Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Then US leader also turned down Chequers dinner because he wanted to ‘be a tourist’, archives show
Bill Clinton turned down tea with the Queen and dinner at Chequers because he wanted to “be a tourist” and try out an Indian restaurant during his first official visit to the UK with Tony Blair as prime minister, formerly classified documents reveal.
Downing Street wanted to pull out all the stops for a visit seen as crucial to “establishing a good working relationship” between the new prime minister and the then US president. Buckingham Palace contacted No 10 to say “HM the Queen would be very pleased” to invite the Clintons to tea at 5pm on their brief one-day detour from summits in Paris and The Hague.
Biden implores Americans to get vaccinated and stocks fall amid outbreaks in areas with low inoculation rates
A rapid increase in coronavirus cases in the US and abroad is fueling fears of a pandemic resurgence and on Monday sent shockwaves through the stock market as the highly contagious Delta variant takes hold – and Joe Biden urged Americans to “please, please get vaccinated”.
The number of new cases, hospitalizations and deaths due to Covid-19 have been rising worryingly in recent days, largely driven by outbreaks in parts of the country with low vaccination rates, as officials have been warning of a “pandemic of the unvaccinated”.
Julianna Moore, formerly Ganna Ziuzina, told an inquest she did not seek to profit from Barry Pring’s death, as his family alleges
The widow of a wealthy British businessman killed in a hit and run in Ukraine as he celebrated his first wedding anniversary has denied organising his murder, an inquest heard.
Barry Pring, 47, suffered fatal injuries when he was hit by a vehicle using a stolen number plate while waiting for a taxi outside a restaurant in Kiev with his wife, Ganna Ziuzina, on 16 February 2008.
The documents have long been a fascination of the prime minister, who touted their use for pubs and theatres back at the start of 2021, but acknowledged the moral dilemma they posed in a country that has always prided itself on opposition to a European-style “papers, please” regime.
Penguin Random House announces book is expected in late 2022 with proceeds going to charity
The Duke of Sussex has agreed a publishing deal to write his memoirs and said he would do so “not as the prince I was born, but as the man I have become”.
The global deal for his “literary memoir” was announced by Penguin Random House, with publication expected in late 2022 and proceeds to be donated to charity.
Children in the UK will get a Covid vaccine only if they are over 12 and extremely vulnerable, or live with someone at risk, as scientists raised concerns about inflammation around the heart linked to the Pfizer jab.
Sajid Javid, the health secretary, said he accepted the advice of scientific advisers that only children over 12 with severe neuro-disabilities, Down’s syndrome, immunosuppression and multiple or severe learning disabilities should be allowed to get the Pfizer vaccine. Children over 12 who live in the same house as people who are immunosuppressed will also be eligible for jabs.
It is hard not to feel undermined by rising cases and the decision to relax restrictions, says this consultant
It is hard to summarise exactly why I feel so angry. While the third wave is clearly under way, things are definitely different this time around. For the equivalent case numbers, hospitalisations are far lower, and people overall are less unwell. Vaccines have made the difference.
Many of our admissions have not been vaccinated, however. Some want to achieve “natural immunity”; it is unclear whether they realise that the only way to do this is to get the disease instead. Another wants “to see some real data”, as if all the information assessed by the regulatory authorities before approval, and the clear real-world data about the reduction in cases, is somehow fabricated. Someone’s friend got some side-effects from the vaccine so she didn’t have it; guess which one of them ended up in hospital. Most of these people have the decency to look sheepish, or to describe themselves as “one of those idiots”.
At a public library in London, staff members are filled with nerves about “freedom day” on 19 July. Billed as the big unlocking and an end to social distancing rules and mandatory face coverings in England, they fear for their safety as Covid cases grow daily.
“I will still be wearing a mask and so will lots of colleagues. We will still be washing and sanitising our hands and trying to keep a distance, but it is hard as a lot of people just walk straight up to you,” said Alan Wylie, a 55-year-old librarian.
Analysis: making fully vaccinated travellers returning from places with lower infection rates quarantine, while the virus runs wild here, is difficult to comprehend
Boris Johnson’s pendulum swing from “freedom day” to unlocking with “extreme caution” relayed a shift in the government’s thinking – that the relaxation of almost all restrictions at this stage comes with significant risk. The move to make fully vaccinated people returning from France continue to quarantine – because of the risk of the Beta variant – appears to be another sign of panic setting in.
Delta, the dominant variant in the UK, is far more transmissible than the Beta variant, which was first identified in South Africa. But the danger of Beta has long been its ability to thwart any vaccine shield, particularly the AstraZeneca jab. Beta actually preceded Delta – it was first recorded in the UK in December but never quite took off. In South Africa, it has dominated. It also accounts for about one in 10 new infections in France, but that data includes the French territories of Réunion and Mayotte, where the variant is almost dominant.
The prime minister has said he briefly considered not isolating after coming into contact with the health secretary, who has contracted Covid-19 but thinks it is ‘far more important that everybody sticks to the same rules’. Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak had initially tried to avoid isolation by saying they were part of a daily-test pilot scheme, prompting an outcry from members of the public and backbench Conservative MPs
Following the announcement of stricter social distancing measures being introduced in Vietnam’s capital city, the country’s health ministry has confirmed that daily Covid cases have reached a record high.
The country reported 5,926 cases on Sunday, according to Reuters, as the country battles its worst outbreak so far. Vietnam has reported 53,830 cases overall, with 254 deaths.
Tony Blair has called on ministers to drop the requirement for people who are fully vaccinated to self-isolate if they come into contact with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19, PA Media reports.
The former prime minister said the current system was “not rational” and he understood why people were deleting the NHS Covid app from their mobile phones.
We’re at risk of moving in two contradictory directions.
On the one hand we’re going to open everything up, free restriction altogether, and on the other hand we’ve still got this pinging track and trace system where people have got to go into complete isolation if they’re pinged in circumstances where probably the vast majority of those people do not need to do so.
I don’t want the prime minister of the country to be in isolation at the moment, I need him at his desk doing his job.
He’s double-vaccinated, he’s actually had Covid, he’s testing and presumably the tests are coming back negative. The point is to do this for everyone.
Most are built for middle-class professionals rather than oligarchs, with trend raising flood concerns
With their underground swimming pools, cinemas and art galleries, London’s luxury basement developments have long provoked envy and disgust as depositories for the hidden wealth of the super-rich.
But a study that has mapped all the 7,328 basements approved by 32 boroughs and the City of London between 2008 and 2019 has found that the majority of these developments were built for middle-class professionals rather than oligarchs, with the researchers saying they have become as normal as loft conversions.
The government was embroiled in a rancorous diplomatic standoff with France on Saturday night after its surprise decision to continue imposing a 10-day quarantine on fully vaccinated people returning from the country.
French officials seemed baffled by the move, suspecting UK ministers may have based it on rising cases on the French island of Reunion – nearly 6,000 miles from Paris.
As women and children lose out on programmes that could change their lives, Britain’s reputation has been diminished
Bukola Onyishi was delighted when she found out that the British government was going to help her realise a dream in one of the poorest parts of Nigeria. With a grant agreement that was meant to last for three years, she was finally going to be able to launch a female empowerment programme for the women of Bauchi state in the country’s north-east, many of whom had fled the militant Islamist group Boko Haram and were now living in abject poverty in camps for the internally displaced.
“The grant made us very happy,” says Onyishi, country director for Women for Women International. “[Bauchi] was the right place to be.” Setting it up was not easy: Onyishi and her colleagues had a job to persuade community elders of the project’s value, encountering deep-seated patriarchal beliefs that surprised even her in their obstinacy. But they came round in the end, and the first 12-month empowerment programme began, teaching 1,200 carefully selected women about everything from their basic human rights to numeracy and business skills.
A clinical trial has been launched to detect currently invisible lung damage in people with long Covid, as part of a £20m research drive that scientists hope will end stigma around the condition.
Patients still suffering breathlessness will be drawn from long Covid clinics in Sheffield, Manchester and Cardiff to undergo special scans using xenon gas to reveal damage that does not show up on conventional CT scans, leading to a mystery about why people are not getting better.
Cressida Dick backs Hendon methods, despite leaked documents and internal sources revealing alarming incidents and poor applicants
The head of the Metropolitan police, Cressida Dick, has been forced to defend recruitment standards as leaked documents reveal cases of violent disorder, cheating and dishonesty among trainees at Britain’s biggest police force.
The incidents relate to recruits at the Met’s main training centre and will raise concerns about its ability to provide an effective service as sources within the force allege declining standards for trainees as recruitment has been ramped up.
TV station also hit by internal dispute over its direction after Guto Harri dropped for ‘taking the knee’
Nigel Farage is to take centre stage at GB News in a victory for the rightwing faction at the beleaguered television channel. The former leader of Ukip is to host a nightly primetime show from Monday as part of a reboot of programming designed to attract more viewers.
The new channel is facing plummeting viewing figures and a split in management between those angling to keep broader-based regional news coverage and those planning to boost coverage of the “culture wars”.
The health secretary for England, Sajid Javid, has announced in a video on Twitter that he has tested positive for coronavirus and has mild symptoms.
In a video, Javid said: “This morning I tested positive for Covid. I’m waiting for my PCR result, but thankfully I have had my jabs and symptoms are mild.”
Tory councillors are accused of censorship over installation on atom bomb tests in Australia in a Southend park
An Australian artist has accused a group of Conservative councillors of using “bullying strategies” to silence and censor her work after an installation she created to highlight Britain’s “identity as a colonial nuclear state” was removed from a park in Essex.
The councillors threatened to “take action against the work” if it was not removed, according to Metal, the arts organisation that commissioned and then removed the installation from Gunners Park in Southend.