Home secretary urged to explain statement that asylum admissions will start at ‘a few hundred’ people
Shabana Mahmood is facing demands for compassion and clarity after it emerged that only a “few hundred” asylum seekers would initially be permitted to come to the UK under three new schemes for refugees.
The home secretary had justified a series of hardline policies – such as the deportation of families and the confiscation of assets from claimants – by saying she would also open the “safe and legal” routes for “genuine” claimants.
A special panel of judges, lawyers and provincial legislators dismissed Julieta Makintach, 48, from her post and disqualified her from holding any other judicial position in the future.
So-called “mutirão decision” text provides first look at potential outcomes of UN climate summit – but don’t call it a cover text, say Brazilians
We should not fear the forces of denial and delay, UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has warned, because “they are losing this fight”.
Speaking to delegates at Cop30, the Labour politician acknowledged the existence of climate deniers and delayers across the world – including in the UK – and described them as “well funded, well organised, and determined”.
Director Joachim Trier’s family drama has five nominations, including best actor for Skarsgård, while Oliver Laxe’s techno thriller Sirāt has four nominations
Norwegian director Joachim Trier is leading the race for a triumph at the European film awards, with five nominations in key categories for his family drama Sentimental Value.
The Cannes Grand Prix winner is nominated for best European film, best screenplay and best director, with further best actor and best actress nominations for Stellan Skarsgård and Renate Reinsve.
Leah Lendel was bitten by a bull shark as she was snorkeling with her family from a beach in Boca Grande
A 10-year-old girl whose hand was reattached after it was severed in a shark attack has spoken of her remarkable recovery after a “miracle” six-hour operation that has allowed her to resume knitting outfits for her beloved Barbie dolls.
Leah Lendel’s right hand was left hanging by shreds of skin after the bite by a 9ft bull shark as she was snorkeling with her family at a beach in Boca Grande, Florida, in June.
María Corina Machado pens a ‘freedom manifesto’ as plan to force Nicolás Maduro from power remains unclear
Venezuela’s top opposition leader, the Nobel laureate María Corina Machado, has declared her country “at the edge of a new era” as Donald Trump refused to rule out a ground invasion to topple its authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, but also signalled he was open to talks.
Machado, who has lived in hiding since her movement’s candidate was widely believed to have beaten Maduro in last year’s presidential election, made her claim in a “freedom manifesto” that was published on Tuesday as uncertainty continued to shroud the South American country’s future.
Perth has some good memories for England captain at the culmination of a four-year project cast in his aggressive image
England hope to strike a healthy balance between work and play and at the start of this Ashes week, as Australia trained at the ground to prepare for the first Test, the tourists were being, well, tourists.
As well as the usual golfers, a handful of players took a boat trip out to Rottnest Island, with Brydon Carse later showing off an impressive fish he had caught. No doubt some of the grouchier past players would sooner his mind was on reeling in a far bigger one: Steve Smith.
The Yorkshire comic was going nowhere with his act which relied on gimmicks, set-pieces and standing on tables. So he decided it was time to live a more interesting – and stressful – life
What’s the opposite of an overnight success? Should we call Ian Smith a slow burner, a sleeper hit? The Yorkshireman’s last two shows, both fantastic, were nominated for the Edinburgh comedy award, he has a popular Radio 4 series, Ian Smith is Stressed, and growing TV visibility. Now he’s embarking on a second UK tour. But breakout success was a long time coming for the 37-year-old. “I did my first gig when I was 17,” he tells me over coffee in London, “which I find horrific. It makes me feel old.”
What took him so long? Might one factor be that Smith’s is a traditional brand of standup – fretful everyman sends up his own anxiety – in a culture that prizes the new and different? That can’t be it, he says. “Because I had so many gimmicks! That was a big part of my standup.” He cites the high-concept shows (comedy in a bath; comedy on a bed) that made Tim Key’s name. “I loved standup with slightly theatrical set-pieces. That was my voice for four shows. I got a review that said, ‘Ian substitutes writing jokes with standing on tables and shouting at people.’ And it was fair enough. I went through a real standing-on-tables phase.”
Whatever her motives, the Republican congresswoman’s ‘revenge tour’ against the president is proving surprisingly effective
There are 535 members of Congress; only a dozen or so are household names. If you want to achieve that sort of brand name recognition, there are a few tried-and-tested ways to do so. You can spend years working your way up the ranks until you’re a power-broker like Nancy Pelosi. You can burst on to the scene and dramatically unseat an incumbent like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did. Or you can go the Marjorie Taylor Greene route and achieve notoriety by being utterly unhinged.
Since becoming a congresswoman for Georgia in 2021, Greene has kept herself in the news by spouting conspiracy theories, fighting with colleagues, and being one of Trump’s biggest cheerleaders. In recent months, however, something strange has been happening. Greene has continued to generate headlines, but largely because she has turned on her party and is part of a growing Maga civil war. Greene was the first Republican lawmaker, for example, to say that there is a genocide in Gaza and has been one of the loudest voices demanding that the Epstein files be released. She has also criticised the Maga movement for not focusing on affordability or putting America first. Now, things have escalated to the point where Greene is making Trump see red; the pair are in a full-blown feud.
Keir Starmer has warned senior ministers and officials to stop briefing against one another and leaking details of the budget as he pleaded for his embattled government to unite.
The prime minister told his weekly cabinet meeting that last week’s political turmoil had distracted from voters’ priorities, and ministers needed to work together and start delivering rather than talking about the government itself.
Bafta-winning director among contemporaries urging contrition and apology from Reform UK leader, who denies the allegations Portrait: Tom Pilston
It is the hectoring tone, the “jeering quality”, in Nigel Farage’s voice today that brings it all back for Peter Ettedgui. “He would sidle up to me and growl: ‘Hitler was right,’ or ‘Gas them,’ sometimes adding a long hiss to simulate the sound of the gas showers,” Ettedgui says of his experience of being in a class with Farage at Dulwich college in south London.
Ettedgui, 61, is a Bafta- and Emmy-winning director and producer whose credits include Kinky Boots, McQueen and Super/Man: the Christopher Reeve Story.
Exclusive: Tshering Tobgay says his country is doing ‘a lot more than our fair share’ on climate and west must cut emissions ‘for the happiness of your people’
The wealthy western countries most responsible for the climate crisis would improve the health and happiness of their citizens by prioritising environmental conservation and sustainable economic growth, according to the prime minister of Bhutan, the world’s first carbon-negative nation.
Bhutan, a Buddhist democratic monarchy and biodiversity hotspot situated high in the eastern Himalayas, is among the world’s most ambitious climate leaders thanks to its people’s connection with nature and a strong political focus on improving gross national happiness rather than just GDP, Tshering Tobgay told the Guardian.
Spy agency says Amanda Qui and Shirly Shen have been using LinkedIn to ‘obtain non-public and insider insights’
MI5 has issued an espionage alert to MPs and peers warning that two people linked to the Chinese intelligence service are actively seeking to recruit parliamentarians.
The two people, who operate as headhunters on the LinkedIn professional networking website aiming to obtain “non-public and insider insights”, MI5 said, are also targeting economists, thinktank staff and civil servants for their access to politicians.
You may have thought Qatar and Russia were tournament lows. You didn’t account for the US president and his Fifa soulmate, Gianni Infantino
“It’s very clear,” claimed haunted Fifa cue-ball Gianni Infantino not so long ago, “that politics should stay out of football and football should stay out of politics.” But is it clear? Is it really? On Monday, the worst man in world sport was – yet again – to be found in the Oval Office, this time nodding along to Trump’s declaration that games could be moved from host cities for next summer’s World Cup if the US president deems there’s “a problem” with security or that the cities are non-compliant in some other way. In practice, that seems to mean if they’re run by a Democrat/“communist”. Amazing that the Fifa president will gladly allow his tournaments to be held in any old violent autocracy but, for the purposes of the White House cameras at least, might need to draw the line at Boston.
Honestly, the very sight of Infantino these days causes decades of writing about Fifa to flash before my eyes. How could it have happened? How could we have ended up with an even bigger horror in charge of world football’s governing body than the various ones who went before? When Sepp Blatter was thrown from a moving gravy train in 2015 amid an explosive corruption scandal, it would have felt like a genuine feat of sporting excellence to have beaten his record for craven awfulness.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
A year in Westminster: John Crace, Marina Hyde and Pippa Crerar On Tuesday 2 December, join Crace, Hyde and Crerar as they look back at another extraordinary year, with special guests, live at the Barbican in London and livestreamed globally. Book tickets here or at guardian.live
After being expelled from his homeland in 1972, the academic has grappled with questions of political belonging – a major theme of his son’s mayoral campaign
The night before Mahmood Mamdani was expelled from Uganda in 1972, a senior professor from the university where he had been employed as a lowly teaching assistant wandered into his family home, looking for spoils. The rest of the family had already left – for the UK, the US and Tanzania – but 26-year-old Mamdani had decided to remain until the final day of the three-month period that Idi Amin, the Ugandan president, had designated for all Asians to leave the country. Passing over the furniture and other remnants of decades of family life, the professor hit upon a carton of Johnnie Walker Red, which Mamdani invited him to take home.
The Palestinian foreign minister has described the UN security council resolution endorsing Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza as a necessary first step on a long road towards peace, even as Hamas rejected it as a form of international guardianship with which it will not cooperate.
Arab state leaders who have reluctantly adopted the plan said the US urgently needed to set out the composition of the proposed Palestinian technocratic committee that is to deliver services inside Gaza, as well as the leadership of the international stabilisation force (ISF), which is supposed to oversee security. Membership of the board of peace, the body that is to oversee the ISF and a Palestinian civilian police force also remains unknown.
No 1-ranked Australia are favourites on home soil but through a forest of caveats for England, there is still a path to the urn
Even the greats of the Ashes have been weighed down by 143 years of shared history, tradition and controversy. For keen observers of Australia and England, Ashes anxiety can cloud judgments, hopes and dreams. Personally, a heart still bearing the scars from more than a decade spent living behind enemy lines as a once all-conquering Australia failed to tie – let alone win – an Ashes series in England, now insists on managing expectations. But as the ICC’s top two-ranked men’s Test teams prepare for a contest set to be shaped as much by endurance as execution, the head is ready to rule with a quiet confidence that Australia will triumph in a fourth straight Ashes as hosts.
Parliament approves law giving police powers to raid and surveil homes in what are demarcated as security risk areas
Slovenia’s government has been accused of turning Roma neighbourhoods into “security zones” after the passing of a law giving police powers to raid and surveil homes in so-called “high-risk” areas.
At midnight on Monday, the country’s parliament backed the “Šutar law”, named after Aleš Šutar, who was killed in an altercation with a 21-year-old Romany man after rushing to a nightclub after a distress call from his son.
Every scene in Cary Grant’s mistaken identity caper is pure absurdity – including that famous cornfield chase. You can’t look away
Imagine: you’re a handsome and relatively successful ad man in idyllic 50s New York. You’re having a delicious mid-afternoon snack in the lobby of the Plaza hotel, which presumably cost all of $2.50, when suddenly you are abducted in broad daylight at gunpoint by two polite and well-dressed men. You don’t put up a fight. You merely walk with them to their car, trying to object in the only way you know how: asking nicely for them to stop. The kidnappers are gleeful; they’ve finally captured you, George Kaplan. That’s not your name, you exclaim, you’re Roger Thornhill! They must have the wrong man!
Thus begins Hitchcock’s funniest, most ridiculous and visually ambitious film, North by Northwest. All the hallmarks of a Hitchcock classic are here: Cary Grant as the leading man, a completely inexplicable MacGuffin (who is George Kaplan anyway? And more importantly, does anyone even care?), a director cameo, a mysterious and beautiful blonde (the darling and charming Eva Marie Saint), and a 20-minute opening so overstuffed with dialogue that you kind of tune out but it’s fine because once the inciting incident happens, you can’t look away. It’s so Hitchcockian that it borders on parody.
From Chicago to Stan & Ollie, the Oscar-nominated actor has sung on screen for years. Now he arrives on stage – inside a trunk – to serenade the audience
In one of Hollywood’s nicer ironies, character actor John C Reilly finally made it big with a song about being invisible. His Oscar-nominated performance as the duped and devoted schmuck Amos Hart in Kander and Ebb’s Chicago was defined by his solo, Mister Cellophane. Director Rob Marshall had him sing it in an empty theatre so Amos doesn’t even get an audience for his big number.
More than 20 years later, Reilly has dusted off a not dissimilar tailcoat and rouged his cheeks once more under a new moniker, Mister Romantic, and this time there’s a full house. Backed by a four-piece band he is here to win our hearts with 90 minutes of jazz standards and popular songs, plus the odd chanson and comic verse. After a dozen or so dates in the US, the show has a short run this week in London at Soho Theatre Walthamstow, whose beautifully restored interior and history as a music hall fits Mister Romantic like a glove.
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