Category Archives: UK news

Stephen King, Margaret Atwood and Roxane Gay champion trans rights in open letter

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With more than 1,200 co-signatories in North America including Neil Gaiman and NK Jemisin, message follows row over comments by JK Rowling

Stephen King and Margaret Atwood are among the signatories to an open letter offering support to the trans and non-binary communities of the US and Canada, as a bitter divide over trans rights continues to split the literary world.

The message from writers and members of the US literary community follows a similar letter from authors in the UK and Ireland. Both letters come in the wake of a fierce row over JK Rowling’s comments on trans rights, including her comment that “if sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased”.

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Residents of remote Scottish peninsula face up to its future as spaceport

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The Mhoine peninsula in Sutherland will house one of UK’s first sites of its kind if it wins approval

In two years, thousands of tourists and space enthusiasts could be gathering in the far north of Scotland to watch an unlikely event, the inaugural flight of a rocket blasting off from a peat bog usually grazed by deer and sheep.

The Mhoine peninsula in Sutherland, a desolate stretch of peatland punctuated by mires and tiny lochs overlooking the Pentland Firth, has been chosen as the site of one of the UK’s first spaceports – provided it eventually wins approval from the Civil Aviation Authority.

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Coronavirus live news: Spain imposes state of emergency in Madrid; Europe records 100,000 daily cases for first time

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Court had struck down lockdown measures in Spanish capital; Cases in Europe have been steadily rising over the past week

US President Donald Trump has approved a revised Covid-19 relief stimulus, White House Economic Advisor Larry Kudlow has said.

Stocks immediately rallied on the news, Bloomberg News tweets, while the president himself (or one of his staff) has has also been on Twitter in the last few minutes

Covid Relief Negotiations are moving along. Go Big!

Related: Pelosi says medication has Trump 'in an altered state' in 25th amendment bid – live

Most people in the UK who have Covid-19 or are a contact of somebody who has tested positive fail to fully self-isolate, despite its necessity in preventing a resurgence of the pandemic, according to government advisors.

Newly released papers reveal that behavioural science experts privately warned last month that only 18-25% of people who needed to were self-isolating. Others were still going out to work or to shop, even though they risked infecting others, according to the details of the briefing for ministers by the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) .

Related: Coronavirus: at least three-quarters of people in UK fail to self-isolate

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51-year-old man charged with murder of doctor and daughter

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Dr Saman Mir Sacharvi and Vian Mangrio, 14, were found dead inside a house in Burnley

A 51-year-old man has been charged with the murder of Dr Saman Mir Sacharvi, 49, and her daughter, Vian Mangrio, 14, who were found dead inside a fire and smoke-damaged house in Burnley last week.

Lancashire police have charged Shabaz Khan, of Ribble Avenue, Burnley, with two counts of murder and one count of arson being reckless as to whether life is endangered.

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Covid-19: Scotland’s drinking ban in chaos over meaning of cafe

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Nicola Sturgeon’s 16-day ban called ‘dysfunctional’ after contradictory statements

Scotland’s nationwide crackdown on indoor drinking descended into chaos on Thursday evening, less than 24 hours before strict new regulations on hospitality are due to come into force.

Many business owners in central Scotland, where a 16-day shutdown of pubs, restaurants and cafes that serve alcohol was announced by Nicola Sturgeon on Wednesday, claimed that they were still uncertain whether they were expected to close at 6pm on Friday as trade bodies described the Scottish government’s behaviour as “dysfunctional”.

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Belgian ambassador throws King Charles II treaty into EU fishing debate

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British king granted 50 Flemish fishermen ‘eternal rights’ to English fishing waters in 1666

All is fair in love and cod war. And with the EU’s coastal states under pressure to give way on Britain’s demands for greater fishing catches in its waters post-Brexit, any old argument is worth a try.

When the issue of the future access of European fishing fleets was being discussed by EU ambassadors in Brussels on Wednesday the Belgian government’s representative, Willem van de Voorde, made a notable intervention.

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Why Edinburgh University’s lockdown study is not all it seems

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Commentators have used study as evidence government was too quick to impose full lockdown but conclusions not so clear

While it has been widely accepted that the closure of UK schools in March was bad for the life chances of its children, a research paper from the University of Edinburgh has gone as far as to say that the move could have contributed to a higher Covid-19 death toll.

The study, published in the British Medical Journal, suggested lockdown restrictions were the most effective way of reducing peak demand for intensive care unit beds, but argued they were also likely to prolong the epidemic because, once lifted, they left a large population susceptible to the virus.

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Pubs and restaurants: do scientists think Covid closures and curfews work?

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While virus can spread easily in crowded indoor venues, 10pm cut-off is questionable

Pubs, bars and restaurants in Scotland will be banned from serving alcohol to customers indoors for more than two weeks, while pubs in northern England face the possibility of tighter restrictions. But what does the science say?

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National Trust to cut 1,300 jobs as a result of Covid-19 crisis

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More than 500 compulsory redundancies as charity aims for annual savings of £100m

Almost 1,300 jobs are to be lost at the National Trust as a result of the coronavirus crisis, but the charity said it had more than halved the number of compulsory redundancies it expected to make.

A union has described the job losses as “devastating” for people affected but also called the plan “a reasonable way to move forward”.

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Holocaust survivor’s daughter sues historian over claim of lesbian liaison with Nazi guard

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Warwick University academic ‘broke German court ruling that protected dead woman’s reputation’

The daughter of a Holocaust survivor has begun a legal battle to protect her deceased mother’s reputation from allegations that she had a lesbian relationship with an SS guard.

Earlier this year, a German court ruled that Dr Anna Hájková, associate professor of modern continental European history at Warwick University, had violated the woman’s postmortem personality rights by publicly claiming that she had a sexual relationship with the Nazi guard while imprisoned in concentration camps.

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Anaesthetist goes on trial in France over death of British woman

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Court told Helga Wauters was drunk when she botched Xynthia Hawke’s caesarean

An alcoholic anaesthetist who botched an emergency caesarean operation that left a young British woman brain dead had been drinking since she woke up that morning, a French court has heard.

Helga Wauters, 51, pushed a breathing tube into 28-year-old Xynthia Hawke’s oesophagus instead of her windpipe and failed to react even when the young woman turned blue, vomited, cried out in pain and went into cardiac arrest.

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Scottish pubs lash out at ‘catastrophic’ Covid crackdown

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Bar and restaurant owners say they are ‘getting picked on’ and measures will hit young staff

The Scottish government is facing a fierce backlash after Nicola Sturgeon announced a crackdown on indoor drinking in licensed premises, as one leading adviser said more needed to be done to ensure people were sticking to the rules in their own homes.

Scottish pub, bar and restaurant owners expressed anger and despair at “catastrophic” and “scapegoating” new regulations that are set to last for 16 days across the country, and people on online forums decried the “prohibition” that would result from harsher restrictions in central Scotland.

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North of England leaders vow to oppose lockdown without financial support

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Politicians say businesses and residents will need economic lifeline if further restrictions are imposed

Ministers are facing open revolt from leaders in northern England over fresh coronavirus restrictions due to be announced within days, as mayors, MPs, and council leaders, vowed they would fiercely oppose any new measures without substantial financial support.

Pubs, bars, and restaurants across Merseyside, Greater Manchester, and parts of the north-east of England could be forced to close next week in an effort to slow the soaring infection rate.

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Italian PM urges UK to do right thing on Brexit deal

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Giuseppe Conte under pressure from Italian exporters to ensure favourable outcome on withdrawal agreement

Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, has urged the British government to come good on a Brexit deal but admitted it was currently “difficult to feel optimistic” amid legal wrangling over the withdrawal agreement.

“Obviously the legislative move in the UK creates tension,” said Conte, referring to Boris Johnson’s tabling of a bill that violates key elements of the agreement reached with Brussels last year.

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Minority of Europeans think US election will be free and fair – poll

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Exclusive: majorities in seven countries favour Joe Biden and rate Donald Trump poorly

Fewer than one in 10 Europeans expect next month’s US presidential election to be completely free and fair, and an overwhelming majority say they would like Joe Biden to triumph over Donald Trump.

According to a YouGov tracker survey in Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden, in only one of these countries – Italy – are more than a tenth of voters confident that the American electoral process will prove irreproachable.

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Coronavirus live news: Brazil cases pass 5m; Trump calls catching Covid ‘a blessing in disguise’

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France sees record cases; one in seven people tested in Belgian capital is positive; Trump returns to Oval Office against CDC’s isolation guidelines. Follow the latest updates

As far as we understand, that memo means that around 7 more people than are currently known to be infected have contracted the virus.

Per our most recent story:

Related: At least 27 in Trump’s circle have tested positive for coronavirus

From that ABC report:

The coronavirus outbreak has infected “34 White House staffers and other contacts” in recent days, according to an internal government memo, an indication that the disease has spread among more people than previous known in the seat of American government.

Dated Wednesday and obtained by ABC News, the memo was distributed among senior leadership at FEMA, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security and the agency responsible for managing the continuing national response to the public health disaster.

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Coronavirus live news: Madrid court rejects partial lockdown as ‘harmful to basic rights’; Brazil cases pass 5m

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Madrid court strikes down partial lockdown order in city; Trump returns to Oval Office against CDC’s isolation guidelines; France sees record cases rise

British airline easyJet said it will open a new base in Faro, the main city in Portugal’s popular Algarve tourist region, which has been hammered by the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Joao Lopes, easyJet’s executive director in Portugal, told reporters the airline would allocate three aircraft to Faro next year, making it the company’s third base in the country. It already has bases in Lisbon and Porto.

The US president, Donald Trump, said talks with Congress have restarted over further Covid-19 relief and that there was a good chance a deal could be reached, but gave no other details about a possible agreement.

“Now they are starting to work out,” he told Fox in a telephone interview, after previous statements via his Twitter account earlier this week that he had cut off negotiations.

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British-born pair charged in US over murder of Isis hostages

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El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey, held in detention for two years, transferred to America and charged with terrorism offences

Two British-born citizens alleged to have members of an Isis execution squad infamous for beheading hostages have been flown to the US to face trial after two years in detention.

Related: The jihadist 'Beatles': Britons who became the face of Isis cruelty

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Living standards for UK’s poorest plunge during pandemic

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Charity reveals over a third of families say they are financially worse off since lockdown

Living standards have plunged for some of the UK’s poorest families during the coronavirus pandemic, with over a third reporting they are financially even worse off since lockdown, according to Save the Children.

The charity’s survey of households on universal credit or working tax credits found nearly two-thirds had run up debts over the past two months, 60% had cut down on food and other basics, and over a third had relied on charities for food and clothes.

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Charges against UK-born Isis pair shed light on brutality of terror group

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Hostage-taking and multiple murder among charges levelled against Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh

The grisly allegations of hostage-taking, brutality and multiple murder in the lengthy charge sheet against Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh represent more than just a summary of US case against the British-born Isis followers.

It amounts to an indictment of Isis, the brutal terror organisation that drew murderous strength from adherents who came from around the world, and its dead leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

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