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Students found the body of Paul McAuley Tuesday in a hostel he set up for indigenous schoolchildren in Iquitos
A forensic expert in Peru has confirmed that the British Catholic missionary and activist Paul McAuley was dead before his body was burned at a hostel he founded in the jungle city of Iquitos.
The head forensic doctor in Peru’s Loreto region, Francisco Moreno, told the Guardian that no traces of carbon dioxide were found in McAuley’s blood indicating he had not inhaled smoke, thus ruling out burning as a possible cause of death.
Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen
That’s all from us for this evening. Thanks for reading and commenting. For a summary of the day’s major events, click here.
And, if you’d like to read more on the Brexit negotiations between the government and the opposition, my colleagues Rowena Mason and Heather Stewart have the story:
The Home Office should consider scrapping controversial immigration fees charged to children from families who can’t afford it and refund profits made from failed citizenship applications, according to an official watchdog.
The call came as it emerged on Thursday that the Home Office is making a profit of £2m a month from charging children for citizenship, with about 40,000 estimated to be affected in the past year.
Simone Burns gets six-month sentence for ‘insulting and upsetting act’ during Air India flight
A lawyer who spat at a flight attendant during a racist foul-mouthed tirade after she was refused alcohol on a nine-hour business class flight has been jailed for six months.
Judge Nicholas Wood, sentencing at Isleworth crown court, told Simone Burns: “The experience of a drunk and irrational person in the confines of an aircraft is frightening, not least on a long-haul flight and poses a potential risk to safety.”
Duke and Duchess gained one million followers on new account in less than six hours
Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, broke a record by reaching one million followers on their newly launched Instagram account in less than six hours, Guinness World Records has said.
The “sussexroyal” account was launched on Tuesday with a post featuring a monogram symbol with their names and now has 3.1 million followers.
Jeremy Corbyn will resume Brexit talks with the prime minister on Thursday, after Labour tensions over a second referendum burst into the open, with the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, writing to colleagues to insist any pact must be put to a public vote.
Both Labour and Downing Street described the discussions as “constructive” and said they would hold technical talks, facilitated by civil servants, on Thursday.
Kate Ferguson on the the crisis in the Latin American country, Michael Derham on its avocados, and Alan Knight on Prince Charles’s trip to Cuba
Julian Borger is right to draw attention to growing anxiety in Latin America as the Trump administration ramps up its rhetoric towards Venezuela, and to acknowledge the problematic trajectory of US-led armed intervention since Bush’s war on terror (Mexico raises concerns over US legal justifications for war, 3 April). Greater transparency in the formal legal justifications for military intervention is not just needed at the UN but here in the UK (which is why the public administration and constitutional affairs committee has rightly opened an inquiry into authorising the use of military force).
But with respect to Venezuela, what should be at the forefront of our minds is the human rights catastrophe facing Venezuelans. Their government has engaged in the systematic use of murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence since February 2014, to the extent that they are likely to constitute crimes against humanity.
Labour MP Rosie Cooper has spoken in the house of commons about the attempted plot to murder her. Jack Renshaw, 23, admitted to preparing an act of terrorism after he bought a machete to kill Cooper. She said that ‘our freedoms, our way of life, our democracy is under threat’. Speaker of the house, John Bercow commended her courage, adding that Parliament will not be ‘cowed’ and ‘the sooner the purveyors of hate, of fascism, of nazism, of a death cult realise that, the better’
Paul McAuley, 71, had helped Amazon tribes fight against the onslaught of oil and gas companies
Authorities in Peru have launched an investigation after the body of a British environmental activist and Catholic missionary was found in the Amazon city of Iquitos.
Students found the body of Paul McAuley, 71, on Tuesday in a hostel he founded for indigenous students in the Amazon city. Local media reported that his body had been burned.
Court of protection in London considering case involving woman with learning difficulties
A row has erupted after a judge spoke in court about the “fundamental human right” of a man to have sex with his wife.
The remark was made by Mr Justice Hayden, who had been asked to consider imposing a court order preventing a man from having sex with his wife of 20 years because she may no longer be able to give her consent.
During seven hours of meetings on Tuesday described as tense and gruelling, the prime minister struggled to keep order among colleagues who are vying to take her job.
Failure puts UK’s reputation as responsible nuclear power at risk, auditors say
Storage of obsolete nuclear submarines has cost the UK taxpayer £500m because of “dismal” failings in the government’s nuclear decommissioning programme, Whitehall’s spending watchdog has found.
The Ministry of Defence has twice as many submarines in storage as it does in service and has not disposed of any of the 20 vessels decommissioned since 1980, the National Audit Office (NAO) said.
Frustrated that they couldn’t find shirts for their five sons with unicorns on them or bright colours, animals, sparkles and rainbows, Eva St Clair and Rebecca Melsky decided to make them themselves.
National Archives’ cold war exhibition shows planned scenarios such as arrest of Michael Foot
In the apocalyptic event of a nuclear strike on Britain, the government offered householders make-do-and-mend advice on how to create refuge shelters under stairs and tables, and knock up temporary toilets from a chair and bucket.
Few were reassured by the DIY defences advocated in the widely lampooned public information “Protect and Survive” pamphlet, published in 1980, and a new cold war exhibition at the National Archives in Kew, featuring such a shelter, will do little to augment faith in this as a robust strategy for civilian survival.
During Foreign Office questions in the Commons earlier, Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, said that staying in the customs union would not be seen as a “true Brexit”. Responding to a question from Greg Hands, the former international trade minister, who asked what assessment the Foreign Office had made of the customs union option, Hunt said:
I think people would see it as very curious that a country that voted to take back control is choosing to cede control in a number of areas of vital national interest.
And I think they’d also be concerned that it would not resolve the national debate on Brexit because many of the people who voted for Brexit would not see this as delivering a true Brexit.
This is from my colleague Rowena Mason.
Jeremy Corbyn tackled at shadow cabinet over why Ian Lavery and Jon Trickett still in their frontbench jobs despite defying whip on second referendum indicative votes- answer came there none, according to shadow cabinet sources
Countries fear that legal standard of states being ‘unwilling or unable’ to deal with terrorism could be used in Latin America
Latin American states are mounting a challenge to the acceptance of a legal standard promoted by the US, UK and their allies to justify military operations in the Middle East, fearing the same standard could eventually be used to justify intervention in their own hemisphere.
The Mexican government is spearheading an effort at the UN to bring greater transparency to the formal legal justifications presented by western powers for military operations in Syria and elsewhere.
John Bercow, the Speaker, is telling MPs that they have half an hour to cast their vote, on paper in the division lobbies.
MPs are now voting on four propositions for #IndicativeVotes2 on light blue coloured between 8pm-8.30pm:
(C) Customs Union - Clarke (D) Common Market 2.0 - Boles (E) Confirmatory Public Vote - Kyle/Wilson (G) Parliamentary Supremacy - Cherry pic.twitter.com/550xBpSAMk
Vicky Ford, a Conservative, says she will back the custom union amendment. Being in a customs union is not the same as being in the customs union, she says. She says the UK would be out of the common agricultural policy and out of the common fisheries policy.
Ex-Southampton FC coach is accused of carrying out 25-year campaign of sexual abuse against boys as young as 11
A former youth footballer has told a jury that the ex-Southampton FC coach Bob Higgins sexually assaulted him hundreds of times starting when he was only 13.
The player, who can only be identified as complainant X, said he feared that if he resisted, his chances of becoming a professional would be ruined and he was too embarrassed to confide to anyone what was happening.