The statement came after the leadership team elections won by the rival The Many slate, which backs Jeremy Corbyn

The number of asylum seekers being housed temporarily in hotels has fallen to the lowest level for 18 months, Home Office figures show. Rajeev Syal has the story.

A minister has confirmed that the government is pressing ahead with the deal to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

Yes. My colleague the foreign secretary Yvette Cooper has been talking to Marco Rubio, her opposite number in the US, about it. Foreign policy is never easy. We will make progress on the Chagos deal.

‘Dynasty: The Murdochs’ will debut on the streamer on 13 March

The real-world drama that is said to have inspired the hit HBO show Succession is set for its own four-part series when Netflix debuts Dynasty: The Murdochs on 13 March.

The docuseries, based on thousands of pages of documents, emails and text messages, presents an exhaustive history of Rupert Murdoch’s rise while homing in on the tensions that have built for decades between him, his chosen heir Lachlan, and Rupert’s three other adult children: James Murdoch, Elisabeth Murdoch and Prudence MacLeod.

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Not so much a bad night at the office as a high-stakes, avant-garde masterpiece of self-destruction, Ramy Bensebaini’s performance for Borussia Dortmund as they crashed out of Bigger Cup is destined to go down in the annals as one of the most hapless in the tournament’s history. While there have been costlier mistakes (hello, Loris Karius) and far more high-profile disintegrations (bonjour, b@nter-era PSG), it is difficult to recall any one elite professional footballer being responsible for quite so many howlers in one game as the hapless Algerian left-back.

University of Padua employee fractured ankle when getting up to fetch documents during video meeting

An Italian woman who fell and broke her ankle while working from home has obtained compensation in an unprecedented court ruling hailed a victory for workers’ rights.

In April 2022, the woman, an employee in the University of Padua’s law department, fractured her ankle in two places. The injury, which happened during a Zoom meeting where she fell after she got up from her desk to fetch documents, required surgery and treatment lasting more than four months.

The Star Trek actor answers your questions on Leonard Nimoy, the bathroom facilities on the USS Enterprise and the correct way to eat kangaroo penis

George, you’ve lived long, how’s prospering going? MosesQuest
I’ll be celebrating my 89th birthday in less than two months, I’m enjoying life wonderfully, and here I am talking to the Guardian!

Do you have a beauty regime? Because – let’s be honest – you look great. TooMuchSpareTime
Well, thank you for the compliment. I believe in discipline. I do want to – as we say – live long and prosper. There were so many Sunday mornings I woke up groaning: “I’ll never do that again,” after debauched nights at college spent on the beer bus. I’ve learned that, if you take care of yourself, mother nature will be good to you. I was a marathoner. I started in my 40s, my husband, Brad, trained me, and I’ve done six in total. The last was the London marathon in 1991. London’s one of my favourite cities. You have to run over cobbles, so it was horrible on the ankles. I ended up aching all over, leaning on buildings for support. I recently had surgery on my foot, so I think that is life teaching me not to engage in any more crazy 26.2-mile runs for a while.

Exclusive: DHS chose firm with ties to Corey Lewandowski after demanding partisan loyalty, in departure from federal procurement guidelines

The US Department of Homeland Security has awarded a $250,000 public relations contract to a Republican political consulting firm led by former Trump campaign officials with connections to Corey Lewandowski, a senior adviser to DHS secretary Kristi Noem, according to federal records reviewed by the Guardian.

On 26 September 2025, DHS posted an opportunity for “public affairs consulting services”, specifying that the successful applicant would provide “strategic counsel” to top officials at the department including Noem. The work would also include ensuring that media outlets in “alignment with DHS priorities” were present at appearances with Noem, as well as drafting position papers and devising negotiation strategies “tailored to DHS’s priorities in border security, immigration enforcement, and cyber defense”.

Norwegian Chamber Orchestra/Kuusisto/Amidon
(Platoon)
The Finnish violinist-conductor strips back The Lark Ascending to revelatory effect in an album that moves from searing grief to radiant, folk-infused transcendence with Sam Amidon

‘We aren’t deleting notes,” says Pekka Kuusisto, “but deleting ketchup.” The Finnish conductor and violinist is talking about Ralph Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending, a work of such innate Britishness that it regularly tops UK classical music popularity polls. Kuusisto’s Lark isn’t RVW-lite, however, but a penetrating, convincingly honest account that strips the music back to its essential roots in the English folk tradition. Opening with a breathless whisper, it flutters and soars before vanishing into a realm of spiritual tranquillity.

The album, entitled Willows and featuring the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, is in part a reflection on grief and loss: Ellen Reid’s Desiderium, a visceral howl for solo violin, is dedicated to Kuusisto’s gifted brother Jaako, who died in 2022. Elsewhere, Caroline Shaw’s Plan & Elevation, an orchestral version of her 2015 string quartet, picks up on the arboreal theme in a work that maps out Washington DC’s Dumbarton Oaks estate. Architecturally conceived, the piece takes Mozart and Ravel as its guides in flickering lines crisscrossing five assorted movements.

The author’s prize-winning memoir about losing both her sons to suicide is a calm, sensitive account of ‘radical acceptance’

‘There is no good way to say this.” This is the phrase used by police when visiting the Chinese-American author Yiyun Li – twice. On the first occasion, officers advise her and her husband to sit down before telling them their son, Vincent, has died by suicide. The couple hear the same line several years later when James, their other son, dies – also by suicide. “My husband and I had two children and lost them both,” Li states.

In this memoir, Li describes how Vincent, 16, enjoyed baking, while 19-year-old James was a brilliant linguist and a deep thinker. Shortly before Vincent’s death, Li had written a memoir about her depressive episodes which led to her own suicide attempts. She wonders if this contributed to both her sons’ sense that suicide could be a viable way out of difficulty.

Four arrests over Camorra’s alleged infiltration of San Giovanni Bosco to carry out lucrative criminal activity

Italian police on Wednesday arrested four people over an alleged Camorra plot to infiltrate a Naples hospital, stage fake crashes for insurance payouts and spirit corpses away on oxygen-masked stretchers to profit from private ambulance transfers.

The investigation, prompted by the testimony of a state witness, uncovered a web of lucrative criminal activity allegedly carried out by members of the Contini clan of the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia, inside San Giovanni Bosco hospital. Prosecutors said the “operations were made possible by the organisation’s capacity for intimidation, a force that bent public officials and private citizens alike to its will”.

Family learned of change while abroad, and fear dual-national children will have to stay with relatives while they return to apply for passports

A British man and a Danish woman fear they will be separated from their young children in Copenhagen airport because of new border control rules on British dual nationals.

James Scrivens and his wife, Sara, who live in Wales, were visiting relatives in Norway and Denmark during the school holidays, and learned about the new Home Office rules only while they were abroad.

Internal email outlines how to handle misconduct claims as expansion raises concerns about background checks

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is struggling to keep pace with vetting new hires during its historic recruitment push and is laying out a process to deal with allegations of past misconduct among recruits, the agency said in an internal email this week, underscoring concerns about ICE’s rapid expansion.

The email, sent to supervisors with ICE’s enforcement and removal operations (ERO) division and seen by Reuters, said the “high volume of new hires” and stalled background checks could create uncertainty for field offices when allegations arise related to actions before joining the federal agency, and that allegations should be referred to the internal integrity investigations unit (IIU).

Panama joins smaller nations in dropping support for policy aimed at cutting maritime emissions

US “bullying” over a proposed carbon levy on shipping appears to be paying off, experts have said, after Panama reversed its support for the measure.

In a leaked document seen by the Guardian, the key maritime state has co-sponsored a proposal to the International Maritime Organization that would in effect cancel the carbon levy and undermine attempts to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The knockout playoffs are complete after a whirlwind round of action. Bodø/Glimt’s fairytale continues while the holders struggled again

Bodø/Glimt’s 2-1 defeat of Inter at San Siro continued this season’s miracle. The post-match discussion between Inter coach Cristian Chivu and his opposite number, Kjetil Knutsen, was one of admiration, an acknowledgment the Norwegian team had been too good for the runaway Serie A leaders. Even though Inter were without Lautaro Martínez, their standard bearer, a comeback seemed likely as they dominated the early stages. But they found no way through, eventually falling victim to the high-quality, high-speed attacking that had left them with a 3-1 deficit to overcome from the first leg.

English Garden, painted in 1965, is on display before it goes under the hammer with estimate of £2.5m-£3.5m

David Hockney’s first English landscape, depicting a perfectly manicured Oxfordshire garden, is on show for the first time in three decades before being auctioned.

Sotheby’s said the 1965 painting, English Garden, which was completed in Boulder, Colorado, was pivotal for Hockney as well as holding an important place in wider art history.

• Markram’s unbeaten 82 proves pivotal in emphatic chase

• De Kock and Rickelton also impress in nine-wicket win

South Africa took a giant leap toward the T20 World Cup semi-finals after a dominant nine-wicket win over West Indies on Thursday.

A whirlwind 95-run opening partnership between the captain, Aiden Markram (82 not out), and Quinton de Kock (47) in eight overs made short work of the chase. Ryan Rickelton added an unbeaten 45 and South Africa motored to 177 for one in 16.1 overs and stretched their unbeaten record in the tournament to six games. West Indies reached 176 for eight, having been 83 for seven.

For decades, the Valero refinery shaped Benicia’s economy, politics and health. Now the city has become a reluctant test case of whether an oil town can reinvent itself

Less than 40 miles north of San Francisco, the city of Benicia has the quaint ambience of an American small town, where a white gazebo and sign for a community crab bake mark the approach to a vibrant downtown stretch of restaurants, cafes and antique shops.

From many vantage points, it’s easy to forget the city is home to a massive 900-acre oil refinery, its imposing sprawl of stacks, holding tanks and billowing steam hidden from view. But for nearly 60 years, the refinery has loomed over every aspect of life in Benicia, exerting outsized influence on its economy and politics, while posing serious risks to public health.

Falling volcanic ash has for years been viewed as a nuisance. But a Sicilian project has discovered its agricultural potential and wants to spread the word

In the Sicilian town of Giarre overlooking Mount Etna, Andrea Passanisi, a tropical and citrus fruits producer, uses an unusual fertiliser on his 100-hectare (247-acre) stretch of land: volcano ash.

Like hundreds of farmers and citizens of rural towns perched on the slopes of Europe’s highest and most active volcano, the 41-year-old’s family has had to deal with the nuisance of falling volcanic ash for generations. But it is only in recent years that the quantity of ash has become so excessive that it required an alternative approach.

Our cartoonist looks at Wellington Phoenix goalkeeper Josh Oluwayemi’s unfortunate intervention that created global headlines

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

Fear, fights and feverish fanservice collide in this celebration of Resident Evil’s recent and retro legacy
PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch 2; Capcom

There’s often an undercurrent of existential fatigue in games that look back at their legacy. Dark Souls III’s dying kingdom, Metal Gear Solid 4’s decrepit Snake. So when Capcom showed us an ageing Leon Kennedy entering the ruins of the police station that marked the start of his journey from rookie cop to hardened veteran, it felt tinged with ennui as much as nostalgia. That self-reflective swansong for this 30-year series may still happen one day, but Requiem isn’t it. Even at its dourest and most pensive, this is less a song for the dead, more a knees-up in honour of the rocket launchers and typewriters that came before. Leon may be getting on a bit, but this is Capcom as energised, devious and goofy as ever.

Leon’s old scars will have to wait, anyway. Requiem’s new blood is FBI analyst Grace Ashcroft. Equal parts tenacious and nervous, she’s a fitting lens on the horror portion of Requiem’s split focus between disempowered terror and cathartic action. The story opens with Grace – more acquainted with desk work than field ops – tasked to go over a crime scene at a gutted hotel. She knows the place well, since it holds some horrific memories for her. Still, she heads off with little more than a flashlight and a pistol you’ll never find quite enough ammunition for to feel safe.

Tilda Swinton among those to sign petition supporting Tricia Tuttle, who reportedly faces sack after pro-Palestine speeches at gala

Prominent directors and actors have rallied in support of the American head of the Berlin film festival in response to reports she could be sacked over comments by award-winners criticising the war in Gaza and the German government’s support for Israel.

Germany’s federal government commissioner for culture and media, Wolfram Weimer, convened a crisis meeting on Thursday on the “future direction of the Berlinale”, which is among Europe’s top three cinema showcases with Cannes and Venice.

Alan Milburn says people feel ‘social contract is being broken’ as number of Neets climbs to 957,000

The number of young people in the UK not working or in education has risen closer to a million, figures show, as a government adviser warned that for the first time in a century parents do not think their children will have a better life than them.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the number of people aged 16 to 24 who were not in education, employment or training (Neet) rose to 957,000 in the final three months of last year, equating to 12.8% of this age group.

Leaked information obtained by Guardian paints disturbing picture of violence waged by terror group’s Ukrainian cell

The Ukrainian wing of an internationally proscribed terrorist organization with suspected links to Russia is continuing to claim multiple murders in Ukraine, which comes after it was linked to the brazen assassination of an intelligence officer in Kyiv over the summer.

In a Telegram post, the Ukrainian cell of the Base – born in the US, but with a web of cells all over the world – claimed “a successful operation to eliminate an enemy agent in Odesa” in a car bombing, which was later reported on in local Ukrainian media.

Before arrest at US House chamber Tuesday, Aliya Rahman had only a month earlier been dragged from her car by ICE

When Aliya Rahman accepted Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar’s invitation to attend the State of the Union address, she said she had no intention of disrupting Donald Trump’s high-profile speech.

“It is a locus of people gathering and an opportunity to talk to legislators and to be in DC and try to understand – for someone like me, that doesn’t work in politics, who is not involved in policy work and organizing – what is the texture of this stuff here?” Rahman told the Guardian.