4 h. ago Labour targets international students claiming asylum after losses to Reform in local elections

Exclusive: Ministers understood to be drafting white paper this month in move to reduce legal migrationMinisters will crack down on international students applying for asylum in the UK in a move designed to tackle migration figures, after a series of bruising losses to Reform in the local elections.An immigration white paper setting out the proposed reforms in mid-May will include measures to bring down the numbers of UK student visa holders who make asylum claims, the Guardian understands. Continue reading...

Events

4 h. ago Labour targets international students claiming asylum after election losses to Reform

Exclusive: Ministers understood to be drafting white paper this month in move to reduce legal migrationMinisters will crack down on international students applying for asylum in the UK in a move designed to tackle migration figures, after a series of bruising losses to Reform in the local elections.An immigration white paper setting out the proposed reforms in mid-May will include measures to bring down the numbers of UK student visa holders who make asylum claims, the Guardian understands. Continue reading...

Events

8 h. ago Mohamed Diomande reveals how Rangers cracked Celtic code but pinpoints huge problem they must sort against the rest

The Ivorian midfielder knows it has been an unacceptable campaign at Ibrox but made a promise to fans

Politics

10 h. ago Eccentric musician Swamp Dogg at 82: ‘There’s no sympathy for octogenarians’

The genre-bending cult singer is the subject of an offbeat new documentary where he invites people into a long life filled with ups, downs and LSDSwamp Dogg has only just stopped seeing monsters. Since being spiked with LSD back in the 1960s, which also influenced his distinct take on left-field soul music, the 82-year-old says he could still feel the impacts of it up until just a few years ago. “I was paranoid of crowds and paranoid of being alone,” he says. “I had high anxiety and could be sitting in a room with you and if I looked at you long enough, you’d start looking like some kind of monster.”For a long period of time it was only through the help and support of his late wife that he was able to hold it together. “I didn’t trust but one person in life, and that was Yvonne,” he says. “I wouldn’t do anything without her. She’s why I’m still alive. Yvonne was my god.” There are similarly touching sentiments expressed about her in the offbeat, funny and strangely poignant new docu...

Politics

12 h. ago Sinner set for hero’s welcome in Rome but how will the locker room react?

The world No 1 returns at next week’s Italian Open after a three-month anti-doping suspension amid a saga that left players questioning the fairness of the systemJannik Sinner could not help but crack a wry smile when he faced the media before the US Open last year in the aftermath of his anti-doping case, one of the most high-profile in the history of tennis.Sinner, the best player in the world, had been attempting to emphasise just how low the concentration of the banned substance clostebol had been in his urine sample, and therefore how irrelevant it was to his performances on the court. Continue reading...

Politics

13 h. ago My cultural awakening: Groundhog Day made me quit my job, move house and leave my girlfriend

When I saw Bill Murray’s classic comedy I realised that I was trapped in my own unfulfilling time loopI didn’t know anything about the plot of Groundhog Day before I decided to watch it 10 years ago. I remember collapsing on to the sofa after work – completely exhausted – and putting it on. My girlfriend was already asleep in the next room. Her drinking had been getting steadily worse that year, but I think we were both in denial about it. Most evenings I’d spend alone, so I’d put a movie on in the background for company.I found it funny at first, watching Bill Murray’s character trapped in a time-loop. But about 20 minutes in, I started feeling this creeping sense of dread. I remember seeing Murray’s white alarm clock going off, waking him up to begin the same day and feeling this horrible spark of recognition. It was like watching my own life play out on the screen in front of me. Continue reading...

Society

13 h. ago Poker Face: Natasha Lyonne’s seriously funny whydunnit caper is back with a cracking A

Cynthia Erivo plays sextuplets! Katie Holmes is an undertaker! And Kumail Nunjiani is the new Tiger King! The super cool, celebrity-packed show is even wilder than everThe best thing about Poker Face is that it doesn’t bother trying to shore up what it knows is a flimsy premise. Fans of the first season will recall that Charlie Cale, Natasha Lyonne’s wisecracking 70s detective homage, has an in-built ability to detect a lie as soon as someone tells it. Instead of trying to explain this gift away as the result of a gamma storm or spider bite or covert government experiment, it now accepts that, yeah, she has a “freaky little lie detector trick”, that’s the extent of the idea, got a problem with that? These days, Charlie waves away any queries about it with an “Eh”, a shrug and a cheeky nudge of the baseball cap and aviator shades.After using her talent to work her way through a series of increasingly preposterous case-of-the-week murders last time, then ending up with the mafia putti...

Politics

13 h. ago My VE Day was nothing like our image of it today. I hope we can honour what it really meant | Sheila Hancock

Our street party tea was a muted celebration, full of uncertainty. Then, as now, we faced a long struggle towards a better world It is May 2025, it is 4am, and I am sitting up in bed, sleepless, looking out at a huge moon illuminating the still world.Eighty-five years ago, in 1940, a silently weeping seven-year-old lay on a cracked leatherette sofa in urine-soaked pyjamas, looking through an alien window, praying that that same moon would protect my mum and dad from the killer bombs falling in London. Continue reading...

Politics

15 h. ago UK to launch scheme to recruit global research talent after Trump crackdown

Initiative backed by £50mn in government money comes as US administration seeks to cut funding and suppress research

Politics

19 h. ago Prison chief says football matches and concerts 'have better security than Britain's jails'

He explained that jails were failing to crack down on inmates obtaining illicit items through drone deliveries at night because UK's prison bosses were 'not up for the fight.'

Events

20 h. ago Driver jailed for killing girl, 9, in horror crash as family pay tribute to 'funny, loving and gentle' daughter

WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT Alice William's was killed as she crossed the road in 2023, her dad says Alice's death had destroyed his wife's mental health and left him feeling "numb" for years since

Events

26 h. ago From Olympians to Love Island stars: How did famous candidates do in the local elections?

A host of famous names appeared on ballot papers across the country as voters went to the polls

Politics

31 h. ago We fought and beat the government in the courts because every Briton has the right to protest | Akiko Hart

The appeal court verdict makes clear these anti-protest laws should never have existed. Labour must now reflect on what sort of democracy it wants us to beAkiko Hart is the director of the human rights organisation LibertyWhen we beat the Conservative government over its anti-democratic protest laws in court last year, we thought that would be the end of the story. Judges in the high court had made it very clear that laws that gave the police almost unlimited powers to crack down on any protest that caused “more than minor” disruption were unlawful. It ordered that the laws should be scrapped. We celebrated. Given that the incoming Labour government had voted down these very same laws a year earlier, we believed that protest would be taken out of the culture wars arena and put back into the sacred space of fundamental rights.Yet Labour dragged us back to court, in a misguided attempt to be seen to look tough on public order. And now today, on a day of much Labour soul-searching, we’...

Events

31 h. ago Is Farage’s win a new dawn? We could ask Labour, but they’re still fast asleep | Marina Hyde

The local elections results tell us one clear thing: the ‘two main parties’ offer a change that actually changes nothing – and voters know itIt’s been a funny old decade. Just over 10 years ago, the comedian Russell Brand was lionised in some quarters for appearing on a Question Time panel with Nigel Farage, and producing what was widely, if bafflingly, interpreted as a brilliant zinger about the then Ukip leader. “He is a pound-shop Enoch Powell,” honked Brand, “and we gotta watch him.” Well now. Perhaps it takes someone who needs to be watched to know someone who needs to be watched. Mr Brand returned to the UK this week from the Florida base of his conspiracist Christian media outlet, appearing in court today on rape and sexual assault charges. He denies them.Anyway: the local elections, where the big thing that people said could never happen seems to be happening. Farage now leads Reform UK, which even last year used to be bundled in the “other” category by political pollsters –...

Politics

33 h. ago Holidaymakers' vehicles damaged and others missing as unauthorised car parks pop up

North Somerset Council has been cracking down on the parking issues around the Bristol Airport that have been causing issues for the community and holiday makers

Events

33 h. ago Maybole neighbours threatened with fines over 'ludicrous' pavement parking law

Residents on Hutchison Street in Maybole have been left with a parking dilemma as South Ayrshire Council crack down on pavement parking.

Events

35 h. ago Two jailed after town centre patrol uncovered drug dealing operation

Messages on Gary Harmes' phone showed he had been working with Callum Mazzano to supply crack cocaine

Events

51 h. ago Shein’s London IPO ‘on hold’ after Trump’s crackdown on China

Shein’s London IPO ‘on hold’ after Trump’s crackdown on China  The Times

Politics

53 h. ago Drug dealer who used habit to fund swanky Dubai hotel stays sobs as he's jailed

Jerome Samuels, 31, was found in possession of more than £48,000 worth of heroin, crack cocaine and cocaine when pulled over by police.

Economics

54 h. ago ‘Armed agents nearly turned up at my house’: fired DOJ attorney on defying Trump – podcast

The US justice department says it did not fire a former pardon attorney, Liz Oyer, after she refused to recommend reinstating Mel Gibson’s gun rights.But Oyer tells Jonathan Freedland a different story, one she believes points to a wider crackdown by the Trump administration on the rule of law in AmericaArchive: ABC News, Face the Nation, CBS News, CNN, PBS, NBC News, Fox News, WHAS11 Continue reading...

Events