The rankings were changed after the UN used new criteria to give a more accurate picture of the rapid urbanisation driving the growth of megacities Jakarta has overtaken Tokyo as the world’s most populous city, according to a UN study that uses new criteria to give a more accurate picture of the rapid urbanisation driving the growth of megacities. The Indonesian capital is home to 42 million people, according to an estimate by the population division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs in its World Urbanisation Prospects 2025 report published this month. Continue reading...

Fire in densely packed group of 31-storey tower blocks that is home to thousands quickly spread via bamboo scaffolding Dozens of people have died in a huge fire that engulfed several residential tower blocks in Hong Kong, home to thousands of people, on Wednesday afternoon. Many more are in a critical condition and hundreds remain missing, with the fire continuing to burn into Thursday morning. The fire was first reported at 2.52pm on Wednesday, at the Wang Fuk Court residential complex in Tai Po, in the northern New Territories. The exact cause of the fire remains unknown, but officials say it started on the external scaffolding of Wang Cheong House, before spreading to seven of the eight buildings in the densely packed complex. Continue reading...

Hearings will be held in private to assess ‘whether government agencies took all practicable steps to protect the safety and welfare of the Phillips children’, says attorney general A public inquiry will be held into the authorities’ handling of the disappearance of fugitive father Tom Phillips with his three children, who hid in New Zealand’s wilderness for nearly four years, the government has announced. Phillips disappeared into the rugged North Island wilderness with his children just before Christmas in 2021, following a dispute with their mother. He did not have legal custody of his children. In August, he was killed in an exchange of fire with police after reports of a burglary in the remote town of Piopio, in the central North Island. A police officer was shot and required surgery. Continue reading...

Optus Stadium pitch offered ‘fair balance between bat and ball’ Cricket Australia says good bowling and ‘frenetic’ contest led to early result England only have themselves to blame for their two-day capitulation in Perth, after the pitch for the first Ashes Test received the top rating possible by the International Cricket Council. The “very good” assessment by the ICC match referee was made on a pitch with “good carry, limited seam movement, and consistent bounce early in the match, allowing for a balanced contest between batters and bowlers”. Continue reading...

The Footnote x Counterpoints prize is intended to uncover new literary voices whose work reflects the experiences of migration Footnote Press and Counterpoints Arts have announced a new fiction award celebrating writers from refugee and migrant backgrounds, offering a £15,000 prize and a publishing deal for the winner. The Footnote x Counterpoints prize for fiction, launching on Thursday, marks the second time the two organisations have collaborated on a prize. In 2023, writers were invited to submit narrative nonfiction, but now the prize will focus on fiction for the first time. Continue reading...

A new feature on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter allows users to see the location of other accounts. It has resulted in a firestorm of recriminations When X rolled out a new feature revealing the locations of popular accounts, the company was acting to boost transparency and clamp down on disinformation. The result, however, has been a circular firing squad of recriminations, as users turn on each other enraged by the revelation that dozens of popular “America first” and pro-Trump accounts originated overseas. The new feature was enabled over the weekend by X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, who called it the first step in “securing the integrity of the global town square.” Since then many high-engagement accounts that post incessantly about US politics have been “unmasked” by fellow users. Continue reading...

The debut novel took the top prize while The Café at the Edge of the Woods by Mikey Please was named children’s book of the year The Artist by Lucy Steeds has been named this year’s Waterstones book of the year. The novel, which is set in 1920s Provence and blends mystery with a love story, also took home the Waterstones debut fiction prize earlier this year, and was longlisted for the Women’s prize for fiction. Continue reading...

The British Future thinktank’s data predicts net migration to the UK will fall to about 300,000, less than a third of 2023’s figures Net migration figures due on Thursday are predicted to drop to pre-Bexit levels of about 300,000, according to a thinktank. British Future, which calculated the drop in overall migration, also found that most Britons remain unaware of the falling numbers, and expect the figures to rise or stay the same. Continue reading...

Club on worst run since 1953-54 after 4-1 rout ‘I have got a lot of support from above’ Arne Slot said it was understandable that questions were being asked over his future as Liverpool head coach, but he insisted he retained the support of the club’s hierarchy following another heavy defeat, this time against PSV Eindhoven. Liverpool fell to a ninth defeat in 12 games, the club’s worst run since being relegated in 1953-54, as they were picked apart by the Eredivisie champions on a punishing night at Anfield. Liverpool last lost three successive games by a three-goal margin or more in December 1953. Continue reading...

Real Madrid edge home 4-3 in Greece Giménez heads home in injury time for Atlético Kylian Mbappé scored the second-fastest hat-trick in the Champions League as he helped himself to all four goals in Real Madrid’s 4-3 win at Olympiacos. The La Liga leaders were trailing to Chiquinho’s early strike at the Stadio Georgios Karaiskakis before he intervened with a seven-minute treble after 22, 24 and 29 minutes. Only Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah, who achieved the same feat in six minutes and 12 seconds against Rangers in October 2022, is ahead of him in the all-time list. Continue reading...

Blades beat Portsmouth after owners’ merger statement Wednesday rock bottom following defeat at Millwall Sheffield United lifted themselves out of the Championship’s relegation zone on the day their owners reiterated their desire to take the club to the Premier League with a 3-0 win against 10-man Portsmouth. Patrick Bamford scored on his full United debut, turning home a scrappy rebound early in the second half for his first goal in 19 months after Sydie Peck’s penalty had given the Blades a 1-0 interval lead. Peck converted his first senior goal for the club after Pompey defender Terry Devlin had been shown a straight red card for handling on the goalline shortly before half-time. Continue reading...

Tezepelumab treatment may mean asthmatics for whom inhalers are ineffective can reduce or stop taking steroids A monthly injection could allow people with severe asthma to stop taking daily steroid tablets, a clinical trial has found. More than 260 million people are thought to have asthma worldwide. While most can control their asthma with inhalers to treat immediate symptoms and preventive ones to reduce inflammation, those with the most severe asthma often take daily doses of oral corticosteroids as well. Continue reading...

When north Cornwall residents’ water turned black and gelatinous in 1988, they were urged to mix it with orange squash when drinking. This powerful film lays out the effects of the toxic H2O – and their long struggle for justice It is becoming a cliche to liken issues-based TV dramas and documentaries to Mr Bates vs the Post Office. Nevertheless, you get the sense that Poison Water is hoping to do for communities affected by the shocking inaction of the water industry what ITV’s hit did for the subpostmasters wrongly criminalised because of a software glitch. A damning one-off, it tells the story of Britain’s biggest mass poisoning and the apparent greed and incompetence that has meant it has loomed large in victims’ lives ever since. There are also parallels with the recent drama Toxic Town, and the continued fight for those affected by poisonous waste in Corby in Northamptonshire. We open in the summer of 1988, when residents in several towns and villages in north Cornwall noticed something strange about the water coming out of their taps. It was blue in some cases, black in others, and could be gelatinous or sticky. It was also accompanied by a rapid outbreak of ill health, from vomiting and diarrhoea to rashes, blisters and severe headaches. For some, the effects were temporary, but many people went on to have long-term health problems, and there were even premature deaths that families are convinced were caused by the water they drank and bathed in that summer. Water that – because of an error at a treatment facility – had been laced with toxic amounts of aluminium sulphate. It would take more than two weeks for those in power to admit there was a problem. In the meantime, residents were told the water was perfectly safe, and to mix it with orange squash to improve the taste. Carole Wyatt, a resident of the sleepy village of St Minver, says she didn’t want to speak about the poisoning again. Thank goodness she changed her mind, as she quickly becomes one of the programme’s most outspoken interviewees. There’s blooper-ish humour as Wyatt urges the programme-makers not to edit her down like they did on an episode of the BBC’s Horizon at the time, and to keep in the “good bits”. Things quickly become less droll, as she explains what she wants them to preserve. “Miscarriage of justice, I want that in … before I die I want this truth to come out.” As we learn, justice has indeed been scant – bar a government apology – with calls for a public inquiry unanswered in the intervening years. Poison Water relies heavily on that Horizon episode and other archive material, and there is a risk that the final product could feel more like a repackaging than an original piece. Naturally, though, taking a four-decade step back from events casts them in a different light. And there are enough new interviews here – with residents, experts and politicians – to bring the whole thing startlingly, discomfitingly into the present. Among those interviewed is Michael Howard, then minister for water and planning under Margaret Thatcher. He is shown a letter obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, in which an employee of the water inspectorate had urged the government to go easy on the whole thing, lest prosecutions “render the whole of the water industry unattractive to the City” (this was at a time when the government was preparing for the privatisation of the water industry). Howard says he isn’t sure he ever saw the letter. “I hope you’ll emphasise that it was a long time ago and I can’t remember,” he adds. He strongly denies any suggestion of a cover-up or collusion, describing it as “a terrible mistake which should never have happened”. Continue reading...

Pair aged in their 20s bitten near Crowdy Bay early on Thursday morning with woman dying at the scene A woman has died following a shark attack on the New South Wales mid-north coast. NSW police said the woman, aged in her 20s, was killed at a beach near Crowdy Bay on Thursday morning. Continue reading...

There was no shame in this defeat for Tottenham, which represented progress after the north London derby disaster at Arsenal on Sunday. There were measures of encouragement ahead of the crucial Premier League home game against Fulham on Saturday, most notably in the shape of Randal Kolo Muani, the striker who is on loan from Paris Saint-Germain. Kolo Muani set up Richarlison for 1-0 and scored for 2-1 himself with a stinging volley. There would be another one for him before this wild tie was over. They were his first in Spurs’ colours. Continue reading...

Nine defeats in 12 games. A 75% loss rate since Eddie Nketiah scored a stoppage-time winner for Crystal Palace on 27 September and instigated a collapse that no one at Liverpool, no one in football in fact, could have seen coming. Unbelievable indeed. Arne Slot’s team are stuck in reverse. PSV Eindhoven became the latest grateful recipients of woeful Liverpool defending and aimless attacking play to inflict a comprehensive and damaging Champions League defeat on the Anfield side. Liverpool have suffered three successive defeats by a three-goal margin and show no signs of conjuring the recovery that Slot desperately needs to prevent a crisis undermining his hold on the job. There were boos around Anfield as the final whistle sounded on another terrible defeat for the Premier League champions. Continue reading...

Filing contained errors known as ‘hallucinations’, with attorneys arguing prosecutors’ office used AI in other cases A California prosecutors’ office used artificial intelligence to file a motion in at least one criminal case, which contained errors known as “hallucinations”. A prosecutor at the Nevada county district attorney’s office in northern California “recently used artificial intelligence in preparing a filing, which resulted in an inaccurate citation,” district attorney Jesse Wilson said in a statement to the Sacramento Bee. “Once the error was discovered, the filing was immediately withdrawn.” Continue reading...

This was billed as a clash of two of the best teams in Europe and for most of a cold evening in north London it felt like it. An absorbing game which ebbed and flowed throughout saw Bayern Munich’s rising star Lennart Karl cancel out Jurriën Timber’s opening goal from a corner before Noni Madueke and Gabriel Martinelli sealed a deserved win for Mikel Arteta’s side to maintain their 100% record in the Champions League so far and go top of the table. A place in the knockout stages now seems a mere formality. Harry Kane let it slip in the buildup to this match that scoring against Arsenal gives him “a bit more joy” than any other club. But the England striker barely had a sight of goal as a Bayern side that had also won their first four matches in the Champions League group stage were taught a lesson. Arteta resisted the temptation to make wholesale changes before Sunday’s top-of-the-table clash with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. He opted to start Cristhian Mosquera in central defence rather than Piero Hincapié as Myles Lewis-Skelly came in at left-back, while there was a welcome return for the captain, Martin Ødegaard, on the bench. Continue reading...

Chancellor axes two-child benefit cap and cuts energy bills paid for by mansion tax and freezing tax thresholds Analysis: ‘Tax-raising budget crash-lands on struggling economy’ Budget 2025: key points at a glance Budget 2025: what it means for you Rachel Reeves targeted Britain’s wealthiest households with a £26bn tax-raising budget, to fund scrapping the two-child benefit policy and cutting energy bills. On a chaotic day that involved key details of her budget accidentally released early by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the chancellor defended the measures, saying she was “asking everyone to make a contribution to repair the public finances”, but that she wanted the wealthiest to pay the most. Continue reading...

Reform UK leader has again denied allegations about his behaviour as a schoolboy but what are the facts? Nigel Farage has again denied the allegations of racism as a schoolboy and repeated his claim that some had been concocted because people disliked his politics. During a press conference, he snapped at one reporter who asked about the issue, saying: “I think we’ve gone quite a long way towards answering all this, don’t you?” Continue reading...

Conditions of two soldiers isn’t immediately known after incident, and emergency vehicles were seen responding in the area US politics live – latest updates Two US national guard soldiers were shot on Wednesday near the White House and their conditions aren’t immediately known, according to a law enforcement official not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity. The incident happened near the Farragut metro station and comes amid a controversial deployment of troops to the US capital city ordered by the Trump administration. Continue reading...

By the time the chancellor reached the dispatch box, the OBR had accidentally published its verdict in full online At a glance: the key points from the budget Shortly before midday on Wednesday, a series of headlines about Rachel Reeves’s budget began appearing on the Reuters newswire, sending instant ripples though financial markets. The details were jaw-dropping: they appeared to spell out the key policies of the chancellor’s budget more than 40 minutes before she was due to deliver them to a crowded Commons chamber. Continue reading...

Rachel Reeves’s interventions will ease the cost of living and suggest a desire to revive growth and protect public services Rachel Reeves’s budget contains many measures to make any social democrat cheer. Scrapping the two‑child benefit cap, putting up gambling taxes, freezing rail fares and implementing a mansion tax are not just sensible moves – they are long overdue. As is a “managed transition” for the North Sea that supports workers while pivoting to clean energy, without abruptly ditching oil and gas. The country will be a better, fairer place for these measures. They should also assuage backbench anger over self-inflicted damage by the chancellor’s proposed welfare cuts and secure Ms Reeves’s position – for now. The dilemma at the heart of Ms Reeves’s fiscal strategy is that while individual policies may be progressive, the economic framework they sit inside is not. This is exposed by the Office for Budget Responsibility. Behind the signature policies lies a deeply conservative macro strategy. The budget will see £26bn in tax rises borne heavily by workers, falling investment, stagnant growth, flat wages and a fiscal debt rule met on a coin toss. The OBR warns that under Ms Reeves’s spending plans, unprotected services – councils, courts and police – will face Osborne-style cuts of 3.3% a year from 2029 to 2031 unless the Treasury finds £21bn extra. Her fiscal rule makes those cuts inevitable. Continue reading...

Although some appointees make valuable contributions, the absurd archaism of the second chamber of parliament has to be addressed Not much about the House of Lords is defensible on principles of democratic representation. One plausible merit of an appointed chamber is that specialists might be recruited to apply non-political expertise in legislative scrutiny. Appointees are certainly not supposed to use their privileged position to advance the interests of paying clients. After a Guardian investigation, two peers were disciplined this week for breaking lobbying rules. Lord Dannatt, a former head of the British army who served as a crossbencher, and Lord Evans of Watford, a businessman and Labour peer, have been suspended for four and five months respectively. Both men were recorded by undercover Guardian reporters posing as property developers, discussing ways in which their Westminster contacts might be useful to advance potential clients’ access. Continue reading...

Maintaining existing drilling sites for longer is sensible but doesn’t square with plans to keep the energy profits levy Labour’s manifesto commitment on North Sea oil and gas production was a fudge. On one hand, it said no new licences “to explore new fields” would be granted. On the other, it said existing fields would be managed “for the entirety of their lifespan” in a way “that does not jeopardise jobs”. The formulation raised many questions. Where, exactly, would the line be drawn between a new field and an existing field? What would be the approach to protecting workers when, as now, North Sea jobs are estimated to be going at a rate of 1,000 a month according to analysis by Robert Gordon University? Continue reading...