Relief International medics among dead as paramilitaries step up violence against region’s displaced people

Paramilitaries in Sudan have murdered more than 200 civilians in a wave of attacks in refugee camps and around the city of El Fasher , the last big city still in the hands of the Sudanese army in the Darfur region.

The deaths include at least 56 civilians killed by the Rapid Support Forces over two days of attacks in Um Kadadah, a town they seized on the road to El Fasher.

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Palestinian Red Crescent says Assad al-Nsasrah was ‘forcibly abducted’ while carrying out humanitarian work

A Palestinian paramedic who has been missing since a massacre of medics and rescue workers by Israeli troops in Gaza last month is being detained in Israel, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The whereabouts of Assad al-Nsasrah, a Palestinian paramedic, had been unknown for weeks since an incident on 23 March when workers from the Palestinian Red Crescent (PRCS) and Palestinian civil defence came under fire as they drove ambulances to rescue injured colleagues in the southern city of Rafah.

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• Rolling updates from the final round at Augusta
• Get in touch! Email Scott with your thoughts

There really is no need for the hard sell. Not when this is on offer. Not when it could finally happen. You know. It.

Group 27, 2.30pm, Rory McIlroy 204, Bryson DeChambeau 206

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Rises in shoplifting and other crimes require a response. But the police will have to work hard to regain public trust

It is difficult to square last week’s announcement of the first tranche of 13,000 extra neighbourhood police, across England and Wales, with the threat of job cuts that also looms over the 43 forces. As in other public services, there is a risk that launching new projects at a time of overstretched budgets will shift resources rather than increase capacity. That said, an approach to policing that stresses local connectedness has had good results in the past. Labour is right to follow through on its manifesto pledge on neighbourhood teams, but delivery alone is not a substitute for strategy.

Recent rises in shoplifting and robbery offences have alarmed sections of the public as well as businesses. The Greater Manchester scheme, which the prime minister cites as a model, has had good results , with burglaries down by a third between 2021 and 2024 and a renewed partnership with retailers.

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• Dutchman earns third straight win despite bottle attack
• Denmark’s Pedersen also suffers puncture

Mathieu van der Poel overcame a bottle thrown at his face, a puncture and a fierce challenge by the world champion, Tadej Pogacar, to claim his third straight victory in the Queen of the Classics.

The debutant Pogacar, who was looking to become the first Tour de France winner to also prevail in the “Hell of the North” since Bernard Hinault in 1981, overcooked a turn and lost his balance on a cobbled section, leaving his rival clear one week after taming the Dutchman on the Tour of Flanders .

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Faced with regional chaos and shrinking options, Kinshasa seeks terms of trade that echo the old extractive order in modern disguise

“The vilest scramble for loot that has ever disfigured the history of human conscience” is how Joseph Conrad described colonial-era concessions granted to private companies for Congo’s natural resources in Heart of Darkness . Under Donald Trump, that scramble may be back. If news reports are right, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is offering the US a blunt deal: minerals for military help – a slice of sovereignty traded for a shot at stability.

The concern is this isn’t a return, it’s a sequel. For three decades, Washington supported Joseph-Désiré Mobutu , a cold war ally and brutal dictator who looted the Congo until his 1997 fall. That history of power politics still casts a long shadow. The Trump administration openly favours muscle over diplomacy. Fadhel Kaboub, an associate professor of economics at Denison University, notes that Biden-era talk of partnering for clean energy has been shelved, with the US driven less by green goals than by copper and cobalt for missiles and microchips.

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Reserves would give company six months to find alternative sellers if Scunthorpe blast furnaces are switched off

Network Rail has built up a stockpile of rails to last as long as a year in case of disruption in the supply from British Steel’s Scunthorpe works.

The company, which manages Britain’s railway tracks, has been stockpiling rails over the past 12 months as British Steel started to contemplate the closure of its two blast furnaces. The rails are stored at various depots around the country.

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Police say body is yet to be formally identified but girl’s family have been informed

A body has been found in the River Thames in the search for 11-year-old Kaliyah Coa, who entered the river in North Woolwich on 31 March, police have said.

According to the Metropolitan police, officers were alerted to a body in Maritime Quay in east London at about 9am on Sunday.

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