A 27-year-old man arrested on suspicion of attempting to carrying out a terror attack in Westminster has been named as Khalid Mohamed Omar Ali.

He is understood to be a British national from Tottenham, north London, who was born overseas.

The attack was foiled on Thursday afternoon after armed police swooped on the man, who was allegedly armed with two knives, near the Houses of Parliament.

Officers were lying in wait for the suspect, whose movements were being tracked by a joint police and MI5 operation as he travelled into central London. They arrested him close to Westminster underground station.

The scene where the man was arrested is metres away from where Khalid Masood launched his attacks on Westminster Bridge and the parliamentary estate five weeks ago, leaving five people dead, including himself. Masood used a vehicle to mow down pedestrians before stabbing a police officer to death with a knife.(guardian)…[+]

The El Niño climate event that helped supercharge global warming to record levels in 2015 and 2016 is set for an early return, according to a forecast from the World Meteorological Organization.

El Niño events are prompted by natural fluctuation in ocean temperatures in the Pacific but have a global impact, leading to flooding, droughts and heatwaves. They also exacerbate the increased extreme weather events occurring due to the continued heating of the world as a result of human-caused climate change.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Friday that a new El Niño was 50-60% likely before the end of 2017. “Memories are still fresh of the powerful 2015-2016 El Niño which was associated with droughts, flooding and coral bleaching in different parts of the world and which, combined with long-term climate change, led to the increase of global temperatures to new record highs in both 2015 and 2016,” said Maxx Dilley, director of WMO’s climate prediction and adaptation division.(guardian)…[+]

European leaders may be preparing to recognise a united Ireland, in a declaration that would pave the way for the north to swiftly rejoin the European Union. At their first Brexit summit on Saturday, the EU’s 27 leaders are expected to discuss a text stating that if Ireland unified, the north would automatically become part of the EU.

The inclusion of the text is a victory for the Irish government, which had pressed for the inclusion of a “GDR clause”, a reference to the integration of the former east German state into the European Community after the fall of the Berlin wall. The declaration is bound to raise fears that Brexit could trigger the unravelling of the UK, although there is no majority in Northern Ireland for unification.(guardian)…[+]