
London mayor talks up coalition-building, highlights his environmental record, and worries national Labour party is on the wrong track
When Sadiq Khan was first elected as mayor of London 10 years ago, Barack Obama was US president, the UK was still in the European Union and Leicester City had just been crowned the unlikely champions of the English Premier League.
In the intervening decade, Donald Trump has gone from reality TV star to two-time US president, the UK has had six different prime ministers, and Brexit has convulsed the country. London has been rocked by tragedies ranging from terror attacks to the Grenfell Tower fire.
Continue reading...She has suddenly become one of the world’s most successful comedians, with a hit Netflix special, an Emmy-nominated role in Hacks and another opposite Steve Carell. But many of her jokes raise hackles. Is she a genius – or an edgelord?
‘Once in a while, you get to see a legend at the absolute top of their game,” booms a voice at the beginning of Robby Hoffman’s Netflix special, Wake Up, welcoming her to the stage. High praise indeed – especially since the voice is that of the leading US comedian John Mulaney, who directed the special, and who clearly thinks this 36-year-old New Yorker is one of the hottest talents around.
He’s not the only one. Over the last year, Hoffman’s star has risen at a stunning pace. She is currently on TV in Rooster, a college campus comedy starring Steve Carell, as well as the fifth season of the critically acclaimed sitcom Hacks. This is only her second season as talent agency assistant Randi, but last year the role earned her an Emmy nomination.
Continue reading...If Starmer’s Labour refuses to concede more powers to Plaid Cymru, the triumphant independence party, it will only accelerate its own decline
On Saturday, I stood on the steps outside the Senedd, listening to the leader of Plaid Cymru, Rhun ap Iorwerth, take questions from the media. It was one of those rare moments of almost feeling history being made. As one of the other journalists said to me: “I have never seen a political event like this in Wales.”
A crowd of Plaid supporters had gathered to welcome their 43 new MSs. People were giddy with excitement: for the first time since the party was founded just over 100 years ago, it was about to form the next Welsh government. And for the first time in Wales’s history, the country’s highest-ranking political representative would be from a party committed to securing independence – to breaking away from the United Kingdom. Some of the Senedd members were crying. The crowd starting singing the Welsh national anthem, Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, and were joined by the assembled politicians.
Will Hayward is a Guardian columnist. He publishes a regular newsletter on Welsh politics
Continue reading...Up to 150 passengers and crew from hantavirus-hit MV Hondius start flying home aboard military and government planes from Spain’s Canary Islands
The complex operation to repatriate passengers and crew of the hantavirus-hit cruise ship, the MV Hondius, is almost complete.
Up to 150 people have started flying home aboard military and government planes from Spain’s Canary Islands, and the World Health Organization has recommended, but not mandated, a 42-day quarantine once they have landed.
Continue reading...It’s the biggest night in British television! Join Aimee Lou Wood, Alan Carr, Owen Cooper and stars of the year’s best shows on the red carpet
Continue reading...Banknotes are now so tattered that even buses refuse to accept them, as a dollarised economy and mobile phone payments push up the cost of essentials
As US troops withdrew from Somalia in the spring of 1994, a teenaged Muse Omar Jama began working as an exchange trader in Mogadishu’s Bakara market. More than three decades later, he still does the same job, but wonders for how much longer.
Jama, 49, sits in a plastic chair in the one-room office he shares with other traders. The auto-rickshaws speed by outside, but inside is quiet; the noise of bargaining has faded and the traders exchange few words between themselves.
Continue reading...PM promises to nationalise British Steel and rebuild relationship with Europe during his make-or-break speech
Botterill says voters she spoke to during the campaign felt the country does not work for them. She is a working-class Yorkshire woman, she says. She knows that the opportunities she has enjoyed would not be there if if had not been for the achievements of Labour government.
She says Labour is one of the best vehicles for changing the lives of working people that this county has ever known.
Continue reading...US president calls Iranian response ‘totally unacceptable’ while Tehran says it will retaliate against any new US strikes or foreign warships in strait of Hormuz
Hezbollah started firing at Israel shortly after the US and Israel launched its war on Iran by killing the country’s former supreme leader on 28 February. Israel responded with airstrikes and launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon.
The Israeli military now occupies a strip of Lebanese land along the border. Officials claim they want to create a ‘security zone’ to protect Israel’s northern communities from Hezbollah attacks. But this has stoked fears of a long-term occupation.
Continue reading...FoI responses collected by insurer show brigades tackled 1,760 battery-linked fires in 2025, up 147% in three years
Fire brigades across the UK are tackling lithium-ion battery fires at a rate of one every five hours, figures show, as fire chiefs warn that public awareness and government regulation have not kept pace with the ubiquity of this new hazard.
Lithium-ion batteries power most rechargeable devices including mobile phones, electric toothbrushes, toys and vapes, as well as ebikes, e-scooters and electric vehicles.
Continue reading...Twenty-two people from MV Hondius cruise spend first day isolating in self-contained flats in Merseyside
Passengers evacuated to the UK from a cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak are spending their first day at an isolation facility after being repatriated from Tenerife.
A chartered Titan Airways flight transported the MV Hondius passengers from the Canary Islands to Manchester airport on Sunday evening. The evacuation of passengers of all nationalities will be completed on Monday, with flights arriving from Australia and the Netherlands, Spain’s health minister has said.
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