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Climate activists in Scotland have carried out a series of actions against SUV cars, saying they are acting in solidarity with the victims of the Valencia floods.

The Tyre Extinguishers have called on their supporters to take actions against SUV cars in their areas, after members of the group in Edinburgh stencilled the sides of targeted vehicles on Sunday night with the words: “These cars kill Valencians.”

At least 214 people have been reported killed in Valencia and surrounding areas after unprecedented rainfall last week caused flooding that swept away bridges, cars and streetlights. Global heating made the heavy rainfall about 12% heavier and twice as likely, according to an initial estimate carried out by scientists from World Weather Attribution.

The flooding has been described as the worst natural disaster in recent Spanish history.

Posting pictures of the Edinburgh actions on their account on X, the Tyre Extinguishers said: “SUVs targeted in solidarity with Valencia climate victims.

“Outraged Edinburgh residents took action last night highlighting SUV’s [sic] disproportionate role in causing catastrophic weather, like that which has killed over 200 in Spain.

Videos on social media showed demonstrators protesting outside the Hindu Sabha Mandir temple in the city of Brampton, where Indian diplomats were visiting ahead of Diwali celebrations. Some protesters held yellow Khalistan flags, representing a region of India they hope to one day carve out as a Sikh homeland.

As tensions rose, isolated fights broke out. Canada’s Peel regional police said on Monday that three people had been “arrested and criminally charged” following the attack and they were investigating “several acts of unlawfulness”.

The group Sikhs for Justice alleged in a statement the protest “turned violent” when a group of “Indo-Canadian nationalists, incited by Indian consulate officials” attacked the Sikh demonstrators. The group says some attenders retreated into the temple and began throwing rocks and wielding iron rods.

A Jewish academic who grew up in Israel was arrested by London's Metropolitan police following a speech he gave at a pro-Palestine demonstration in the British capital, during which he said that Israel "cannot win against Hamas".

Haim Bresheeth, a child of Holocaust survivors and the founder of the Jewish Network for Palestine, was arrested during a demonstration outside the residence of Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely in north London.

In a video recording of Bresheeth’s arrest, a police officer informs him that he is being arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 for “making a hate speech”.

“Israel has not achieved any of its declared aims, either in Gaza in Lebanon in, in Iran or anywhere else,” Bresheeth said in his speech. “What has it achieved? Murder, mayhem, genocide, racism, destruction, this is what they’re good at,” Bresheeth said. “But they cannot fight the resistance, they have lost every single time. “They cannot win against Hamas, they cannot win against Hezbollah, they cannot win against the Houthis. They cannot win against the united resistance to the genocide they have started.”

Policymakers in Washington have grown worried enough about chipmaker Intel to begin quietly discussing scenarios should it need further assistance, beyond the billions in government funds the company is already slated to receive, people familiar with the matter said.

A strong quarterly earnings outlook yesterday bought the company breathing room with investors, but abstract concerns in Washington have turned into potential backup options, should Intel’s finances continue to deteriorate.

Top officials at the Commerce Department, which oversees implementation of the CHIPS Act funding to reinvigorate American chip production, and members of Congress including Sen. Mark Warner, one of the law’s leading champions, have discussed whether the company needs more help, the people said.

The talks, which the people described as purely precautionary, show that Intel is seen as too strategically important to be allowed to fall into serious trouble. The US is seeking a national champion in the semiconductor space to ensure its own supply chain and as a counterweight to China, where manufacturing for global chips has moved.

Seven French families have filed a lawsuit against TikTok, accusing the platform of exposing their adolescent children to harmful content that led to two of them taking their own lives at 15, their lawyer said.

The lawsuit alleges TikTok’s algorithm exposed the seven teenagers to videos promoting suicide, self-harm and eating disorders, lawyer Laure Boutron-Marmion told broadcaster Franceinfo on Monday.

The families are taking joint legal action in the Créteil judicial court in Paris. Boutron-Marmion said it was the first such grouped case in Europe.

“The parents want TikTok’s legal liability to be recognised in court,” she said, adding: “This is a commercial company offering a product to consumers who are, in addition, minors. They must, therefore, answer for the product’s shortcomings.”

A report by Brown University’s Watson Institute reveals that since the beginning of the war, the US has spent more than $22 billion on military aid to Israel - from weapons and equipment to the deployment of aircraft carriers. Israel receives more U.S. military aid than any other country and is uniquely able to use that funding to spend on domestic goods.

The total amount of American aid since the start of the war is about NIS 85 billion ($22 billion) based on an average exchange rate by the Bank of Israel over the past year. Most has been delivered but about $5.2 billion will only arrive next year. According to official estimates from the Bank of Israel, the total cost of the war is estimated to be about NIS 250 billion ($65 billion), including around NIS 118 billion ($31 billion) for military costs including army operational costs, replenishment of military equipment, ammunition, and logistical support. Therefore, by a simple calculation, the U.S. has been funding about 70% of the war effort.

Oulu is five hours north from Helsinki by train and a good deal colder and darker each winter than the Finnish capital. From November to March its 220,000 residents are lucky to see daylight for a couple of hours a day and temperatures can reach the minus 30s. However, this is not the reason I sense a darkening of the Finnish dream that brought me here six years ago.

In 2018, moving to Finland seemed like a no-brainer. One year earlier I had met my Finnish partner while working away in Oulu. My adopted home of Italy, where I had lived for 10 years, had recently elected a coalition government with the far-right Matteo Salvini as interior minister, while my native UK had voted for Brexit. Given Finland’s status as a beacon of progressive values, I boarded a plane, leaving my lecturing job and friends behind.

The current government, formed by Orpo’s National Coalition party (NCP) last year in coalition with the far-right Finns party, the Swedish People’s party of Finland and the Christian Democrats, has been described as “the most rightwing” Finland has ever seen – a position it appears to relish.

Deputy prime minister and finance minister Riikka Purra – the Finns’ party leader – has been linked to racist and sometimes violent comments made online back in 2008. The party’s xenophobia is clearly influencing policymaking and affecting migrants. As a foreigner, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to feeling a certain chill as anti-immigrant rhetoric ramps up.

Israel has officially notified the United Nations of its decision to cut ties with its agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) as another UN agency warns of an impending famine in genocide-ravaged Gaza.

In a statement on Monday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it cancelled a cooperation agreement from 1967 which provided the legal basis of the country’s relations with UNRWA.

UNRWA on Monday said Israel’s ban on its operations would lead to the “collapse” of humanitarian work in the war-torn Gaza Strip.

Aid groups have warned that Israel’s ban on UNRWA could create further obstacles to addressing a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Israel has said other UN agencies and aid groups can fill the gap, but those organisations insist UNRWA is essential.

The asylum system would “descend into chaos” if Labour refused to open more hotels for people seeking refuge in the UK, a Home Office minister has told the Guardian.

Angela Eagle, the minister for borders, security and asylum, said officials had been forced to find more private accommodation for new arrivals and blamed the backlog of tens of thousands of cases built up under the last government.

The government’s decision to open asylum hotels despite Keir Starmer’s pledge that he would close them have been condemned by the Tories and Reform.

In Labour’s election manifesto, Starmer said he would “end asylum hotels, saving the taxpayer billions of pounds”.

In her first public comments on the development, Eagle said ministers had no choice but to make the temporary move after discovering nearly 120,000 unprocessed asylum claims after Labour took power.

Callum Parslow was convicted on 25 October of attempted murder after stabbing an asylum seeker at a hotel in April. It can now be revealed he was jailed in 2018 for targeting 10 women and girls with messages describing sexually motivated murder, torture and rape, and then changed his name after his release.

At the time, the 32-year-old was on bail and awaiting trial for his most recent offences against women, which followed a similar pattern to the abuse he was jailed for in 2018.

Parslow was targeting Mercy Muroki, a policy researcher and former GB News presenter, from multiple accounts under fake names on Facebook, Instagram and X.

Among the messages sent in July and August 2023 were videos of himself performing sexual acts and footage of a black woman being flogged. “The message he sent was about him fantasising that this would ­happen to me,” said Muroki, who has chosen to waive her anonymity.

Speaking to the Observer, Muroki said: “I said to the police: ‘This is clearly a very deranged person who is fixated on the far-right stuff and on me – do I need to be worried that he might escalate it to something in person?’

“They were kind of like: ‘Oh no, don’t worry.’ They said he seems like a bit of a loner, a bit of a saddo. That’s how they characterised him – just a sad person on a computer – whereas actually I feel that the content he had posted demonstrated it was way past some keyboard warrior stuff.”