Bancroftas school in Woodford Green said it is in aprofound shock and sorrowa after death of Daniel, 14, who it described as a atrue scholara

The 14-year-old boy killed in the sword attacks in north-east London was praised as a atrue scholara by his school, the same one attended by one of the victims of the 2023 Nottingham stabbings.

The teenager named by police as Daniel Anjorin, was a student at the private Bancroftas school in Woodford Green, which is still reeling from losing former student , Grace OaMalley-Kumar, in the June 2023 Nottingham stabbings.

Guardian understands dozens of detentions have taken place across the UK this week, prompting demonstrations

• UK politics a latest updates

UK ministers have acknowledged for the first time that they are detaining asylum seekers to be removed to Rwanda, sparking demonstrations outside Home Office buildings.

Nationwide operations began this week to detain people, a statement said, with more activity due to be carried out over the next 11 weeks leading up to a one-way flight to east Africa.

Scottish government wins vote by 70 votes to 58, with no abstentions after debate where Humza Yousaf defended governmentas record

Labour has accused Kemi Badenoch, the business secretary, of championing single-sex spaces as part of a aculture wara.

Speaking about the initiative announced by Badenoch this morning (see 10.10am), Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secreary, told Times Radio this morning:

[Badenoch] does love nothing more than a culture war. And it is so transparent what she is doing. She is pitching to Conservative members for the leadership contest to come in the Conservative party. And frankly, our country deserves a lot better than it always being about the Conservative party.

I do take issue with you calling this culture wars.

Four years ago, when I was alerting people to the danger of puberty blockers, and a lot of the issues that we had in clinics, people like you were accusing me of fighting culture wars.

Protests planned in Sheffield, Bristol, Leeds, Newcastle and other universities in show of solidarity with Palestinians

• Middle East crisis a live updates

A fresh wave of student demonstrations and encampments are under way at UK universities in protest over the war in Gaza, after violent scenes on campuses in the US where dozens have been arrested after a crackdown by police.

Protests were due to take place in at least six universities on Wednesday, including Sheffield, Bristol, Leeds and Newcastle, with others expected to follow suit, in a show of solidarity with Palestinians.

Incumbents promote messages of support from ex-PM despite largely avoiding linking themselves with wider Tory party

• UK politics a latest updates

Andy Street and Ben Houchen go into Thursdayas mayoral elections having run campaigns almost entirely separate from the Conservative party they represent.

But this week the respective high-profile Tory mayors for the West Midlands and Tees Valley have associated themselves with one senior Conservative whose endorsement they appear to relish: the former prime minister Boris Johnson.

Susan Hall became member a day after an exposA(c) about its contents a much of which is directed at Sadiq Khan

• Tory staff running network of anti-Ulez Facebook groups riddled with racism and abuse

Susan Hall, the Tory candidate for London mayor, has joined a Facebook group which contains Islamophobic hate speech and abusive comments about her opponent Sadiq Khan, the day after an exposA(c) about its contents.

Khan told the Guardian these revelations acould have a direct impact on not just my safety but the safety of my family and staffa.

A YouTube video alleging that aIslamistsa were ataking over Britaina.

Abuse towards Khan, including a post that read: aSeriously canat believe Khan hasnat been taken out yet a| if dark forces can take out Princess Diana Iam sure they can take out this money grabbing little parasitea.

Examples of vandalism: one user shared a photo of an enforcement van with its tyres slashed, noting atwo flat tyres and sprayed cameraa. Another user responded: aWell done to whoever that wasa.

Numerous Islamophobic comments, including one commenter calling Khan a aterrorist sympathisera, and another saying that the London mayor awill see a big upsurge in public feelings and possibly major riots, mosques burnt down and innocent Muslims unable to walk the streetsa.

Albert Street, 2009, which was recovered from Lenn Mayhew-Lewis, estimated to be worth millions of pounds

A Frank Auerbach painting estimated to be worth several million pounds is to be sold by the National Crime Agency after it was recovered from a convicted money launderer who worked for organised criminal gangs, including drug traffickers.

The work was seized by police after Lenn Mayhew-Lewis, 69, went on the run in March 2023 after being convicted of money laundering, with an investigation discovering that he had also bought a painting by Auerbach in a private sale.

Equalities minister claims female pupils didnat want to use gender-neutral toilets and calls for people to report institutions

Kemi Badenoch has claimed that girls at a school who did not have access to single-sex toilets developed urinary tract infections (UTI) because they did not want to use gender-neutral toilets.

The equalities minister has launched a call for input, asking people to report public bodies that fail to provide single-sex spaces or have policies not in accordance with the Equality Act.

Ofcom looks into whether website for adult performers failed to properly implement age-verification checks

The UK communications watchdog has opened an investigation into whether OnlyFans allowed children to view pornography on its website after an age-checking error.

The regulator Ofcom is investigating the platform, which has a minimum user age of 18 and hosts mostly adult content for paying subscribers, over claims of inadequate age-verification measures. It is also investigating whether OnlyFans gave acomplete and accuratea responses to information requests.

MP says trade in remains is agross violation of human dignitya, as skulls from Pitt Rivers collection removed

An auction house has withdrawn 18 ancient Egyptian human skulls from sale after an MP said selling them would perpetuate the atrocities of colonialism.

Bell Ribeiro-Addy, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Afrikan reparations, believes the sale of human remains for any purposes should be outlawed, adding that the trade was aa gross violation of human dignitya.

Hallas campaign has focused on cars and crime while the opposition has exploited her tendency to ashoot from the hipa

Paul Icely puffs out his cheeks a and then slowly exhales. He is visibly deflating. aI thought there might be a few more of us,a the 67-year-old black-cab driver admits, his eyes darting between the students milling outside Barking and Dagenham college. aYou seen anyone else?a Icely asks Lisa Prager, 40, as she limps towards him with the aid of an NHS issue crutch.

Prager, who harbours a grudge against a Labour council over the loss of her job at a local park, appears to be the only other supporter of Susan Hall, the Conservative candidate for mayor of London, to have turned up on this sunny mid morning in Dagenham, east London.

Only about a third of voters are expected to vote in Thursdayas polls but that could fall to as low as 13% in some places

• UK politics a latest updates

From a shopfront in Tilbury, Essex, community worker Yewande Kannike is wrestling with a paradox at the heart of this weekas English local elections: the most deprived people who could most benefit from political reform are least likely to vote.

Across England only about a third of voters are expected to cast a ballot in Thursdayas polls, based on previous turnouts. That could fall as low as 13% in the most deprived parts of places such as Middlesbrough and Hull. In Tilbury a once the gateway to Britain for the economic migrants on the Empire Windrush a eight out of 10 voters stayed at home at last yearas local elections.

A devoted father with a zest for life, he was given an indeterminate sentence in 2006. He is still locked up a and losing hope that he will ever be released

In 2006, Martin Myers got in a scrape over a cigarette. He asked a young man if he had a spare fag. The man declined to give him one. Myers came from a well-known Traveller family. The man, Myers says, made a derogatory comment about Travellers, so Myers gave up the niceties. He threatened to punch him if he didnat hand him a cigarette.

The young man ran away. He then went to the police in Luton and told them what had happened. The police were familiar with Myers. He had previous convictions for dangerous driving, assault, theft and burglary. Myers was arrested, charged and convicted of attempted street robbery. On 8 March 2006, he was given a tariff a the minimum time he could serve a of 19 months and 27 days.

The average cost of a wedding in 2023 was $35,000 in the US and APS20,700 in the UK a how are people spending that money?

Weddings are expensive. That much we know.

The average cost of a wedding in the US in 2023 was $35,000, according to industry website The Knot. In the UK, the average cost of a wedding was APS20,700.

The viral Glasgow event made children cry and adults seethe. Could a California tribute provide some measure of absolution?

She was the sad Oompa Loompa seen around the world. Inside a bleak warehouse in Glasgow, a supposed celebration of Wonkaas delectable world of chocolate left children crying and parents calling the police. Attendees paid APS35 to visit a bleak warehouse with a handful of props and posters; inside, they were treated to two jellybeans each and a few poorly costumed actors. Images of the event went extremely viral, making international news and inspiring a horror film and an hour-long documentary.

Two months later, I found myself walking toward another grim-looking warehouse, this time in downtown Los Angeles. I was here for Willyas Chocolate Experience LA, a tribute to the Glasgow disaster promising live entertainment, a red carpet-style photo op and a rare chance to meet the celebrity Oompa Loompa herself.

The critically acclaimed American writer has died aged 77. Here, contemporaries pay tribute to his life and work

aC/ Paul Auster a a life in quotes

aC/ Paul Auster a a life in pictures

British novelist
The exquisite chapter of domestic accidents that opens Paul Austeras final novel, Baumgartner, leaves us with a microcosm of all that drew a worldwide, discerning readership to this super-abundantly gifted, big-hearted novelist: a limpid present tense; a subtle awareness, comic as well as tragic, of what Virgil identified as asunt lacrimae reruma a there are tears in the nature of things a which, in Paulas version, proposed pratfalls as well as death; a perfect expression of a hovering consciousness in the still moment; and finally, a honed prose that seemed to hint that just below its surface were instructions on how to read it and how it was written. The adroit self-consciousness of his writing made him our supreme post-modernist. If his imagination seemed so spacious it was because he was as much a European as an American writer. If he had Thoreau at his back, he also had Beckett. It is possible to cross a Paul Auster Platz and walk down a rue Paul Auster. Not many novelists have been so honoured. As a presence he was ridiculously handsome, worldly, generous, funny and, unlike most great talkers, a highly attuned listener.

aI have photographed fathers and sons holding hands from Bulgaria to Armenia and beyond. I approached these two as a stranger a and had just seconds before it got too awkwarda

A few years ago, while walking my sons to school, I found myself thinking that, although I held their hands daily, one day they wouldnat need me alongside them, that we would lose that sense of physical closeness. I decided to photograph my own father and grandfather holding hands a but it was the start of the pandemic, my grandfather was 95 and we wanted to keep him safe. We couldnat meet for over a year.

In the meantime, while walking around Bulgariaas capital Sofia, where I live, I stopped to photograph a house that caught my eye and a woman came out pushing a man in a wheelchair. I assumed they were going to chase me away, but instead she showed me a framed picture of a young man, aged about 30. She said he was their only son and he had died eight months before. She asked if I would photograph her husband with the portrait.

The long-awaited rebuttal to Drake has arrived: Euphoria, a track in which Lamar dismantles Drakeas street credibility. But why use misogyny and homophobia to do it?

Haymakers were thrown yesterday by Kendrick Lamar towards Drake as rapas top bout enters another round, following duels involving undercards such as J Cole, Rick Ross, Future and A$AP Rocky.

Lamar initially rang the bell a month ago with Like That, slagging off Drake as a mere pop star. Drake came back with Push Ups, featuring the allegation that Lamaras wife was cheating on him (among various other barbs). Before Lamar could respond, Drake released Taylor Made Freestyle, which used AI to cheekily have 2Pac and Snoop Dogg a two of Lamaras west coast forebears a chide Lamar for not following up soon enough.

The former player, once a world No 1, also inspired a defining Adidas shoe and is the subject of a revealing new documentary

For sports fans of a certain age, the seasonal queues that form around shoe stores in anticipation of the latest Jordan sneakers are a painful reminder of the many young people who only know of the hoops legend as an athletic brand. But well before Nike reduced Michael to a Jumpman silhouette, Adidas was hawking Stan Smiths a the leather, low-top kicks that became such a fashion statement among rockers and rappers that perhaps more young people have no idea the mustachioed face on the tongue belongs to one of the most consequential players in tennis history. aA lot of sneaker enthusiasts want to understand the heritage and story behind it,a says the director Danny Lee. His latest film answers the essential question: Who Is Stan Smith?

Produced under LeBron James and Maverick Carteras Uninterrupted imprimatur, Who Is Stan Smith? revisits the life and times of the former world No 1, from his working-class beginnings to his improbable bond with Arthur Ashe to his even more improbable emergence as a style icon a a SoCal James Bond, Sean Connery in country club kit. Thatas despite, as one of his children helpfully points out in the doc, Smith rocking his trademark top lip strip for the better part of the last 50 years. That astache wasnat just all the rage during Smithas prime (in the late-60s and early-70s, mostly), it was part of a sandy-haired, cerulean-eyed 6ft 4in all-American package that the super agent Donald Dell turned into one of the most commercial billboards in sport. And yet: the glamor of the epoch has nothing on these times. aNow theyave got teams, theyave got people doing the jet set thing,a says the 77-year-old Smith, recalling the days on tour when it was just him and his wife, Margie. aItas still tough as a professional athlete, but back then she and I were the team more or less.a

The British brand has entered the booming market in luxury acar-chitecturea, opening a themed tower in Miami boasting ballroom, helipad and infinity pool a all offering millionaires a perfect view of our choking, collapsing world

Move over, James Bond a a new Aston Martin has rolled into town, brimming with more flashy features than Q could ever dream of. Parked ostentatiously on the Miami waterfront, overlooking a private marina brimming with superyachts, its streamlined flanks glisten in the Florida sunshine, housing an interior trimmed with the finest leathers and exotic wood veneers. Thereas no ejector seat or rocket-launcher, but it is the biggest Aston Martin ever made a housing Jacuzzi, bar, cinema, golf simulator, art gallery, ballroom and infinity pool, all crowned with a 66th-storey helipad.

Unveiled in the week of the Miami Grand Prix, the latest exclusive model from the timeless British automotive brand is not a high-performance sports car, but an ultra-luxury apartment building a the tallest residential tower in the US, south of New York. After Aston Martinas years of financial woes, following a disastrous stock market performance since the companyas 2018 listing, it seems that the boutique car-
maker is seeking salvation in property development.

The singer just wanted to tell Melissa McCarthy how great she was looking. Was it a good idea to mention a weight-loss drug?

Name: Barbra Streisand v Melissa McCarthy.

Age: New.

While Sadiq has transformed Londonas mayoralty, Susan Hall would be a divisive disaster. Re-elect him, and help us really change this country

• Keir Starmer is leader of the Labour party

Twenty-seven years ago today, the British people went to the polls and turned the page on a disastrous period of Tory government. It was a decisive choice, not just in favour of a new party, but in favour of a new politics. In that moment, Britain voted for a minimum wage, peace in Northern Ireland, a million children to be lifted from poverty, the shortest NHS waiting times in history and crime to be reduced by a third.

Like most people in our country, I wanted a general election tomorrow and the opportunity for Britain to look forward with hope once again. Rishi Sunak refused to let the nation have a say for fear of the message the people would send. Yet the many council and mayoral elections still offer millions of voters up and down England the chance to reject chaos, division and decline with the Tories and embrace stability, unity and renewal with Labour.

The European hospital is crammed with severely injured and dying children a a military offensive here will be catastrophic

• James Elder is Unicefas global spokesperson

The war against Gazaas children is forcing many to close their eyes. Nine-year-old Mohamedas eyes were forced shut, first by the bandages that covered a gaping hole in the back of his head, and second by the coma caused by the blast that hit his family home. He is nine. Sorry, he was nine. Mohamed is now dead.

Over three visits to the European hospitalas ICU in Rafah, Gaza, I saw multiple children occupy the same bed. Each one arriving after a bomb had ripped through their home. Each one dying despite doctorsa immense efforts.

James Elder is Unicefas global spokesperson

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A day with some blind and partially sighted walkers has shown me how much I barely notice a and how hard it is to find the right words

How many shades of green are there? Whatever the answer may be, I soon ran out of words to describe them. I was walking north along the Grand Union canal, trying and failing to adequately describe what I could see, to a friend who couldnat. This was Dave Heeley, ultra-runner, who in 2008 became the first blind person to run seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. Today we were walking rather than running a which, with me guiding him, was just as well.

I had guided a blind adventurer once before when I took part in the television series Pilgrimage. One of my fellow pilgrims was the remarkable Amar Latif. We were high up on the side of a deep, lush valley in eastern Serbia. I was focused on the trickiness of the path itself, but Amar kept asking me to describe the vista. I looked down that valley at the mountains in the distance and simply didnat know how or where to start. I had a bash, as there was plainly plenty of material to work with, but didnat feel I had done justice to the richness of that scene.

Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist

Targeting people who need support for depression and anxiety will only make these growing problems worse

• Jay Watts is a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist and senior lecturer working in London

When does crude electioneering become a threat to public health? Rishi Sunakas and Mel Strideas relentless attack on disabled people, with a specific targeting of mental health claimants, will have damaging and potentially deadly consequences. Those of us working in acute psychiatric wards and community services can attest to the severe impact their suggestion of stopping disability benefits would have, and the pain caused by the callous manner in which they have delegitimised mental anguish.

Sunak has accused the benefits system of amedicalising the everyday challenges and anxieties of lifea. Stride, the secretary of state for work and pensions, has labelled depression and anxiety as conditions potentially unworthy of welfare. He proposes vouchers, one-off grants and improved access to treatment and support as alternatives to cash benefits. This approach not only complicates the process with additional bureaucratic hurdles, but also insinuates that long-term needs can be addressed with temporary solutions, which is not feasible.

Jay Watts is a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist and senior lecturer working in London

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We shed light on the regimeas crimes from the US, thanks to the extreme bravery of reporters on the ground

• Sakhidad Hatif is the new editor-in-chief of Etilaat Roz, which is the subject of the Guardian documentary House No 30, Kabul

In the two decades before the Taliban returned to power, Afghanistan had a vibrant media sector. There were newspapers, television channels, periodicals, magazines and more, invigorating the public discourse by allowing citizens to express their views on national and local issues. That is completely gone now.

I have been the editor-in-chief of one of Afghanistanas largest newspapers, Etilaat Roz, since 2022. When the Taliban dismantled the republican system of the country in August 2021, establishing their own theocratic Islamic emirate in the process, they imposed the harshest restrictions possible on the media. This acrackdown on free speecha was followed by the prolonged detention, gruesome beating and even death of journalists who defied the Talibanas policies against the free press. Two of my reporters at Etilaat Roz were grievously assaulted and detained for doing their jobs.

Sakhidad Hatif is editor-in-chief of Etilaat Roz

Watch Guardian documentary House No 30, Kabul (26 mins), a video diary by journalist Abbas Rezaie, shot inside the Etilaat Roz office when the Taliban seized power in 2021 and forced many of the journalists to flee abroad

There is a fundraising page for the Etilaat Roz newspaper on GoFundMe

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To protect our local river we had to prove it was being used for swimming. But that, bizarrely, is the reason we were rejected

The state of Britainas rivers is incredibly depressing: the water companies dump too much sewage, the farmers dump too much muck, and the regulators are too cowed and underfunded to do their job and stop them.

It wasnat always this way. As a child I used to swim in the River Wye and I remember the clouds of mayflies in the summer, as well as huge leaping salmon. It was thanks to this wealth of wildlife that the Wye was classified as a special area of conservation along its whole length. Sadly, however, thanks to the failure of the Welsh and British governments to protect the river, much of this abundance is gone, and the Wyeas official status is now aunfavourable a declininga, thanks to pollution from manure and sewage.

Oliver Bullough is the author of Butler to the World: How Britain Became the Servant of Tycoons, Tax Dodgers, Kleptocrats and Criminals

Brexit and Scottish independence have benefited Rishi Sunak and Humza Yousaf a now both are suffering the consequences

Brexit isnat working, and there are potholes everywhere. Those are not equivalent challenges. Fresh asphalt heals cracked carriageways in an afternoon. Repairing a fractured continental alliance is the work of a generation. One problem did not cause the other. But they are on the vast continuum of political failure a from global to local a that coincides with 14 years of Conservative rule and for which the party will be punished in local elections on Thursday.

Also this week new customs checks on a range of EU imports are being implemented, throwing a bit more sand in the gears of trade. The measure has been deferred multiple times, and is now being only partially rolled out. The government has held back in tacit recognition that the economic impact is only downside: bureaucracy, queues, disrupted supplies, feeding into higher prices.

I would feel deeply uncomfortable if patients achosea to die because care that would make life worth living was unavailable

• Rachel Clarke is a palliative care doctor

Which is worse? Being driven to end your life prematurely to avoid future suffering, or because the suffering you experience is unbearable now? Which form of preventable anguish is the most unacceptable? The kind we could avoid by giving patients the right to an assisted death, or the kind we could avoid with half-decent palliative care? Who suffers more?

The correct answer to these questions a and I write with the authority of two decades of medical training and practice, eight years of which have been exclusively in palliative medicine a is that I really, truly donat know. Matters of dying a when, how, and by whose hand a are as ethically complex as they come. This weekas parliamentary debate of a petition demanding a change in the law a signed by more than 200,000 people and spearheaded by Esther Rantzen, who has terminal lung cancer a was, then, reassuringly measured, with thoughtful contributions from all sides. For if ever a topic demanded nuance and gravity, it is surely that of state-sanctioned killing, albeit on merciful grounds. What we absolutely donat need, if we want to get this right, is for the debate around assisted dying to become yet another example of entrenched, polarised, pick-a-side-politics in which aproa and aantia camps shriek dogma in each otheras faces.

Rachel Clarke is a palliative care doctor and the author of Breathtaking: Inside the NHS in a Time of Pandemic

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This model of devolution should be the start of a bigger conversation about power and democracy, not the end

This Thursday, around 20 million voters in 10 regions in England go to the polls to elect metro mayors, which largely did not exist before 2017. Today these local politicians are national figures. With Labour riding high in the polls, the party could even see a remarkable clean sweep in the 10 contests, potentially winning the first-ever elected mayoralty of York and North Yorkshire in Rishi Sunakas back yard. Such is their importance that the loss of the Conservative Tees Valley mayor, Ben Houchen, and his West Midlands counterpart, Andy Street, could hasten the end of Mr Sunakas premiership.

Devolution is working. There have been signature policies such as Steve Rotheramas high-speed broadband plan for Liverpool. Andy Burnham in Manchester has rolled out bus franchising to address the damage done by decades of deregulation. Mr Rotheram, Mr Burnham and West Yorkshireas Tracy Brabin collectively are a powerful northern voice to counterbalance the south. Research from the More in Common thinktank suggests mayoral races are not a proxy for national politics. The race between the independent candidate Jamie Driscoll and Labouras Kim McGuinness to be north-east mayor is too close to call. Mr Driscoll, who resigned from Labour after being blocked from standing as its candidate, clearly benefits from his outsider status.

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