Muslim pilgrims have gathered in the valley of Mount Arafat in Saudi Arabia for a day of prayer that marks the pinnacle of the annual hajj. Some 2 million pilgrims packed shoulder to shoulder early Monday for an emotional day of repentance and supplication. It was on this day some 1,400 years ago that Islam’s Prophet Muhammad is said to ...

Prisons minister takes share of blame for poor state of G4S-run jail being taken over by MoJ The government bears a share of the blame for the state of HMP Birmingham, the prisons minister Rory Stewart has said, after the Ministry of Justice was forced to undertake an emergency takeover of the G4S-run jail. A report by the chief inspector ...

Mark Rowley urges politicians and media not to underestimate threat of domestic extreme rightwing groups The UK has not “woken up” to the threat posed by the far right, the former head of the Metropolitan police’s counter-terrorism unit has said. Mark Rowley urged politicians, the media and communities not to underestimate the threat of far-right groups, citing how National Action, ...

Activists challenge lack of prayer spaces and exclusion from management roles Muslim women in Scotland are campaigning to be given more equal facilities for praying and to be involved in running mosques. Scottish Mosques For All was set up to highlight the importance of including women in decision-making. More than a quarter of mosques in the UK have no facilities ...

Mayor instructs resilience forum to assess impact of food and medicine shortages Sadiq Khan is to instruct the body tasked with planning for terrorism attacks and disasters such as the Grenfell Tower fire to start making preparations for a no-deal Brexit, to assess whether London could face potential shortages of medicines and food. The London mayor said the government was ...

Committee seeks explanation of how practice complies with international law Parliament’s human rights committee has asked the government to explain how the police and security services’ use of child spies is reconciled with international law. In the first step of a potential investigation into child spies, the joint committee on human rights has asked the Home Office to explain how ...

Results in England drop after exam changes, but Wales and Northern Ireland do better A-level results day 2018: drop in students scoring C or above after changes – as it happened The proportion of students in England gaining C grades or above in A-levelsfell back this year, driven by a relatively weaker performance among girls, as schools and students continue ...

Officials dismiss hopes that May could break deadlock by negotiating with states directly European officials have poured cold water on hopes that Theresa May could negotiate Brexit with other EU leaders in September to break the deadlock over Britain’s departure. Diplomatic sources have rejected suggestions that May could hold direct talks on Brexit with the 27 other EU heads of ...

Party says leader had been attending memorial to Palestinian airstrike victims Labour has hit out at what it said were “false and misleading” claims about Jeremy Corbyn’s visit to the Palestinian cemetery in Tunis and insisted he had attended an annual memorial for victims of an Israeli air attack on the Palestine Liberation Organisation headquarters in October 1985. The party ...

Group says leave campaign broke electoral law, making 2016 vote unconstitutional British expatriates have launched a fresh legal challenge against the 2016 referendum, arguing that the result has been invalidated by the Electoral Commission’s ruling on leave campaign spending. The judicial review against the prime minister, Theresa May, has been submitted to the high court in London by the UK ...