Arrest of potential next leader found hiding in drainage pipe highlights renewed tactics – and fears of cartel infighting

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The golden coffin of “El Mencho”, the late leader of the Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG), had barely been lowered into the ground when the Mexican military dealt a second blow to the very top of the organisation this week.

As special forces descended on a ranch in the state of Nayarit, grainy drone footage showed El Mencho’s possible successor, Audias Flores, alias “El Jardinero”, being hauled from a drainage pipe he had tried to hide in, all without a shot being fired.

With voter loyalty a distant memory, the Lib Dems’ cost of living policies and criticism of Trump could gain them ground

It has been an election buildup dominated by the rise of Reform UK and the Greens, and the contrasting woes of Labour and the Tories. But there is a chance that on 8 May the Liberal Democrats, largely ignored in recent weeks, could wake up as the biggest party in English local government.

This is just one of several paradoxes for the party’s leader, Ed Davey, and his team. They are fifth in many national polls, with a rating barely changed from 2024. But Lib Dem bosses are sanguine, convinced that UK politics is now so different, so atomised, to make headline polling almost irrelevant.

The PM says incident ‘is an attack on all of us’ after government announces £25m to increase security for Jewish communities

Here are some of the latest images from the newswires in Golders Green this morning:

A 45-year-old man, who is a British national, born in Somalia, was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.

The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, said he came to the UK lawfully as a child.

The Metropolitan police said he was initially taken to hospital after being arrested but has since been discharged. He was taken to a London police station where he remains in custody.

The Met commissioner, Mark Rowley, said the suspect has a history of mental health issues, drug use and convictions for violence.

Defense secretary to be quizzed by lawmakers on Senate armed services committee after bad-tempered session in House yesterday

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A message from Iran’s supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei will shortly be released on the occasion of “national Persian Gulf day“, the country’s state media said on Thursday.

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth has previously said that Iran’s new leader, who has not been seen in public since the war began, is “disfigured”.