This live blog is closed.
Images sent over the news wires show smoke billowing over Beirut after Israeli strikes on the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital.
Lebanese media is reporting that two people have been killed and six wounded in an Israeli airstrike on Hermel, which is in the north-east of the country near the border with Syria.
Continue reading...Tesla CEO and onetime Republican presidential hopeful put forward to lead department to ‘dismantle government bureaucracy’
Joe Biden is meeting with two foreign leaders at the White House today.
At 11.15am, he will speak with Israel’s president Isaac Herzog, then with Indonesia’s president, Prabowo Subianto, at 2pm.
Continue reading...Prime minister says victims of serial abuser John Smyth ‘failed very, very badly’
Keir Starmer has refused to back the archbishop of Canterbury, who has faced growing demands to resign over his handling of an abuse scandal.
Pressure on Justin Welby has been intensifying since the publication last week of a damning report on the church’s cover-up of John Smyth’s abuse in the UK in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and later in Zimbabwe and South Africa. About 130 boys are believed to have been victims.
Continue reading...Corporation says presenter will quit highlights programme at end of 2024-25 season but will cover 2026 World Cup
Gary Lineker is to step down as the presenter of Match of the Day at the end of the season, the BBC has said.
The BBC confirmed earlier reports that Lineker would stay with the broadcaster to cover the FA Cup in 2025-26 and the 2026 Fifa World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico, but step back from its flagship highlights programme at the end of the 2024-25 season.
Continue reading...Problems were raised by junior staff three years before they were completely resolved, says FCA
Metro Bank has been fined nearly £17m by the UK’s financial watchdog for failings in its money-laundering controls over four years, in a fresh blow to the lender a year on from its near-collapse.
In a surprise announcement that also triggered the early release of Metro’s third-quarter results on Tuesday morning, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said it had found shortfalls in the bank’s financial crime checks between 2016 and 2020.
Continue reading...Avon and Somerset police referred themselves to watchdog, who said girl was being transported to custody
A teenage girl who was killed by a car while on foot on the M5 had fled a police vehicle before she was struck, it has emerged.
Avon and Somerset police said the motorway was closed between Bridgwater and Taunton in Somerset after the fatal collision involving a pedestrian and a car at 11pm on Monday.
Continue reading...Man detained after incident on Monday night in Zhuhai, in which 35 people were killed and 43 injured
A driver killed 35 people and severely injured another 43 when he rammed his car into people exercising at a sports centre in the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai, police said on Tuesday.
Police had detained a 62-year-old man at the sports centre in Zhuhai after the ramming late on Monday, on the eve of an airshow by the People’s Liberation Army that is hosted annually in the city.
Continue reading...South Dakota governor, whose VP chances evaporated after admitting shooting her dog, tipped as DHS secretary
President-elect Donald Trump has picked the South Dakota governor, Kristi Noem, to serve as the next secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, CNN reported on Tuesday, citing two sources.
Noem, once seen as a possible running mate for Trump, is currently serving her second four-year term as South Dakota’s governor after a landslide re-election victory in 2022. She rose to national prominence after refusing to impose a statewide mask mandate during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Continue reading...Ofgem gives green light to five interconnectors capable of powering millions of homes
Projects to lay five subsea power cables capable of powering millions of homes have been given the green light as Great Britain prepares to use its giant offshore windfarms to become a net exporter of green electricity in the 2030s.
The energy regulator, Ofgem, has approved three subsea cable projects linking Great Britain to power grids in Germany, Ireland and Northern Ireland to help share renewable electricity across borders.
Continue reading...Gregory Aymond’s offer, required because he turns 75, says he wants to stay for resolution of institution’s bankruptcy but adds it is up to Pope Francis
New Orleans’ Roman Catholic archbishop Gregory Aymond is submitting his resignation Tuesday, on his 75th birthday, fulfilling a church requirement – though it is unclear if Vatican officials would immediately accept it with his scandal-plagued organization’s expensive, highly contentious bankruptcy case still unresolved.
In a letter issued on Friday to priests and deacons under his command, Aymond cited canon – or church – law that required him to offer to retire because of his age. But he said he also offered to remain in office until the resolution of the bankruptcy.
Continue reading...Investigator of 2005 cold case says it was ‘probable’ Tobias Moran killed Simone Strobel, despite charges being dropped
The lead investigator in the cold case of backpacker Simone Strobel has told an inquest he still believes she was probably killed by her boyfriend.
Strobel’s naked body was found hidden under palm fronds at a sports ground in Lismore in the New South Wales northern rivers region in February 2005, six days after she was reported missing.
Continue reading...