Usually raucous backbenchers snoozed through the session as Keir and Kemi’s exchanges descended into a slanging match

It’s like watching dead men walking. Or, to be accurate, a dead man and a dead woman walking. Ghosts of Christmas parties past, haunting the dispatch box. Cast your mind forward to a year from now. It’s more than likely that prime minister’s questions will look very different. A change of cast. If not a change of fortune.

Keir Starmer may not even make it much further than the end of May. The budget chaos and No 10’s curious briefings against itself have left many Labour MPs in despair. The government can’t even get the basics right these days. Cabinet ministers can barely be trusted to dress themselves.

Can Ben Stokes really lead England to victory in Australia? Set your alarms and gird your loins, this one’s not just big, it’s positively Brobdingnagian

Government has officially announced ban on reselling for profit, described by minister as ‘no-brainer’

Last May, in a dimly lit basement beneath London’s South Bank, the UK’s most prolific ticket touts gathered to discuss Labour’s plan to effectively put them out of business.

One seasoned ticket “trader” pleaded with colleagues to help fund a war chest to lobby against the party’s election manifesto pledge to ban reselling tickets for profit.

Caribbean island nation is the smallest to reach the finals tournament after appointing the wily coach and drawing on diaspora

The delay in Dick Advocaat becoming Curaçao’s head coach might have been ominous but instead it was the foundation for glory. Frustrated by the national federation’s financial problems, he deferred starting until January 2024, when the problems were resolved and players paid, paving the way for a historic World Cup qualifying campaign.

Curaçao will be the smallest nation – by land area and population – to play at the World Cup after their 0-0 draw in Jamaica on Wednesday. The Caribbean island has a population of 156,000, sinking the previous record holders, Iceland, which has about 400,000 inhabitants. Last month Cape Verde were confirmed as surprise tournament debutants but the African nation is almost 10 times bigger by area than the former Dutch colony, indicating the level of achievement by Advocaat and his squad.

He’s been in everything from Love Actually to Shakespeare with Al Pacino – but will he always be thought of as the string-vest-wearing boozy Glaswegian? Ahead of a tour as himself, the actor and Instagram cookery guru looks back

Few actors are more indelibly associated with one role than Gregor Fisher – and few comic characters (although Alan Partridge leaps to mind) grow with their audiences over decades rather than years. “Somebody pointed out to me the other day,” says Fisher of his most famous alter ego, the unemployed Glaswegian alcoholic Rab C Nesbitt, “that it’s 40 years since he first appeared on the telly”. Fisher wore the string vest on and off for 30 of those years, weaving himself into Glasgow folklore – but backing himself into a casting cul-de-sac too. Now 71, he’d love you to bear in mind the other roles he can play – not least that of Gregor Fisher, in which out-from-behind-the-mask persona he is soon to set off, for the first time, on a UK tour.

You might imagine that an actor stepping out as himself after years in character(s) could be scary, or exciting, or a chance to set the story straight. But Fisher is not, as I discover when meeting him in Glasgow on the eve of his tour, a man apt to self-dramatise. Ask him about his career and he’ll toss the word back at you in scare quotes. Ask him about Nesbitt and he’ll tell you: “It’s just a part. It’s gossamer wings. It’s nothing.”

Jamal Khashoggi was dismembered in a Saudi consulate. The president says ‘things happen’

“Things happen.” Just two words. That’s all it took for Donald Trump to effectively dismiss what is probably the most infamous journalist killing of the last decade – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his contempt for journalists, for journalism – and for the truth.

The US president’s dismissal of the murder of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi came in a press conference with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman – a man whom the CIA found in a 2021 report had orchestrated the kidnap and killing of the Washington Post columnist in 2018. (Prince Mohammed has denied involvement.)

Jodie Ginsberg is CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists

A former friend and others who were at Dulwich college with the now Reform UK leader speak of his behaviour

• ‘Deeply shocking’: Nigel Farage faces fresh claims of racism and antisemitism at school

It had been a fun sleepover at Nigel Farage’s house and Jean-Pierre Lihou, a teenager with an appetite, was delighted with his schoolfriend’s mother’s hospitality. “I remember the fantastic cooked English breakfast, as opposed to what you get at a boarding house on a morning,” Lihou recalled. “I was a boarder and he was a day boy,” he said of their education at Dulwich college in south-east London.

Farage was a great mimic, and funny with it, Lihou said. But over time he found there was a darker side to his 14-year-old friend.

Exclusive: Images are first indication that Israel has used cluster munitions in nearly 20 years

Israel used widely banned cluster munitions in its recent 13-month war in Lebanon, photos of munition remnants in south Lebanon seen by the Guardian suggest.

The images, which have been examined by six different arms experts, appear to show the remnants of two different types of Israeli cluster munitions found in three different locations: south of the Litani River in the forested valleys of Wadi Zibqin, Wadi Barghouz and Wadi Deir Siryan.

Samantha Niblett highlighted government’s multi-billion-pound deals with Microsoft and ‘getting locked in’

Microsoft has “ripped off the NHS”, it was alleged in parliament on Wednesday, as MPs called on ministers to divert more of the government’s multibillion-pound computing budget away from US technology companies and towards British alternatives.

The Seattle-based firm’s UK government contracts include a five-year deal with the NHS to provide productivity tools reportedly worth over £700m, while the wider government spent £1.9bn on Microsoft software licences in the 2024-25 financial year alone.

Pam Bondi speaks after US Senate passes bill to release files – but agency may hold back material that could affect a Trump-ordered investigation

One quick note, there haven’t been any changes to Donald Trump’s schedule today, per the press pool. Which means, as of now, the president doesn’t have any time allotted to sign the bill forcing the justice department to release the full batch of Jeffrey Epstein files.

We’ll keep you updated if things change throughout the day.