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”.

US president’s statement follows comments by German chancellor that the US was being ‘humiliated’ in conflict

As we are waiting for Merz’s speech later, I am looking at some recent stories in the German press about Trump’s (repeated) threats to pull out of Germany.

And Süddeutsche Zeitung has this brilliant report from Ramstein, with a local entrepreneur giving them this amazing quote that “without Americans, we would be milking cows again.”

Tory leader attacks Reform UK counterpart over undeclared gift in run-up to local elections

On BBC Radio Merseyside the presenter, Tony Snell, put it to Kemi Badenoch that Merseyside was a lost cause for the Tories. He said that Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, had been on the programme yesterday. He said that Farage argued that Scousers were down to earth and the Tories they were seen as “aloof and remote”.

Badenoch said no one had ever described her as aloof and remote. When it was put to her that Farage was talking about the party, she said the Tories were the party of working people. Labour were only interested in welfare, she claimed.

Nigel Farage can say as much as he wants that he’s the one who’s down to earth. Someone just gave him a £5m gift to the other day. I don’t know what’s down to earth about that.

Who gets £5m is a gift. If I got £50,000 as a gift, I think people would raise their eyebrows. That’s a hundred times that. And he forgot to register it. He forgot that he’d been given £5m. I don’t think that’s down to earth. So I’m not going to be taking any lessons from Nigel Farage.

Nearly 60 countries back voluntary roadmaps to wean world off coal, oil and gas, at conference prompted by frustration with UN climate summits

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Governments have been asked to develop national “roadmaps” setting out how they will end the production and use of fossil fuels, after a landmark climate meeting involving nearly 60 countries.

The voluntary plans will form the bedrock of a new initiative to wean the world off coal, oil and gas, the focus of two days of intensive talks in Colombia this week.

ECB interest rate decision looms as growth across bloc stumbles and price rises gather pace, up from 2.6% in March and 1.9% in February

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• Air France-KLM cuts forecasts amid $2.4bn fuel bill rise

Inflation across the eurozone has soared to 3% this month as the Iran war drove up energy prices and growth stumbled.

Consumer prices rose by 3% a year across the single currency bloc in April, data from the statistics body Eurostat showed on Thursday morning, up from 2.6% in the year to March, and 1.9% in February.

The 155-page interim report released on Thursday shows how little is known – and can be shared – about the 14 December shooting

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If there’s one thing that’s clear from the royal commission on antisemitism and social cohesion’s 155-page interim report, it’s how much about the Bondi massacre remains unknown – and how little of what is known can be shared with the public.

More than a third of the recommendations from the report – which was released on Thursday – were confidential, although the Albanese government plans to implement all of them.

Markets spooked as US president appears willing to keep up naval blockade and Iran keeps Hormuz strait all but shut

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The global oil price has soared above $126 a barrel, its highest level since 2022, after Donald Trump warned the US blockade of Iranian ports could last for months and peace talks remained stalled.

After surging more than 13% in 24 hours, the price of Brent crude futures reached its highest price since the war began on 28 February. Not since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has Brent topped $120, with the price then peaking at $139.

Move comes as airline industry reacts to uncertainty over Iran war and increase in price of Brent crude

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Air France-KLM has cut its capacity growth forecasts for this year as the Iran war drives up its fuel costs by billions of dollars.

The French-Dutch airline expects its fuel bill to increase by $2.4bn (£1.8bn) this year as a result of the surge in costs since the Middle East conflict began. In response, it has trimmed its expectations for capacity growth to between 2% and 4% this year, down from 3% to 5% previously.

Amber Davidson-Orozco said the family had lost Dodger, their cat, during their move out of California

A family cat who got lost amid a move from California across the US is said to be settling back into his old ways with his humans at their new home in Georgia after experiencing an unlikely – but long hoped for – reunion more than seven years in the making.

As owner Amber Davidson-Orozco put in an interview Wednesday, her cat Dodger still responds to his name and allows her sons to flip him playfully over their shoulders despite an absence from them that to the cat lasted the equivalent of roughly 24 years.