What happened
Reform UK has proposed preventing more than one million foreign nationals living in Britain from receiving most state benefits if it wins power. The party says the policy will form part of a wider programme intended to reduce welfare spending by more than £50 billion. It extends an existing pledge targeting Universal Credit to include housing support, child benefit, pension credit and disability payments.

Who said what
Reform UK’s Treasury spokesperson Robert Jenrick (pictured above) said taxpayers should not be expected to finance benefits for people who had not contributed to the system. He described the current arrangement as “plain immoral”.

Labour said the proposal would penalise people who had legally settled in Britain, while the Conservatives accused Reform of using the announcement to distract from the political controversies surrounding Nigel Farage. Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesperson Steve Darling said the proposal was “senseless and cruel”.

It would also not be straightforward, said Aubrey Allegretti and Seren Hughes in The Times. The plan to strip benefits from EU citizens with settled status in particular “would require difficult negotiations”.

What next?
The proposal would “affect 4.5 million EU citizens in the UK” and require Reform to “renegotiate the Brexit deal with Brussels”, said Charles Hymas in The Telegraph. It would no doubt also “mean that British residents living in Europe, and entitled to claim benefits in their host country, would lose their reciprocal rights”.

What happened
The senior US military officer overseeing operations in the Middle East has highlighted mental wellbeing aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln following reports of worsening conditions during its exceptionally long deployment. The aircraft carrier has been at sea for more than 240 days and has been supporting US operations against Iran, including a blockade of Iranian ports. Families have raised concerns about sailors’ wellbeing, with stories emerging of attempts by crew members to jump overboard.

Who said what
Admiral Brad Cooper, the leader of the US Central Command, said after visiting the ship that the mental health of the crew was a “priority”. Cooper’s visit and statement “follow reports of widespread morale and mental health issues aboard the Lincoln”, said Garrett Downs on CNBC. Democratic senators have demanded answers about the deployment, while Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has rejected the accounts of poor conditions. Donald Trump said the sailors had not been deployed for “nearly long enough”.

What next?
The 5,000 personnel aboard the Lincoln are expected to be relieved by the USS George Washington, which could reach the region within days. The deployment, originally scheduled to finish in May, has been repeatedly extended. Reports of sanitation problems, faulty plumbing and limited fresh food are likely to face further scrutiny.

The disappearance of 43 students in 2014 has come to symbolise Mexico’s “brutal cartel violence and government impunity”, said The Guardian.

The case “rocked” the nation – and continues to “haunt” it. Now, the former governor of the state of Guerrero has been formally charged over his alleged involvement after a judge ruled that Mexico’s attorney general had sufficient evidence to proceed.

Ángel Aguirre, who resigned as governor a month after the students vanished, is accused of “forced disappearance” as well as “obstruction of justice” for ordering the destruction of surveillance footage that “may have shed light on what happened”. He has been ordered to remain in maximum-security detention pending trial. A lawyer for Aguirre denied any wrongdoing.

In September 2014, 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College “commandeered several buses” in the city of Iguala, Guerrero state, in order to get to a protest in Mexico City, said The Associated Press.

The local cartel is believed to have attacked the students “in collusion with security forces as well as local, state and federal authorities, including the military”. The students are presumed to have been killed, but only the bone fragments of three of them have ever been identified.

The case, considered one ​of Mexico’s “worst human-rights atrocities”, has been “marred by missteps and interference”, said Reuters. But Aguirre’s indictment is the “biggest breakthrough” since the 2022 arrest of Jesús Murillo Karam, who was Mexico’s attorney general in 2014, added The Guardian. Karam faces charges of forced disappearance, obstruction of justice and torture.

“We want no more deception,” said Meltión Ortega, spokesperson for the 43 students. The victims “deserve to have the actual perpetrators and the masterminds punished”.