Heathrow third runway likely to affect health of millions nearby, official report warns

• The United States and Iran have reached an interim agreement regarding Tehran’s nuclear programme to prevent immediate escalation. • The deal establishes a two-month negotiation window to address critical unresolved issues, including enrichment limits and verification mechanisms.

• Mastercard's Cyber Pulse Report 2026 reveals a 13% overall increase in cyberattacks across Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EEMEA) over the past year. • The report highlights a dramatic 198% spike in cyber threats specifically triggered by ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.

• EU Council President António Costa’s office has initiated contact with a senior official close to Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss potential peace talks regarding Ukraine. • These diplomatic outreach efforts mark a strategic move by Brussels to explore avenues for negotiation as the conflict continues to destabilize the region.

Exclusive: Former chief Brexit negotiator says staying out of euro and Schengen area would be ‘perfectly possible’Michel Barnier has said Britain could regain its special terms if it rejoined the EU and claimed it was becoming clearer every day to the British people that they would be stronger in Europe.In an interview before the 10th anniversary of the Brexit referendum next week, the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator said he could not see any obstacle to the UK keeping the pound and remaining outside the passport-free Schengen travel area should the country rejoin. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Richard Hermer’s department understood to be first in government to restrict use after recent riotsThe attorney general has told his office to no longer post on X, making it the first UK government department to stop using the Elon Musk-owned platform amid increasing worries about its use to incite violence and racism.Richard Hermer’s office last posted on X on Friday, and it is understood that officials have been told to no longer use the site, unless for the specific purpose of combatting disinformation there. Continue reading...

Updated document, which emphasises harm done to African women, is being considered by other Caribbean countriesBarbados’s prime minister, Mia Mottley, has announced a new manifesto from Caribbean leaders asserting the “moral, ethical and legal case” for reparations over damage caused by hundreds of years of enslavement.Mottley was speaking at a “historic” conference in Ghana to advance the push for reparatory justice after the United Nations adopted a landmark resolution declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans as the gravest crime against humanity. Continue reading...

Former negotiator believes in an unstable world, it is ‘perfectly possible’ the UK can rejoin the EU with old opt-outsUK could keep special pre-Brexit terms if it rejoined EU, Michel Barnier saysA couple of years ago, Michel Barnier spent a weekend with Boris Johnson’s father, Stanley. It was not some ghoulish Brexit spin-off of The Traitors, but the result of the former EU negotiator’s wife, Isabelle, being a close friend of Johnson’s French cousin, Anne du Boucheron, the owner of Château de la Baronnière, a 19th-century estate in Mauges-sur-Loire, in western France.“We spent a weekend together in a French castle. Very friendly. Long promenades in the forest,” Barnier recalls of Johnson senior, with whom he discussed the former prime minister’s motivation to back Brexit. “It was interesting. Boris was much more European at the beginning. Even if he was critical. I don’t see it as a motivation but it is, perhaps, a method or attitude: to be pragmatic in some way. Cynical. Cynical to get power.” Continue reading...

Tehran says fees to cover cost of managing waterway will come into effect at end of 60-day negotiation periodMiddle East crisis – live updatesIran has announced plans to introduce a system of maritime fees in the strait of Hormuz in two months after the 60-day period of negotiation that has been triggered by the signing of the memorandum of understanding.Tehran, claiming a historic victory over the US, added that the strait was under its control and the European plan for a naval mission to escort ships though the strait would not be welcome. Continue reading...

Wealth tax criticized by billionaires and Gavin Newsom would levy a one-time 5% tax on residents worth over $1bnA controversial proposal in California to issue a wealth tax on billionaires has gained enough signatures to qualify for the ballot in November, state officials announced on Wednesday.The news is set to intensify an already heated debate around the tax, which has pitted tech moguls and the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, against the labor unions backing the measure. Continue reading...

PeopleCert had been planning to cut about 400 jobs in £22m savings drive at training body it bought last yearThe vocational training body City & Guilds has guaranteed that plans for mass compulsory redundancies and the offshoring of hundreds of UK jobs to Greece will no longer go ahead.The proposal to remove about 400 UK roles was first reported by the Guardian in December as part of a £22m cost-cutting drive after the acquisition of the charity’s training and awards business by the Greek-owned PeopleCert in October. Continue reading...

Parents and their kids, new and old fans and a few celebrities gathered to honor the team’s NBA ChampionshipThousands of Knicks fans – decked out in blue and orange jerseys, shorts, hats, necklaces and more – gathered in downtown New York City on Thursday to celebrate the team’s NBA Championship in a lively ticker-tape parade.All along Church Street, the street running parallel to the parade route, fans lit joints, threw back shots of Fireball whiskey and drank Coronas, within view of bemused and outnumbered New York City police officers. Some fans climbed atop police cruisers and posed for photos. Continue reading...

‘Mastermind’ Dawie Groenewald given fine of 2m rand or four-year jail term almost 16 years after arrestTwo rhino-horn traffickers have been sentenced by a South African court in what police said was the world’s largest such case, partly bringing to an end an almost two-decade legal saga.Dawie Groenewald and Tielman Erasmus had faced more than 1,700 charges ranging from illegally hunting and dehorning rhinos, to racketeering and money laundering. Continue reading...