Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
As multiple lockdown measures are eased on 4 July, England will enter uncanny valley territory: life almost as we know it, but with notable exceptions.
Weddings can go ahead at religious venues – but with a cap of 30 participants and no singing. Two households can meet indoors, but must make an effort to stay physically distanced. Hugs will have to wait for now. Playgrounds and pubs can open, but casinos and swimming pools will remain shut.
Michelle from North Carolina shared her recipe for ‘British tea’. An international incident followed
There have been more severe transatlantic bust-ups over a brew, such as the American Revolution, but few can have been quite so twee. Nearly 250 years after the Boston Tea Party, the British ambassador in Washington and her US counterpart in London are going at it over how to make a decent hot drink. And by Wednesday evening, the conflict was spilling over into mainland Europe.
Like many tense diplomatic standoffs, it began with a deliberate provocation. An American TikTok user going by the name of Michelle from North Carolina posted a video showing how to make what she describes as “hot tea”, which entails mixing milk with powdered lemonade, cinnamon, cloves, sugar and Tang, which turns out to be a soft drink.
Emma Nicholson’s views on same-sex marriage raised as concern by writers and one former Booker winner
Damian Barr is leading a charge of writers, including one former Booker prize winner, who are calling on the Booker Foundation to remove the allegedly “homophobic” peer Emma Nicholson from her position as vice-president.
Tauqir Sharif’s UK citizenship was revoked in 2017, after working on aid projects in the region
A British man living in rebel-held Syria has been abducted by the area’s dominant jihadist group, his family has said.
Tauqir Sharif and his wife, Racquell Hayden Best, from Walthamstow, east London, have been working on humanitarian projects in Syria since 2013 and are currently living with their five children in Idlib province, the last opposition bastion of the country. Idlib, in north-west Syria, has been controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a militant group with links to al-Qaida, since January 2019.
Embassy in London claims construction project is covered by diplomatic immunity
A row over the construction of a wall at the Chinese consulate in Belfast has escalated after China said it would ignore a legal order to temporarily halt the work.
A letter from lawyers for the Chinese embassy in London to residents objecting to the security wall said diplomatic staff did not recognise the jurisdiction of courts in Northern Ireland.
As the coronavirus spreads, soaring demand for oxygen is bringing out a stark global truth: even the right to breathe depends on money. In much of the world, oxygen is expensive and hard to get a basic marker of inequality both between and within countries.
In wealthy Europe and North America, hospitals treat oxygen as a fundamental need, much like water or electricity. It is delivered in liquid form by tanker truck and piped directly to the beds of coronavirus patients. Running short is all but unthinkable for a resource that literally can be pulled from the air.
In Spain, as coronavirus deaths climbed, engineers laid 7 km (4 miles) of tubing in less than a week to give 1,500 beds in an impromptu hospital a direct supply of pure oxygen. Oxygen is also plentiful and brings the most profits in industrial use such as mining, aerospace, electronics and construction.
But in poor countries, from Peru to Bangladesh, it is in lethally short supply.
In Guinea, a west-coastal country in West Africa, oxygen is a costly challenge for government-funded medical facilities such as the Donka public hospital in the capital, Conakry.
A haunted house in Japan has developed a drive-through format amid the Coronavirus pandemic.
Inside a car, guests can scream as loudly as they like, with no mask required. And according to producer Kenta Iwana, 25, the new format might even be scarier than a traditional haunted house.
Less than fifth of those identified by Home Office as likely modern slavery victims are referred for legal and housing advice – study
Thousands of people identified as potential victims of trafficking in the UK have not been referred for support despite government pledges to help them, according to a new study.
Many victims of trafficking are hidden and unable to access support because they are under the control of those who are exploiting them. But victims who do come into contact with the authorities such as the police, Home Office or Gangmaster and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) which investigates reports of worker exploitation and human trafficking, should be referred for safe housing and legal advice.
The daily Downing Street coronavirus press conferences, watched by millions since early March, are coming to an end. Here are some of the most memorable moments.
Boris Johnson has announced a raft of new measures aimed at easing England's coronavirus lockdown and restarting the economy. The 2-metre physical distancing rule will be dropped in favour of a '1-metre-plus' approach from 4 July. Members of two different households will be able to eat, drink or dine together, pubs restaurants and hairdressers will reopen with Covid-19 mitigation measures in place
Novak Djokovic, the men’s world No 1 tennis player, has tested positive for Covid-19, the Serbian said in a statement on Tuesday.
Croatia’s Borna Ćorić, Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria and Viktor Troicki have previously tested positive after playing in Djokovic’s Adria Tour exhibition tournament in the Balkan region.
Italy has seen a surge in bicycle sales since the government ended its coronavirus lockdown as people steer clear of public transport and respond to government incentives to help the environment.
Some 540,000 bikes have been sold nationwide since shops across the country reopened in early May, according to sector lobby Ancma, a 60% increase in the first month compared to the same period in 2019.
When patients quit cigarettes at the King Hussein Cancer Center’s smoking clinic they are asked to be patient with their children. Often their offspring have been exposed to so much secondhand smoke that they have become addicted, too.
“For every four cigarettes their parent has smoked, the child has smoked one,” says Firas al-Hawari, a physician who directs the clinic. “We can control the parents with medication, but the kids are going through withdrawals because we don’t have them on medication.”
Move in autumn will let users set Gmail as default email app and Firefox as main web browser
iPhone users will be able to set Gmail as their default email app, Firefox as their main web browser, and listen to Spotify on their HomePod speakers, after Apple announced concessions to competitors who argue the company is abusing its monopoly.
The new openness will arrive with a wave of software updates in the autumn, Apple said, alongside the other new features the company promised at its Worldwide Developers Conference, held remotely from Cupertino, California, on Monday.
In April, St Ronans care home in Southsea, Portsmouth, tested positive for coronavirus. Without readily available testing, staff think Covid-19 infected about 25 of their residents. Four died with symptoms or suspected symptoms. Through a mixture of videos shot by workers inside the home and interviews filmed outside, they discuss how they are coping with the pandemic, and how staff, residents and relatives are adjusting to the 'new normal'
Local man arrested over deaths of Joshua James Flynn, his son Coby-Jay and daughter Skylar
A man and his two children who were killed while out on a Father’s Day walk have been named by police.
Joshua James Flynn, 37, his son Coby-Jay Flynn, 15, and daughter Skylar Flynn, 12, along with their dog, Troy, died in the collision with a Peugeot 206 in Dalton, Cumbria, at about 2.30pm on Sunday. All were pronounced dead at the scene.
Mouths to feed, rent to pay: there’s always an excuse if you’re tempted to do the wrong thing
Where is Ghislaine Maxwell? Where? I sat through the four episodes of Filthy Rich, the Netflix documentary on Jeffrey Epstein. I had to force myself, not because it was so upsetting – which, of course, it also was – but because the tales of his sexual abuse were so monotonous. Brave and defiant, his victims had to numb themselves slightly to tell and retell what happened to them when they were as young as 14. The interviews with the monster himself, as always, were disappointingly banal. Monsters often are tediously ordinary. The magnetic charm, the immense intellect, is one of the biggest delusions of “true crime”. See also Ted Bundy.
Anyway Ghislaine, accused of procuring underage girls for Epstein, is said to be a free woman in Paris, living in the swanky 8th arrondisement. French law prevents her extradition. Many of those implicated in Epstein’s world of obscene exploitation, including all the art world and socialite scum, must have a clue where she is. Alleged scum, I should say. They love their children just like we do. Sure.
Exclusive: Discovery of prehistoric structure is another reason to give up ‘disastrous, white elephant’ scheme
Leading archaeologists say a £1.6bn scheme to build a road tunnel through the historic Stonehenge landscape should be scrapped altogether after the sensational nearby discovery of the largest prehistoric structure ever found in Britain.
Mike Parker Pearson, professor of British later prehistory at University College London, said: “This is just another reason to give up this disastrous, white elephant of a scheme.”
Exclusive: Christopher Steele claims May government turned blind eye to Trump allegations
Boris Johnson and Theresa May ignored claims the Kremlin had a “likely hold” over Donald Trump and may have covertly funded Brexit, the former spy Christopher Steele alleges in secret evidence given to MPs who drew up the Russia report.
In testimony to MPs, the MI6 veteran accused the government led by May and in which Johnson was foreign secretary for two years of turning a blind eye to allegations about Trump because they were afraid of offending the US president.