Only one student found during hours-long search of Polytechnic University campus

Staff at Polytechnic University in Hong Kong, the site of a days-long police siege, say they have thoroughly swept the campus and found only one remaining protester, suggesting a bitter standoff between anti-government protesters and police is close to an end.

A team of university staff, counsellors, medics, social workers and security personnel searched the campus for more than six hours and found one female demonstrator lying on a couch who “appeared physically weak and emotionally unstable”, according to a statement from the university.

Thousands hit the streets, crowds set fire to stations and police fire live ammunition

Thousands of people swept into the streets of Hong Kong for a night of violent protests after the government activated sweeping colonial-era powers for the first time in over half a century, using them to ban face masks.

The chief executive, Carrie Lam, also said harsher measures could be on the table if the protest movement continued, amid calls from police groups and pro-Beijing politicians for a citywide curfew, and discussion of delays to local elections set for November.

Carrie Lam warned against ‘slip towards authoritarianism’ as leak reveals police relaxed guidelines on lethal force

Hong Kong’s leader plans to use harsh colonial-era emergency powers for the first time, banning face masks in a bid to curb the city’s protests.

Opposition politicians warned it represented a slide towards authoritarianism and risked further inflaming tensions.

Openly critical audience call for independent inquiry into police brutality and handling of pro-democracy protests

Hong Kong’s embattled leader has endured a barrage of criticism at a town hall meeting that laid bare anger coursing through the city after months of huge, sometimes violent pro-democracy protests.

Carrie Lam faced more than two hours of grilling at a public “dialogue session” on Thursday night, the first time her pro-Beijing administration has sat down with its critics in 16 consecutive weeks of unrest.

The incendiary extradition bill has been binned but protesters’ demands have grown

The decision by the Hong Kong leader, Carrie Lam, to withdraw the extradition bill that provoked months of turmoil represents a major and unexpected concession from Beijing, but is almost certainly too little, and too late, to end the protests.

In June when millions first poured into the streets in peaceful protest, a promise to ditch the law might well have muted the burgeoning popular uprising. But Lam is only acting after months of police brutality, thug attacks on protesters, mass arrests, and barely veiled threats of security intervention from mainland China.

Demonstrators say it’s too little, too late, as call for inquiry into police force rejected

• Hong Kong’s leader withdraws extradition bill that ignited mass protests

The decision by Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, to withdraw the controversial extradition bill that has plunged the Chinese territory into its worst political crisis in years seems unlikely to end the months-long protests in the semi-autonomous city – with police violence remaining a key concern for demonstrators.

Many ordinary Hong Kong residents, as well as protesters, have lambasted the move as too little, too late, and vowed to continue demonstrating. Late on Wednesday, dozens shouted slogans and set up makeshift barricades outside a police station in the Mong Kok district in the first protest after Lam’s announcement.