The corrupt former SNP chief executive had a villa in Portugal believed to be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Nicola Sturgeon’s disgraced husband sold his villa in Portugal after he was granted legal aid for his embezzlement case.

The Daily Telegraph reported that he sold the property in the Algarve in October – months after help for his legal costs was approved.

Murrell is facing a jail sentence this month after pleading guilty to thieving over £400,000 when he was SNP chief executive.

The Record revealed last year he would receive taxpayer assistance for his defence after an application for legal aid was approved.

Some of his assets were frozen as part of Operation Branchform, but the villa in Portugal was not on the list.

The Telegraph speculated that the house could theoretically have been included in the legal aid eligibility calculation.

The property overlooking the Nossa Senhora da Rocha beach was jointly owned by Murrell, his sister and family friends before it was sold to a Portuguese investment company.

Murrell had his legal aid application approved in April last year and the property was sold in October.

Similar villas in the resort are on the market for between £346,000 and £518,000.

John Scullion KC, who represents Murrell, told the High Court of Edinburgh this month that his client would be able to pay back the £400,000 he embezzled with his frozen assets.

Tory MSP Stephen Kerr said: “This absolutely stinks and undermines public confidence in Scotland’s legal aid system,” he said.

“The idea that someone whose assets include a holiday home should be eligible for legal aid makes an absolute mockery of our justice system. Having stolen from SNP donors, and it seems the public purse, Peter Murrell is now fleecing the taxpayer for his legal costs.

“This is yet another unacceptable strand to this enormous SNP scandal.”

A Scottish Legal Aid Board spokesman said: “We cannot comment on the specifics of an individual’s grant of legal aid.

“Any grant of legal aid is made on the condition that we must be advised of any change of financial circumstances during the lifetime of a case.

“If any material change means the client is no longer eligible to continue to receive legal aid, we will terminate the grant.

“We have been kept aware of Peter Murrell’s circumstances. He continues to meet the tests we have to apply when deciding whether to continue a grant of legal aid.”

The A-list couple had a meeting straight out of a Hollywood romantic movie.

Last year, Callum opened up about his relationship with Dua and how they first met, with both of them instantly knowing they would be the one.

Speaking to The Sunday Times, Callum said: “We sat next to each other and realised we were reading the same book, which is crazy. It’s called Trust, and I had just finished the first chapter, and I told her, and she looked at me and said, ‘I just finished the first chapter too.’ I said, ‘So we’re on the same page.’”

Describing their first interaction, the actor said it felt like a Hollywood romance. He said: “In the movie version of it, I look up to the sky and I’m like, I hear you. I understand. The signs are loud, don’t worry. And that was really the first [moment].”

Stephen McCullagh was jailed for 31 years this week for the murder of his former partner Natalie McNally, who was 15 weeks pregnant with his child.

A YouTuber who staged a livestream of him gaming to cover up the brutal murder of his girlfriend is living in terror in a tough Irish prison. Stephen McCullagh was jailed for 31 years this week for the murder of his former partner Natalie McNally.

The 32-year-old victim was 15 weeks pregnant with McCullagh’s child when he attacked and murdered at her home in Lurgan in December 2022. McCullagh, 36, was found guilty of the murder of McNally by a jury at Belfast Crown Court earlier this year.

The cowardly killer previously denied murder, claiming that he had been live-streaming himself playing computer games on his YouTube channel at the time. But he has reportedly found himself at the bottom of the prison pecking order, cowering in the hospital wing of the notorious Maghaberry jail for his own safety.

Remembered as “arrogant” by those unlucky enough to encounter him, murder McCullagh’s warped sense of self-importance knew no bounds. The Mirror reports that McCullagh has become a walking target inside.

He showed no reaction as the sentence was handed down this week, and there was silence in the public gallery where Natalie’s family watched. Mr Justice Kinney called Stephen “abhorent” and said it was “difficult to find words” for the brutality of the murder.

“The defendant did not just kill Natalie McNally, her unborn child also died as a result of the murderous assault,” the judge said. “The defendant was fully aware that Natalie was pregnant.

“He intended to kill her and he knew that her baby, at such an early stage of the pregnancy, would have no chance of surviving the attack. Stephen McCullagh, you have committed a brutal and senseless murder.

“You planned this murder in remorseless detail. You attacked someone you profess to love in a frenzied assault, which was characterised by its excessive and gratuitous violence.

“Despite that frenzy, the killing was cold-blooded and calculated, as evidenced by the extensive planning leading up to the murder and your actions afterwards. Your behaviour towards the McNally family showed your absolute determination to cover your tracks.”

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McCullagh brutally stabbed and throttled Natalie, before leaving her bloodied and face down in a dog bowl. He then had the audacity to attend her tragic Christmas Day wake, eliciting sympathy from her caring family members, while attempting to pin the blame on an “abusive ex-boyfriend”.

In reality, it was an act of vicious revenge. The court heard how Ms McNally had expressed doubts about the relationship to several friends and was still in touch with an ex-boyfriend. Their messages, it was suggested, were the ‘catalyst’ for McCullagh’s violent murder plot.

While McCullagh had thought himself clever enough to outwit the police, officers soon unravelled his lies. But even as he stood in the dock, the self-proclaimed ‘nerd’ couldn’t help but smile at his own jokes as the court saw pre-recorded footage he’d used as a fraudulent livestream on the night of Natalie’s murder, grotesquely entitled Violent Night.

Sources at the high-security Maghaberry Prison say the beast has a “target on his back”, with his fellow inmates said to be repulsed that he killed Natalie while she was pregnant, making him a child killer. A source told Sunday Life: “That’s one thing the prisoners don’t like – harming innocent children.

“Some of the worst attacks there have been in here (Maghaberry) have been on child killers and child abusers. And you have to understand, the human side means staff aren’t going to put their own safety at risk to intervene for the likes of them.

“Because McCullagh murdered a pregnant woman, he falls into that category.”

While it’s understood McCullagh behaves behind bars, he is said to be a “security nightmare”, topping the “hitlist” of dangerous criminals the killer content creator now calls neighbours. Another source revealed: “He is being held on the Moyola hospital wing for his own protection.

“It’s separated from all other residential units and holds around 19 older, disabled, and high-profile inmates. The other prisoners joke that it’s for the ‘squealers and feelers’, which is a reference to touts and paedophiles, and they aren’t far wrong. In reality, it’s segregation without any punishment.”

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The murder of Henry Nowak has sparked another debate about so-called ‘two-tier policing’, in which people are treated differently by police based on their ethnicity.

We look at whether it actually exists, what police guidance says, and whether the case might lead to changes in how police deal with reports of crime.

Laura is joined by former BBC legal and home affairs correspondent and Labour home affairs advisor Danny Shaw to discuss.

They also unpack JD Vance’s comments blaming Henry’s death on “the mass invasion of migrants”. Downing Street has responded, saying “politics should bring people together”.

You can now listen to Newscast on a smart speaker. If you want to listen, just say “Ask BBC Sounds to play Newscast”. It works on most smart speakers.

You can join our Newscast online community here: https://bbc.in/newscastdiscord

Get in touch with Newscast by emailing newscast@bbc.co.uk or send us a WhatsApp on +44 0330 123 9480.

New episodes released every day. If you’re in the UK, for more News and Current Affairs podcasts from the BBC, listen on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/4guXgXd

Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. The presenter was Laura Kuenssberg. It was made by Chris Flynn and Maddie Drury. The social producer was Joe Wilkinson. The technical producer was Philip Bull. The assistant editor was China Collins. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.

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DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Rob Sand will rally a crowd for the first time as the official Democratic nominee for Iowa governor on Sunday, kicking off a countdown to November with the support of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.

The race for governor between Sand and Republican Zach Lahn stands to be one of the most competitive in the country as Iowans face a state budget deficit, struggling agricultural economy and cancer crisis.

Even as Sand downplays party politics, Democrats are putting faith in him to blaze a trail in the state after struggling electorally in recent cycles.

“We are all in on flipping Iowa,” said Beshear, chair of the Democratic Governors Association and a potential presidential candidate in 2028. “It’s certainly time for a change, and I think the people of Iowa know that Rob Sand will always put them first and lead in a way that lifts families up and doesn’t leave them out.”

Sand, who was unopposed on the primary ballot, learned who his opponent would be after Tuesday’s primary settled an unpredictable five-way Republican contest.

Little known before his bid for governor, Lahn made a splash as a business owner criticizing farm consolidation and tax breaks for corporate giants, a regenerative farmer who subscribes to Robert F. Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement and a former political operative who galvanized Iowa’s conservative grassroots.

Iowa has open races for both governor and U.S. senator for the first time since 1968, plus three battleground congressional races. National attention on the state has soared in recent months, drawing President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance to Iowa.

Democrats will have an uphill climb with a 200,000-person deficit in statewide voter registration, and they are outnumbered in every House district. Sand, along with Senate candidate Josh Turek, say they can win over independents and Republicans who are frustrated with party politics and a Republican trifecta in Washington and Des Moines that they blame for the state’s challenges.

Turek will face U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, who already has portrayed Turek as a liberal puppet for party leader Sen. Chuck Schumer.

Lahn has also rejected Sand’s nonpartisan pitch.

“Rob Sand is not a moderate,” Lahn said in his victory speech Tuesday. “He’s a liberal career politician pretending to be someone he’s not.”

Sand says divided government is a good thing

Sand is vocal about his dislike of partisanship, his distrust of both political parties and his desire for divided government in Iowa. He says he thinks most Iowans feel the same.

Even if Sand is elected governor in November, he will likely have to work with Republican majorities in the state House and Senate, which recently passed bills to restrict the executive’s power that outgoing Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed into law.

“I’m not here to tell you that the answer to 10 years of one-party control is to give the other party 10 years of one-party control. I don’t think that’s right,” Sand said Tuesday after casting his primary ballot. “But I do think that it’s time to say enough to the people who have had 10 years of one-party control. It’s time for balanced government in Iowa.”

Neither Sand or Lahn use their party’s traditional blue or red in campaign materials, opting instead for green. They both say they aren’t beholden to their party establishments and that Iowans want a new direction, though Lahn’s Republican Party has held a statehouse trifecta for nearly a decade.

Sand’s campaign has given about $750,000 to the Iowa Democratic Party already this cycle, funding that Republicans call hypocritical for a candidate who claims he is not a party man. The Sand campaign says that sum reflects his investment in a state party-run coordinated campaign that will help him get elected as governor, even as it also supports candidates up and down the ballot.

Beshear brings national support as he considers his own future

As Democrats continue to debate what went wrong in 2024 and the direction of the party, Beshear has offered up his own example as the leader of a red state for lessons on how the party can go forward.

Beshear said he is trying to be a “voice of reason in the chaos” of Trump’s administration and that he is comfortable being listed among the names of Democrats considering a presidential bid in 2028, even as he said he is focused on the critical midterms.

In addition to rallying with Sand, Beshear will also be at a “Beers with Beshear” fundraiser for congressional candidate Sarah Trone Garriott, who wants to unseat Republican Rep. Zach Nunn in the competitive House district that includes Des Moines. Beshear said he will see Turek too.

The Democratic Governors Association, which Beshear chairs, gave the Iowa Democratic Party about $140,000 so far this cycle, according to filing reports.

HM Passport Office has urged applicants to ensure digital passport photographs comply with stringent requirements – or risk applications being delayed

Brits have been warned that simple mistakes with passport photos could delay applications being processed – potentially leaving travellers without the vital documents they need ahead of summer holidays.

His Majesty’s Passport Office has released an official checklist for digital passport photos as the annual rush of renewals picks up pace before the peak holiday season. Officials cautioned that applications can be held back if images fail to meet strict requirements.

In a social media post, HM Passport Office said: “A quick checklist for your digital passport photo: Taken in the last month, plain background, no objects or other people, no red eye or shadows.”

The Government’s passport guidance states: “Your application will be delayed if your photos do not meet the rules.”

This could prove a costly headache for travellers who leave renewals until the last minute before their departure dates, especially families gearing up for summer breaks. Under the rules, digital passport photos must be sharp, in colour and unedited by any computer software.

Applicants are required to face forwards, look directly at the camera and keep a neutral expression with their mouth firmly closed. The guidance also warns against shadows appearing on the face or background, hair falling across the eyes and the wearing of tinted glasses. Photographs must be taken in front of a plain, light-coloured background with no other individuals or objects visible.

HM Passport Office advises that pictures taken in booths or dedicated shops are more likely to meet requirements than those snapped at home on mobile phones or tablets. Officials have also reminded applicants that digital passport photos must have been taken within the last month – regardless of whether their appearance has changed since their previous passport was issued.

Parents have also been warned about strict regulations surrounding children’s photographs. Children must appear alone in the picture, while babies are not permitted to hold toys or use dummies.

Children under the age of six are not required to look directly at the camera or maintain a neutral expression, while babies under one year old need not have their eyes open. Travellers are also being urged to check their passport expiry dates well ahead of any planned trips, as numerous European nations require passports to have a minimum of three months remaining before expiry on the date of return.

Brits travelling to the EU must also confirm that their passport was issued no more than 10 years prior to the date of entry.

Khan Younis, Gaza Strip (AP) — In their bare-bones tent in southern Gaza, Mostafa Shaaban built his family’s makeshift toilet behind a curtain in a corner. He dug a shallow pit in the sandy soil, poured a concrete slab around it, fixed a bottomless bucket over the hole, then topped it off with a battered, plastic toilet seat.

It reeks with a foul odor and buzzes with flies and mosquitoes only a few feet from where they sleep and prepare meals. Every week, Shaaban has to dig the sewage sludge out of the pit. But at least it’s more private than the fetid communal latrines used by hundreds of other people in their sprawling tent camp.

“I did not want the kids and my wife to use any public toilet. It is humiliating,” said the 38-year-old Shaaban, who was driven from his home city of Rafah by Israeli forces two years ago and eventually settled in a tent camp in Khan Younis.

“The situation is revolting,” he said of having the toilet inside the tent, “but at least it has more dignity.”

There is not a single proper toilet across the vast tent cities housing most of Gaza’s 1.7 million Palestinians left homeless by the war. Displaced families have largely been left on their own to dig their own latrines, some shared by extended families.

At communal camp toilets, men, women and children wait in long lines then do their business behind a thin cloth or sheet of metal separating them from the crowd of strangers outside. Women fear walking to the communal toilets at night.

The result is a hygienic nightmare as horrible smells drift among the tightly packed tents and pools of sewage collect from leaking cesspits or from people dumping the contents of their latrines. More than 80% of the sewage pumping stations in Gaza have collapsed under Israel’s bombardment and offensives over the past 2 ½ years, rights groups say.

Some aid groups have carried out projects to improve family toilets, but they have been small scale and supplies are limited. It remains far from certain when reconstruction of Gaza will begin.

The U.S.-backed official overseeing the ceasefire in place since October has blamed Hamas for holding up the process by failing to reach an agreement on disarmament. The ceasefire deal calls for the entry of major construction and repair equipment into Gaza even before disarmament, and so far little has entered.

It was the sort of friendly that could easily have slipped from memory.

Played early in the season against Kazakhstan, who had only recently joined Uefa, the fixture took place in front of a sold-out crowd of just 8,000 fans and on a pitch so shabby that the grass had to be painted to improve its appearance.

And yet, that narrow 1-0 win in Chaves in northern Portugal has never really faded away.

That is because 20 August 2003 is the day Cristiano Ronaldo’s story with the senior Portugal national team began.

It would have been a stretch at the time to anticipate the boy from Madeira making his World Cup debut three years later, and entirely unrealistic to predict that he would go on to feature at a record sixth World Cup in 2026 – along with Argentina’s Lionel Messi and Mexico’s Guillermo Ochoa, both fellow six-timers.

But Ronaldo – the all-time leading scorer in international football with 143 goals – has reinvented Portuguese football, transforming its mentality like no player before him and, most importantly, redefining what an entire nation believed was possible.

“We are a small country that rarely has global impact outside football,” Joao Aroso, who worked with the forward both at Sporting and at the national team, told BBC Sport.

“Cristiano allows our small country to be known worldwide for something great – because of all the positive things he stands for.”

In his previous five World Cups, the superstar, now 41, always arrived with an untouchable status. It won’t be different this summer, even if the scrutiny back home around his role has only intensified since Qatar 2022.

For a long time, openly questioning Ronaldo’s place in the team almost felt like treason. Not any more.

“He doesn’t play to win, he plays to be the main figure,” argued Antonio Simoes, a member of the Portugal side that finished third at the 1966 World Cup.

“Do you understand that it’s the opposite of Eusebio? Let’s call things by their name. I have nothing against him. I can still see, I can still hear and I can still think. But I can’t run away from the reality of the facts.”

Portugal coach Roberto Martinez has dismissed the debate around Ronaldo as “lift talk”.

Whenever Martinez is asked questions about the five-time Ballon d’Or winner, he has pointed to the same statistic in all his recent interviews – 25 goals in his past 31 games for the Selecao.

“We are talking about the greatest player of all time. He is here because he is still performing at a very high level, not because of what he achieved in the past,” Martinez explained.

Having scored at each of his five World Cups, Ronaldo will have another chance to answer critics on the pitch.

The Al-Nassr man has eight World Cup goals to his name, one short of Eusebio’s Portuguese record, but the ultimate prize is obvious: helping Portugal lift the trophy for the first time.