Workers earning under £123 a week to get 80% of salary in sick pay, keeping more people off benefits

More than 1 million of the lowest-paid UK workers are to be guaranteed sick pay worth up to 80% of their weekly salary from the first day of sickness, under changes intended to boost living standards.

The UK has one of the stingiest rates of statutory sick pay in the developed world, according to the Resolution Foundation, with those earning less than £123 a week not entitled to anything. For the rest, the rate is set at just £116.75 a week at present, rising to £118.75 – or £3 an hour – for full-time workers from April, but that only kicks in after three days of sickness.

He went from Harold Pinter’s protege to barely scraping a living to roaring success in Jilly Cooper’s Rivals. With the release of his new film Marching Powder, he talks about his journey from national joke to national treasure

The Danny Dyer fanbase is an eclectic one. There are the ravers who got in on the ground floor, idolising Moff, the ranting pill dealer Dyer played in the 1999 film Human Traffic. There are the “sort of alpha males”, as he calls them; basically, lads who were into The Football Factory and his run of 00s films about hooliganism, drugs and sex (usually all three). Then, a nine-year run in EastEnders brought onside a lot of “old ladies”, he says. And now, with the success of Rivals – the TV adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s book, in which he plays the kind-hearted self-made millionaire Freddie Jones – a hornier faction has joined his supporters’ ranks.

“I’m getting a lot of women of a certain age and a certain class come up to me in the street,” says Dyer, “you know, just sort of drooling.”

Exclusive: Medics more sleep deprived now than during Covid crisis amid staff shortages and surging demand

One in three doctors in the NHS are so tired that their ability to treat patients is impaired, according to a report that reveals medics are more sleep deprived now than during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Longer hours, staff shortages and soaring demand for care on top of the backlog that worsened during the Covid crisis are causing extreme tiredness among doctors, leading to memory blanks, problems concentrating and patient harm.

Eli Sharabi expected to meet Donald Trump on Tuesday; Kremlin says US views now ‘largely’ coincide with Moscow’s own foreign policy vision – key US politics stories from Sunday at a glance

The freed Israeli hostage Eli Sharabi has been invited to meet Donald Trump on Tuesday in Washington, his brother Sharon has said.

When Sharabi and two other hostages, Or Levy and Ohad Ben Ami, were released on 8 February after nearly 500 days in captivity, their physical condition outraged Israelis, which Trump echoed. Sharabi has since told Israeli media of the severe hunger and violence he endured in captivity.

It was a deeply unpredictable year – and Conan O’Brien, Adrien Brody and Timothée Chalamet all pulled out the antics

• Anora dominates the Oscars. Here is the complete list of winners and photos from the red carpet

At the 2003 Oscars, Adrien Brody – who had just become the youngest best actor winner for his turn in The Pianist – planted an unplanned kiss on Halle Berry, the award’s presenter. The moment has stirred controversy in recent years, but the pair warded off any untoward discourse by recreating their lip-locking stunt at this year’s ceremony. Berry greeted Brody on the red carpet with a warm embrace before the pair smooched for the cameras. “Tonight I had to pay him back,” Berry told Variety. “He deserved that.” The academy, meanwhile, called it “a reunion 22 years in the making”.