Exclusive: Project Timber could see some lenders lose up to 40% of their money under the plans

Thames Water could be renationalised with the bulk of its £15.6bn debt added to the public purse under radical plans being considered by the government, the Guardian can reveal.

The blueprint, which is codenamed Project Timber, is being drawn up in Whitehall and would see Britain’s biggest water company turned into a publicly owned arm’s-length body. Some lenders to its core operating company could lose up to 35-40% of their money under the plans.

Former party chief executive and husband of Nicola Sturgeon taken into custody for further questioning

Peter Murrell, the husband of the former Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon, has been rearrested and questioned for a second time by police investigating allegations of financial wrongdoing by 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.

Labour leader says police ‘should be involved’ after Tory MP was alleged to have misused campaign funds to pay off ‘bad people’

• UK politics – latest updates

Keir Starmer has called for a police investigation into allegations that campaign funds were misused by the MP Mark Menzies, who has lost the Conservative whip.

The Labour leader said there were “unanswered questions” in relation to the allegations against the MP for Fylde in Lancashire, who has also been suspended as a government trade envoy.

European Commission to seek approval from leaders to start talks with UK on visa-free exchanges for 18- to 30-year-olds

The European Commission has proposed opening negotiations with the UK to allow mobility enjoyed before Brexit to millions of 18- to 30-year-olds in a major concession.

It said it would now seek approval from individual EU leaders to start the talks, which could partly eliminate one of the most controversial elements of Brexit, a block on the right to live in each other’s countries visa-free.

Chair Helen Pitcher says she is ‘deeply sorry’ for failing man jailed for 17 years for rape he did not commit

• Rape, DNA and injustice: a timeline of the Malkinson case

The chair of the Criminal Cases Review Commission has offered an “unreserved apology” to Andrew Malkinson for its handling of his case after he spent 17 years in prison for a rape he did not commit.

The apology from Helen Pitcher came after the completion of an independent review of the case by Chris Henley KC.

Climate campaigners complain of short-termism as country abandons target to cut carbon emissions by 75% by 2030

Climate campaigners have accused Scottish ministers of being “inept” and “short-termist” after they scrapped Scotland’s target to cut carbon emissions by 75% by 2030.

Màiri McAllan, the Scottish net zero secretary, confirmed her government had abandoned that target and would also drop legally binding annual targets on reducing carbon emissions, after damning criticism from a UK advisory committee.

Exclusive: police believe attack on dissident journalist was latest example of Tehran hiring criminal proxies to assault its critics in west

Three suspects wanted for the stabbing of an Iranian dissident journalist on a suburban London street were from eastern Europe and were hired and flown into Britain to carry out the attack, investigators believe.

Pouria Zeraati survived being stabbed in the leg in Wimbledon, south-west London, last month. His television channel, Iran International, had received threats before, which he and supporters blame on the Iranian regime.

Survivors and relatives of those who died in Stardust club on Valentine’s Day in 1981 wept and thanked jury

Forty-eight young people were unlawfully killed after an electrical fault started an inferno at the Stardust nightclub in Dublin in 1981, an inquest jury has found.

The jury delivered the verdict in a coroner’s court on Thursday more than four decades after a disaster considered one of the darkest moments in Ireland’s history.

Chief scientist voices fears about H5N1 variant that has ‘extraordinarily high’ mortality rate in humans

The World Health Organization has raised concerns about the spread of H5N1 bird flu, which has an “extraordinarily high” mortality rate in humans.

An outbreak that began in 2020 has led to the deaths or killing of tens of millions of poultry. Most recently, the spread of the virus within several mammal species, including in domestic cattle in the US, has increased the risk of spillover to humans, the WHO said.

Exeter crown court hears how boy, then 16, attacked two fellow pupils and a staff member with a hammer

A 16-year-old boy attempted to murder two fellow pupils at a private school as they slept in their boarding-house beds by hitting them repeatedly with a claw hammer, a jury has heard.

The boy, who cannot be named, had “fermented” a plan to kill the pair, who were 16 and 15 at the time, the jury at Exeter crown court was told.