Britain must defeat rising antisemitism, says PM, following attack in Manchester on Yom Kippur

• Full story: two killed and suspect shot dead

Police have shot a suspect after several people were stabbed and a car was driven at members of the public at the Heaton Park Hebrew congregation synagogue in Crumpsall, Greater Manchester Police said.

The force posted on X saying police were called to the synagogue, on Middleton Road, Crumpsall, at 9.31am by a member of the public, stating he had witnessed a car being driven towards members of the public and one man had been stabbed.

Police said four people have suffered injuries caused by a vehicle and stabbings at a synagogue in Crumpsall, north Manchester.

A cordon has been set up after the incident, and a major road had been closed while officers attended. Paramedics are at the scene.

Greater Manchester’s mayor, Andy Burnham, said the “immediate danger appears to be over” after reports of a “serious incident”.

Burnham has told BBC Radio Manchester that “it is believed” that the attacker is dead. However, he says this “is not confirmed” yet.

Sources say it is being treated as a potential terrorist incident. Counter-terrorism police and MI5, the security service covering the UK, have joined the investigation. Greater Manchester police say Operation Plato was declared, meaning the violence was treated as a potential marauding terrorist attack.

The attack was branded an “appalling attack on the holiest day of the Jewish year” by the Community Security Trust (CST).

CST is working with police and the local Jewish community following a serious incident at a synagogue in north Manchester.

This appears to be an appalling attack on the holiest day of the Jewish year.

Police say they believe they know identity of man behind car and knife attack that left four people seriously injured

• Manchester synagogue stabbing – latest updates

Police have shot dead a terrorist who killed two people and seriously injured four others in an attack at a synagogue in Manchester on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

Using a car to ram into the grounds of the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue in Crumpsall, the man then stabbed worshippers in a six- minute rampage that only ended when armed officers shot at him twice, fearing he also had an explosive device tied to his chest.

Departments and staff are using out-of-office emails and websites to engage in partisan political activity

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A growing number of federal agencies and staff are explicitly blaming Democrats for the current government shutdown. The political messaging by the agencies may be a violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity.

Furloughed federal employees at some agencies have been instructed to set out-of-office messages explaining that they are not working because Democrats caused a shutdown. Government agency websites also have displayed messages informing site visitors the websites are temporarily on hold due to the “Democrat-led” shutdown.

The Department of Justice

The Department of State

The Department of the Treasury

The Department of Agriculture

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (Hud)

The Department of Education

The Department of Heath and Human Services

The Department of Commerce

The Department of Labor

The Small Business Administration (SBA)

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF)

Policing at Jewish places of worship to increase as officials investigate killer’s motivations and ties to others

• Manchester synagogue attack – latest updates

MI5 and counter-terrorism police will operate at a heightened state of alert in the coming weeks, reflecting concern that the Manchester synagogue attack risks being followed by others during a period that includes the second anniversary of the 7 October attack by Hamas on Israel.

Policing at synagogues across the country is to be increased. The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, promised “high visibility” patrols in and outside Jewish places of worship to reassure communities and to deter any further threats, while police forces elsewhere in the UK made similar commitments.

Residents come together to insist their diverse neighbourhood will stick together

• Manchester synagogue stabbing – latest updates

“These people are sent to divide us, but they won’t,” said Barry Moore, as he walked his dog near the site of the terror attack on Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester.

On the gently sloping street where two people were killed and four seriously wounded, neighbours from different faiths pulled together.

Karoline Leavitt blames Democrats for looming job losses and says Trump administration expects thousands to be furloughed

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Karoline Leavitt also spoke on Fox News this morning, where she was asked whether Donald Trump’s threats of cuts were just a negotiating tactic. “Oh, it’s very real,” she replied.

“The Democrats should know that they put the White House and the president in this position,” she went on. “And if they don’t want further harm on their constituents back home, then they need to reopen the government. It’s very simple. Pass the clean continuing resolution and all of this goes away.

Look, it’s likely going to be in the thousands. And that’s something that the Office of Management and Budget and the entire team at the White House here, again, is unfortunately having to work on today.

These discussions and these conversations, these meetings would not be happening if the Democrats had voted to keep the government open.

Ban on Nottingham Post and its website reversed after threat of legal action over damaging freedom of expression

A Reform UK council has ended its ban on journalists from the area’s biggest local newspaper after being threatened with legal action over damaging the outlet’s freedom of expression.

Nottinghamshire county council, which has been led by Reform since the local elections earlier this year, said it was “committed to the principles of openness” after lifting the sanctions it had placed on journalists from the Nottingham Post and its website, Nottinghamshire Live.

During speech in Sochi, Russian president also strikes conciliatory note towards Donald Trump

Vladimir Putin has vowed to quickly retaliate against Europe’s “escalating militarisation”, while dismissing as “nonsense” western fears that Moscow plans to attack Nato.

During a wide-ranging speech in Sochi on Thursday, the Russian president said: “We are closely monitoring the escalating militarisation of Europe … We simply cannot ignore what is happening. We have no right to do so for reasons of our own security.”

President also said the US is now in a ‘non-international conflict’, according to a White House memo

Donald Trump has declared that drug cartels operating in the Caribbean are “unlawful combatants” and says the United States is now in a “non-international armed conflict”, according to a White House memo obtained by the Associated Press on Thursday.

A US official familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly told the AP that Congress was notified about the designation by Pentagon officials on Wednesday.

Former One Direction members to reunite for docuseries set on the road in US after death of bandmate Liam Payne

Former One Direction members Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson are set to reunite for a Netflix road trip series.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the docuseries will follow the pair as they travel across the US. The show will be directed by Nicola Marsh, who was also behind the Demi Lovato documentary Child Star.

Of 200 fires in the past 44 years, half of the fires that cost US$1bn or more were in the last decade

Wildfires tore through central Chile last year, killing 133 people. In California, 18,000 buildings were destroyed in 2018 causing US$16bn (A$24bn, £12bn) in damage. Portugal, Greece, Algeria and Australia have all felt the grief and the economic pain in recent years.

As the headlines, the death tolls and the billion dollar losses from wildfires have stacked up around the world, so too have the rising temperatures – fuelled by the climate crisis – that create tinderbox conditions.

Republicans and Democrats engage in war of words as White House also uses impasse to cut government spending

• US government shutdown – latest updates

As the US government shutdown stretched into its second day, Donald Trump on Thursday hailed the funding lapse as an “unprecedented opportunity” to further his campaign of firing federal workers and downsizing departments.

The president announced on social media that he would sit down with Russell Vought, the White House office of management and budget chief and architect of the mass firings and buyouts of federal workers.

Russ Vought, architect of rightwing Project 2025, has been waiting for his moment to pursue deep cuts to government

Donald Trump’s social media post early on Thursday about looming cuts as a result of this week’s US government shutdown was a prime exhibit in the art of the troll.

“I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of Project 2025 fame,” Trump wrote, gleefully. “To determine which of the many Democrat agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent. I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity.”

A petition to ban the brand has passed 270,000 names but French shoppers have not been immune to its inexorable rise

A couple of hours before Shein opened a pop-up shop in Dijon this summer, the words “Shein kills” and “exploitation, forced labour, slavery, pollution” were found graffitied in French on the outside wall.

Yet the fierce backlash to its series of temporary outlets in France in recent years, including in Toulouse, Montpellier and Marseille, has not deterred the Chinese-founded fast fashion brand from choosing the country for its first permanent physical stores.

Turkey and Qatar putting pressure on group to make concessions – but condition it disarm is a sticking point

Hamas will demand key revisions to Donald Trump’s Gaza ceasefire proposal but is likely to accept the plan in coming days as a basis for renewed negotiations, analysts and sources close to the group say.

Trump imposed a deadline of “three or four days” from Tuesday for Hamas to give its response to his 20-point plan, which aims to bring the two-year war in Gaza to a close and allow an apparently indefinite international administration of the devastated territory, or “pay in hell”.

Tehran considers move as part of multi-pronged offensive after bombing of nuclear sites and restoration of sanctions

Iran is considering releasing hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees across its western borders with Iraq and Turkey. It would be part of what officials describe as a necessarily more offensive and unpredictable strategy in the wake of the bombing of its nuclear sites and the European reimposition of UN sanctions.

The multi-pronged offensive includes expansion of its missile programme, strengthening air defences, suspending cooperation with the UN weapons inspectorate and on 18 October blocking the establishment of a UN committee to oversee the administration of the reimposed sanctions. Officials remain opposed to reopening talks with the US, believing the talks would fail.

Masoud Pezeshkian says subsidence is also ‘a disaster’ in city of 10 million, which consumes quarter of Iran’s water

Iran’s president has claimed Iran has no choice but to move its capital from Tehran to the south of the country due to the city’s over-expansion, the lack of adequate water supplies and the growing threat of subsidence.

Masoud Pezeshkian said on Thursday that he had raised the proposal with the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, last year. He admitted it had received a lot of criticism, but argued that the accumulating resource crises were so deep that Iran now had an obligation to shift the capital, and no choice but to do so.

Military offensive stepped up as Hamas leaders consider Trump’s 20-point peace plan

• Middle East crisis – live updates

At least 53 Palestinians were killed by Israeli airstrikes and gunfire in Gaza on Thursday as Hamas deliberated over how to respond to Donald Trump’s ultimatum to end the war.

The Israeli military carried out attacks across the territory on Thursday, including in the southern al-Masawi area which had been declared a safe zone. At least nine Palestinians were killed there, including a grandfather, his four sons and a grandson, when the Israeli military struck a food store.

Exclusive: Temporary deal to shield UK exporters from levy’s impact is now viewed by both sides as likely

• UK politics live – latest updates

The EU and Britain are poised to agree a deal sparing British businesses from a carbon border tax being introduced in 2026, with officials targeting late spring for the next EU-UK summit.

The EU is introducing a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) on 1 January targeting imports produced using carbon-intensive methods, such as steel, glass and fertiliser.

Comments from Ukraine’s president come after the seventh summit of the European Political Community

European Council president António Costa opens his speech with congratulations for Moldova and its president Maia Sandu for the win of pro-European forces in last weekend’s parliamentary elections there.

He also congratulates the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan for their recent peace deal.

“I know that for some of you, the threat from Russia is very clear and very present. For others, it still seems further away, but none of us can no longer be naive.

The war was never just about Ukraine. It is about Europe, all our nations, all our citizens, our values and our freedom.”

“Please just take one look at the history of our continent, from the expansion of the Russian Empire to Soviet tanks rolling across several borders during the cold war, shattering hopes of freedom.

Recent history tells us the exact same story. So why shouldn’t it happen again?

Greens and experts argue policies that let first home buyers spend more than usual only creates more expensive housing – without lifting the proportion of homeowners

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Millions of Australians eligible to take up the federal government’s new 5% deposit scheme could be unable to afford mortgage repayments, new analysis has shown.

Data compiled by the Parliamentary Library and commissioned by the Greens shows of the 3.8 million Australians in the top 10 most common professions in Australia, the vast majority would be unable to afford mortgage repayments on the median Australian home without falling into housing stress.

Tax office has launched a new initiative to claw back debts despite criticism of similar scheme dubbed ‘robotax’

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The Australian Taxation Office is pursuing a new batch of taxpayers over decades-old debts, drawing comparisons to its widely criticised and suspended “robotax” initiative.

One taxpayer was recently pursued over a supposed debt of a few thousand dollars from 2006, which only appeared on his online tax portal this year, and was followed up by several phone calls demanding payment.

The Australian government is spending millions of dollars a year to house asylum seekers, yet many say they can not afford food and are forced to skip meals

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Refugees and asylum seekers held on Nauru claim they can’t afford to eat and are forced to skip meals. Their plight comes despite Australia spending $1.5m per person for a US prisons operator to house them, although the contract does not provide food.

One asylum seeker, who spoke on condition of anonymity, claimed he often skipped meals to make his fortnightly stipend of $230 from Australia’s home affairs department last.

Estate was abandoned after Escobar’s 1993 killing and later became a theme park, and now government says given female farmers will get land

A slice of Pablo Escobar’s once-lavish ranch – a symbol of the drug lord’s enormous wealth and home to his infamous “cocaine hippos” – is being given to women who suffered in Colombia’s armed conflict, announced Gustavo Petro, the president.

Escobar, Colombia’s most notorious narco-trafficker and former head of the powerful Medellín cartel, became one of the richest men in the world in the late 1980s, with Forbes magazine estimating his fortune at $25bn.

Zaytoun’s olive oil and dates provide a tangible way to help Palestinians, says the business’s managing director

A Palestinian food brand says its UK sales increased by 50% to £3.2m in 2024 as shoppers seek out its olive oil in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Zaytoun, the Arabic word for olive or olive tree, is a social enterprise set up to support the resilience of Palestinian communities through fair trade.

Pair had crossed border to support presidential campaign of reggae singer Bobi Wine

Two Kenyan activists have been abducted in Uganda after attending a presidential campaign event for Bobi Wine, the reggae musician turned politician.

Heavily armed security operatives detained Bob Njagi, the chair of Free Kenya, and Nicholas Oyoo, the movement’s secretary general, at a petrol station near Kampala on Wednesday afternoon.

Prime minister praises security response and says government is ready for talks

Morocco’s prime minister, Aziz Akhannouch, has praised the security force reaction to protests over corruption and public spending and said the government was ready for talks, as organisers called for a sixth night of protests.

In a statement, Akhannouch said the death toll in the protests had risen to three.

Decision would signal a significant shift in White House support for Kyiv as Trump grows irritated with Putin

The US will provide Ukraine with intelligence on long-range energy infrastructure targets deep inside Russia, according to several media reports, a move that would signal a significant shift in White House support for Kyiv.

The decision would be the first example of a change in policy by Donald Trump since his comments on social media towards the end of September that Ukraine could win back all of the territory occupied by Russia.

Opposition party says minister ‘either lied or has no clue how it works’ when he said band were ‘ineligible’ to enter

Canada’s opposition party has asked the government to clarify whether the Belfast rap trio Kneecap have been barred from the country, after doubts emerged over their status.

The Liberal MP Vince Gasparro, the parliamentary secretary for combating crime, posted a video on social media on 19 September in which he said Kneecap were “ineligible” to enter Canada.

Protesting young people reject dissolution of government as insufficient and demand list of reforms

Young protesters in Madagascar have said they will continue their fight for the resignation of the president, Andry Rajoelina, and rejected his dissolution of the government on Monday as insufficient.

Twenty-two people were killed and 100 injured at the demonstrations, according to the UN. The unrest broke out on 25 September when local councillors were arrested for protesting against water and electricity outages in the capital, Antananarivo. The youth-led protests quickly spread to other towns and cities, fuelled by social media and other “Gen Z protests in Indonesia and Nepal, where the government was toppled.

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• PNG to provide troops to Australia under first new alliance since Anzus

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The NSW government says an increase of the cap on major events in Sydney’s Centennial Park will help the city’s night-time economy recover from “a decade of lockouts and then lockdowns”.

The changes, which will take effect ahead of the 2026 season, will mean the number of events attracting more than 20,000 people will increase from eight to 12 each year.

With more events occurring, we are encouraging the opportunity for events to go back to back over a single weekend.

That means they can share infrastructure and reduce costs, which should mean lower costs for event organisers and the public. It’s a very practical way of keeping costs down.

Pukpuk mutual defence treaty will establish Australia’s first new alliance since the Anzus agreement was signed in 1951

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Australia will elevate its relations with Papua New Guinea to the same level as the US and New Zealand, with a major defence treaty set to be signed as soon as next week.

Delayed last month due to political complications within the PNG government, the new treaty won approval from prime minister James Marape’s cabinet ministers on Wednesday night.

Exclusive: Letter released under FoI argues company was denied procedural fairness when it was included in looming law

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YouTube has outlined three grounds on which it could legally challenge its inclusion in the under-16s social media ban, which is due to come into effect in just over two months.

In July, the federal government reversed an earlier decision to exclude YouTube from the ban, acting on advice from the eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant. The advice was based on research that found 76% of 10 to 15-year-olds had used YouTube, and 37% of children who had seen or heard potentially harmful content online had found it on YouTube.

Country moves to deepen policing ties with China as Australia continues negotiations on Nakamal agreement, which was not signed last month as hoped

Vanuatu remains open to signing a wide-ranging deal with Australia but must assert its sovereignty and will not be subject to pressure or “bullying” from larger countries, the country’s internal affairs minister, Andrew Napuat, said.

Australia failed to seal the $500m Nakamal agreement in Port Vila last month amid concerns from Vanuatu that it would block other countries providing infrastructure funding. Weeks later, Vanuatu said it planned to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to deepen policing cooperation with China.

Fisheries minister says rehoming Marineland’s cetaceans in China would only ‘perpetuate the treatment’ the whales have endured

Canada’s government has refused a request by the beleaguered Marineland theme park to export its remaining 30 beluga whales to China due to concerns that the whales will face further mistreatment.

Marineland, an amusement park, zoo and aquarium in Niagara Falls, has one of the largest captive whale populations in the world, and has long been mired in controversy amid reports of poor conditions for the animals on display.

‘Gen Z’ protesters accuse government of prioritising spending on World Cup stadiums over social services

Anti-government demonstrations gripped Morocco for the fourth night in a row as young people filled the streets of cities and destruction and violence broke out in several places.

With billions in investment flowing toward preparations for the 2030 World Cup, promises to fix Morocco’s strained social services have not quelled anger from internet-savvy youth, who launched some of the country’s biggest street protests in years.

Activist Jagtar Singh Johal has been held in Indian prison for nearly eight years without full trial

The sisters of the British-Egyptian human rights campaigner Alaa Abd el-Fattah have intervened for the first time since his release from prison in Egypt to call on Keir Starmer to push Narendra Modi to free a British Sikh activist when he meets the Indian prime minister next week.

Jagtar Singh Johal, from Dumbarton, has been held in an Indian jail for nearly eight years without facing full trial in what his supporters say is an arbitrary and egregious denial of justice by a British ally.

More than 700 aftershocks recorded while rescuers search for casualties in coastal city of Bogo

Rescuers in the Philippines combed through rubble and mud after the deadliest earthquake in more than a decade killed at least 69 people, with patients overwhelming hospitals on the island of Cebu.

Outside the Cebu provincial hospital, injured children cried and adults screamed on Wednesday as they were treated on beds beneath blue tents. They had been wheeled outside as a precaution against waves of aftershocks.

Liu Jianchao, previously tipped to be next foreign minister, has not been seen publicly in months

China’s ruling Communist party (CCP) has replaced the head of its powerful international department two months after he disappeared from public life.

Liu Jianchao, an influential official who had been widely tipped to be the next foreign minister, was reportedly detained while returning from an overseas trip in late July. He has not been seen publicly since.

Barbados, Belize, Dominica and St Vincent agree landmark pact letting citizens live and work freely across their borders

A historic EU-style free movement agreement comes into force in four Caribbean countries on Wednesday, in a deal which officials hope will stem the flow of skilled professionals leaving the region for North America and Europe.

The agreement between Barbados, Belize, Dominica and St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) follows decades of discussions and negotiations among members of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) – a regional grouping of 15 member countries.

Military court convicts Kabila of war crimes, treason and other offences in verdict that could fuel enduring tensions

A military court in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has sentenced the country’s former president Joseph Kabila to death in absentia after convicting him of war crimes, treason and crimes against humanity.

The case stems from his alleged role in backing the advance of M23 rebels supported by Rwanda in DRC’s volatile eastern provinces. Kabila, who led the country from 2001 to 2019, has denied wrongdoing and said the judiciary had been politicised.

Taliban authorities cut fibre-optic network in nationwide shutdown of communications to prevent ‘vice’

Afghans are living under a near-complete communications blackout after Taliban authorities cut internet and mobile phone services for a second day as part of an unprecedented country-wide crackdown.

The former insurgents, who retook control of Afghanistan in 2021, began gradual restrictions on internet access earlier this month. The measures also affect telephone lines, as they are often routed over the internet.

Telecoms disrupted nationwide after authorities cut fibre-optic connections in several provinces to prevent ‘vice’

A huge communications blackout has hit Afghanistan after Taliban authorities began severing fibre-optic connections in several provinces to prevent “vice”.

“A nationwide telecoms blackout is now in effect,” said Netblocks, a watchdog organisation that monitors cybersecurity and internet governance.

Victims include nine children at election campaign gathering in Tamil Nadu led by popular actor and politician

Police in India have opened a criminal case against the leaders of a party headed by the actor turned politician Vijay, after a crowd crush at one of his rallies killed 40 people and injured at least 124 others.

Local officials reported that at least nine children had died at the rally, which took place on Saturday night in the Karur district of Tamil Nadu state in southern India. Vijay, one of the most popular and successful actors in Tamil cinema, who entered politics last year, was addressing the crowd for his Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) party before state elections early next year.

Announcement of deal baffles experts and former ministers, who say there is no sign of any untapped reserves

The newfound camaraderie between the US and Pakistan was on full display this week as Donald Trump welcomed Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, and the country’s powerful army chief, Asim Munir, into the Oval Office, heralding them both as “great leaders”.

Having been cold-shouldered by successive US presidents, this was the first time a Pakistani prime minister had been invited to Washington in more than six years. It was also the unprecedented second time this year that Munir – who holds no official government role – held an intimate meeting with Trump, which many took as a telling signal of where the power to cut deals really lies in Pakistan.