Huge vehicles are popular with drivers, but their wider impacts on road safety and the environment must be tackled

No one who walks, cycles or drives around London, or many of the world’s big cities, could fail to notice the vastly increased size of the typical car. A type of vehicle once associated with rural settings and outdoor lifestyles is now ubiquitous. Heavily marketed as sports utility vehicles (SUVs), supersize cars are among the key consumer trends of recent decades. In 2022, they accounted for 46% of global new car sales .

For manufacturers, these vehicles are big earners due to higher profit margins . For those inside them, they offer more space and a higher vantage point. But for those on the outside, SUVs have obvious downsides. The threat that they pose to pedestrians is one. Research shows that children are 77% more likely to die if struck by an SUV compared with other cars, due to their size and structure – particularly their raised bonnets. This finding was highlighted in an announcement from the London mayor, Sir Sadiq Khan, that such risks are being scrutinised as part of a wider review into SUVs’ environmental impact. This evidence will provide the basis for policy proposals that are expected to include higher charges for owners.

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Abbas Araghchi demands clarification on reports Saudi crown prince had urged Donald Trump to ‘hit the Iranians hard’

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Some Gulf states hosting US forces may be covertly encouraging the slaughter of Iranians, Iran’s foreign ministerclaimed on Monday in a thinly veiled attack on Saudi Arabia.

Abbas Araghchi demanded clarification on reports that Mohammed bin Salman was in regular private conversations with Donald Trump urging the US president “to continue hitting the Iranians hard”.

Lawyer for women who accused bank of facilitating their sexual abuse calls settlement ‘one more step’ to justice

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Bank of America has settled a civil lawsuit brought by women who accused the bank of facilitating their sexual abuse by Jeffrey Epstein , court records showed on Monday.

Lawyers for the bank and the women told Manhattan-based US district judge Jed Rakoff in a 12 March telephone call that they had reached a “settlement in principle”, a court filing said. The terms of the settlement were not immediately clear.

When Collette Boler was ordered to stop feeding a colony of feral cats in Thurnscoe, other animal lovers stepped in

“Two ladies from York have just been in,” said Collette Boler at the till of her small cafe in Thurnscoe, near Barnsley. Her voice began to choke up.

“They came in with a box of chocolates and a card, a box of cat food, a bag of cat biscuits and just said ‘carry on doing what you’re doing, you’re absolutely fabulous’. And a man’s just given me a tenner for cat food. It’s been incredible.”

Spaniard had backing of the players and Johan Cruyff’s widow, celebrating with a cigar in his favourite nightclub

Joan Laporta accompanied his players from the football pitch to the polling station, singing and winning all the way. From his seat high in tribuna, Barcelona’s outgoing president – who was about to become their incoming president – watched them beat Sevilla 5-2 and then headed back down to his place in the 995-capacity marquee outside the new Camp Nou. There, surrounded by cameras and positioned by table 11, he watched them help him defeat Victor Font even more comprehensively: 68.18% to 29.78%. It was a little before 7.30pm on election Sunday, still early, still not quite time to crack open the champagne or light up the cigar, but it was done. It had been from the start.

“We’re 100% focused on the game,” Hansi Flick had said before playing Sevilla this weekend, a line which seemed to set him and his players apart a little from everyone else in Catalonia, but once their primary duty had been fulfilled, his team victorious and four points clear again, they could complete another. Standing there with his passport in hand and Laporta helping ensure he was passed the correct slip, the coach slotted a little white envelope into the box. And then, his vote cast in Barcelona’s 2026 presidential elections, another new experience embraced here, Laporta took his arm, raised it like a prizefighter, the identification complete, and began a chant: “Hansi Flick! Hansi Flick!”

The PM’s decision not to sign up the UK to the Middle East conflict reflects the public mood better than Badenoch and Farage’s former gung-ho support

It was a message that could just as easily have been given via a ministerial statement in the Commons. But Keir Starmer needs every break he can get at the moment and he wasn’t going to pass up the chance to look like a world leader at a press conference in Downing Street. The advantages were obvious. No need to have to listen to Kemi Badenoch drone on for five minutes with her revisionist fantasies in reply. Avoid the danger of loads of backbench MPs observing that President Trump is a deranged halfwit who doesn’t know what he’s doing.

But best of all a press conference was ideal because the American war with Iran is one of the few occasions when the prime minister’s judgement has been right all along. Just over two weeks in and it’s increasingly looking like the The Donald is only in the war for its entertainment value. Just last weekend, he was saying he might continue bombing Kharg Island for fun. For the lols and social media hits. There has never been a plan or a goal in mind. Not so long ago he was saying the Brits were late to the party and he didn’t need them anyway. Now he is begging for help in keeping open the strait of Hormuz .

Carlson in video claims the CIA is preparing a ‘crime report’ against him and alleges US agencies have read his texts

Tucker Carlson , the conservative US political commentator, has publicly expressed fear that he may be facing criminal charges for “acting as an agent of a foreign power” by communicating with people in Iran.

The former CNN and Fox News host, who has established an alternative media career as online talking head and interviewer, claimed in a video posted on X that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was preparing “a crime report” for the Trump administration’s justice department.

Hard choices lie ahead for Downing Street if higher fuel prices spark resentment and trigger a renewed cost of living crisis

Seventy years ago this winter, the streets of Britain fell eerily quiet. After one last panic buying spree, many garages shut, and traffic even in the heart of London dwindled away. The formal introduction of petrol rationing had begun, limiting drivers to 200 miles’ worth a month – with exceptions for farmers, doctors and vicars – after the Suez crisis blocked fuel supplies from the Gulf.

Ancient history now, of course – or it would be if it weren’t for what looks increasingly like the US’s own version of Suez: a great power starting a war it seemingly doesn’t know how to finish, against an enemy it woefully underestimated. If the strait of Hormuz – the vital shipping lane now rendered unsafe for shipping by Iranian drones and mines – cannot soon be reopened, then Britain could be only weeks away from needing to ration fuel, the former BP executive (and government adviser) Nick Butler warned on Monday morning.

White House seems to have failed to anticipate that Tehran would fight back by trying to impose costs on the west

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If there was a moment when the absence of a US strategy on Iran was exposed, then this was it. Donald Trump demanded on Saturday that the UK, China, France, Japan and others participate in a naval escort for oil tankers through the strait of Hormuz.

Despite launching the attack on Iran, with Israel, the White House does not seem to have fully anticipated what was likely to follow. Iran had few good military options for fighting back, but attacking US bases, US allies and merchant shipping in the Gulf was the most obvious response – to try to impose costs on the west.