Lianne Gordon, 42, was hit in the head at her home as she tried to shield her two children from a gang feud
A teenager has been found guilty of murdering a mother who was shot in the head through her front door as she tried to shield her two children from a gang feud.
Lianne Gordon, 42, had only just returned from a holiday in Jamaica when she was attacked in her home in Hackney, east London on 5 December 2023, the Old Bailey was told.
Continue reading...Lloyd Austin says deployment near Ukraine border is a dangerous and destabilising development
North Korean troops wearing Russian uniforms and carrying Russian equipment are moving to the Russian region of Kursk, near Ukraine, according to the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, who described the deployment as a dangerous and destabilising development.
Austin was speaking at a press conference at the Pentagon with the South Korean defence minister, Kim Yong-hyun, as concerns grow about Pyongyang’s deployment of as many as 11,000 troops to Russia. The US and South Korea said some of the North Korean troops are heading to Kursk, on the border with Ukraine, where the Kremlin’s forces have struggled to push back a Ukrainian incursion.
Continue reading...Country ordered to compensate victims of programme that affected more than 300,000 women in 1990s
A UN committee has urged Peru to compensate women who were forcibly sterilised in the 1990s, ruling that the state policy could constitute a “crime against humanity”.
Forced sterilisation was part of a programme implemented by Peru’s then president Alberto Fujimori during the final four years before he left office in 2000 after a decade in power.
Continue reading...Rachel Reeves has finally laid out Labour’s spending plans in the party’s first budget in almost 15 years. The Guardian’s John Harris is joined by political editor Pippa Crerar and political correspondent Kiran Stacey to discuss the fallout
Continue reading...Chancellor also criticised for letting the very rich off the hook with a lower than expected rise in capital gains tax
Tax rises aimed at inherited wealth are at risk of backfiring, after the chancellor was accused of betraying small family businesses while letting private equity bosses off the hook.
Labour’s first budget in 14 years included measures to close inheritance tax (IHT) loopholes and press ahead with scrapping the controversial non-dom tax status, as well as levying higher taxes on private jet flights.
Continue reading...Forecaster says extra spending revealed by Rachel Reeves will give only a short-term lift to economy
Labour has embarked on a “large, sustained increase in spending, tax and borrowing”, according to the government’s economic forecaster, as it judged that Labour’s first budget for 15 years is unlikely to increase economic growth over the next five years.
Assessing Rachel Reeves’s policies, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said the economy would expand at the same rate as predicted in March by the end of the parliament, despite a £70bn-a-year rise in spending.
Continue reading...The government knows cynical voters will need to see tangible change in public services and to feel better off
At the final political cabinet before Rachel Reeves delivered her first budget this week, ministers were presented with internal party research on what the public was expecting.
In the months since the general election, they had been fed a regular diet of gloomy warnings about the state of the economic inheritance and, more recently, high levels of pre-budget news coverage, so it was firmly on their horizon.
Continue reading...Rachel Reeves hails biggest increase ‘outside of Covid’ since 2010 but health experts say patients may not feel impact
The NHS in England is to receive a £22.6bn cash injection over two years, the chancellor has announced, in what she called the biggest spending increase outside Covid since 2010. But health experts said patients may not feel the impact as much of the increase would be absorbed by pay rises and higher care costs.
Announcing the “down payment” on the government’s 10-year plan for the NHS, due in spring 2025, Rachel Reeves said the NHS was the nation’s “most cherished public service” and that the extra funding would help the government cut waiting lists.
Continue reading...Some the incidents might have violated international humanitarian law, according to the sources
US state department officials have identified nearly 500 potential incidents of civilian harm during Israel’s military operations in Gaza involving US-furnished weapons, but have not taken further action on any of them, according to three sources, including a US official familiar with the matter.
The incidents – some of which may have violated international humanitarian law, according to the sources – have been recorded since 7 October 2023, when the Gaza war started. They are being collected by the state department’s Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance (CHIRG), a formal mechanism for tracking and assessing any reported misuse of US-origin weapons.
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