World news | The Guardian

Deadliest start to a year in more than a decade, according to the International Organization for MigrationA least 606 people trying to reach Europe in search of refugee have been reported dead or missing in the Mediterranean since the beginning of 2026, marking the deadliest start to a year" in more than a decade, the UN's migration agency said on Monday.The figure includes at least 30 people who are feared dead or missing after their boat capsized in severe weather off the coast of Greece on Saturday. Authorities rescued 20 people, including four minors, and recovered the bodies of three men and one woman, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said. Continue reading...

Amid relief that changes will avoid significant disruption for families, there are fears some children will not benefitParents of children with special needs say they are relieved that the government's long-awaited overhaul will avoid significant disruption for their families - but told the Guardian they fear getting help will remain a struggle.Becky, whose son Kyllian has a number of disabilities including cerebral palsy and is registered blind, said she was cautiously optimistic" about the changes in England announced by Bridget Phillipson, and immediate relief that her son wouldn't have to move from his special school. Continue reading...

Video footage shows former peer being driven away shortly after being escorted from his London home by officers

Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey discuss the government's long-awaited plans for the special educational needs and disabilities system. Can the controversial overhaul convince parents and MPs? Plus, the latest on the Gorton and Denton byelectionTo read Jonthan Liew's Sunday Read on the Gorton and Denton byelection, click here Continue reading...

Repeat of BBC series gave clue to Paul Gostelow about 19th-century altar cards taken from crypt in HampshireTwo priceless artefacts stolen more than a decade ago from the crypt of Napoleon III in England have been recovered after an antiques dealer realised he had them while watching a repeat of the comedy drama Lovejoy.The wooden 19th-century altar cards were taken in a burglary at St Michael's Abbey in Farnborough, Hampshire in February 2014 and were feared lost for ever. Continue reading...

Zia Yusuf sets out proposals and calls migration an invasion', as refugee groups decry grotesque' measures

Authorities mounted rescue operation after group of five lost control of ice sheet in Stockholm archipelagoFive people have been rescued from an ice floe carrying a sauna tent, a motorised saw and an onboard motor after they lost control of their DIY vessel in the Stockholm archipelago.Swedish authorities believe the ice sheet's passengers, who were German tourists, had been attempting to create their own motor-powered floating sauna when the swell from a passing passenger ferry broke the ice sheet and stranded them near Varmdo, an island near Stockholm. Continue reading...

Reiner, 32, charged with two counts of first-degree murder after parents were stabbed to death in DecemberNick Reiner was expected to return to court on Monday for arraignment on two counts of first-degree murder in the killing of his parents Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner.A judge postponed the legal proceedings last month after his attorney withdrew from the case, and was replaced by a public defender. Reiner's former attorney, Alan Jackson, said at the time that he could not share why he was stepping down, but that his client was not guilty. Continue reading...

Call comes amid fresh scrutiny of Mountbatten-Windsor's alleged links to Epstein, including claims over security arrangements at his New York homeThe intense focus on the former Prince Andrew's association with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has centred on the women who were trafficked for sex as young girls by the latter, and the police investigation into claims Mountbatten-Windsor handed him sensitive information while serving as the UK trade envoy.Over the weekend, it shifted slightly to the police officers who were tasked with guarding Andrew for years as he carried out his public role as a senior royal. They are now being told to come forward and speak to detectives about what they saw and heard while on duty. Continue reading...

Bellarmine Chatunga Mugabe, known for lavish lifestyle, also accused of theft and being illegal immigrant after man was allegedly shot in backA son of the late Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe has been charged with attempted murder after a 23-year-old man was allegedly shot in the back on 19 February in an upmarket area of Johannesburg.Bellarmine Chatunga Mugabe, 28, appeared in court on Monday for a brief hearing alongside co-accused Tobias Mugabe Matonhodze. Mugabe's lawyer Sinenhlanhla Mnguni declined to comment when asked by reporters whether the two men were related. Mnguni said he would request bail for his clients at the next hearing on 3 March. Continue reading...

Finance campaigner marches on to set and tells Tory leader her policy to cut interest rates will only help top earners

Exclusive: One in four wait at least three years for diagnosis and many face treatment access lottery', report findsMillions of people living with rare genetic conditions across the UK are being systematically ignored" by the NHS and facing inadequate care, according to a report.Rare genetic conditions, such as Williams syndrome and Duchenne muscular dystrophy, affect more than 3.5 million people across the UK. One in 17 people are affected by a rare condition at some point during their lives. Continue reading...

Comments by Ted Sarandos follow Donald Trump's demand for company to remove Democrat from board

Transport minister Catherine King will pledge $230m for planning work for the first phase of a bullet train on Australia's east coast

New special educational needs regime to result in far fewer children being given education, health and care plans

Motorway stretch plays music as a safety feature but those close to it say intrusive' noise is constant and distressingResidents of one of India's most upmarket neighbourhoods say the country's first musical road" has turned their daily lives into a nightmare soundtrack.A stretch of Mumbai's recently opened Coastal Road seafront expressway has been engineered to play the pulsating Oscar-winning tune Jai Ho from the movie Slumdog Millionaire when vehicles drive on it at lower speeds. Continue reading...

Coroner to examine whether police told prison staff about Aboriginal woman's acute mental health conditions, despite previous arrest under mental health actWarning: This article contains reference to an Indigenous Australian who has died

Gold Coast mayor says he looks forward to considering a formal development application'

Further thunderstorms bringing heavy rain and flash flooding may hit Melbourne on Tuesday, Bureau of Meteorology warns

Tony Burke says he is still considering whether to deny visa application from TV journalist Zvi Yehezkeli

Footage of Punch, a seven-month-old Japanese macaque, has gone viral around the world after he was rejected by his mother and formed a bond with a soft toyA baby monkey in Japan has captured hearts around the world after videos of him being bullied by other monkeys and rejected by his mother went viral last week.Punch, a Japanese macaque, was born last July at Ichikawa zoo. He has drawn international attention after zookeepers gave him a stuffed orangutan toy after he was abandoned by his mother. Continue reading...

Corporation says there are no favourites' among MOTD trio Kelly Cates, Mark Chapman and Gabby LoganWhen the BBC split the task of presenting Match of the Day between three prominent broadcasters, executives were clear - there were to be no favourites" among the new hosts Kelly Cates, Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman.That mantra is now being underlined as the corporation prepares its coverage for this summer's World Cup. It is understood producers are ensuring that the trio have an equal number of programmes to present once the tournament kicks off in Mexico City. Continue reading...

NSW police say they found links between the car and abandoned Dural property 11 days after man abducted in case of mistaken identity

Calls mount for Mountbatten-Windsor to be dropped from royal line of successionPolice searches of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's former home on the Windsor estate in Berkshire continued on Sunday as a government minister did not rule out having a judge-led inquiry into the former prince's links with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.The education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, representing the government, did not rule out such an inquiry but said it was premature because of the police investigation. Continue reading...

Generational' reforms are a key moment for Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, and for Keir StarmerMinisters will unveil a generational" overhaul of special educational needs and disabilities (Send) support, pledging 4bn to transform provision in schools in England and warning councils they could lose control of Send services if they fail to meet their legal duties.The reforms are expected to be a key policy moment for Keir Starmer and for the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson - who delayed the changes last autumn after a ferocious backlash from MPs and parents. Continue reading...

Nigel Farage's party plans to deport up to 288,000 people a year on five flights a day and expand stop and searchReform UK would create an ICE-style agency dedicated to deporting hundreds of thousands of people, as well as terminating the status of those with indefinite leave to remain (ILR), the party will say.It would also ban the conversion of churches into mosques and fund a radical expansion of stop and search, the party's new home affairs spokesperson, Zia Yusuf, will also say in a speech on Monday. The deradicalisation programme Prevent would also have its mandate redrawn to focus on Islamist extremism. Continue reading...

Paul Thomas Anderson drama scores six awards, as Jessie Buckley becomes first Irish woman to win leading actress prize

Investigation under way regarding death of Cpl Lucy Wilde, 25, who prince said served with courage and distinction'Prince William has paid tribute to a young army medic found dead in her barracks who served with courage and distinction".Cpl Lucy Wilde, 25, who posted videos on TikTok documenting her daily life in the army, was found dead in her barracks in Warminster, Wiltshire, on 5 February. An investigation is under way, the Ministry of Defence said. Continue reading...

Letter to Shabana Mahmood describes controls that could block British dual citizens' entry to UK as unacceptable'The Liberal Democrats have called on the home secretary to move at speed" to delay the rollout of new border controls that could result in British dual nationals being blocked from entering the country.A letter sent by the party to Shabana Mahmood echoes one sent by the former Conservative cabinet minister David Davis on Friday asking for a grace period to be implemented urgently after one of his constituents living in the Netherlands told how she could no longer visit her dying mother in a care home in Yorkshire. Continue reading...

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson suggests priority is grants for poorer students rather than cutting interestKemi Badenoch has said the Conservatives would scrap the unfair debt trap" of high interest rates on student loans, piling pressure on Labour ministers to tackle the growing outrage over the high costs.The education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, admitted the system of plan 2 loans had problems" but suggested the government's priority would be maintenance grants for poorer students, rather than tackling the high interest rates. Continue reading...

Tom Harper reportedly made inquiries as recently as last week about Henry Dyer, who has been reporting on rowA lobbyist who examined journalists on behalf of an influential thinktank has now been accused of recently investigating a Guardian reporter.Tom Harper, a senior director at the US public affairs company Apco, was the author of a 58-page report examining the journalists behind a 2023 Sunday Times story about undisclosed donations to Labour Together, the thinktank that was instrumental in Keir Starmer's Labour leadership victory. Continue reading...

Two men aged 31 and 48 and woman, 23, pronounced dead at scene of crash involving three vehicles near MoyThree people died and four others have been injured in a multi-car collision in County Armagh.Emergency services dispatched three rapid response paramedics, seven emergency crews and one hazardous area response team after the crash was reported on the Armagh Road near the village of Moy on Saturday night. Continue reading...

Eddie Hill, 20, and Jayden Long, 19, found dead on Yr Wyddfa in north Wales after a huge search operationTributes have been paid to two young men who died on a hiking expedition on Yr Wyddfa, also known as Snowdon, in north Wales.Eddie Hill, 20, and Jayden Long, 19, both from Norfolk, were found dead in Eryri national park on Thursday after a huge search operation in severe winter conditions. Continue reading...

Arab and Islamic governments issue statement denouncing comments made on Tucker Carlson podcastGovernments from across the Islamic world have condemned remarks by the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, suggesting it would be fine" for Israel to claim a broad swath of the Middle East.Huckabee, an evangelical Christian pastor and former Arkansas governor, has long been an outspoken supporter of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories. Continue reading...

European leaders said in December that Europe was ready to lead a multinational force" in Ukraine as part of a peace agreement proposalSearches are expected to continue today at Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's previous home - Royal Lodge, in Windsor - as calls grow for a probe into the former prince's links with Jeffrey Epstein.Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian's police and crime correspondent, Vikram Dodd, about what could be next for Andrew here:If the government bring forward this bill with the support of the King then we will back it. We have to be realistic. Andrew is the eighth in line to the throne, so there's no chance of him becoming our monarch.And so parliament really should be focused on things that are of more importance to the public, whether that's the economy, crime, the health service, immigration. But if the bill does come before parliament, then we'll support it. Continue reading...

US president calls for removal of Susan Rice as streaming platform pursues takeover of Warner Bros DiscoveryDonald Trump has told Netflix to remove the Democratic foreign policy expert Susan Rice from its board or face the consequences", while the streaming platform is locked in an extraordinary corporate battle to take control of Warner Bros Discovery (WBD).In comments posted on his Truth Social platform, the US president described Rice - who served as national security adviser to Barack Obama and UN ambassador and White House adviser under Joe Biden - as a political hack" and accused her of having no talent or skills". Continue reading...

Exclusive: Report says British teenagers' time for books is being crowded out by schoolwork, screens and sportsFewer than one in 10 boys aged 14 to 16 in the UK read daily, according to research, which found reading for pleasure was being crowded out of teenage lives by schoolwork, screens and sports.While reading declines for both boys and girls in early adolescence, there are signs of recovery" among girls in later teenage years, but boys' engagement remains persistently low, according to the National Literacy Trust (NLT). Continue reading...

A Guardian analysis finds the vast majority of people who entered deportation proceedings for the first time from January to August last year had no criminal convictionsA Guardian analysis of government records has found that the vast majority - 77% - of people who entered deportation proceedings for the first time in 2025 had no criminal conviction, exposing a stark gap between the Trump administration's rhetoric and reality.Within days of Donald Trump's inauguration, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) trotted out a phrase that his surrogates would come to use over and over again: the worst of the worst."Fewer than half of the people in the data (40%) had any criminal charge against them, and only 23% had a conviction.Of those who did have a criminal conviction, nearly half were for non-violent traffic and immigration offenses.Traffic offenses alone made up nearly 30% of the convictions, the largest category by far.Some 9% of criminal convictions were for assault, while only 1% were for sexual assault and just 0.5% were for homicide. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Police Federation condemns deployment of US firm's tech to analyse behaviour as automated suspicion'Scotland Yard is using AI tools supplied by the US tech company Palantir to monitor staff behaviour in an attempt to root out failing officers, the Guardian has learned.The Metropolitan police has previously declined to confirm or deny whether it used technology supplied by the company, which also works for the Israeli military and Donald Trump's ICE operation. It has now confirmed that it is using Palantir's AI to analyse internal data about sickness levels, absences from duty and overtime patterns in an effort to identify potential shortcomings in professional standards. Continue reading...

Official US social media accounts posted about rise of violent radical leftism' after killing of Quentin Deranque in Lyon last weekThe French foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, has said he will summon Charles Kushner, the US ambassador to France, over comments related to the killing of the French far-right activist Quentin Deranque.Deranque was beaten to death in Lyon last week during a fight with alleged hard-left activists. Continue reading...

Battle-tested Ukrainian startup that advertises a Killbox' drone recruited Prince as non-executive chairAfter multiple sources previously told the Guardian that Erik Prince - Maga ally and founder of the now defunct mercenary company Blackwater - was looking to work with Ukraine's invaluable drone sector, recent Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) documents confirm he now is.Swarmer, which bills itself as a battle-tested Ukrainian startup specializing in autonomous drone software, filed for an initial public offering and has recruited Prince to help sell the company as non-executive chair. Continue reading...

In an edited extract from her latest book, Hazel Sheffield sets out a new blueprint for community stewardshipIt was a Saturday in February 2020 when the flood came. It had been a wet winter, so wet it seemed that before the month was out, the brown trout of the River Taff might be washed clean out into Cardiff Bay before the fishing season had even begun. But this is Wales. People are used to a spot of rain. No one realised how bad it would get.For two days, it hammered on the windows of the houses at the top of the South Wales Valleys, where people tucked in their children before a sleepless night. It poured into the rivers at the bottom. By the time the rain departed again, many people would be standing in water up to their knees. Continue reading...

Bridget Phillipson says government is not taking away support' as she prepares to announce changes

Defence minister rebuffs US president's claim that Arctic islanders are not being taken care of'Greenland does not need medical assistance from other countries, Denmark has said, after Donald Trump said he was sending a hospital ship to the autonomous Danish territory that he wants to acquire.The Greenlandic population receives the healthcare it needs. They receive it either in Greenland, or, if they require specialised treatment, they receive it in Denmark. So it's not as if there's a need for a special healthcare initiative in Greenland," the country's defence minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, told the Danish broadcaster DR on Sunday. Continue reading...

Proposal will be at heart of offer to US as Trump considers whether to attack IranIran is refusing to export its 300kg stockpile of highly enriched uranium, but is willing to dilute the purity of the stockpile it holds under the supervision of UN nuclear inspectorate the IAEA, Iranian sources have said.The proposal will be at the heart of the offer Iran is due to make to the US in the next few days, as the US president, Donald Trump, weighs whether to use his vast naval buildup in the Middle East to attack the country. Continue reading...

CBI and Energy UK report finds 40% of firms have cut investment as electricity costs remain far above pre-Ukraine levels

Insurers say cases of scammers manipulating people into staging crashes and filing bogus claims are under-reportedRomance fraud typically evokes images of people being tricked out of their life savings by partners they meet on dating sites, but some scammers use a different tactic: recruiting unsuspecting victims into fake insurance claims.The scam involves a fraudster convincing their partner, or a person they are dating, either to say they have witnessed a car accident, or to take out an insurance policy and file a bogus claim in order to secure a payout. Continue reading...

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With construction overwhelmingly male, Refuge says tradeswomen help survivors of abuse feel saferOne of the main challenges in maintaining the 64 homes for domestic abuse survivors run by Refuge is the reliance on a male-dominated workforce of electricians, plumbers and decorators.The presence of men can be distressing and could trigger past traumas for our survivors," said Lisa Cantwell-Hope, the head of property services at the charity. Male contractors need an escort to make our survivors feel more comfortable, and we always put a notice out to all our residents saying there will be a male presence in the building today. So it can be challenging and takes up more time." Continue reading...

Nigel Farage's man in Gorton and Denton has a huge public platform, and a taste for culture war. What happens when he concerns himself with bin collections?On a bracingly cold February night in Levenshulme, a black Volkswagen people-carrier draws up outside a little parish church, around which a small crowd has begun to gather. From behind the car's darkened windows steps the Reform candidate for the Gorton and Denton byelection, dressed in the trademark gilet that makes him look less like a politician and more like a man who has come straight from a grouse shoot. As he enters the church where the electoral hustings will take place, a leaflet is thrust into his hand, which as he will later discover with a horrified grimace, is a flyer for the local branch of the Communist League, bearing policies such as amnesty for all immigrants" and defend Cuba's socialist revolution".But then, when you are trying to attract the attention of someone as elusive as Prof Matt Goodwin, you have to seize your opportunities whenever they arise. Over recent weeks the former academic and rightwing firebrand has been a curiously intangible presence in the constituency whose representation he is seeking: perpetually detectable but not remotely approachable, always visible without ever really being seen. Continue reading...