Jeffrey Donaldson’s letter to alleged victim had ‘nothing to do’ with abuse claims, trial hears

Former DUP leader’s barrister said woman was mistaken in linking letter to his alleged sex offences

Jeffrey Donaldson told a woman who has accused him of sexual assault that he regretted inflicting “hurt, pain and distress”, but his comments were not related to the allegations, a court has heard.

A lawyer for the former MP and Democratic Unionist party leader told Newry crown court on Friday that Donaldson’s letter to the alleged victim had “nothing to do” with her accusations of sexual abuse and referred to other behaviour.

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Lone children held at UK-run detention centres in France 284 times last year

Refugee charities say the numbers revealed in freedom of information data are ‘shocking’

Lone children were held at UK-run detention centres in France on nearly 300 occasions last year, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.

Data obtained by the Guardian shows they are part of about 900 instances when unaccompanied minors have been detained at British short-term facilities near Calais and Dunkirk over the last four years.

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Anger at decision not to prosecute Canadian suicide kit supplier in UK

Kenneth Law pleaded guilty in Canada to sending products internationally, knowing they would probably be used to end lives

Bereaved families whose loved ones were the victims of an online supplier of suicide kits say they feel insulted by a decision not to prosecute him in the UK.

Kenneth Law pleaded guilty in a court in Ontario, Canada, to 14 charges of aiding suicide and sending products internationally in the knowledge that they were likely to be used to end lives. He is due to be sentenced at a later date.

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Housing asylum seekers in former army barracks ruled unlawful for victims of torture

Judgment outlawing forcing of survivors of trafficking, torture and other forms of violence to share rooms is blow to Shabana Mahmood’s asylum plans

Shabana Mahmood’s plan to house more asylum seekers in former army barracks is facing a major hurdle after the high court ruled on Thursday that a policy change forcing torture victims to share rooms was unlawful.

According to a judgment seen by the Guardian, the government failed in its duties when it forced survivors of trafficking, torture and other serious forms of violence to share rooms with strangers.

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Labour faces union backlash after minister says living wage extension to over-18s not certain before election – as it happened

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Ministers are proposing new laws to crack down on damage to undersea cables amid “hostile activity by Russia”, the Press Association reports. PA says:

Tougher penalties for ship owners and operators who recklessly damage underwater infrastructure will be set out in a white paper later this year, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said.

Acts of sabotage linked to a hostile state already carries life imprisonment for the most serious cases but undersea malicious activity sometimes operates in a “grey zone” which is difficult to prosecute, DSIT said.

It’s astonishing that Reform have admitted they knew about Kenyon’s social media accounts. Nigel Farage needs to urgently explain to the public why, if his party was aware of his online history, he was happy to put forward a candidate who has made vile degrading comments about women, multiple homophobic posts and spread dangerous false narratives about the Manchester Arena bombing.

I am rough around the edges. I have made mistakes in my life. I’m not perfect. Nobody is. Not a single person in the world is perfect. I think everybody does say things that eventually they regret.

It was a crude attempt at a joke to probably about 50 followers.

No offence was meant, and it’s not something I’d do now.

I think I’ve addressed the issue. I think that no offence was meant and it wasn’t a direct comment to her. If you go into any building site in the area or any public barracks, I think you’d hear a hundred times worse said.

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Man and woman charged over Sheffield bystander shooting

Shanice Brookes, 30, was shot dead outside bar in city centre during early hours of bank holiday Monday

A man and a woman have been charged in connection with the fatal shooting of a 30-year-old woman outside a bar in Sheffield in the early hours of bank holiday Monday.

Shanice Brookes was shot near the One Four One bar in West Street shortly before 2.45am on Monday. Detectives have described her as “simply an innocent bystander”.

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Sunbed group in hot seat over false claims that tanned skin protects against sunburn

Health organisations refute assertion by Sunbed Association that tanning is protective and warn it could increase risk of skin cancer

The body that represents the UK’s sunbed salons is wrongly insisting that a tan protects against sunburn, even though leading medical bodies (contacted by Full Fact) say that claim is untrue.

Health organisations have challenged the accuracy of information being disseminated by the Sunbed Association, which on its website asks: “Is it true there is no such thing as a safe tan?”

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Tenderness and Rage: how groups affected by HIV found power, comfort and joy in Aids activism

London exhibition explores how care and protest improved rights and dignity of those living with disease

From photos of a mass “die-in” by Aids activists in Trafalgar Square, London, in the 1990s to plushie breasts, lips and vulvas hand-stitched by HIV-positive women, a new exhibition explores how care and protest have improved the rights and dignity of those living with the disease.

The show, Tenderness and Rage, at the Wellcome Collection, London, reflects how different groups affected by HIV, including gay men, women of colour, and refugees in the UK and around the world have found power, solidarity, comfort and joy in Aids activism and support services.

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Burberry boss could earn up to £12.2m under new bonus scheme as company rolls back climate goals

Company, which paid boss Joshua Schulman £4m in year to March, becomes latest to extend deadline to become carbon neutral

The boss of Burberry could earn up to £12.2m after the luxury British brand introduced a new bonus scheme, while its annual report also revealed the company has scaled back its climate ambitions.

Joshua Schulman, a former chief executive of the US fashion brand Coach who was hired in July 2024 to help revive Burberry, was paid £4m in the year to March, up from £2.5m for his first nine months in the job.

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Burnham steps back from past calls to end immigration benefits restriction

Labour’s Makerfield byelection candidate understood to have changed stance on no recourse to public funds policy

Andy Burnham has rolled back from his previous calls for ministers to scrap a restriction on immigrants claiming benefits as the Makerfield byelection places greater scrutiny on his policy positions.

As Greater Manchester mayor, Burnham has called several times for an end to the rule known as no recourse to public funds (NRPF), which since 1999 has prevented new arrivals getting access to benefits or public housing before they are granted settled status.

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The Campaign Diary of Robert Kenyon Aged 41 and Three-Quarters (as imagined by John Crace)

What’s Carol Vorderman moaning about? All I said was how fit she was … must be going through the menopause or something

Another sweltering sub-Saharan summer’s day in late spring. If this is global warming, I say: “Bring it on.” I go outside to the van, turn on the engine and leave it running. This is the kind of day you want to burn as many fossil fuels as possible. Back indoors, I turn on the radio where Tony Blair is talking. There’s a politician who talks sense.

Bollocks to net zero. That’s what I say. It stands to reason. I mean, think back to the ice age. Let’s face it, there weren’t that many international flights a day while the Neanderthals were alive – five or six at most – and the world still got a whole lot hotter. So it’s all just woke nonsense. Make a note in my diary to ask if Tony is free to come up to Makerfield to do some door-knocking.

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Milburn says migrants not to blame for Neets crisis but falling immigration creates ‘opportunity’ – UK politics live

Major report on young people not in employment, education or training warns ‘we have neither a system or a plan to deal with it’

Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, is introducing Alan Milburn.

He says Milburn’s report is “really important and powerful”.

I could see in the first few weeks after being appointed as the secretary of state what was happening, both in human and in financial terms, [in terms of youth unemployment].

And I knew that we had to get properly under the bonnet of this problem, because there’s a lot more thing than one thing happening here …

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‘Deep unease’ at BBC Radio Scotland as majority of axed presenters are women

Changes are part of sweeping shake-up by Victoria Easton Riley, BBC Scotland’s new head of audio and events

There is a “deep sense of unease” among staff at BBC Radio Scotland after a succession of respected arts presenters, more than half of them women, were dropped from schedules.

The changes have prompted questions about diversity of coverage amid an apparent shift to a “more commercial sensibility” for the public broadcaster.

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Most UK men should not be offered prostate cancer screening, experts say

Government will consider committee’s guidance, which says mass screening ‘likely to cause more harm than good’

Most men in the UK will not be offered prostate cancer screening if the government accepts the final recommendation of an expert committee.

The UK National Screening Committee (UKNSC) said attempting to detect the disease using the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test was “likely to cause more harm than good”.

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Nearly half a million Russians killed in Ukraine war, UK spy chief says

Anne Keast-Butler says Russian forces are ‘going backwards on the battlefield’ for first time since late 2022

Nearly half a million Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine since the start of Vladimir Putin’s invasion more than four years ago, according to a new estimate from the head of the British spy agency GCHQ.

Anne Keast-Butler, the chief of the electronic intelligence agency, said in her first speech in the job that Russian forces were “going backwards on the battlefield” inside Ukraine for the first time since late 2022.

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New Mandelson revelations cast doubt on claim vetting decision was borderline, Thornberry says – as it happened

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Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, posted this on social media about Tony Blair’s latest intervention this morning.

Tony Blair.

What the billionaire class have paid for.

Spot the difference between “Tony Blair says” and “Nigel Farage says”

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Brexiters peddled ‘nationalistic pish’, said Reform UK’s Makerfield candidate

Robert Kenyon castigated Brexit as an economically self-harming project on rugby league forum in 2016

Reform UK’s candidate for the Makerfield byelection has castigated Brexit as an economically self-harming project promoted by politicians who “peddled the nationalistic pish”, raising more doubts about his commitment to Nigel Farage’s signature achievement.

The comments by Robert Kenyon, unearthed on a defunct rugby league forum and first reported by the Telegraph, follow the emergence of another post in which he said people would be wrong to assume he had voted for Brexit.

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Woman shot dead outside Sheffield bar had ‘biggest heart’, say family

Relatives pay tribute to Shanice Brookes, 30, a charity worker and mum who had ‘energy you could never forget’

The family of a woman who was an innocent bystander when she was fatally shot outside a bar in Sheffield city centre at the weekend have paid tribute to her.

South Yorkshire police on Wednesday named the victim as Shanice Brookes, a 30-year-old charity worker. Her family described Brookes, who lived in Sheffield, as “one of a kind” with the “biggest heart” and “energy you could never forget”.

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Student loans inquiry responses show ‘massive scale of frustration and upset’

More than 52,000 people respond to Commons committee’s call for evidence amid criticism of loan terms

Thousands of graduates have told an official inquiry their horror stories and bad experiences relating to student loans, underlining what the chair of an MPs’ committee called massive levels of “frustration and upset”.

Amid an ongoing row over the ballooning cost of degree course debts, more than 52,000 people responded to a call for evidence by the Commons Treasury select committee as part of its inquiry into student loans and the taxation of graduates.

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Russia is targeting UK’s infrastructure and democracy, GCHQ head to say

Anne Keast-Butler will also warn of narrowing window to stay ahead of China in ‘new era of radical uncertainty’

Russia is relentlessly targeting Britain’s infrastructure and democracy while there is only a narrowing technological window to stay ahead of a fast-developing China, the head of the spy agency GCHQ will warn in a lecture on Wednesday.

Anne Keast-Butler, giving an inaugural annual lecture, will say that the UK is caught in a “new era of radical uncertainty” and that “the risk of miscalculation” is as high as she has ever seen it as hacker attacks from the two states continue.

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