John Swinney emerges as favourite to become leader of party hit by series of damaging crises

Humza Yousaf has quit as Scotlandas first minister to clear the way for a new leader capable of giving the Scottish National party stability after a series of damaging crises.

During a dramatic day largely orchestrated by party managers, Yousaf announced he would step down as first minister just as a veteran former leader, John Swinney, quickly emerged as the favourite to succeed him.

Prime minister dismisses potential deal with Dublin, increasing prospect of an escalating UK-Irish crisis

• UK politics a latest updates

Rishi Sunak has said the UK will not accept the return of asylum seekers from Ireland and dismissed the prospect of a deal with Dublin.

The prime minister doubled down on his Rwanda deportation plan and appeared to reject any deal with the Irish government, which is alarmed at asylum seekers entering the republic from Northern Ireland.

US secretary of state says Hamas is the aonly thing standing between people of Gaza and ceasefirea

The US secretary of state has said that athe only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefirea is Hamas, ahead of what are seen as last-chance talks to salvage a diplomatic solution before a threatened Israeli ground invasion in Rafah.

Speaking at a World Economic Forum meeting in Saudi Arabia on Monday, Antony Blinken said: aHamas has before it a proposal that is extraordinarily generous on the part of Israel.

When Bryn Austin, 71, lost his bearings on an unstable cliff his favourite paper kept him warm and helped start fire to alert rescuers

Bryn Austin always carries a copy of the Guardian when he goes looking for rocks, usually to wrap up muddy or delicate specimens. But on one ill-fated trip, he discovered a new application for his favourite newspaper.

The retired geologist, 71, had taken a walk to Fairlight Glen in East Sussex to study a landslide on the evening of 24 April. After a wrong turn, he became stranded in the dark on the face of a cliff prone to erosion.

• Boxer and MMA fighter says son awas full of life and joya
• Conor McGregor among those to offer their condolences

Francis Ngannou has confirmed the death of his 15-month-old son Kobe in a social media post.

The boxer and MMA fighter posted on X: aToo soon to leave but yet heas gone. My little boy, my mate, my partner Kobe was full of life and joy. Now, heas laying without life. I shouted his name over and over but heas not responding.

Report to United Nations security council says remnants of Hwasong-11 violate arms export embargo on Russian ally

The debris from a missile that landed in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on 2 January was from a North Korean Hwasong-11 series ballistic missile, UN sanctions monitors told a security council committee in a report seen by Reuters.

In the 32-page report, the UN sanctions monitors concluded that adebris recovered from a missile that landed in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on 2 January 2024 derives from a DPRK Hwasong-11 series missilea and is in violation of the arms embargo on North Korea.

Public opinion aoverwhelmingly in favour of changea, says broadcaster as MPs debate law in Commons

Jonathan Dimbleby has urged MPs to aget off the fencea on the issue of assisted dying and said public opinion is aoverwhelmingly in favour of changea.

After his younger brother, Nicholas, died with debilitating motor neurone disease earlier this year, Dimbleby said the current law was aanachronistically cruela.

Newly deciphered passages outline Greek philosopheras burial place and describe critique of slave musician

Newly deciphered passages from a papyrus scroll that was buried beneath layers of volcanic ash after the AD79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius may have shed light on the final hours of Plato, a key figure in the history of western philosophy.

In a groundbreaking discovery, the ancient scroll was found to contain a previously unknown narrative detailing how the Greek philosopher spent his last evening, describing how he listened to music played on a flute by a Thracian slave girl.

Thomas OaHalloran was stabbed in west London by Lee Byer who had paranoid schizophrenia and had been released five days before

A man has admitted to the manslaughter by diminished responsibility of an 87-year-old mobility scooter rider in a amotivelessa knife attack in west London five days after being released from prison.

Lee Byer, 45, stabbed Thomas OaHalloran in the neck and chest in Greenford in 2022. It can now be reported that Byer had numerous previous convictions and days earlier had been released from Wormwood Scrubs prison in south-west London.

Caitlyn Scott-Lee, 16, is thought to have taken her own life the day before she was due to have her first ever detention

The father of an autistic schoolgirl who is believed to have taken her own life the day before she was due to have her first ever detention has paid tribute to his adaddyas girla at the inquest into her death.

Caitlyn Scott-Lee, 16, was found dead at Wycombe Abbey, a private school in Buckinghamshire where she boarded, on 21 April last year.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

Galena survived six days of travel with no food or water before being discovered in relatively good shape by Amazon employee

In the famous SchrAPdingeras cat hypothesis, a cat in a box is both alive and dead until someone looks inside a and in the case of one mischievous cat from Utah discovered inside an Amazon return package, it was very much alive.

The cat, Galena, survived being shipped all the way from Lehi, Utah, across the US to California after sneaking into the package. Galena, six, an indoor-only cat, traveled more than 500 miles in a 3-by-3ft shipping container, according to NBC.

Kirklees residents are likely to punish both the Tories and Labour for their stance on Gaza in the 2 May local elections

Of all the issues being discussed and debated among voters in the lead-up to local elections, there is one that has taken precedence for some residents of the West Yorkshire borough of Kirklees: the conflict in Gaza.

This weekas votes are predicted to bring damaging results for Rishi Sunak a whose personal ratings have reached a record low.

Second phase of physical checks could result in price increases in shops, as businesses pass on costs to consumers

After more than three years of delays, Tuesday finally sees the introduction of physical checks on animal and plant imports coming into Britain from the EU.

Importers and trade associations have warned that the new bureaucracy could heap significant costs on to importers, resulting in increases to prices on shop shelves.

Pedro SA!nchez is not alone in EU in facing aharassment through the media and the courtsa aimed at forcing him out of politics

Pedro SA!nchez may have decided to stay on as Spanish prime minister, but what made him hesitate a aharassment and bullyinga of him and his wife by his political opponents a is unlikely to go away anytime soon, in Spain or elsewhere in Europe.

In an ever more polarised political sphere and on a social media battlefield where reality coexists with the wildest fictions, politicians across the continent have to live a or not a with being targets of surreal accusations, alawfarea and increasingly ugly abuse.

As this documentary smugly rehashes the transphobia that made Miriam Riveraas life hell a claiming it would never happen today a it becomes just as tawdry. Has TV learned nothing in the past 20 years?

It was, all in all, a moral quagmire of a TV format. In 2004, Thereas Something About Miriam saw six men vie for the attention of Miriam Rivera, a 21-year-old Mexican model who unbeknown to them had a asecreta: she was transgender. Even before it aired, this British reality-dating show had whipped up a tabloid frenzy, fuelled by the news that the contestants who had wooed Rivera were mounting a legal challenge to stop the show from airing. Lawyers claimed their lack of informed consent equated to a conspiracy to commit sexual assault.

Miriam: Death of a Reality Star retells the story of this queasy moment in pop culture, while also delving into Riveraas traumatic early life and suspicious death. Yet despite looking back disapprovingly, this three-part documentary attempts to have its cake (sanctimonious dismay) and eat it, too (milking exactly the same tawdry titillation as the original did). Thereas Something About Miriamas horrifying denouement a one of the men reacted violently to the news that Rivera was trans a is teased throughout, meaning the documentary is also powered by the promise of that reveal. (While the original series was removed from circulation by Sky, this documentary re-airs so much footage that it doubles as a worst-of clip show.) Later, it stages a superficial investigation into Riveraas death. Reality TV was a and still is a grounded in exploitation.

Waffles and caviar for breakfast, fish and chips for dinner. The Guardianas reviewer digests a social week in Washington

The annual White House correspondentsa dinner in Washington is ostensibly about the dinner poking fun at the president. But like the Oscars, or the Met Gala, itas also about the parties.

But how to decide which parties to attend and which ones to skip? Every day of the White House correspondentsa dinner weekend is now inundated with competing events.

The rules were as follows: two food options were chosen at random at each party, and given a score out of 10 based on taste and execution. The parties reviewed were cocktail parties only; sit-down dinners were not included. Where the primary reviewer could not attend, a secondary reviewer sent notes. The final list was submitted to a three-judge aappeals panela made up of longtime MSNBC contributors, though the ranking could only be overturned in the event of plain error by the reviewer. The rankings were not overturned.

Events not reviewed: Washington Women in Journalism awards ceremony, White House Foreign Press-Meridien party, WME-Puck party, Washingtonian/embassy of Qatar soiree, Politics and Inclusion dinner, Washington AI Network-TGI Friday lunch, Substack New Media party.

Scotlandas first minister and SNP leaderas demise shows Westminster does not have the monopoly on chaos and ineptitude

It must be contagious. Just when you thought Westminster might have the monopoly on incompetence and chaos, along comes Humza Yousaf, Scotlandas first minister, saying: aHold my Diet Coke.a Anything the Tories can do south of the border, the Scottish National party can manage north of it. We are in a new political era where the life span of politicians is measured in units of Liz Truss. Or lettuces. So Yousaf reaching seven and half Trusses a or approximately 54 lettuces. Which, all things considered, is fairly respectable. If a lot less than he had hoped.

Last Thursday, Yousaf had consciously uncoupled from the Scottish Green party. aYouare dumped,a he had announced, looking rather pleased with himself. It had been meant to be a power play. To ditch the Greens before they ditched him. A show of strength that the SNP could survive as a minority government without their coalition partner.

Itas not just new drug boss Lee causing tensions to rise on the streets of Belfast, as more tangled twosomes get steamy on patrol and Stevie deals with a heartwrenching case

The series reached its midway mark with simmering tension and surprise tragedy. Hereas your sit-rep on the third episode, titled Love Knows a|

The Royal Institute of British Architects has been taking stock of the disturbingly imperial decoration of its palatial home a with a new show telling a larger, more unsettling story

Part Egyptian tomb, part masonic temple, the 1930s headquarters of the Royal Institute of British Architects has always exuded a cultish air. Sited on Londonas illustrious Portland Place, among embassies, consulates and oligarchsa pieds-A -terre, it is a fittingly regal headquarters for a chartered profession that has long styled itself as an exclusive gentlemenas club.

If you have ever been to an event there, you probably wonat have paid much attention to the dull brown mural at the back of the auditorium. Itas a dirty, poorly lit and badly scuffed screen, which tends to fade into the background of the surrounding art deco pomp. And thereas a good reason that the RIBA hasnat wanted to you look at it too closely.

aItas one of the most racist things Iave ever seen in my life,a says Thandi Loewenson, a Zimbabwe-born architectural designer and researcher. aAnd thatas saying something.a

Take a look, and youall see groups of semi-naked figures from all corners of the British empire, cartoonishly depicted as primitive savages with exaggerated features, huddled in timid submission around the edges of the mural. In the centre, radiating above a map of Britain like some heavenly vision, is the RIBA council, depicted as a professional parliament of identical faceless figures. Floating between the professionals and the natives, in a kind of architectural halo, are the symbolic buildings of empire: the government buildings of Pretoria, the viceroyas palace in New Delhi, the old parliament house of Canberra, and other works authored by the instituteas distinguished members.

Michelangelo announced his love for a young upper-class gentleman in verse and prose, but he also gave Tommaso dea Cavalieri some of the greatest homoerotic drawings ever created a now taking centre stage at the British Museum

Tommaso dea Cavalieri was the light of the age, unique in the world a at least in the eyes of the man who loved him. That ardent lover was Michelangelo, who described Cavalieri in these glowing words in a letter from 1532. If only a portrait of Tommaso survived we could have seen his face, which the fiftysomething artist claimed in a poem was so beautiful it gave him a glimpse of paradise itself.

Michelangelo did not just announce his love for this young upper-class citizen of Rome a who knew the pope and prominent cardinals socially a in verse and prose. He also gave Cavalieri some of the greatest drawings ever created. Up until this time, the mighty sculptor, painter and architect had used drawing as a tool to develop ideas: but the so-called aPresentation Drawingsa he did for Tommaso aspire to be completed works of art. They star in the British Museumas new exhibition of Michelangeloas later graphic works, and demand a close look, for these are perhaps the most sublime declarations of gay love in art.

Ros and Mark Dowey, whose son Murray took his life after being duped by criminals online, are calling for greater awareness and social media regulation

• Teachers warned to be on lookout for victims of sextortion

It was a relaxed evening at home in Dunblane, near Stirling, a few days before the turn of the year. The Dowey family a Ros, Mark and their three sons a were watching television when talk turned to plans for the new year. Murray, 16 years old and their middle boy, chatted about saving up for a holiday to Marbella he was planning with his friends that summer. At about half past nine, he went up to his bedroom. It was the last time his family saw him alive.

The next morning, Ros was preparing for a visit to friends in Glasgow. aI saw that Murrayas door was ajar with the light on,a she says. aI walked in and said aAre you up?a and found him there.a

The comedianas claim that wokeness is the reason why comedy is no longer as funny is lazy a and inaccurate

Jerry Seinfeld is currently at saturation point, promoting his new Pop Tarts movie Unfrosted. Still a canny operator, however, Seinfeld understands that the last thing anyone in the world wants to hear about is his new Pop Tarts movie. After all, there is realistically only so much available media interest in a streaming period comedy film about a breakfast product. And so Unfrosted has taken something of a backseat to a much more newsworthy proposition: Jerry Seinfeld mouthing off for clicks.

Until now, Seinfeldas targets have included the film industry (the people he worked with adonat have any idea that the movie business is overa) and his disdain for dabblers (aThereas nothing I revile quite as much as a dilettantea), despite being a man who has just directed his first film at the age of 70. True, he has also tried talking about things he actually enjoys, like his love of watching surfing videos on YouTube, but that isnat really what gets the clicks these days. And so, with some inevitability, Jerry Seinfeld has pulled out the big guns and declared that the left is destroying comedy.

The SNP leader badly miscalculated his support. But Londonas meddling in Scottish politics played its part

Youave seen it posted on office walls and Instagram feeds: diamonds are formed under pressure. Well, so are career-ending mistakes. Hopefully Humza Yousaf, who last week collapsed his own governmentas majority by ending the SNPas cooperation agreement with the Scottish Greens and then resigned before a probable no-confidence vote at Holyrood, can find clarity and respite after what must have been a personally horrible year.

Politics is unforgiving at the best of times, but it must not be forgotten that for a sizeable chunk of his time in office some of Yousafas family members were trapped in Gaza. He spoke honestly about the emotional toll, and became one of the few western leaders a out of clear principle, not just personal investment a to openly criticise Israelas relentless assault on the Palestinian people.

Rory Scothorne is a historian and writer based in Edinburgh

With young people in the UK far more likely to drink than those in other countries, and adult overconsumption treated as a joke, itas clear: we are a nation in denial

Britain has a problem, and that problem is alcohol. Except, it is more nuanced than that. The issue is less the alcohol itself and more our attitude towards it and the problematic culture weave created around it. For far too many of us, itas all a bit of a laugh.

But it has all become a lot less funny since the publication last week of a major new report by the World Health Organization which shows that Great Britain has the worldas worst rate of child alcohol consumption. It makes for sobering reading. A third of our 11-year-olds have drunk alcohol. More than half of 13-year-olds in England have already started on the booze. Britain comes off worst of the 44 countries covered in the study, the largest of its kind. Itas alarming.

Gary Nunn is an author and journalist

The UK does not have a sicknote problem. It has a government-couldnat-care-less problem

Another week, another phantom menace for Rishi Sunak. The people he is talking about, regarding his benefit reforms, do not exist. The 1.35 million people who could work but just donat want to, who have a label of depression or anxiety but are just a little bit sad, who could have their benefits replaced by vouchers and find that incentivising: these people do not exist.

People are not signed off work because we are all a little bit more comfortable talking about our moods. People are not on disability benefits because Prince Harry did a podcast. We donat have a asicknote culturea because itas too easy to get a sicknote. The pressure on GPs will not be lifted by parcelling out sicknotes to private contractors. Those with depression and anxiety severe enough to claim a personal independence payment (Pip) are catastrophically unwell. If numbers have surged over the past 14 years, which they have, it is because Conservative governments make you catastrophically unwell.

The Israeli prime minister has good reason to worry, and the defenses he has offered so far are unlikely to help him

The Israeli government believes that the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague is about to file war crimes charges against Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials. We canat know for sure a the ICC has kept its plans close to the vest a but the Israeli prime minister has good reason to worry, and the defenses he has offered so far are unlikely to help him.

The ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khanas most likely target is Netanyahuas starvation strategy for Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Because the Israeli government has refused to let ICC staff enter Gaza, it will take time for Khan to complete the detailed investigation required to demonstrate other possible Israeli war crimes, such as indiscriminately bombing civilian areas and firing on military targets with foreseeably disproportionate civilian consequences. But the facts surrounding Israelas obstruction of humanitarian aid are readily available.

With Britain crying out for foster carers, my schoolfriendas comedy show sheds light on what itas like for those in their 30s

What do you do if you always imagined a house full of children, but donat want to be a biological parent? This was the dilemma facing one of my schoolfriends, the standup comedian Kiri Pritchard-McLean, who lives on Ynys MA'n (Anglesey) with her partner. Like many people in their 30s, they were surrounded by friends embroiled in the maelstrom of babies and young children. But the prevailing narratives around motherhood didnat really speak to Kiri, nor did the hard, thankless work of it appeal to her (to quote one of her jokes, aI see what my friends have got, and itas the fucking Manson family a| chaos, violence, no oneas washing their hair, everyoneas talking about sacrifice. It is a cult.a)

Foster caring isnat something that many millennials consider a the largest age group of carers are people in their 50s a but when Kiri and her partner heard an advert on the radio appealing for more carers, it felt right. In her new show, Peacock, she talks about the vetting process, which included many hours of training and more than 60 hours of interviews. Rather than being put off by how exhaustive the recruitment is, though, there was something reassuring about it. There are no qualifications for becoming a biological parent, no exam you have to sit, and no real way of knowing if youall be good at it before you embark. I, for example, naively thought that having been a young carer for my brother, and later an au pair, an aunt and a godmother, would mean I would be somewhat prepared for motherhood. Yet nothing truly prepares you, and you are humbled in profound, often mortifying, ways.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist

The Indian PM may still be in a strong position; but incendiary, anti-Muslim rhetoric shows that all may not be going to plan

When Narendra Modi ran for prime minister for the first time in 2014, his overriding aim was to convince voters that he was a different man a no longer the chief minister of the western state of Gujarat, where, under his watch, more than 1,000 people were massacred in a communal pogrom in 2002. (A British government report found Modi adirectly responsiblea for not stopping the killing of Muslims; he has always denied culpability and was cleared of all charges by the supreme court.) Modi was going to be the man who would transform India by ushering in vikas, or economic development, for everyone.

His record as prime minister in the past decade belies that. Now the mask has fallen completely. In a recent campaign rally in Rajasthan, Modi made an exceptionally incendiary speech in which he claimed that his predecessor, Manmohan Singh, had declared that Muslims had athe first claima to the nationas resources. This was distortion and exaggeration. The reference was to a speech that Singh had made in 2006 about Indiaas development priorities.

I thought moving out would be a dating disaster, but a new report finds my peers still living in the capital have it worse

When I left London for a smaller city, my only hesitation was over what it would mean for my love life. By moving from a large dating pool to a small one, was I committing myself to lifelong singledom?

The other thirtysomethings in my new home city seem mostly coupled up: either locals who got together in their 20s, or outsiders who have moved with partners to have kids. You donat have to be swiping for long before you are informed that youave exhausted the singles in the area. Hinge responds by re-serving the same selection, like an amateur magician trying to lead you to a particular card.

Elle Hunt is a freelance journalist and writer