Downing Street’s chief mouser captured on camera chasing away rival from PM’s residenceThere are not just wolves at the door of 10 Downing Street these days.Larry the cat, who serves as chief mouser to the Cabinet Office, has been captured on camera chasing a fox from outside the prime minister’s residence. Continue reading...
British intelligence viewed Flora Solomon as ‘inconsequential’ in 1951 but her evidence later ‘clinched’ case against PhilbyKim Philby could have been unmasked as a Soviet double agent more than a decade before his eventual defection had MI5 not missed an opportunity to question his close friend Flora Solomon, according to newly released intelligence files.Solomon, born in Russia to a wealthy family, was a former lover of Alexander Kerensky, the Russian leader deposed by Lenin. She told MI5 in 1962 that Philby had tried to recruit her as a Soviet spy in 1937-38. Continue reading...
In what would have been artist’s 90th year, first retrospective at Biesdorf Palace has been a surprise successSeven men wash the sweat off their toned bodies in a communal shower. Unless you squint and mistake a tightly gripped bar of soap for something else, their limbs are suspended in tantalising proximity but never quite touch.The German artist Jürgen Wittdorf’s 1963 linocut print, from a series titled Youth and Sport, may look like something out of a top-shelf graphic novel or the virile drawings of the gay liberation icon Tom of Finland. Continue reading...
Steven Craig is accused of murdering Jacqueline Kirk, who died two decades after his attackA woman whose partner doused her with petrol and set her on fire died more than two decades after the attack partly as a result of the terrible scarring she suffered, a murder jury has been told.Steven Craig, 58, is accused of the murder of Jacqueline Kirk, who died in hospital in Bath 21 years after he set her alight in a car park in the Somerset seaside town of Weston-super-Mare. Continue reading...
US streaming service behind The Crown and Stranger Things also pays record corporation tax of nearly £7mNetflix, the US streaming service with hits including The Crown and Stranger Things, has revealed its annual revenue from UK subscribers for the first time – £1.4bn in 2021 – after changing its accounting practices in a move that also resulted in a big increase in its corporation tax payment to nearly £7m.Netflix’s main UK business reported a 1,630% increase in revenues last year, up from just £79m in 2020, after abandoning the widely criticised practice of funnelling British income through other lower-tax European jurisdictions that is commonly utilised by Silicon Valley companies. Continue reading...
Black, working-class and mature students most at risk of being forced out of higher education by financial pressuresThe cost of living crisis is placing nearly 300,000 UK students in financial peril, with a disproportionate number of older, working-class or Black students likely to drop out, according to analysis by a university group.The MillionPlus group – an association of modern universities in England and Scotland educating more than a million students – said national governments and regulators including the Office for Students (OfS) and the Scottish Funding Council should take immediate action to alleviate the severe financial pressures facing students. Continue reading...
Guardian analysis of hundreds of documents also finds complaints of rodents, bed bugs, overcrowding and fire safety issuesRaw sewage leaking into a living room, rodents, bed bug and mite infestations, overcrowding and fire safety issues make up just some of the complaints levelled at rogue landlords in tribunal filings in the past year.The findings come after the Guardian analysed hundreds of documents from the first-tier property tribunal involving tenants renting house-shares of five or more people (or three or more in parts of London) sharing kitchen and bathroom facilities, known as houses of multiple occupation or HMOs.Raw sewage leaking from a toilet and seeping through the living room ceiling, which had to be collected in plastic containers.Multiple properties that had no fire detection system or smoke alarm; lacked an adequate central heating system; had infestations of rodents, bed bugs and pigeon mites, which were not adequately dealt with.A London landlord renting out a property through a company the tribunal found did not exist.A converted church rented to students was inadequately secured after a burglary and the burglar was later found to be living in the attic. At the same property, a fire took place when smoke alarms were not working. Continue reading...
Author’s method acting approach to writing terrified local people in Aberdeenshire as he perched on the rocks like a batIn August 1894, at the end of a month-long stay to research his embryonic novel, Bram Stoker wrote in the visitors’ book at the Kilmarnock Arms on the Aberdeenshire coast that he had been “delighted with everything and everybody” and hoped to return soon.According to new research, though, the feeling was not entirely mutual. Stoker, a genial Irishman usually known for his cheeriness, was experimenting with what would become known as “method acting” to get under the skin of his new character, one Count Dracula. Local historian Mike Shepherd, who has spent seven years researching Stoker, says the author’s links with the London theatre inspired Stoker to try inhabiting his character in a different way. Continue reading...
Energy supplier’s deal to acquire rival’s 1.6m customers would cost taxpayers an estimated £4bn in lossesOctopus Energy is reportedly closing in on a takeover of its rival Bulb in a deal that will set the final bill to the taxpayer at an estimated £4bn.Ministers at the Treasury and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) have been informed that a sale of Bulb’s customer base of 1.6 million would be the most favourable outcome, according to Sky News. Continue reading...
Party will continue to boycott power sharing until action taken to ‘restore our place fully in UK’Jeffrey Donaldson, the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) leader, has vowed to perpetuate Northern Ireland’s political paralysis unless the UK government overhauls its Brexit deal with the EU.Donaldson told the DUP’s conference in Belfast on Saturday that he would not revive power sharing unless Downing Street met the party’s demands on the Northern Ireland protocol. Continue reading...
Emboldened by Edinburgh bin strikes, unions call for talks on pay rises, child benefits and rent controlsScottish trade union leaders have urged Nicola Sturgeon to spend hundreds of millions more on the cost of living crisis as nurses, teachers and midwives consider striking over their pay.The Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) and the Poverty Alliance, an influential umbrella group, have asked the first minister to accept inflation-matching pay increases, a rise in child benefits to £40 a week and strict rent controls funded by new wealth taxes. Continue reading...
by Jessica Murray Midlands correspondent on (#64FTG)
Officers responded to reports of a man with a knife in police station car park, Derbyshire constabulary saysA man with a knife has been shot dead by armed officers in a police station car park.Officers responded to reports of a man at Ascot Drive police station in Derby on Friday morning. Continue reading...
by Lisa O'Carroll Brexit correspondent on (#64FWB)
Chris Heaton-Harris warns he will call an election on 28 October if power sharing is not restoredThe British government has said it is looking to “move on” from the row with the EU over Northern Ireland and is aiming to “move quickly” to get a solution over the Brexit arrangements.After a joint meeting with Irish ministers in London, the Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, said he was “very positive” of a settlement after the resumption of talks after an eight-month standoff. Continue reading...
Comments come as polls deliver sobering verdict on Scotland’s ruling party as it prepares for conferenceNicola Sturgeon has accused Liz Truss of doing “real and lasting damage to the fabric of British society” after crashing the UK economy, sinking the pound and threatening the poorest with further austerity.The prime minister’s brief tenure had been “utterly catastrophic”, Sturgeon told Good Morning Britain on Friday before the Scottish National party’s annual conference in Aberdeen this weekend. Continue reading...
Watchdog opens inquiry into five working and two former Civil Nuclear Constabulary officersA group of police officers are being investigated over alleged “discriminatory, derogatory or pornographic” messages shared in a WhatsApp group in the latest scandal of its kind.The police watchdog has launched the inquiry following referrals from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC), which is responsible for protecting civil nuclear sites in England and Scotland, as well as a force in the south-west of England. Continue reading...
No remains found after week on Saddleworth Moor as forensic scientists question evidence provided by amateur investigatorShortly before 5pm on Friday 30 September, forensic scientists in their white costumes and hi-vis-clad police officers were battling sleet and strong winds to climb Saddleworth Moor to a line of vehicles parked along a stretch of the A635, a winding road that cuts east to west through the Pennines.An officer from Greater Manchester police carrying a heavy-duty lamp strode towards a police van and shook his head at the worst weather he had ever experienced at a crime scene. “We just can’t do any more today in these conditions,” he shouted over the noise of gale. “The wind was lifting the forensic tents. I’ve never seen that before. They weigh a third of a tonne each.” Continue reading...
PM has clung on after a tumultuous start in No 10. We assess her chances of leading the Tories into the next electionLiz Truss’s premiership is in a precarious position, and there is frenzied speculation about whether she will be forced from office in a matter of months or fight on to lead the Conservatives into the next general election.While Tory MPs wargame how to slay or save her career, the prime minister is focused on preventing her radical new agenda being derailed by a fractured party. Continue reading...
by Rebecca Ratcliffe and Navaon Siradapuvadoli in Uth on (#64FTK)
Families tell of the moment they heard about gun and knife attack that killed 37 people, most of them childrenOn Friday morning, in the baking sun, grieving parents filed in a line to leave flowers outside the Uthai Sawan nursery school in northern Thailand. Women dressed in black and with heads bowed each placed a white rose on the entrance steps.A mother, standing at the side, clutched her son’s red blanket and his milk bottle, still half-full. Continue reading...
Stores stock up on hooded blankets, heated ponchos and microwavable slippers as heating costs soarThe onesie was a sales sensation a decade ago but now the all-in-one is making a high street comeback as this winter’s hottest trend is literally thermal fashion, a category that includes hooded blankets, heated ponchos and microwavable slippers.With Britons desperate to reduce their energy use by keeping their heating off for as long as possible or turning the temperature down, retailers have risen to the challenge with stores packed full of warm clothing and gadgets before the lucrative Christmas period. Continue reading...
by Josh Halliday North of England correspondent on (#64FRK)
Police say week-long search on Saddleworth Moor revealed no evidence of human remainsPolice have ended a search for the Moors murder victim Keith Bennett without finding any sign of human remains.Forensics officers undertook a week-long hunt for the boy’s remains after receiving information from an amateur investigator. Continue reading...
by Michael Goodier and Damian Carrington on (#64FRM)
Calls for government to take action now to prevent further unnecessary deaths next summerMore than 2,800 more people aged 65 and over died in England during this summer’s heatwaves than would have otherwise, figures show, marking the highest excess death toll caused by heat in at least two decades.The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) recorded 43,755 non-Covid-related deaths of people in the 65-plus age group during this summer’s heatwaves in England. Continue reading...
Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones damaged two infrastructure facilities in Ukrainian city, says regional governorRussia has targeted Zaporizhzhia with explosive-packed “kamikaze drones’’ for the first time as the death toll from a missile strike on an apartment building in the city rose to 11.Regional governor, Oleksandr Starukh, said Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones damaged two infrastructure facilities in the city. He said missiles also struck the city again, injuring one person. Continue reading...
Founder Julian Dunkerton says being ‘cool again’ with TikTok generation helped turn previous £37m loss into £18m profitSuperdry is in talks with its banks to renegotiate up to £70m debt, the fashion retailer revealed on Friday, but investors shrugged off concerns to send shares soaring more than 14% as founder Julian Dunkerton announced a return to profit.Dunkerton claimed Superdry “was cool again”, with strong demand from the TikTok generation for items such as parachute pants and Afghan coats, as he revealed pre tax profits of £18m, a bounce back from a loss of almost £37m a year before as sales rose almost 10% to £610m in the year to 30 April. Continue reading...
Based on results from random swabbing, ONS says 1.1 million people in country have virusCovid infection levels are continuing to rise in England, with more than 1.1 million people thought to have had the virus in the most recent week, data has revealed.According to figures from the Office for National Statistics, based on swabs from randomly selected households, about one in 50 people in England – 2% of the population – had Covid in the week ending 24 September, an increase from one in 65 the week before. Continue reading...
French auction house tells of build-up to bidding war that led to an expert losing his job and a seller being left ‘traumatised’In the 41 years of wielding the gavel at his auction house a stone’s throw from the royal chateau at Fontainebleau, Jean-Pierre Osenat has never seen anything like it.“This is a crazy story,” he said. “Quite extraordinary.” Continue reading...
Jailed campaigner Ales Bialiatski, Memorial and Center for Civil Liberties win award that will be seen as condemnation of PutinThe jailed Belarusian human rights activist Ales Bialiatski, the Russian human rights organisation Memorial and the Ukrainian human rights organisation Center for Civil Liberties have won the 2022 Nobel peace prize, in an award the committee said was to honour champions of “peaceful coexistence” during the most tumultuous period in Europe since the second world war.“The peace prize laureates represent civil society in their home countries,” said Berit Reiss-Andersen, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee. “They have for many years promoted the right to criticise power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens.” Continue reading...
Exclusive: British Transport Police worker allegedly shared photo of Lewis Williams after train deathPolice have been hit by a new WhatsApp controversy, with a control room worker accused of sharing a picture from the scene where a teenager died after being struck by a train.The accused worker was employed by British Transport Police (BTP) at the time. Continue reading...
Munib al-Masri has drawn up a 300-page dossier of evidence alleging killings and torture in the region between 1917 and 1948A Palestinian businessman and former politician is to petition the UK government for an apology for abuses in the region during the period of British rule in the first half of the 20th century.Munib al-Masri, 88, a close friend and supporter of the late Palestinian political leader Yasser Arafat, working with two international lawyers, has drawn up a 300-page dossier of evidence alleging abuses by the British between 1917 and 1948, the BBC reported. Continue reading...
by Harriet Sherwood Arts and culture correspondent on (#64FMZ)
Untitled (Bubble) reflects microscopic form of virus and will be displayed in government offices in UK and abroadA print inspired by the Covid pandemic will be displayed in government buildings in the UK and embassies abroad after Rachel Whiteread was announced as the fifth British artist to be commissioned by the Government Art Collection.Untitled (Bubble) uses circular motifs reflecting the microscopic form of Covid-19 and a time when physical contact between people was reduced to bubbles. It was created with various domestic items and washing-up liquid. Continue reading...
Documents from early 19th century show foreign secretary helped Elgin import huge shipments of sculpturesLord Elgin imported the Parthenon marbles into Britain without paying customs tax after the foreign secretary intervened on his behalf, newly discovered letters reveal.The documents, dating from the early 19th century, show that after he controversially stripped them from the frieze of the Parthenon in Athens, Elgin was helped to bring huge shipments of the sculptures to Britain by the senior minister, who “knew what Elgin was up to”, according to a historian of the period. Continue reading...
Rail firm has been criticised after reducing train services and releasing tickets only a few days in advanceAvanti West Coast has been told it must “drastically improve services” as the government awarded the operator of the London to Glasgow line a six-month extension to its contract.The government’s controversial decision means the rail company, which runs trains between London, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh, will be able to continue running services until next April. The current contract had been due to expire on 16 October. Continue reading...
Heavy rainfall and rough surf has contributed to large numbers of stingers appearing along the NSW coast in the third, and biggest, bluebottle event of the year
by Josh Halliday North of England correspondent on (#64FGY)
Boy, who cannot be named, to appear before magistrates over death of 14-year-old Tomasz OleszakA 14-year-old boy has been charged with the murder of a boy of the same age in a knife attack in Gateshead.Tomasz Oleszak, a “kind and caring” teenager who came to Britain from Poland aged six, died from a stab wound after an altercation on Monday evening. Continue reading...
Cabinet minister says ‘of course I’m sorry’ during clash with Piers Morgan on BBC One’s Question TimeThe cabinet minister Nadhim Zahawi has apologised for the economic turmoil that followed the government’s mini-budget.The chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster made the apology after clashing with the Talk TV presenter Piers Morgan on Thursday night’s Question Time on BBC One. The pair appeared on the political panel show, along with the Succession actor Brian Cox, the farmer Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones and the Labour MP Lisa Nandy. Continue reading...
Case of Peter Ellis marks first time a court in the country has overturned a conviction posthumouslyNew Zealand’s supreme court has quashed the convictions of Peter Ellis, a Christchurch creche worker convicted of child sexual abuse in 1993 in a highly controversial case that included allegations of large-scale ritual abuse.On Friday, the court found that a “substantial miscarriage of justice” had occurred. It is the first time in New Zealand’s history that a conviction has been quashed posthumously – Ellis died from cancer in late 2019. Continue reading...
by James Parrish and Lauren Herdman (Metdesk) on (#64FER)
A heatwave that began in March led to the country receiving almost triple its average rainfall from June to AugustTraditionally, the Asian monsoon is a time to celebrate. But after devastating floods in Pakistan, people in the country may feel differently. At their greatest extent in September, floods covered one-third of Pakistan’s surface. About 15% of the population have been displaced or otherwise affected, and an estimated 1,700 have died.This year’s monsoon was the wettest on record. The numbers are mind-boggling. Between June and August, Pakistan received almost triple its average rainfall. The Sindh province received over eight times the usual amount. However, the situation is far more complicated than just extreme downpours. Continue reading...
by Rebecca Ratcliffe South-east Asia correspondent an on (#64FAD)
Nation in shock after 37 people, most of them children, killed by sacked policeman – whose drug history should have raised red flags, says mediaThailand was plunged into mourning on Friday after 37 people were killed, most of them young children, in a brutal gun and knife attack at a preschool centre in the rural north-east.The attacker, a former police officer, opened fire and stabbed children as they slept at the centre in Uthai Sawan, a town 500km (310 miles) north-east of Bangkok at about noon on Thursday, police and witnesses said. Continue reading...
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