News comes as Labour’s Chris Webb wins back ‘red wall’ Blackpool South Westminster seat held by Tories since 2019

• Local elections 2024: full council results for England
• Analysis: Blackpool verdict looks like electoral death sentence for Tories

The results of the London mayoral contest and London assembly elections are due on Saturday. Labour’s Sadiq Khan is seeking a third term and polls have put him comfortably ahead of Tory Susan Hall, despite jitters in Khan’s campaign team.

Following the closure of the polls tonight, Khan said his campaign and Labour activists “sent out a message of fairness, of equality and of hope”.

Defeat could have spurred Conservative rebels to move against prime minister

• Local and mayoral election results – live updates

One of the Conservative party’s highest profile metro mayors, Ben Houchen, has won Tees Valley, giving Rishi Sunak a potential political lifeline.

Houchen was elected with a much reduced majority. He won 81,930 votes against 63,141 for Labour and 7,679 for the Liberal Democrats. The turnout was 30%. His previous majority was 76,323 votes.

Pollsters say early results suggest Tories could lose half of council seats contested, putting party on course for as many as 500 losses

• Local and mayoral election results – live updates

Keir Starmer has hailed Labour’s “seismic” win in Blackpool South in a night of local elections that provided further evidence that the party is heading for a large majority at this year’s general election.

The Labour leader called the result in the Blackpool South byelection “truly historic” after the party’s candidate, Chris Webb, won the seat with the third biggest swing from the Conservatives to Labour in postwar history.

Co-leader Adrian Ramsay says party has won spread of council seats in urban and rural areas, from Labour and Tories

• Local and mayoral election results – live updates

The Green party is celebrating gains in areas where it has traditionally not been strong, including Newcastle upon Tyne, where it took seats from Labour.

Adrian Ramsay, a co-leader, said he believed the party – which is hoping to win control of Bristol city council later on Friday – would end up with a record number of councillors.

A ‘seismic’ night at the polls seems to indicate an electorate sending a clear message to the government. What’s the reality?

Looking for a national picture in local council and byelection results always calls to mind the old joke about two drunkards scouring the pavement under a streetlamp. “Are you sure this is where you dropped your keys?” says one. “No,” says the other, “but this is where the light is.”

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

Environmental campaign groups took joint action against decision to approve carbon budget delivery plan

The UK government’s climate action plan is unlawful, the high court has ruled, as there is not enough evidence that there are sufficient policies in place to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The energy secretary, Claire Coutinho, will now be expected to draw up a revised plan within 12 months. This must ensure that the UK achieves its legally binding carbon budgets and its pledge to cut emissions by more than two-thirds by 2030, both of which the government is off track to meet.

Post featured compromising image of the broadcaster Narinder Kaur, who said she was left ‘incredibly upset’

Police are investigating a social media post by Laurence Fox in relation to an “upskirting offence”.

The tweet, posted on Tuesday, featured a compromising image of Narinder Kaur, a broadcaster on Good Morning Britain and GB News. The post remained on Fox’s account until it was deleted on Thursday.

Philip Morris International has supported non-smoking programmes around the world ‘to advance its own interests’, say health professionals

The tobacco company Philip Morris has sponsored courses for doctors in multiple countries, in what critics have called a “grotesque” strategy.

Medical education programmes on quitting smoking and harm reduction in South Africa, the Middle East and the US have been supported by Philip Morris International (PMI) or its regional subsidiaries, according to advertising material seen by the Guardian.

The launch of the uncrewed Chang’e-6 is part of China’s effort to put a human on the lunar surface by 2030

China has launched a probe to collect samples from the far side of the moon - in a world first - as part of its goal to land a human on the lunar surface by 2030.

A rocket carrying the Chang’e-6 lunar probe blasted off from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in southern China’s Hainan province just before 5.30 pm (0930 GMT).

Civil servant Josie Stewart spoke to media after government presented ‘dishonest account’, tribunal told

A Foreign Office civil servant felt “morally compelled” to speak to the media about the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan after the government presented a “dishonest account” of what happened, an employment tribunal has heard.

Josie Stewart was sacked by the Foreign Office (FCDO) after blowing the whistle on the failures of the withdrawal from Kabul and disclosing emails indicating Boris Johnson’s involvement in an “outrageous” decision to prioritise the evacuation of staff from the animal charity Nowzad, despite his denials.