Crisis

Nurses’ union criticises ‘catastrophic system-wide failure’ in NHS as more under-18s getting stuck in emergency wardsChildren and young people in England having a mental health crisis are spending up to three days in an A&E unit before they get a bed in a specialist unit, NHS figures reveal.One children’s nurse who works in an emergency department said such long waits for under-18s who were in acute distress were “frankly barbaric” but “becoming far more normal”. Continue reading...

Centre for London report finds levy on property wealth would free up homes, fund social housing and help renters save for depositsStamp duty should be scrapped and replaced with a new property wealth tax to fix London’s housing crisis, a leading thinktank has proposed.A report on the capital’s property market suggests an annual tax to replace the levy paid when buying a property and council tax would encourage downsizing and raise funds for social housing. It would also help renters to save a house deposit. Continue reading...

The US president said he called off a planned attack on Iran on Tuesday so that peace talks could continueFull report: Trump claims planned attack on Iran postponed after Tehran makes new proposal to end warWe are restarting our live coverage of the US-Israeli war on Iran and the other conflicts in the Middle East. Donald Trump says he has called off a planned attack on Iran on Tuesday at the request of Gulf states so peace talks could continue.In a post on Truth Social on Monday, the US president said he had been asked to do so by the leaders of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Continue reading...

UK foreign secretary says urgent pressure needed to get strait of Hormuz reopened and fertiliser and fuel movingGlobal fertiliser supplies must be freed up within weeks to avoid disaster, with harvests suffering and food prices rising, the UK’s foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, has said.The war in Iran has frozen shipments of fertiliser through the strait of Hormuz, creating a supply crunch that has already damaged farming in the UK, Europe and the US and is having its worst impacts in the developing world, where farmers cannot afford the higher prices now being charged. Continue reading...

US president says there ‘won’t be anything left’ of country if it doesn’t come to an agreementUAE blames Iran or its proxies for drone strike fire near nuclear plantWe are restarting our coverage of the US-Israeli war on Iran and Israel’s war on Lebanon. Donald Trump has issued an extreme warning to Iran to quickly agree to a peace deal with the US or face devastation.As Washington struggles to break an impasse on ending the war, the US president said on his Truth Social platform on Sunday: “For Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!”Iranian media said the US had failed to make any concrete concessions in its latest response to Iran’s proposed agenda for negotiations to end the war. The Fars news agency said on Sunday that Washington had presented a five-point list that included a demand for Iran to keep only one nuclear site in operation and transfer its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to the US.Islamic Jihad commander Wael Abdel Halim and his 17-year-old daughter were killed in an Israeli missile strike on an apartment in eastern Lebanon on Sunday, Lebanese state media said. Israeli strikes on towns in southern Lebanon earlier killed five people, including two children, and left at least 15 people injured, the Lebanese health ministry said, despite Israel and Lebanon agreeing to extend their ceasefire by 45 days.Hezbollah had fired about 200 projectiles at Israel and its troops over the weekend, an Israeli military official said on Sunday.Israel’s cabinet approved a plan to build a defence compound on the site of the recently demolished premises of the UN Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa) in East Jerusalem. Israel seized the site last year in an act the agency condemned as a violation of international law. Continue reading...

Another ally of health secretary renews call for resignation of prime minister, who is due to deliver king’s speech• UK politics live – latest updatesWes Streeting has held talks with Keir Starmer in Downing Street as an ally of the health secretary renewed calls for the prime minister to resign, saying his authority had “irretrievably ebbed away”.Streeting arrived in No 10 on Wednesday morning amid intense speculation over Labour’s leadership crisis and his own future within the party, before leaving approximately 16 minutes later without commenting to the media. Continue reading...

US overdose deaths have plunged, but experts warn the ‘supply shock’ from Chinese precursors may only be a temporary fixAs Donald Trump travels to Beijing this week, fentanyl – and China’s role in its supply chain – remains an enduring point of acrimony in bilateral relations.At a UN meeting in March, the US again accused China of failing to stop its chemical industry selling the precursors required to make the potent synthetic opioid, while China suggested the US was shifting the blame for its domestic drug problem. Continue reading...