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Fallout begins after tumultuous scenes during protests over Israeli president Isaac Herzog's visit. Follow the latest news live

UK projects will allow local areas to control and profit from renewable power generation, says energy secretaryThe UK government is pledging to spend up to 1bn on community-owned green energy schemes in an effort to combat growing scepticism and resistance to renewables and grid upgrade projects.Ed Miliband, the UK energy secretary, said the new funding was intended to help democratise the energy system, increase the wealth and financial independence of local communities, and potentially cut some local energy bills. Continue reading...

Politicians who attended protest against visit of Israeli president Isaac Herzog say police actions against demonstrators were wildly inappropriate'

Former Trump adviser convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to testify before House January 6 committeeDonald Trump's Department of Justice moved to dismiss a criminal case against his former aide Steve Bannon, connected to his refusal to testify before Congress relating to the investigation into the January 6 insurrection.The controversial hard-right strategist, an ally of Trump, was convicted in 2022 on two counts of contempt of Congress after refusing to appear for a deposition before the House committee that investigated the 2021 attack on the Capitol and declining to produce documents requested by the committee. Continue reading...

Lawyer for Epstein associate says Trump and Clinton are innocent of any wrongdoing' and Maxwell alone' can explain why, in exchange for freedom

Prime minister addresses parliamentary Labour party amid Mandelson scandal fallout

Keir Starmer's future as prime minister suffered another major blow when the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, called for him to go. With the cabinet rallying around him, the PM seems to be safe for now, but for how much longer? Pippa and Kiran look at what might happen next

Investigation in apparent abduction enters second week as deadline for purported ransom note demanding $6m loomsTelevision host Savannah Guthrie issued a desperate plea for anyone who might know anything about her missing mother to contact law enforcement on Monday, as the search for Nancy Guthrie entered its second full week.We need your help," said Savannah Guthrie, eight days after her mother was first reported missing. Investigators returned to search Nancy Guthrie's Arizona home this weekend. They appear no closer to finding her, or identifying an alleged abductor. Continue reading...

Allies of leading candidates keen to tout credentials but others despair at options at top of Labour party Revealed: Rayner for leader' site briefly went live in January

Cap-busting tax hike will be embarrassing for the party, which has made low council tax a priorityReform-led Worcestershire county council is likely to issue England's largest council tax rise this April after it was given special permission by the government to increase it by up to 9%.Worcestershire is one of a handful of authorities whose requests to be allowed to increase local rates above the standard 5% cap from April have been accepted by ministers. Continue reading...

Under proposed changes in response to Bondi terror attack, only Australian citizens will be able to obtain a gun licence, with no cap on number of weapons

Exclusive: Cabinet secretary Chris Wormald is expected to follow Morgan McSweeney and Tim Allan out the doorThe most senior civil servant in Downing Street is negotiating his exit as part of a wider shake-up of Keir Starmer's operation after one of the most dramatic 48 hours of the prime minister's time in office, sources have told the Guardian.Chris Wormald, the cabinet secretary, is understood to be negotiating the terms of his departure from No 10, which would make him the third senior member of staff to leave in recent days. Continue reading...

Peter Schofield tells staff he will leave the department for personal reasonsThe government's top welfare official is to step down after his department's handling of a longstanding benefits failure that plunged thousands into debt and became known as the carer's allowance scandal.Sir Peter Schofield, the permanent secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions, announced to staff on Monday that he is to step down in July for personal reasons. Continue reading...

Release into Helman Tor reserve marks historical first for keystone species hunted to extinction in UK 400 years agoShivering and rain-drenched at the side of a pond in Cornwall, a huddle of people watched in hushed silence as a beaver took its first tentative steps into its new habitat. As it dived into the water with a determined plop" and began swimming laps, the suspense broke and everyone looked around, grinning.The soggy but momentous occasion marks the first time in English history that beavers have been legally released into a river system, almost one year after the government finally agreed to grant licences for releases. Continue reading...

Mountbatten-Windsor suspected of forwarding reports to child sex offender when he was government trade envoyKing Charles has expressed his profound concern" over allegations about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and will stand ready to support" the police if approached over the claims, Buckingham Palace has said.Thames Valley police confirmed on Monday they were assessing claims that Mountbatten-Windsor shared confidential reports from his role as a government trade envoy with the child sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein in 2010. Continue reading...

While the herd is yet to move against Keir Starmer, many believe his tenure may be coming to an endWhen Boris Johnson resigned as the British prime minister in 2022, he explained that the politicians who had once loyally supported him had turned against him.This had sealed his fate. The herd instinct is powerful and when the herd moves, it moves," he said. Continue reading...

Prosecutor claims Juan Pablo Guanipa was re-arrested due to non-compliance with terms of releaseOne of Venezuela's most prominent opposition politicians, Juan Pablo Guanipa, has been detained by security forces just hours after being released from prison, as the South American country's leaders sent mixed signals about their commitment to political reform after Nicolas Maduro's downfall.Guanipa, who is a close ally of the Nobel laureate Maria Corina Machado, emerged from nearly nine months' detention on Sunday - one of at least 35 political prisoners to be freed over the course of the day. Continue reading...

The media mogul and prominent pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in Hong Kong for national security offences. His family has described the sentence as heartbreakingly cruel', given the 78-year-old's declining health. Lai was convicted in December on charges of sedition and conspiracy to collude with foreign forces, after pleading not guilty to all charges. Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian's senior China correspondent, Amy Hawkins - watch on YouTube Continue reading...

Matthew Whitaker, the US ambassador to Nato, responds to criticism in the Munich Security Conference report

Tom Homan suggested that a widespread approach to immigration operations would lose public supportTom Homan - the Trump administration's border czar" sent to Minnesota in January after federal agents fatally shot two US citizen protesters - warned last year that the government's aggressive, widespread approach to immigration enforcement would cost it public support.Homan made the observation in an interview with NBC in June for the forthcoming book Undue Process, by the network's homeland security correspondent, analyzing the immigration policy of mass deportation that Donald Trump has pursued during his second presidency. Continue reading...

Detentions of senior Reformists Front figures follow criticism of the authorities' handling of recent protestsThe head of Iran's Reformists Front, the organisation instrumental in securing the election of the country's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has been arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in a move that is likely to exacerbate tensions over the handling of recent street protests.Azar Mansouri, the secretary general of the Islamic Iran People party, had expressed deep sorrow at protesters' deaths, and said nothing could justify such a catastrophe. She had not in public called for the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to resign. Continue reading...

Sarwar tells press conference: The distraction has to end and the leadership in Downing Street has to change'

As Rayner for leader' site goes live, here are previous instances of politicians jumping the gun

Exclusive: angelaforleader.co.uk domain also registered - but MP's team dismiss unfinished site as fake' that was created without her knowledgeAn unfinished website claiming to launch Angela Rayner's Labour leadership campaign was published temporarily in January, prompting further speculation that the former deputy prime minister could be gearing up for a contest to replace Keir Starmer.The Guardian was alerted to the website, which appeared to be under construction, by a source in the IT industry - before the US Department of Justice's latest release of documents on Jeffrey Epstein threw the UK government into disarray. It was published, seemingly by accident, on a staging site", before being removed from the internet. Continue reading...

Thinktank analysis suggests Japan campaigns to prolong the carbon industry in Australia and hinder move to clean energy

Australia needs a balance between protecting the privacy of donors and preserving the transparency of how political parties are funded

Grace Tame and Lidia Thorpe address crowds in Sydney and Melbourne as NSW Labor backbencher says police reaction totally over-the-top'

Exclusive: Decision follows departure of chief of staff Morgan McSweeney over Peter Mandelson scandal

Faber-Castell says it was unaware its facility was being used to detain asylum seekers deported by the Trump administrationThe world's largest pencil maker has accused the Costa Rican government of misusing an old factory that the German manufacturer donated for humanitarian purposes - by detaining asylum seekers there who were deported from the US by the Trump administration last year.Faber-Castell produces more than 2bn wooden pencils a year worldwide and used to have a factory in the southern part of Costa Rica, bordering Panama and supplied by trees cultivated in the region. Continue reading...

Corteva will discontinue a mixture of Agent Orange and glyphosate, but another of its herbicides will still use Vietnam war-era defoliantThe chemical giant Corteva will stop producing Enlist Duo, a herbicide considered to be among the most dangerous still used in the US by environmentalists because it contains a mix of Agent Orange and glyphosate, which have both been linked to cancer and widespread ecological damage.The US military deployed Agent Orange, a chemical weapon, to destroy vegetation during the Vietnam war, causing serious health problems among soldiers and Vietnamese residents. Continue reading...

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Storm Marta sweeps Iberian peninsula just days after Storms Kristin and Leonardo brought deadly flooding and major damageSpain and Portugal have endured another storm over the weekend, just days after the deadly flooding and major damage caused by Storm Kristin and Storm Leonardo last week. Storm Marta passed over the Iberian peninsula on Saturday bringing fresh torrential rain, killing two people. Storm Kristin killed at least five people when it swept through Portugal last week with Storm Leonardo claiming another victim last Wednesday. The outlook for this week is for more rain across Spain, Portugal and France, especially across north-west Portugal, where more than 100mm is possible during the first half of the week. Some of the heaviest of the rain will transfer to southern Italy and western parts of Greece and Turkey later in the week.High rainfall totals are expected across parts of South Africa and Lesotho this week. By Saturday, provinces including Free State, KwaZulu Natal and Eastern Cape in South Africa could record fairly widespread rainfall totals of 80-100mm as a result of heavy showers or thunderstorms, with daily rainfall totals perhaps reaching 50mm where storms are particularly intense. Continue reading...

Family of media tycoon say he will die a martyr behind bars' amid widespread criticism from press freedom groupsJimmy Lai, the media mogul and prominent pro-democracy activist, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in Hong Kong for national security offences, a punishment his daughter said could mean he will die a martyr behind bars".Claire Lai said the sentence was heartbreakingly cruel" given her 78-year-old father's declining health, while her brother Sebastien Lai called the sentence draconian" and devastating". Continue reading...

Need for greater military autonomy also accepted, says report for Munich Security Conference, which takes place this weekEurope has come to the painful realisation that it needs to be more assertive and more militarily independent from an authoritarian US administration that no longer shares a commitment to liberal democratic norms and values, a report prepared by the Munich Security Conference asserts.The report sets the scene for an all-out ideological confrontation with the Trump White House at the high-level annual meeting of security policy specialists, which starts on Friday. Continue reading...

Banking group beats Barclays to snare biggest acquisition since it was bailed out by taxpayers in 2008

Israeli president will meet prime minister Anthony Albanese and travel to Canberra and Melbourne as pro-Palestine supporters stage protests

Antonio Jose Seguro scores resounding win despite Andre Ventura's populist Chega party securing 33.2% of votesThe moderate socialist Antonio Jose Seguro won a resounding victory in the second round of Portugal's presidential election on Sunday, triumphing over his far-right opponent, Andre Ventura, whose Chega party still managed to take a record share of the vote.Seguro won 66.8% of votes to Ventura's 33.2% in the election, which went ahead despite weeks of disruption caused by deadly storms. The vote to elect a successor to the outgoing president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, was marked by a cross-party push to head off the prospect of a Chega victory, with some senior rightwing figures throwing their weight behind the centre-left candidate to keep Ventura from entering the presidential palace. Continue reading...

Palestine Action Group argued powers so broad anyone in Sydney CBD or eastern suburbs could be searched - even when Israeli president in Canberra or Melbourne

Data shows deprived communities have more off-licences and takeaways and fewer childcare facilities and gymsEngland's poorest communities have 70% more vape shops, off-licences and bookmakers than wealthier ones and far fewer cafes and gyms, a study has found.The Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods (Icon), chaired by the Labour peer Hilary Armstrong, said ministers risked overlooking vitally important neighbourhood shopping precincts by focusing on town centres. In deprived areas, local shops have roughly double the number of retailers selling unhealthy food and significantly higher vacancy rates, its research has found. Continue reading...

Thinktank analysis says proposed earned settlement' changes could trap families in prolonged insecurityMore than 300,000 children already living in the UK could be forced to wait 10 years for settled status under proposed changes to the Home Office's earned settlement" policy, according to an analysis by a centre left thinktank.The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) found that nearly a quarter (23%) of the 1.35 million people already on routes to settlement are children, most of them dependants on their families' work visas. Continue reading...

Leadership challenge by conservative MP is a matter of when, not if, they say

Intelligence agency takes unusual step of publicly releasing statement and says it will reserve our right to take further action' if the ABC makes false claims

British papers explore what's next for prime minister Keir Starmer after the loss of his longtime adviser over the Mandelson-Epstein files scandalThe fate of prime minister Keir Starmer dominates the UK front pages on Monday after his embattled chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, resigned over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington.In standing down, McSweeney admitted the decision to advise sending Mandelson to the US despite his links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was wrong". I advised the prime minister to make that appointment and I take full responsibility for that advice," he said, after a Sunday phone call with Starmer. Continue reading...

Australian white supremacist tells NZ court he was suffering from nervous exhaustion' when he entered his guilty plea in March 2020The Australian white supremacist who murdered 51 Muslim worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch in 2019, in the worst mass shooting in the New Zealand's history, has asked a court to discard his guilty pleas, claiming harsh prison conditions had affected his mental health and compelled him to admit to the crimes.Brenton Tarrant pleaded guilty in March 2020 to 51 counts of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and a terrorism charge, after initially saying he would defend the charges. In August 2020, Tarrant became the first person in New Zealand under current laws to be sentenced to life in prison without the chance of ever walking free. Continue reading...

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Award-winning Tasmanian artist's work was published by The Australian, The Saturday Paper and The Hobart MercuryJon Kudelka, the Australian political cartoonist, has died at the age of 53.His wife, Margaret Kudelka, announced the news in a statement on Tuesday: We are sad to tell you that our beloved, brilliant Jon Kudelka died peacefully in South Hobart on Sunday afternoon, surrounded by his family and friends." Continue reading...

Exclusive: Labour peer, who came to UK as a refugee, says some ministers try to show they won't just do things because of their background'Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, whose parents migrated to the UK from Pakistan, is facing the suggestion from a veteran Labour peer that she is pulling up the drawbridge once inside" when considering the plight of refugee children trapped abroad.Alf Dubs, who came to the UK aged six in 1939 fleeing the persecution of Jews in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, said the home secretary and other ministers had kowtowed" to Nigel Farage's Reform UK by preventing unaccompanied children from seeking refuge with UK-based family members. Continue reading...

Moderate socialist defeats far-right populist Andre Ventura, with exit polls putting him comfortably above two-thirds of voteModerate socialist Antonio Jose Seguro secured a landslide victory and a five-year term as Portugal's president in a runoff vote on Sunday, beating his far-right, anti-establishment rival Andre Ventura, exit polls and partial results showed.A succession of storms in recent days failed to deter voters, with turnout at about the same level as in the first round on 18 January, even though three municipal councils in southern and central Portugal had to postpone voting by a week due to floods. Continue reading...

Carla Georgescu, 19, was found dead at her accommodation in Preston and police say her death is being treated as suspiciousA man has been arrested over the death of a student in her accommodation at the University of Lancashire.Carla Georgescu, 19, was found dead at her accommodation in Victoria Street, Preston, on Thursday afternoon, Lancashire constabulary said. Continue reading...

McSweeney resigns as PM's top aide after Mandelson revelations as Starmer appoints new acting joint chiefs of staff