Former US president Bill Clinton will be among the mourners at Thursday’s funeral of Martin McGuinness, the IRA commander turned political dealmaker who played a central role in bringing Northern Ireland’s Troubles to an end. Arlene Foster, the leader of the Democratic Unionist party and first minister in the last power-sharing government in the region, also confirmed that she would attend the funeral service for McGuinness in his native Derry on Thursday afternoon.

In his final act before resigning as deputy first minister in January, McGuinness criticised Foster over her handling of a botched green energy scheme and particularly her refusal to stand aside temporarily while a public inquiry was held into the massive losses incurred by it.(guardian)…[+]

Israeli police say they have arrested a 19-year-old Israeli Jewish man as the prime suspect in a string of bomb threats targeting Jewish community centres in the US.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the suspect’s motives were unclear.

Rosenfeld said the suspect was “the guy who was behind the JCC threats”, referring to Jewish community centres in the US that have received dozens of anonymous threats in recent weeks. Rosenfeld said the man, from the south of Israel, used advanced technologies to mask the origin of his calls and communications to synagogues, community buildings and public venues. He said the suspect also made threats in New Zealand and Australia. He said the investigation was assisted by the FBI and police from other countries.(guardian)…[+]

Donald Trump Jr is facing a backlash for criticizing London mayor Sadiq Khan with a scornful tweet sent hours after an attack at the Houses of Parliament left four dead, including a police officer.The US president’s eldest son tweeted a link to a September 2016 story in the Independent, which quoted Khan saying terror attacks were “part and parcel of living in a big city”, and “I want to be reassured that every single agency and individual involved in protecting our city has the resources and expertise they need to respond in the event that London is attacked.”You have to be kidding me?!” Trump Jr tweeted, quoting the headline: “Terror attacks are part of living in big city, says London Mayor Sadiq Khan”.(the guardian)…[+]

An airstrike by the US-led coalition against Islamic State on a school west of the Syrian city of Raqqa has killed at least 33 people, many of whom had fled nearby fighting, sparking further concerns that new rules of engagements may be causing an increase in civilian casualties.

The attack follows a separate US strike on a mosque complex in the north-west of the country last Saturday that killed at least 52 people. The incident triggered fears that a White House-ordered review of rules governing the use of drones had already given military planners more flexibility on ordering strikes.

Activists in Syria said the attack on the school took place in the same area where US-backed Kurdish forces had begun an operation on Wednesday to separate the town of Tabqa from Isis’s last urban stronghold in Syria.(the guardian)…[+]

Ukraine, host nation for the 2017 Eurovision song contest, has banned the Russian entrant from entering the country, citing an unauthorised visit to Crimea.

The country’s SBU security service said on Wednesday it had banned Yulia Samoilova from Ukraine for three years for her violations of Ukrainian legislation.

The singer took part in a 2015 concert in Crimea to promote sport, the year after the peninsula was annexed by Russia. The 27-year-old, who has been a wheelchair user since childhood, had previously sung at the opening of the 2014 Winter Paralympics in Sochi.

This is the second year running in which Eurovision has been plagued with Crimea-linked controversy, after a song by a Crimean entrant won last year’s event for Ukraine and it gave it hosting rights for the 2017 contest.(the guardian)…[+]

The extent of Arctic ice has fallen to a new wintertime low, as climate change drives freakishly high temperatures in the polar regions.

The ice cap grows during the winter months and usually reaches its maximum in early March. But the 2017 maximum was 14.4m sq km, lower than any year in the 38-year satellite record, according to researchers at the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) and Nasa. “I have been looking at Arctic weather patterns for 35 years and have never seen anything close to what we’ve experienced these past two winters,” said NSIDC’s director, Mark Serreze. 2017 is the third year in a row the Arctic’s winter ice has set a new low.

The new record comes a day after the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation warned that the record-breaking heat that made 2016 the hottest year ever recorded has continued into 2017, pushing the world into “truly uncharted territory”.

The dramatic melting of Arctic ice is already driving extreme weather that affects hundreds of millions of people across North America, Europe and Asia, according to emerging research.(The guardian)…[+]

Thousands of doctors have gone on strike in Mumbai to protest against violence in hospitals, after three medics were attacked on wards in the last week. At least 2,000 junior doctors at 17 government hospitals have taken unpaid leave for the second day in a row, claiming emotional distress and fear of assault.

The protests started after an attack on Rohith Kumar, a junior doctor who was beaten by relatives of a patient on Sunday evening. According to witnesses about 15 people attacked Kumar after the death of a woman he was treating, who was suffering from chronic kidney failure. News of the assault on Kumar, the third of its kind in a week, spread through WhatsApp and Facebook over the weekend, and shocked India’s medical community.(the guardian)…[+]

The Financial Conduct Authority and fraud police will examine allegations that Britain’s high street banks processed nearly $740m from a vast money laundering operation run by Russian criminals, a Treasury minister has told MPs.Simon Kirby, the economic secretary to the Treasury, said the government would pursue anyone seeking to abuse the financial system but also claimed the UK was doing more than any other country to tackle money laundering.“The Financial Conduct Authority and National Crime Agency take any such allegations seriously and will investigate closely whether recent information from the Guardian newspaper regarding money laundering from Russia … would allow the progression of an investigation. Beyond that we need to make sure sophisticated criminal networks cannot exploit our financial services industry,” Kirby said.(the guardian)…[+]

The restored tomb in which Jesus’s body is believed to have been interred after his crucifixion will be officially unveiled at a ceremony at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City on Wednesday.

A team of Greek scientists and restorers has completed the nine-month renovation project, which focused on a small structure above the burial chamber, known as the Edicule. It is the most sacred monument in Christianity. “If the intervention hadn’t happened now, there is a very great risk that there could have been a collapse,” Bonnie Burnham of the World Monuments Fund, which had oversight of the project, told Associated Press. “This is a complete transformation of the monument.”The delicate restoration was carried out by a team of about 50 experts from the National Technical University of Athens, which had previously worked on the Acropolis in the Greek capital and the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. The conservators worked mainly at night in order to allow pilgrims continued access to the shrine.(The guardian)…[+]

A man has admitted hiding his Islamic State activities in a James Bond-style cufflink.

Samata Ullah, 34, admitted being a member of Isis last September, being involved in terrorist training and preparation of terrorist acts. At the time of his arrest, he had a USB cufflink with a Linux operating system loaded on to it to conceal extremist data, including a blog.

At an Old Bailey hearing in London, Ullah, from Cardiff, pleaded guilty to five terror offences including possession of an article for terrorist purposes on or before 22 September 2016. From December 2015, he had provided instructional videos on how to secure sensitive data and remain anonymous online with the use of the Tor programme, and PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) encryption. Ullah admitted researching ZeroNet and developing a version of a blog site using the decentralised peer-to-peer network.(the guardian)…[+]