Suppressed DWP study told of hardship endured by carers forced to repay thousands after minor allowance breaches

Ministers were warned three years ago that unpaid carers were being treated unfairly and forced to repay huge sums for minor benefit breaches, a long suppressed government report has revealed.

A Department for Work and Pensions document presented to politicians in 2021 detailed how carers – the majority of whom were on low incomes and spending 65 hours a week caring for loved ones – endured financial hardship, stress and anger after being heavily penalised for falling foul of strict carer’s allowance eligibility rules.

Lawyers urge international court of justice to issue urgent measures over assault on Gaza’s southernmost city

South Africa has asked the international court of justice (ICJ) to urgently order Israel to end its assault on Rafah, halt its military campaign across Gaza, and allow international investigators and journalists into the territory.

In a court hearing, lawyers for South Africa expanded a written request for judges to issue an emergency order to stop the offensive into Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city.

Party leader says six election pledges revealed at launch event will take two terms of government to materialise

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There will be no “quick fix” to the deep problems Labour will inherit if it wins the next election, Keir Starmer has said while unveiling his party’s six election pledges amid a fanfare of endorsements from senior public figures.

The Labour leader said “most reasonable, tolerant people” in the country wanted what his party wanted for Britain, before he received an extraordinary endorsement from the Boots chief executive, Sebastian James, an Old Etonian who was a member of the private all-male Bullingdon Club alongside David Cameron.

Former lawyer and fixer for Donald Trump is under fierce attacks on his credibility by the ex-president’s legal team

Donald Trump’s lawyer on Thursday attacked the core charge against the former president as he sought to undercut Michael Cohen, the former attorney whose $130,000 hush-money payment to the adult film star Stormy Daniels is at the heart of the criminal trial in New York.

The defense, led by the Trump lawyer Todd Blanche, had Cohen admit that technically Daniels entered into a legal contract to sell the rights of her story about a sexual encounter with Trump, apparently in an attempt to justify labelling the repayments as legal expenses.

Financial regulator brings charges against nine people including Lauren Goodger in crackdown on ‘finfluencers’

The UK’s financial watchdog has charged seven reality TV stars, including former Love Island contestants and cast members from The Only Way is Essex (Towie), with promoting an unauthorised foreign exchange trading scheme on Instagram.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has brought charges against nine people in a crackdown on “finfluencers” who have a total of 4.5m followers on the social media platform.

Friends in town of Levice say 71-year-old showed no signs of planning attack, while Slovakian president says climate of hate is collective work

Mile L’udovit, like other residents of the unassuming grey apartment block on the outskirts of the sleepy central Slovakian town of Levice, considered Juraj Cintula a reliable neighbour and friend.

Having lived side by side with him for more than 40 years, L’udovit could never have imagined the 71-year-old former security guard and amateur poet would be suspected of perpetrating the worst political attack in Slovakian modern history – shooting the prime minister multiple times at point-blank range.

European Commission vice president, Maroš Šefčovič, cites progress on trade and economy for territory but not border checks

Talks on a post-Brexit deal to govern the border between Gibraltar and Spain have broken up without an agreement, although both sides insisted a deal was “getting closer”.

David Cameron, the UK foreign secretary, met the European Commission vice president, Maroš Šefčovič, in Brussels to discuss the British overseas territory on the Iberian peninsula, which has been in limbo since Britain left the EU.

But coroner finds no evidence to suggest trust directly caused death of Maya Siek in December 2022

An inquest into the death of a six-year-old girl has concluded an NHS hospital trust made a number of failures in her care before she died.

However, a coroner found there was no evidence that suggested the trust had directly caused or contributed to the death of Maya Siek in December 2022.

Lesley Sewell said departed CEO had called for help ‘plugging gaps in her memory’ before select committee appearance

A former Post Office executive has told the inquiry into the Horizon scandal that she blocked Paula Vennells’s phone number after the company’s ex-CEO contacted her asking for help to “plug memory gaps” and to “avoid an independent inquiry”.

Lesley Sewell, who was chief information officer at the Post Office until she left in 2015, said that she had subsequently been contacted by her former boss four times in 2020 and 2021.

Judges describe second novel set between south-east London and Ghana as ‘symphonic’ and ‘viscerally moving’

British-Ghanaian author Caleb Azumah Nelson has won this year’s Dylan Thomas prize for his second novel Small Worlds, which judges described as “symphonic” and “viscerally moving”.

Azumah Nelson, 33, was awarded the £20,000 prize at ceremony on Thursday in Swansea, the home city of the poet Dylan Thomas. The prize is given to a writer aged 39 or under in memory of Thomas, who died at that age.