Tit-for-tat attacks have breached taboo of direct strikes on each other’s territory but Tehran has no ‘immediate’ plans to retaliate

World leaders urged calm on Friday after Israel conducted a pre-dawn drone sortie over Iran following a cycle of tit-for-tat attacks that crossed an important red line that has for decades held the Middle East back from a major regional conflict.

There were tentative hopes late on Friday that the apparent strike attempt against an airbase near the city of Isfahan was sufficiently limited to fend off the threat of a bigger Iranian response and an uncontrolled spiral of violence between a nuclear power and a state with the capacity to develop nuclear weapons quickly.

Exclusive: Former head of policy at illegal migration taskforce details ‘inhumane conversations’

A senior civil servant has said Cabinet Office officials making policy on small boats referred to “bloody migrants” and were expected to “leave their humanity at the door”.

Rowaa Ahmar withdrew a tribunal claim alleging “unrelenting and systemic” racism in the department on Wednesday but said she stands by the substance of it.

Exclusive: Whistleblowers point to broader sewage scandal, with wastewater systems manipulated to divert sewage

Whistleblowers say UK water companies are knowingly failing to treat legally required amounts of sewage, and that some treatment works are manipulating wastewater systems to divert raw sewage away from the works and into rivers and seas.

It is well known that water companies are dumping large volumes of raw sewage into rivers and seas from storm overflows but an investigation by the Guardian and Watershed Investigations reveals that the industry’s “dirty secret” is bigger, broader and deeply systemic.

Local people say archipelago’s outdated industry made life unaffordable and prompts environmental emergencies

Thousands of people will join protests across the Canary islands on Saturday to call for an urgent rethink of the Spanish archipelago’s tourism industry and a freeze on tourist numbers, arguing that the current, decades-old model has made life unaffordable and environmentally unsustainable for local people.

The protests – which will take place under the banner “Canarias tiene un límite” (The Canaries have a limit) – are being backed by environmental groups including Greenpeace, WWF, Ecologists in Action, Friends of the Earth and SEO/Birdlife.

Labour also turns down European Commission’s proposal, which would have allowed young Britons to live, study and work in EU

Rishi Sunak has rejected an EU offer to strike a post-Brexit deal to allow young Britons to live, study or work in the bloc for up to four years.

The prime minister declined the European Commission’s surprise proposal of a youth mobility scheme for people aged between 18 and 30 on Friday, after Labour knocked back the suggestion on Thursday night, while noting that it would “seek to improve the UK’s working relationship with the EU within our red lines”.

Police officer had stopped Gideon Falter from walking near pro-Palestinian march while wearing kippah skull cap

The Metropolitan police has apologised after an officer used the term “openly Jewish” to an antisemitism campaigner who was threatened with arrest near a pro-Palestine march.

Gideon Falter, chief executive of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, was wearing a kippah skull cap when he was stopped from crossing the road near the demonstration in the Aldwych area of London last Saturday afternoon.

Force reviewing available information after claims that Menzies used political donations to pay off ‘bad people’

Allegations that the MP Mark Menzies misused campaign funds have been referred to Lancashire police. The force said it was reviewing the available information after receiving a letter “detailing concerns around this matter”.

The PA news agency understands that the Labour party chair, Anneliese Dodds, wrote to Lancashire police calling for an investigation into the allegations about Menzies.

Actor and wife Katherine Schwarzenegger dismantle 1950 Zimmerman house designed by architect Craig Ellwood

Chris Pratt has drawn ire from architecture aficionados after news broke that the actor and his wife, Katherine Schwarzenegger, had razed a historic, mid-century modern home to make way for a sprawling 15,000-sq-ft mansion.

Last year, the couple purchased the 1950 Zimmerman house, designed by the architect Craig Ellwood, in Los Angeles’s Brentwood neighborhood for $12.5m. The residence, with landscaping by Garrett Eckbo – who has been described as the pioneer of modern landscaping – had previously been featured in Progressive Architecture magazine.

Labour leader told PMQs a ‘billionaire peer’ was ‘smearing a working-class woman’ after coverage of Rayner’s tax affairs

The row between Keir Starmer and Michael Ashcroft deepened on Friday after the billionaire Conservative donor demanded an apology from the Labour leader for accusing him of “smearing” Angela Rayner over her tax affairs.

Lord Ashcroft hit back two days after Starmer said at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday: “We have a billionaire prime minister and a billionaire peer, both of whose families have used schemes to avoid millions of pounds of tax, smearing a working-class woman.”

Paolo Barone found guilty of voyeurism after taking photos of sleeping woman on train to St Albans in 2022

A Thameslink train driver who took photos up a woman’s skirt while she was asleep on a train has avoided jail, despite being found guilty of voyeurism.

The driver, Paolo Barone, was on his way home from a shift in September 2022 when he saw that the woman, 51, had fallen asleep on a train travelling from London Blackfriars to St Albans in Hertfordshire.