Collin Reeves, 34, is accused of killing Stephen and Jennifer Chapple as their children slept upstairs
A former soldier has been charged with the murder of a husband and wife who died at their home in a Somerset village as their children slept upstairs.
Collin Reeves, 34, is accused of murdering his neighbours Stephen Chapple, 36, a teacher, and Jennifer Chapple, 33, who worked in a coffee shop.
Continue reading...UK judge rules some passages convey a defamatory meaning, including claim Putin told him to buy Chelsea
A judge has ruled that a number of passages in the bestselling book Putin’s People convey a defamatory meaning against Roman Abramovich, including a claim that he bought Chelsea football club on Vladimir Putin’s orders.
The Russian oligarch said he was defamed by 26 specific passages in the book by the journalist Catherine Belton, all of which he says convey untrue meanings about him.
Continue reading...Trials show the protein-based jab causes fewer side-effects – and hundreds of British jobs depend on it
Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna. Britons have become so accustomed to the three Covid vaccines available in the UK that most have forgotten about another jab, Novavax – even though the government has ordered 60m doses and hundreds of British jobs depend on it.
Late last month the US company, with a factory on Teesside primed to manufacture doses, submitted final data to UK regulators and a positive decision is anticipated within days or weeks. It will bring to an end what feels like a long wait compared with the speedy development and approval of the other jabs, including for those who took part in trials.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Audience member at Almeida theatre says PM was not wearing mask during Macbeth performance
Boris Johnson once again flouted official requests to wear a mask as he watched a performance of Macbeth at a busy theatre in north London on Tuesday night, witnesses say.
The prime minister was in the audience to see the Shakespearean tragedy at the Almeida theatre in Islington, after a torrid few days in which backbench Tories have accused him of losing the plot.
Continue reading...Pedestrians call them ugly and a nuisance but council says money is sorely needed after years of cuts
Earlier this year, Manchester city council declared ambitions to become a pedestrian paradise. “We want walking to be the main way people get around the city centre,” proclaimed the town hall’s transport plan. “Pavements and public spaces will be high quality, well-maintained, green and accessible – catering for everyone, no matter what their age or mobility.”
Yet this autumn, 86 mysterious grey boxes were plonked on pavements across the city which did pretty much the opposite. Measuring more than a metre across, the metal monoliths obstructed the footway, failing what transport engineers call “the double buggy test” while upsetting wheelchair users and aesthetes alike.
Continue reading...Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company has come a long way since it fought off a takeover bid in 2014
Little expense has been spared at the giant glass and steel structure that sprouts from a once-vacant plot of land on the outskirts of Cambridge.
AstraZeneca’s £1bn new research and development centre houses 16 labs and 2,200 scientists, making it the biggest science lab in Britain along with the Francis Crick Institute in London, and the pharmaceutical company’s biggest single site investment to date.
Continue reading...UK government guidance updated to cover socialising indoors, as Scotland’s first minister urges people to make ‘extra effort’
Covid guidance is being toughened across the UK to try to prevent a surge in cases before Christmas, with a focus on more rapid tests and home working. But scientists said messaging must be reinforced with a significant government publicity blitz.
In an update to official guidance, people in England are now advised to take a lateral flow test (LFT) if they expect to be in a “high risk situation” that day, such as spending time in “crowded and enclosed spaces” and where “there is limited fresh air”.
Continue reading...Downing Street spokesperson responds to questions about PM’s health after rambling speech to CBI on Monday
Boris Johnson is physically well and has a full grasp on the prime ministership, Downing Street has said following his rambling speech to business leaders on Monday in which he lost his place for about 20 seconds.
People who watched the speech Johnson gave to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) conference were impressed with it, his spokesman argued, adding that cabinet ministers could speak freely if they had any concerns.
Continue reading...Ambassador warned Foreign Office an Iraqi invasion was under way but this was not passed on to airline
Hundreds of British passengers might have avoided being taken hostage by Saddam Hussein in 1990 if a call by a British ambassador regarding Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait had been relayed to British Airways, the Foreign Office has disclosed.
The revelation of the phone call and the decades long cover-up was made on Tuesday under the 20-year disclosure rule, but was known to ministers and diplomats since 1990. The current foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has apologised for the omission.
Continue reading...Latest updates: Torridge in Devon had the highest rate in UK followed by Mid Ulster in Northern Ireland; France reports over 30,000 cases
Here’s the latest from Reuters on the situation in Germany, where the acting health minister called on Tuesday for further restrictions to contain a “dramatic” surge in coronavirus cases as the country’s infection rate hit a record high and the United States advised against travel there.
The seven-day incidence rate - the number of people per 100,000 to be infected over the last week - hit 399.8 on Tuesday, up from 386.5 on Monday, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed.
Access to healthcare is expensive and, in an emergency, villagers are forced to walk for hours to the nearest health facility. For women, the lack of facilities, combined with patriarchal attitudes, means they have had no control over their reproductive health. But Communities Health Africa Trust (Chat) organises mobile healthcare outreach to poorly served communities such as Lekiji. Chat identifies vulnerable communities with limited access to health facilities and significant family planning needs, and brings health provision and education to their door.
Lack of roads is no barrier to their work. If they cannot reach the communities by car, they switch to an older form of transport: camel. In the past three years Chat has reached more than 100,000 people with behaviour-changing messages that focus on family planning but include TB, HIV and Covid prevention services across 14 counties in Kenya.
Continue reading...Downing Street declines to praise home secretary over attempts to stop crossings in small boats
Priti Patel is being put under “immense pressure” from Downing Street and Conservative MPs over government efforts to halt Channel crossings in small boats, with No 10 refusing to say the home secretary had done a good job.
As figures revealed, the number of people making perilous crossings has tripled since 2020, Boris Johnson’s spokesperson twice declined to praise Patel’s strategy on Monday. He said the prime minister had “confidence in the home secretary” but would only say she has “worked extremely hard and no one can doubt this is a priority for her”.
Continue reading...Analysis shows job adverts requiring candidates to be jabbed rose by 189% between August and October
Employers in the UK are following the lead of their counterparts in the US by stepping up demands for staff to be vaccinated against Covid-19, analysis of recruitment adverts reveals.
According to figures from the jobs website Adzuna, the number of ads explicitly requiring candidates to be vaccinated rose by 189% between August and October as more firms ask for workers to be jabbed before they start on the job.
Continue reading...Survey also finds adults aged 18-24 and women more concerned about personal finances than other groups
Young people and women have taken the hardest psychological and financial hit from the pandemic, a YouGov survey has found – but few people anywhere are considering changing their lives as a result of it.
The annual YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project found that in many of the 27 countries surveyed, young people were consistently more likely than their elders to feel the Covid crisis had made their financial and mental health concerns worse.
Continue reading...Questions mount about pact’s ultimate purpose and implications for other Asean countries
It was initially seen as an audacious enlistment by Joe Biden of Australia into the 21st-century struggle against China, elevating the country in the process to a significant regional military power and finally giving substance to Global Britain and its tilt to the Indo-Pacific.
But since then the “ruckus” about Aukus, as Boris Johnson described it, has not stopped. If this was the start of a new “anti-hegemonic coalition” to balance China’s rise, it has not quite blown up on the launchpad, but nor has it taken off as smoothly as intended.
Continue reading...Senior party members concerned after chaotic fortnight, with PM said to be losing his grip over key policies
Conservative MPs are increasingly worried about Boris Johnson’s competence and drive after he gave a rambling speech to business leaders and was accused of losing his grip over a series of key policies from social care to rail.
Senior members of his own party said they needed Johnson to get the government back on track after a disastrous two weeks amid dismay about his performance at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) conference, where he lost his place in his speech for about 20 seconds and diverted into a lengthy tangent about Peppa Pig.
Continue reading...Kate Mitchell’s body was found shortly after an emergency alarm was activated in her hotel room
A murder investigation has been launched in Kenya into the death of a British woman who worked for the BBC’s international development charity.
The body of Kate Mitchell, a senior manager at BBC Media Action, was found on Friday in the capital Nairobi shortly after an emergency alarm was activated in her room. Police in Kenya said the window to her eighth-floor hotel room had been broken and the body of a man Mitchell had been with earlier was found on the ground below.
Continue reading...Business leaders and Conservative MPs criticise speech in which PM extensively praised Peppa Pig World and imitated car
Boris Johnson has been criticised by senior business leaders and Conservative MPs for a “rambling” speech to top industry figures that saw him extensively praise Peppa Pig World, compare himself to Moses and imitate the noise of an accelerating car.
The prime minister’s sprawling address to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) was accused of lacking seriousness and professionalism. Johnson lost his place during the speech and spent 20 seconds repeating “forgive me” as he shuffled the printed pages on his podium.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson threw spotlight on show that has run for 17 years and been exported to 118 countries
To many families taking their excited children to Peppa Pig World, the most surreal aspect isn’t the pastel-hued streets or the giant cartoon animals milling around; it’s the soundtrack. Piped from speakers spread around the park, the can’t-get-it-out-of-your-head theme tune plays on a continuous loop, and parents could be forgiven for feeling they’ve entered a nightmare rather than a toddler’s dreamscape.
Not so for Boris Johnson. The prime minister was so buoyed by his Sunday enjoying delights such an egg-shaped boat ride overlooked by Grampy Rabbit, where he was photographed grinning alongside his one-year-old son Wilfred and wife Carrie, that he was moved to praise the New Forest amusement park effusively in a speech to business leaders on Monday.
Continue reading...Dame Elish Angiolini to examine policing failures that allowed Wayne Couzens to attack 33-year-old
The Home Office inquiry into the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a police officer will be chaired by Dame Elish Angiolini, formerly Scotland’s top prosecutor, the department has said.
It will examine whether chances to identify her murderer, Wayne Couzens, as a danger to women before he attacked Everard in March 2021 were missed.
Continue reading...Test drive of planetary defence system aims to provide data on how to deflect asteroids away from Earth
That’s one large rock, one momentous shift in our relationship with space. On Wednesday, Nasa will launch a mission to deliberately slam a spacecraft into an asteroid to try to alter its orbit – the first time humanity has tried to interfere in the gravitational dance of the solar system. The aim is to test drive a planetary defence system that could prevent us from going the same way as the dinosaurs, providing the first real data about what it would take to deflect an Armageddon-inducing asteroid away from Earth.
Our planet is constantly being bombarded with small pieces of debris, but these are usually burned or broken up long before they hit the ground. Once in a while, however, something large enough to do significant damage hits the ground. About 66m years ago, one such collision is thought to have ended the reign of the dinosaurs, ejecting vast amounts of dust and debris into the upper atmosphere, which obscured the sun and caused food chains to collapse. Someday, something similar could call time on humanity’s reign – unless we can find a way to deflect it.
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