not always particularly pretty. They spent well over an hour being frustrated by a Leicester side who were content to keep 11 players behind the ball with a deep, well-organised back five, but this is the sort of game, on a wet lunchtime in the East Midlands, when teams who go on to win titles manage to find a way through. Eventually, Manchester City did so, and then some, with two goals and an assist from Khadija Shaw delivering a 3-0 victory that more closely reflected their control of the contest than the 0-0 scoreline on the 73-minute mark had suggested. The visitors had 75.5% of the possession and 30 shots at goal compared to Leicester’s two.

Former Beatle argues use of terms for meat-free products ‘encourages attitudes essential to our health’

Paul McCartney has joined calls for the EU to reject efforts to ban the use of terms such as “sausage” and “burger” for vegetarian foods.

The former Beatle has joined eight British MPs who have written to the European Commission arguing that a ban approved in October by the European parliament would address a nonexistent problem while slowing progress on climate goals.

Moscow welcomes White House document critical of the EU as talks to end the Ukraine war enter a key phase

The Kremlin has heaped praise on Donald Trump’s latest national security strategy, calling it an encouraging change of policy that largely aligns with Russian thinking.

The remarks follow the publication of a White House document on Friday that criticises the EU and says Europe is at risk of “civilisational erasure”, while making clear the US is keen to establish better relations with Russia.

Egyptian’s calculated outburst is a challenge to management and their support for embattled Arne Slot

Mohamed Salah’s relationship with Liverpool is broken. That is abundantly clear after the incendiary interview at Elland Road on Saturday night that also poses a test of the club’s relationship with Arne Slot. The next revelation will be the extent of internal support for the coach who delivered Liverpool’s record-equalling 20th league title eight months ago.

Salah may have been emotional having been on the bench for the third successive game, but stunning waiting reporters not only by stopping to speak but by dropping a series of grenades during a post-match interview lasting more than seven minutes was not a case of heart ruling head. It never is when one of the greatest players to pull on the red shirt deigns to address the media. Whether it is criticism of contract negotiations, applying a little more pressure to get an agreeable deal done or, in this instance, piling more problems on Slot, Salah’s words are calculated to achieve what he wants.