Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Typhoon jets scrambled in response to plane that was not answering air traffic control
A huge bang heard across London and in Hertfordshire just after 4am on Sunday was caused by RAF jets going supersonic, the Met and the MoD said.
“Two Typhoon fighter aircraft from RAF Coningsby were scrambled at 0409 this morning, as part of the UK’s Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) procedures, after an aircraft lost communications in UK airspace,” said the Ministry of Defence. “The aircraft was intercepted and its communications were subsequently re-established. The Typhoons are returning to their base.”
Prime minister says terrorists convicted of the most serious offences should never be released from prison
Boris Johnson on Saturday said that those convicted of the most serious terrorist offences should never be released from prison, as arguments over the blame for Friday’s London Bridge attack were thrust centre stage into the election campaign.
The prime minister reacted to the latest terrorist incident – in which three people died, including the assailant – by promising a package of hardline reforms which also included mandatory minimum 14-year sentences, an end to automatic early release for terrorist and extremism offences, and a new system under which those convicted will have to serve every day of sentences handed down by judges.
Giles Terera claims Ain’t Nothin’ But blues bar denied group of actors entry because they were black
A star of the hit musical Hamilton has accused a Soho bar of racial profiling, claiming that it denied a group of actors entry because they were black.
Giles Terera said the Ain’t Nothin’ But blues bar had allowed 10 white people next to them to enter, but that the group of eight black actors were turned away.
A counter-terrorism specialist has described the criminal justice system as playing “Russian roulette” with the public, after it was revealed the London Bridge attacker had been released from jail after being convicted of terror offences.
Chris Phillips, a former head of the UK National Counter Terrorism Security Office, told the PA news agency:
The criminal justice system needs to look at itself. We’re letting people out of prison, we’re convicting people for very, very serious offences and then they are releasing them back into society when they are still radicalised.
So how on Earth can we ever ask our police services and our security services to keep us safe? I’ve said it a few times today, we’re playing Russian roulette with people’s lives, letting convicted, known, radicalised Jihadi criminals walk about our streets.
Sky News is reporting that the attacker was “a student and personal friend” of the radical preacher Anjem Choudary.
Choudary was released from prison last year after serving half of the five-and-a-half-year sentence he received in 2016 for urging support for Isis and pledging allegiance to the terrorist group.
Sky News understands 28-year-old Usman Khan who has been identified as the suspect in the London Bridge terror attack was a student and personal friend of the Islamist extremist Anjem Choudary
Remains of 23 victims arrive in Hanoi following repatriation of further 16 to their hometowns days earlier
The remains of the last 23 of 39 Vietnamese people found dead in a lorry near London in October have been brought to Vietnam.
The remains of the 23 victims arrived at Noi Bai airport in Hanoi early on Saturday, a local government official said. Seven of the bodies were cremated in Britain before being repatriated, said the official Vietnam News Agency.
Humanitarian organisation says policy is not helping bring clarity or peace to Syria
The head of the international Red Cross has sharply criticised Britain’s policy of stripping the citizenship of people held in Syria after the fall of Islamic State, saying it is “not conducive” to long-term peace in the region.
A man and a woman were killed in a terror attack in London carried out by an Islamist extremist who had been jailed for an al-Qaida inspired bomb plot and was recently released on licence.
Scotland Yard are investigating how 28-year-old Usman Khan was able to launch the attack in London Bridge on Friday, despite being known to the authorities and fitted with an electronic tag to monitor his movements. He was allowed out a year ago after serving time for his part in a plot to blow up the London Stock Exchange.
Owen Jones, the Guardian columnist, said he arrived the area minutes after the incident and saw people running away in fear. He said:
“I turned up as emergency services had arrived en masse in the area... Cordons were being put up and people were running away. The police were yelling: ‘keep moving’ and people were running away looking frightened. I was by London Bridge about to the cross the bridge
“One of my friends was evacuated from their office in the area.. I saw lots of people running down the streets towards me... it was a bad atmosphere and everyone in the area are quite worried. In these circumstances, no one knows what is going on. It was just a very chaotic - where I was, people were scared. They were genuinely very scared.”
Amanda Hunter, who witnessed the shooting from a bus and videoed the aftermath, described what she saw to BBC News. She said:
I was coming home on the 21 bus and all of all a sudden it stopped. There was some commotion and I looked out the window and I just saw these three police officers going over to a man. It seemed like there was something in his hand. I’m not 100% sure, but then one of the police officer shot him.
From there, I was able to take a video of the scene.
Other dual nationals also in jail because of UK failure to repay debt to Iran, says husband
Boris Johnson made only “placebo promises” to free Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and is responsible for putting more British-Iranian dual nationals in the jails in Iran, her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, claims in a private letter to the prime minister.
Ratcliffe sent the letter 100 days ago, seeking a meeting alongside his daughter, Gabriella, to discuss his wife’s three-and-a-half-year imprisonment.
Boris Johnson has refused to disclose how many children he has or whether he is involved in their lives, in an appearance on a radio phone-in show during which he was questioned over past comments about single mothers.
Answering listeners’ questions on LBC, Johnson was challenged by one caller about an article he wrote in 1995 in which he blamed single mothers for “producing a generation of ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate children.”
Charles Michel, who replaces Donald Tusk, says bloc has to work hard to keep unity
The EU is ready for the next phase of Brexit but risks greater internal divisions over trade talks with the UK, one of its incoming leaders has said.
In one of his first interviews since being nominated president of the European council, Charles Michel said Brexit may have played an important role in bringing the EU together.
TV celebrity chef collapsed in his residence in Dubai after day of filming new programme
The TV chef Gary Rhodes died from bleeding between the skull and the brain, according to a statement from his family.
They said they wanted to end “painful speculation” about his death, after he died in Dubai on Tuesday.
The 59-year-old had been working on a new TV series and was reported to be in a happy mood when he came home from filming. He later collapsed and was rushed to hospital.
Party’s dossier contains dubious and outdated claims about Lib Dems and Labour
Conservative candidates in the general election have been issued with a detailed dossier on how to attack Labour and Liberal Democrat rivals which contains numerous rehashed and potentially misleading claims, the Guardian can reveal.
The documents accuse the Liberal Democrats of pushing “pro-pimp” policies and sex work as a career for schoolchildren.
Arconic’s outlay on lawyers dwarfs amount spent on panels found to be main cause of fire spread
The Grenfell Tower cladding manufacturer has spent £30m on lawyers and advisers defending its role in the disaster in an outlay that dwarfs the amount spent on the panels a public inquiry has determined were the main cause of fire spread.
Arconic has been spending at a rate of up to £50,000 a day on lawyers and other advisers, according to corporate filings in the US seen by the Guardian. As well as the public inquiry, it is embroiled in a criminal investigation in the UK with detectives investigating possible corporate manslaughter and manslaughter cases, a civil suit in the US for wrongful death brought by survivors and a consumer protection inquiry in France, where the subsidiary that supplied the Grenfell panels is based.
Clive James, the broadcaster, poet and television critic, has died aged 80 after a long illness.
The Australian died at his home in Cambridge on Sunday, his agent confirmed. A private funeral attended by family and close friends took place in the chapel at Pembroke College, Cambridge, on Wednesday afternoon.
Benin bronze statue at Jesus College to be repatriated after 1897 theft by British forces
A bronze cockerel taken by British colonial forces and donated to Jesus College Cambridge is to be returned to Nigeria in an unprecedented step that adds momentum to the growing repatriations movement.
The Okukor, described by the college as a “royal ancestral heirloom”, will be one of the first Benin bronzes to be returned to Nigeria by a major British institution since the punitive expedition in 1897 when thousands of bronzes were stolen from Benin City by British forces.