Tech-savvy organised crime groups profiting from billion-dollar enterprise that is spreading beyond Russian borders

At any one moment in towns and cities across Russia, thousands of drug packages lie buried in the ground, attached by magnets to lamp-posts or taped underneath window sills, waiting to be picked up by their intended customers.

From the streets of Moscow to remote towns in Siberia, hand-to-hand buying of illegal drugs – as is the norm in most of the world – is on the wane. Instead, retail-size bags of drugs are secreted using spycraft by an army of young kladmen (stash men) who upload dead-drop locations, which are unlocked when customers make an online purchase.

Analysis by Climate Action Tracker puts median temperature rise by 2100 at 2.7C if current policies continue

World leaders have promised to try to stop the planet heating by more than 1.5C (2.7F). But current policies put the temperature rise on track for 2.7C, a report has found.

The expected level of global heating by the end of the century has not changed since 2021, with “minimal progress” made this year, according to the Climate Action Tracker project. The consortium’s estimate has not shifted since the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow three years ago.

Human Rights Watch says it has evidence that suggests ‘the war crime of forcible transfer’ of civilians

Israel is using evacuation orders to pursue the “deliberate and massive forced displacement” of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, according to a report by Human Rights Watch, which says the policy amounts to crimes against humanity.

The US-based group added it had collected evidence that suggested “the war crime of forcible transfer [of the civilian population]”, describing it as “a grave breach of the Geneva conventions and a crime under the Rome statute of the international criminal court”.

Old grammar school in Kings Norton and railway station in County Durham among new entries in annual register

In April 1913, two women broke into the 15th-century Old grammar school in Kings Norton near Birmingham with the intention of burning it to the ground in a protest for the cause of women’s suffrage.

After decades of campaigning for votes for women without success, the tactics of the suffrage movement had become more militant, including a campaign of arson attacks.

GOP majority in House and Senate could give the president-elect ability to extend tax cuts and roll back Biden-era laws

With the confirmation that Republicans have won a majority in the House of Representatives, Donald Trump and his party will now have a governing trifecta in Washington come January, giving the new president a powerful perch to enact his rightwing agenda.

Even without majorities in both chambers of Congress, Trump’s victory in the presidential race already gave him significant control over US foreign policy and the makeup of the federal government , both of which he is seeking to overhaul.

Party has won 218 seats in lower chamber after Democrats unsuccessfully campaigned on need to curtail ‘dysfunction’

Republicans have secured a majority in the US House of Representatives , extending their hold on the lower chamber and delivering a governing trifecta in Washington that could give Donald Trump sweeping power to enact his legislative agenda.

The Associated Press determined on Wednesday evening that Republicans had won at least 218 seats in the 435-member House after a victory in Arizona, a call that came more than a week after polls closed across the US and as Trump made cabinet announcements that sent shockwaves through Washington .

Officials said the man had killed himself with a bomb after trying to enter the Supreme Court, prompting security concerns ahead of the global leaders meeting

A man killed himself with a bomb outside Brazil’s supreme court after trying to enter the building on Wednesday, officials have said, stirring security concerns before the country hosts global leaders from the Group of 20 major economies.

The blasts come five days before the G20 heads of state meet in Rio de Janeiro, followed by a state visit to the capital Brasília by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie . In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org , or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

After the publication of a damning report into a decades-long child abuse scandal, Justin Welby has bowed to pressure to resign as archbishop of Canterbury. Harriet Sherwood reports

A former oil executive turned archbishop, it was hoped Justin Welby’s management experience would hold the Church of England together as it navigated the modern world. As the archbishop of Canterbury, he steered a careful path through divisions in the global Anglican church over ordaining women and same-sex marriage. But it was another persistent issue in the church – the mishandling and cover-up of historical sexual abuse scandals – that proved to be his downfall. He was due to retire in January 2026, but a damning report published last week made his position untenable.

John Smyth, a leader of Christian camps attended by people including Welby, used his position to gain power over hundreds of boys. He sadistically beat and tortured at least 130 boys and young men in the UK, Zimbabwe and South Africa over almost 40 years. Some of his victims took their own lives.

Congressman decried as ‘person of moral turpitude’ amid questions over whether Senate will confirm nomination

Donald Trump’s decision to nominate the far-right Republican congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general has sent shockwaves through Washington, including the president-elect’s own party.

Trump on Wednesday announced Gaetz as his pick to be the nation’s chief law enforcement officer in the justice department, a role that directs the government’s legal positions on critical issues, including abortion, civil rights, and first amendment cases.