Exclusive: Former New Zealand PM ‘based out of Australia’, according to spokesperson, after rumours she was looking for houses in Sydney

The former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern is living in Australia with her family, a spokesperson has confirmed.

“The family has been travelling for a few years now,” her office told the Guardian.

Vice-president makes announcement with Mehmet Oz, who says other states will be next after Minnesota

JD Vance announced on Wednesday that the Trump administration would “temporarily halt” more than a quarter-billion dollars in Medicaid reimbursements to the state of Minnesota, escalating Donald Trump’s newly announced “war on fraud”.

Vance said the action was to ensure Minnesota was “a good steward of the American people’s tax money”, part of its crackdown on the state following a fraud scandal linked to residents of the Somali community in Minneapolis, which prompted the administration to send thousands of federal immigration agents into Minneapolis and that resulted in the deaths of two US citizens and widespread protests.

Damning inquiry into services in England reveals falsification of medical records after ‘negligent’ care

• What is the national maternity and neonatal investigation and why was it launched?

• Cruel comments, racism and cover-ups: key findings from England’s maternity care report

Hospitals that cause harm and injury to women and babies during childbirth often resort to a “cover-up” of their mistakes, falsify medical records and deny bereaved parents answers, a damning report has found.

“Negligent” care has devastating emotional and psychological consequences for families, disputes between maternity staff have a “disastrous” impact on mothers, and ethnic minority and poorer women have worse outcomes because of racism and discrimination, Lady Amos said.

Banning families from being involved in investigations into the mistakes they encountered.

Conducting inquiries into errors which families think are poor quality and do not properly reflect what occurred.

Driving distressed families to instigate legal action as a way of getting at the truth after they were “denied openness and honesty in the aftermath of harm and bereavement”.

Failing to treat families who have lost a baby with compassion.

Supa Nova by Chanté Timothy, a graphic novel about a young Black girl with a love for science, won the children’s fiction category and inaugural children’s choice prize

Six female authors have been crowned winners of the 2026 Inclusive Books for Children (IBC) awards.

The literacy charity’s prizes celebrate the best UK-published inclusive titles for children aged one to nine. This year marks the second time that all the winners have been women since the prizes were launched in 2023.

Agitator whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon was hosted by senior adviser at US state department

The far-right activist Tommy Robinson has been hosted by the Trump administration for a meeting at the state department in Washington.

Robinson, 43, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was hosted by Joe Rittenhouse, a senior adviser at the state department.

Killing of Ruben Ray Martinez on 15 March 2025 in Texas was not disclosed by the department until media reported it

A grand jury on Wednesday rejected indictments over the fatal shooting last year of a US citizen by a federal immigration agent during a traffic encounter in Texas, prosecutors said.

The shooting of Ruben Ray Martinez on 15 March 2025 by a Homeland Security investigations agent wasn’t publicly disclosed by the Department of Homeland Security until the Associated Press and other media outlets reported it last week.

• Haji Wright and Jack Rudoni seal 2-1 comeback win

• Millwall beat Birmingham to keep up promotion push

Coventry extended their lead at the top of the Championship to five points after coming from behind to win 2-1 at Sheffield United, while Millwall went third by beating Birmingham City 3-0 on Wednesday.

After a run of two wins in eight games caused Frank Lampard’s men to blow a comfortable advantage in the race for promotion to the Premier League, Coventry have bounced back with three consecutive wins.

Vinícius Júnior ran to the corner and danced again, just as he had done in Lisbon a week ago, but this time all around him there was celebration. There was also relief. With 10 minutes left on a nervous night at the Santiago Bernabéu, he had been set free to put the ball past Anatoliy Trubin and Real Madrid into the last 16 of the Champions League.

Victory was his, 2-1 here, 3-1 on aggregate and well beyond that too, so he set off and shook his hips before the flag the same way he had eight days earlier, fans released from their fears, applauding, a point proved and passage secured. “I’m happy for him: he deserved it,” the Real head coach, Álvaro Arbeloa, said.

Federal officials search district chief Alberto Carvalho’s home, but allegations being examined remain unclear

The FBI raided the headquarters of the Los Angeles unified school district, the second largest school district in the US, as well as the home of Alberto Carvalho, the district’s superintendent, federal officials confirmed on Wednesday.

An unnamed source familiar with the investigation told the Associated Press that authorities served warrants that were part of an “ongoing investigation”.

Chipmaker’s quarterly earnings surpassed Wall Street’s expectations every quarter for multiple years now

Nvidia released its quarterly earnings on Wednesday, with the chipmaker revealing higher than expected revenues and extending its yearslong streak of surpassing Wall Street’s sky-high expectations.

The company receives the vast majority of its revenue from its data center business, which has been buoyed by the tech industry’s immense investment into AI infrastructure. On Wednesday, Nvidia reported 75% year-over-year growth of this vertical to $62.3bn. The world’s most valuable publicly traded company, Nvidia has dominated the chip market as its processing units have become the backbone of the artificial intelligence boom. The company also posted an enormous total profit for the fiscal year: $120bn.

• Captain says controversy overshadows Olympic gold win

• Trump quipped about inviting US women to White House

• Knight says there is respect and support with men’s team

Hilary Knight, the captain of the US women’s ice hockey team, has responded to comments made by Donald Trump after the Americans won gold at the Winter Olympics, calling the president’s quip a “distasteful joke”.

After the US men’s ice hockey team won gold on Sunday, Trump called into the locker-room celebration and invited the players to be his guests at Tuesday’s State of the Union address.

Record rainfall in famously arid California park has caused a wildflower eruption nearing levels of a superbloom

Death Valley and parts of southern California have erupted in wildflowers thanks to record rain that helped deliver spectacular blooms.

In the famously arid national park, the rare display has covered miles of the landscape in vibrant shades of yellow and purple.

Department commissioner will be Erin Dalton, who conducted outreach in Pennsylvania among unhoused communities

Zohran Mamdani, New York’s mayor, has hired Erin Dalton as a new commissioner of the city’s department of social services.

The hire comes as the new mayor has faced scrutiny over the city’s handling of its unhoused population following the deaths of at least 20 people who were found outdoors during an especially cold winter.

Rare clash off island’s coast took place amid oil embargo and heightened tensions between two countries

The Cuban interior ministry has said that border guards killed four people and wounded six more on a speedboat bearing a Florida registration off Cayo Falcones in Cuba’s Villa Clara province.

The Cuban government claimed that its border guards had been fired upon during the incident off the coast of Cuba. The alleged clash happened during heightened tensions between the United States and Cuba during an oil embargo that has led to an energy and humanitarian crisis on the island.

Axon sees ‘major opportunities’ as Congress proposes $20m for ICE body cameras but data privacy experts warn of risks

The largest body-camera maker in the US celebrated its latest financial results on Tuesday – reporting record revenue and forecasting major growth – as it prepares to cash in on the Department of Homeland Security’s planned rapid acquisition and deployment of these devices nationwide.

In Tuesday’s earnings presentation, body-camera maker Axon, which also makes the well-known Taser device, announced that it blew past Wall Street expectations with $797m in revenue, up 39% year-over-year.

• Saffery Champness alleged to have been auditor for Sale

• Saracens were fined £5.36m and relegated in 2020

Saracens will consider their position over an alleged undeclared conflict of interest at the centre of the disciplinary process into the 2019 salary cap scandal. The club were fined an unprecedented £5.36m for salary cap breaches over the previous three seasons and were relegated to the Championship, but the punishment has come under fresh scrutiny with these new allegations.

Saracens point to an allegation made about the accounting firm Saffery Champness and claims that the level of fine handed down was “largely based upon advice provided to PRL”.

Antonio Tejero, who has died aged 93, was part of rightwing network whose efforts were thwarted by King Juan Carlos

The Spanish officer who led his armed followers into the Spanish congress in a failed military coup in 1981 has died on the same day that the socialist-led government declassified documents relating to the murky attempt to overthrow the country’s post-Franco democracy.

Antonio Tejero, who died aged 93, was part of a network of rightwing police and military officers whose efforts to seize power were thwarted after King Juan Carlos refused to support the coup and ordered the generals to obey the democratic constitutional order.

News of former Harvard president’s resignation comes ‘in connection with ongoing review’ of Epstein files

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Larry Summers, former president of Harvard University, will resign from teaching at the end of the academic year, a spokesperson confirmed to the Guardian.

The news of his formal resignation comes “in connection with the ongoing review by the University of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that were recently released by the government”, a Harvard spokesperson, Jason Newton, said in a statement.

The State of the Union address has been in decline for decade as a TV spectacle, and Trump probably hastened that trend

In fulfillment of clause 1 of section 3 in article II of the US constitution, Donald Trump duly gave Congress “Information of the State of the Union” last night.

Information … and more information. At an hour and 47 minutes, this was the longest State of the Union address in history. As he has so often done in the past, Trump bobbed and weaved impressively (“the weave” is his own term for his meandering speaking style). He zigged and zagged, taunting Democrats for much of the speech (he called Zohran Mamdani a “communist” and took pot shots at Democrats throughout the night), while claiming to be a unifier when the mood struck.

Israel welcomes move described by Palestinian Authority as undermining possibility of an independent state

The US will provide on-site consular services in two Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank for the first time, breaking with previous policy, in a move that has been criticised by Palestinian officials as “a clear violation of international law”.

In a post on X, the US embassy in Jerusalem said that as part of an initiative to mark the 250th anniversary of US independence, it would provide Americans with routine passport services in the West Bank settlement of Efrat on Friday “for one day only”.

Democrats accuse president’s address of litany of lies as Republicans hail his bullish claims about year back in office

• US politics – live updates

Congressional Democrats lined up on Tuesday night to call Donald Trump a liar and Republicans said America had never been greater. The country’s longest-ever State of the Union address had ended, and the two parties had, again, watched entirely different speeches.

Trump’s address ran for nearly two hours, with the president touching on tariffs, border security, military recruitment and energy production, among other topics. He told the country the economy was booming, inflation was under control and a golden age was at hand, but Democrats were not persuaded.

With Republicans facing grim poll figures, Trump promised action to influence the vote citing debunked fraud claims

Donald Trump once again railed against imagined fraud in America’s elections on Tuesday during the State of the Union address.

“They want to cheat,” he said of Democrats. “They have cheated. And their policy is so bad that their only way to get elected is to cheat. And we’re going to stop it.”

The leadership shown by four Premier League players in highlighting racism last weekend must be replicated, and addressing representation is part of that

Recent incidents involving Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Vinícius Júnior have offered a new layer to the question Kick It Out is often asked when discrimination occurs: is it getting worse or are more people reporting it?

The question has been posed again this week after four Premier League players highlighted racist abuse sent to them on social media after matches last weekend.

⚽ Champions League updates from the 8pm GMT kick-off
⚽ Live scores | Read today’s Football Daily | Email Scott

85 min: Krstović one-twos with Zalewski down the middle … and he’s clear! But Kobel reads the danger and comes racing out of his box to blooter clear. The keeper takes a whack for his trouble, but Krstović was within his rights to compete for the ball with so much on the line. Great play all round.

82 min: Atalanta counter, and Samardžić dances his way in from the right, before lashing a low diagonal drive inches wide of the left-hand post. Kobel wasn’t getting to that.