He was one of the most vocal early supporters of Donald Trump’s mass deportations – beguiling the credulous icons of the President’s inner circle with his purported intellectualism and carefully maintained British accent.
But after Milo Yiannopoulos became mired in scandal over his remarks on underage sex, the commentator and influencer broke with Trump to become one of Maga’s most divisive figures.
Yiannopoulos’s downfall and eviction from the United States, after he reportedly overstayed the expiration of his visa, looks much like a case of hubris – but it was also masterminded by the hard-right community that once embraced him.
A haunted, unkempt mugshot shows the 41-year-old scowling at the camera from inside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centre as he realises that the jig is finally up.
Scottish students discover 1,000-year-old Viking church
Students discovered the remains of what is thought to be a medieval Viking church about 1,000 years old during an archaeology field trip to an uninhabited Scottish island.
Where was the medieval site found?
Pupils from Gordonstoun, a private school once attended by the King, made the discovery on a six-day field trip to Swona, a tiny Orkney island about seven miles north of John O’Groats where only feral cattle live.
The medieval building bears similarities to other Viking churches from the 10th and 11th centuries. Its remains, including what is thought to be the foundation of its altar, were found beneath a more recent building.
How was it found?
The Gordonstoun team helped professional archaeologists from the Orkney Research Centre for Archaeology (Orca) to uncover the remains.
Gordonstoun housemaster Dan McLean, who organised the trip, said: “The only real hint about a church being on the island is a map reference to a ruin known locally as the ‘Twinly Kirk.’”
After discovering a step leading to the possible church altar, the group found other clues regarding construction method, layout and orientation.
Another clue was that it was dry stone, and there was no clay bonding or mortar. There are also cairns nearby and a wall that blocks access to a landing point.
dan mclean, gordonstoun housemaster
More conclusions to come?
- Radiocarbon dating of the students’ samples could draw more conclusions about the structure.
- The pupils also explored a probable prehistoric settlement in the centre of the small, privately-owned island.
- Elsewhere, they investigated a circular ditch believed to have been the site of a Viking warning beacon.
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UK POLITICS
Mayor hopeful Cleverly swipes at Reform on London crime
Sir James Cleverly has said mayoral candidates cannot “credibly” stand for election to run London while “obviously” hating the city, in remarks that will be interpreted as a swipe at Reform UK.
Battle for the capital
The former home secretary, who has announced he’s stepping down as shadow housing secretary to bid for the Conservative nomination for London mayor, made the comments when asked about claims from Reform’s mayoral candidate, Laila Cunningham, that the capital is unsafe.
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Is London safe?
Cunningham said this week that her children are “petrified” to visit Shepherd’s Bush following a stabbing, and has frequently characterised London as gripped by crime, telling The i Paper last year that there are “no safe parts” in the capital.
Asked directly about her comments, Cleverly told The i Paper: “I’m not here to talk about her. Let her talk about her and let her justify her statements.”
Cleverly on London crime
- Cleverly argued responsibility for crime in London lay with the current mayor, Lord Khan of Tooting.
- He said the capital’s performance on crime was “an outlier” in the UK while he was home secretary.
- Cleverly went on to criticise those who often depict London as afflicted by crime.
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I don’t think you can credibly be the candidate for mayor of London if you obviously hate the city you’re trying to get elected for. I love London. I’m unapologetic about that.
james cleverly
Reform: Cleverly is ‘out
of touch’
- A Reform UK spokesperson said Cleverly was “out of touch”.
- If “James Cleverly thinks crime is not an issue in London then he’s even more out-of-touch than we originally thought”, they said.
- The spokesperson added: “London needs a mayor that is realistic about the issues the city faces, not one that will turn a blind eye to them.”
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US and Iran trade strikes in first hostilities for weeks
The United States and Iran have traded strikes for the first time since late July, breaking a lull in fighting during an intermittent war that has lasted more than six months. Here’s what we know.
Where did the US strike?
US forces struck Iranian rocket launchers on the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, with Central Command claiming the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was observed preparing to launch rockets with sea mines.
News outlets in Iran reported explosions near Larak island.
Donald Trump posted an AI-generated video on his Truth Social platform of the bombing of the Kharg Island oil hub, claiming it’s “going to be blown to smithereens!”.
What was Iran’s response?
Later, Iranian state TV showed what it said were ballistic missiles being fired by Iran at US bases in Jordan in response to the American strikes. Jordan’s military said it intercepted eight missiles in the country’s airspace early Monday.
The UAE air force also intercepted an Iranian drone over its territorial waters, the country’s defence ministry said.
US ‘eliminated’ Iran’s threat
- The US disputed Iran’s claim that its strikes were an act of aggression.
- “Iran created the threat and the US military eliminated it,” Centcom said.
- This was “to protect civilian mariners, commercial shipping, and the free flow of global commerce” in the Strait of Hormuz, it added.
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Return to open conflict?
Since last confirming it had struck Iranian targets on 29 July, the US had turned its focus to increasing economic pressure in a bid to end the months-long war.
A return to open conflict would be dangerous for the region, where Iran has targeted US military bases and infrastructure in Gulf countries since the fighting began on 28 February.
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Thousands of prisoners set for early release
Thousands of prisoners are set for an early release as part of controversial Government plans to ease jail overcrowding.
Here’s what we know.
Cutting the numbers
About 5,000 prisoners were due to be released early from October, down from 6,000, after ministers intervened to block rapists and “serious” child sex offenders from being eligible.
Under further changes announced by Prime Minister Andy Burnham on Sunday, several hundred more criminals will now be exempt from the early release scheme.
More exemptions
- Anyone convicted of unlawful killing, including all forms of manslaughter, is now ineligible.
- The exemption extends to those convicted of causing death by dangerous driving or allowing the death of a child.
- Grooming gang perpetrators will also be blocked from early release amid concerns about a potential loophole in the system.
The unlawful killing exemption means two men tied to the killing of PC Andrew Harper will remain behind bars after backlash over their initial eligibility for early release.
Burnham also confirmed the Government will seek to end imprisonment for public protection sentences (IPPs), releasing offenders previously assessed to pose a significant risk of causing serious harm to the public.
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What are IPPs?
IPPs, available between 2005 and 2012, meant offenders given such a sentence could only be released once the Parole Board determined they no longer posed a threat. They essentially meant some offenders could be held indefinitely; several hundred still were as of June 2026.
More than 2,000 IPP offenders are in jail, including 1,415 who were recalled to prison.
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Potential problems
However, Labour’s justice minister Jake Richards warned MPs in January that abolishing IPP sentences retrospectively “would result in prisoners being released whom the independent Parole Board has determined are too dangerous”.
Meanwhile, Sir David Gauke, the ex-Tory justice secretary who helped Labour craft the early release scheme, has warned that freeing IPP prisoners could be even riskier than releasing killers and rapists early.
Patel to be replaced by Tugendhat in Tory reshuffle
Ex-Tory leadership hopeful Tom Tugendhat is set to replace senior Conservative Dame Priti Patel as shadow foreign secretary, it has emerged.
New international role for Patel
Dame Priti said she would now look to strengthen Tory links with global centre-right and fellow conservative parties through a new “international role”.
Tugendhat, her reported replacement in Kemi Badenoch’s shadow cabinet, returns to the frontbenches, having previously served as security minister under former Tory prime ministers Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.
China hawk Tugendhat
- Patel called for stronger action to protect the UK from threats posed by China, Iran and Russia.
- Tugendhat is one of the most hawkish MPs on China and has campaigned against plans for the new super embassy in London.
- He has been on the backbenches since a failed Tory leadership campaign in 2024.
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Tory reshuffle continues
The move comes as part of Tory leader Badenoch’s impending reshuffle of her frontbench, with the role of shadow housing, communities and local government secretary also vacant after Sir James Cleverly quit to run for London mayor.
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Weekend lie-in may be good for your health
Having a lie-in at the weekend may actually have health benefits, new research suggests.
Here’s what we know.
No shame for sleeping in
Researchers from Korea University gathered data on 41,000 adults over a seven-year study, measuring participants’ “catch-up” sleep at the weekend as well as their blood pressure and level of physical activity.
One key takeaway, the team said, was that people should not feel “lazy or guilty” for staying in bed a little longer at the weekend.
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Weekend slumber: facts and figures
Blood pressure boost
1 h 27 min
The study showed one to two hours extra sleep helped maintain good health.
Sleeping for an extra hour and 27 minutes resulted in .
9%
This amount of extra sleep was linked to a nine per cent less chance of high blood pressure.
The study also found any level of extra sleep on the weekend was linked to a six per cent lower likelihood of high blood pressure.
But don’t overdo it…
When weekend catch-up sleep becomes excessive, the degree of sleep irregularity and circadian disruption may increase, which could offset that benefit.
Dr Nawton Lee, korea university
A common problem
It comes as one in three adults in Britain have high blood pressure, or hypertension. The average British adult also records less than the NHS-recommended seven to nine nightly hours of sleep.
Despite being symptomless, high blood pressure increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
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Twenty-four hours later, with none of the fanfare that has traditionally attached itself to his various antics, Yiannopoulos was unceremoniously marched on to a jet and deported back to the UK, his efforts to salvage what was left of his career brought to an abrupt halt by his arrest at Louis Armstrong New Orleans airport last Thursday.
Yiannopoulos cannot have expected to survive for long, living illegally in the US. But his deportation was also carefully orchestrated by other influencers within Trump’s inner circle who had fallen out with him and concluded that America – and particularly, its far-right movement – would be better off without him.
To be fair to Yiannopoulos – a man of limited range but inestimable self-confidence – his far-right, British schtick served him well for several years in the US. He emerged on the scene as a campus speaker, writer and editor for the conservative website , the bible for Trump and his Make America Great Again followers in much the same way as fills that role for America’s liberal elite.
Born in Kent, Yiannopoulos boasted a CV that included dropping out of the University of Manchester and then getting expelled from Wolfson College, Cambridge – alluring credentials for a man looking to burrow into the engine room of Maga.
At , Yiannopoulos honed his rage-bait viewpoints. Feminism, he argued, makes women ugly and is tantamount to cancer. He claimed that women would only be happy if the birth control pill and washing machine were “uninvented”. He was also an early voice condemning transgender rights, claiming he would prefer teenagers to self-harm than discuss trans issues online.
His career came to a sudden end in February 2017, weeks after Trump first took office. Remarks resurfaced that Yiannopoulos had made a year earlier in a podcast suggesting he endorsed sexual relations between “younger boys and older men”.
Describing his own experiences as a gay “sexually aware, promiscuous 13- to 14-year-old perfectly able to give consent”, he said that relationships between 13-year-olds and 25- or 28-year-olds “do happen, perfectly consensually”. He later claimed to have been quoted out of context.
For and Maga, Yiannopoulos had touched one of the few third rails in America’s hard-right movement – paedophilia. The fury of Trump’s grassroots over the crimes of the late financier Jeffrey Epstein meant that Yiannopoulos was quickly cast out into the cold. He lost a $250,000 (£184,000) book deal and prominent speaking engagements in the process.
He attempted various comebacks, including signing on as an unpaid congressional intern for former Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene in 2022, whose stance as an aggressive anti-paedophile campaigner demanding full transparency over the Epstein files led to her own falling out with Trump. Yiannopoulos may have hoped his association with her would somehow steer him back to respectability among the Maga in-crowd.
Twelve months ago, Yiannopoulos’ break with Trump was complete. Appearing on Candace Owens’ podcast, he claimed to have been one of seven original members of Maga who determined that Trump was the vehicle they needed to transform America. Even before this year’s US war on Iran, he said, he had concluded that the President was “bought, paid-for, owned and operated” by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He hoped in future to “make it politically impossible to run for president … and be an unreconstructed Zionist”.
Yiannopoulos’s undoing appears to have been orchestrated by Trump whisperer Laura Loomer, another maven of the far-right. Once friendly, they appear to have had a spectacular falling out, with Loomer announcing on social media that she had tipped ICE off about Yiannopoulos’ immigration status after “he incited violence against President Trump” and “called for me to be assassinated”.
She provided no evidence to support those claims but trumpeted that “Milo is going to be deported back to the UK, where he can live among the Muslims he has recently chosen to embrace”.
In the UK, Yiannopoulos now faces unenviable choices. With a chequered career behind him, the hypocrisy of his position on Trump’s deportation campaign is a stain on his character that will not easily be overcome. He may never be permitted to enter the United States again. But with 815,000 followers on X he still has something of a blow-torch at his disposal, and no shortage of far-right figures in the UK who may yet embrace him.
In the meantime, Yiannopoulos’s many detractors will celebrate his departure from America, and revel in a message he published on X on 5 June last year.
“There is one concrete thing we must insist on this administration delivering,” he wrote. “We have got to deport millions and millions and millions of people. Without that, nothing else matters.”
Fifteen months later, the author was grimacing for his own ICE close-up.