‘We’re sick of being the story’: what next for the Telegraph after takeover collapses?

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Media group’s future is again in limbo – and it faces questions over the asking price as well as regulatory hurdles

The withdrawal of the bid for the Telegraph led by RedBird Capital has once again plunged the future of the titles into uncertainty, and raises questions over the dogged refusal of its sellers to drop the eye-watering £500m asking price that had driven away other potential suitors.

On Friday, a consortium that also included UAE fund International Media Investments (IMI) as well as the owner of the Daily Mail and the billionaire Sir Leonard Blavatnik, abruptly dropped its bid with no explanation given.

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Almshouse in Dorset discovers its 15th-century Flemish triptych is worth £3.5m

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Artwork that hung for centuries at St John’s Almshouse in Sherborne will be sold to raise funds for social housing

“The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, and He adds no sorrow with it,” so says the Bible, Proverbs 10:22.

On Friday, a church almshouse was counting its blessings after discovering that a triptych painting that has hung in the chapel for centuries is a 15th-century Flemish masterpiece worth £3.5m.

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Satisfaction with democracy below 50% in eight out of nine western countries, poll finds

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Ipsos survey reveals fake news, lack of accountability, extremism and corruption seen as biggest threats

Satisfaction with democracy is below 50% in eight out of nine western countries surveyed in a poll, and majorities in all but one fear for its future, with fake news, lack of political accountability, extremism and corruption seen as the biggest threats.

An Ipsos survey of almost 10,000 people in Croatia, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the US found satisfaction with democracy low in all except Sweden, with deep concerns about the future state of electoral politics.

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Thames Water tried to make MP pay its legal fees of up to £1,400 an hour

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Exclusive: Charlie Maynard, public interest representative in case, accuses utility of ‘retaliation’ for failed bid for costs in supreme court appeal

Thames Water argued that an MP should be forced to pay its hefty legal costs after he represented the interests of the British public in court, a move he described as “retaliation” for pushing for government control of the crisis-hit utility, the Guardian can reveal.

The UK’s highest court this week rejected Thames Water’s arguments that the Liberal Democrat MP Charlie Maynard should pay legal fees as high as £1,400 per hour.

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Heavy rainfall floods the camps of displaced Palestinians in Gaza – CNN

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  1. Heavy rainfall floods the camps of displaced Palestinians in Gaza  CNN
  2. Displaced Gazans Face More Misery as Torrential Rain Lashes Enclave  The New York Times
  3. IDF demolishes Hamas tunnel in north Gaza used in deadly 2024 attack on troops  The Times of Israel
  4. Displaced Palestinian families suffer as heavy rains flood Gaza tent camps  Al Jazeera
  5. Heavy winter rains batter Gaza, destroying makeshift shelters  PBS
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Man who grabbed Ariana Grande at Wicked sequel premiere charged

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Footage shows the man jumping the red carpet barricade of the Singapore premiere of Wicked: For Good, then rushing towards and embracing the star

A court in Singapore has charged a man who grabbed Ariana Grande at a premiere of Wicked: For Good on Thursday night with being a public nuisance.

Video footage shows Johnson Wen jumping over a barricade at Universal Studios Singapore and rushing at Grande on the red carpet. Grande’s co-star Cynthia Erivo immediately jumped in to help protect her and Wen was moved away.

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Guardian’s former Gaza correspondent named young journalist of the year in UK awards

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Malak A Tantesh, 20, ‘showed immense talent and bravery’, said judges at Media Freedom awards in London

The UK’s Society of Editors has named Malak A Tantesh, the Guardian’s former Gaza correspondent, as young journalist of the year in the national press category at this year’s Media Freedom awards.

The judges said Tantesh “showed immense talent and bravery in some of the hardest conditions ever faced by a journalist, she continued to report while having to forage for food and facing the constant risk of bombing and the threat of targeted killing”.

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Carney’s ‘nation-building’ programme misses mark to be truly transformative for Canada

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The $C56bn plan focused on investing in a resource economy falls short of changing Canadians’ day-to-day lives

Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney likes to say that when he was young, “we used to build big things in this country, and we used to build them quickly.”

That idea – of sprawling projects that transform nations, has influenced both his narrative as an economist-turned politician and his government’s multibillion dollar investment spree. “It’s time to get back at it, and get on with it,” he said in September.

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Epstein sought to restore his reputation after guilty plea, documents reveal

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Documents include emails depicting coordinated effort to influence online search results and journalists

Jeffrey Epstein and his associates worked to suppress negative press and rebuild his image in the years after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to state charges in Florida of solicitation of prostitution and of solicitation of prostitution with a minor, newly released documents reveal.

The documents, among 20,000 pages released on Wednesday by Republican members of the House oversight committee, include emails and memos that depict a coordinated effort to influence online search results and journalists, and restore Epstein’s reputation.

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Bus chaperone kept working at school during months-long police investigation into alleged child sexual abuse

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Exclusive: Victorian education department apologises to mother who alleged her nonverbal child was sexually assaulted by the man. He denied the allegations and no charges were laid

A school bus chaperone who allegedly sexually assaulted a nonverbal child continued working with students for months during the subsequent Victorian police investigation, prompting an apology to the girl’s mother from the state’s education department.

The allegation was denied by the chaperone and did not lead to charges. But Victoria’s education department apologised to the mother last year for failing to implement risk mitigation strategies during the police investigation.

In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800; adult survivors can seek help at Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helpline International

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National parks facing ‘nightmare’ under Trump, warns ex-director of service

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Jonathan Jarvis, who led the agency from 2009 to 2017, laid out the dire consequences of not closing parks in shutdown

Americans should “raise hell” to protect US national parks through the “nightmare” of Donald Trump’s presidency, according to a former National Park Service director, amid alarm over the impact of the federal government shutdown.

Jonathan Jarvis claimed the agency is now in the hands of a “bunch of ideologues” who would have no issue watching it “go down in flames” – and see parks from Yellowstone to Yosemite as potential “cash cows”, ripe for privatization.

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Witness gives chilling account of ‘human safari’ where rich tourists allegedly paid $90K to shoot – thetab.com

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  1. Witness gives chilling account of ‘human safari’ where rich tourists allegedly paid $90K to shoot  thetab.com
  2. Italy probes claim that tourists paid to go to Bosnia to kill besieged civilians  BBC
  3. Italy probes Sarajevo ‘sniper safaris’: What were they, who was involved?  Al Jazeera
  4. Milan prosecutors investigate alleged ‘sniper tourism’ during Bosnian war | Bosnia and Herzegovina  The Guardian
  5. War tourist foreigners ‘paid £80k to shoot at civilians’ during Siege of Sarajevo  The Independent
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Venezuela’s Maduro urges Trump to avoid Afghanistan-style ‘forever war’

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Authoritarian leader calls for US to make peace amid military buildup and strikes against alleged drug smugglers

Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, has urged Donald Trump not to lead the US into an Afghanistan-style “forever war”, as the American military buildup in the region intensified and Trump’s defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, vowed to purge the Americas of “narco-terrorists”.

Speaking to CNN outside the Miraflores presidential palace in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, Maduro called on Trump to make peace, not war, after the world’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R Ford, arrived in the region.

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