The Greens have conceded the loss of the Victorian state seat of Prahran to the Liberals, while the result in the once-Labor stronghold of Werribee remains too close to call. The Greens leader, Ellen Sandell, said on Sunday the result in the inner-Melbourne seat was close but that it was clear the minor party will…

Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, is now neck and neck with Labour largely because its stance on immigration is proving attractive to floating voters, according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer. The rise of the populist rightwing party is causing increasing concern in the Labour high command and among the many Labour…

The Trump administration is cutting billions of dollars in medical research funding for universities, hospitals and other scientific institutions by reducing the amount they get in associated costs to support such research. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) said that it was reducing the amount of “indirect” medical research funding going to institutions, which will…

Israel prison authorities confirm 183 Palestinian prisoners freed on Saturday Israel’s Prison Service confirmed it had released 183 Palestinian prisoners and detainees on Saturday during the fifth exchange of the Gaza ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel. It said in a statement that “183 terrorists were transferred from several prisons across the country”, before they…

A Labour minister has been sacked and suspended from the party after messages were exposed in which he said he hoped a pensioner who did not support him would die before the next set of elections. Andrew Gwynne, who was a health minister, was also accused of writing a series of other messages containing racist…

Gavin Newsom, the California governor, signed laws on Friday setting aside $50m to help the state protect its policies from challenges by the Trump administration and defend immigrants amid the president’s mass-deportation plans. One of the laws allocates $25m for the state’s department of justice to fight legal battles against the federal government, and another…

A summit of regional leaders has called for an immediate unconditional ceasefire within five days in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, and the president of the DRC, Felix Tshisekedi, joined a summit in Tanzania on Saturday, where African leaders said they were deeply concerned by the crisis. In the…

A former Hollyoaks actor has said he is “grieving the tragic loss” of his mother after she was found dead alongside her husband in France. The bodies of Andrew Searle, a retired fraud investigator, and his wife, Dawn, a project manager, were discovered at about 12.30pm on Thursday at their home in the village of…

The three Baltic states have disconnected their electricity systems from Russia’s power grid as part of a plan designed to integrate the countries more closely with the EU and boost security. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania disconnected from the IPS/UPS joint network on Saturday. Subject to last-minute tests, they will synchronise with the EU’s grid at…

Passengers will face “significant” disruption on busy rail routes this weekend as train managers stage another strike in a dispute over rest day working. Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) at Avanti West Coast are due to strike on Sunday. In addition to strike delays, vital engineering work will stop trains in…