Keir Starmer has announced a review into how fatal police shootings are investigated after a Met officer was acquitted of the murder of an unarmed man.

Sergeant Martyn Blake shot 24-year-old Chris Kaba in the head during a "hard stop" in Streatham Hill in September 2022. An old Bailey jury delivered a not guilty verdict on Monday after Blake told the court that he had feared his colleagues could be killed by Kaba's car as the suspect tried to ram his way free.

How many UK police carry firearms?
In Northern Ireland, all police officers are authorised to carry firearms, but in the rest of the UK, firearms are issued only to specially trained personnel known as Authorised Firearms Officers. In England and Wales, about 4% of police are armed, amounting to 6,473 officers as of 31 March 2024.

Since 1990, police in England and Wales have shot and killed 83 people, according to state-related deaths charity Inquest.

When are officers allowed to open fire?
Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, officers have the right to use "reasonable force" when necessary. More generally, police officers share the right to self-defence or the protection of others upheld by common law and Article 2 of the European Convention of Human Rights.

The Police Conduct Regulations 2020 for England and Wales state that officers should only discharge firearms to "prevent a real and immediate threat to life". Shots should be directed at the torso when possible, and medical aid must be provided quickly.

How are police shootings handled in court?
Police shootings are investigated by the Independent Office for Police Conduct watchdog, but can also be subject to criminal prosecution. Under English law, police "theoretically have no greater protections than the ordinary subject when using force," said The Guardian. But the "received wisdom" is that juries are often "reluctant to convict cops 'standing up' for themselves".

No police officer in England and Wales has ever been convicted of murder after a shooting.

The widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has declared her intention to run for the Russian presidency – but only after Vladimir Putin has gone.

Marking the launch of "Patriot", a posthumous memoir by her husband, Yulia Navalnaya told the BBC that she would "do everything" to make Putin's regime "fall as soon as possible". For now, "that has to be from outside Russia", said the broadcaster. But Navalnaya believes the time will "inevitably" come "when the Putin era ends and Russia once again opens up".

Behind-the-scenes role
Born in Moscow in 1976, at the height of the Cold War, Yulia Abrosimova's father was a scientist and her mother worked for the Soviet Ministry of Light Industry. 

A graduate of international economics, she met Navalny in 1998 while holidaying in Turkey. They married two years later, and she subsequently quit a career in banking to raise their two children as her husband became an increasingly vocal and high-profile critic of the Putin regime.

In post-Soviet politics, Navalny's "magnetism, flair for social media and fluency in the street argot of younger Russians all singled him out", said The Times. In contrast, his wife "sought to avoid the limelight", said Politico. But behind the scenes, "those who knew the couple well said Navalnaya not only shared her husband's views, but also helped shape them".

Into the limelight
In 2020, Navalny was poisoned with the Novichok nerve agent but, after receiving treatment in Germany, decided to return to Russia. It was a move that he knew represented a near-certain death sentence. Imprisoned following a shame trial, Navalny died of suspected poisoning in a penal colony in February 2024, weeks before he was due to be released as part of a prisoner exchange with the West.

Since then, "no single leader has emerged to unite the country's disparate opposition", said Reuters, "and there has been significant infighting between different Russian dissident groups abroad". But following her vow to continue her husband's crusade against the Putin regime from abroad and one day return to run for president, Navalnaya is undoubtedly now the "public face of Russia's opposition", said The Times.

"Undercover: Exposing the Far Right" "isn't just a good documentary – it's a great one", said Leila Latif in The Guardian.

Havana Marking's 90-minute exposé follows "two heroic figures" from anti-racism advocacy group Hope Not Hate as they go undercover to infiltrate far-right meetings and groups with secret cameras.

The extremists are "incapable of shutting up". Britain First's London Mayoral candidate Nick Scanlon "uses just about every slur for Black people during a brief conversation with a relative stranger", while academic Emil Kirkegaard "spouts eugenics talking points with a side of fixation on penis size".

Much of what we see is "unsettling", said Benji Wilson in The Telegraph, and the "high stakes" drama of the undercover investigation gives the documentary the feel of a "spy thriller". The film goes "far beyond anti-immigration issues", shining a light on the disturbing rise of "well-funded and media-savvy influencers using discredited 'race science'" to "legitimise prejudice for a new, disenfranchised audience".

Among the most "striking" footage is the casual conversations recorded between German activist Erik Ahrens and ex-private school teacher Matthew Frost, which are peppered with "abhorrent ideas" such as the "correlation between race and IQ", said Dan Einav in the Financial Times.

A warning from Marking that "fear is its own form of censorship" rang true earlier this week when the film was dropped at the last minute from the London Film Festival out of fear for staff safety, said Carol Midgley in The Times. Still, the eleventh-hour cancellation meant the film gained more publicity than it might have otherwise. "Sometimes life works in mysterious ways."

King Charles is facing a new and more effective type of protest
Kate Maltby on the i news site
For six decades, Buckingham Palace has been trying to "persuade Australia to fall in love with Charles Windsor", writes Kate Maltby. But his latest visit proves the relationship remains a muddle of "affection and discomfort". The high-profile protests during the royal tour are "only one part of a new, global alignment in post-colonial politics", and the British royals need a "more proactive strategy" to avoid being a "scapegoat for Western colonialism".

President Vance? Brace yourself for it. Trump is already deteriorating
Jill Lawrence in the Los Angeles Times
People "used to obsess" over Joe Biden's "age and future" and the prospect of a President Kamala Harris, says Jill Lawrence, but "now it's J.D. Vance's turn under scrutiny". Donald Trump is "showing signs of deterioration" that are far more "disturbing" than Biden's, and Vance has also "given Americans plenty of reasons to worry". A "truncated" Trump presidency that would give us a President Vance is "unthinkable", so "defeat this pair on election day".

Kemi is right: children need their fathers
Tom Harris in The Telegraph
Kemi Badenoch has stepped into "mine-strewn territory" by addressing single parenthood, writes Tom Harris. "Talking about the importance of family" in these "offence-aware times" is a "political risk", but "she's right to do it". A child's "development" and "prospects" are better if they have a "happy, stable home life", including a "male role model". That said, "rhetoric" is not enough – unless politicians can solve the problem of absent fathers they "might be better advised to say nothing".