Scottish first minister says party needs greater financial accountability, in briefing after arrest of former leader’s husbandHumza Yousaf, the new Scottish National party leader, has made a barely concealed attack on his predecessor Nicola Sturgeon over the party’s financial management and transparency.In a move designed to distance himself from Sturgeon, his mentor, after her husband, Peter Murrell, was arrested in an SNP funding inquiry, Yousaf said the party needed more openness with its members and greater financial accountability. Continue reading...

Data analysed by Liberty Investigates shows almost half of girls subjected to strip-searches between 2017 and 2022 were BlackBlack girls are almost three times more likely than their white counterparts to be subjected by the Met police to the most invasive form of strip-search, figures suggest.Between 2017 and 2022, 110 female children and teenagers were subjected to strip-searches in which their intimate parts were exposed, according to data obtained via freedom of information requests and analysed by Liberty Investigates. Disproportionately, almost half (47%) of those subjected to these strip-searches were Black. Continue reading...

Exclusive: John McFall says upper house is in danger of falling ‘out of sync’, amid controversy over Johnson and Truss choicesThe House of Lords needs more independent, expert peers, the lord speaker has warned, amid growing controversy over plans by Boris Johnson and Liz Truss to pack the chamber with dozens of political allies and donors.John McFall stressed he was making no direct criticism of recent peerage choices, given his neutral role, but he told the Guardian that the upper house was in danger of becoming “out of sync” with its balance of legislators. Continue reading...

Government has aggressively pursued sanctions despite its own 2020 report showing they are ineffective at getting people into jobsBenefit sanctions slow down claimants’ progress into work and are likely to force them into taking lower-paying jobs that leave them hundreds of pounds a year worse off, according to an internal report that the government tried to suppress.The findings of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) report echo a series of independent studies showing sanctions – in effect fines amounting to hundreds of pounds imposed on claimants for supposed infringements of benefit rules – are ineffective as a way of getting people into jobs or to work more hours. Continue reading...

This live blog has now closed, you can read more on this story hereA brief foray into the area between politics and football as the Athletic, a subscription-only football website, has obtained government emails that showed the possible failure of a Saudi Arabian takeover of Newcastle United was flagged as an “immediate risk” to UK-Saudi relations [paywall].The website’s reporter Adam Crafton has 59-pages of emails between government officials that shows the Foreign Office trying to boost the image of Saudi Arabia despite concerns about human rights abuses as the Premier League considered whether to approve the deal. Continue reading...

Photography space that inspired Billy Elliot writer Lee Hall launches fundraising campaign with aim of reopening in 2024A small and much-loved photography gallery that has punched well above its size for more than 45 years will close this weekend because of funding cuts and cost-of-living pressures.The Side Gallery, near the Tyne Bridge in Newcastle, was opened in 1977 by a collective championing positive images of working-class life. Continue reading...

National Education Union says government is ‘rattled’ after delegates vote for strike action in England in summer termThe National Education Union’s leadership has threatened to organise a huge protest during the Conservative party conference, accusing Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, of being deluded about teachers’ pay and staff shortages.Kevin Courtney, the NEU’s joint general secretary, told delegates to the union’s annual conference: “If you need to, you will organise the biggest demo Manchester has seen for decades on 2 October, you’ll carry on a campaign right into the general election year. And you will win. Continue reading...

Ferry operator says wait for passport checks ‘approximately 90 minutes’ before start of weekend getawayBank Holiday travel chaos has started early at the port of Dover, where large queues have already begun to form before the long Easter weekend.The wait for passport checks at the Kent port on Thursday morning was “approximately 90 minutes”, according to the ferry operator DFDS. Continue reading...

Andriy Sybiha expresses Kyiv’s interest in negotiations with Moscow should Ukrainian forces reach region

CCC spokesperson Fadzayi Mahere convicted over tweet as Zanu-PF accused of curbing free speechOne of Zimbabwe’s most vocal opposition politicians, Fadzayi Mahere, has narrowly avoided a prison sentence after being convicted of “communicating falsehoods” in 2021.The verdict has stoked fears of a brutal state clampdown on freedom of expression before this summer’s general election. Continue reading...

File from India Office archive details how priceless items were extracted from colony as trophies of conquestFive years ago, Buckingham Palace marked its summer opening with an exhibition celebrating the then Prince Charles’s 70th birthday with a display of his favourite pieces from the royal collection, Britain’s official trove of items connected to the monarchy. “The prince had a very, very strong hand in the selection,” the senior curator said.Among the sculptures, paintings and other exhibits was a long gold girdle inlaid with 19 large emeralds once used by an Indian maharajah to decorate his horses. It was a curious choice to put into the exhibition in light of the violent means by which it had come into the hands of the royal family. Continue reading...

Privately-run £50m scheme backed by former home secretary was mooted after 2021 murder of Sarah EverardPlans for a privately run emergency phone line for women walking alone, promised after the murder of Sarah Everard, have been shelved.The proposal by BT for a service to help protect women travelling alone was welcomed by the then home secretary Priti Patel when it was mooted in October 2021. Patel called it “exactly the kind of innovative scheme” she wanted to get going as soon as was possible, while the Home Office said it welcomed “joint working between the private sector and government”. Continue reading...

Suffolk brewer says pulling out is ‘on the agenda’ but it will await outcome of independent investigationBosses at brewer Adnams have had discussions about potentially leaving the Confederation of British Industry after a Guardian investigation revealed multiple allegations of sexual misconduct by the influential business lobby group’s staff.Andy Wood, Adnams’s chief executive, on Thursday said management at the Suffolk-based brewer had talked about leaving the organisation, depending on the outcome of an independent investigation. Continue reading...

Frontbencher says MPs face extreme trauma but are ‘just expected to deal with it as part of your job’

Muslim rulers, deadly riots connected to PM and Gandhi’s dislike of Hindu nationalism taken off curriculumThe Indian government has been accused of rewriting history to fit its Hindu nationalist agenda after school textbooks were edited to remove references to Mahatma Gandhi’s opposition to Hindu nationalism, as well as mention of a controversial religious riot in which the prime minister, Narendra Modi, was implicated.Textbooks were also revised to remove chapters on the history of the Mughals, the Muslim rulers who controlled much of India between the 16th and 19th centuries. Continue reading...

Regulator says Binance must cease trading by 21 April after it incorrectly classified hundreds of retail customers as wholesale investors

Mark Rowley says he was shocked by officers’ offences and law needs to make it easier to dismiss people from forceThe commissioner of the Metropolitan police says his force has “been too permissive” in allowing officers to serve with serious criminal records and that legislation is needed to make it easier to dismiss them.Commenting in the wake of a review which found 161 officers in his force have criminal convictions, including for sex offences, Sir Mark Rowley, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think we’ve been too permissive. That’s very, very clear.” Continue reading...

Former Scotland first minister cancels appearance amid police inquiry into husband over SNP financesThe former Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon has pulled out of a climate crisis event as police continue to investigate her husband in an inquiry into the Scottish National party’s finances.Sturgeon had been due to take part in a conversation with the Mexican diplomat Patricia Espinosa, the former chair of the UN framework convention on climate change, at Edinburgh Science festival. Continue reading...

Coalition of organisations says changes would have ‘devastating impact on press freedom’ and are not in public interest

Judgement says notices failed to provide enough detail to recipient about alleged infringement

Reserve Bank’s report says renters and recent borrowers with larger debts have experienced most financial stress

Palace was residence of William III, who was given shares in slave-transport company, and successive monarchs involved in tradeAn imposing bronze statue stands tall on the manicured lawns at Kensington Palace, a formidable tribute to William III, who built the palace as a royal residence in the bustling heart of London. William’s namesake, the current Prince of Wales, grew up there with his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, and today it is his official London residence with his wife, Catherine.Awareness has grown in recent years of William III’s personal investment in the transatlantic slave trade at the time he built Kensington Palace, and of successive English monarchs’ involvement in the industrial-scale enslavement and exploitation of Black people. Continue reading...

Buckingham Palace makes public statement after Guardian presents evidence of royals’ long history of involvement in transatlantic tradeKing Charles has for the first time signalled his support for research into the British monarchy’s historical links with transatlantic slavery, after the emergence of a document showing his predecessor’s stake in a slave-trading company.Buckingham Palace released the statement after it was contacted by the Guardian about the extensive history of successive British monarchs’ involvement and investment in the enslavement of African people. Continue reading...

From Elizabeth I to William IV, over a period of 270 years monarchs had links to the slave tradeKing Charles III and Prince William have expressed “profound sorrow” at the atrocities of slavery, but neither has publicly accepted the crown’s central role in the trade. Over a period of 270 years, 12 British monarchs sponsored, supported or profited from Britain’s involvement in slavery, according to historians. Continue reading...

Daniel Andrews says ‘we’ve made the right call’, but didn’t rule out supporting affected customers

Leaders condemn the Liberal Party over ‘Judas betrayal’ after it said it would campaign against establishing an Indigenous ‘voice to parliament’

Analysts say country’s strategic importance in Pacific has attracted attention of nations such as ChinaNew Zealand’s intelligence bosses have warned of “increasingly aggressive activity” in the country by people they believe are spies for foreign states.The annual report by the Security Intelligence Service (SIS), published this week, said unnamed states are making “enduring and persistent” efforts to collect intelligence against New Zealand’s government, target those with access to sensitive information, and interfere in all spheres of the country’s public life. Agents from one foreign government have cultivated “a range of relationships of significant concern”, the report said. Continue reading...

Labor will prioritise delivering Melbourne-to-Parkes segment after independent review found more work needed on Brisbane stretch

Local police join multinational takedown of online marketplace used by criminals to buy and sell personal data

The former Liberal staffer alleges in court documents that the ABC broadcast of the National Press Club address defamed him by suggesting he raped Brittany Higgins, which he denies

Zelenskiy welcomed in Poland; United States, Britain, Albania and Malta walk out on Russian envoy for children’s rights Continue reading...

The London police commissioner faces a battle to clean up a force where the same cultures tackled by his predecessor ‘are alive and well’The Britain of today shares some similarities with the country of the 1970s: then the country was debating its relationship with Europe, flares were in and frequent strikes disrupted everyday life. And then, as now, standards in policing in the capital were so dire that a new broom had to be brought in to clean up the Metropolitan police.Sir Robert Mark, the legendary reforming commissioner of the Met from 1972, said this about the force he battled to reform: “I had served in provincial forces for 30 years, and though I had known wrongdoing, I had never experienced institutionalised wrongdoing, blindness, arrogance and prejudice on anything like the scale accepted as routine in the Met.” Continue reading...

Leaders of Drax, Siemens and others call for green growth to be a priority and ‘regional disparities’ to be closedBusiness leaders in the north of England have written to the prime minister, chancellor and energy secretary asking for help to reach net zero.Big names including Drax, Siemens, Peel, Manchester airport, the CBI and all 11 local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) in the north signed a letter urging the government to prioritise green growth in the north. Continue reading...

Police Scotland say Murrell ‘released pending further investigation’ after officers search his and Sturgeon’s homePeter Murrell, Nicola Sturgeon’s husband, was arrested by police investigating the Scottish National party’s finances in what the new leader, Humza Yousaf, described as “a difficult day” for the SNP.Police Scotland said Murrell, the party’s former chief executive, had been “arrested as a suspect” and taken in for questioning “in connection with the ongoing investigation into the funding and finances of the Scottish National party”. Continue reading...

Foreign Office figures show aid to Africa fell to £1.1bn in 2022, compared with £3.7bn of budget spent on refugees in UKThe UK spent more than three times its overseas aid budget on housing refugees in Britain than on helping to alleviate poverty in Africa in 2022, figures from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office show.The official provisional figures for 2022 show that spending on refugees increased from £597m in 2020 to £1bn in 2021 and reached £3.7bn in 2022. No other major country in the world is cutting its mainstream aid budget to cover the cost of housing refugees in this way, said the aid campaign group Bond. Continue reading...

Guardian analysis shows median gender pay gap is stubbornly wide at 9.4%, the same level as five years agoFour out of five companies and organisations in Great Britain still pay their male employees more than female ones, according to Guardian analysis of the government’s gender pay gap reporting.The median pay gap remains stubbornly wide at 9.4% – the same level as in 2017-18, when employers were first required to publish the information. About 10,000 companies and public bodies filed their gender pay gaps to the government’s reporting mechanism before this week’s deadline. Continue reading...

Raise brings Galen Weston of Loblaw Companies’ pay to $11.79m last year amid outcry for raising prices during record inflationThe billionaire head of Canada’s largest grocery chain has been given a C$1.2m raise, in a move likely to prompt controversy as grocery executives have faced sharp criticism for raising their prices amid record inflation.The raise for Galen Weston, chairman and president of grocer Loblaw Companies, brought his total pay last year to C$11.79m. Details of the deal were first reported by the Globe and Mail. Continue reading...

President Lula deplores ‘act of hate and cowardice’ as police arrest 25-year-old man after killings in southern state of Santa CatarinaFour children have been killed and at least five others injured after a 25-year-old man armed with a small axe attacked a pre-school in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina.A man with a hatchet jumped over a wall and invaded a daycare center on Wednesday in Brazil, killing four children and wounding at least five others, authorities said. Continue reading...

Dr Kerry Schott warns she is not confident her assessment captures the full extent of cost blowouts and delays

‘We’re not in petrol purgatory anymore’ but prices not yet low enough to deliver ‘meaningful relief to families’, NRMA says

Voice advocates say Peter Dutton is ignoring voters and ‘tying himself in knots’ over stance on constitutional recognition

Forthcoming fifth volume of the hit series was planned to be the last but writer says a sixth book will give characters ‘their final moment to shine’Alice Oseman has announced there will be a sixth book in their hit Heartstopper graphic novel series, as well as revealing what will happen in the next instalment of the story.The series, which was adapted into a critically acclaimed and Emmy award-winning Netflix television show, follows Nick and Charlie, two teenagers who meet at a British grammar school and fall in love. Their story navigates the ups and downs of first love, friendships, coming out and mental health. Continue reading...

Ana Obregón, 68, says her son, Aless Lequio García, expressed desire to have a child before death in 2020A heated debate in Spain triggered by a 68-year-old celebrity who was reported to have used a surrogate mother in Miami to have a baby took a twist on Wednesday when the woman announced in the socialite magazine ¡Hola! that the baby was actually the daughter of her son who died of cancer in 2020.The actor and presenter Ana Obregón told ¡Hola! that doctors had encouraged her son, Aless Lequio García, to preserve samples of sperm before he began treatment and that he expressed a desire just before dying to have a child. The samples, she said, were stored in New York. Continue reading...

Former Italian prime minister taken to hospital amid ‘shortness of breath’ and reported to be stableThe former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is in intensive care at San Raffaele hospital in Milan.According to reports in the Italian press, the 86-year-old is in intensive care in the hospital’s cardiology unit. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Charities have called Kathleen Poole’s removal order a ‘cruel’ misapplication of Brexit withdrawal agreementAn elderly British woman with Alzheimer’s threatened with deportation from Sweden has been given a stay following international condemnation over a move that was branded a cruel, inhumane and deeply shocking misapplication of the Brexit withdrawal agreement.After interventions from the European Commission, the Labour MP Hilary Benn and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Kathleen Poole’s family have been told the police must continue their preparation for the deportation but the actual removal of the 74-year-old has been “placed on hold”. Wayne, her daughter-in-law Angelica and their four children but her family’s application to remain in the country post-Brexit was rejected on the grounds it was lacking financial documents and an up-to-date passport. Continue reading...

Monarch rejects £250m pay rise resulting from David Cameron’s ‘generous’ shake-up of royal fundingKing Charles III’s public rejection of a pay rise potentially worth as much as £250m a year in extra taxpayer money has laid bare the extraordinarily generous funding arrangement introduced by the former prime minister David Cameron.The sovereign grant deal, ushered in by Cameron and his chancellor, George Osborne, in 2011, has already resulted in a sharp rise in public money going to the monarchy over the last decade.£86.3m sovereign grant to the monarchy in 2022 Continue reading...

Ahead of the coronation of King Charles III, the Guardian’s Cost of the crown series exposes the entrenched secrecy around the royal family’s money and wealthHow much money will the coronation of King Charles III cost the British public? What tax rate will our new king pay on his private income? How many engagements did “working royals” such as the Dukes of Gloucester and Kent attend over the last five years? How much were they paid? How much rent do Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, who are not working royals, pay for residences in royal palaces?In recent weeks, the Guardian has posed all of these questions to Buckingham Palace. The responses boil down to “ask someone else”, “work it out for yourself”, or simply “you have no right to know”. We beg to differ. Continue reading...

Investigation reveals King Charles and the late queen’s income from duchies grew sixteenfold during Elizabeth’s reignKing Charles and the late Queen Elizabeth II have received payments equivalent to more than £1bn from two land and property estates that are at the centre of a centuries-old debate over whether their profits should be given to the public instead.An investigation by the Guardian has established the full scale of income extracted by the royals from the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, which run giant portfolios of land and property across England. Continue reading...

Police raid triggers West Bank clashes, cross-border strikes in Gaza Strip and fears of escalationAt least 14 Palestinians have been injured and hundreds arrested in an Israeli police raid on Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque, triggering clashes in the West Bank, cross-border strikes in the Gaza Strip and fears of wider escalation over the holiday period.The violence in the early hours of Wednesday – during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and on the eve of the Jewish Passover holiday – comes after a year of spiralling violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It also carries echoes of 2021, when clashes at Jerusalem’s holiest site helped start an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist movement in control of Gaza. Continue reading...

What to do and when to seek medical help if you are bitten by a tick