Nurse says she has lost ‘my name, my integrity’ after being accused of using proxy to sit tests to work in Britain
When I was a little girl in my village in Nigeria going to school was something I could not even dream of because we did not have money. Then my mother sold everything we owned to pay for me to go to school.
I knew this was my only ticket to make something worthwhile out of my life and my family’s life.
Continue reading...Ward’s body was found at her home and Ahmed Abdirahman was arrested in Dublin
A man has appeared in a Dublin court charged with the murder of Mary Ward in Belfast.
The 22-year-old was found dead at her home on 1 October with neck wounds. Her body was found after police officers went to her house, but she was last seen alive on 25 September, according to police.
Continue reading...Hopeful Republicans are calling it the ‘farewell tour’, as the king toes the tried and tested constitutional line
As the king arrives in Australia for the first time as head of state, republican rumblings are once more on the media radar.
Will it be, as the Australian Republic Movement (ARM) optimistically opines, the monarchy’s “farewell tour”?
Continue reading...Amid a downpour at Sydney airport, the monarch arrives with Queen Camilla for a five-day visit
Minutes after a drenching downpour came to an end at Sydney airport, King Charles and Queen Camilla stepped on to Australian soil for their first visit as reigning monarchs.
The five-day trip is the couple’s first Australian visit since the King ascended to the throne in 2022 and the first by a reigning monarch since his mother Queen Elizabeth toured the country in 2011.
Continue reading...French authorities say 65 people rescued after overloaded boat sinks off coast of Wissant
A baby died after a boat carrying people in the Channel towards Britain capsized off the French coast, local coastguards have said.
Sixty-five people were rescued after the overloaded boat started to sink off the coast of Wissant, in northern France, on Thursday night. Some people were in the water when rescuers arrived. An unconscious baby found in the water was later declared dead.
Continue reading...Rachel Reeves is to seek advice from City experts to ensure big projects’ value for money and reassure markets
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is taking action to ensure her budget plan for a multibillion-pound increase in government borrowing to fund infrastructure projects avoids a Liz Truss-style meltdown in financial markets.
Ahead of her tax and spending event on 30 October, the chancellor is convening on Friday the first meeting of a taskforce of leading City figures to advise on infrastructure projects. The government will also launch a watchdog to oversee public works and ensure value for money for the taxpayer.
Continue reading...Research is one of 11 projects part of a £12m government plan to reduce drug overdoses with new technology
Researchers are building a virtual reality world to help people overcome their cocaine addiction by repeatedly exposing them to tempting scenarios in a safe environment.
The project draws on the experiences of drug users to create tailored 3D experiences, such as being alone in a flat or at a party with friends, where people can be immersed via a VR headset in realistic situations that trigger the urge to take drugs.
Continue reading...Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick took questions from Conservative party members on Thursday night
Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick have faced off for what could be the only televised clash of the Conservative leadership contest. It was not actually a debate: the pair took it in turns to take questions from party members and GB News viewers.
Below are some of the things we learned.
Continue reading...Contender says ‘it is about being brave and not being scared that the Guardian is going to mock us’
Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, has told MPs that magistrates are getting powers to sentence offenders for longer – to reduce the number of prisoners being held on remand and to cut the backlog in crown courts
In a statement to MPs, she said that, although this would increase the prison population slightly, by reducing the number of offenders being held on remand it would free up spaces in reception prisons where overcrowding is particularly serious.
Unless we address our remand population, we could still see a collapse of the system, not because of a lack of cells, but because we do not have those cells in the places that we need them. It is therefore crucial that we bear down on the remand population.
This government inherited a record crown court backlog. Waits for trials have grown so long that some cases are not heard for years.
The impact on victims of crime is profound. For some justice delayed is, as the old saying goes, justice denied as victims choose to withdraw from the justice process altogether rather than face the pain of a protracted legal battle.
I have made it my personal mission to constrain the Kremlin, closing the net around Putin and his mafia state using every tool at my disposal.
Continue reading...Jenrick pledges to ‘end the drama’, while Badenoch calls his plan to exit ECHR ‘a distraction from bigger worries’
Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick have attacked each other’s visions for the future of the Conservative party, in a sometimes low-key debate which could nonetheless prove significant in who becomes the next opposition leader.
The event on GB News, the only debate scheduled, involved the pair taking turns to tackle questions from audience members rather than going head to head, but featured notable differences of opinion on strategy and policies such as immigration.
Continue reading...Goal seems to be for people ‘to lose confidence in the system’, says head of industry body after devices found in Birmingham and Leipzig
If Russia is proved to be behind an incendiary device plot that caused fires at two parcels warehouses in July, it will be evidence that Moscow is aiming to disrupt western confidence, an expert has said.
The dangerous packages, which caught light at DHL sites in Birmingham and Leipzig, are not thought to have been sophisticated but in both cases appear to have evaded security checks. German authorities warned this week that a plane could have been downed if the devices, which were both sent by air, had ignited in flight.
Continue reading...Inspector dismissed emergency services’ concerns that incident was similar to Skripal poisonings, KC says
Police officers urged paramedics and firefighters to treat the second novichok incident in 2018 as a drug overdose despite warnings from the ambulance and fire services that it had similarities to the first poisoning four months earlier in Salisbury, a public inquiry has heard.
The UK government believes the novichok was brought into Britain by agents tasked by Vladimir Putin to target the former spy Sergei Skripal, who had been settled in Salisbury after a spy exchange, the inquiry heard earlier this week. Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were poisoned on 4 March 2018 and both survived.
Continue reading...Former One Direction member died after falling from hotel balcony in Argentina on Wednesday
Liam Payne’s family and stars from across the music world have led tributes to the former One Direction star after his death at a hotel in Argentina.
“We are heartbroken. Liam will forever live in our hearts and we’ll remember him for his kind, funny and brave soul,” his family said in a statement issued on Thursday.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Party drops plan for formal recognition laid out last year by David Lammy, who will visit Beijing on Friday
Labour has backtracked on plans to push for formal recognition of China’s treatment of the Uyghurs as genocide in the run-up to David Lammy’s trip to the country this weekend.
The foreign secretary is expected to arrive in Beijing on Friday for high-level meetings before travelling to Shanghai on Saturday.
Continue reading...Group of wealthy investors argue it would have no impact on investment in the UK and would raise vital funds for public services
Rachel Reeves has been urged by a group of millionaire business owners to raise £14bn from an increase in capital gains tax at this month’s budget, arguing it would have no impact on investment in Britain.
Ahead of the chancellor’s set-piece event on 30 October, the group of wealthy investors said increasing the tax rate on asset disposals would help to raise vital funds for public services and would not lead to slower economic growth.
Continue reading...Jürgen Maier’s vision for company includes the potential to borrow its own money in order to rival multinationals
Britain’s new national energy company will eventually become a major power generator, running its own windfarms, tidal power and carbon capture schemes and potentially borrowing its own money, according to its new chair.
Jürgen Maier, the chair of Great British Energy (GBE), told the Guardian in an interview that his vision for the company far outstrips its current scope and would put it on a par with multinational firms such as Denmark’s Ørsted or Sweden’s Vattenfall.
Continue reading...Refugee Council says nearly 120,000 people await case processing with 63,000 set to be granted asylum by Labour government
Nearly 63,000 people who were waiting for their cases to be processed at the time of the general election are expected to be granted asylum by the Labour government, an analysis has found.
The Refugee Council said the government’s decision to scrap the plan to deport people to Rwanda and accelerate claims meant the asylum backlog was forecast to be 118,063 at the start of 2025 – 59,000 cases lower than if the government had continued with the policy.
Continue reading...British musician was found dead after falling from the third floor of a hotel in Buenos Aires
Liam Payne, a former member of the boyband One Direction, has died aged 31 after falling from a third-floor hotel room in Buenos Aires, police have confirmed.
The singer died on Wednesday at 5pm local time.
Continue reading...Rachel Reeves aims to find £40bn in budget but several ministers have written to Keir Starmer about spending cuts
Cabinet ministers have pushed back against planned cuts to their departments in the upcoming budget, with several writing to Keir Starmer to contest them.
Several are understood to have shared their concerns at the likelihood of deep cuts to unprotected departments such as housing and transport.
Continue reading...Newborn received 10 times the correct amount of painkiller and could have died if colleagues had not spotted error
Lucy Letby gave a potentially fatal dose of morphine to a newborn baby two years before she murdered her first victim, an inquiry has heard.
The infant received 10 times the correct amount of the painkiller at the end of a night shift in July 2013 and could have died if colleagues at handover had not spotted the error an hour later.
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