Exclusive: Elderly woman was allowed to run up debts in ‘disturbing’ case, the latest to emerge in Guardian investigation

Government ministers have formally apologised and repaid £7,000 to a 93-year-old woman whom they held responsible for running up benefits overpayment debts even though they were told she had dementia and was unable to manage her affairs.

The case, which the minister for disability, Mims Davies, admitted was “disturbing”, was brought to light by the Guardian as part of its investigation into carer’s allowance overpayments.

Conservatives criticised over plans to ban sex and relationship lessons for children under nine in England

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School leaders have accused the government of using children as “a political football” over its proposals to restrict sex education lessons in England.

The guidance, expected to be announced this week, would outline what topics could be taught to specific age groups, allow parents access to teaching materials used and further restrict how teachers address gender and sexuality, including transgender and non-binary status, after pressure from Conservative MPs.

Chris Philp says police need to use power more often to ‘protect public’

Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, and Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, have suggested that too many people are claiming unemployment benefit as a lifestyle choice in a joint article published in the Times. Matthew Weaver has the story here.

The Labour party has not press released anything about stop and search or sex education this morning, but it is attacking the government’s record on sewage. In a response to a BBC story revealing that millions of litres of raw sewage were pumped into Lake Windemere in February, because a water company took 10 hours to address a problem with a broken pump, Steve Reed, the shadow environment secretary, said:

The Conservatives just folded their arms and looked the other way while United Utilities pumped a tidal wave of raw sewage into Britain’s most beautiful lake.

It’s time for change.

Markings include public executions and a sailing ship chiselled into door in 1790s by bored English soldiers

A scratched wooden door found by chance at the top of a medieval turret has been revealed to be an “astonishing” graffiti-covered relic from the French revolutionary wars, including an carving that could be a fantasy of Napoleon Bonaparte being hanged.

Over 50 individual graffiti carvings were chiselled into the door in the 1790s by bored English soldiers stationed at Dover Castle in Kent, when Britain was at war with France in the wake of the French Revolution.

Study identifies 618 proteins linked to 19 different types of cancer, which could lead to much earlier detection of disease

Proteins in the blood could warn people of cancer more than seven years before it is diagnosed, according to research.

Scientists at the University of Oxford studied blood samples from more than 44,000 people in the UK Biobank, including over 4,900 people who subsequently had a cancer diagnosis.

Report suggests time taxpayers spent on phone waiting to speak to adviser has more than doubled

The annual total amount of time taxpayers spent on the phone waiting to speak to a HM Revenue and Customs adviser has more than doubled to the equivalent of almost 800 years, according to a report by Whitehall’s spending watchdog.

The National Audit Office (NAO) found that average call waiting times at HMRC have soared by more than 350% in five years, with increasing numbers of people not getting through in the first place or having their calls terminated, according to an official report that says the public is being “let down”.

Exclusive: Last two fugitives are deemed to be dead, ending a remarkable exercise in international justice

The war crimes tribunal for Rwanda has accounted for the last remaining fugitives indicted for genocide, bringing to an end the court’s 29-year mission to deliver justice for the 1994 slaughter that killed more than 800,000 Rwandans.

The historic moment passed without drama, not with an arrest or the exhumation of a body, but in a video conference on 30 April between the tribunal’s prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, and the two leaders of its fugitive tracking team, dedicated to resolving the cold cases left in the wake of the genocide.

Ukrainian military says its troops have moved to ‘more advantageous positions’; two Russian airports closed to ensure safety of civil aircraft

Russia said on Wednesday that a major airport near the city of Kazan, 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from Ukraine, had been temporarily closed after the region was targeted by a Ukrainian attack drone, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Ukrainian forces have in recent weeks escalated aerial attacks on Russian border regions but have also been able to strike targets deep inside Russian territory.

Nato says controversial bill takes Georgia further away from Europe and urges country to change direction and accept peaceful protest

• Georgia ‘returning to the past’ with foreign agents law, says president

Salome Zourabichvili, Georgia’s president, said she spoke with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

After a delay, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, and the neighborhood commissioner, Olivér Várhelyi, issued a statement on Georgia.

The adoption of this law negatively impacts Georgia’s progress on the EU path. The choice on the way forward is in Georgia’s hands. We urge the Georgian authorities to withdraw the law, uphold their commitment to the EU path and advance the necessary reforms detailed in the 9 steps.

Men with obesity offered incentives and sent healthy-eating tips in Game of Stones trial found to have lost most weight

Financial incentives of up to £400 alongside text messages could encourage men living with obesity to lose weight, research has found.

The research, known as Game of Stones and presented at the European Congress of Obesity, involved a year-long trial involving 585 men living with obesity from Belfast, Bristol and Glasgow.