What happened
The Conservatives have launched an investigation into party member and former election candidate Jack Ross after undercover footage appeared to show him discussing prices for violent attacks with an Al Jazeera reporter.

Who said what
Ross was filmed apparently asking the reporter “What do you want done?” before listing the type of violent options that could be bought.

Ross appeared to tell the journalist: “They can just kick the f**k out of someone. That’s a certain amount. They can start cutting people’s faces up, that’s another amount. And they can stab someone. They can shoot someone. They can kill someone.”

A Conservative Party spokesperson said Ross’s membership had been suspended while the investigation takes place. Al Jazeera reported that Ross had denied its findings, saying his comments to the undercover journalist were not serious.

Ross is the chief executive of Turning Point UK (TPUK), a “spin-off from the campaign group founded by murdered US Republican commentator Charlie Kirk”, said Ben Quinn in The Guardian. “While TPUK was launched as a student movement, it has become increasingly involved in anti-migrant street protests.”

What next?
Police will assess whether the footage provides evidence of criminality. Ross has previously advised Conservative politicians and was photographed with senior party figures, including Boris Johnson and Kemi Badenoch.

What happened
High-risk beauty treatments such as butt lifts and vampire facials will only be available from medical professionals under long-awaited government changes. Following a death and a series of injuries involving dangerous cosmetic procedures, anyone who breaches the new rules could face unlimited fines or fixed penalties of up to £4,000.

Who said what
The government wants to “drive cosmetic cowboys out of the market” and protect people from treatments “that can go badly wrong”, said Health Minister Karin Smyth. Victoria Brownlie, chief policy and sustainability officer at the British Beauty Council, said “the line between a beauty treatment and a medical procedure has blurred”, and that the plan was a “vital step towards the required regulation”.

But Keith Allison, from the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said the proposals “do not go far enough”. He urged ministers to “ensure that they do not create a new loophole in patient protection by regulating non-surgical cosmetic procedures more robustly than cosmetic surgery itself”.

What next?
The government is launching a consultation to gather views on the draft regulations from clinicians, regulators, businesses, the public and other experts before the plans go before Parliament next spring.

“As Europe struggles to fill its seminaries”, one Indonesian island in the majority-Muslim country has “become one of the world’s leading exporters of missionaries,” according to The Economist.

Flores, located in the south east of the Indonesian archipelago, is one of a handful of islands in the world’s most populous Muslim nation that has a Christian majority, with 80% of its two million inhabitants identifying as Roman Catholic.

Catholicism came to Flores in the 16th century when Portuguese spice traders brought missionaries to the “rugged, mountainous island”, said the National Catholic Register. The faith is “deeply rooted” in its culture and many young men choose to devote their lives to the church.

Flores “trains priests who go on to serve” in the US, Africa, Europe and South America, said France 24. Indonesian priests have “earned a good reputation and are considered fair and tolerant, particularly on LGBT topics”. The Catholic Church considers Flores “indispensable to its future and survival in the region”.

Over the past half century the number of trainee priests has “declined sharply” in Europe and North America as “the prestige of the role diminished in the face of child-abuse scandals and increasing secularism”, added The Economist. In 2024 there were an estimated 4,150 trainee priests enrolled in seminaries on Flores. “Ireland, by contrast, had just 104.” The Catholic Church hopes that Flores will play a major part in addressing this shortfall.