Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Despite protests from locals and Green councillors, wildlife haven will become hard courts at cost of £266,000
A wildflower meadow containing 130 different flowering plants, dragonflies and rare bats that sprung up on Norwich’s last public grass tennis courts has been bulldozed.
Despite protests from local people and Green councillors, all-weather hard courts with floodlights and fencing are being installed in Heigham Park, where species including whiskered and brown long-eared bats, pygmy shrews, hedgehogs and 18 species of dragonfly have been recorded.
Coal plants being warmed up as market prices surge to £2,500 per MWh from a norm of £40
A major fire has forced the shutdown of one of Britain’s most important power cables importing electricity from France as the UK faces a supply crunch and record high market prices.
National Grid was forced to evacuate staff from the site of the IFA high-voltage power cable, which brings electricity from France to a converter station in Kent, where 12 fire engines attended the blaze in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Police Service of Northern Ireland says the men have been detained under the Terrorism Act
Police in Northern Ireland have arrested four men as part of the investigation into the murder of the journalist Lyra McKee in 2019.
The four men, aged 19, 20, 21 and 33, were arrested under the Terrorism Act 2006 on Wednesday morning. They were in the Derry area, and are now being questioned at Musgrave police station in Belfast.
Twelve months ago, as a battle raged in Downing Street over whether to order a circuit-breaker lockdown, Prof Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance issued a stern public warning that England was headed for 200 deaths a day by November unless action was taken.
That was widely seen as a shocking and unacceptable figure. In the event, Boris Johnson finally caved in to the inevitable six weeks later, on 31 October, ordering a month-long lockdown.
Rossella Pagliuchi-Lor tells MPs proposed legislation could end up punishing those fleeing Taliban if travelling by illegal routes
The UN’s refugee chief in London has said the introduction of the new nationality and borders bill could criminalise Afghan people who manage to escape the Taliban.
Rossella Pagliuchi-Lor, the UNHCR’S representative in the UK, told MPs that the government could find itself in a situation where it is jailing Afghans who seek refuge in the UK because they travelled by illegal routes.
Outlining the government's winter Covid-19 plan, Boris Johnson said the government will 'will keep further measures in reserve. A plan B.' These measures include face masks, advice to work from home and vaccine passports, the prime minister said.
Speaking at a No 10 press conference, Johnson added that 'it might still make the difference between keeping businesses open at full capacity or not'
Boris Johnson has announced the government’s “autumn and winter plan” to combat an anticipated rise in Covid infection rates over the coming months, with a toolkit of restrictions that could be introduced in England if the NHS comes under significant pressure.
Move agreed by Speakers of Commons and Lords follows imposition of sanctions on British MPs by Beijing
The new Chinese ambassador to the UK has been barred from parliament by the Speakers in the Commons and Lords after the imposition of sanctions on British MPs by Beijing.
The new ambassador, Zheng Zeguang, was due to attend a meeting of the broadly pro-Chinese all-party group on China, but after a letter from MPs who were subjected to sanctions by China, including the former Conservative party leader Iain Duncan Smith, the Commons Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, has said the meeting is not appropriate.
Covid boosters will be offered to all over-50s and those at greatest risk of the disease as part of the “toolbox” of measures for controlling coronavirus over the autumn and winter following guidance from the government’s vaccine advisers.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said a third dose of vaccine would top up the immunity in those whose protection had likely waned since they completed their first round of shots earlier in the year.
Health secretary updates parliament on pandemic winter plans, including proposals for booster jabs for over-50s and the option for 12- to 15-year-olds to get the jab
Successful portrait painter died ‘suddenly and peacefully’ in London, according to family statement
Charlotte Johnson Wahl, the mother of the prime minister, has died at the age of 79.
The portrait painter passed away “suddenly and peacefully” at a London hospital on Monday, the family said in a statement shared with the Daily Telegraph.
Brexit minister Lord Frost tells House of Lords that the European Commission must take renegotiation proposals seriously
The row over Brexit and Northern Ireland has escalated after the UK government issued a new warning to the EU that it will not shy away from unilaterally suspending the Northern Ireland protocol agreed by Boris Johnson last year.
Lord Frost, the Brexit minister, told the House of Lords on Monday night that the EU should take the UK’s proposals to renegotiate part of the protocol “seriously” if it wanted to avoid the protocol collapsing.
European stock markets have shrugged off growth fears and talk of a stock market pullback, to end the day higher.
In London, the FTSE 100 gained 39 points or 0.55% to end at 7068 points. Royal Mail (+3%), Lloyds Banking Group (+2.8%), and hedge fund management group Pershing Square (+2.6%) led the risers.
Spain's Ibex up 1.3%. German Dax up 0.6% The major European indices are ending the day with gains across the board:
German DAX, +0.56% France's CAC, +0.2% UK's FTSE 100, +0.55% Spain's Ibex, +1.3% Italy's FTSE MIB, +0.9% In other markets as European/London traders look to exit:
Cressida Dick calls for more action to stop online radicalisation and questions push towards end-to-end encryption
The UK most senior police officer has accused technology firms of failing to identify, monitor and report the activity of terrorists, in a plea for improved access to social media platforms.
Dame Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan police commissioner, also questioned the push to expand end-to-end encryption in a speech to law enforcement officials on Monday.
Children aged 12 to 15 can be offered Covid vaccinations, the UK’s four chief medical officers have decided, saying the likely impact in reducing disruption to schools meant such a plan could be clinically justified.
All children in the age group will be offered a first Pfizer jab as soon as possible, with the programme led by in-school vaccination services. A second injection will be potentially given once more evidence is gathered, so not before the spring term at the earliest.
Attorneys for Virginia Giuffre expected to argue royal has been properly served with documents in alleged sexual assault case
A New York court is to hold a pre-trial conference on Monday on the civil suit filed against the Duke of York in the sex assault case against him, with reports suggesting his lawyers will not attend the hearing,
Attorneys for Virginia Roberts Giuffre, 38, who alleges Prince Andrew, 61, sexually assaulted her when she was 17, a charge he vehemently denies, are expected to argue that the royal has been properly served with documents in the case.
Conservative MPs fear vaccine passports could still be made mandatory later this year amid a warning the NHS faces “the worst winter in living memory”, despite the health secretary’s announcement earlier today that they are to be scrapped.
The dramatic U-turn came just weeks after Boris Johnson announced the controversial documents would be necessary for fully vaccinated people to go to nightclubs and other crowded venues.
They shouldn’t be kept in reserve – they are pointless, damaging and discriminatory.
“The very concept of vaccine passports needs to be ruled out for good, as they are fundamentally unconservative, discriminatory and would lead to a two-tier society that I am confident no one actually wants to see.
South Africa’s president has announced an easing of Covid-19 restrictions and a shortening of the national curfew after a decline in infections.
Authorities will also extend the hours of alcohol sales, further relaxing restrictions introduced in June to combat a third wave of cases caused by the Delta variant, Reuters reports.
While the third wave is not yet over, we have seen a sustained decline in infections across the country over the last few weeks.
With the decline of infections across all provinces, the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Covid-19 has recommended an easing of restrictions.
Neil Corbel, 40, a detective inspector from the Met’s continuous policing improvement command, is charged on 19 counts
A serving Metropolitan police officer has been charged with a string of voyeurism offences. Neil Corbel, 40, a detective inspector from the Met’s continuous policing improvement command, was charged with 19 offences on 11 August.
The alleged offences took place in the Greater London, Manchester and Brighton areas between January 2017 and February 2020; Corbel was not on duty at the time, the Met said.