An emergency brake is being placed on study visas for people from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan, while work visas have also been stopped for Afghans.
It's the first time such visa bans have been implemented by the UK government.
Shabana Mahmood claimed a growing number of migrants from these countries are using legal migration routes as a backdoor for claiming asylum.
According to Home Office figures, 39% of the 100,000 who claimed asylum in 2025 did so after arriving via a legal migration route.
A spike in asylum applications between 2021 and September last year was dominated by students from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar, and Sudan.
Ms Mahmood said: "Britain will always provide refuge to people fleeing war and persecution, but our visa system must not be abused. That is why I am taking the unprecedented decision to refuse visas for those nationals seeking to exploit our generosity."
The bans will be officially introduced on Thursday, when Ms Mahmood will lay out measures to toughen up the asylum system.
They would include asylum seekers having to have their refugee status reviewed every two-and-a-half years.
Refugees whose countries are deemed safe will also be expected to return home.
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Ms Mahmood's tougher approach doesn't sit comfortably with many Labour MPs, but she has warned a failure to address the public's concerns about immigration will lead to a right-wing government.
But the government is also coming under pressure from its left flank, after the Greens won the year's first Westminster by-election.
Ms Mahmood has argued the level of illegal immigration is "creating division within communities across the country", risking the erosion of public support for the asylum system entirely.
The government has committed to ending the use of hotels to house asylum seekers by the next election, though its plans for using old military sites are also proving unpopular.
Even in the chaotic opening weeks of the Ukraine war in 2022, the gas price never doubled. But that is precisely what has happened to wholesale methane prices in the UK.
And since gas prices are arguably the single most important price in Britain - the lynchpin of our power network, determining prices for electricity, underpinning industrial production and the manufacture of chemicals, trickling indirectly into the price of food and other sundry items - this is of enormous consequence.
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The trigger for the sharp rise is the continued chaos in the Gulf, as oil and gas facilities come under bombardment from Iranian drones. No one seems to know how long this will last, but that is among the most important of all questions.
The longer it goes on, the higher gas prices are likely to climb. Although the speed of the rise in the past 48 hours is faster than any other comparable period in history, the absolute level of gas prices remains far lower than at the peaks in the Ukraine war in 2022. Then again, given that triggered an unprecedented energy price shock across Europe, not to mention a forced deindustrialisation of the continent that continues today, that is far from reassuring.
The longer it continues, the greater will be the impact on household bills in the UK, which have been fixed until June (and benefit from a £150 discount thanks to a measure in the last budget), but are due to reflect wholesale prices as of July.
All of which is why the events unfolding in Iran and its surroundings remain crucial for this country's economy.
Not that you'd guess much of this from the text of the Office for Budget Responsibility's latest big forecast. To judge from it, and Rachel Reeves's appearance in the House of Commons today, you might have assumed Britain has now vanquished the cost of living problems that beset it for the past four or five years. It paints a picture of inflation dropping down to 2% for an extended period.
But you have to flick all the way to page 109 of the spring forecast to find the most important datapoint of all. There, in table A.3, you will find the gas price expectations the OBR's latest forecasts were based on. They are more or less flat. Those, after all, were the prevailing expectations for energy prices when the report was finalised last week.
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But since then, well, as you know, gas prices have gone through the roof. So, essentially most of the key assumptions in the report about inflation are not worth the paper they're written on.
It is still way too early to pre-judge what this implies for the UK economy. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that gas prices come down in a few weeks. But by the same token it's also quite possible they go even higher. And if they do so, the implications for a Britain barely recovered from the last energy price shock are profound and somewhat grisly.
Benedetto "Nitto" Santapaola, who was one of the Cosa Nostra mafia's most powerful leaders, died at the age of 87 in a high-security jail in Milan.
Santapaola, known as "il cacciatore" (the hunter) or "il licantropo" (the werewolf), led the mafia in the eastern Sicilian city of Catania from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.
He was arrested in 1993 after 11 years on the run, but was accused of continuing to run the mafia from behind bars.
The 87-year-old was serving multiple life sentences for murder and other crimes when he died.
Murders and massacres
While leading the Cosa Nostra in Catania, Santapaola expanded the mafia's influence in controlling public contracts, extortion and drug trafficking.
He was often cited in investigations and trials related to a series of mafia massacres that plagued Italy in the 1980s and 1990s.
Among them were the 1992 murders of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, two of Italy's most famous anti-mafia prosecutors. Santapaola was convicted as one of the instigators of the attacks, which also killed several protection officers and Mr Falcone's wife.
He was also convicted of ordering the murders of journalist Giuseppe Fava in 1984 and police inspector Giovanni Lizzio in 1992.
Mafia wars
Santapaola's mafia "family" was involved in violent and bloody feuds with rivals, like those against fellow mobster Alfio Ferlito in the 1980s and against the Cursoti, Cappello and Pillera clans in the early 1990s.
The latter mafia wars resulted in over 220 murders in the city of Catania and the wider province in two years.
Santapaola's wife, Carmela Minniti, was by his side when he was arrested in 1993. She was shot dead two years later by a former member of a rival mafia clan, who said he killed her for revenge to make Santapaola feel the same pain he had suffered.
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Santapaola's requests for house arrest or detention in a medical facility due to his health conditions, which included a serious form of diabetes, were repeatedly denied.
Prosecutors in Milan have ordered an autopsy, but Italian media reports he died of natural causes after being admitted to hospital in late February.
Yvonne Ford, 59, did not seek treatment after being scratched on a family holiday in Morocco in February last year as the injury was so minor.
Instead she simply wiped the wound with a wet wipe, a hearing in Sheffield heard on Tuesday.
Once back in Britain, family members began to think she was having mental health issues after she started to suffer from a range of symptoms, including severe headaches, nausea, mobility issues and disorientation.
She went to Barnsley Hospital on 2 June and was being assessed on the short stay unit when her condition deteriorated.
As the days passed she also suffered hallucinations and high levels of anxiety.
After four days she was seen by psychiatrist Alexander Burns, who told the inquest her husband said that she had been involved in an incident with a dog while on holiday in Morocco.
Dr Burns said the family told him Mrs Ford had cleaned the wound with the wipe.
He told the inquest he became "concerned that the diagnosis may be rabies" because of the incident with the dog and because she was displaying "various neurological symptoms".
Dr Burns had never before come across anyone with rabies and as he was not fully aware of all the symptoms he decided to research it further.
Rabies can be passed on by dogs and other infected mammals through saliva. This can be through a scratch, if an animal like a dog has licked its paw.
"It became clear that all of Yvonne's symptoms could be explained by that diagnosis," he said.
A jury of nine women and two men heard how rabies is 100% fatal once symptoms begin to show. Symptoms typically begin within four weeks of exposure but can take up to three months to show and, in some cases, can take years.
Since 1946, there have been just 26 cases in the UK.
Mrs Ford was swiftly transferred to an infectious disease unit at Sheffield Royal Hallamshire Hospital where she died on 11 June 2025.
Infectious diseases expert Katharine Cartwright said the illness was "incredibly rare" and Mrs Ford's symptoms were "challenging" for the medics.
"I think the doctors did their best," she said.
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She said it appeared that Mrs Ford began to exhibit symptoms at the end of May and, therefore, there was nothing that could have been done to save her.
"It is so unusual and out [of] everyone's experience," Dr Cartwright added.
"It's not unreasonable for it (rabies) not to have been considered in the first few days."
Rabies can result in peculiar symptoms such as hydrophobia, the fear of water. The inquest heard how Mrs Ford had been unwilling to drink and spitting to get rid of the saliva in her mouth in her final days.
The inquest continues.
Armed police were called to the scene in Bridge Road, Alum Rock, shortly after noon on Tuesday. A nearby nursery was also locked down.
West Midlands Police confirmed on Tuesday evening that it had launched a murder investigation as the man had died.
A woman also suffered injuries that were not life-threatening or changing, the force said.
A 32-year-old man has been arrested over the attack and remains in custody.
Detective Superintendent James Munro said: "Our thoughts remain with the man's family at this time.
"We are reviewing CCTV footage and speaking to a number of people in the area, but would appeal to anyone who has any information to get in touch.
"We understand how deeply distressing and concerning this incident is, and we will have extra officers in the area to offer reassurance to the community."
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Officers said the incident is not being treated as terror-related.
A spokeswoman for West Midlands Ambulance Service said: "Crews arrived to find a man with serious injuries and administered advanced life support on scene.
"A second patient, a woman, was treated for less serious injuries."