Exclusive: Under Whitehall blueprint for water company some lenders could lose up to 40% of their money

Thames Water could be renationalised, with the bulk of its APS15.6bn debt added to the public purse, under radical plans being considered by the government, the Guardian can reveal.

The blueprint, codenamed Project Timber, is being drawn up in Whitehall and would turn Britainas biggest water company into a publicly owned armas-length body. Some lenders to its core operating company could lose up to 40% of their money under the plans.

Husband of Nicola Sturgeon was rearrested ain connection with the embezzlement of fundsa from party, say police

Peter Murrell, the husband of the former first minister Nicola Sturgeon, has been charged in connection with embezzlement after being arrested for a second time by police investigating allegations regarding the funding and finances of the Scottish National party.

Murrell, the former chief executive of the SNP, was first arrested and interviewed as a suspect by Police Scotland detectives in April 2023 at the home he shared with Sturgeon in Glasgow, but was released later that day pending further investigation.

Prime minister also seeks to assure allies Israelas response to Iran will be measured, as officials urge him to focus on ceasefire deal

Benjamin Netanyahu has told western diplomats that he will go ahead with a ground offensive on Rafah in southern Gaza, and has also suggested that Israelas anticipated reprisal for Iranas missile and drone salvo will be aimed at Iranian interests rather than Tehranas proxies.

The Israeli leader has sought to assure anxious allies that Israelas response to Iran will be measured, while also claiming he will flood Gaza with aid and ensure that civilians and aid agencies are given ample opportunity to flee Rafah, the last relative refuge for at least 1.4 million displaced Palestinians.

Development follows Labour calling for investigation into Tory MP alleged to have misused funds to pay off abad peoplea

• UK politics a latest updates

A Conservative MP who was suspended over allegations that campaign funds were misused to pay off abad peoplea is to be contacted by police over the matter.

Keir Starmer earlier called for a police investigation into allegations that campaign funds were misused by the Fylde MP, Mark Menzies, who was also suspended as a government trade envoy to Colombia, Chile, Peru and Argentina.

First criminal trial of a former president one significant step closer to beginning after full jury selected in New York

A full jury of 12 people has been seated in the criminal case against Donald Trump, bringing the first criminal trial of a former president a significant step closer to beginning.

At least one of six alternate jurors had been selected before court concluded on Thursday.

A guide to Trumpas hush-money trial a so far

The key arguments prosecutors will use against Trump

How will Trumpas trial work?

From Michael Cohen to Stormy Daniels: the key players

New post-Brexit border checks aset to zeroa to avoid what Defra calls risk of serious disruption

The UK government has reportedly told port health authorities it will not aturn ona health and safety checks for EU imports as new post-Brexit border controls begin this month.

A presentation prepared by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) highlighted the risk of asignificant disruptiona if the new measures were implemented, according to the Financial Times. It made clear that the systems would not be fully ready on time.

Jonathan Hall, Britainas reviewer of terrorism legislation, says more children could be exposed to encrypted extremist content

The UKas terror watchdog has criticised Mark Zuckerbergas Meta for lowering the minimum age for WhatsApp users from 16 to 13, warning that the aextraordinarya move could expose more teenagers to extreme content.

Jonathan Hall KC said more children could now access material that Meta cannot regulate, including content related to terror or sexual exploitation.

Polandas national prosecutor says man was preparing to share security details of airport used by Ukrainian president

A Polish man has been arrested on allegations that he aided a plot by Russian intelligence services to assassinate the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, according to Polish and Ukrainian prosecutors.

The office of Polandas national prosecutor said in a statement that the man, identified only as Pawel K, was accused of being prepared to pass airport security information to Russian agents and that he was arrested in Poland on Wednesday.

Case comes after insiders warned of a potential ageism row last year following merger of BBC News and World News channels

The BBC is facing another damaging row over equal pay, with the presenter Martine Croxall taking legal action against the broadcaster for age and sex discrimination.

Croxall is suing the corporation after being off-air for more than a year following the merger of the BBCas News and World News channels, according to listings for London Central tribunal court for 1 May.

Rowaa Ahmaras claims were made in the court papers of a discrimination case against the Cabinet Office

A former senior civil servant has said in court papers that aa hostile racist working environmenta in the Cabinet Office meant she was aforced to resigna.

Rowaa Ahmar, who has now withdrawn a discrimination case against the Cabinet Office, said that athe racism within the Cabinet Office appeared to be unrelenting and systemica and claimed that she was frozen out of ministerial meetings after complaining about it.

Mayor says abrand Andya move is utterly deliberate as people are asick and tired of Westminstera

The West Midlands mayor, Andy Street, has said it is autterly deliberatea to exclude reference to the Conservative party from his campaign material, as he believes he is fighting an individual campaign and apeople are sick and tired of Westminstera.

Street is hoping to be elected to a third term in office in Mayas election in a vote that could be the strongest indicator yet as to how the two main parties will perform at the impending general election.

The anti-growth coalition, Bank of England and the OBR are among those under fire from Liz Truss

Raw free-market economics is missing in action. Somewhere between its 1980s ascendancy and today, the media, politicians, civil service and even the corporate mainstream abandoned small government and low taxes.

At the heart of Liz Trussas new book, Ten Years to Save the West, the former prime minister reckons this is the reason for Britainas economic drift, alongside aunelected technocratsa overruling the awishes of the peoplea.

This was not Donald Trump the business mogul or Donald Trump the 45th president a it was Donald Trump the defendant

With Donald Trump just a few feet away, a potential juror in the criminal case against him summed up the experience in just three words. aThis is bizarre,a she said, with just a slight hint of a seasoned New York accent.

Bizarre it was. There was a potential juror who once spent the night at one of Trumpas lawyersa homes more than a decade ago (Trumpas team used one of its pre-emptory strikes to remove the juror). The microphones didnat work. The proceedings had to start over when Judge Juan Merchan realized that a court reporter hadnat been present first thing. And the temperature in the courthouse was so frigid that Todd Blanche, one of Trumpas lawyers, asked Merchan if it would be possible to turn up the temperature ajust one degreea.

Vital cystic fibrosis drug and HRT among medications people have struggled to find, as shortages become anew normala in UK

Patients have described the effect on their health and wellbeing of the anew normala of drug shortages in the UK, which has led to three-month delays and 80-mile round trips to acquire medication.

Simon Bell, a 43-year-old data analyst from Tyne and Wear, has cystic fibrosis and requires medication that allows him to digest food. aFor people with cystic fibrosis, the part of our pancreas which releases enzymes and allows us to digest food doesnat work, so we have to take these tablets, which does the job of whatas missing from our pancreas,a he says.

From Leonardo da Vinci to the engineers of Bell Aerosystems, some of our finest minds have devoted themselves to finding a better form of travel. Still, anyone can have an off day a|

Thereas an innocent optimism to transport visionaries. They really thought they could change the world! They absolutely couldnat! But all respect to them for trying: someone got lucky with the wheel once, didnat they?

Being a transport visionary must have been more interesting back before technological progress and grotesque wealth allowed billionaires to adisrupta the boring A-to-B-ness of conventional travel and blast a car into space, just because. Imagine conceiving of human flight back when your only model was birds and some gossip about a guy called Icarus. Or looking at a horse and thinking: aHmmm, thatas fast, muscular and terrifying; I wonder if I could compel it to take me somewhere, somehow?a

Influenced by Korn and moving beyond their native Ireland, the band are ready to be one of the biggest in the world. They explain how panic attacks and parenthood came to bear on a bold new LP

Carlos OaConnell isnat merely excited about the release of Fontaines DCas new single. Heas agiddy for it. Iam giddy,a he emphasises, reclining in his dressing gown in a sunlit corner of his north London home. His attire is far from rock star loucheness: itas 9am and the guitarist has already been up for hours with his one-year-old daughter. aThereas no time to get ready!a His effusiveness doesnat feel like a stretch: the prospect of any new material from the celebrated Dublin band is thrilling enough; the fact that Starburster marks a wholly unexpected sidestep into antic, irreverent, Korn-inspired nu-metal is enough to make any interested parties come over slightly light-headed.

Yet later that afternoon, Fontaines frontman Grian Chatten is finding it difficult to muster the same enthusiasm. Perhaps because he canat quite bring himself to listen to the thing a or, in fact, any of the bandas forthcoming fourth album, Romance. He tells me this from a more stereotypical hot seat, a characterfully cluttered old-school pub in Camden Town, although heas not cleaving to rock cliche, either. We are on the Diet Cokes and the only pharmaceuticals around are his ADHD medication, which he remembers to take halfway through the interview. aWant one?a he offers, snapping the blister pack.

Thereas some low-stakes pleasure to be had in the first half of the gory new film from the team behind Ready or Not and Scream but things fall apart disastrously

Last yearas handsome gothic horror The Last Voyage of the Demeter and bombastic Nic Cage comedy Renfield allowed Universal the opportunity to present known IP as something fresh, at least on the surface, stories involving Dracula but told in ways we hadnat seen before. They represented a nifty marketing strategy for a back catalogue of classic monster movies but both worked better as loglines than finished films a Dracula on a boat, Dracula as a bad boss a and audiences proved as uninterested as critics, the stench of old property distracting from the promise of something new.

As the studio preps a new take on The Wolf Man with next yearas Christopher Abbott-led Wolfman and Robert Eggersa remake of the Dracula-inspired Nosferatu, here comes Abigail, a poppy reimagining of the little-remembered 1936 horror Draculaas Daughter. In the contemporary take, sheas a ballerina (Matildaas Alisha Weir) who gets kidnapped by a group of unaware criminals, hired to keep her locked in a grand old house for 24 hours while ransom money is obtained. But early on, recovering addict and single mother Joey (Melissa Barrera) figures out that something is up and starts to realise that the scared little girl in their care might not be so scared after all.

Tech firm released early versions of its latest large language model and a real-time image generator as it tries to catch up to OpenAI

Meta Platforms on Thursday released early versions of its latest large language model, Llama 3, and an image generator that updates pictures in real time while users type prompts, as it races to catch up to generative AI market leader OpenAI.

The models will be integrated into virtual assistant Meta AI, which the company is pitching as the most sophisticated of its free-to-use peers. The assistant will be given more prominent billing within Metaas Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger apps as well as a new standalone website that positions it to compete more directly with Microsoft-backed OpenAIas breakout hit ChatGPT.

This super cute show about an animal hospital will have you crying happy tears from the off. And just wait till you meet the seal pups!

The late great critic Roger Ebert once said that amovies are like a machine that generates empathya a the idea being that when we sit down and watch dramas, comedies, documentaries or even horror films, they take us out of ourselves and force us to share in the pain and triumph of others. In short, they can make us better people.

Watching Wildlife Rescue, no one would call it a cinematic masterpiece, but Ebert would definitely approve as it generates such empathy for each of the wonderful people at South Essex wildlife hospital and all the gorgeous animals in their care.

Casual running clubs that give members the chance to exercise and socialise are popping up all over the UK. And each one is developing a style of its own

At just before 9am on a bright April morning in Greenwich, south-east London, runners gather in the shadow of the Cutty Sark. There are just a few at first, then more and more until the group numbers around 40. Itas a little awkward (for a first-timer like me, at least) as we shiver and make small talk. But soon we coalesce to form a big circle and run through a warm-up before doing a gentle 5km around Blackheath a weall be installed in a local cafe by 10am.

A version of this scene can be found up and down the country every weekend. Running seems to be more popular than ever a almost 580,000 people applied for this weekendas London Marathon, an increase of 120,000 on the year before a but recently there has been a boom in casual, community-focused running clubs that organise regular turn-up-and-run events for people looking to supplement their training, meet new friends, or simply get out of the house.

There may be ways to protect yourself from her negativity without jettisoning the relationship, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. Start by creating boundaries

• Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email

I have a close friend of 15 years. When I met her, she was fun-loving and positive but in the last few years she has gradually got more negative. We live in different countries and speak regularly, and every time I talk to her all she does is complain about her life and paint herself as the victim. She is a fellow therapist and I have encouraged her to get support to work through the patterns she is in, but she never does. It gets to the point where I get fed up with the moaning and frustrated that she isnat taking responsibility for her life. When this happens, I usually point out that nothing will change until she does. She responds by lashing out at me angrily, becoming defensive and giving me the silent treatment.

This has recently happened again and I am tired of it. It has occurred at a time that I am going through some difficulties. I have told her that I do not deserve to be treated like this and asked for an apology. I am very hurt that she hasnat apologised and her latest message put it all back on me. I also recognise that I need to accept she doesnat want help, but I find it very difficult to have a person like this in my life now. Part of me wants to use this latest rupture as an exit strategy. Should I?

Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning

Therapist Lindsay Gibsonas 2015 book has sold over a million copies and its message has soared on social media. What does it mean?

In an ideal world, adults would be more mature than their kids. They would be better at handling stress, resolving conflicts with others, or talking about their feelings. In the opening chapter of the book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, therapist Lindsay Gibson presents an unsettling alternative.

aWhat if,a she wrote, asome sensitive children come into the world and within a few years are more emotionally mature than their parents, who have been around for decades?a

The mogul has taken these hacking allegations out of the public arena. Use this moment to craft reforms that can be trusted

True crime dramas, in which nobody wins but the lawyers, are not the kind of films that made Hugh Grant famous. His starring role in the long-running legal action against the Sun newspaper for phone hacking instead proves that real life is far more flawed and frustrating than film.

After more than a decade of leading a campaign against what he called the aworst excesses of the oligarch-owned pressa, Grant settled with Rupert Murdoch when offered such an aenormousa sum of money that to proceed would have seen him liable for even bigger costs.

The Scottish government is right to target smoking, drinking and drug misuse. But the root cause remains: deprivation

Every few years, headlines emerge about how Scots have the lowest life expectancy in western Europe. This was true in 2005, 2010, and most recently earlier this month, when Paul Johnston, the head of Public Health Scotland, highlighted that life expectancy stalled around 2014 to 2016, then declined in recent years. At the moment men and women in Scotland are expected to die just over two years earlier than those in England.

What exactly is happening in Scotland to explain this pattern, and are we (I say awea given that Iave lived in the nation for roughly a decade) really that different from other parts of the UK and Europe? The first issue to highlight is that life expectancy differs based on where you live. In Glasgow, life expectancy varies hugely between the richer and poorer parts of the city. In 2021, if you lived in Pollokshields West, life expectancy was 83 years, while in Greater Govan it was 65.4 a a gap of 18 years. Averages hide a deeper story linked to deprivation and inequality within Scotland. Where and how you live plays a crucial role in how long you live.

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

Instead of stockpiling weapons and stoking fears of coming conflict, we should be focusing on keeping the peace

In our increasingly destabilised present, it is difficult not to see echoes of the run-up to the first world war. Back then, a standoff between two great power blocs led to a fatalism that a disastrous war was simply inevitable. If history does indeed repeat itself, that would be catastrophic for two reasons. First, because the mass slaughter turned out to be the warm-up act for worse in the rest of the 20th century. In many ways, we are still living in the aftermath. Second, because such a repetition would in fact prove the best case scenario; a nuclear inferno that devours human civilisation is a more probable outcome.

In two newspaper articles last week, Sir Keir Starmer committed Labour to retaining nuclear weapons and to hiking defence spending to 2.5% of GDP. Prevailing political wisdom would suggest this offers necessary distance from his predecessor, though it should be noted that Labouras 2017 and 2019 manifestos both promised to retain Trident and keep defence spending to at least 2%, the target Nato members are committed to reach.

The sale of the music fund ends its tumultuous years as a listed company a and that may be for the best, for it and its investors

So ends a stock market experiment that is unlikely to be repeated in a hurry: Hipgnosis Songs Fund, the music royalties company with songs by the likes of BeyoncA(c), Blondie and Chic, is to be sold to a US fund for less than its starting price in 2018 of 100p.

The immediate point is that 93p a share, or APS1.1bn, is a lot better than shareholders were looking at in recent months. The price went as low as 60p during the companyas bust-up with its own investment adviser, a suspension of dividends (unforgivable for a fund designed to turn royalties into income) and a writedown in the value of assets after a tortuous debate about valuation methodologies.

A new report shows how transformational the initiative was. But Keir Starmeras early-years plans lack the same vision

Sure Start did change the lives of children, a new report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) told us last week. It not only improved educational outcomes for children, particularly kids from deprived areas, but also reduced later need for education, health and care plans for those with special educational needs and disabilities (Send), and paid for itself. The confirmation that these centres for early years support were indeed a good thing was greeted by some as entirely surprising news that no one could have possibly predicted. If only wead known!

Gordon Brown, the then-Labour chancellor who introduced Sure Start in 1998, helped retrieve my eyeballs from the bit of my skull Iad rolled them into, with his analysis: aThese results tell us in detail what most parents already know. That if you provide a supportive environment to children in their early years and invest in their futures, the results will be life-transforming.a

Terri White is a journalist and the author of Coming Undone: A Memoir