Rapper detained at Schiphol on suspicion of ‘possessing soft drugs’ hours before concert at Co-op Live
Nicki Minaj’s concert at Co-op Live has been postponed after she was arrested at a Netherlands airport hours before.
Fans had been let into the Manchester venue in the evening despite the star’s detention.
Continue reading...Exclusive: PM made flying visit to his North Yorkshire constituency, using millionaire’s chopper to return to London
Rishi Sunak took a helicopter owned by a millionaire Conservative donor to fly from North Yorkshire to London on Saturday, before appearing at a hastily arranged campaign trip in south London.
The prime minister made two relatively low-key campaign stops during the day, after the Guardian revealed on Friday he was planning to spend the day solely in his constituency and London.
Continue reading...The shadow chancellor has accused Conservatives of making unfunded financial commitments after calling a snap election
Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves accuses the Tories of making £64bn of unfunded spending commitments in a “desperate and reckless” effort to rescue their gaffe-strewn general election campaign.
Speaking to the Observer, Reeves said that what appeared to be pledges to slash taxes – including national insurance, income tax and inheritance tax – were reminiscent of Liz Truss’s catastrophic mini-budget and showed the Conservatives had learnt nothing from her disastrous time at No 10.
Continue reading...Plane was part of RAF Battle of Britain memorial flight, which maintains historic aircraft in airworthy condition
A pilot has died after a Spitfire crashed in a field near an RAF base in Lincolnshire, a Royal Air Force spokesperson has confirmed.
“It is with great sadness that we must confirm the death of an RAF pilot in a tragic accident near RAF Coningsby today,” a Ministry of Defence spokesperson said.
Continue reading...Lambeth Palace documents show purchase of enslaved people in 18th century approved by Anglican archbishop
An archbishop of Canterbury in the 18th century approved payments for the purchase of enslaved people for two sugar plantations in Barbados, documents seen by the Observer have revealed.
Thomas Secker agreed to reimburse a payment for £1,093 for the purchase of enslaved people on the Codrington Plantations, as well as hiring enslaved people from a third party. It was stated the measures were “calculated for the future lasting advantages of the estates”.
Continue reading...Foreign ministry’s claim follows death of ex-Royal Marine charged with spying in Britain for Hong Kong
China has accused the UK of false accusations, “wanton stigmatisation” and arbitrary arrests after the unexplained death of a man charged with illegally assisting Hong Kong’s foreign intelligence service.
China’s foreign ministry office in Hong Kong said in a statement on its website on Saturday that it strongly condemned Britain for what it said were false accusations against Chinese citizens, infringing their lawful rights.
Continue reading...Foreign ministers confident of agreement to use bank assets as security for Ukraine reconstruction loan
Hopes of a multi-country deal to use $300bn of Russian state assets frozen in the European banking system to support Ukraine have grown after it emerged that G7 ministers were confident of overcoming technical and political obstacles at a meeting in northern Italy on Saturday.
The Canadian finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, said she was optimistic that G7 leaders would reach an agreement, as support coalesced around a plan to use frozen Russian central bank assets as security for a $50bn (£39bn) loan.
Continue reading...IDS says a change in ownership may lead to ‘material uncertainty’ over the company’s future
Royal Mail’s owner has warned that a potential £3.5bn bid by the Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský could create risk around the company’s finances.
The warning came as the industry regulator Ofcom announced that it had opened an investigation into the parent group, International Distributions Services (IDS), for failing to meet its annual delivery targets for the second year in a row. Last year, Ofcom fined the company £5.6m for failing to meet its first-class and second-class delivery targets in 2022-23.
Continue reading...Child fell from upper floor of flat on Hotspur Street in Kennington on Friday afternoon and died at the scene, police said
A child has died after falling from a block of flats in south-east London. The child fell from the upper floor of a flat on Hotspur Street in Kennington on Friday afternoon and died at the scene, the Metropolitan police said.
Police were called to the address at 4.23pm, and said that so far there was “nothing to indicate that the incident is suspicious”.
Continue reading...Seventy-eight Tory MPs are quitting rather than standing, beating 1997’s record number
Michael Gove and Andrea Leadsom have joined the now record-breaking exodus of Conservative MPs from the Commons, with the former saying it was time for a “new generation” to lead the party.
Gove’s announcement in a letter tweeted on Friday evening had been anticipated by some given the strong Liberal Democrat challenge he faces in his Surrey Heath constituency, but adds to the sense of Tories fleeing in the face of a likely general election loss.
Continue reading...Party leader’s remarks follow expulsion of predecessor, who decided to stand as independent candidate in general election
Jeremy Corbyn’s days of influencing Labour party policy “are well and truly over”, Keir Starmer has said, as a war of words erupted with his predecessor on the second day of the general election campaign.
Corbyn was expelled from the Labour party on Friday after announcing he would stand as an independent candidate in the 4 July vote.
Continue reading...Police make statement after postmortem of Matthew Trickett, an immigration officer charged under National Security Act
The death of a former Royal Marine accused of assisting the Hong Kong intelligence service is not being treated as suspicious, police say.
Matthew Trickett, an immigration enforcement officer and private investigator, was found dead in Grenfell Park in Maidenhead, Berkshire, at around 5.15pm on Sunday after a report from a member of the public.
Continue reading...Having initially vowed to oppose any offensive, Washington and London are showing signs of having backed down
The US and the UK will reject the international court of justice order directing Israel to end its offensive on Rafah after slowly blurring their red lines that once stated that they could not support a military offensive in Rafah.
The line was first adapted by saying they could not support a major ground offensive without a credible plan to protect civilians, but since then the definition of what constitutes a major offensive has become more flexible.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Over £2.5m for MPs such as Fox and Mordaunt in what will be the highest-spending UK election
Conservative donors have poured more than £2.5m into key election battlegrounds to shore up support for MPs, such as Liam Fox and Penny Mordaunt, who are in danger of losing their seats.
The 2024 election will be the highest-spending UK contest, after the government raised national election limits to £34m per party – leaving the Conservatives and Labour in an arms race to raise cash.
Continue reading...Bournemouth striker Dominic Solanke, NFL stars and Olympic athletes are finding inspiration in the characters’ resilience
The Bournemouth striker Dominic Solanke twice thought he had scored the opening goal against Brentford on 11 May. Each time he wheeled away to celebrate, he put on an orange mask with a spiral pattern and one eyehole before posing in front of the cameras.
The goal was ruled out by VAR but the celebration went viral, as journalists wrote about “masked mayhem” and others wondered what this “bizarre” celebration could mean.
Continue reading...Queensland- and Scotland-based PhD students co-lead team celebrating ‘Eureka moment’ spotting Gliese 12b
An Australian university student has co-led the discovery of an Earth-sized, potentially habitable planet just 40 light years away.
Shishir Dholakia, a PhD candidate in astrophysics at the University of Southern Queensland, is part of an international team that published the discovery in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Continue reading...Friends of the Earth will argue private companies are allowed to create their own public order laws that stifle demonstrations
The government is to be challenged at the European court of human rights over its use of “confusing and opaque” anti-protest injunctions.
The environmental group Friends of the Earth (FoE) is to argue such injunctions allow private companies to create bespoke public order laws that stifle peaceful protest.
Continue reading...Gloom, resignation, but also a show of fighting spirit as PM’s troops weigh up the odds on re-election
In the frenzied hours shortly after Rishi Sunak made his surprise election announcement on Wednesday, despairing Tory MPs could be spotted wandering around Westminster contemplating their fate.
One government minister was seen thrusting his official red folder towards his opposition number, whom he had happened to bump into. “You might as well have this now,” he said.
Continue reading...Speaking at the UK River Summit, Philip Duffy said officials do not want to reveal the true ‘embarrassing’ environmental picture
The head of the Environment Agency has admitted that freedom of information requests have been buried by the regulator because the truth about the environment in England is “embarrassing”.
Philip Duffy, the body’s chief executive, told an audience at the UK River Summit in Morden, south London, this week that his officials were “worried about revealing the true state of what is going on” with regards to the state of the environment.
Continue reading...Watchdog says outstanding caseload has increased from 60,000 to 67,573 since MoJ set target of 53,000 in 2021
The Ministry of Justice’s ambition to reduce the backlog in crown courts in England and Wales to 53,000 by March next year is no longer achievable, a parliamentary watchdog has said.
The MoJ set the target in October 2021 when the outstanding caseload was 60,000, but by the end of last year it had reached 67,573 – its highest level ever – according to a National Audit Office (NAO) report.
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