Adele says staying in sunny LA staves off seasonal depression

Singer, who reportedly bought $58m property last year, says she also gets left alone in Los Angeles

Adele has said she is likely to stick around in Los Angeles because the sunny weather helps her stave off seasonal depression.

In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, she said the California city’s sunny weather was “good for me”. Los Angeles has an average of about 263 sunny days in the year.

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Bomb attack on Ulez camera ‘grotesquely irresponsible’, says London mayor

Blast in Sidcup not being treated as terrorism but counter-terror officers are leading investigation

The London mayor’s office has condemned a “grotesquely irresponsible” attack in which a camera enforcing the city’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) was damaged with what appeared to be a homemade bomb, saying lives were put at risk.

There was no immediate reaction on the incident from Downing Street or the Home Office, with No 10 saying it could not comment amid a police inquiry, but that it condemned “criminality more generally”.

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Passengers trapped on cold, dark trains as travel chaos hits west London

Faulty electric cables cause hours of disruption for passengers and many people are still trapped onboard trains

Hundreds of passengers have been stuck on cold, dark trains in west London for hours as travellers suffered significant delays due to damaged overhead electric cables.

All trains have been stopped between London Paddington and Reading, Network Rail Western confirmed. Great Western Railway said disruption was expected on the London Paddington to Reading line until the end of Thursday. The disruption also affects the Elizabeth line.

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London borough of Richmond is ‘happiest place to live in Great Britain’

Access to huge parks, restaurants and transport links plus a Ted Lasso-factor lead area to top Rightmove’s ‘happy at home’ index

It is home to London’s largest royal park as well as big-hitting tourist attractions such as Kew Gardens and Hampton Court Palace, and has more recently become a place of pilgrimage for fans of the hit TV comedy Ted Lasso. Now, the borough of Richmond upon Thames in south-west London has been named “the happiest place to live” in Great Britain.

It received the accolade from property website Rightmove, which runs a “happy at home” index – now in its 12th year – where it asks residents how they feel about their area based on 13 “happiness factors”.

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Most Garrick club members favour admitting women, poll reveals

Members campaigning against men-only rule say numbers opposed to change had fallen due to revised legal advise

The slow-moving campaign to force the Garrick, one of London’s last remaining gentlemen’s clubs, to admit women has notched a partial victory with an internal poll revealing that a majority of members are in favour of dropping the men-only rule.

This is the second significant development in the space of a year in the remarkably languid battle for gender equality at the club, which counts among its members the former supreme court judges Lord Neuberger and Lord Sumption, actors Hugh Bonneville and Stephen Fry, and Michael Gove, a cabinet minister.

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London’s biggest minicab firm Addison Lee makes emissions U-turn

Lack of public chargers blamed for decision to be only ‘zero-emissions capable’ by April 2024

London’s biggest minicab company has U-turned on plans for all its cars to produce zero emissions this year, blaming a lack of public chargers in the capital.

Addison Lee said it had spent £30m on new Volkswagen Multivans, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), which combine a small battery with a polluting internal combustion engine, and admitted that the switch to electric cars had been harder than it had expected.

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Protests against Israel-Hamas war expected in 13 London boroughs over weekend

Smaller marches will take place instead of single larger event and will be policed locally

Police said protests are expected “in around 13 boroughs” in London on Saturday after the seven-day Israel-Hamas ceasefire ended.

There are no plans for any major central London demonstrations of the sort that have been seen over the past two months, but a number of smaller events are planned, the Metropolitan police said.

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Andy Burnham claims government note shows Covid tier 3 restrictions imposed on Manchester as ‘punishment beating’ – as it happened

Covid tier system introduced in October 2020 and imposed different restrictions on English regions in effort to contain spread of virus. This live blog is closed

At the Covid inquiry Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, said that he was not getting information from the government in February about Covid. He said he was “disappointed” by that.

In late February and early March he was getting information from other cities around the world instead, he said. He said this happened even though his foreign affairs team consisted of just three people.

The government generally does give us information about a variety of things happening. I’m disappointed the government weren’t giving us information in February about what they knew then.

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Campaigner for council housing in London fights on after leaving her home

Aysen Dennis, who accused Southwark council of ‘social cleansing’, continues court challenge over Aylesbury estate plans

The bulldozers will soon be out for the south London council flat that was Aysen Dennis’s home for 30 years. After leading a fierce battle against the council and developers, claiming their plans to fill much of her estate with private homes amounted to “social cleansing”, she has finally moved.

Dennis, 65, has been relocated to a swanky new flat in a development bought back by Southwark council. She claims it paid £690,000 for her ninth-floor flat with panoramic views of the park – and is convinced it was an attempt to shut her up before a legal challenge.

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Met police shoot dead armed man who said he wanted to kill himself

Officers were called to an address in Dagenham, east London where they found 40-year-old and two firearms

A man who told officers he had firearms and was going to harm himself has died in a police shooting in east London.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is investigating the incident in Dagenham.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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Owner of two dogs shot dead by police given suspended sentence

Louie Turnbull pleads guilty to owning dangerously out of control animals after they attacked woman’s dog by east London canal

A man whose two dogs were shot dead by police in front of him has been given a suspended sentence for owning dangerously out of control animals.

Viral footage circulated on social media of Metropolitan police officers killing Louie Turnbull’s canines beside an east London canal in May this year.

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Terror response Met officer cleared of dangerous driving could still face sack

Force’s boss called prosecution of PC Paul Fisher over crash while racing to Streatham stabbings ‘appalling’

A police officer who was cleared of dangerous driving after crashing while racing to the scene of a terrorism attack may still face the sack, the Guardian has learned.

PC Paul Fisher was acquitted by a jury at Southwark crown court on Friday, leading the Metropolitan police commissioner to describe his ordeal as “appalling”.

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Tommy Robinson not welcome at march against antisemitism, say leaders

Organisers of London protest against anti-Jewish hatred demand that far-right leader stays away, after he claimed to support it

Organisers of a march against antisemitism billed as Britain’s biggest since the second world war have demanded that the far-right leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon stay away.

Yaxley-Lennon, who uses the name Tommy Robinson, has claimed to support the aims of the march through central London due to be held this Sunday.

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‘Queen of Drury Lane’ Sarah Siddons celebrated in new play

April De Angelis comedy, to be premiered in Hampstead, explores life of actor at a time when married women were ‘legally dead’

She was known as the Queen of Drury Lane and the first truly respected female actor in theatre, achieving an astonishing level of celebrity at the end of the 18th century.

But despite her notoriety there are no contemporary biographies about Sarah Siddons, who was labelled by her contemporaries as “tragedy personified”.

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Wimbledon expansion plans rejected by Wandsworth council

Planning committee votes unanimously against All England Club’s proposals to triple size on to listed park

A London council has rejected plans to build a new 8,000-seat stadium and 38 further tennis courts on a Grade II*-listed park in Wimbledon.

Wandsworth council’s planning committee on Tuesday night voted unanimously to reject the All England Lawn Tennis Club’s plans to almost triple the size of the tennis championship grounds from 17 hectares (42 acres) to 46 hectares.

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UK needs more lab space if it wants to be science superpower, ministers told

Leading property firms also call for more tax breaks and improved transport links to hubs ahead of autumn statement

The UK needs to build more laboratory space, improve transport links and offer more tax breaks to achieve Rishi Sunak’s ambition of becoming a science superpower, two leading property firms have argued ahead of the autumn statement.

Demand for laboratories in the UK is growing fast, with lab vacancy rates of just 1% in Cambridge and London, and 7% in Oxford, according to a report by British Land, one of Britain’s biggest property developers, and the upmarket estate agency and advisory firm Savills.

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Hundreds march through Keir Starmer’s constituency in Gaza ceasefire protest

Protesters march through Camden and gather outside Labour leader’s office amid anger over failure to call for ceasefire

Hundreds of people marched through Keir Starmer’s constituency and protested outside his Camden office on Saturday over the Labour leader’s failure to call for a ceasefire.

The action was organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which planned more than 100 local demonstrations across the country on Saturday rather than holding a national march in the capital.

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Not illegal for Gaza protesters to climb on war memorial, says Met chief

Home secretary says demonstration at Royal Artillery Memorial ‘deeply disrespectful’ and he is looking at giving police new powers

The actions of pro-Palestinian protesters who climbed on to a war memorial were “inflammatory” but not illegal, the Metropolitan police commissioner said on Thursday, as the government said it would consider giving police new powers to prevent “offensive” demonstrations.

Video footage appears to show at least two pro-Palestinian protesters clambering on the Royal Artillery Memorial at Hyde Park Corner, central London, on Wednesday evening, timed to coincide with a vote on calls for a ceasefire in Gaza in the Commons.

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London police investigate videos of potential hate crimes at rallies

Met and BTP seeking people in footage from Saturday’s marches, in particular at a ‘racially aggravated altercation’ at Waterloo

Police are looking for people seen in pictures and videos featuring antisemitic and Islamophobic language and symbols after Saturday’s pro-Palestinian and far-right marches in London.

Both the Metropolitan police and British Transport Police (BTP) released images on Sunday of individuals they hoped to identify.

The police have asked any members of the public who can identify the woman bearing the antisemitic placard shown in this article to call 101, giving reference 1235186/23. Information can also be provided to Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111

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