Judge last week’s budget in the light of our bold plans to sweep away red tape, tackle inactivity among young people and pursue a closer trading relationship with the EU

• Keir Starmer is the prime minister of the United Kingdom

• Report: Labour’s economic plan will take years to deliver, Starmer says

At the budget last week, we made the right choices for Britain, cutting the cost of energy with £150 off bills, protecting the NHS and tackling the scourge of child poverty by removing the two-child limit. We also ensured that the revenue we raised through taxes was done fairly, with everyone contributing but those with the broadest shoulders contributing their fair share. As a result of the choices we made, the budget created a more stable economic environment, driving down inflation and government bond yields. This is vital for protecting our public services, when £1 in every £10 spent by government goes on debt interest.

The budget builds on the action we have already taken to improve the economy: providing £120bn in extra capital investment in such things as roads, rail and energy; enacting the biggest planning reforms in a generation to back builders, not blockers; supporting the expansion of Heathrow and Gatwick; and signing trade deals with the EU, India and the US. Taken together, these have allowed us to exceed our growth forecasts.

Keir Starmer is the prime minister of the United Kingdom

Labour announces prevention programme as well as efforts to re-engage people who have fallen out of medical care

Ending new HIV transmissions in England by 2030 is within reach thanks to an action plan that will include routine testing at A&Es, the government has said.

The HIV action plan, to be unveiled on World Aids Day on Monday, aims to re-engage the thousands of people who have left HIV care, bringing them back to lifesaving treatment. The £170m package also includes funding for opt-out HIV testing at A&Es during routine blood tests in areas with the highest rates, including London and Manchester.

Exclusive: PM hits back at critics as he insists Rachel Reeves right to impose £26bn worth of tax rises at budget

• Keir Starmer: Labour is getting on with the job of economic renewal

Labour’s economic plan will take years to deliver in full, Keir Starmer has said as he tries to regain the narrative after a turbulent response to last week’s budget.

In an article for the Guardian, the prime minister hit back at his political opponents, insisting the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, was right to impose £26bn worth of tax rises.

Researchers now describe it as both historical phenomenon and public health model. Its success was remarkable

• Past/Present is a column which places current events in historical context

Aids has always been laden with political and emotional volatilities. The possibility of blood- or sex-based transmission combined with its first emergence among marginalised and criminalised populations created a potent mix of primal terror and terrifying prejudice.

It can sometimes be difficult to remember just how potently misinformation, fear and outright hostility framed the knowledge and experience of Aids in the first decade or so of the pandemic. In this period, a positive result on an HIV test was a terminal diagnosis and medical knowledge about transmission and treatment was still cloudy.

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• Bryce Young excels in Carolina victory

• AFC South now a battle between three teams

Bryce Young completed 15 of 20 passes for 206 yards and three touchdowns – two of them coming on fourth down – and the Carolina Panthers (7-6) forced three turnovers by Matthew Stafford to beat Los Angeles (9-3) and snap the Rams’ six-game winning streak. Carolina’s defense intercepted Stafford twice with Mike Jackson returning one for a 48-yard touchdown and ended the 37-year-old’s NFL record of 28 straight TD passes without an interception. Derrick Brown, who tipped a ball resulting in one of Stafford’s first pick, came up with a key strip-sack with 2:25 left in the game to preserve the win. Stafford completed 18 of 28 passes for 243 yards with two touchdown passes to Davante Adams, his 13th and 14th of the season.

Detectives claim to have uncovered Sydney-based network involving online distribution of child sexual abuse material involving ritualistic or satanic themes

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NSW police say they have uncovered an “international satanic child sex abuse material ring” and charged four Australians for their alleged involvement.

Detectives from the sex crimes squad said that as part of Strike Force Constantine, an investigation into the online distribution of child sexual abuse material involving ritualistic or satanic themes, they disrupted a Sydney-based network.

Algerian foreign minister says African countries and peoples continue to pay a heavy price for colonialism

African leaders are pushing to have colonial-era crimes recognised, criminalised and addressed through reparations.

At a conference in the Algerian capital, Algiers, diplomats and leaders convened to advance an African Union resolution passed at a meeting earlier this year calling for justice and reparations for victims of colonialism.

Moisés Caicedo was too pumped up before his rash red card but the Blues’ progress under Enzo Maresca is undeniable

This was the resumption of a bitter rivalry. It felt spicy from the moment Marc Cucurella sent Bukayo Saka flying with the first foul of the afternoon and, although it ended with Arsenal still dominant in first place, they will look at Chelsea’s defiant response to Moisés Caicedo’s reckless red card and conclude that Enzo Maresca’s young side will be coming for them in the future.

There were probably more reasons for Chelsea to feel positive at the end of this bruising 1-1 draw. Their dominance of Arsenal was once routine, back in the days when Didier Drogba would delight in dragging Philippe Senderos around Stamford Bridge, but the balance of power has shifted in recent years.

Liverpool gathering lays bare bitter divisions within new party founded by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana

The new leftwing party founded by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana will be called Your Party after a vote by members, but its weekend conference laid bare bitter divisions.

Just over 37% of members voted for the name Your Party, provisionally adopted when it was launched earlier this year, to become permanent. The votes for others on the shortlist were 25.23% to be called For The Many, 25.23% for Popular Alliance and 14.19% for Our Party.

Arsenal would surely have taken a draw beforehand, against a Chelsea team that have emerged as surprise title rivals in recent weeks – and especially when they realised they had to play without William Saliba, who injured himself in training on Saturday.

It was a different story when, in the 38th minute, Chelsea were reduced to 10 men after Moisés Caicedo’s X-rated challenge on Mikel Merino. It was one of those that made you wince upon each replay, the stand-in Arsenal striker fortunate to emerge unscathed.

Updates from across seven 6pm GMT Sunday games
The Super Bowl Shuffle at 40 | Mail Graham

Panthers 7-7 Rams 6:11, 1st quarter

The Rams are quickly back into the red zone. Davante Adams hooks up with Stafford again with a darting run across the field for a 32-yard pickup,

Pontiff tells politicians and religious heads they must persevere with peace efforts despite facing ‘highly complex, conflictual’ situation

Pope Leo has urged political leaders in Lebanon to make peace their highest priority in a forceful appeal as he is visiting the country, which remains a target of Israeli airstrikes, on the second leg of his first overseas trip as Catholic leader.

Leo, the first US pope, arrived in Beirut on Sunday from a four-day visit to Turkey where he said that humanity’s future was at risk because of the world’s unusual number of bloody conflicts, and condemned violence in the name of religion.

• Norris only fourth in Qatar, making Abu Dhabi decisive

• McLaren failure to pit on safety car costs their drivers

Max Verstappen believed he had long since “checked out” from being able to defend his world championship. Yet the Dutchman, while down, was far from out and has, with victory in the Qatar Grand Prix, battled and bludgeoned his way back into contention just as McLaren have somehow contrived to leave Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri vulnerable to his late charge, as Verstappen forced the title race to the wire at the final round next weekend in Abu Dhabi.

With Lando Norris, the title leader, fourth and his teammate Oscar Piastri second in Doha, after McLaren made an egregious strategy error, there will now be a three-way fight to the finish at the season finale, with 16 points separating all three drivers. Verstappen is 12 points back from Norris, with Piastri a further four worse off. It is a scenario that was all but unthinkable when Verstappen was 104 points behind Piastri after the Dutch Grand Prix on 31 August and he had in effect written off his championship ambitions.

Plane skidded off runway and 45 cars were piled up as 53 million were under winter weather alerts over Thanksgiving

A Thanksgiving weekend storm system brought over a foot of snow and strong winds across the US midwest and thunderstorms across the south, as 53 million people from South Dakota to New York were under winter weather alerts.

Over the weekend, ahead of one of the busiest travel days of the year on Sunday, a 45-car pile-up occurred on interstate 78 in Indiana and a Delta Air Lines plane skidded off the runway in Des Moines, Iowa, during landing.

Tory special needs reforms upended council finances, but Labour’s plan to rebuild public provision won’t come cheap if it’s done properly

The crisis over special educational needs and disabilities in England is not just a question of cash. Children and parents spend months and years battling for support to which the law entitles them, schools lack the funding to meet needs, and specialist provision is inadequate. An adversarial system shunts families towards tribunals that councils almost invariably lose.

Tory reforms created obligations for local authorities but did not adequately fund them – allowing ministers to duck responsibility. The result has been financial chaos, with the overall overspend on special educational needs and disabilities (Send) predicted to reach £6.6bn by next March, and keep rising. Taking responsibility for funding away from councils and handing it to the Department for Education is the right move. But the most important questions about Send go beyond accounting. A white paper on reform was postponed in October. Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, told MPs that she would consult further before deciding on the future of education, health and care plans, which set out entitlements for individual children, and the tribunals where parents can challenge council decisions.

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Rising economic division is destabilising nations and eroding accountability. Joseph Stiglitz’s G20 blueprint offers a way toward global economic renewal

When Swiss tycoons handed Donald Trump a gold bar and a Rolex watch – gifts that were followed by a cut in US tariffs – it was no diplomatic nicety. It was a reminder of how concentrated wealth seems to buy access and bend policy. It may, alarmingly, become the norm if the global “inequality emergency” continues. That’s the message of the most recent work by the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. The economist sees the yawning gap between rich and poor as a human-made crisis which is destroying politics, society and the planet. He’s not wrong.

The problem is no longer confined to a few fragile states. It is a global harm, with 90% of the world’s population living under the World Bank’s definition of “high income inequality”. The US sits just below that threshold and is the most unequal country in the G7, followed by the UK. Prof Stiglitz’s insight is that the current system’s defenders can no longer explain its mounting anomalies. Hence he wants a new framework to replace it. His blueprint for change is contained within the G20’s first-ever inequality report, endorsed by key European, African and middle-income nations.

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Thomas Brodie-Sangster, who played Sam in Richard Curtis’s film, thinks streaming ushered in genre’s decline

If modern romcoms aren’t sweeping you off your feet any more, you’re not the only one wondering where the magic went.

Romantic comedies are just not as good as they used to be, according to one of the stars of Love Actually.

River Action says use of issuance tied to environmental benefits is ‘corporate greenwash on steroids’

Water companies have issued a fifth of the UK’s “green bonds” since 2017, despite a consistently poor record of sewage pollution during that time, research has shown.

Privately owned water companies in England have together issued £10.5bn in bonds tied to projects that offer “environmental benefits”, according to analysis of financial market data by Unearthed, which is part of Greenpeace UK.

• Pyrotechnics in stands cause referee to call halt

• Real Madrid’s Mbappé levels in 1-1 draw at Girona

Ajax have strongly criticised an “utterly outrageous” firework display that caused their Eredivisie match against Groningen at the Johan Cruyff Arena to be abandoned.

Referee Bas Nijhuis took the players off the field within five minutes of the start after fireworks and flares were ignited behind one of the goals, and the stadium filled with smoke.

Kernewek submitted by government for part III status under European charter for regional or minority languages

The Cornish language is due to be given the same status as Welsh, Irish and Scottish Gaelic after the government submitted it for greater protections under a European charter.

Kernewek, spoken as a first language by 563 people according to the last census, has been recommended by the government for part III status under the European charter for regional or minority languages, the highest level of protection available.

Homeland security secretary also blamed ‘activist’ judges for defying court order to halt deportation flights

Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, claimed on Sunday that the suspect in the national guard shooting in Washington DC was “radicalized” in the US and blamed the Biden administration, though the suspect’s asylum was approved under Donald Trump.

The shooting suspect, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, was granted asylum under the Trump administration in April 2025. He worked with CIA backed units in Afghanistan, coming to the US in September 2021 under an Operation Allies Welcome program.

Research finds OpenAI’s free chatbot fails to identify risky behaviour or challenge delusional beliefs

ChatGPT-5 is offering dangerous and unhelpful advice to people experiencing mental health crises, some of the UK’s leading psychologists have warned.

Research conducted by King’s College London (KCL) and the Association of Clinical Psychologists UK (ACP) in partnership with the Guardian suggested that the AI chatbotfailed to identify risky behaviour when communicating with mentally ill people.

Members vote narrowly in favour at founding conference overshadowed by Sultana’s rift with Jeremy Corbyn

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The new leftwing party headed by Jeremy Corbyn and others has voted narrowly for it to have a ‘“collective leadership” in a win for Zarah Sultana, who has been at loggerheads with the former Labour leader.

The results were announced on Sunday after a chaotic start to its founding conference in Liverpool. Sultana, a former Labour MP who now sits as an independent, had boycotted the first day of the conference amid disagreements over how Your Party – its provisional name – should be run.