British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing a career-defining decision: step down or fight a challenge from Labour Party rival Andy Burnham.

Starmer has publicly vowed to stay in post, but pressure is building as more and more Labour Party colleagues conclude his time is up. Expectation is growing that he will announce a timetable for his resignation as soon as Monday. That’s the day Burnham will be sworn in as a lawmaker in the House of Commons after winning a special election last week.

Starmer is spending the weekend at Chequers, the country mansion used by British prime ministers, with his family.

Business Secretary Peter Kyle said Sunday that Starmer is “making time to reflect on the political realities, challenges and opportunities that he finds himself in.”

“I know he is a prime minister who always puts his country first,” Kyle told the BBC, though he said reports that Starmer will resign are “speculation.”

Discontent with the prime minister has been building for months, with Labour lawmakers desperate to reverse the government’s decline in popularity since Starmer led the center-left party to a landslide election victory in July 2024.

He has struggled to deliver promised economic growth, repair tattered public services and ease the cost of living, and has been hamstrung by repeated missteps, including his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson, a scandal-tarnished friend of Jeffrey Epstein, as the U.K. ambassador to the United States.

Labour is losing liberal voters to the growing Green Party and facing a rising Reform UK, the Nigel Farage -led anti-immigration party that consistently leads in nationwide opinion polls.

Burnham, until this week the popular mayor of Greater Manchester, decisively won the seat of Makerfield in northwestern England in a special election held Thursday. He took almost 55% of the 45,510 votes cast, over 9,000 more than the Reform UK runner-up.

Now that he is a lawmaker, he’s in a position to challenge Starmer for leadership of the Labour Party. Burnham’s acceptance speech left no doubt that he wants to lead both the party and the country.

“Everyone knows that politics isn’t working,” he said. “Everyone can feel that the country isn’t where it should be. Tonight could, just could, be the turning point.”

Starmer congratulated Burnham on Friday, but insisted he would fight any attempt to oust him.

“I will run, I will stand,” if there is a Labour leadership contest, Starmer said. “I’ve said repeatedly I’m not going to walk away from that.”

But Charlie Falconer, a senior Labour member of the House of Lords, said Saturday that Starmer has “absolutely no authority” left.

“There should be an agreed transition process in which Andy and Keir cooperate as to when the handover should take place,” he told the BBC.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Saturday announced that federal authorities had made “multiple arrests” of people he said were vandalizing the Reflecting Pool as he struggled to explain why the $14-million-plus rehabilitation project he launched for the nation’s 250th anniversary seemingly backfired.

Trump said his predecessors had let the pool turn an algae-stained green and that he’d line it with “American flag blue” so it better reflected the Washington Monument. But after the new pool was unveiled, its blue tinge quickly became a familiar green. Workers treated it with chemicals to kill the algae, but then the painted blue lining on the bottom began to peel.

On Friday night, Trump posted about the pool.

Even if someone pulled ribbons of paint from the side of the pool, it would not explain the clouds of algae in green water and swaths of loose blue paint detached from the bottom.

Trump insisted something nefarious has been going on at the scene. “No different than the chemicals that were used on the National Mall, they used something similar in the Reflecting Pool to try to destroy and demean our beautiful work,” he posted Friday evening.

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Senior Labour figures believe a “clear statement” could come as early as Monday, according to The Observer.

Sir Keir Starmer is under sustained pressure amid reports he could stand down next week as a leadership threat from Andy Burnham looms.

The Prime Minister has repeatedly vowed not to walk away from his post, even as public talk of a leadership contest or handing power to Mr Burnham has gained pace among Labour figures since he won the Makerfield by-election on Friday.

The number of Labour MPs calling for Starmer to go has since topped 100 – just under a quarter of the party’s MPs – and includes some who signed a letter warning against a leadership contest just last month.

Labour grandees have also spoken out, with former home secretary Alan Johnson saying Sir Keir should step aside and Lord Falconer saying he has “no authority” because it is assumed he will be replaced.

The Prime Minister is understood to be at Chequers with his wife, Lady Victoria, this weekend, and is reportedly reflecting on how to proceed.

A senior ally told The Sun they believe there is “just a 25% chance he fights on now”, while The Observer cited a Labour peer who said they think Sir Keir sees that “stopping ‘chaos’ (as he rightly put it) is now not possible by staying.”

Senior Labour figures believe a “clear statement” could come as early as Monday, according to The Observer.

No 10 said Sir Keir’s position remained unchanged from Friday, when he said he will not “walk away” from Downing Street and that he plans to stand in any potential contest.

He warned Labour staffers during a call on Friday lunchtime to avoid “plunging our party and our country into chaos by turning on each other and tearing apart our party and our movement”.

He is understood to have spoken to a number of Cabinet ministers on Friday, some of whom are reported to have told him he should set out a timetable for his departure.

Some in Westminster believe a contest could begin as early as next week, but allies of Mr Burnham favour a longer wait to allow them to prepare for government.

It is understood that Mr Burnham’s camp wants Sir Keir to set out his plans in the coming days but would accept a timetable that kept him in No 10 until September.

The incoming Makerfield MP is expected to be in Westminster on Monday to be sworn into the Commons.

He is reportedly planning to speak to Sir Keir afterwards and present him with a list of backers – which he is said to be seeking to get up to 200 – in a bid to press him to step down and set out a transition.

In a blow to Sir Keir, Labour peer Charlie Falconer said Sir Keir has “absolutely no authority” because “everybody assumes” Mr Burnham is going to challenge him and win.

He said he would advise Sir Keir not to stand in a leadership contest and instead agree a handover, preferably before the parliamentary recess on July 16.

And former deputy leader Baroness Harriet Harman, who Sir Keir appointed as a special envoy for women and girls, said there is a “sense of collective movement” from within Labour and that she expected Sir Keir to leave office and for Mr Burnham to take his place.

She has urged the party to move faster than aiming for a timetable ending in September, telling Sky News’s Electoral Dysfunction podcast ministers could not be left “in a state of paralysis all through the summer”.

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Rising out of the Adriatic sea with turquoise waters lapping the shore, pine forests climbing its hills and cormorants swooping along the shoreline, Albania’s Sazan Island is striking in its beauty.

It’s not hard to see why Ivanka Trump was enraptured by Sazan when she took a swim over to the island while sailing on Rothschild’s yacht several years ago, as she told the David Senra podcast last month. Ivanka spoke breathlessly of swimming from the boat to and hiking barefoot to the “top” of the island.

So taken was she by Sazan that she and her husband Jarad Kushner made plans for a real estate project of a “massive scale” to develop the island, and returned with “some of the greatest living architects of our time”.

These plans have not gone down well in Albania, with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets of the capital Tirana in protest against development in a protected area of the country.

Initially centred on environmental concerns, the protests have since swelled into huge anti-government demonstrations dubbed the “flamingo revolution’– so named after the pink wading bird that is found on this part of the Mediterranean coastline.

With protests now rolling into a nineteenth day consecutive day, activists are calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama and a complete overhaul of the government of Albania, along with investigations into organised crime, corruption and lack of transparency.

At the heart of it all: a rugged outcrop springing out the Adriatic ocean. Sazan, Albania’s largest island, has become a symbol of resistance to oligarchy, neoliberalism and privatisation.

The 570 hectare island (around 4.8km by 2.7km) sits roughly 18km from the Albanian mainland on the southern coast, with steep cliffs, two hills and thick pine forest. A couple of rocky paths wind their way up into the hills past disused, crumbling buildings and Cold War-era bunkers. (It would be very hard, if not impossible, to hike barefoot through).

The island is often described as “untouched” but it actually has a long human history, with records that date back as far as the sixth century BC when it was mentioned by ancient Greek geographers.

Sazan has been the target of invasions since the Middle Ages, and was occupied by Italy from 1914 and then Germany for a brief time during the Second World War.

After being liberated by the Albanian army in 1944 the island was used as a military naval base and closed to the public. Some 3,600 bunkers were built across the island under the orders of communist leader Enver Hoxha who presided over a brutal regime until the early 1990s.

Now the buildings have been taken over by nature, but their ghostly structures can still be seen by climbing up poorly paved roads from the harbour: a school, hospital, homes and even a former cinema.

A small but steady stream of tourists and locals visit the island daily during the summer months, travelling over from the mainland on small speedboats and the occasional sail boat to swim and sunbathe on the rocky beach.

Biologist Bledi Hoxha is a member of the Protection and Preservation of Natural Environment in Albania (PPNEA), an organisations that has been protesting development in the region for several years.

He describes Sazan Island as a “natural laboratory for studying the distribution and evolution of species”. He explains: “It hosts a large number of plant and animal species, including endemic species of particular importance to the country’s biodiversity.”

One of these species is the Mediterranean Monk Seal, which uses the island’s sheltered coves for breeding. A critically endangered marine mammal, the Monk Seal can now only be found in a handful of areas across Europe.

Ivanka and Jared’s plans span beyond Sazan to the Zvernec Peninsula on the mainland; a thin strip of land around 10km from the coastal city of Vlore with the Adriatic sea on one side and the Narta lagoon on the other. The peninsula sits within the Vjosa-Narta ecosystem, which is part of the last intact Mediterranean river delta system made up of wetlands, salt marshes, and coastal forest.

“It’s one of the last places where you can find massive colonies of flamingos,” says Aleksander Trajçe, executive director of PPNEA. “Hence the name flamingo revolution.” He adds: “There have been days where we’ve counted up to 10,000 individuals congregated in small patches in the lagoon.

There are currently a few campsites and beachfront restaurants on the coastline running from Vlore to the peninsula, and on Zvernec island, which is reached by a boardwalk, there are often a handful of tourists exploring the Byzantine monastery built in the 13th century.

The Narta lagoon is also an important site for birds migrating between northern Europe and Africa. Ariel Brunner, regional director of BirdLife for Europe and Central Asia, says: “It hosts regionally important populations of a host of species ranging from collard pratincoles, to avocets to gull billed terns and many more.

“The dunes and coastal scrub vegetation harbours habitats that have been wiped out by coastal development almost everywhere along the Mediterranean coasts.”

A few kilometres from the island at the spot where Kushner has spoken of building a luxury resort, a vast swathe of sand opens up, backed by dense vegetation that runs down to the lagoon where egrets and herons can be spotted wading in the shallows. Beyond here are sand dunes used by loggerhead sea turtles for nesting.

“If you want to find a place where the Mediterranean is as natural as possible, this is it,” says Mr Trajçe. “It’s the last place.”

He is due to appear in court

A man has been charged in connection with an incident at a Salford primary school. Officers were called out to St Mark’s RC Primary School on Queensway, in Clifton, Swinton, at around 10am on Friday morning (June 19).

A man was later arrested on nearby Rake Lane. In an update issued this morning (Sunday), Greater Manchester Police confirmed a man had since been charged in connection with the incident.

Lee Graham Wallbank, of Tyldesley Road, Wigan, has been charged with affray and criminal damage. The 36-year-old has also been charged with breach of court order, which GMP says is connected to an unrelated matter.

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Wallbank is due to appear at Manchester and Salford Magistrates’ Court on Monday, June 22. Following the incident, a spokesperson for Salford Diocese, on behalf of the school, said: “We are aware of the incident that took place at St Mark’s Primary School in Swinton on Friday morning.

“The school are working closely with relevant emergency services, and will offer support to pupils, staff, families, and the wider school community. The safety, wellbeing, and pastoral care of all those affected remain our highest priority.”

Celebrations will be “a fitting tribute to one of the city’s most extraordinary cultural figures”

A programme of events to celebrate what would have been legendary Pink Floyd musician Syd Barrett’s 80th birthday has been announced. The pioneering songwriter, artist and founding member of Pink Floyd was born and bred in Cambridge and met his future bandmate Roger Waters at the Cambridgeshire High School for Boys.

He died from pancreatic cancer at the age of 60 in 2006 after being out of the public eye for many years. Now his family and organisers Neil Jones, Mark Wilkinson and Rob Ayling have announced a series of official events to celebrate 80 years since he was born, and to raise money for mental health charities.

The celebrations will be centred on a spectacular live concert on October 10 – World Mental Health Day – headlined by Kula Shaker and featuring bands influenced and inspired by Syd such as Soft Machine, Men on the Border, Diana Silveira & The Psychedelic Circus, Radhika, and Pünk Floyd. Additional surprise guests are yet to be announced. Tickets are on sale here.

The concert will be at Cambridge Corn Exchange, where Syd played played his last ever live performance, February 24, 1972.

Audiences will also experience a mesmerising liquid light show from acclaimed visual artist The Mad Alchemist,(from Los Angeles, creating an immersive psychedelic spectacle inspired by Syd’s pioneering vision.