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Persistent wet weather is affecting farmers, builders, sports, wildlife - and damaging roads and homesFeel like it hasn't stopped raining?" the Met Office asked on Monday. For some places, the forecaster said, it really had rained every day so far this year.People who live in parts of Devon, Cornwall and Worcestershire have been dodging deluges or showers for 40 days - the same number of days that it rained in the Bible's Noah's ark story, the same number of soggy days you can expect if it rains on St Swithin's Day, according to folklore. Continue reading...

Scientists find underwater acoustic project to stop fish being sucked into cooling systems could save 44 tonnes a yearScientists have found that plans to use a fish disco" to deter migratory marine life from the nearby Hinkley Point C nuclear reactor could help save 90% of fish from the power plant's water intake pipes - but the solution is set to cost its developer 700m.EDF Energy, which is building the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in Somerset, said research it commissioned from scientists at Swansea University had found that using an acoustic deterrent system helped to ward off the vast majority" of fish it tagged for the experiment. Continue reading...

Some jobs will be moved offshore in wake of telco's $700m joint venture with tech consultancy Accenture

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Jann Alhafny says she feared there could be a stampede or that she might suffocate after she was allegedly pushed to the ground

Pressure mounts on oil and gas company as it aims for turnaround under new chief executive

Push discussed in private talks and echoes tactic of then-Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull used against Peter Dutton

Any officers who acted unlawfully should face prosecution for actions, Muslim groups say

Many in red wall' seat of Josh Simons, a staunch ally of the PM, have had enough of Labour - and its leaderAs he rose to his feet in the Commons in September 2024, the incoming Labour MP Josh Simons echoed Keir Starmer's promise to deliver.Unless working people like those I am so proud to represent feel change and unless we in this chamber demonstrate humility and honesty and act with integrity and with respect, they have no reason to believe in democracy," he said. Continue reading...

Israel's security cabinet has approved plans that pave the way for more settlements in the occupied Palestinian territoryA White House official has reiterated Donald Trump's opposition towards Israel annexing the West Bank, after Israeli plans were announced that would pave the way for more settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.The measures, announced on Sunday, included allowing Jewish Israelis to buy West Bank land directly, and extending greater Israeli control over areas where the Palestinian Authority exercises power. It was unclear when the new rules, approved by Israel's security cabinet, would take effect but they do not require further approval. Continue reading...

Charity to also offer activities for young families and host NCT volunteer-led sling and buggy walks at selected sitesThe great stone circles, abbeys, castles and manor houses that English Heritage manages acted for centuries as places to meet and mingle.Now in an effort to tackle parental isolation, the charity is tapping back into this sense of community by introducing bonding benches" at many of its most famous sites. Continue reading...

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

Christian charity executive, Lauren Mastrosa, pen name Tori Woods, found to have written novel that sexually objectifies children'

Helen Pidd follows the twists and turns on Monday as the prime minister fought to keep his jobOn Monday morning, the prime minister was preparing to reset relations with MPs after the resignation of his chief aide, Morgan McSweeney.Just before midday, news broke that Tim Allen, Keir Starmer's director of communications, had resigned. By lunchtime, it emerged that Anas Sarwar, Labour's leader in Scotland, was preparing to hold a press conference calling on Starmer to stand down. Continue reading...

Four Corners reported comments by Marcus' alleging agency was warned Sajid and Naveed Akram supported Islamic State

Former nanny Scarlett Pavlovich filed suit in three US states alleging author assaulted her in New Zealand in 2022Federal judges have dismissed three lawsuits accusing the bestselling fantasy author Neil Gaiman of sexually assaulting his children's nanny in New Zealand four years ago.Scarlett Pavlovich filed a lawsuit against Gaiman and his wife, Amanda Palmer, in Wisconsin in February 2025, accusing Gaiman of multiple sexual assaults while she worked as the family's nanny in 2022. She filed lawsuits against Palmer in Massachusetts and in New York on the same day she filed the Wisconsin action. Continue reading...

Government contractor stripped custody suites in England and Wales of motivational murals deemed too welcoming, report saysA government contractor has been accused of being petty and vindictive" after tearing down brightly coloured artworks carrying motivational messages that were intended to improve the conditions for people held in court cells.The decision by Serco to remove the artworks, commissioned to cheer up court custody areas that are often underground and bleak", is revealed in the annual report of the Lay Observers, independent members of the public who monitor court custody and escort conditions. The report draws on 759 visits to court custody suites across England and Wales, representing almost 2,000 hours of monitoring. Continue reading...

Schitt's Creek and Home Alone star died aged 71 in January after being rushed to hospital due to breathing difficultiesCatherine O'Hara, the Emmy-winning actor and beloved star of the series Schitt's Creek and the 1990 hit movie Home Alone, died from a blood clot in her lungs, her death certificate revealed Monday.The death certificate released by the Los Angeles county medical examiner's office also listed rectal cancer as an underlying cause. Continue reading...

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...

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

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...