Liam Taylor will be sentenced at later date over killing of Ailish Walsh, 28, in DecemberA man has pleaded guilty to murdering his pregnant girlfriend with a pair of scissors in what prosecutors called an “exceptionally brutal” attack.Ailish Walsh, 28, was pronounced dead after police were called to her flat in Rectory Road, Hackney, east London, on the evening of 15 December last year. She was found to have more than 40 puncture wounds. Liam Taylor, 37, pleaded guilty to Walsh’s murder during a hearing at the Old Bailey on Monday. Walsh had been 22 weeks pregnant. Continue reading...
by Mark Brown North of England correspondent on (#6AEHF)
Cheryl Korbel paid tribute to her ‘beautiful, sassy, chatty girl’ after Thomas Cashman was jailed for at least 42 yearsHolding a patchwork teddy bear made from her daughter’s pyjamas, the mother of nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel movingly described the heartbreak caused by losing her “beautiful, sassy, chatty girl who never ran out of energy”.Cheryl Korbel spoke in court minutes before a judge on Monday jailed Thomas Cashman, her daughter’s killer, for a minimum of 42 years. Continue reading...
The Akwesasne Mohawk Police Service continue a search for resident Casey Oakes as new details of victims emergePolice investigating the drowning of eight people attempting to cross a river between Canada the the United States are searching for a man believed to be linked to people-smuggling, as new details of the victims emerge.The bodies of eight people, including two young children, were discovered last week along the marshy banks of the St Lawrence River near the Mohawk community of Akwesasne, which spans Quebec, Ontario and New York state. Continue reading...
Greater Manchester mayor writes in Guardian in response to disclosures in newspaper’s Cotton Capital projectAndy Burnham has said more needs to be done to tell the story of how transatlantic slavery shaped Manchester and highlight the contributions by leading black individuals in the city.The Greater Manchester mayor, who was elected in 2017 before being re-elected for a second term in May 2021, made the comments after the Guardian launched its Cotton Capital editorial project, which explores how slavery shaped the Guardian, Britain, and the rest of the world. Continue reading...
Delegates at NEU conference are angry that school budgets would be expected to fund most of wage riseCharlotte Lawrence has been a primary school teacher for 14 years and has one word for the government’s latest pay offer for teachers in England: insulting.“The government hasn’t listened,” said Lawrence, a delegate at the National Education Union’s annual conference in Harrogate. “When the strike ballot was carried, I thought the government would see that teachers are serious and start to negotiate. But it just hasn’t happened.” Continue reading...
Westminster council found guilty of severe maladministration in case of mother and baby living in mouldy bedsitA mother and baby were left to live in a damp and mouldy bedsit for two years by a London council despite the child suffering from fungal rashes and the woman complaining of flare-ups of her Crohn’s disease.Westminster council has been found guilty of severe maladministration by the housing ombudsman in a damning 16-page report detailing its treatment of the young family. Continue reading...
by Peter Walker Political correspondent on (#6AEJ5)
System’s opponents say it creates barrier to voting, with no proven instances of ‘personation’ at polling stations last yearMinisters have faced renewed accusations that the plan to impose mandatory photo ID for voting is a waste of time and resources after new statistics showed there was not a single proven case of in-person voter impersonation last year.Meanwhile, other official data showed minimal take-up of free official voter documents before the first mass use of ID during local elections in England on 4 May, with applications for the documents closing in three weeks. Continue reading...
Prime minister says offenders have been protected by ‘political correctness’ as he announces ‘grooming gangs taskforce’Starmer says he has not talked to Jeremy Corbyn for two and a half years.Q: Is he a friend? Continue reading...
Communist brings together multiple groups under Sumar banner and aims to become country’s first female PMA new political party has launched in Spain, composed of more than a dozen left-leaning groups and led by a lifelong communist who aims to become the country’s first female prime minister.Yolanda Díaz, who is currently deputy prime minister and minister of labour, has drastically changed Spain’s political landscape with the formation of the Sumar (Unite) party. Continue reading...
Macron instructs government to look at whether euthanasia or assisted dying should be permittedEmmanuel Macron has instructed the government to look at whether euthanasia or assisted dying should be permitted in France after a citizens’ convention voted in favour.He said a draft bill would be produced by the end of summer and also promised a “10-year plan” on end-of-life care. “Our system of support for the end of life remains ill-adapted to contemporary requirements,” he said. Continue reading...
Opposition leader was found guilty last month, given suspended jail term and barred from parliamentThe Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has appealed against his conviction for defamation, seeking to overturn a judgment that resulted in his expulsion from parliament a year before a general election is due.Gandhi, 52, was convicted last month in a case brought by a state lawmaker from Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) after comments Gandhi made in a 2019 speech were deemed to be insulting to the prime minister and other people surnamed Modi. Continue reading...
by Helen Livingstone, Martin Belam, Pjotr Sauer and L on (#6ADT0)
Ukrainian forces say they still hold Bakhmut despite Wagner claims; suspect arrested after Russian military blogger killed in cafe explosionUkraine has said Russian forces are “very far” from capturing the eastern town of Bakhmut and that fighting raged around the city administration building where the Wagner mercenary group claims to have raised the Russian flag. “Bakhmut is Ukrainian, and they have not captured anything and are very far from doing that to put it mildly,” Serhiy Cherevatiy, a spokesperson for the eastern military command said.Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy had said overnight the fighting in the heavily fought over city in Ukraine’s Donbas region is “especially hot”. His comments came as Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said his troops had raised a Russian flag on the city’s administrative building. However, there was no indication from Ukrainian officials that Bakhmut had fallen into Russian hands and Prigozhin has previously made claims about Wagner’s military progress in the city that were premature.Russian police have arrested a woman suspected of delivering a bomb that killed a prominent pro-war Russian military blogger in a blast in a cafe in central St Petersburg on Sunday. Russian authorities say Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, was killed by a bomb blast as he was hosting a discussion with other pro-war commentators at a cafe on the banks of the Neva River in the historic heart of St Petersburg.Russian police said they had identified a woman called Darya Trepova as the suspect, adding that she was arrested in an apartment in St Petersburg after a search on Monday morning. Sources in the country’s interior ministry told the RBK news outlet that the attack was “carefully planned in advance by several people”.Russian tactical nuclear weapons will be moved close to Belarus’ borders with its Nato neighbours, the Russian ambassador to Belarus has said amid tensions between Russia and the west over Moscow’s war in Ukraine.Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that in the last 24 hours “the Russian army carried out 29 strikes on 12 populated areas of Donetsk region”. It adds “46 residential buildings, a kindergarten, an administrative building, factory workshops, power lines, gas pipelines and cars were destroyed and damaged.”The Russian state-owned news agency Tass is reporting an explosion in occupied Melitopol. It reports the city administration said a car was blown up in the city centre, and that one person was injured. The Telegram channel of the Russian-imposed authority in the city has named the injured person as Maxim Zubarev, the head of the occupying authority in the Yakymivka settlement in the region.Finland will officially become a member of the Nato military alliance on Tuesday. The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said it “will be a good day for Finland’s security, for Nordic security and for Nato as a whole”. He added that Nato’s position on Ukraine’s bid “remains unchanged” and that is that “Ukraine will become a member of the alliance”.Germany’s vice-chancellor, Robert Habeck, has arrived in Ukraine on a surprise visit, the German energy and economy ministry has said, in his first trip to the country since the outbreak of war.Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, has said he expects Zelenskiy, to visit on 5 April. Zelenskiy will be accompanied by his wife, Olena Zelenska. Talks between Duda and Zelenskiy are expected to cover security issues, regional politics, and economic cooperation, as well as the transit of Ukrainian grain and other farm produce through Poland. The visit would coincide with the next summit of Nato foreign ministers, which is taking place in Brussels, and which the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is expected to attend.Poland has already delivered the first batch of Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, according to the Polish presidential office’s head of international policy, Marcin Przydacz. He did not specify how many jets had been transferred. Poland’s president last month said Warsaw would hand over the first four MiG-29 to Ukraine. Continue reading...
Ryyan Alshebl, 29, won an absolute majority in Sunday’s mayoral election in OstelsheimA Syrian who arrived in Germany as a refugee in 2015 has been elected as the mayor of a village in the south-west of the country.Ryyan Alshebl, 29, who is a member of the German Greens but stood as a non-party candidate, won an absolute majority in Sunday’s mayoral election in Ostelsheim, a small municipality of about 2,500 inhabitants in the state of Baden-Württemberg. Continue reading...
Former British embassy guards arrested and detained, with some reportedly told they will be forcibly removedNepalese security guards who protected British embassy staff in Afghanistan, and who were airlifted to safety in the UK in August 2021, are now in detention and facing deportation.Thirteen security guards – 11 Nepalese and two Indian – were brought to the UK as Kabul fell to the Taliban. Some were granted indefinite leave to remain while others have been awaiting decisions. Continue reading...
Richard D Hall accused of defamation and harassment after he claimed the attack never took placeSurvivors of the Manchester Arena bombing have launched a legal action against a conspiracy theorist who has falsely claimed the attack was faked.Martin Hibbert and his daughter Eve were severely injured in the terror attack at an Ariana Grande concert in 2017 that left 22 people dead. Continue reading...
Israeli settler movement is making life harder for Jerusalem’s Palestinians and erasing Christian character of holy cityEven in a city as storied as Jerusalem, some places are holier than others. The Mount of Olives – studded with churches marking events in the lives of Jesus and Mary, home to the most sacred Jewish cemetery in the world, and tombs celebrated as that of the Sufi mystic Rabia al-Basri and medieval scholar Mujir al-Din, is one such place.Christians believe Jesus spent the last days of his life here, while according to the Hebrew Bible, the mount is where the resurrection will begin; in both Christianity and Islam, it is revered as the site Jesus ascended to heaven. The Mount of Olives’ summit, which gives the clearest view of the Temple Mount, or al-Haram al-Sherif, has served as a pilgrimage destination for all three faiths for millennia. Continue reading...
Outsourcing firm used by NHS, local councils and British army says attack mainly affected internal systemsCapita, the outsourcing group that runs crucial operations for the NHS and the military, was still restoring online services for customers on Monday morning as it confirmed a cyber-attack was to blame for a major IT outage that hit clients including local councils on Friday.The company was working over the weekend to try to repair systems for clients, which include agencies involved in critical national infrastructure. Some customers reported having to resort to using radios, pens and paper after the attack. Continue reading...
Fifth of hikikomori cases among working-age people attributed to pressures unleashed by pandemicAlmost 1.5 million people of working age in Japan are living as social recluses, according to a government survey, with about a fifth of cases attributed to the pressures unleashed by the Covid-19 pandemic.Large numbers of hikikomori said they had begun retreating from mainstream society due to relationship issues and after losing or leaving their jobs, the cabinet office said. A significant proportion – 20.6% – said their predicament had been triggered by changes in lifestyle imposed during the pandemic. Continue reading...
Exclusive: RCN says hundreds of signatures on petition to hold vote of no confidence in leadership are falseEngland’s biggest nursing union has called in the police to investigate some of its own members, as the internal fight over whether to accept the government’s pay deal turns bitter.The Royal College of Nursing has asked the police to investigate a petition to hold a vote of no-confidence in its leadership, while reporting the behaviour of other members to social media platforms and the nursing regulator. Meanwhile Vote Reject campaigners claim they are being bullied and intimidated by union management in an attempt to win what is likely to be a knife-edge vote. Continue reading...
by Lisa O'Carroll Brexit correspondent on (#6AE0M)
Family of Kathleen Poole had hoped politicians would step in after media coverage of ‘deeply shocking’ caseThe Swedish police are pressing ahead with plans to deport an elderly British woman with Alzheimer’s who cannot walk or talk, in a Brexit-related case that has been described as “deeply shocking” by the Labour MP Hilary Benn.Kathleen Poole, a 74-year-old widow, moved to Sweden from Macclesfield 18 years ago to be close to her son Wayne and his Swedish wife, Angelica, and their four children. Continue reading...
Children’s and young adult author of 1970 book Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret says growing intolerance must be challengedThe author Judy Blume says a rise in intolerance in America has led to a “much worse” epidemic of book banning than she experienced in the 1980s.The children’s and young adult author, whose frank depictions of adolescence and puberty have long caused controversy, said it was time to fight back against censorship. Continue reading...
Influential executive co-founded Sire Records and signed Lou Reed, the Ramones and introduced the Smiths and the Cure to the USSeymour Stein, the music executive who launched the careers of Madonna, Talking Heads and the Ramones, and introduced the Cure, Depeche Mode and the Smiths to America, has died aged 80.Stein died on Sunday morning in Los Angeles after a long battle with cancer, a spokesperson for the family confirmed to Variety. Continue reading...
by Vikram Dodd Police and crime correspondent on (#6ACDN)
Stephen Alderton, 66, will appear in court in connection with killings of father and son Gary and Josh DunmoreA man has been charged with the murders of a father and son following two shootings in villages in Cambridgeshire.Stephen Alderton, 66, has been charged with the murders of Gary
Coroner said Maj Gen Matt Holmes struggled to cope after loss of senior role in militaryA former head of the Royal Marines killed himself after becoming angry and frustrated at losing his role and was struggling to cope with the breakdown of his marriage, a coroner has concluded.Maj Gen Matt Holmes, 54, was “awash with stress” when his post was taken from him in a management restructuring and he was also concerned that the UK’s military withdrawal from Afghanistan could put former comrades at risk, his inquest was told. Continue reading...
Anti-monopoly consumer groups slam multibillion-takeover of Shaw by Rogers that will create a media and sports behemothCanada has approved a major telecoms takeover that would create a media and sports behemoth in an already concentrated media landscape, in a landmark deal that anti-monopoly consumer groups slammed as “a dark day” for competition in Canada.On Friday the industry minister, François-Philippe Champagne, said he had approved a multibillion-dollar takeover of Shaw by Rogers. Continue reading...
GCSE pupils struggling to complete education and NHS appointments lost after move to Wetherby in YorkshireAfghan refugee families who were told by the Home Office to uproot their lives in London and relocate 200 miles away say their children’s education and health are being severely damaged.In a challenge to claims made this week by the veterans minister, Johnny Mercer, they say that children as young as five years old and three GCSE pupils have not been found school places after being relocated in February from Kensington to a bridging hotel in Wetherby, on the outskirts of Leeds. Continue reading...
Anugrah Abraham’s family allege he faced bullying and discrimination before he killed himselfThe police watchdog has launched an investigation into allegations that a student police officer in West Yorkshire was bullied before his death.Anugrah Abraham, known as Anu, was on a placement with West Yorkshire police as part of his three-year apprenticeship degree at Leeds Trinity University. His family alleged he faced bullying, discrimination and a lack of support during his first on-the-ground placement at Halifax police station.In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 988 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org Continue reading...
ScottishPower, British Gas and E.ON alleged government’s decision-making process was ‘flawed’The biggest UK state bailout since 2008 will move ahead after justices threw out a high court challenge to the government’s sale of the collapsed energy firm Bulb.Three big energy suppliers – ScottishPower, British Gas and E.ON – had hoped to upend the £3bn deal to sell Bulb to rival Octopus Energy by calling for a judicial review. Continue reading...
Max Woosey, 13, is looking forward to being known as ‘more than the boy in the tent’ after raising huge sum for local hospiceWhen he began his camping adventure, Max Woosey imagined he would spend a few weeks sleeping in his new tent and raise a few hundred pounds for a good cause.Three years on, after surviving fierce winds, sub-zero temperatures and an awful lot of rain, 13-year-old Max’s efforts have earned more than three-quarters of a million pounds for a hospice and given him unexpected fame – but he has finally decided it is time to put a solid roof back over his head and clamber into a proper bed. Continue reading...
Precipitation has made western US very cold and wet, with one ski lodge declaring snowiest season on recordOver recent months there has been a recurring theme in weather news about how wet and unsettled western parts of the US have been, particularly in the normally sunny state of California.This has been caused by frequent atmospheric rivers funnelling into western North America, and a recent analysis by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography found that over the course of this water year (1 October 2022 to 30 September 2023) 31 atmospheric river events have affected the west coast so far. Continue reading...
by Josh Halliday North of England correspondent on (#6ABZC)
Sixteen-year-olds taken into custody in connection with assault on 73-year-old man in Kings HeathTwo teenage boys have been arrested on suspicion of attacking a 73-year-old man as he walked home from a mosque in Birmingham.The 16-year-olds were taken into custody for questioning in connection with the “appalling” assault in the Kings Heath area of the city on Wednesday night, West Midlands police said. Continue reading...
ACC Liverpool admits long queues at M&S Bank Arena led to problems for people coming to Jamie Webster gigCrowd congestion at the Liverpool venue due to host the Eurovision song contest later this year was not acceptable, its operator has reportedly admitted.ACC Liverpool, which runs the M&S Bank Arena in the city, acknowledged that people had been left in extremely long queues for the bars and toilets, which in turn caused problems for people trying to get into the venue for the sold-out Jamie Webster concert. The congestion got so bad that some fans complained one area felt unsafe, the BBC reported. Continue reading...
Osborne says the scheme, which closes Friday, ‘helped hundreds of thousands of families’, but critics argue it was ‘only a gimmick’George Osborne’s Help to Buy scheme officially shuts this Friday, a little over a decade after the then chancellor launched it with the aim of revitalising what was a sluggish UK property market.The scheme granted 375,654 interest-free equity loans for the purchase of new-build properties, according to the latest figures which cover until the end of last September, with 84% of applicants first-time buyers. On average they borrowed £63,000, on a typical purchase price of £273,500, with a total value of £23.6bn lent out. Continue reading...
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