Dubai-based carriers Emirates and FlyDubai divert around western Iran early on Friday after Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reports explosions in central city of Isfahan

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Air defence systems in the Iranian city of Isfahan were activated against “an object suspected to be a drone”, sources told the semi-official Fars news agency on Friday, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, US media is reporting that Israel has launched a strike against Iran in retaliation for its weekend attack.

Prime minister to express concern about ‘over-medicalising’ normal worries with diagnoses as mental health conditions

Rishi Sunak will today claim Britain is suffering from a “sicknote culture”, as he warns there is a risk of “over-medicalising” normal worries by diagnosing them as mental health conditions.

In a speech on how to reduce people being signed off sick from work, the prime minister will say the government is planning to trial getting “work and health professionals” to issue fit notes, shifting away from GPs carrying out this role.

Husband of Nicola Sturgeon was rearrested ‘in connection with the embezzlement of funds’ from party, say police

Peter Murrell, the husband of the former first minister Nicola Sturgeon, has been charged in connection with embezzlement after being arrested for a second time by police investigating allegations regarding the funding and finances of the Scottish National party.

Murrell, the former chief executive of the SNP, was first arrested and interviewed as a suspect by Police Scotland detectives in April 2023 at the home he shared with Sturgeon in Glasgow, but was released later that day pending further investigation.

Press Awards recognise newspaper’s cross-platform Cotton Capital series amid wins for several Guardian reporters

The Guardian has won a diversity award at the prestigious Press Awards after its exposé on its founders’ links to transatlantic slavery, as one of its reporters took home the award for news reporter of the year.

Judges at the Press Awards called the Guardian’s cross-platform Cotton Capital series, encompassing news articles, long-form essays, podcasts, video, a magazine, a 15-part newsletter and social media content, a “breathtakingly honest mea culpa”.

First phase in world’s largest democratic exercise begins, with 969 million people eligible to vote over six-week period

Voting has begun in India’s mammoth general election, as Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party hopes to increase its parliamentary majority amid allegations that the country’s democracy has been undermined since it came to power 10 years ago.

India’s elections are the largest democratic exercise in the world, with more than 969 million voters, amounting to more than 10% of the world’s population. The voting began at 8am on Friday, when polling opened at 102 constituencies across the country, and will continue over the next six weeks, in seven phases, until 1 June. All the results will be counted and declared on 4 June.

Exclusive: Under Whitehall blueprint for water company some lenders could lose up to 40% of their money

Thames Water could be renationalised, with the bulk of its £15.6bn debt added to the public purse, under radical plans being considered by the government, the Guardian can reveal.

The blueprint, codenamed Project Timber, is being drawn up in Whitehall and would turn Britain’s biggest water company into a publicly owned arm’s-length body. Some lenders to its core operating company could lose up to 40% of their money under the plans.

Campaigners express concern at new Ofcom figures, which also show that half of under-13s are on social media

A quarter of three- and four-year-olds in the UK now own a smartphone, while half of children under 13 are on social media, according to new data that comes as ministers consider banning all children under 16 from owning a mobile phone.

The figures, from the communications regulator Ofcom, show high and rising rates of online activity by children of infant-school age, with 38% of five- to seven-year-olds using social media, compared with 30% a year ago, and 76% of them using a tablet.

Rising inflation and falling pupil numbers also forcing schools to cut spending on extracurricular activities

Primary schools across England are having to shed staff and cancel trips and activities this year as rising inflation and falling pupil numbers cause a rapid deterioration in their finances.

A survey of more than 1,000 school leaders and teachers by the National Foundation for Educational Research found that three-quarters said their primary schools were cutting teaching assistant roles, while a third were also cutting teacher numbers.

Which? says inconsistencies also found, with ‘meaningless’ labels making it hard for shoppers to make informed choice

“Misleading” and “inconsistent” labels make it hard for shoppers to know where their food comes from, the consumer champion Which? has said, as it found supermarket chains were selling products with “meaningless” statements on their packaging.

Retailers must supply the “country of origin” for specific foods including fresh fruit and vegetables, unprocessed meats, fish, wine and olive oil but the rules do not generally apply to processed meat or frozen or processed fruit and vegetables.

Paperwork filed shows the royal has informed British authorities that he has moved and is now ‘usually resident’ in the United States

Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has formally confirmed he is now a US resident.

The acknowledgment is said to underscore the prince’s increasing estrangement from Britain, after he and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, walked away from royal duties four years ago.