India’s former prime minister, Manmohan Singh, widely regarded as the architect of India’s economic reform program and a landmark nuclear deal with the US, has died aged 92. Singh was admitted to New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences late Thursday after his health deteriorated due to “sudden loss of consciousness at home”, the…
Fewer consumers made the journey to high streets and shopping centres in search of Boxing Day discounts this year. Footfall across UK retailers was down 8.9% as of 3pm on Thursday, compared with Boxing Day in 2023, according to data from MRI Software. “The decline in Boxing Day activity may reflect a shift in consumer…
Two women have died and a man and a teenage boy have suffered serious injuries after a reported stabbing in Milton Keynes on Christmas Day. A 49-year-old man from Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, was arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder and remained in police custody, Thames Valley police said. Officers were called to a…
Salman Rushdie’s 1988 novel The Satanic Verses – which led to a fatwa threatening his life, forcing him into hiding for a decade – has finally returned to bookshops in India, the land of his birth. The novel, inspired by the life of the prophet Muhammad, became the focus of a fierce global debate about…
Give people the right to walk around the edges of privately owned fields, say campaigners seeking to open up more paths in the countryside in England and Wales. Slow Ways, a group advocating for more access to the countryside, said people in rural areas often have to walk on roads that do not have pavements,…
South Korea’s opposition said on Thursday it had filed an impeachment motion against the acting president, Han Duck-soo, in an escalating row over the composition of the constitutional court which will decide whether to remove his predecessor from office. South Korea became mired in a political crisis when President Yoon Suk Yeol, currently suspended, declared…
A man has been charged with the murder of Mariann Borocz, a Hungarian woman who went missing in Greater Manchester this month. Christopher Barlow, 61, will appear at Manchester and Salford magistrates court on Boxing Day charged with murdering Borocz, whose body was found at a house in Bolton on Christmas Eve. Borocz was last…
Rachel Hall Hello – Welcome to the Guardian’s blog covering the Russia-Ukraine war. The Ukrainian military has said that it shot down 20 drones out of 31 launched by Russia overnight. Of the 31 drones, 11 “imitator-drones” did not reach their targets due to active engagement from the Ukrainian military, it added. Here are yesterday’s…
Two women are fighting for life after a house fire authorities consider suspicious. Detectives were investigating the cause of the Boxing Day blaze, which erupted shortly after 3am in Gulliver, a suburb of Townsville. The pair, 53 and 83, were rushed to Townsville university hospital with critical airway burns, while a third resident, a 55-year-old…
Animal welfare campaigners are calling on ministers to keep to a pledge to toughen anti-hunt laws, as figures suggest illegal foxhunting remains widespread in England and Wales. Almost 20 years since the Hunting Act 2004 was brought in by Tony Blair’s government, the League Against Cruel Sports (Lacs) – the animal welfare charity that was…
