Forty Labour and independent MPs call on Steve Reed to take ‘important step’ of defining anti-Muslim hatred
More than three dozen Labour and independent MPs have written to the housing secretary calling on the government to adopt a definition of Islamophobia, after recent figures revealed hate crimes against Muslims were up by nearly a fifth.
Forty MPs, including Labour MPs Diane Abbott, Dawn Butler, Kim Johnson and independent Andrew Gwynne, were among the signatories on the letter from Afzal Khan who wrote to Steve Reed on Friday asking him to adopt a definition of anti-Muslim hatred as an “important step” in addressing discrimination, prejudice and hatred the community faces.
As texts and social media offer cheap offers, buying from unverified sellers can cause serious health problems
You have heard and read so much about people using weight loss injections to get slim, you feel it is time to give it a go in the run-up to the festive season. The problem is cost.
But it seems there are other options rather than getting a prescription from a doctor and going to the pharmacy. A text message arrives giving a link to a site with much cheaper medication – and with no need to go through official channels. And you saw a similar ad on social media the other day, so you decide to go for it.
Ditch the skis – these winter breaks are all about stunning mountain scenery, cosy places to stay and fun activities
Saddle up for sleigh rides, strap in for a 220-metre illuminated toboggan run, and prepare to get lost in an ice-carved maze at the Snowland theme park in Zakopane, as Poland’s winter capital sparkles up for the season. Pair a snowy walk through the Chochołowska valley with a visit to the Chochołowskie thermal baths, with outdoor pools, sauna, balneotherapy and massage treatments. Stay at the Hotel Aries, which mixes classic Alpine design with Zakopane touches (local wine and traditional dishes in the Halka restaurant, furniture and rugs by local craftspeople), and don’t miss the world’s largest snow maze and the Palace of the Snow Queen in the Snowlandia theme park, which has individual chambers sculpted from snow and ice by local artists. Doubles at Hotel Aries from £165 B&B. Zakopane is around two hours from Krakow by bus; the hotel is a 1km taxi ride from the station
By selling hope alongside progressive patriotism, the centrist D66 party widened its appeal and beat the far right
Progressives often treat patriotism as radioactive. Flags and anthems are left to the populist right. But the centrist D66 party, which almost tripled its seats in this week’s Dutch election and looks set to form the next government in the Netherlands, has shown that another approach is possible.
Under the leadership of Rob Jetten, it used what we might call progressive patriotism – and voters responded. Five strategies defined that success. Politicians across Europe could learn a thing or two.
Defense secretary announces a new strike on alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean Sea, bringing total killed in US strikes to at least 64 people
The US military has carried out another lethal strike on alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean Sea, US defense secretary Pete Hegseth said.
Hegseth said on Saturday the vessel was operated by a US-designated terrorist organization but did not name which group was targeted. He said three people were killed in the strike.
It’s currently a two-horse race – and the next US leader is guaranteed to be a careerist who knows nothing of statesmanship
Millions of Americans yearn for 7 November 2028, the scheduled date of the next presidential election. That’s the day the Trump era effectively ends. Probably. That’s the day the Democrats will atone for Kamala Harris’s calamitous 2024 failure. Possibly. That’s the day US democracy is reborn. Hopefully. Succession talk is tantalising Washington. Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, has given the clearest sign yet that he’ll run and glossing over past blunders, Harris reckons she deserves a second chance.
Yet most attention is focused on the Republicans, after Trump, 79, again threatened to defy the constitution and seek a third term. “I would love to do it,” he said this week. He rowed back later, albeit unconvincingly. “We’ll see what happens,” he teased. This undignified narcissist’s electoral fan dance will drag on interminably. Of greater practical interest are the two names Trump picked out as his most likely successors: JD Vance and Marco Rubio, vice-president and secretary of state respectively.
Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator
In 1969, as the band imploded, the singer was 27, depressed and drowning in a sea of legal and personal rows. He hadn’t died, as rumour had it, but he was struggling. He introduces an oral history of how his family’s escape to a remote Scottish farm helped him move on from John, George and Ringo
The strangest rumour started floating around just as the Beatles were breaking up – that I was dead. We had heard it long before, but suddenly, in that autumn of 1969, stirred up by a DJ in America, it took on a force all its own, so that millions of fans around the world believed I was actually gone.
At one point, I turned to my new wife and asked, “Linda, how can I possibly be dead?” She smiled as she held our new baby, Mary, as aware of the power of gossip and the absurdity of these ridiculous newspaper headlines as I was. But she did point out that we had beaten a hasty retreat from London to our remote farm up in Scotland, precisely to get away from the kind of malevolent talk that was bringing the Beatles down.
Big building projects bring financial and emotional pressures, but it’s important to work out why it has triggered such strong feelings for you
My husband and I have just built our dream house. After a year of planning and months of building, the builders have left and we can finally live there. The work was incredibly stressful, we spent a lot more than planned, andit triggered an anxiety disorder that I’m now struggling with.
The building work is ostensibly over, but there’s still work to do and money to spend to make the house fully a home,and I’m exhausted and depressed by that. Although we have an impressive house, we are also financially more stretched, which plays on my mind. But mostly it’s the feeling of the house – I don’t like its vibe. I don’t feel at home here.
Australia beat Kiwi Ferns 10-4 at Auckland’s Eden Park
Church scores crucial try and sets up another on Test debut
Australia fullback Abbi Church has produced a spectacular Test debut in a hard fought 10-4 Pacific Championships win over New Zealand.
Church, 27, came into the starting side when No 1 Tamika Upton was ruled out with a calf strain, and set up a try before scoring one herself at Eden Park.
With the party adrift and Reform surging, Jenrick’s allies are sharpening their pitch for a post-election reset
At an opulent speakeasy-style event at the Raffles hotel on Whitehall this week, the great and the good of what is left of the Conservative party marked the Spectator’s parliamentarian of the year awards.
With the magazine’s editorial line still just about backing the Tories, despite the party facing an existential crisis from Reform UK, it was unsurprising that much of the gossip at the champagne-fuelled event was about whether Kemi Badenoch’s job was at risk.
This week, audio footage was released by the New Yorker magazine, which seemed to exonerate Bamber, who has been in prison for 40 years. Could this lead to his release?
In the millions of pages disclosed to Jeremy Bamber over the decades, in his bid to prove his innocence of one of the 20th century’s most notorious crimes, PC Nick Milbank is barely mentioned. But this week, new evidence emerged that the late police officer held an essential clue to what happened on the night of the massacre at Whitehouse Farm on 7 August 1985.
In 1986, Bamber, now 64, was convicted of murdering his wealthy farmer-landowner parents Nevill and June, his sister Sheila Caffell, and her twin six-year-old sons, Daniel and Nicholas.
The Los Angeles Dodgers won their second consecutive title in stunning fashion in the early hours of Sunday morning, depriving the Toronto Blue Jays of a first World Series in 32 years in a stomach-churning, epic Game 7. Will Smith’s solo home run with two outs at the top of the 11th inning off Shane Bieber gave LA a 5-4 lead before Yoshinobu Yamamoto, pitching in relief just a day after throwing 96 pitches, got Alejandro Kirk to ground out into a World Series-ending double play, bringing a ninth title to the Dodgers organization.
“Man, they’re a special group of guys,” Smith said after the game. “We just never gave up, kept fighting, pitching our asses off, hitting, taking great at-bats. Finally punched through there. Man, that was a fight for seven games. That’s a really good Toronto Blue Jays team. I’m just excited. There’s nothing better than this.”
Ukraine military says it has improved positions in several districts, while Moscow says its troops are enclosing in on Ukrainian forces. What we know on day 1,348
Ukraine’s top military commander said his troops were still holding out in the embattled eastern city of Pokrovsk, which Moscow said its forces were at last enclosing in a pincer movement after more than a year of fighting. “We are holding Pokrovsk,” Ukraine’s army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Facebook on Saturday. “A comprehensive operation to destroy and dislodge enemy forces from Pokrovsk is ongoing.” Ukraine’s military said that it had improved its positions in some districts. Kyiv is raising the number of its assault troops in the area, the 7th Rapid Response Corps said on Facebook, adding that the situation remained “difficult and dynamic”. Capturing Pokrovsk, dubbed “the gateway to Donetsk”, would be the most important Russian territorial gain inside Ukraine since Moscow took the ruined city of Avdiivka in early 2024.
Russian troops thwarted an attempt by Ukrainian special forces to fly soldiers in via a helicopter into Pokrovsk, Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday. All 11 Ukrainians aboard the helicopter were killed, the ministry said. Two Ukrainian military sources said on Saturday that Kyiv had landed special forces to fight in parts of Pokrovsk, as Moscow said its troops had surrounded Ukrainian contingents.
Data shows Russia fired more missiles at Ukraine in overnight attacks during October than in any month since at least the start of 2023. Russia’s army fired 270 missiles over October, up 46% on the previous month, according to an AFP analysis of daily data published by Ukraine’s air force. The strikes, which have targeted Ukraine’s fragile energy grid for the fourth winter running, have cut power to hundreds of thousands of people. It is part of what Kyiv and its backers say is a deliberate and cynical strategy to wear down Ukraine’s civilian population – a charge Russia denies.
A Russian strike set ablaze a shop in Ukraine’s southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region on Saturday, killing two people and injuring several others, the region’s acting governor said. Vladislav Haivanenko, writing on Telegram, said the shop was destroyed and seven dwellings were damaged in the attack in Samarivskyi district – just outside the region’s main city, Dnipro. Public broadcaster Suspilne said seven people were injured. Pictures posted online showed a large blaze amid piles of rubble. Ukraine’s emergency services said one person had been killed in an attack on the town of Marhanets, further south in Dnipropetrovsk region.
A Ukrainian drone attack damaged and set ablaze a tanker and infrastructure at a major oil terminal in Russia’s key Black Sea port of Tuapse overnight, authorities in the southern region of Krasnodar said on Sunday. “A fire broke out on the vessel. The crew were evacuated,” the administration said on the Telegram messaging app. The port is home to the Tuapse Black Sea oil terminal and a Rosneft-controlled oil refinery, which Ukraine has targeted with several drone strikes this year. It was not immediately known if the terminal was operating after the attack.
Russian energy company Gazprom’s average daily natural gas supplies to Europe via the TurkStream undersea pipeline rose 5% in October from the previous months, Reuters calculations showed on Saturday. Turkey is the only transit route left for Russian gas to Europe after Ukraine chose not to extend a five-year transit deal with Moscow when it expired on 1 January.
Germany’s defence minister is confident its fractious ruling coalition can agree on a new model of military service in time for it to come into effect next year as planned, given security concerns over Russia, he told news agency Reuters on Saturday. The cabinet has already agreed to minister Boris Pistorius’ proposal for a new voluntary military service to help boost the number of recruits and reservists. The plan still requires approval by German parliament.
A bit of confusion here. Ohtani takes the mound a bit late and has yet to throw a warm-up pitch at the time the Blue Jays are ready to bat. The home-play umpire is giving him a little extra time.
George Springer takes three straight balls from Ohtani before taking a strike. The Toronto DH, back from an oblique injury, then rips a line drive to left field for a leadoff single. The crowd explodes.
Nathan Lukes goes down 1-2 in the count and fights off a few more pitches before striking out swinging on a splitter.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr works the count to 3-2, then takes a 100mph fastball right down the middle for a called strikeout ... before catcher Will Smith fires down to second to catch Springer stealing. The strikeout double play abruptly ends the inning. Both teams get leadoff hits in the first inning but neither can take advantage.
Ohtani takes two balls, fouls off a cutter, then singles to right-field off a changeup.
Will Smith grounds out to first base, making the first out but moving Ohtani into scoring position.
Freeman jumps on the first pitch and flies out to center for the second out, but Ohtani tags up and takes third.
Betts takes a ball, then grounds out to short to roars from the Rogers Centre crowd. It’s a scoreless first inning for Scherzer.
More than a century after an Australian soldier wrote a letter to his mother as he sailed to war and his death, it has been discovered in a bottle washed up on a remote beach.
Private Malcolm Alexander Neville’s light-hearted note, penned on 15 August 1916, was found on Wharton beach, near Esperance, about 750km south-east of Perth.
The wit and wisdom of the superstar ex-US president make him the best candidate – too bad he can’t run
“It’s not as if we didn’t see some of this coming,” said Barack Obama, a note of bleak humour in his voice. “I will admit it’s worse than even I expected, but I did warn y’all!”
The crowd at a sports arena in Norfolk, Virginia, half-laughed and half-groaned. “I did,” Obama added. “You can run the tape.”
All Blacks trail despite early 20-minute red card for Beirne
Tadhg Beirne was shown a contentious early red card as Ireland’s quest to create more special memories in Chicago ended in an emphatic 26-13 loss against New Zealand. Almost nine years to the day since Ireland’s milestone first victory in the fixture, the All Blacks gained revenge at Soldier Field thanks to tries from Ardie Savea, Tamaiti Williams, Wallace Sititi and Cam Roigard.
Ireland initially overcame the controversial third-minute dismissal of Beirne for a high tackle on Beauden Barrett, who landed three conversions, to lead through a Tadhg Furlong score and eight points from Jack Crowley. But the All Blacks underlined their class in the second half to cruise to victory deservedly.
With big reveals from All Saints, Sugababes, Eternal and more, this funny and sometimes horrifically frank documentary is super juicy … especially when they slate Spice Girls
As a pop-cultural moment, the turn-of-the-millennium girl group boom hasn’t exactly been flooded with solemn appraisal and analysis. Wisely, this fantastically entertaining three-part documentary doesn’t attempt to rectify that. Instead, Girlbands Forever reminisces in a manner that is equal parts meaty and frothy. And, yes, often about as stomach-churning as that combination sounds.
At the heart of this series – the female-focused follow-up to 2024’s Boybands Forever – is a lot of old ground. Viewers of a certain age will know the trajectories retraced here (the head-spinning arrival of Spice Girls, the scrappy ascent of Atomic Kitten, the existentially challenging lineup rotation of Sugababes, the talent-show conception of Little Mix) and the dominant themes (tabloid hell, merciless management, relentless touring, intraband resentments) like the backs of their faintly wrinkled hands.
As the pressure lifted inside Anfield and Liverpool entered stoppage time of their first Premier League win since 20 September, the Kop broke into a rousing chorus of Arne Slot’s name. But it’s easy to stand by your man when victory is in sight. A more significant rendition came at nil-nil, when the pressure was still firmly on and Dominik Szoboszlai had just squandered a glorious chance to punish the kind of lackadaisical defending that would ultimately prove Aston Villa’s downfall. Support for Slot was unequivocal when it mattered most.
Liverpool, the Premier League’s crisis club before kick-off after six defeats in seven games, sit third in the table after starting an important week with a deserved win against Villa. A first clean sheet in 11 games reflected a more controlled performance from the Premier League champions and, as Slot admitted, a change in fortune. Unai Emery’s team struck the woodwork twice when the game was delicately poised but would prove the perfect guests for a team and head coach in need of recovery.
Spurs resemble a pile of sticks leaning against a wall and the rampaging Moisés Caicedo was happy to dismantle them
Sitting through this tightly stitched but still oddly shapeless game of football, you kept thinking: what does this remind me of? The trapped energy, the collisions. The sense of something always but never really happening.
Oh yes. Watching the full 90 minutes of Chelsea’s narrow but still comfortable 1-0 defeat of Tottenham was like staring at one of those hypnotic drunken city centre brawls that appear on social media from time to time, where nothing ever really seems to start or stop, where the whole thing is just a kind of tortured flailing, but one that must also be pored over endlessly in the comments.
US president says he ordered Pentagon to begin planning for action, without mentioning Muslim persecution
Donald Trump on Saturday said he had ordered the Pentagon to begin planning for potential military action in Nigeria as he stepped up his criticism that the government was failing to rein in the persecution of Christians in the west African country.
“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” Trump posted on social media. “I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians!”
Police have arrested two people and counter-terrorism police are also involved in an investigation into the mass stabbing on a train from Doncaster to London’s Kings Cross on Saturday
Nine people were being treated for life-threatening injuries after a series of stabbings on a train near Cambridge in eastern England on Saturday, and two men were arrested in what prime minister Keir Starmer called an “appalling incident”.
British Transport Police said counterterrorism police were supporting its investigation while it works to establish the full circumstances and motivation for the incident.
The Memphis Grizzlies have suspended two-time All-Star guard Ja Morant for Sunday’s game against the Toronto Raptors, citing what they described as conduct detrimental to the team.
Morant scored just eight points in the Grizzlies’ 117–112 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday night and appeared visibly frustrated. During a brief postgame media session, he repeatedly deflected questions, responding several times with some version of “Go ask the coaching staff.”
Connexion
