Amir Safi claimed he was 16 and was said to be ‘very quiet and withdrawn’ after he was believed to be an adult, inquest told

A young asylum seeker from Afghanistan who died after being run over on a motorway slip road was upset that a social worker did not believe he was a child, an inquest has heard.

Amir Safi, who claimed to be 16, was seen by a witness “ambling” up an M1 slip road in Nottinghamshire before he was found with multiple bone fractures and a brain injury on 28 April last year.

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Georgian billionaire’s daughter and her husband say Notting Hill home has ‘vermin infestation’

The daughter of a Georgian billionaire and her husband are suing for more than £36m after claiming the London mansion they bought was “infested with millions of moths”, the high court heard.

Iya Patarkatsishvili and Dr Yevhen Hunyak bought the early Victorian seven-bedroom Notting Hill home in west London – with pool, spa, gym, wine room, library, cinema, and a “snoring room” designed for peaceful sleep – for £32.5m in May 2019.

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Company seeking to shut or refranchise most of its crown post offices and cut up to 1,000 head office positions

The Post Office is expected to announce the closure of dozens of branches and cut up to 1,000 head office jobs on Wednesday as it seeks to reduce costs to secure its financial future.

There are about 11,500 Post Office branches across the UK, of which 115 are wholly centrally owned. The rest are operated by independent post office operators under contract and partners such as WH Smith and Tesco.

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Sir Keir Starmer’s pledge on emissions is an encouraging step at a frightening moment

Predictions that this will be the first calendar year in which the 1.5C warming limit enshrined in the Paris agreement is surpassed provide a stark backdrop to the UN’s 29th climate conference. This year – 2024 – has already seen the hottest-ever day and month, and is expected by experts to be the hottest year too. Addressing delegates on Tuesday, the UN chief, António Guterres, referred to a “masterclass in climate destruction” . The escalating pattern of destructive weather events, most recently in Valencia , is a warning of what lies ahead.

When the 1.5C figure was included in the 2015 deal, it was known to be a stretch. The treaty says countries must hold the average temperature “well below 2C above pre-industrial levels” and aim for 1.5C. Busting this target in 2024 will not mean it has been definitively missed; the measurement of global temperatures relies on averages recorded over 20 or more years. But the crossing of this threshold is a menacing moment. Around the world, people as well as governments and climate specialists should take notice – and act.

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Beijing’s model is hitting roadblocks. It needs to move toward more home-grown spending – even if one-party politics makes that hard

China faces what the economist Albert Hirschman noted decades ago: explosive growth is unbalanced, and success embeds that unevenness into political, business and cultural institutions, making change tough. China now stands at this crossroads .

The Asian giant’s economic growth, which previously relied on exports and a debt-driven construction boom, is facing headwinds : the disastrous crash from a real estate investment spree, big losses hitting the banks, and local governments facing a crippling debt crisis. With households highly indebted, China cannot just build more apartments to sell. Sustaining an export-led boom will become harder as anti-dumping measures and Donald Trump’s tariffs hit. All this when Chinese firms report plunging profits.

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Mark Chapman is the bookies’ favourite but Gabby Logan, Alex Scott or Gary Neville may step into Lineker’s boots

On Tuesday the BBC confirmed that Gary Lineker is to step down as the presenter of Match of the Day at the end of the season, sparking speculation about who is likely to step into his sizeable boots.

The top job at the BBC’s flagship football programme has not been available since Lineker took over from Des Lynam in 1999, when the show was the definite word in football on terrestrial television.

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President-elect expected to pick Marco Rubio for secretary of state and Mike Waltz for national security adviser

Donald Trump has chosen a pair of establishment Republicans from Florida for senior roles in his administration as he builds a national security team that looks more hawkish than the isolationist America First brand of foreign policy that he has championed in public.

Trump was expected to select the senator Marco Rubio as his secretary of state, the US’s top diplomat, and has asked the congressman Mike Waltz, a retired Green Beret known as a China hawk, to become his national security adviser, a powerful role that would help shape his policies on the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as around the world.

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Some will think a woman should lead the C of E and age limitation will rule out a number of bishops

• Keir Starmer refuses to back Justin Welby

Justin Welby’s resignation will trigger a search for the 106th archbishop of Canterbury, a role that combines moral and spiritual leadership, ceremonial duties, a seat in the House of Lords, oversight of Anglican churches in more than 160 countries, and the day-to-day management of a large but declining English institution.

Stephen Cottrell, the archbishop of York, is expected to step up to the number one position in the Church of England until a new archbishop of Canterbury can be appointed – a process that will take several months. Many in the church and beyond will be hoping that the successful candidate is a woman or person of colour – or both.

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Parliament votes to express ‘deepest regret’ over more than a century of ‘Norwegianisation’ of minorities

The Norwegian parliament has apologised unreservedly to minority groups and Indigenous people for more than a century of historical injustices committed against them as part of its “Norwegianisation” policy.

The forced assimilation policy – which included state-run boarding schools that banned minority languages and the forced relocation of whole villages – pursued by Norwegian authorities dated back to the 18th century and became official policy from 1851. Although parts were phased out in the 1960s, much of the policy continued into the 1980s.

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