Britain’s Health Secretary Wes Streeting has resigned from the ruling Labour government, deepening a crisis that threatens to topple Prime Minister Keir Starmer after less than two years in office.

Hours after Streeting’s announcement on Thursday, Labour lawmaker Josh Simons said he would resign from ⁠his seat in parliament in a move designed to give Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham a ⁠chance to return to parliament and challenge Starmer.

The prime minister is under growing pressure to step down following disastrous results in last week’s local elections.

Streeting posted on X on Thursday that he no longer had “confidence” in Starmer’s leadership, and there was “no doubt” that the party’s unpopularity was a “major and common factor in our defeat across England, Scotland and Wales”.

“It is now clear that you will not lead the Labour Party into the next general election, and that Labour MPs and Labour unions want the debate about what comes next to be a battle of ideas, not of personalities or petty factionalism,” the 43-year-old said.

“It needs to be broad, and it needs the best possible field of candidates. I support that approach and I hope that you will facilitate this.”

A new type of giant long-necked dinosaur has been identified by scientists from remains dug up in Thailand.

The nagatitan, the largest-ever dinosaur found in South-East Asia, weighed 27 tonnes – as much as nine adult Asian elephants – and measured 27m (88ft) in length, longer than a diplodocus. Like that dinosaur, it belonged to the sauropod family of long-necked herbivores.

A team of researchers from the UK and Thailand identified the species from fossils found beside a pond in north-eastern Thailand a decade ago.

They say the discovery sheds light on how changes in ancient climatic conditions allowed gigantic dinosaurs to develop.

The dinosaur’s full name is Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis, with “naga” referring to a serpent in South-East Asian folklore, “titan” referring to the gods in Greek mythology, and chaiyaphumensis meaning “from Chaiyaphum”, the province where the fossils were discovered.

It lived between 100 and 120 million years ago – around 40 million years earlier than the tyrannosaurus rex – and is about twice the size of that creature.

Thitiwoot Sethapanichsakul, a Thai doctoral student at University College London (UCL), was the lead author of the study which was published in the Scientific Reports journal.

He said the researchers referred to the nagatitan as “the last titan” of Thailand, because the fossils were found in the country’s youngest dinosaur-bearing rock formation.

“Younger rocks laid down towards the end of the time of the dinosaurs are unlikely to contain dinosaur remains because the region by then had become a shallow sea. So this may be the last or most recent large sauropod we will find in South-East Asia,” he said.

Sethapanichsakul, a self-confessed “dinosaur kid”, said in a UCL press release that the study also “fulfils a childhood promise of naming a dinosaur”.

The nagatitan is the 14th dinosaur to be named in Thailand. Palaeontologist Dr Sita Manitkoon, from Mahasarakham University, said that the country has a high diversity in dinosaur fossils and is “possibly the third most abundant in Asia in terms of dinosaur remains”.

The nagatitan roamed Earth when the planet’s atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were rising in line with high global temperatures.

The study’s co-author, UCL’s Prof Paul Upchurch, said the sauropod family of dinosaurs had become quite large at this time, telling National Geographic: “It seems a little odd that sauropods were able to cope with higher temperature conditions”, as large bodies retain heat and are harder to cool down.

He told the Reuters news agency that it was “likely that the high temperatures had an impact on the plant fodder ​that was important to sauropods, which were very large-bodied herbivores”.

[BBC]

[BBC]

The Cuban government said CIA director John Ratcliffe met his Cuban counterpart at the interior ministry in Havana, after the US renewed an offer of $100m (£74m) of aid to ease the effects of its oil blockade.

A Cuban statement said the meeting was an attempt to improve dialogue and American officials were told Havana was not a threat to US national security.

A CIA official told BBC’s US partner, CBS News, that the US is “prepared to seriously engage on economic and security issues, but only if Cuba makes fundamental changes”.

Fuel shortages exacerbated by the US oil blockade on the country have left hospitals unable to function normally and forced schools and government offices to close.

Separately, Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel said that instead of offering aid, conditions could be eased faster if the US lifted its blockade.

Attending the meeting was Raúl Rodríguez Castro, the grandson of former President Raúl Castro, Interior Minister Lázaro Álvarez Casas, and the head of Cuba’s intelligence services, the CIA official told CBS News.

The delegation met “to personally deliver President Trump’s message”, the CIA official said.

“During the meeting, Director Ratcliffe and Cuban officials discussed intelligence cooperation, economic stability, and security issues, all against the backdrop that Cuba can no longer be a safe haven for adversaries in the Western Hemisphere,” the official added.

The Cuban statement said: “Both sides also underscored their interest in developing bilateral cooperation between law enforcement agencies in the interest of the security of both countries, as well as regional and international security.”

Havana’s confirmation of the meeting comes after a US government plane was seen taking off from Havana’s José Martí international airport on Thursday afternoon, according to a Reuters witness.

Cuba and the US acknowledged earlier this year they were in talks, but negotiations appeared to stall as the oil blockade wore on.

Cuba has in the past relied on Venezuela and Mexico to supply oil to its refinery system. However, the two countries have largely cut off supplies since US President Donald Trump threatened tariffs on countries that send fuel to Cuba.

Earlier on Thursday, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said Cuba was “ready to hear the details of the US aid proposal and how it would be implemented”.

On Wednesday, the US state department said it was renewing an offer to “provide generous assistance to the Cuban people”.

Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said that Havana had rejected a previous US offer of humanitarian aid worth $100m (£74m), a claim Cuba denied.

In its statement, the US state department repeated its offer but made it clear that the aid would have to be distributed “in coordination with the Catholic Church and other reliable independent humanitarian organisations”, bypassing the Cuban government.

It added that the decision now rested with the Cuban regime “to accept our offer of assistance or deny critical life-saving aid and ultimately be accountable to the Cuban people for standing in the way of critical assistance”.

In his response, Cuban Foreign Minister Rodríguez said it was unclear whether the US aid offer would be in cash or in-kind assistance.

He added that “the Cuban government does not, as a matter of practice, reject foreign aid offered in good faith and with genuine aims of cooperation, whether bilateral or multilateral”.

He added that the best way the US could help Cuba would be to “de-escalate energy, economic, commercial, and financial blockade measures, which have intensified as never before in recent months”.

Thursday’s comments by Rodríguez follow a warning from the country’s Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy that Cuba had completely run out of diesel and fuel oil.

[BBC]