Wes Streeting quits cabinet and calls on Starmer to resign

• President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping held high-stakes talks in Beijing focusing on resolving escalating trade tensions, technology competition, and coordinating responses to Middle Eastern developments. • The two leaders discussed tariff rollbacks, semiconductor supply chain restrictions, and potential joint initiatives on artificial intelligence regulation, with both nations seeking to avoid further economic deterioration.

• Diplomatic efforts between the United States and Iran have advanced ceasefire talks, with both nations signaling willingness to negotiate a formal agreement to end months of escalating regional conflict. • Officials from both countries met in a neutral location this week to discuss terms, including sanctions relief, prisoner exchanges, and military de-escalation measures along disputed maritime boundaries.

William Majcher was accused of helping Chinese police coerce a Vancouver-area real estate investor, accused of fraud, to return to ChinaA retired police officer Canada accused of being an agent for China has been acquitted of national security charges after prosecutors failed to prove he acted illegally.William Majcher, who served in the RCMP’s financial crime unit, was charged in 2023 over allegations he had breached Canada’s Security of Information Act by helping Chinese police coerce a Vancouver-area real estate investor, accused of fraud, to return to China. Continue reading...

Jim Chalmers’ budget tips the scales in favour of younger and less well-off households – but it’s middle-class gen X that are turning to the rightwing partyExplore all of our 2026 Australia federal budget coverageLabor’s fifth budget will do what it says on the tin: it will benefit the young and the poor at the expense of the older and the rich.This is the most obvious takeaway from distributional analysis conducted by Ben Phillips, an associate professor at the ANU’s Centre for Social Policy Research. Continue reading...

Prof Abbas Rajabifard of the University of Melbourne says he was listed as a co-author of research with Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s chief negotiator in recent peace talks, without his knowledgeGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastA University of Melbourne academic has denied collaborating on research with the speaker of Iran’s parliament – who has been leading Tehran’s peace negotiations with the US – saying he was named as an author on a journal article without his knowledge.On Monday Guardian Australia revealed that Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s top negotiator, had built extensive ties to Australia over the past decade, including links to a University of Melbourne engineering research centre. Continue reading...

Proposals also grant the health minister power to change disability support rules without state or territory approval. Here’s what you need to knowGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastFunding for some services within the National Disability Insurance Scheme will be slashed – even in cases where participants could be left with a funding gap – as part of a sweeping proposal to drastically curb the scheme’s annual growth.The proposed changes, revealed on Thursday, will also grant the health minister, Mark Butler, god-like powers to reduce overall funding for support categories, determine pricing guides and caps for services and support, and the ability to change NDIS rules without state and territory approval for the first 12 months. Continue reading...

King Charles visits Golders Green to show support as commissioner discloses counter-terrorism team leading 11 investigationsCounter-terrorism officers in London have launched 11 investigations and arrested 35 people after “a sustained period of attack” upon the Jewish community, the head of the UK’s biggest police force has disclosed.In one of his most stark comments on antisemitism in the UK Mark Rowley, the Met commissioner, told MPs in a letter: “British Jews are not currently safe in their capital city.” Continue reading...

A National Portrait for the National Portrait Gallery aims to bring people together in increasingly atomised countryCan a collective portrait of Britain hold together a country that feels as if it is splintering apart? That is the quietly radical hope behind Es Devlin’s new installation at the National Portrait Gallery: a living portrait comprised not of monarchs, politicians or celebrities but of thousands of ordinary faces drifting slowly into and out of one another.Created in collaboration with Google Arts & Culture Lab, A National Portrait for the National Portrait Gallery invites people across the UK to upload a selfie, which is then transformed into a portrait rendered in Devlin’s smoky charcoal-and-chalk style before joining a constantly evolving and revolving carousel of portraits projected on to a framed screen. Continue reading...

West Bank home described as ‘ideal for outdoor gatherings’ is among 41 listed rentals in illegal Israeli settlements Some of Mohammad al-Sbeih’s fondest childhood memories are of his small farm in the hills south of Bethlehem, where three generations of his family grew wheat and barley.“It was a hard plot to farm as it was on a hillside with terraces, but it was so beautiful,” Sbeih remembers. Continue reading...

The US-based site, whose operators were fined £950,000 by Ofcom, appears in Google’s search results and can be accessed in UKGoogle has denied breaching the Online Safety Act by promoting a “nihilistic” suicide forum associated with 164 deaths in the UK where it is supposed to be banned.The UK’s internet regulator fined the forum’s US-based operator £950,000 because the site, which “presents a material risk of significant harm”, can still be accessed in the UK despite British laws criminalising encouraging or assisting suicide. Continue reading...

South Carolina’s state senate majority leader offered a nuanced case for rejecting Trump’s redistricting demands How does a Republican leader say no to Donald Trump? How do they criticize the US president’s policies without facing a social media riot, or losing their career?As the party scrambles to redraw key congressional districts after the supreme court effectively gutted a major section of the Voting Rights Act that prevented racial discrimination, all eyes turned this week to South Carolina.I had never had the privilege of speaking with the president of the United States until last week. And it really was – it was a privilege. I enjoyed the conversation. It was a very good conversation. He gave me more time in a phone call than I could have expected…The president told me, he said: “Look, I hope you can help us out.” He said: “But I understand you got to do what you’re comfortable with, you got to do what you think is right.”I would hope that the home team can retain the majority. And I would also hope that if the home team retains the majority, that they’ll actually do something productive with it. Over the last year and a half, I suspect if we look back at what they’ve done with the majority, I don’t know that anybody in here could name more than one piece of legislation they’ve passed.And no matter how big and beautiful it was, there’s a whole lot more that they’ve left on the table. And that, to me, is disappointing – to have a majority that doesn’t do anything with it.Trying to go to 7-0 I think is extremely risky from a political standpoint. I think at best you’re going to get 6-1 and you may even go 5-2. I’ve told the press a number of times, I think if you get cute with this, you could end up in a 5-2 scenario. I don’t want to go 5-2.I don’t want [Democratic House minority leader] Hakeem Jeffries as the speaker of the House. I think the best chance that South Carolina has to prevent that from happening is with our current maps.I cannot in good conscience surrender this authority that has been preserved to, for, and by the states, and merely take orders from those who are not in South Carolina …I absolutely understand what the president’s concern is here. I understand what the president’s issue is here. I don’t disagree with that. But there are other concerns that we have to consider. Those concerns have not been considered at all with the proposal that we have. Those concerns affect South Carolina and South Carolinians. And it is up to us to consider those things.We’ve been able to punch above our weight regardless of the administration, regardless of who the president is, regardless of who occupies the White House. South Carolina has been able to deliver not just for South Carolina, but for the country and the world.We have had that influence. Doing this will absolutely diminish that influence. It just will. And everybody knows it. Everybody in here, everybody who’s familiar with the process, we understand what’s going to happen here … Continue reading...