The home secretary has defended her plans for asylum reform after one backbencher said she was mimicking Donald Trump and another claimed it could lead to a Windrush-style scandal.
Shabana Mahmood announced her plans on Thursday, including an end to permanent refugee status and the removal of government support from asylum seekers who are deemed not to need it or who break the law.
This is about immigration enforcement and it’s about being in a process where you are able to enforce your rules.
If you don’t do that, the flip side is you just end up picking up the tab for hundreds of families, hundreds of thousands of pounds per family every single year.
Otherwise you might as well say to everybody, there’s no rules enforced at all. It’s an open border situation. And I don’t think that has public support either.
I don’t recognise those reports and I have to say I think it is a travesty that any anyone should report from a National Security Council... because of course it puts British lives at risk and I hope that is properly investigated.
Hungarian tax authority says seven people are detained in Budapest as part of an alleged money laundering probe
On the back of the detention of seven Ukrainian citizens, Ukraine’s foreign ministry said itadvises Ukrainians against travel to Hungary “due to the inability to guarantee their safety amid arbitrary actions by the Hungarian authorities.”
Expect them to try to raise it with the EU in the coming hours.
Documentary First They Came for My College goes inside the fight for academic freedom at Florida’s New College
It took a half century to build New College into a sanctuary of independent thought and less than a year to destroy it. In 2023 the beloved Florida liberal arts school became state governor Ron DeSantis’s latest target in his so-called war on woke. DeSantis decimated the school’s trustee board and installed a cabal of rightwing cronies, aiming to transform it into a conservative institution modeled after Michigan’s evangelical Hillsdale College.
Library shelves were stripped, with books from Black and Indigenous authors and the shuttered gender studies department tossed into dumpsters. Frat boys arrived in droves and the campus was transformed into a meathead’s playground where queer couples stopped holding hands for fear of homophobic slurs. In a move ripped from the playbook of a spiteful cartoon villain, the community garden with its koi pond and roosting barn owls was bulldozed to make way for a baseball stadium.
Snowfall hit elevations above 1,500 metres in Tenerife as a yellow warning for rough seas was issued
The Canary Islands were plagued by adverse weather this week as Storm Regina, named by the Portuguese weather service, barrelled through the archipelago. The storm swept eastwards towards Africa on Tuesday and Wednesday after bringing strong gusts of up to 64mph to the island of Lanzarote.
Wave heights of 5-6 metres were widely reported, while some peaked above 6 metres along northern coasts in the Canary island chain. As a result, the area was placed under a yellow warning for rough seas. To add to the chaos, snowfall struck elevations above 1,500 metres in Tenerife, closing multiple mountain roads.
The Send Nudes author on rereading Lorrie Moore, finding Dodie Smith at the right time, and the enduring brilliance of Muriel Spark
My earliest reading memory I remember reading Jacqueline Wilson aloud to my mum in the car. I think it was The Illustrated Mum. My mum couldn’t believe it was a children’s book, and I felt so proud. I always found most children’s books overly virtuous and safe, but Wilson’s never were. I love her for that.
My favourite book growing up The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark. I read it again recently, having mostly forgotten it, and loved it just as much. It’s totally alive.
The former homeland security chief was an incompetent figurehead of cruelty. Her departure reflects Trump’s political weakness
Was it the blanket that did it? On Thursday, Donald Trump announced he fired Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, in a post on Truth Social. Noem, at the time, was giving a press briefing in Nashville, and did not seem aware that she had been fired; she later posted on social media to thank the president for the new role that he had created for her as a golden parachute: “Envoy to the Shield of the Americas”, which sounds like something from a children’s superhero cartoon. Noem’s dismissal comes after a chaotic time at the department, in which she had endured successive national outcries over ICE kidnapping operations and the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti; corruption and mismanagement scandals within the department; rumors about an alleged extramarital relationship with her top aide and former Trump campaign chief, Corey Lewandowski; and scrutiny over her award of a lucrative advertising contract to a personal ally. Noem’s tenure at DHS seems to have been marked by state violence, managerial incompetence, and shockingly unprofessional conduct. Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Lewandowski summarily fired the pilot of a plane Noem was traveling on when a blanket (or possibly a bag) she had used on her flight was not retrieved for her when she switched planes. The pilot had to be quickly rehired because there was no one else to fly the secretary home.
Noem’s ousting comes just days after her contentious testimony at a pair of Senate committee hearings, at which even Republican House members made a point of being seen to criticize her on camera. Just hours before Trump’s announcement, the Senate had failed yet again to pass a measure which would resume funding for DHS; the department has been the subject of a congressional funding battle in which a partial government shutdown has flowed from Democrats’ demands that new limits be placed on the department’s immigration enforcement activities.
As the public consultation on the BBC nears its end, the right will be out in force to undermine it. But its supporters can do their bit – with this guidance
The BBC may have a over one and a half years before its charter expires in December 2027, but the public consultation on its renewal closes next week. All those who care about the BBC’s future should hurry and send in their response before 10 March. Despite strong public support for the national broadcaster, you can bet battalions of enemies driven by the right will be out in force to undermine it.
The timing turns out to be accidentally apt. As chaos is unleashed across the Middle East, the BBC and its array of experienced correspondents has never been more visibly needed. Nightly reports from Jeremy Bowen, Sarah Smith, Lyse Doucet, Orla Guerin, Clive Myrie and all the rest give the country – and the world – trusted updates, as few others can do. The secretary of state for culture, media and sport, Lisa Nandy, a strong defender of the BBC, called its World Service “the light on the hill” in a world of flexible fictitious facts.
(Dekmantel UFO) The latest collaboration between the French producer and Egyptian singer pairs soaring musicality with frenetic electronics to examine the age of AI
Egyptian singer Abdullah Miniawy has spent the past decade lending his melismatic voice and Arabic classical maqam melodies to a fascinating range of experimental music, and. Alongside French trumpeter Erik Truffaz he released the 2023 jazz-inflected album Le Cri du Caire; in his ongoing collaboration with German trio Carl Gari, his vocals are paired with sparse electronic atmospherics; and his trio features two trombones playing through baroque-inspired compositions.
Since 2020, Miniawy has been working on a heavier, dancefloor-focused collaboration with French producer Simo Cell. Their debut EP, Kill Me Or Negotiate, employed snapping electronic percussion, thunderous trap bass and whispers of jazz horns, and the pair now delve into the darker corners of digital production.
For over two decades the Brecksville-Broadview Heights Bees have ruled Ohio high school gymnastics. On Saturday, they pursue a remarkable 23rd consecutive state title
As Brecksville-Broadview Heights gymnasts, seniors Rachel Kirin and Kyla Haverdill know that there’s only one expectation for how the season ends on Saturday: with the Ohio high school state title.
“It’s definitely a lot of pressure,” said Haverdill, who has been doing gymnastics since she was a baby. “Most people don’t understand that – it’s just so expected.”
Cheap semaglutide, the drug in Ozempic and Wegovy, could help millions with diabetes and obesity in 160 countries
Weight-loss jabs such as Wegovy and Ozempic could be made for just $3 a month, according to new analysis, potentially making the treatment available to millions in poorer countries as patents expire.
Photographer Murdo MacLeod patrols the snow with members of the Scottish Avalanche Information Service, which has for several decades published a vital daily avalanche forecast for mountain areas
Scottish avalanches are back. More than 200 have been recorded this winter, against the previous year’s record low of 42. The worst season for fatalities was 2012-13 when eight people died, four of whom were buried in deep snow when an avalanche struck without warning while they descended Glen Coe’s Bidean nam Bian.
Fortunately, so far – despite one person being carried a distance down Ben Nevis and two people falling through cornices and triggering slips – there have not been any confirmed avalanche deaths, though one person is still missing on Ben Nevis. The search goes on in and around the sites of recent avalanches.
A mountain rescue team looks for a missing climber in Observatory Gully on the north face of Ben Nevis, an area where there has been a succession of avalanches
Counter-terrorism police say investigation linked to alleged spying on locations and people linked to Jewish community
Four people have been arrested on suspicion of spying for Iran on locations and individuals linked to the Jewish community in the London area, Scotland Yard has said.
The men – one Iranian and three dual British-Iranian nationals – were arrested on Friday at addresses in Barnet and Watford on suspicion of assisting a foreign intelligence service, namely Iran, the Metropolitan police said.
(Sub Pop) The Stockholm musician’s debut album is a fascinating character study with improvised lyrics and a light, pretty sound that belies its emotional depth
The bewilderment of a romantic breakup, and the consolation prize of understanding yourself a little better afterwards, is rendered evocatively on the eight-song debut album by Waterbaby, a Stockholm singer-songwriter who prefers to keep her real name out of the public eye.
She improvised some of the lyrics, which creates the sense of her piecing together a new reality in real time, though that approach has its limits: the pleasant but vague opening song, Sink, threatens to do just that. But, thereafter, she locks into a run of superb material, performed on piano, acoustic guitar, drums, strings and brass, augmented with flourishes such as dulcimer and flute.
The Philippines is searching for ways to conserve energy in response to surging fuel costs, with public officials ordered to cut back on air conditioning usage and reduce travel.
All national government agencies, state universities and colleges, and local government branches have been told to reduce fuel consumption by at least 10% in response to the crisis in the Middle East.
Government offices have been told to adopt flexible work arrangements, and to set air conditioning units no lower than 24 degrees.
The youngest ever global title holder has had a hard time this year, but hopes for better in May, when he meets Magnus Carlsen in Norway Chess at Oslo, and in the autumn, when he defends his crown
India’s Gukesh Dommaraju, at 19 the youngest ever world champion, has had a hard time this year. The teenager has struggled at Wijk aan Zee, where he totalled a modest 50%, and then this week in Prague, where he was last after eight of the nine rounds, scoring just 2.5/8, without winning a single game.
With just Friday’s final round to be played, Prague is currently led by Nodirbek Abdusattorov on 5.5/8, as the Uzbekistan No 1 continues his winning streak from the London Classic and Wijk aan Zee.
Alonso and Stroll completed only limited runs in practice
Aston Martin’s disastrous start to the new Formula One season grew even worse after free practice in Australia with the team principal, Adrian Newey, revealing there were now fears they would not be able to take part in qualifying or the race at the Albert Park circuit.
On Thursday Newey had hosted an extraordinary press conference, at which he had admitted that a severe vibration issue with the team’s Honda engine meant their drivers were in danger of receiving permanent nerve damage through the steering wheel. Newey said Fernando Alonso believed he could manage only 25 laps in the car and his teammate Lance Stroll only 15, both well short of half the 58-lap race distance in Melbourne.
The Guardian spoke to a crew member on one of the stranded tankers in the Gulf, that typically ferries vast quantities of oil from the Middle East to ports around the world.
They told us:
“When [Donald] Trump said Iran had 10 days to agree to his deal or bad things would happen, I did the math and thought we might get stuck here. And we did.
Our updated assumptions assume the energy price shock is relatively short-lived, but the effects on inflation and risks of second-round impacts will be greater if the conflict is more drawn out.
Against this backdrop, the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee is likely to remain on hold for now, keeping policy in restrictive territory.
Reacher’s Alan Ritchson takes on alien robots in an action thriller that benefits from some better-than-usual streaming special effects
You’d be forgiven for skipping past Netflix’s gory, militaristic action thriller War Machine at this particular moment. There is, after all, an actual war raging on (is there ever a good time, one could argue?) but those behind the film would likely use its sci-fi bent as a differentiation defense. The war being raged here is not between the US and a foreign earthly entity but rather one from somewhere above, our umpteenth soldiers v aliens matchup. It’s a clear “if you like” column filler for fans of Predator, Edge of Tomorrow or, if they exist, Battle: Los Angeles, yet unlike the many films it’s clearly inspired by, the extraterrestrials here are designed to resemble machines that could have originated from another country rather than another planet, robotic whirring over tentacle slithering.
It gives the film a slightly generic sheen, like a cheaper Transformers spin-off, but it’s also thankfully devoid of the dreaded Netflix murk, that flattening filter that reduces most colours to grey, the film an acquisition from Lionsgate. Set in Colorado but shot in Australia from native writer-director Patrick Hughes, and granted a theatrical release there last month, it makes for a slicker-than-usual streaming premiere, an easy, drink-your-way-through-it Friday night option for those who wish to remain entirely unchallenged.
The city was portrayed as an aspirational place to live, but now those who moved there are realising the precarity that comes with being an economic migrant
To be fooled by a mirage, you needn’t be lost in the desert. Sometimes, the illusion is strongest just when you thought you were safely home, posting from the pool about your teenage daughter’s spa party and your own glittering life in a city where “the possibilities are endless”, as they tend to be for billionaires’ daughters living in tax havens. Only then does the fantasy explode in a puff of intercepted missile smoke, leaving just another woman in her pyjamas telling Instagram (as Petra Ecclestone did at the weekend) that she moved to Dubai “to feel safe” and war was never mentioned in the small print.
Who could have guessed that living a few hundred miles as the drone flies from Tehran might have risks? Certainly not the anonymous hedge funder who fumed to the Financial Times that “the trade was not that you were getting exposed to geopolitics”.
More athletes than ever, new nations, old favourites and breakout stars: here are all your questions about the Milano Cortina Winter Paralympics answered
This is the 14th edition of the Winter Paralympics, to be held on the 50th anniversary of its first. It will be bigger than ever before, with more than 600 athletes from 56 countries expected to take part. El Salvador, Haiti, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Portugal will compete for the first time. There will be 79 different medal events in six different sports, with mixed doubles in wheelchair curling a new addition since Beijing 2022. The president of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), Andrew Parsons, said the Games would deliver “world-class sport [that is] highly competitive. Sport that will surprise you. And most importantly, sport that will have a life-changing impact on everyone who witnesses it.”
By forefronting Jessie Buckley’s Agnes at the expense of her megastar husband, this female-directed feminist fest gives voice to the anguished howls of disenfranchised women everywhere
On paper, it already sounds the most Oscary film ever. A movie about a visionary man whose genius made him one of the greatest figures in literature. William Shakespeare is played by Paul Mescal, an actor who leaves no demographic unravished by his outrageous levels of magnetism. And yet Hamnet is a film that sidelines both of these men to supporting roles. The film is about Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway, long viewed as a dumpy, illiterate woman unworthy of attention – abandoned by Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon when he swanned off to London.
Anne is referred to in Hamnet as Agnes, as she was also known, and played by Jessie Buckley, the Irish actor who could take on the role of a lamp-post and make you feel its pain. We meet Agnes curled asleep in the roots of an ancient tree. She may be illiterate, but she is a gifted herbalist who makes medicines from plants and keeps a falcon. She is her own woman – fierce, intelligent, more than match for the man she calls “the Latin tutor”. Shakespeare’s mother warns him that his bride-to-be is a forest witch.
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