French child, aged six when attacked in London, is able to walk a little and has started trying to sing
A French boy who was thrown from the Tate Modern viewing platform in London while on holiday has been able to enjoy a weekend at home away from medical care, his parents have said.
The boy was aged six when Jonty Bravery threw him from the visitor attraction gantry last August.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Andrew George calls for urgent reform of system that views black people as ‘criminals or drug dealers’
The police stop of the Labour MP Dawn Butler was rooted in systemic racism that is damaging the legitimacy of policing, the leader of black police officers has said.
Inspector Andrew George, the new interim president of the National Black Police Association, also called for urgent reform of “a biased system that views black people as criminals or drug dealers”.
Continue reading...Surge in shares contrasts with Covid-related downturn and growing unemployment
The economic collapse in Britain during the second quarter of 2020 was the most brutal on record. Unemployment is forecast by the Bank of England to soar to 2.5m by Christmas. The Brexit cliff edge approaches. Yet in the City, the FTSE 100 has been on the up.
Never has the disconnect between financial trading and economic fundamentals appeared so extreme. What explains surging asset prices (the FTSE jumped 2% on the same day it was revealed the economy had slumped by 20%) when the outlook for many workers is so grim?
Continue reading...Entrepreneur Xu Weiping is risking a fortune to build 2,000 3-metre square workspaces in east London
Welcome to cube city. Xu Weiping, a Chinese multimillionaire, has a vision for the future of office work in the post-Covid-19 pandemic world: thousands of office pods where each person works in their own self-contained 3m x 3m cube.
Xu reckons the coronavirus pandemic will have such a fundamental impact on the way people work that he is converting 20 newly constructed office buildings in east London into 2,000 of the individual cube offices.
Continue reading...Convicting all the suspects would also have offered the police a measure of redemption
Convicting all of the suspects in the racist gang of five or six people that killed Stephen Lawrence would have delivered justice for his family, and some measure of redemption for the Metropolitan police. Scotland Yard’s decision to close the case means neither will get what they longed for.
For Doreen and Neville Lawrence the loss of their first child, Stephen, was a personal catastrophe that over the years turned into a symbolic case for the nation, and remains so.
Continue reading...Car driven by a friend pulled over by officers who later admitted they made a mistake
Dawn Butler, the Labour MP and former shadow equalities minister, has accused the police of being institutionally racist after she was stopped while driving to Sunday lunch with a friend.
Butler, a strong critic of police stop-and-search tactics, said the car was being driven by her male friend, who like Butler is black, when two police cars pulled it over in Hackney, east London. Officers said the vehicle was registered in North Yorkshire.
Continue reading...Developer seeks to cash out of investment in John Nash-designed terrace with views of Regent’s Park
Developers have stuck an asking price of £185m on a house overlooking Regent’s Park in central London in what would be the UK’s second most-expensive home purchase.
The property firm Zenprop is targeting foreign billionaires as potential buyers of 1-18 York Terrace East as it seeks to cash out of a 2016 investment.
Continue reading...The mercury is set to hit 35C in Kent and Sussex on Sunday before thunderstorms arrive early in the week
Many Britons are set to bask in another hot day, with temperatures well above 30C.
The mercury looks set to reach as high as 35C on Sunday – with Kent, Sussex and parts of London being the most likely to see the warmest temperatures, according to Met Office forecaster Craig Snell.
Continue reading...Action supported by Black Lives Matter calls for end to ‘institutionally racist policing’
Chants of “no justice no peace” echoed around Tottenham police station on Saturday afternoon as hundreds of peaceful demonstrators gathered outside the building calling for an end to what they say is institutionally racist policing in this part of north London.
The event marks the ninth anniversary of the fatal shooting by police in Tottenham of Mark Duggan. His death was followed by the biggest riots in recent times. The event is supported by Black Lives Matter, Tottenham Rights and Stopwatch.
Continue reading...More than 30 marches due on Saturday in recognition of work during coronavirus pandemic
Thousands of NHS workers have protested across the UK calling for fair pay for NHS staff and true recognition of their work during the pandemic.
More than 30 marches were planned on Saturday as anger grows about an absence of action to match gestures such as weekly applause for healthcare workers.
Continue reading...Video by Es Devlin and Machiko Weston tells story of nuclear bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
A powerful 10-minute video artwork marking the 75th anniversary of the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been released by the Imperial War Museum in London.
The museum commissioned stage designers Es Devlin, who is British, and Machiko Weston, who is Japanese, to make the piece, which tells the stories and explores the impact of the bombings from different perspectives.
Continue reading...Capital could lose £178m in 2021 as companies decline to send all workers back to offices
Major cities such as London face more economic pain as some companies resist the government’s efforts to encourage workers back to their desks this week, economists have warned.
Pablo Shah, a senior economist at the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), fears that the capital could have lost its aura as a “fun” place to work, particularly in the digital and creative industries.
Continue reading...Police were called to Poplar, east London, after reports a child had fallen from a height
A toddler has been taken to hospital after falling from a block of flats in east London.
The Metropolitan police said they were called to East India Dock Road in Poplar shortly after 6.50pm on Monday after reports that a child had fallen from a height.
Continue reading...Growing concern more travel plans could be thrown into chaos in coming weeks with sudden changes to restrictions
Pet owners should not be alarmed by the news that a cat has tested positive for coronavirus, the government says. This is from Yvonne Doyle, medical director at Public Health England:
This is the first case of a domestic cat testing positive for Covid-19 in the UK but should not be a cause for alarm.
Tests conducted by the Animal and Plant Health Agency have confirmed that the virus responsible for Covid-19 has been detected in a pet cat in England.
This is a very rare event with infected animals detected to date only showing mild clinical signs and recovering within in a few days.
Here is more from the Defra news release about the pet cat testing positive for coronavirus.
The pet cat was initially diagnosed by a private vet with feline herpes virus, a common cat respiratory infection, but the sample was also tested for SARS-CoV-2 as part of a research programme. Follow-up samples tested at the APHA laboratory in Weybridge confirmed the cat was also co-infected with SARS-CoV2 which is the virus known to cause Covid-19 in humans.
Pet owners can access the latest government guidance on how to continue to care for their animals during the coronavirus pandemic.
Continue reading...Campaigners accuse Kensington council of ‘contemptuous disregard’ in decisions that led up to the fire
The Grenfell Tower fire inquiry must include a separate investigation into how “race and class” contributed to the tragedy, according to a group supporting more than a third of the deceased.
The organisation, which represents 28 of the 72 individuals who died in the fire, submitted a statement on 21 July to the inquiry chairman, judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick, to request that an extra module be added to the inquiry to examine if the cost-cutting measures that helped spread the fire would have been sanctioned “if the tower block was in an affluent part of the city for an affluent white population”. Currently there are eight modules, each covering a separate theme, in phase 2 of the inquiry which is examining why the fire happened.
Continue reading...Activists want London mayor Sadiq Khan to cancel Silvertown road tunnel project
Three Extinction Rebellion activists have locked themselves to a rig in the middle of the Thames to protest against a planned road tunnel underneath the river in south-east London.
The keys to the locks around the protesters’ necks have been delivered to the capital’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, with a note asking him to come and talk to them. However, the mayor’s office issued a statement ignoring the request and confirming plans to build the Silvertown tunnel are continuing.
Continue reading...First section of Elizabeth line will not open as planned in summer 2021, board says
The heavily delayed Crossrail will not open as planned in summer 2021 because of delays caused by coronavirus, its board has said.
The troubled railway, from Berkshire to Essex via central London, was originally expected to open in December 2018 but repeated delays have pushed it back.
Continue reading...Simon Lawrence tells inquiry he offered no such assurances about cladding material
The project manager on the Grenfell Tower refurbishment has denied assuring the block’s landlord its new cladding panels “would not burn at all”.
The public inquiry into the disaster that killed 72 people was shown a witness statement from David Gibson, head of capital investment at the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation, that claimed Simon Lawrence of Rydon said the plastic-filled panels were “inert”. In fact they were highly combustible and the inquiry has already deemed they were the primary cause of the fire’s spread.
Continue reading...Video-sharing app suspends building plans, with British ban on Huawei 5G kit seen as factor
The Chinese social media firm TikTok has pulled back from talks to site the headquarters for its non-China business in the UK, threatening the creation of 3,000 jobs, as fears grow of a tit-for-tat trade war between London and Beijing.
Its parent company, ByteDance, which is based in Beijing, had spent months in negotiations with the Department for International Trade and No 10 officials to expand operations in addition to the near 800 employed by TikTok.
Continue reading...Aaron McKenzie broke into Kelly Fauvrelle’s bedroom as she slept and stabbed her in jealous rage
An man has been jailed for at least 35 years for killing his heavily pregnant ex-girlfriend and their baby in a jealous rage. Crane operator Aaron McKenzie, 26, broke into Kelly Fauvrelle’s bedroom as she slept and stabbed her 21 times, the Old Bailey was told.
Their son, Riley, was delivered by caesarean section, but died in hospital four days later. McKenzie had denied killing the 26-year-old Royal Mail worker, claiming a man named Mike was responsible.
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