‘The caravan plot was an elaborate scheme contrived by organised criminals domestically and from offshore,’ AFP deputy commissioner Krissy Barrett says

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Federal police say a caravan with explosives found in Sydney earlier this year was “never going to cause a mass casualty event” and was a “fake terrorism plot”.

The Australian federal police deputy commissioner, Krissy Barrett, said on Monday investigators now believed the caravan incident was concocted by criminals who wanted to cause fear for personal benefit.

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© Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP

© Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP

Authorities believe the University of Pittsburgh student who vanished in the Dominican Republic last week drowned after she was caught in a big wave, according to a report.

A 94-year-old woman was struck by a United States Postal Service van and pinned underneath the vehicle when she attempted to cross a Queens street Sunday evening, according to authorities and sickening video.

Kyle MacLean was out of Sunday’s lineup with illness, so the Islanders tried something way out of left field.

A winding down of operations in Gaza has allowed Israel to turn its attention to the West Bank, with devastating effects

It has been just over six weeks since a ceasefire came into effect in Gaza, and it’s clear that it would more accurately be called a “reduce” fire, rather than a cessation. Scores of people are still being killed; enough, in any other scenario, to be deemed both alarming and newsworthy. More than 100 people have died since 19 January, Gaza’s civil defence service spokesperson says. Those killings constitute, alongside other breaches, a grim record of hundreds of reported ceasefire violations by the Israeli government.

The latest among them is Israeli authorities’ decision to halt humanitarian aid into Gaza, in order to put pressure on Hamas to accept new ceasefire terms: mere hours after the first phase of the ceasefire expired, Israel cut off all supplies. In doing so, Israel is using food and civilian relief as a political tool to achieve its objectives, a move that the Qatari foreign ministry, the midwife of hostage releases and ceasefire agreements over the past few months, called “a clear violation” of the terms of the truce and of international humanitarian law.

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© Photograph: Alaa Badarneh/EPA

© Photograph: Alaa Badarneh/EPA

Monarch recalls ‘infectious energy’ of late reggae singer in Apple Music broadcast to celebrate Commonwealth Day

King Charles has paid tribute to the “marvellous, infectious energy” of the late reggae star Bob Marley, in a series of comments about his favourite music and musicians from around the Commonwealth.

In a broadcast released in a collaboration with Apple Music on Monday as part of Commonwealth Day celebrations, the king described meeting Marley and other music legends during his royal duties, as he shared his “personal playlist of hits that bring him joy”.

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© Photograph: Arthur Edwards/PA

© Photograph: Arthur Edwards/PA

Watchdog warns that move, which also includes domestic abusers, must be closely watched to keep public safe

Domestic abusers and sex offenders in England and Wales will be rehabilitated by less-experienced staff with fewer qualifications from June, prompting warnings from a watchdog that the plans must be closely monitored to ensure public safety.

Proposals approved by ministers will roll out behaviour programmes for offenders to be delivered by “band 3” staff who are not fully qualified probation officers.

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© Photograph: Paul Faith/PA

© Photograph: Paul Faith/PA

Commission for Healthier Working Lives warns against cutting benefits and calls for proactive route for 8m affected

Providing more support for people in ill health to stay in work could save the UK government more than £1bn, according to a report warning ministers against cutting benefits.

As the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, looks for savings before the 26 March spring statement, the cross-sector Commission for Healthier Working Lives has called for a new approach to supporting the 8 million people in Britain with a work-limiting health condition.

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© Photograph: Westend61 GmbH/Alamy

© Photograph: Westend61 GmbH/Alamy

Most say they have seen no impact on applications for year 7 places, despite warnings from those against policy

Predictions that adding VAT to private school fees would set off a wave of parents moving children to the state sector have been proved wrong at their first key test, according to figures from councils in England.

While critics including the former chancellor Jeremy Hunt had predicted that up to 90,000 children could flood the state sector if VAT of 20% was charged, most councils say they have seen no impact from the policy in applications to start at state secondary schools later this year.

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© Photograph: Michael Kemp/Alamy

© Photograph: Michael Kemp/Alamy

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© Illustration: Edith Pritchett/The Guardian

© Illustration: Edith Pritchett/The Guardian

Chief executive of Reach says he is committed to print, and higher online income will keep business afloat

The boss of the publisher of the Mirror, Express and Star newspapers has said that its print titles will become loss-making in six to eight years, but that its burgeoning digital strategy will save them from closure.

The chief executive of Reach, which owns more than 100 news brands including the Manchester Evening News, the Birmingham Mail and the Liverpool Echo, said he intended to remain committed to print even when the operations became a drag on the business.

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© Photograph: PA Images/Alamy

© Photograph: PA Images/Alamy

Echo vom Eierstock is opening up the overwhelmingly male Alpine folk music scene with new versions of lyrics about nagging wives and naive girls

Elena Kaiser just wanted to yodel, and living in central Switzerland, that didn’t seem too much to ask for. “But as a woman you couldn’t yodel in a choir unless you were already a professional; there were simply no options,” she says. There were also the words to the songs, portraying an idyllic Alpine life surrounded by pristine nature and overseen by a benevolent God, the men in charge and the women presented either as naive girls, self-sacrificing mothers or nagging wives. Kaiser couldn’t get past them: “The beautiful melodies with these completely outdated lyrics.”

So, in 2022, she founded Switzerland’s first feminist yodelling choir, and Echo vom Eierstock (“echo from the ovary”) has been rewriting traditional yodelling songs and dragging the Alpine folk music scene into the 21st century ever since.

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© Photograph: Christian Felber

© Photograph: Christian Felber

More people were killed in the 1945 attack than the atomic bombing of Nagasaki a few months later, but there is no national memorial, accurate death toll or compensation for survivors

Not even the passage of eight decades has dimmed Shizuko Nishio’s memory of the night American bomber planes killed tens of thousands of people in the space of a few hours and turned her city to ash.

In the early hours of 10 March 1945, around 300 B-29 Superfortress bombers dropped 330,000 incendiary devices on Tokyo and killed an estimated 100,000 civilians, in an attack that cost more lives than the atomic bombing, months later, of Nagasaki.

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© Photograph: Dukas/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

© Photograph: Dukas/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

Aaron Rodgers will be officially released by the Jets at 4 p.m. on Wednesday. Well before then, he could have a new team.

Pete Hegseth responds to post, saying the Department of Defense 'does not do climate change crap.'

A federal judge awarded nearly $2 million in damages after ruling that an FBI agent was negligent when he shot and killed a kidnapped Texas man during a botched rescue effort.

A series of suspected sabotage incidents has exposed the vulnerability of Europe’s undersea infrastructure

Financial stress is forcing reform and recovery in many overlooked countries 

Consolidation is back on the agenda for industry as bankers eye more deals

Collapse in respondents skewed results for some industries

Bank of America and Stripe target market for payments in cryptocurrencies

FT survey finds ‘large fiscal capacity’, but economists urge would-be chancellor Friedrich Merz to spend funds wisely

Yunus is facing a huge security challenge as some police refuse to return to their posts, gang crime is rife and tensions simmer with the country’s army chief

When Muhammad Yunus flew back to Bangladesh in August, he was greeted by bleak scenes. The streets were still slick with blood, and the bodies of more than 1,000 protesters and children were piled up in morgues, riddled with bullets fired by police.

Sheikh Hasina had just been toppled by a student-led revolution after 15 years of authoritarian rule. She fled the country in a helicopter as civilians, seeking revenge for her atrocities, ransacked her residence.

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© Photograph: Abdul Saboor/Reuters

© Photograph: Abdul Saboor/Reuters

Former Lenin Museum in Tampere, which opened in 1946 as a symbol of Finnish-Russian friendship, has rebranded amid Ukraine war

A Finnish museum dedicated to the Russian Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin has reopened under a new name and with new exhibits in response to rapidly changing relations between two neighbouring countries after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The former Lenin Museum in Tampere, which closed in November, reopened this month under a new name, Nootti, which refers to the Finnish word for a diplomatic note.

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© Photograph: Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP/Getty Images

People warn of growing lawlessness amid concerns that thousands of escaped convicts may try to exact revenge

Mass prison escapes during the chaos of fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have captured two of its largest cities over the past two months, have caused panic among the public.

Jailbreaks involving thousands of people at four prisons in the region have accompanied the rapid advance that the militia started in January in its fighting against the Congolese army that also caused widespread chaos and confusion.

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© Photograph: Hugh Kinsella Cunningham/Getty Images

© Photograph: Hugh Kinsella Cunningham/Getty Images

Yolanda Díaz Pérez’s leftwing government has championed employment reform similar to Labour’s proposals – and she tells British business there is nothing to fear

Spain’s leftwing deputy prime minister, Yolanda Díaz Pérez, has a message for Labour politicians as the UK government’s employment rights bill takes its next step to becoming law this week: take heart from our success.

With business groups in the UK issuing dire warnings about the impact of the workers’ rights package, Díaz, the minister of labour and social economy, remembers her own government’s battle when it thrashed out radical labour laws that came into force in 2022. “We went through nine months of hell, literally. We had the press against it, academia, research centres – everybody was saying this was going to contribute to unemployment and not eradicate it,” she recalls.

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© Photograph: Pedro Ruiz

© Photograph: Pedro Ruiz

We are far more likely to use our hands to type or swipe than pick up a pen. But in the process we are in danger of losing cognitive skills, sensory experience – and a connection to history

By Christine Rosen. Read by Laurel Lefkow

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© Photograph: North Wind Picture Archives/Alamy

© Photograph: North Wind Picture Archives/Alamy

The actor grew up poor, got rich, then lost everything backing the 2019 Homeless World Cup. Now he’s giving away more of his money to help 900 total strangers. Doesn’t he think he’s done enough?

Michael Sheen walks into a post office in Port Talbot and asks to withdraw £100,000. “That would be nice,” says the young woman behind the till. Then it dawns on her that he’s not joking. “Can I do £100,000?” she asks her colleague. She cannot.

“I loved that so much. She was really funny,” says Sheen. Filmed for a new Channel 4 documentary, Michael Sheen’s Secret Million Pound Giveaway, this was part of the actor’s two-year project to use £100,000 of his own money to buy £1m worth of debt, owed by about 900 people in south Wales – and immediately cancel it.

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© Photograph: Suki Dhanda/The Guardian

© Photograph: Suki Dhanda/The Guardian

US president’s late-night social media post came after Turnbull criticised Trump’s leadership as ‘chaotic’

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Donald Trump has lashed former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull as a “weak and ineffective leader” who was rejected by the Australian people in a late-night social media post.

Taking to Truth Social platform just before midnight Sunday night in Washington DC, Trump said Turnbull led Australia from “behind” and did not understand China.

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© Photograph: Alex Brandon, Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

© Photograph: Alex Brandon, Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

There’s growing pressure for Rays owner Stu Sternberg to sell the club amid consideration that he may back out of a stadium deal in St. Petersburg.

North Korea condemned combined South Korea-US military exercises that began on Monday as a "dangerous provocative act", citing the risk of an accidental shooting sparking a physical confrontation.

Crime scenes set up in Green Park area with 40-year-old man taken into custody, say police

A man has been arrested after a 40-year-old woman who was shot dead in Talbot Green, about 15 miles west of Cardiff.

The woman was found with serious injuries in the Green Park area of the Welsh town just after 6pm on Sunday and could not be saved by emergency services, south Wales police said.

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© Photograph: Ceri Breeze/Getty Images

© Photograph: Ceri Breeze/Getty Images

Nerves aren’t an issue for Carlos Carrasco at this point.

The Islanders had seven defensemen in their lineup Sunday, and at times, not one of them looked willing to lay a hit.

During an interview, the suspect repeatedly mentioned Norberto's status as an undocumented migrant without provocation.

Karl-Anthony Towns is learning from one of the best — Patrick Ewing.

Continent’s deep reliance on American-made weapons underscored by Sipri data 

Europe, not Canada, Mexico or China, is most vulnerable to the fallout from Donald Trump’s mercantilist policies.

The action came in response to the higher levies on Chinese imports that President Trump announced last week.

© Spencer Tirey for The New York Times

But as Ukraine prepares to meet with U.S. officials, Ukrainian soldiers say they are bracing for attacks to take advantage of a pause in U.S. intelligence.

© Tyler Hicks/The New York Times