World news | The Guardian

Ward appeared via video link from Cessnock prison, having resigned as the member for Kiama in early August

National Folklore Survey, the first in over 60 years, found people aged 25-34 most likely to believe in the paranormalIt is the time of the year when the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest, and spirits walk the earth once more.But it appears you are more likely to be visited by a ghost if you are under 35 years old, while spiritual creatures tend to avoid those who live in the East Midlands. Continue reading...

Status of pilot and potential passengers unknown as emergency crews attend incident near DoncasterA helicopter has crashed in a field in South Yorkshire, police have said.Emergency services were called to Ings Lane, Bentley, near Doncaster, at 10.15am on Thursday. Continue reading...

New EV models are offsetting a slump in demand but Europe's carmakers are bracing for shutdownsVolkswagen has signalled that its annual profit targets are at risk without sufficient computer chips, in the latest sign that an expected shortage of semiconductors from China could hit carmakers across Europe.The struggling German automotive giant said a series of cost cuts and new model launches are helping to offset a slump in Chinese demand but added that forecasts are based on the adequate availability of semiconductors". Continue reading...

Review launched after firm struggles to stem exodus of clients and compete with AI and data capabilities of rivalsJobs at WPP could be at risk as its new chief executive launched a review designed to revive the advertising group's fortunes after a fresh profit warning.Cindy Rose announced the review on Thursday, saying she was taking action to address unacceptable" performance at the company, which has struggled to stem a growing exodus of clients and compete with the AI and data capabilities of its rivals. Continue reading...

Guardian analysis finds ICE increasingly keeps people in holding rooms with little oversight, as some facilities see a 600% rise in detention lengthImmigration officials have been increasingly detaining people in small, secretive holding facilities for days or even weeks at a time in violation of federal policy, a Guardian investigation has found.These holding facilities - located at ICE offices, in federal buildings, and other locations around the country - are typically used to detain people after they have been arrested but before they are transferred or released. In many cases, they consist of small concrete rooms with no beds and are designed to only be used for a few hours.ICE has used at least 170 ICE holding facilities nationwide, including at 25 ICE field offices.The Trump administration and its campaign of mass deportation has led to a near across the board increase in the time people are forced to spend in detention in holding rooms. After Donald Trump's inauguration, the average time that people spend in detention increased at 127 hold rooms across the country.Despite ICE's rule change in June, the agency is continuing to violate its own policy by detaining people at these sites for multiple days at a time.In some cases, such as a New York City holding facility located on the 10th floor of a federal building in downtown Manhattan, time in detention increased by nearly 600% on average after the June rule change.In one case the Guardian discovered by looking through agency data, ICE documented that a 62-year-old man was held inside that same New York City holding facility for two-and-a-half months.The Guardian also found an additional 63 people at the site who were held there for longer than one week, between Trump's inauguration and late July. Continue reading...

Tory leader says chancellor should have been on top of paperwork when she rented out her south London home

Service scheduled to launch in 2026 will be first in Britain to use Starlink's satellites to connect to handsetsVirgin Media O2 has announced a landmark" partnership with Elon Musk's satellite company aimed at improving rural mobile network coverage.The deal with Starlink Direct to Cell is said to be the first of its kind to utilise the billionaire's company position as the world's largest satellite-to-mobile constellation. Continue reading...

Soumaya Hamdi says she has barely spoken to Sami Hamdi since he was taken over his pro-Palestinian advocacyThe wife of a British political commentator who was detained by immigration authorities while on a speaking tour of the US said she had only been able to speak with him for 30 seconds" since he was taken into custody on Sunday over his pro-Palestinian advocacy.Soumaya Hamdi told the Guardian she first learned her husband, Sami Hamdi, was detained at San Francisco international airport when a friend asked her to confirm rumors he had been abducted by ICE". When he was finally able to briefly call her, Hamdi only had enough time to say he had been taken to an immigration detention center in McFarland, California, where he remains. Continue reading...

Arts professionals complain of cruel' bureaucratic process since grant processing platform crashed in JulyArts organisations and artists have said they are still in funding limbo" with mounting bills and uncertain futures after this summer's crash of Arts Council England's grant processing platform.ACE's online portal, Grantium, was used by artists to submit and manage funding applications. But when it crashed in July, it left thousands of applications for vital funding in doubt - a situation that persisted for several months until applications reopened in late September. Continue reading...

Bruce and Denise Morcombe call on other states to act as LNP passes Daniel's law', allowing public naming of some child sexual abusers

UK rail regulator approves Richard Branson firm's application to use Temple Mills site in LondonRichard Branson's train company is a step closer to challenging Eurostar's monopoly on transporting passengers across the Channel after the UK rail regulator approved Virgin Train's application to use a key depot in east London.The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) approved Virgin's application to use the Temple Mills depot in Leyton - which is used for maintaining and storing trains. It said the move would unlock 700m of investment in new services and create 400 jobs. Continue reading...

Public prosecutor says arrests were made in and around Paris but suspects did not help us find the stolen goods'Five new suspects have been arrested in connection with the Louvre robbery in Paris, in which thieves stole crown jewels worth an estimated 88m (76m), the city's public prosecutor has said, but the gems remain missing.Laure Beccuau told RTL radio on Thursday the arrests had been made on Wednesday night in the French capital and the surrounding area, particularly the neighbouring Seine-Saint-Denis department. But they did not help us find the stolen goods", she added. Continue reading...

Result opens a path for D66 leader Rob Jetten to form a government as the youngest ever prime minister of the NetherlandsThe centrist D66 party made huge gains in Dutch elections, likely giving it the lead in government formation as the party of far-right leader Geert Wilders lost support.With 90% of the votes counted early on Thursday, D66 and Wilders' Freedom Party (PVV) were both projected to take 26 seats in the 150-seat lower house of parliament. Continue reading...

Ministers say they will reconsider their attendance at the meeting if they get at least 10 minutes each

Labor government loses control of chamber and threatens to strip Coalition members from parliamentary committees

Thousands have fled the North Darfur city in terror with stories of the Rapid Support Forces attacking and killing civilians

US president tells reporters he and Australian PM working on a lot of things together'

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Australia's new privacy laws to be tested as Victorian Liberal MP and wife Brittany Groth sue over Herald Sun articles

Half-measures would have little or no meaningful impact on child poverty rates, Resolution Foundation analysis findsFailure to abolish the two-child benefit limit would wreck the government's child poverty ambitions and risk creating levels of hardship not seen under a Labour government for more than half a century, an analysis warns.The Resolution Foundation said political courage was required for ministers to show they are serious about reversing trends that, if not addressed, would push the rate of child poverty to a historic high by the end of the decade. Continue reading...

Chancellor is backed by prime minister after saying she inadvertently' failed to pay fee required by London councilRachel Reeves has admitted to inadvertently" breaking housing rules by renting out her south London home without the specific 945 licence required by the local council.The chancellor admitted the error to the prime minister, Keir Starmer, and to parliamentary ethics officers, after it was first disclosed by the Daily Mail. Continue reading...

Media group's own paper publishes photograph of RedBird Capital chair with alleged spy ring chiefThe sale of the Telegraph Media Group has been thrown into fresh turmoil after the company's own newspaper linked its presumed new owner to the suspected ringleader of the alleged Chinese spy ring in Westminster.Wednesday's edition of the Daily Telegraph published a 2024 photograph of the financier John Thornton shaking hands with Cai Qi, a senior member of the Chinese Communist party's ruling politburo, raising questions as to whether the British title is being weighed as a means for China to exert foreign influence. Continue reading...

Ferntree Gully cricket club confirms death of 17-year-old Ben Austin after incident in cricket nets on Tuesday

Frans Timmermans resigns as GreenLeft-Labour leader as exit poll suggests Geert Wilders' far-right PVV could finish secondThe Anne Frank House is not the only unusual place where voters can cast their votes today.The Dutch Vogue has a list of 11 special locations, including a children's zoo in Amsterdam, the marine museum in Rotterdam, the miniature park in The Hague. Continue reading...

Strong demand for ads and cloud services powered tech giant's growth as it makes multibillion-dollar AI investmentGoogle's parent company, Alphabet, displayed steady growth in its core advertising business and cloud computing division as it reported third-quarter earnings on Wednesday, beating Wall Street estimates as it reported its first quarter of $100bn in revenue.The company thrilled Wall Street - shares rose in after-hours trading - even as it announced that it would spend billions more than previously predicted. Alphabet raised its capital expenditure guidance in financial filings, declaring it would spend between $91bn and $93bn in the upcoming year, nearly all of it on infrastructure like datacenters to support artificial intelligence products, which are becoming an integral part of the company's business. That estimate is up from an original declaration of $75bn in February and a revised figure of $85bn announced in July. Continue reading...

Government still struggling to win the agenda from Reform, leaving planners trusting voters will sour on what they seeAfter 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. Continue reading...

Hanson's office cites meetings with industry representatives and a One Nation party executive who later changed his name to Aussie Trump

Starmer signs agreement with visiting Vietnamese leader after surge in clandestine arrivals from countryVietnamese 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. Continue reading...

Committee asks for rationale behind spending public money in relation to Andrew after recent controversyPoliticians 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. Continue reading...

Police are no closer to recovering the gems, despite the arrest of two men last weekTwo 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". Continue reading...

Lib Dems say ECHR protects our elderly and most vulnerable...the very people who need it most'Mark Sedwill, the former cabinet secretary and former national security adviser, goes next. He is now a peer, and a member of the committee.He says the deputy national security adviser, Matthew Collins, thought there was enough evidence for the case to go ahead. But the CPS did not agree. Who was right?In 2017, the Law Commission flagged that the term enemy [in the legislation] was deeply problematic and it would give rise to difficulties in future prosecutions.And I think what has played out, during this prosecution exemplifies and highlights the difficulties with that. Continue reading...

The Times deletes article after its reporter was duped by impostor pretending to be former New York mayorThe Times has apologized and deleted an article after discovering its reporter had been duped by someone pretending to be Bill de Blasio, the former mayor of New York City.The UK newspaper removed the article from its website after the real De Blasio released a statement calling the quotes attributed to him entirely false and fabricated" and lambasted the Times for its absolute violation of journalistic ethics". Continue reading...

After staff realized suspect had been freed, officers began search and confirmed he was no longer in the area'A manhunt is underway in California after a murder suspect was accidentally released from jail last week.The Contra Costa sheriff's office said that it was investigating the release of 20-year-old Isaiah Jamon Andrews of Kent, Washington. Andrews was released on 22 October from the Martinez detention facility in northern California. Continue reading...

John Ashby, 32, did not enter a plea and was remanded to appear in Birmingham crown courtA man charged with the rape and sexual assault of a Sikh woman in Walsall has been remanded in custody after entering no plea at Birmingham magistrates court.This comes after a woman in her 20s was attacked in the Park Hall area of Walsall on 25 October 2025, West Midlands police said on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Government critics abducted, killed or arrested in run-up to vote as global monitor records internet blackoutViolent demonstrations broke out in Tanzania's largest city, Dar es Salaam, as the country held an election on Wednesday.Samia Suluhu Hassan, the president, is expected to strengthen her grip on the country against the backdrop of rapidly intensifying repression and the exclusion of opponents from the presidential contest. Continue reading...

Prime minister fails to answer Tory leader's questions about manifesto pledge not to raise income tax

Richard Hermer says failure by Kemi Badenoch and James Cleverly to describe China as a threat would have been seized on in trialDefence lawyers would have used Kemi Badenoch and James Cleverly's statements about China to dismiss a case against two men charged with spying for Beijing, the attorney general has argued.Richard Hermer told parliament that there would have been plenty of reference" by Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry's lawyers to Conservative ministers' policy positions had the trial gone ahead. Continue reading...

Steve Reed writes to South Cambridgeshire council raising concerns over performance and value for moneyThe local government secretary, Steve Reed, is seeking to clamp down on councils introducing four-day working weeks after writing to South Cambridgeshire warning that the policy has damaged performance.Reed told the council, which is the only local authority to formally trial a four-day week for staff, that the move risked worsening public services and value for money. Continue reading...

Sales benefited from warm summer, M&S online shutdown after cyber-attack and supply improvementsNext has raised hopes that UK consumers are still willing to spend despite pressures on household budgets, as it revealed sales and profit growth materially above" expectations.The clothing and homeware retailer said it benefited from sunny weather over the summer, the online shutdown of the rival Marks & Spencer for several weeks after an Easter cyber-attack and an improvement in clothing supplies from countries such as Bangladesh compared with last year. Continue reading...

Big win leaves many wondering if result reflects genuine support for president or corrosive US influenceOpposition posters scattered across Buenos Aires before Sunday's midterms showed president Javier Milei's name plastered over a US flag, in a bid to tap into anti-American sentiment over Donald Trump's alleged interference in Argentina's election.Days before the vote, the US president announced a $40bn bailout for his Argentinian counterpart but warned that if Milei did not win he would withdraw his support. Continue reading...

Major parties rule out coalition with rightwinger, giving his party little chance of being part of governmentVoting is under way in a knife-edge parliamentary election in the Netherlands that polls suggest could again be won by the far-right Freedom party (PVV) of Geert Wilders, although there is little chance of it being part of the next government.The PVV, which finished a shock first in the last election and formed a short-lived, four-party rightwing coalition, has seen its once sizeable lead fade fast. With nearly half the electorate undecided, analysts say the race is too tight to call. Continue reading...

Lender's chief executive says redress proposals could affect jobs, supply chains and broader UK economy

Carmaker's third-quarter losses bigger than expected at 112m, with weak demand in China also a factor

Kebatu, who was wrongly freed from Essex prison, was put on a flight to Ethiopia and arrived on WednesdayA convicted child sex offender who arrived in the UK in a small boat and was mistakenly released from prison has been deported, the Home Office says.Hadush Kebatu arrived in Ethiopia in the early hours after being removed from the UK on a flight with no right to return, a statement said. Continue reading...

Dog walker was reportedly walking past Uxbridge house where man and child were stabbedMurder detectives are investigating after a man believed to have been walking a dog past a house where a row had broken out was stabbed to death.The 49-year-old man, named locally as Wayne Broadhurst, died in Midhurst Gardens, Uxbridge, west London, in an incident when a man and a child were also stabbed. Continue reading...

Parents say they were treated as fraudsters because Home Office travel records failed to show their return to UKThe UK tax authorities have announced they will no longer cut off parents' child benefit payments after a new crackdown on overseas fraud backfired due to incomplete Home Office travel data.The flawed data led to HMRC suspending 23,500 payments in recent weeks, including for many families who had simply gone on holiday without the Home Office recording their return. Continue reading...

In today's newsletter: Meteorologists have called it a dire situation unfolding in slow motion' - what will it leave behind?Good morning. Hurricane Melissa, the strongest storm to hit Jamaica since records began in 1851, made landfall at about midday local time on Tuesday. With winds reaching 185mph and torrential rains, it knocked out power lines, cut off the internet, and demolished buildings; the death toll and extent of the damage are still unknown.The storm has already hit Haiti and the Dominican Republic; though it was at one stage downgraded to a tropical storm, now it has strengthened again and is expected to arrive imminently in Cuba, where more than 700,000 people have been evacuated. The reports that are coming in are catastrophic," Jamaican energy and transport minister Daryl Vaz told Sky News. Not very much survives a Category 5 hurricane, in terms of infrastructure."Economy | Rachel Reeves has said Britain can defy gloomy economic forecasts after the fiscal watchdog infuriated ministers by predicting a productivity downgrade would leave her with a 20bn gap to fill in her forthcoming budget.Sudan | Ethnically motivated mass killings and other atrocities are being reported from El Fasher after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces took control of the city in Sudan's western Darfur region over the weekend.UK news | Downing Street has defended the prospect of paying more to house asylum seekers in disused barracks instead of hotels, arguing that quelling public disquiet was worth the extra cost. No 10 said that communities don't want asylum seekers housed in hotels, and neither does the government".Middle East | Israeli warplanes struck Gaza on Tuesday night, shortly after Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, ordered the military to carry out powerful strikes" in Gaza, in the most serious test of the increasingly shaky US-brokered ceasefire.Television | Prunella Scales, the actor best known for playing Sybil Fawlty in the classic comedy series Fawlty Towers, has died aged 93. Scales, who was married to fellow actor Timothy West, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2013. Continue reading...

US president to be presented with replica royal gold crown before meeting his South Korean counterpart, Lee Jae Myung, but expectations of a breakthrough on tariffs are lowDonald Trump landed in South Korea on Wednesday to meet President Lee Jae Myung, with deadlocked talks over a $350bn trade deal between the two countries threatening to cast a shadow over the event.After arriving on a flight from Tokyo, where he signed a rare earths deal with Japan's new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, the US president addressed a summit of CEOs ahead of a meeting with Lee in the town of Gyeongju, a historical city playing host to the annual Apec summit. Continue reading...