Two-man business contacted by lawyers of Middle-earth Enterprises, which owns rights to Lord of the Rings
A refuse firm in Brighton called Lord of the Bins has been ordered by lawyers to change its name after being accused of breaching trademark laws.
The two-man waste collection business was contacted by Middle-earth Enterprises, which owns the worldwide rights to The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Continue reading...Woman in life-threatening condition but baby unharmed, say police, after driver fails to stop in Southall
A woman is in a life-threatening condition after being knocked down by a hit-and-run driver while pushing a pram.
Metropolitan police officers said they were called to the junction of North Hyde Lane and Raleigh Road in Southall, west London, at about 12.30pm on Friday to reports of a collision involving a car and pedestrian.
Continue reading...The Trevelyans were shocked to see their name in a slavery database and a journey to Grenada confirmed the continuing impact of their grim history
An aristocratic British family is to make history by travelling to the Caribbean and publicly apologising for its ownership of more than 1,000 enslaved Africans. The Trevelyan family, which has many notable ancestors, is also paying reparations to the people of Grenada, where it owned six sugar plantations.
Last weekend, the family met online and agreed to sign a letter of apology for its enslavement of captive Africans. Forty-two members of the family have so far signed and more signatures are expected.
Continue reading...Chris Parry and Andrew Bagshaw died in Soledar area while helping to evacuate people from frontline
The bodies of two British volunteers killed in Ukraine while carrying out a humanitarian evacuation have been recovered, a Ukrainian official has said.
Chris Parry, 28, and his colleague Andrew Bagshaw, 47, who held dual UK and New Zealand citizenship, had been trying to evacuate an elderly woman from Soledar when their car was hit by an artillery shell.
Continue reading...Talenthouse claims to ‘democratise creativity’, but designers who have completed commissions for top brands are out of pocket
It is a global technology platform that claims to “democratise creativity” by allowing up-and-coming artists to submit work to the world’s biggest brands.
But Talenthouse, which boasts clients including Netflix, Sony, Coca-Cola and the United Nations, has been accused of exploiting artists and failing to pay them, in some cases leaving them thousands of pounds out of pocket.
Continue reading...Oxford and Cambridge universities, once given more than £130m a year in total by European research programmes, are now getting £1m annually between them
One of the UK’s most prestigious universities has seen its funding from a large European research programme plummet from £62m a year to nothing since Brexit, new figures show.
The latest statistics from the European Commission reveal that Cambridge University, which netted €483m (£433m) over the seven years of the last European research funding programme, Horizon 2020, has not received any funding in the first two years of the new Horizon Europe programme.
Continue reading...A 15-year-old and two 16-year-olds were arrested in Rhyl hotel after Bailey Atkinson was stabbed to death
Three teenage boys have been charged with the murder of a man who was stabbed to death in the West Midlands.
Bailey Atkinson, 20, was attacked on the High Street in Walsall in the early hours of 28 January.
Continue reading...Navy says HMS Portland sailors hospitalised as precaution after drinking accidentally contaminated water
Sailors are being treated in hospital after drinking “contaminated” water on their ship, the Royal Navy has said.
Frigate HMS Portland is believed to have diverted to Portsmouth naval base earlier on Friday after the discovery that the “wrong chemical” had entered the ship’s system to convert seawater to drinking water.
Continue reading...Judge rules Bournemouth, Christchuch and Poole council unreasonable to dismiss women’s safety concerns as ‘moralistic’
A council’s policy on lapdancing and strip clubs was overturned by a high court judge, after a challenge by a sexual abuse survivor who said it would have a negative impact on women’s safety.
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council adopted a new policy in November 2021, which allowed an unlimited number of sexual entertainment venues in the area.
Continue reading...Financial watchdog warns over rise of ‘fin-fluencers’ targeting younger people on social media
More than 10,000 misleading financial promotions and scams aimed at consumers via social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok have been identified and targeted by the financial watchdog during the past year.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said the use of social media marketing channels and the rise of so-called “fin-fluencers” – particularly directing investment products at younger age groups – exploded last year, resulting in a record number of takedown notices and alerts.
Continue reading...Durham court heard Lyne Barlow’s £1.2m fraud also involved stealing financial identity of her mother
A rogue travel agent who defrauded 1,400 holidaymakers and pretended to have terminal cancer to deflect complaints has been jailed for nine years.
Durham crown court heard how the scale of Lyne Barlow’s fraud, which also involved stealing the financial identity of her mother and borrowing money from neighbours and friends that was not paid back, had been estimated at £1.2m.
Continue reading...Justice secretary facing a number of bullying claims says Miller’s allegations are ‘baseless and malicious’
Michelle O’Neill, the Sinn Féin leader in Northern Ireland and first minister designate, has said she is “encouraged” by what she is hearing about the prospects of the UK and the EU reaching a deal on the Northern Ireland protocol.
Speaking after a meeting with Micheál Martin, the Irish foreign minister and tánaiste (Irish deputy PM), in Belfast, she said:
I am very much encouraged by what we’re hearing, I think the tánaiste shares that same assessment and we want both sides to continue in earnest to get a deal, to close this out, to close it out as quickly as possible.
This was a useful and constructive conversation. Over eighteen months ago we outlined the parameters for the way forward. We set our tests and those continue to be our yardstick for measuring any deal between the EU and UK.
There will be no restoration of the NI executive until the protocol is replaced with arrangements that unionists, as well as nationalists, can support. Northern Ireland’s place in the UK internal market must be restored and our constitutional arrangements must be respected.
Continue reading...In several new productions, playwrights explore the cost of living crisis as their industry reels from funding cuts, cancellations and low wages
‘What galvanises me to get up in the morning and write is what is making me angry, upsetting me, frightening me,” says playwright Emily White. Like her previous plays, White’s next production, Joseph K and the Cost of Living, opening at Swansea Grand next month, seeks to make the political personal. It is a reimagining of Kafka’s nightmarish The Trial, whose protagonist is unexpectedly arrested but not told what for and always maintains his innocence.
White was a teenager when she first read the novel, about “being trapped in this kind of bureaucratic machine”, but she returned to it more recently after feeling that there was a “creeping authoritarianism” happening, with marginalised people’s rights “being clawed back by governments all over the world”. She continues: “In my version, it’s a story about state-led persecution of particular individuals and the reasons for that. And, in the background, we are very much today in Britain, in this world that we’re living in right now.” The play is set, she says, in a country that feels as if it is teetering on the brink of resistance and revolution. As such, the story incorporates food banks, homelessness, environmental protests, strikes and the government’s attempt to limit direct action.
Continue reading...Court rules against DWP in case where move to universal credit deprived claimants of £2,100 a year
Tens of thousands of disabled people across the UK wrongly deprived of benefits by the Department for Work and Pensions could share in compensation potentially totalling about £150m after an appeal court ruling.
Lawyers for two disabled men who first took the DWP to court five years ago have written to the government asking them to set out how they will compensate them and others who were left hundreds of pounds out of pocket each year after being moved on to universal credit.
Continue reading...Jaswant Singh Chail, 21, pleads guilty to three charges including an offence under the Treason Act
A man has admitted trying to harm the queen after being caught in the grounds of Windsor Castle with a loaded crossbow.
Jaswant Singh Chail, 21, pleaded guilty to three charges, including an offence under the Treason Act, during a hearing at the Old Bailey on Friday.
Continue reading...Former pop star has been freed halfway through 16-year sentence for sexually abusing three schoolgirls
A woman who was sexually abused as a child by Gary Glitter believes his release, midway through a 16-year sentence, is “not the justice she was promised,” her lawyer has said.
There was outcry on Friday as the 79-year-old left HMP The Verne, a low-security category C jail in Dorset, after eight years behind bars for sexually abusing three schoolgirls.
Continue reading...Paul Ansell says mystery impossible to comprehend as potential witness says she does not know anything
The partner of the missing woman Nicola Bulley has said every scenario has come to a “brick wall” as he pledged to “stay strong” for their daughters.
Speaking near the scene where she was last seen, Paul Ansell said the mystery of her disappearance was “absolutely impossible” to comprehend.
Continue reading...As it happened: Prime minister speaks in interview on TalkTV to mark his 100th day in office
On the subject of Rishi Sunak reaching his 100th day in office, my colleague Jessica Elgot has a great assessment of how it’s going. Here is an extract.
After Liz Truss left office, polls suggested that voters wanted to keep an open mind about Sunak and rated him significantly higher than his party.
That is now beginning to turn. According to senior Labour figures, their most recent focus groups, with swing voters in Southampton, Dewsbury and Bury last week, were described as being “utterly brutal for Sunak”, with participants engaging in “open mockery” of the prime minister. Even the most pessimistic members of Keir Starmer’s team say they have seen a decisive shift.
In the coming weeks, our new stop the boats bill will change the law to send a message loud and clear.
If you come here illegally, you will be detained and removed.
Continue reading...Forty families brought to UK after fleeing Taliban given only weeks to move to West Yorkshire
Hundreds of Afghan refugees who settled in London after fleeing the Taliban 18 months ago have been told they have only weeks to uproot and move 200 miles away, the Guardian can reveal.
The Home Office has told 40 families with 150 children who have lived for more than a year in Kensington, west London, that they must leave the capital for another hotel in Wetherby, on the outskirts of Leeds.
Continue reading...No one ever convicted of deadliest atrocity of Troubles, but injured and bereaved may be closer to knowing full story
The government’s decision to hold an inquiry into the 1998 Omagh bombing is the result of a long, lonely campaign by some of the injured and bereaved for truth and justice.
Chris Heaton-Harris’s announcement on Thursday about an independent statutory inquiry raises hope for the former, not the latter.
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