New behavioural guidance for asylum seekers has been published by the Home Office.
A nine-page booklet covering issues including respect in public, sex and consent, and gender equality, has gone online, with guidance on how laws and customs in the UK may be different from the home country of asylum seekers.
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The Conservatives' shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: "Instead of trying to train these mainly young, male illegal immigrants behave in a civilised way towards women, they should be deported."
And Reform UK's home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf labelled the document "a disgrace", adding its publication showed the government "know that they are a menace".
According to the latest Home Office figures, a total of 93,525 people applied for asylum in the UK from April 2025 to March 2026, which was down by 12% on the same period in the previous year.
The booklet sets out how asylum seekers must understand UK law, because the consequences of breaking the law mean "you could get in trouble with the police, lose your asylum support, or it could affect your asylum claim."
A section on gender, external explains that women in the UK have equal rights to men, and do not need the permission from a husband, father, brother or any other man to do things like work, study, travel, or make decisions.
Another section on sex and consent sets out how both people must agree to sex or sexual contact of any kind, and consent cannot be given if someone is asleep, drunk, or unable to respond.
And a section headed Respect in Public outlines how it is not acceptable to whistle or make kissing noises at people on the street, nor "make sexual comments to someone, even if you think it is a compliment".
The guidance also contains contact details for organisations for victims and those seeking help with the issues raised.
Philp called for deportations of asylum seekers, rather than attempting to change existing behaviour.
"Immigrants are coming from places and societies where attitudes towards women can be completely incompatible with Western society," he said.
"Too many communities are failing to properly integrate and become part of our culture, leaving frankly backwards standards to prevail."
In a two minute video posted on social media, Yusuf responded, saying: "I genuinely cannot believe what I have just read.
"The government has just published a handy guide for illegal migrants on how not to be a rapist, not to be a paedophile, how not to beat women and how to leave babies alone.
"That again may be really hard to believe but that is exactly what they have just done."
A Labour spokesperson declined to comment. The Home Office, Liberal Democrats and the Green Party were contacted for comment. %!s()
The bus was travelling to hospitals near Curitiba when the accident occurred.
At least 23 people have been killed and five others injured after a bus carrying patients and healthcare workers to hospitals collided head-on with a truck in southern Brazil, authorities said.
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The crash occurred in the early hours of Wednesday on the BR-373 highway in the state of Parana, near the city of Ipiranga, according to the Federal Highway Police.
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After the accident, Parana Governor Ratinho Junior declared three days of official mourning across the state.
“It’s a very sad day for Parana,” said Junior.
Most of those killed were travelling on the bus, which belonged to the municipal health department of Imbituva. The truck driver was also killed.
The bus was carrying patients and their companions to hospitals in and around Parana’s capital, Curitiba, about 180 kilometres (110 miles) away, police said.
Preliminary evidence suggests the truck crossed into the opposite lane before colliding with the bus, according to authorities. Investigators are working to determine what caused the truck to veer across the highway.
Footage from TV Globo shows the truck parked on grass on the side of the road and the crushed minibus, with shattered glass and belongings of the passengers strewn on the ground.
The five people who survived the crash were taken to hospitals in the nearby city of Ponta Grossa, according to local media reports.
The highway was closed in both directions following the crash. Road operator Via Araucaria said in a post on X that there was “no estimated time” for the road to be reopened.
Local authorities have also been helping relatives of those travelling on the bus, offering psychological support to families, according to the municipality. The identities of those killed have not been released at the time of publication. %!s()
The ex-FBI chief faces accusations of transmitting threats and exploiting controversy to market his upcoming novel.
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has defended its prosecution of former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey after a social media post of seashells arranged in “86 47” was shared on Instagram last year.
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Federal prosecutors allege the post was a coded threat against US President Donald Trump.
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“There is no serious dispute that an objective viewer of Comey’s [social media] post could read it to mean ‘Kill President Trump’,” prosecutors wrote in court motions filed in federal court on Tuesday.
Prosecutors also cast doubt on Comey’s account that he is the victim of “vindictive” and “selective” prosecution and that he just happened to find the seashells in the numerical arrangement of “86 47” while walking on a beach in North Carolina.
The entry for “86” from Merriam-Webster, the dictionary used by The Associated Press, notes that its meaning is “to throw out”, “to get rid of” or “to refuse service to”. Comey’s lawyers have said that the slogan has long meant to “eject” or “to get rid of” and that it has been featured on thousands of items sold online while being periodically displayed at protests.
Trump is the 47th United States president, and prosecutors allege that the number 47 in Comey’s post referred to him.
Prosecutors further suggested that the former FBI director’s May 2025 post on Instagram was an obvious ploy to sell copies of a forthcoming novel titled FDR Drive, in which a prosecutor pursues a far-right social media personality who calls out his rivals by name and inspires his fans to commit violence against them.
Comey is charged with threatening the president and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce.
Shortly after the post provoked an outcry last May, according to the government’s filings, Comey’s publishing agent allegedly observed in a text message to him that he had “gone viral”. Comey allegedly responded that that was not his intention, but “I’ll be OK if it sells books”. The agent replied, “Music to an agent’s ears.”
Prosecutors also said that two minutes before the post was made, Comey’s wife allegedly texted him a screenshot of a definition of “86” that said “to get rid of or refuse service”.
Comey had deleted the post shortly after he began receiving backlash, saying he did not know that anyone would interpret the numbers as a call to violence.
Tuesday’s court filings object to Comey’s motion to suppress evidence obtained through FBI search warrants and to open up details of grand jury proceedings in his case.
Comey’s lawyers contend that investigators in the case misled judges, submitted documents containing false statements, withheld key facts and repeatedly came up empty in their efforts to prove that Comey intended a physical threat or knew that the number 86 could suggest violence.
Comey’s lawyers have called the indictment, which was filed months after an earlier and unrelated case against him was dismissed, part of a Trump retribution campaign targeting one of the president’s vocal critics.
Trump has long called for prosecuting his political opponents and had, in particular, set his sights on Comey early on in his second term in the White House. The former FBI chief headed the early days of an investigation into whether Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign faced collaboration with Russia.
As director from 2013 to 2017, Comey oversaw investigations that angered both Democrats and Republicans during the 2016 election cycle. Trump later fired him in 2017, after serving only three and a half years of his 10-year term. Since then, Comey has remained a top target for Trump supporters seeking retaliation related to the Moscow investigation.
The move triggered a major political fallout and scrutiny over whether the termination was linked to the FBI’s investigation into whether foreign actors had indeed interfered with the 2016 election.
After Comey’s abrupt dismissal, Special Counsel Robert Mueller took over the Russia investigation. The probe lasted nearly two years and found that Russia did make major efforts to swing the 2016 election. Ultimately, it did not prove there was any criminal conspiracy involving Trump or his team, but the case hung over Trump for years, and he condemned it as a “witch-hunt”. %!s()
Human remains have once again been discovered at Lake Mead outside Las Vegas, Nevada, marking the latest in a line of gruesome discoveries as water levels in the crucial reservoir continue to drop, authorities said.
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These remains were discovered on 16 August, USA Today reported. The National Park Service (NPS) told the outlet there did not appear to be anything suspicious about the body.
Las Vegas police reportedly said “a non-criminal, dead body report was taken for the remains”. The local coroner said authorities were trying to identify the deceased person, as well as determine the manner and cause of death, USA Today said.
As water levels have declined in recent years, authorities have found multiple bodies. In 2022, authorities recovered a body in a barrel, USA Today noted.
Authorities reportedly said the man seemed to have been shot, potentially during the late 1970s or early 1980s. Some experts believe Lake Mead’s location near Las Vegas – an organized crime hotspot – means it’s probable still more remains will be discovered.
This week’s grim finding underscores Lake Mead’s perilously low water levels amid a historic drought and broader water crisis in the US west. Weeks ago, Lake Mead’s water level dipped to 1,040.4ft above sea level, nearing the 28 July 2022 record low.
Lake Mead is integral for water storage on the Colorado River, which provides water to about 40 million people across seven states, as well as tribal nations and Mexico. The river basin is reeling from a mix of extended drought, extreme heat, waning snowmelt and over-consumption.
The second major reservoir on the river, Lake Powell, is also seeing historic low levels as the global climate continues to warm.
“In the 21st century, the ultimate cause of the problem is declining runoff,” Jack Schmidt, director of Utah State University’s Center for Colorado River Studies, previously said of the water crisis. “There’s less water in the system. It’s caused by a warming climate, period.” %!s()
Andy Burnham has said government money alone may not be enough to get rough sleepers off the streets by Christmas, as experts called for more of a plan to deal with the problems that cause homelessness.
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Speaking on a visit to the north-east of England, the prime minister said he felt “very passionately” about tackling rough sleeping and wanted the wider society to play a part in wiping it out.
He acknowledged that not every rough sleeper may take the offer “for their own reasons”. But he said a nationwide effort to stop as much rough sleeping as possible by Christmas was the aim – replicating what happened in the Covid pandemic.
Burnham told reporters: “The government money may not fully get us there, and I’m saying to wider society, faith organisations, let’s see if we can do this together.
“Let’s see if Britain can do this. Give everybody an offer to come inside before Christmas. You know, that is just something we can do.
“We did it in the pandemic. We can do it again, and it’s a rallying call, really, that I’m putting out there today, with a lot of government money behind it.”
Burnham wrote in the Guardian on Tuesday that rough sleeping has become so common it now “feels like part of the scenery”, as he pledged another £100m to tackle the problem this winter.
The announcement puts tackling homelessness as a central policy for Burnham’s government, and gives voters a measure by which to judge his success.
A row of tents outside the Midland hotel in Manchester last year. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
As mayor of Greater Manchester, Burnham introduced schemes such as A Bed Every Night to offer emergency accommodation, but while the number of rough sleepers fell, it then began to increase again.
He said this was because “we were the only place providing that level of support, and understandably, people then travelled to Greater Manchester to access that support”.
He added: “So my point is, we can do this, but only if all areas are pulling in the same direction, and that’s what this funding is designed to achieve – to make this a nationwide initiative as we go into the Christmas period, getting everybody behind it.”
He said people being left to sleep on the streets “can often cost more to the state because people can be in and out of A&E, and in and out of hospital beds, and sometimes in contact with the police”.
As part of the national effort, Burnham said he would host a summit this autumn to “bring together leaders from across society – from business, finance, charities, health, faith communities and more – to ask what role each of them can play in ending rough sleeping”.
Will Andy Burnham get rough sleepers off streets by Christmas? – The Latest
Council leaders and experts have applauded Burnham’s aims but also called for more work on how to deal with issues underlying rough sleeping, from mental health problems to addiction.
Liam Robinson, leader of Liverpool city council and chair of the Local Government Association’s inclusive growth committee, said there may need to be “future conversations” about more funding to tackle homelessness, including the thousands of people living in temporary accommodation.
“It does need to be resourced more,” he said. “We know councils are spending £950m more than they were five years ago on this issue, so we’re really just talking about the tip of the iceberg with rough sleeping. There may be a requirement for more funding.”
He added that extra money may need to be for “more than just housing-related funding”.
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“It probably requires more NHS investment for better mental health and addiction support,” he said. “It’s more than just paying the bills of hotels and landlords.”
Ayesha “Ish” Camp, regional head in east London for the homelessness charity St Mungo’s, added: “Yes it’s good to give everyone a bed for the night but what else are we doing to support them to stay in it?
“Entrenched rough sleepers have usually been round and round all of the systems that are available multiple times before, and it hasn’t worked. So we need to look at why it hasn’t worked and what we can do differently this time around.”
She added that the UK needed to learn from the “temporary accommodation nightmare” to ensure the new funding was not funnelled straight into the pockets of private companies.
“If we publicly say all this money is to give people somewhere to stay for the night and we know there’s no social housing to put anyone in, what will hotel owners do? Put their rates up and charge us £250 a night. That money then gets eaten up very, very quickly,” she said.
Andy Burnham with officials from the homelessness charity Changing Lives in Newcastle on Wednesday. Photograph: Scott Heppell/Getty Images
Burnham also said on Wednesday that he would be donating 15% of the additional salary he gets as prime minister to homelessness causes.
Speaking to the Big Issue, he said he wanted to continue what he had been doing as mayor of Greater Manchester. He has already said he would donate 15% of the salary he gets for being an MP to local causes in his constituency of Makerfield.
He told the magazine: “For the best part of nine, almost 10 years, I donated 15% of my salary as mayor of Greater Manchester to tackling homelessness in Greater Manchester.
“I am making a commitment to donate the same of my prime minister’s salary. I’m donating part of my constituency MP salary to local organisations, but the extra bit that comes with being prime minister, I’m making the same commitment.
“I wouldn’t want to ask anybody to do anything that I’m not prepared to do. I want to lead from the front. This issue matters massively to me.”
The latest annual national statistics, published in February, estimated there were 4,793 people sleeping rough on a single night in autumn 2025 in England. This was a new record and the fourth annual increase in a row, with 43% of those people sleeping rough in London and the south-east. %!s()
