Now the killer is in jail, the process of unpicking where the authorities went wrong can begin

For the families of Axel Rudakubana’s victims, the life sentence with a minimum of 52 years handed to him on Thursday for the murders of Alice da Silva Aguiar, Bebe King and Elsie Dot Stancombe, and 13 other crimes, cannot end their suffering but brings a close to a painful chapter. Until he pleaded guilty on Monday, the expectation had been for a weeks-long trial. The continuing struggle of survivors was painfully clear from statements read in court. Several girls have life-changing injuries. Alice’s family described their bereavement as a “scar to the soul”. There are few precedents in Britain for the eruption of such extreme violence into a gathering of young children.

Thankfully there has been no repeat of last summer’s riots, when asylum seekers were targeted after false claims that the killer – who was born in Cardiff – was himself a migrant. By announcing three new probes this week, Sir Keir Starmer showed that he grasps the political risks stirred up by this case, as well as its grievous losses.

Friedrich Merz says he will boost border controls if he wins power in next month’s elections

• Germany’s election: who are the key players and what is at stake?

Germany’s opposition leader has pledged to strengthen border controls and step up deportations if he becomes chancellor after elections next month, a day after an Afghan man was arrested over a knife attack in which two people died.

Friedrich Merz, whose conservative CDU/CSU alliance is leading in polls, said he would not allow attacks like the one in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg on Wednesday to become a “normal affair”.

By avoiding the standard cliches, the far-right leader comes across as moderate even as she backs extremist rhetoric

“Alice? Who the fuck is Alice?” wondered European audiences in 1995 when the Dutch band Gompie landed an unlikely success by adding this risque line to Smokie’s 1970s hit Living Next Door to Alice. Thirty years on, the question is on many minds again, this time regarding the mercurial co-leader of Germany’s buoyant anti-immigration party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Ahead of the German elections on 23 February, many want to know: who exactly is Alice Weidel?

It’s a pertinent question. For the first time since the Nazi era, a far-right party has ambitions to head a German government. The AfD is fielding the 45-year-old Weidel as its first-ever chancellor candidate. She is unlikely to win office this time, but her party is polling in second place and set to double its vote share to over 20%.

Katja Hoyer is a German-British historian and journalist. Her latest book is Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990

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Representatives of Heartland Institute linking up with MEPs to campaign against environmental policies

Climate science deniers from a US-based thinktank have been working with rightwing politicians in Europe to campaign against environmental policies, the Guardian can reveal.

MEPs have been accused of “rolling out the red carpet for climate deniers” to give them a platform in the European parliament, amid warnings of a “revival of grotesque climate denialism”.