Category Archives: UK news

Prince Andrew accuser Virginia Giuffre’s legal deal with Jeffrey Epstein released

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Unsealing stems from Giuffre’s sexual abuse lawsuit against duke, filed in Manhattan federal court in August

A near-dozen-year-old legal settlement between Virginia Giuffre and Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier and convicted sex offender whom she accused of sexual abuse, was released on Monday. Giuffre received $500,000 in her lawsuit against Epstein, court papers revealed.

The unsealing stemmed from Giuffre’s sexual abuse lawsuit against Prince Andrew, which she filed on 9 August in Manhattan federal court.

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Glorification of Plymouth shooter by ‘incels’ prompts calls for action

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Request for problem to be taken more seriously comes as data shows sixfold rise in visits to incel forums

The man who gunned down seven people, killing five, in a rampage in Plymouth is being lionised by an online “incel” community, with some ironically venerating him as a “saint” and celebrating the attack as an aid to their recruitment drive.

Jake Davison, 22, killed his mother, Maxine, 51, after a row before going on to fatally shoot four others and then himself in August last year. Before his death, he expressed misogynistic and homophobic tendencies, as well as angrily lamenting his failure to find a girlfriend.

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UK Covid test distributor shut for Christmas after receiving 2.5m kits

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Alliance Healthcare took delivery on 24 December and then closed for four days, amid nationwide shortage

The sole distributor of Covid lateral flow tests (LFTs) to pharmacies closed for four days over the Christmas period just as it received a delivery of 2.5m devices, it has emerged.

Alliance Healthcare took delivery of the tests on Christmas Eve and then shut, the Times reported. It provides LFTs to pharmacies to give out to the public.

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Minister tells people trying to get Covid tests to ‘just refresh webpage’ – video

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People struggling to get lateral flow tests for Covid 'should just refresh' their webpage, Nadhim Zahawi has said, as concerns mount over the impact of the Omicron variant on the country’s workforce. The education secretary also repeated the government line that 'there’s nothing in the data' to suggest further coronavirus measures will be needed later this week

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The Isle of Wight’s dinosaur hunter: we’re going to need a bigger museum

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Jeremy Lockwood spent lockdown identifying two specimens – and is a ‘bit obsessed’ in his search for more

Some of us binged on box sets, others grappled with the challenges of home school and zoned out of Zoom meetings: for many, life under lockdown felt glum. But for Jeremy Lockwood, a retired GP turned palaeontologist, 2021 was a standout year featuring two big dinosaur discoveries and laying plans to make the Isle of Wight famous for its prehistoric inhabitants once more. “It was an absolutely thrilling time for me,” Lockwood said.

Lockwood, 64, who retired as a family doctor in the Midlands seven years ago, was behind the widely publicised discovery of a new species of iguanadontian dinosaur with a distinctively large nose and a second species, nicknamed “the horned crocodile-faced Hell Heron”.

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Covid live news: Israel to offer fourth jab to over 60s and medical staff; France adds unvaccinated US travellers to ‘red list’

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Israel’s PM made announcement in response to Omicron surge; Americans travelling to France without vaccination must isolate for 10 days

New Covid-19 cases in the locked-down Chinese city of Xi’an fell to their lowest in a week, health officials said Sunday, as residents face their eleventh day under strict home confinement.

China has followed a “zero Covid” approach involving tight border restrictions and swift, targeted lockdowns since the virus first surfaced in a central city in late 2019 – but this strategy has been put under pressure in recent weeks with a number of local outbreaks and cases remaining stubbornly high, AFP reports.

We will also make some adjustments to the prevention and control measures in a timely way.

The government does need to get its act together on the supply of testing.

And I think the health secretary needs to explain why it was that only three weeks ago he told me in the House of Commons that availability of tests wasn’t a problem. And yet now it so clearly is.

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Unite demands clear targets for use of UK steel in HS2 project

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Union says it is ‘common sense’ that Britain’s 1,100 steel businesses should be ‘paramount’ in procurement

The Unite union is demanding the government sets clear targets for the use of UK-produced steel in the HS2 rail project, after it emerged that the Department for Transport currently has none in place.

Responding to two written questions in parliament posted by Labour MPs in December, the transport minister Andrew Stephenson admitted there is “no formal target” for the use of UK steel in its construction.

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Cyber-attack on UK’s Defence Academy caused ‘significant’ damage

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Former senior officer says unsolved hack of MoD training school systems did not succeed but still had costs

A cyber-attack on the UK’s Defence Academy caused “significant” damage, a retired high-ranking officer has revealed.

Air Marshal Edward Stringer, who left the armed forces in August, told Sky News the attack, which was discovered in March 2021, meant the Defence Academy was forced to rebuild its network.

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More than half of UK’s black children live in poverty, analysis shows

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Exclusive: Labour party research also finds black children at least twice as likely to grow up poor as white children

More than half of black children in the UK are now growing up in poverty, a new analysis of official data has revealed.

Black children are also now more than twice as likely to be growing up poor as white children, according to the Labour party research, which was based on government figures for households that have a “relative low income” – defined as being below 60% of the median, the standard definition for poverty.

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Court to unseal deal between Jeffrey Epstein and Virginia Giuffre

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Prince Andrew’s lawyers believe 2009 agreement could shield him from Giuffre’s civil sexual assault lawsuit

A crunch week in Prince Andrew’s fight to avoid a public trial over claims he sexually assaulted a 17-year-old trafficked by the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein begins on Monday, when a New York court unseals a confidential 2009 deal between Epstein and the alleged victim.

Lawyers for the Duke of York, who “unequivocally denies” the claims made by Virginia Giuffre, believe her agreement with Epstein could shield him from her civil lawsuit accusing him of sexual abuse in 2001.

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NI peace architect accuses Boris Johnson of ‘casual political vandalism’

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Jonathan Powell says PM and Brexit ministers risking fragile peace in Northern Ireland and ‘don’t seem to care’

One of the architects of the Northern Ireland peace deal has said Boris Johnson and the former Brexit minister Lord Frost have risked “all the work” the previous generation of politicians put into the Belfast Good Friday agreement by putting their hard ideological beliefs ahead of people.

Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s former chief of staff and chief negotiator on Northern Ireland, said he was concerned that neither the prime minister nor the recently resigned Brexit minister seemed to understand or care about the fragility of the political settlement in Northern Ireland in 1998.

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What impact will Omicron have on UK children and schools?

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As the term begins and masks return to England’s classrooms, schools rely on vaccines, testing and hygiene

As a new term is set to start for schools across the UK and the government announces masks will return for secondary pupils in England’s classrooms, we take a look at the potential impact of Omicron on children.

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Out with the meat, in with the plants as world’s top chefs offer vegan menus

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From London to San Francisco, haute cuisine is joining the food revolution. Michelin-starred chefs explain they’re going meat-free

Alexis Gauthier used to sell 20kg of foie gras a week. Now the chef, whose London-based restaurant became entirely vegan in 2021, only sells a plant-based version. Since becoming vegan, he admits, Gauthier Soho has “lost a lot of customers, sadly”. But he says he has gained even more new diners, all looking for something different and sustainable and prepared to pay the price.

Gauthier is not the only chef to abandon the animal produce traditionally associated with fine dining. While the number of meat-free menus has been burgeoning for some time in lower- and mid-priced restaurants, now a growing number of the world’s top chefs are starting to put plants centre stage.

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Britain got it wrong on Covid: long lockdown did more harm than good, says scientist

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A new book outlines the mistakes and missteps that made UK pandemic worse

There was a distinctive moment, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, that neatly encapsulated the mistakes and confusion of Britain’s early efforts to tackle the disease, says Mark Woolhouse. At a No 10 briefing in March 2020, cabinet minister Michael Gove warned the virus did not discriminate. “Everyone is at risk,” he announced.

And nothing could be further from the truth, argues Professor Woolhouse, an expert on infectious diseases at Edinburgh University. “I am afraid Gove’s statement was simply not true,” he says. “In fact, this is a very discriminatory virus. Some people are much more at risk from it than others. People over 75 are an astonishing 10,000 times more at risk than those who are under 15.”

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After rightwing attacks on rescues, UK lifeboat charity has record fundraising year

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The Royal National Lifeboat Institution has had ‘significant’ increase in annual donations after it went to the aid of asylum seekers

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is on course for the highest annual fundraising total in its near 200-year history. Donations swelled after the charity attracted huge public support following rightwing attacks for helping save the lives of asylum seekers at risk of drowning in the Channel.

The RNLI said it has received a significant increase in support, with online donations rising by 50% this year.

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New studies reinforce belief that Omicron is less likely to damage lungs

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Six research groups’ findings all suggest variant multiplies more in throats and causes less serious disease

A growing body of evidence indicates that the Omicron Covid variant is more likely to infect the throat than the lungs, which scientists believe may explain why it appears to be more infectious but less deadly than other versions of the virus. Six studies – four published since Christmas Eve – have found that Omicron does not damage people’s lungs as much as the Delta and other previous variants of Covid. The studies have yet to be peer-reviewed by other scientists.

“The result of all the mutations that make Omicron different from previous variants is that it may have altered its ability to infect different sorts of cells,” said Deenan Pillay, professor of virology at University College London.

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US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle

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Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week

Two of Prince Andrew’s efforts to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday when a US federal judge ordered the prince’s lawyers to turn over key legal documents, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.

Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.

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Sands of time are slipping away for England’s crumbling coasts amid climate crisis

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Along the eastern shore, seaside attractions are being demolished and millions of homes are at risk as rising sea levels speed erosion

From a distance, the beach at Winterton-on-sea in Norfolk looks like the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, with hundreds of grey bodies lying motionless across the sand. On closer inspection, it becomes clear they are not fallen soldiers but a huge colony of seals taken to the land for pupping season.

It’s an amazing annual sight that draws tourists and nature-lovers from across the country, but another process is taking place that is pushing people back – the growing threat of coastal erosion. Just along from where the armies of grey seals lay with their white pups, there used to stand the Dunes Cafe, a much-loved beach facility with a large and loyal clientele.

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