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The full nationalisation of British Steel is expected to be announced in the king’s speech this week, a year after the government took over the daily running of the loss-making business from its Chinese owner. The steelmaker, which employs 3,500 people at its plant in Scunthorpe, came under government control last April amid fears that its owner, Jingye, was planning to shut down the site. British Steel operates the last two remaining blast furnaces in the UK, but its economic control remains with the Chinese company, which bought it out of insolvency in early 2020. An announcement confirming the plans...

A new research tool that tracks cell phone activity has found a 42% drop in visitors from Canada to big metropolitan areas in the US that is much higher than official border-crossing data, suggesting Canadians during the second Trump administration are avoiding US cities in particular. Researchers from the University of Toronto said the tool showed a “year-over-year median decline of approximately 42% in Canadian visits to US metropolitan areas – significantly higher than official border-crossing data, which showed a roughly 25% decline”. The economies of US border towns reliant on Canadian traffic have been slammed as their northerly neighbours...

‘My ambition is to change the country,’ AOC says when asked about seeking higher office in 2028 New York’s Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez brushed off question about run for presidency.

The scale of the electoral challenge facing Labour has been laid bare as the party haemorrhages councillors at the local elections and Reform makes significant gains. Keir Starmer’s party went into Thursday’s local elections expected to lose up to 1,850 councillors, with senior figures describing the contest as “tough”. Initial results overnight painted a bleak picture for the prime minister, with Labour losing councillors in its traditional northern heartlands. Reform took control of its first council at around 6am, gaining overall control of Newcastle-under-Lyme from Labour. The party’s leader, Nigel Farage, described the early results as a “historic change in...

As we mark the 81st anniversary of the end of the second world war in Europe this Friday, 8 May, it’s clear that Germany will again be the leading European military power. Already next year its defense spending will be as much as that of France and Britain combined — and it is projected to be significantly larger by 2030. The German government’s declared goal is to have the strongest conventional army in Europe. True, France and Britain have nuclear weapons, but that means less money to spend on the rest of defense. So, the question is not “will this...

Europe will not submit to a more “brutal world”, and can instead be the base from which a new international order can be rebuilt, Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, has said. Carney was speaking as the first non-European leader to attend a meeting of the European Political Community, which opened on Monday amid high tensions in the strait of Hormuz and renewed doubts about the US commitment to Nato. “We don’t think that we’re destined to submit to a more transactional, insular and brutal world, and gatherings such as these point to a better way forward,” he said. In...

The delay in Dick Advocaat becoming Curaçao’s head coach might have been ominous but instead it was the foundation for glory. Frustrated by the national federation’s financial problems, he deferred starting until January 2024, when the problems were resolved and players paid, paving the way for a historic World Cup qualifying campaign. Curaçao will be the smallest nation – by land area and population – to play at the World Cup after their 0-0 draw in Jamaica on Wednesday. The Caribbean island has a population of 156,000, sinking the previous record holders, Iceland, which has about 400,000 inhabitants. Last month...

Six supreme court justices handed down a ruling built, ostensibly, on the belief that the US has changed so much as to render the protections of the Voting Rights Act unnecessary. No one should be that gullible.In 1901, the same year my great-grandfather was born, George H White rose to address the 56th United States Congress for the last time. He was a Republican congressman from North Carolina – the only Black member of the entire body. He was leaving because the state he represented had passed legislation making his re-election impossible. Reconstruction had already been undone. The powers that...

Nigel Farage and Reform are campaigning around the country in the local elections and consistently polling higher than the other parties. Reform’s campaign started with a series of rallies for supporters and candidates, where they asked attenders who were not already members to join the party and put their names forward as candidates. Now Farage is on a busy schedule of walkabouts and meet-ups with prospective councillors and supporters around the country.

The White House is considering punishing European countries that have failed to assist Donald Trump wage his war in Iran, according to an official within the Pentagon. Keir Starmer, once described as “very nice”, is now routinely said by the US president to be a “coward” and “no Churchill”. It is claimed that Trump could go further and withdraw American support for Britain’s sovereignty of the Falkland Islands over which the UK and Argentina went to war in 1982. The proposal is said to be contained in an internal Pentagon email.

Keir Starmer has been warned his relationship with Donald Trump may be beyond repair after the US president derided the prime minister for consulting his team about military decisions, in a mocking impersonation. In a new low for UK-US relations, Trump appeared to imitate Starmer in a weak voice during an Easter lunch speech at the White House and said the UK was “not our best” as an ally. The episode is Trump’s latest broadside at Starmer and the UK’s “old” aircraft carriers after the prime minister declined to let the US use British military bases for its initial strikes...

Israel approves death penalty law for Palestinians onlyDeath by hanging within 90 days is now the default punishment of Palestinians for offenses related to ‘terrorism,’ even as escalating Jewish settler terrorism continues with impunity.On Monday, Israel’s Knesset approved legislation requiring the death penalty for Palestinians found guilty of fatalities due to “terrorist” attacks. The measure was championed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, head of the Jewish Power party, who marked the occasion by celebrating with champagne.The new “Death Penalty for Terrorists Law” specifically targets Palestinians calling for capital punishment in cases where a “terrorist” is convicted of deliberately killing...

Italy has denied the use of an airbase in Sicily to US military planes carrying weapons for the war in Iran after the US did not follow the required authorisation procedure. A source at the Italian defence ministry confirmed a report in Corriere della Sera that “some US bombers” had been due to land at Sigonella – one of seven US navy bases in Italy – before heading to the Middle East, but that use of the base had been denied because the US sought authorisation to land only while the aircraft were already en route to Sicily. The source...

The UK’s agreement with France to pay for beach patrols is on the verge of collapse amid wrangling over the number of small boat interceptions and the safety of asylum seekers in French waters. Negotiations over plans to revamp the three-year, £480m deal remain deadlocked, despite the involvement of ministers including Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary. The deal expires at midnight on Tuesday. It is understood that Downing Street has insisted on an increase in the number and nature of interventions by French officials as they seek to disrupt gang activity. Paris remains concerned that UK demands could put the...

A US Secret Service agent, working on security detail for the former first lady Jill Biden, shot themself (sic) in the leg at the Philadelphia international airport on Friday morning, an agency spokesperson said. The Secret Service special agent suffered a “non-life-threatening injury” after they (sic) discharged their (sic) weapon at around 8:30 am. Biden was not near the agent at the time and no one else was injured. …

Europe could face a shortage of energy and fuel as soon as next month without a reopening of the strait of Hormuz, Shell’s chief executive has said. The boss of Europe’s biggest oil company said it was working with governments to help them address the oil and gas supply crisis, which has already led to energy rationing in Asian countries. Oil prices dipped back to about $100 a barrel on Wednesday from highs of about $114 at the start of the week, on the back of reports that the White House had sent a 15-point peace plan to Iran’s leaders....

Keir Starmer has said the conflict engulfing the Middle East could continue “for some time” as he insisted the best way forward in the longer term was a negotiated settlement with Iran. The prime minister said the UK was doing “everything we can” to de-escalate the situation, a clear contrast to the US president, who is focused on regime change and has said it was “too late” for Tehran to negotiate. He defended his decision to block initial offensive strikes by the US and Israel at the weekend, saying he stood by his judgment and denying it had damaged the...

Intense waves of airstrikes have hit dozens of military positions, frontier posts and police stations along northern parts of Iran’s border with Iraq in what appears to be preparation by US and Israel for a new front in their war. A US official with knowledge of the discussions between Washington and Kurdish officials said the US was ready to provide air support if Kurdish peshmerga fighters crossed the border from northern Iraq. A spokesperson for Israel’s military said the air force had been “heavily operating in western Iran to degrade Iranian capabilities there and to open up a way to...

Israel’s determination to attack Iran and the certainty that US troops would be targeted in response forced the Trump administration to take pre-emptive strikes, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said, in a new explanation for Washington’s surprise entry into the conflict. The rationale drew divided reviews from top members of Congress who on Monday evening received the first briefing by the Trump administration since it ordered the air campaign to begin over the weekend. Rubio; the CIA director, John Ratcliffe; and joint chiefs of staff, chair Dan Caine; spoke to the lawmakers behind closed doors in the Capitol ahead...

As Republicans celebrated the death of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with praise for Donald Trump’s decisive action, Democrats faced their own divisions and a reckoning over how to present a united front. Most were quick to condemn the US president for sidelining Congress to launch an illegal and unconstitutional war and demanded a swift vote on a war powers resolution that would restrain his military onslaught. But some in the party also felt obliged to acknowledge the authoritarian Khamenei’s death as a positive development and demonstrate their support for US troops. A small band of centrist Democrats have...