Government still struggling to win the agenda from Reform, leaving planners trusting voters will sour on what they see
After Nigel Farage dominated the summer headlines with weekly press conferences while his rivals were on their sunloungers and the news agenda was light, Labour strategists swore they would never let it happen again.
Labour MPs had returned to Westminster after recess, fuming that the government had vacated the public arena and allowed Reform UK to shape the narrative, to the extent that the mood hardened against Keir Starmer.
Starmer signs agreement with visiting Vietnamese leader after surge in clandestine arrivals from country
Vietnamese people who arrive in the UK by irregular means will be fast-tracked for deportation under a new agreement, Downing Street has said.
After a surge in clandestine arrivals from the south-east Asian country last year via small boats and in the back of lorries, the deal is supposed to cut red tape and make it faster and easier to return those with no right to be in the UK.
Mother-of-four brought legal case against government after customs seized her contraceptives package from UK
Tributes have poured in from across Ireland after the death of Mary McGee, a woman credited with sparking a “social revolution” that paved the way for the legalisation of contraceptives in the country.
McGee, who went by the name May, and her husband, Seamus, hit the headlines in 1972 after the couple lodged a landmark legal challenge against a decades-old law that banned the sale or import of contraceptives in Ireland.
Mobsters Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov plotted to assassinate Masih Alinejad at her New York home
The two Russian mobsters convicted in an international assassination plot targeting the Iranian-American dissident Masih Alinejad were sentenced to 25 years in prison in a New York courtroom on Wednesday.
Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov were found guilty in Manhattan federal court this March of charges including murder-for-hire and attempted murder in aid of racketeering.
A top US military official has ordered the national guards of all 50 US states, the District of Columbia and US territories to form “quick reaction forces” trained in “riot control”, including use of batons, body shields, Tasers and pepper spray, according to an internal Pentagon directive reviewed by the Guardian.
The memo, signed on 8 October by Maj Gen Ronald Burkett, the director of the Pentagon’s national guard bureau, sets thresholds for the size of the quick reaction force to be trained in each state, with most states required to train 500 national guard members, for a total of 23,500 troops nationwide.
A historic move to change French criminal law would bring its legislation in line with many other European countries
The French parliament has voted to add consent to the country’s rape law in a historic move sparked by the mass rape of Gisèle Pelicot.
The change, which will still need to be signed off by President Emmanuel Macron, will bring French legislation in line with many other European countries.
3 min: Ngumoha dribbles in from the left and one-twos with Chiesa, before running into the clumsily-positioned referee. Liverpool and their supporters are a bit miffed about that, given things had otherwise opened up for them.
2 min: Hughes gets back up and prepares to continue. No hard feelings. We go again.
Governor tells universities to end use of H-1B visas, though legal experts say states lack authority over federal program
Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, is urging the state’s universities to stop hiring international employees through the H-1B visa program.
DeSantis said he wants the Florida board of governors “to pull the plug” on the practice. Nearly 400 foreign nationals are currently employed at Florida’s public universities under the H-1B visa program, reported the Orlando Sentinel.
Residents of Vila Cruzeiro gather bodies after more than 130 were killed in pre-dawn assault
Day had yet to break over Vila Cruzeiro but already dozens of corpses were splayed out along the favela’s main drag after more than 130 people were killed during the deadliest police operation in Rio’s history: grotesquely disfigured, blood-smeared bodies that had been dragged out of nearby forests and dumped on blue tarpaulins and black plastic sheets covering the street.
“I’ve brought 53 down myself … there must be another 12 or 15 up there in the bush,” said Erivelton Vidal Correia, the head of the local residents’ association, bleary-eyed from a sleepless night spent hauling bullet-riddled local men down from the hills.
8 min: The visitors should be in front! They have had the best of the opening exchanges and from an Arsenal corner, Brighton surge forward on a dangerous counter attack. Baleba streams forward down the left and finds a beautiful pass to Tzimas, who is one-on-one with Arrizabalaga … but the Greek slips and skews his finish wide! What a chance for Brighton!
New York museum under fire from heirs of Jewish couple allegedly forced to surrender artwork upon fleeing to US
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is being sued by the heirs of a Jewish couple over a Vincent van Gogh oil painting they say was looted by the Nazis.
The suit alleges the couple, Hedwig and Frederick Stern, bought the painting, Olive Picking, in 1935, the year before they were forced to flee their home in Munich.
Rapid Support Forces, which claimed control of El Fasher on Sunday, reportedly killed at least 460 people ‘in cold blood’
Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces killed hundreds of patients and staff inside a hospital in El Fasher, according to the World Health Organization and the Sudan Doctors Network, after the paramilitary group claimed control of the city on Sunday.
The WHO secretary general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was “appalled and deeply shocked” at reports that more than 460 people had been killed at the Saudi maternity hospital, without assigning blame, in a post on X.
Tanni Grey-Thompson outlines ‘barriers to participation’
Taboos around women’s bodies are holding girls back from pursuing sport into adulthood and preventing the creation of “a generation of fit and healthy women”, a parliamentary committee has heard.
With surveys showing 64% of girls give up sport by the end of puberty, experts told the women and equalities committee that a complete sea change in understanding around the impact of sport on female bodies is required, but that such a change is possible and “if we get it right we’d be on a winning streak”.
Parliament’s spending watchdog asks Treasury and crown estate to explain rationale for arrangement
Politicians are demanding clarity over Prince Andrew’s “peppercorn” rent at Royal Lodge, as the parliamentary spending watchdog writes to the Treasury and crown estate asking for an explanation.
Keir Starmer had indicated that he was open to MPs questioning Andrew in person about his home in Windsor Great Park, where he has lived for more than 20 years.
Police are no closer to recovering gems valued at £76m, despite the arrest of two men last week
Two men arrested on suspicion of stealing crown jewels worth an estimated €88m (£76m) from the Louvre in Paris have “partially admitted” their role in the heist, the prosecutor has said, but police are no closer to recovering the gems.
Laure Beccuau said the pair, arrested on Sunday, would be brought before magistrates “with a view to being charged with organised theft, which carries a 15-year prison sentence, and criminal conspiracy, punishable by 10 years”.
A $40bn rescue may have helped Javier Milei scrape through midterms, but it leaves Argentina’s democracy and economy more dependent than ever on Washington
Argentina’s rightwing president, Javier Milei, his party and its allies claimed victory this week in key congressional elections. But it was Donald Trump who emerged the biggest winner. A $40bn lifeline from the US president gave Mr Milei’s beleaguered government just enough credibility – and apparent firepower – to halt the Argentinian peso’s slide. Crucially, this helped to stabilise consumer prices in the final weeks of the campaign. The US rescue engendered a short-lived aura of competence that allowed Mr Milei to shift the blame for rising prices back to the opposition, despite his own role in accelerating inflation by devaluing the currency when he took office.
Mr Milei’s wasn’t a decisive triumph. His rightwing coalition got 40% of the midterms vote thanks largely to a low turnout and a fragmented opposition. His “chainsaw” programme of privatisation and public spending cuts has not been popular. Polls suggest that six in 10 voters disapprove. Unsurprising, perhaps: since Mr Milei took office in December 2023, Argentinians’ purchasing power has fallen sharply, real wages have declined and more than 200,000 jobs have been lost.
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Army says 2nd Infantry Brigade combat team of 101st Airborne to redeploy to Kentucky ‘without replacement’
The US military is reducing the number of troops it has stationed in Romania, scaling back Nato’s deployment to countries along Europe’s eastern border with Ukraine, US and Romanian officials have announced.
In a statement on Wednesday, the US army said that the 2nd Infantry Brigade combat team of the 101st Airborne division would redeploy to its home-based unit in Kentucky “without replacement” as part of a plan to “ensure a balanced US military force posture”.
Steve Borthwick has opted for the Northampton centre, his ‘glue’ player, over an array of talented England backs
Even Steve Borthwick admits that picking his team to face Australia on Saturday was tricky. And even after he had made his mind up, there was a training ground snapshot which underlined the slim margins involved. “There was a piece of play where the skill showed by the team not starting was absolutely incredible,” said Borthwick. “I couldn’t praise them highly enough for the way they tested the team that is starting.”
Which neatly sums up England’s intensifying backline debate. Ollie Lawrence, Marcus Smith, Henry Arundell, Henry Slade, Cadan Murley and Max Ojomoh are all fit and can’t even make the matchday 23. Not to mention the up-and-coming Noah Caluori. Nor Owen Farrell. Let alone the injured Elliot Daly, George Furbank, Seb Atkinson, Ollie Sleightholme and Will Muir.
I was sued over my film that gave a voice to the committed ‘amateur’ whose pivotal role in the search for the remains of Richard III was drowned out by louder voices in academia
About 15 years ago, Philippa Langley set out on a mission to find the remains of King Richard III, the last Plantagenet king of England. Almost everyone regarded this as an impossible task. His remains had gone undiscovered for more than 500 years. It was a folly, a fool’s errand. She was out of her depth, an amateur. No letters after her name.
But Philippa diligently did the work and did her research. She had an inner conviction that she would find him, and she did. It was a staggering achievement, and yet when the news broke of this startling discovery, and it was beamed round the world, there was little to no mention of her.
Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast examines why more people are falling prey to cults and whether the current laws are strong enough to help vulnerable people who might be lured in.
Victoria correspondent Benita Kolovos speaks to Reged Ahmad about why more ‘modern’ cults are using new methods to recruit and promising ‘simple answers to complex problems’
After seven riotous seasons packed with stellar cameos and exhilarating farce, Joseph Gilgun’s chaotic comedy goes out on a high. It will be sorely missed
Blame Brassic on Dominic West. While filming Pride, the rousing 2014 film about gay Londoners finding solidarity with a hardscrabble Welsh community during the miners’ strike, West was acting alongside lanky live wire Joseph Gilgun, who would regale him with wild tales of growing up in Chorley in Lancashire. Tickled by anecdotes like the theft of a shetland pony, West encouraged Gilgun to mine his formative years for material that could become a TV show.
Gilgun teamed up with screenwriter Danny Brocklehurst, no stranger to authentic northern humour after working on Channel 4’s Shameless. The result was Brassic, a headlong comedy about a rowdy gang of scallywags, chancers and wheeler-dealers trying to stay one step ahead of the law and local heavies in the fictional northern town of Hawley. As well as repurposing the ducking and diving of his youth, the autobiographical elements extended to Gilgun’s likable ringleader Vinnie O’Neill coping with being bipolar. That key character detail also meant a recurring role for the plummy West as Vinnie’s relentlessly inappropriate GP Dr Chris.
Patrick Greenfield hikes up the Virunga mountains in east Africa to trace the remarkable comeback of the mountain gorilla
Along the borders of Uganda, Rwanda and the DRC lies the Virunga national park – the home of mountain gorillas. Back in 1970s there were only a few hundred of these gorillas left. Yet today the community is thriving with more than 1,000.
Patrick Greenfield, the Guardian’s biodiversity reporter, headed up into the Virunga mountains, guided by wildlife vets, to find out how they achieved this rare and extraordinary conservation success. He tells Annie Kelly how the gorillas have been protected in such a volatile area.
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