Family say couple were not offered support to evacuate despite living near British embassy in Khartoum
An 85-year-old British citizen was shot by snipers and his wife died of starvation after they were left behind in Sudan, their family has said.
Abdalla Sholgami, who owns a hotel in London, lived with his 80-year-old wife, Alaweya Rishwan, who is disabled, close to the UK’s diplomatic base in Khartoum, the BBC said.
Continue reading...Met Office says temperatures could reach 24C with fine conditions expected to continue into next week
The UK could experience the hottest day of the year so far this bank holiday weekend, with temperatures expected to reach as high as 24C (75F).
The Met Office said the area of high pressure, which has brought fine conditions across the UK over the past few days, is forecast to continue through the weekend and into next week.
Continue reading...Document says man claimed he would attempt to harm monarch while she was visiting California
An FBI file relating to a visit to the US by the late Queen Elizabeth II has revealed a potential plot to assassinate her.
The document, available on the FBI’s online vault, outlines what appears to be intelligence provided to federal agents about a threat to the queen’s life in California 40 years ago.
Continue reading...Devon cattle stand in for extinct aurochs in project aimed at protecting precious species such as sand lizards
The mighty aurochs have gone, as have the tarpan horses and the wild boars, but modern-day substitutes have been drafted in to recreate a large open “savannah” on heathland in Dorset.
Instead of aurochs, considered the wild ancestor of domestic cattle, 200 red Devon cattle are to be found roaming the Purbeck Heaths, while Exmoor ponies are stand-ins for the tarpan horses and curly coated Mangalitsa pigs are doing the sort of rooting around that boars used to excel at here.
Continue reading...Durrell Goodall, Reano Walters and Nathaniel Williams are applying for a formal review of their convictions as teenagers
Lawyers for three black men convicted as teenagers of a 2016 murder in Manchester will apply for their convictions to be formally reviewed, arguing they resulted from institutional racism by the police, prosecution and judge.
The mothers of the three men – Durrell Goodall, Reano Walters and Nathaniel “Jay” Williams – will travel to Birmingham to personally deliver their sons’ 180-page application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).
Continue reading...Former Coronation Street actor calls for more support, as survey finds lack of safety net for self-employed creatives
More financial support should be available to artists in the periods where they are not working, the former Coronation Street actor Julie Hesmondhalgh has said, as research revealed universal credit is pushing the creative workforce into destitution.
The study by the performing arts union Equity and the University of Warwick found that of those subject to the universal credit rule known as the “minimum income floor” (MIF) – which reduces the amount of support that self-employed creatives are eligible for – 41% had gone without essential items such as food or utilities.
Continue reading...More than 3,000 planes scheduled to take off on Friday, with road traffic peaking as leisure trips coincide with commuting
The start of the May half-term holiday for many schools will see “hectic” roads and the most flights departing the UK since before the pandemic, according to industry estimates.
About 19m leisure journeys by car are expected on Britain’s roads over the next four days, and more than 3,000 planes are scheduled to take off on Friday.
Continue reading...Council of Europe has established digital register of damage as first step towards compensation mechanism
Britain is likely to keep Russian state assets immobilised for some time after the war in Ukraine ends, and certainly until Moscow has agreed to pay compensation for the damage it has inflicted, British officials have confirmed.
The Council of Europe summit last week established a digital register of damage for Ukraine as the first step towards an international compensation mechanism for victims of Russian aggression.
Continue reading...Police spent three days scouring reservoir after request by German authorities hoping to prove case against convicted rapist
Portuguese police have said material unearthed from a reservoir in Algarve will be sent to Germany for analysis after the first major search for Madeleine McCann in a decade came to a close.
After three days of excavation on a spit of land jutting into the Barragem do Arade reservoir in south Portugal, officers were stood down and a spokesperson for the Polícia Judiciária said the collected material would be delivered to the German authorities.
Continue reading...Armed officers at the scene but no reports of injuries, Metropolitan Police says
Rishi Sunak is being interviewed on ITV’s This Morning.
He says immigration levels are too high, but he rejects claims it is out of control. This is from the Daily Mirror’s Lizzy Buchan.
Continue reading...Jason Carr, who had worked for the police, looked up details of the man on trial despite judge telling jurors it was illegal to do so
An “unashamed and unrepentant” juror who spent two decades in the police has been jailed for six months after causing a rape trial to collapse by researching the defendant online.
Jason Carr thought he “knew better than the lawyers” and used his phone to search for details about the man on trial believing there were gaps in the evidence, a judge at Liverpool crown court said.
Continue reading...National Cyber Security Centre urges operators of critical national infrastructure to prevent hacks
The UK’s cybersecurity agency has urged operators of critical national infrastructure, including energy and telecommunications networks, to prevent Chinese state-sponsored hackers from hiding on their systems.
The National Cyber Security Centre, part of GCHQ, issued the warning after it emerged that a Chinese hacking group known as Volt Typhoon had targeted a US military outpost in the Pacific Ocean.
Continue reading...Lenders forced to raise fixed-term deals after latest inflation figure pushed swap rates upwards
Households looking for a new mortgage deal have been warned to expect 5%-plus fixed-rate deals in the coming weeks, after Wednesday’s inflation figures sent the money markets back into turmoil.
Nick Mendes, the mortgage technical manager at the broker John Charcol, said on Thursday that he doubts that there will be any two-year fixed-rate mortgages and probably few five-year deals priced at less than 5% in the coming weeks, as lenders are forced to reprice their mortgages upwards.
Continue reading...Roald Dahl Story Company announces new shows, including a large-scale circus and a reading of The Magic Finger
A slate of Roald Dahl adaptations has been announced, including a family musical based on The Enormous Crocodile, a reading of The Magic Finger and a large-scale circus show featuring many of the author’s most famous characters.
The three shows will join the new musical The Witches, co-produced by the National Theatre and readying for its debut in November, while a further four creations have been commissioned by the theatre division of the Roald Dahl Story Company and are under development.
Continue reading...Committee highlights serious problems with residence schemes affecting Brits already living in the EU before Brexit
An influential House of Lords committee has urged Suella Braverman to step up efforts to protect the rights of vulnerable British citizens in the EU after the case of an elderly woman with dementia who was threatened with deportation from Sweden.
It also said more needed to be done to ensure the rights of EU citizens in the UK – also guaranteed under the Brexit withdrawal agreement – were protected to prevent a “Windrush-type scenario”.
Continue reading...Nearly 1,000 students attempt group action against UCL, accusing it of breaking promises
Lawyers representing almost 1,000 current and former students whose studies were affected by Covid and strike action told the high court in London their clients felt “cheated” by their educational experience and should be entitled to seek compensation through the courts.
They are seeking to bring a claim against University College London (UCL), accusing it of breaking its “promises” after tuition was moved online and access to libraries and laboratories restricted during the pandemic, with no discount to their “eye-watering” tuition fees.
Continue reading...Steve Rodhouse, who led Operation Midland, may have breached professional standards, says police watchdog
One of Britain’s most senior police officers should face a gross misconduct charge over his role in Operation Midland, the disastrous investigation into claims of a VIP paedophile ring, the police watchdog has concluded.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct had previously cleared Steve Rodhouse of wrongdoing for overseeing the Metropolitan police’s operation, which saw the force raid homes of high-profile figures having fallen for the lies of the fantasist Carl Beech.
Continue reading...Investigation of Teesworks project to be led by independent panel of his choosing, not National Audit Office
Michael Gove has ordered an “independent review” into allegations of “corruption wrongdoing and illegality” surrounding a Teesside redevelopment project that is part of Rishi Sunak’s freeports plans.
But there was anger as Gove declined to act on calls for the National Audit Office (NAO) to lead the investigation, instead announcing it will undertaken by an independent panel that he will appoint, while the watchdog will have some limited role.
Continue reading...Data prompts speculation NHS inability to cut waiting lists could make private healthcare ‘new normal’
Record numbers of people are paying for private healthcare, spending up to £3,200 on having a cataract removed and £15,075 on a new hip, amid growing frustration at NHS waiting lists.
Across the UK last year 272,000 people used their own funds to cover the cost of having an operation or diagnostic procedure at a private hospital. That was up from 262,000 the year before and a sharp rise on the 199,000 who did so in 2019, the year before the Covid pandemic struck.
Continue reading...Bermondsey MP had whip removed last year after complaint by reporter Henry Dyer about racist comments
Labour is to restore the party whip to Neil Coyle after the MP was suspended for drunken abuse and making racist comments to a journalist.
Coyle was suspended in February last year after a complaint by Henry Dyer, a political reporter for the Insider website who now works for the Guardian, about the behaviour of the MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark in London.
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