Darren Jones says £1.8bn project likely to cover only vehicle tax payments and right-to-work checks initially Britain’s £1.8bn digital ID scheme will only be available for a handful of uses by the next election, including paying vehicle tax and right-to-work checks, the minister in charge of the project has said. Darren Jones, the prime minister’s chief secretary, told reporters on Tuesday he eventually wanted the app to be used for everything from claiming benefits to proving the right to vote, but that most of this would not happen until the next parliament. Continue reading...

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Mare wins at Cheltenham for fourth year in a row Favourite Old Park Star wins Supreme Novice Hurdle There was a definite tremor in the voice of Rich Ricci, belying the image of the hard-nosed former banker, after his grey mare, Lossiemouth, had galloped to an authoritative success in the Champion Hurdle here on Tuesday. “It’s a privilege to have a horse like this,” Ricci said. “This game continues to excite me, to entice me and to make me spend stupid money.” The accountant in Ricci had probably been telling him to stick to a tried-and-trusted path at the festival as he and Willie Mullins, Lossiemouth’s trainer, were deciding last week whether to attempt a third straight win in the Mares’ Hurdle on Thursday, or roll the dice in the main event two days earlier. Continue reading...

Karoline Leavitt tries to assuage anxiety over rising gas prices and says they could drop ‘lower than they were prior’ to start of US military action in Iran Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox Hegseth says the aftermath of the conflict is “going to be in America’s interests” and says it “will not live under a nuclear blackmail” from Iran. It comes shortly after the defence secretary reiterated president Donald Trump’s threat that if Iran does anything to prevent the flow of oil in the strait of Hormuz, it will be hit “twenty times harder”. Continue reading...

Academic Shereen Daniels says plan by Mark Rowley to absorb police’s race policies into broader anti-discrimination programme is backward step The Metropolitan police has been accused of insulting black people and mocking the pain it has caused them after revealing it wants to absorb its anti-racism strategy into a broader anti-discrimination scheme. The Met said the scheme, also including gender and sexual orientation, will increase its chance of success in better serving groups it has failed in the past. Continue reading...

The US-Israeli bombardment has once again underlined Donald Trump’s indifference to international law. A stronger EU can be a vital counterweight When European leaders were blindsided in January by Donald Trump’s unilateral abduction of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, their immediate response was to hedge their bets. Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, affirmed that the principles of international law must always be respected, but also asserted that Mr Maduro lacked legitimacy. As a new Trump-compliant leadership emerged in Caracas, Europe’s attention drifted to crises closer to home. The dilemmas and dangers posed by Mr Trump’s war of choice in Iran – again initiated with no attempt to consult allies or gain US congressional approval – are not so easily swerved. The US president has berated and mocked Sir Keir Starmer over a lack of full-throated support for his latest military adventure. He has threatened Spain with a trade embargo, after its prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, described the joint US-Israeli assault on Tehran as “unjustified and dangerous”, and refused to sanction the use of military bases. Even Mr Trump’s close ideological ally, the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, is under pressure from an electorate deeply hostile to involvement in another open-ended Middle East conflict with unpredictable consequences. Continue reading...

Bad actors have treated equality as a zero sum game, with women falsely portrayed as ‘winning’. Feeling they have to compete, young men are lashing out Last week, results from a global survey signalled a rise in worrying attitudes towards women among young men. A team from the pollsters Ipsos and King’s College London found that nearly a third (31%) of gen Z men believe that a woman should always obey her husband, a fifth (21%) believe that she should never initiate sex, and 33% believe that women should let their husbands have the final word on important decisions. There’s a limit to how much can be drawn from a worldwide survey that draws averages from vastly different cultures and economies. We cannot ask respondents what they meant by their answers, nor how they reconcile apparently contradictory views: younger men are more likely than older generations to call themselves feminists and to find successful women attractive, yet some also say women should be subordinate. Nor does the data tell us whether the same men hold these views. Continue reading...

Former Sinn Féin leader being sued by three men injured in IRA bombings in 1976 and 1996 A convicted IRA bomber has told a court that Gerry Adams was a senior figure in the organisation despite the former Sinn Féin leader’s claims to the contrary. Adams, 77, is being sued for symbolic “vindicatory” damages of £1 each by John Clark, Jonathan Ganesh and Barry Laycock, who were injured respectively in the 1973 Old Bailey bombing, and the London Docklands and Manchester bombings in 1996. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Report suggests only 1% of annual spend on food and drink adverts will be affected after industry lobbying The junk food ad ban intended to curb childhood obesity will only affect 1% of the £2.4bn spent annually on advertising food and drink, and may prove a “paper tiger”, ministers have been told. The government has hailed the ban on advertising foods high in fat, salt and sugar, which came into force on 5 January, as a decisive and world-leading move that will remove 7.2bn calories from UK children’s diets every year. Continue reading...

⚽ Champions League news from the 8pm GMT kick-offs ⚽ Galatasaray v Liverpool – live | Today’s Football Daily Galatasaray are leading Liverpool in the first Champions League of the night. Scott Murray has the latest. Groundhog Day! Continue reading...

Charlotte Nichols speaks out in opposition to bill proposing changes to jury trials in England and Wales An MP has told the House of Commons that she was raped after an event that she attended as a member of parliament, revealing that she waited 1,088 days for her case to get to court. Speaking at a debate on Tuesday to discuss changes to the law under which some jury trials would be limited, Charlotte Nichols said she was waiving her right to anonymity to speak about her own experience and opposition to the bill. Continue reading...

NYPD officers responded to the alert, days after two men threw homemade explosives at Gracie Mansion Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox The New York police department (NYPD) responded to a reported suspicious device near Gracie Mansion on Tuesday afternoon, days after two men threw homemade explosives during protests outside mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home in what authorities have called an act of “ISIS-inspired terrorism”. The NYPD posted an advisory on X, which said: “Due to a suspicious device, East End Avenue between East 85th and East 87th Street, as well as East 86th Street between York Avenue and East End Avenue are closed to vehicular and pedestrian traffic. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Foreign secretary Yvette Cooper concerned about effect of student visa ban on female Chevening scholars from Afghanistan and Sudan The Home Office rejected an appeal from the foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, that would have protected outstanding students in some of the world’s most dangerous countries from changes to the UK’s immigration system, the Guardian understands. Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, turned down proposals from the Foreign Office to maintain a carve-out for Chevening scholars, a government-funded programme for “exceptional individuals” to study for a master’s degree at a UK university. Continue reading...

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe among more than 100 signatories to letter urging PM not to get drawn further into the conflict Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is among three of Iran’s former political prisoners and more than 100 Iranians living in the UK who have urged the British prime minister not to get drawn further into the Iran conflict. They are all signatories in a letter to Keir Starmer saying the way the war is being conducted is strengthening the regime in Tehran. Continue reading...

Joani Reid denies any involvement in business activities of spouse, who was arrested last week by anti-terror police Joani Reid, the MP who resigned the Labour whip last week after her husband was arrested on suspicion of spying for China, received a donation from his company the month before, it has emerged. Reid, who said after the arrest that she had no involvement in her husband’s business activities, declared a donation in February worth £2,400 for media training from Earthcott Ltd, the lobbying company run by David Taylor. Continue reading...

The FCA should bring in new rules to protect investment trusts from overaggressive activist investors trying to take control A year ago, the sometimes sleepy world of UK investment trusts – companies that invest in other companies – had a moment of genuine drama. A loud New York raider, Boaz Weinstein of hedge fund Saba Capital, bought significant stakes in seven trusts and lobbed insults at their boards, generally about poor investment performance or a failure to close the gap between the value of the assets and the share price. For all the fireworks, the campaign was a flop. Saba filed a variety of shake-’em-up motions at what it called the “Miserable Seven” and lost the lot. A 7-0 defeat, you’d think, would prompt Weinstein to slink away in embarrassment but, as quickly became clear, that’s not his style. Continue reading...

Conservative leader accused of taking confusing position after she said Starmer should ‘do more than catch arrows’ Kemi Badenoch has said she never called for the UK to join Donald Trump’s war on Iran, after previously saying Keir Starmer should do more to “stop the people who are attacking us”. Labour accused Badenoch of having a confused position after the Conservative leader said she was not urging the government to join the US and Israel strikes on Iran but that the UK should “do more than catch the arrows” and “take out” missile launchers. Continue reading...

Reform leader’s Derbyshire petrol station stunt grinds to halt when questions on Iran leave him short-tempered Let’s try to look on the bright side. At least Nigel Farage wasn’t personally out of pocket. There again, he seldom is. The whole point of being Nige is to never pay for anything if you can help it. Unless you fancy buying a few shares in Kwasi Kwarteng’s ‘Get Rich Quick’ crypto scheme. Ordinary punters would be well advised to think twice before doing the same. But Nige can’t escape the humiliation. The dawning realisation that he’s not quite as important as he thought he was. That the novelty has worn off and people are not so quick to be taken in. On Thursday, Farage had boasted to anyone who would listen that he was off to Mar-a-Lago for the weekend to have some me time with Donald Trump. To do his patriotic duty of keeping the US president up to speed on the British response to the war in Iran. And how he would have done so much better. Continue reading...

Readers respond to comments by Birmingham University’s Adam Tickell on whether students without A-levels should be eligible for loans The proposals to review student loan eligibility for those without A-levels raises an important question about access to higher education (Vice-chancellor calls for review into student loans for those without A-levels, 6 March). As someone who entered university without A-levels, I find the suggestion frustrating. I graduated with a first-class bachelor’s degree in engineering from a former polytechnic and later completed a master’s degree in engineering at a redbrick university. I have also repaid my student loan in full, helped by lower fees, better repayment terms and a means-tested grant towards part of my living expenses. Continue reading...

Prof Ngaire Woods and Aziz Magid respond to the government’s decision to halt study visas from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan The government’s decision to halt visas for students from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan (UK puts emergency brake on study visas for four countries’ nationals, 3 March) risks shutting out talent, experience and leadership that will strengthen and stabilise countries around the world. Shabana Basij-Rasikh was just six years old when the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan. She came to the Blavatnik School of Government in 2019 after founding the School of Leadership, Afghanistan, providing quality education for Afghan girls. At the Blavatnik School, she worked with classmates to map 130 million girls out of school across the world and design policies to accelerate their access to education. This work highlights the role of UK universities as hubs for solutions to global challenges. Continue reading...

Ordinary people and families have made their homes there, writes Mark Husbands. Plus a letter from Jessamy Hadley Regarding Gaby Hinsliff’s article (Influencers sold the world a fantasy Dubai – and now it’s gone in a puff of missile smoke, 6 March), Dubai has certainly been marketed as a place of aspiration, often through social media. But the suggestion that recent events somehow represent a moral reckoning for those living there feels glib. Most residents are ordinary professionals and families who have built lives in Dubai over many years. When tensions rise in the region, their first concern is the safety of their families, not the preservation of a “fantasy lifestyle”. Many people move to places like Dubai not out of frivolity but because they are seeking a tax and regulatory environment that allows them to keep more of what they earn. Continue reading...

MPs and trade union leaders call for an immediate end to the attacks on Iran The US-Israel war on Iran is a catastrophic escalation in an already devastated region, and Britain must not be involved. It is causing appalling death and destruction in Iran and risks plunging the area into wider war. Already it is causing economic convulsions around the world. Its aims seem to change daily, but it is clearly an illegal and unprovoked war, one that started in the midst of negotiations. Its organisers have learned nothing from the carnage and chaos caused by previous wars on Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Continue reading...

The film will cover the early years of the 1980s rock band and their breakout with hits like Livin’ On a Prayer and You Give Love a Bad Name A Bon Jovi biopic is in the works from Universal Pictures, Deadline has confirmed. The feature film will focus on the early years of the rock band, tracing their rise from modest beginnings in New Jersey to selling out stadiums as one of the 1980s’ most defining rock bands. Continue reading...

Co-founders of Moltbook, a platform for artificial intelligence agents, will join tech giant’s AI research unit Facebook parent Meta Platforms said on Tuesday it had acquired Moltbook, a social networking platform built for artificial intelligence agents, bringing the company’s founders into its AI research division. The deal will bring Moltbook co-founders Matt Schlicht and Ben Parr into Meta Superintelligence Labs, the unit led by Alexandr Wang, former Scale AI CEO, which Meta purchased for $14.8bn. Meta did not disclose financial terms of the deal. Schlicht and Parr are expected to begin at Meta Superintelligence Labs on 16 March. Continue reading...

With Indian Premier League investment on board, the Hundred has followed the IPL’s lead with a player auction for the 2026 season in London this week A rather drab event space hidden away next to Boots near Piccadilly Circus feels a long way from the 18,000-capacity Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, where the Indian Premier League auction was held in December, but the Hundred will take a significant step in the direction of its new big brother when the first major player auction in English sport takes place on Wednesday and Thursday. As is likely to be the case for all aspects of the competition moving forward the impetus for switching from a player draft to an auction has come from the new overseas investors, four of whom also own IPL teams, who having committed £975m to buying stakes of between 49% and 100% in the eight Hundred franchises, understandably want to control its future. Continue reading...