Category Archives: UK news

UK vaccine volunteers to help prepare for next virus at new Pandemic Institute

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The Liverpool site will work with other international centres to research the threat of emerging disruptive diseases

A new scientific institute which aims to prevent future pandemics may have been able to save thousands of lives by accelerating vaccine development had it existed before December 2019, its researchers believe.

Liverpool’s new Pandemic Institute will include a new human challenge facility, where volunteers will test new vaccines and treatments under controlled conditions.

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Facebook office cleaner who led protests at London site fears for his job

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Suspended union rep calls on social media giant to intervene after exhausted workers complain of extra workload

Facebook’s facilities management firm has demanded the removal of a union activist leading a campaign against “impossible workloads” imposed on exhausted cleaners at the US tech giant’s London offices.

Emails seen by the Observer show JLL @ Facebook, which manages the social media firm’s London sites, asked Churchill Group, which employs the cleaners, to remove the workers’ elected union rep, Guillermo Camacho, from Facebook’s offices after he helped organise protests against a doubling of cleaning duties in July.

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US court to hold pretrial conference in Prince Andrew sexual assault suit

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Lawyers claiming to represent Duke of York question whether papers were properly served

A US court will hold a pretrial conference on Monday in the civil suit filed by a woman who claims Prince Andrew sexually assaulted her, as the two sides argue over whether the prince was properly served with documents in the case.

Lawyers for Virginia Roberts Giuffre say the documents were handed over to a Metropolitan police officer on duty at the main gates of Andrew’s home in Windsor Great Park on 27 August.

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SNP members call for creation of state-run energy company

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Motion will be seen as rebuke to party leader Nicola Sturgeon, who pledged to establish national firm in 2017

Scottish National party members backed a call for a state-run energy company to be set up on the second day of their autumn conference, four years after leader Nicola Sturgeon first pledged one. The move will be seen as a direct rebuke to the leadership’s failure to make good on the promise.

On Saturday activists overwhelmingly supported a motion demanding the creation of a Scottish national energy company, which first minister Nicola Sturgeon first promised in October 2017 at a previous conference.

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Johnson aims to beat Thatcher’s record with another decade in power – reports

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‘Levelling up’ British society will take 10 years, the prime minister writes as Tories slip in polls

Reports that Boris Johnson has ambitions for another decade in power as he aims to outlast Margaret Thatcher’s 11-year tenure in No 10 have been met with consternation.

The Times reported that Johnson wanted to build a legacy. One cabinet member reportedly told the newspaper: “Boris will want to go on and on. The stuff Dom [Dominic Cummings] was saying about him going off into the sunset was nonsense. He’s very competitive. He wants to go on for longer than Thatcher.”

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Photographer David Bailey reveals he has vascular dementia

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‘It’s just one of those things,’ says the British celebrity snapper, 83, who is still busy with new work

David Bailey has revealed he has dementia, a life-limiting condition the British photographer described as a bore.

Speaking to the Times, Bailey, 83, said: “I’ve got vascular dementia. I was diagnosed about three years ago.

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‘My son misses his Papa’: Brexit rules force families to split

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Partners and spouses are being kept apart by Home Office delays in processing revised versions of entry permits to Britain

A British woman has told how she had to separate her six-year-old son from his French father because post-Brexit rules prohibited her spouse from returning with her to the UK for a new job without prior Home Office approval.

After 11 years in France, the couple, who work in highly skilled jobs in the defence industry, decided to move back to the UK and thought it would be as simple as getting on a Eurostar train.

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Richard E Grant reveals late wife Joan Washington had lung cancer

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Actor says Washington, who died earlier this month aged 71, was diagnosed eight months before her death

Richard E Grant has revealed his wife of 35 years, Joan Washington, was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer eight months before her death.

The actor, 64, known for films including Withnail And I and Can You Ever Forgive Me?, announced Washington, a voice coach, died earlier this month, aged 71, by sharing a video of the pair dancing together to Only You by the Platters on Twitter.

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The Taliban are not the only threat to Afghanistan. Aid cuts could undo 20 years of progress

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The most vulnerable people will bear the cost of sanctions, as services and the economy collapse

Watching Afghanistan’s unfolding trauma, I’ve thought a lot about Mumtaz Ahmed, a young teacher I met a few years ago. Her family fled Kabul during Taliban rule in the late 1990s.

Raised as a refugee in Pakistan, Ahmed had defied the odds and made it to university. Now, she was back in Afghanistan teaching maths in a rural girls’ school. “I came back because I believe in education and I love my country,” she told me. “These girls have a right to learn – without education, Afghanistan has no future.”

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Prince Andrew served with lawsuit from Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre

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A US court document showed paperwork was filed at Royal Lodge and a response is due by 17 September

Prince Andrew has been served with an affidavit for a lawsuit say lawyers for Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who alleges she was forced to have sex with the royal when she was 17 years old.

A document filed in a US court on Friday showed that paperwork for Giuffre’s lawsuit was filed at Andrew’s home, Royal Lodge, in Windsor on 27 August. The affidavit was accepted by a Metropolitan police officer at the gates of the property at 9.30am, after the agent filing the document had been turned away the previous day, according to the documents.

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‘This girl means serious business’: the making of Emma Raducanu

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Even from a young age, those around the latest British tennis star suspected she had something special

Emma Raducanu’s unprecedented run to the US Open final so soon after committing to the sport is not the first time she has burst through and demanded attention.

In November 2015, only three days after her 13th birthday, which meant she could finally compete in international under-18 tournaments, Raducanu travelled up to Liverpool for the Nike Junior International tournament. Five matches later, she had won the event.

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Boys more at risk from Pfizer jab side-effect than Covid, suggests study

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US researchers say teenagers are more likely to get vaccine-related myocarditis than end up in hospital with Covid

Healthy boys may be more likely to be admitted to hospital with a rare side-effect of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine that causes inflammation of the heart than with Covid itself, US researchers claim.

Their analysis of medical data suggests that boys aged 12 to 15, with no underlying medical conditions, are four to six times more likely to be diagnosed with vaccine-related myocarditis than ending up in hospital with Covid over a four-month period.

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Man jailed for life for murdering 17-year-old daughter

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Scott Walker to serve minimum 32 years for murder of Bernadette, whose body has still not been found

A man who murdered the teenage girl who called him her father, after she said he had sexually abused her over a number of years, has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 32 years.

Scott Walker, 51, of Peterborough, was convicted of the murder of 17-year-old Bernadette Walker, who was not his biological daughter, following an earlier trial at Cambridge crown court.

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UK ministers ‘met fossil fuel firms nine times more often than clean energy companies’

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Exclusive: revelations come amid rising concerns over government’s plans to meet net zero target

UK government ministers have held private meetings with fossil fuel and biomass energy producers roughly nine times as often as they met companies involved in clean energy production, despite the increasing urgency of meeting the government’s climate targets.

Analysis by DeSmog, the environmental investigation group, of publicly available data shows that ministers from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Beis) held 63 private meetings – with one company present, along with ministers and advisers – with fossil fuel and biomass energy producers between 22 July 2019 and 18 March 2021.

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Afghanistan flight carrying more than 100 foreign passengers lands in Doha

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Antony Blinken thanks Qatar and Taliban for facilitating flight that he says shows US commitment to help citizens and others who assisted US

A flight carrying more than 100 international passengers out of Kabul has landed in Doha, the first such civilian flight since the chaotic evacuation of 124,000 foreigners and at-risk Afghans sparked by the Taliban’s swift takeover of the country.

About 113 people were aboard the flight to Doha operated by state-owned Qatar Airways, officials said. The passengers included US, British, Canadian, Ukrainian, Dutch and German citizens.

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Queen supports Black Lives Matter, says senior royal representative

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Sir Ken Olisa, first black Lord-Lieutenant for London, reveals he has talked about racism with royal household

The Queen and the royal family are supporters of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, one of the monarch’s representatives has said.

Sir Ken Olisa, the first black Lord-Lieutenant for London, revealed to Channel 4 that he had discussed the topic of racism with members of the royal household in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in the US.

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France accuses Patel of blackmail in row over Channel migrants

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Interior minister says UK plans to return boats of vulnerable people would not be accepted

Priti Patel has been accused by France’s interior minister of plotting “financial blackmail” and a violation of international maritime law in a deepening diplomatic row over efforts to prevent migrants from crossing the Channel by boat.

Gérald Darmanin said that UK plans, released on Wednesday night, to send back boats of vulnerable people into French waters would not be accepted by his government.

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More than 8,000 people in hospital with Covid in UK

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Figure highest for almost six months leading to fears of resurgence in virus’ ability to cause serious illness

More than 8,000 people in the UK were in hospital with Covid on Wednesday – the highest figure for nearly six months – leading to fears of a resurgence in the virus’ ability to cause serious illness and death among the population.

In countries with high rates of vaccination, such as the UK, fewer people are predicted to become ill enough to require hospital treatment, even if infection rates remain high. But the latest figures show the highest number of patients on wards since 10 March.

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Return of migrant vessels: a violation of maritime law and moral duty

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Analysis: experts say blocking right to apply for asylum is an infringement of Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Gaspare, a fisher from Sciacca in Sicily, had rescued dozens of migrants attempting to reach Italy by boat from Libya when the Italian authorities threatened to arrest him and his crew for aiding illegal immigration.

“I wonder if even one of our politicians has ever heard the desperate cries for help at high sea in the black of night,” he said in 2019. “I wonder what they would have done. No human being – sailor or not – would have turned away.”

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‘Chaotic’ UK response criticised as Afghan babies wait for milk and donations turned away

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Volunteers ‘operating blind’ about refugees’ needs, while hotels left with no staff to distribute aid

The government’s response towards families evacuated from Afghanistan to Britain has been “chaotic and uncoordinated”, hampering volunteers’ efforts to help, charities have said.

One hotel where 50 babies were in quarantine with their families after fleeing the Taliban had no formula milk, they said. In other hotels, supplies of clothes, toiletries and nappies donated by the public were turned away by managers who had no staff to distribute them.

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