Birmingham-based drill musician known as Twista Cheese made gun gesture in video and shouted ‘pow, pow, pow’
A rapper has been convicted of posting a “menacing” video on social media directed towards Tommy Robinson, in which he mentioned artillery and made a gun gesture while shouting “pow, pow, pow”.
Omar Abdirizak, a 31-year-old Birmingham-based rapper known as Twista Cheese, posted the minute-long TikTok video in August last year.
Continue reading...Rising costs likely to outstrip funding in coming year, despite recent injections of additional money
Schools in England are facing “death by a thousand cuts”, headteachers have said, after a leading economics thinktank said rising costs are likely to outstrip funding in the coming year, despite recent injections of additional money.
Without more ambitious government investment in education, the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) said there could be yet more cuts in England’s already depleted schools, reducing pastoral support and curriculum choice, while class sizes are likely to grow.
Continue reading...Cimi Kazazi says he is proud to have helped woman trapped by flood, as thoughts turn to his devastated gastropub
Dramatic footage showed a woman being rescued from a submerged car in Leicestershire after a critical incident was declared in the region because of wide-scale flooding.
A restaurant owner in the village of Great Glen went to the aid of a woman who was struggling in her submerged car after severe flooding hit the area on Monday morning.
Continue reading...Magistrate remands Kyle Shaw of Birkenhead on bail ahead of appearance in Liverpool crown court
A man has been charged with stalking the Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas.
Kyle Shaw, 37, appeared at South Sefton magistrates court, Merseyside, on 3 January, the courts service confirmed.
Continue reading...Charles Ehikioya was in chat where racist, misogynistic, homophobic and pornographic messages were shared, hearing told
The Metropolitan police’s Black Police Association head was part of a group chat where “racist” jokes about east Asian people and a video mocking Katie Price’s disabled son, Harvey, were shared, a misconduct hearing was told.
Insp Charles Ehikioya is accused of being in a chat with former officer Carlo Francisco where racist, misogynistic, homophobic and pornographic messages were sent.
Continue reading...Amber warnings for snow and freezing rain in place for much of Wales and England while second snow warning affects most of northern England
Some pictures of heavy snow from the Pennines
Heavy snow is threatening to postpone Manchester United’s Premier League game with Liverpool on Sunday.
Continue reading...Callout ends in tragedy after an as yet unnamed person fell on Thursday and their body was recovered by a rescue team
A man has died after falling 70 metres from a mountain ridge.
Keswick Mountain Rescue said its first callout of the year ended in tragedy after the man fell from Sharp Edge on Blencathra in the Lake District on Thursday.
Continue reading...Closed roads, multi-vehicle collisions and train problems reported as Met Office warnings remain in place
Homes were left without power, roads were closed, cars stranded, and flights and train services disrupted on Saturday as heavy snow and freezing rain hit much of the UK.
The National Grid said on Saturday night that power was cut to properties across the Midlands, south-west England and south Wales, including Birmingham, Bristol and Cardiff, and that work was under way to get services restored.
Continue reading...Election manifesto promise to set up specialist tribunals to deal with huge backlog of cases has been put on hold
The government appears to have stalled on plans to set up dozens of specialist rape courts to deal with a huge backlog of cases, amid warnings there are not enough lawyers to make the proposals work.
Labour pledged during the election campaign to use vacant rooms and buildings on crown court sites to fast-track rape cases and reduce the numbers awaiting trial.
Continue reading...Engineers assess damage as heavy rains cause first major breach of Bridgewater canal since 1970s
Engineers are assessing the scale of damage to a canal built more than 250 years ago after flood waters caused a dramatic collapse of part of its elevated embankment in Cheshire.
The Bridgewater canal, which was previously used to transport coal but is now a leisure waterway, caved in near Dunham Massey, in the first major breach of the waterway for 54 years.
Continue reading...Disruption expected as rain turns to snow, after major flooding incident declared in Greater Manchester
An ice warning is in force for much of the UK as temperatures have dropped, after a major incident was declared due to flooding.
The yellow Met Office warning indicates there could be some difficult travel conditions across Scotland, Northern Ireland and north Wales, and stretching down to the Midlands, until 10am on Thursday.
Continue reading...First building to open at Huddersfield’s National Health Innovation Centre is named after NHS’s first black matron
In a full-scale model of a house, a £50,000 mannequin that can breathe, blink and cough waits for the replica of an ambulance.
Eerily lifelike technology, some created by model makers who have made “bodies” for the BBC’s Silent Witness, is being used to tackle the scarcity of placement hours for healthcare students by combining real-world training with simulated settings, including virtual reality.
Continue reading...Experts’ group employs new technologies and techniques to help relatives of those missing in the migration crisis
Four years ago, the remains of a toddler encased in a lifejacket and a navy snowsuit washed up on a beach in southern Norway, having spent the previous two months being carried on North Sea currents. Though his face was barely recognisable, publicity about the sinking of the migrant boat he had been travelling on, and suspicions about his identity, enabled Norwegian police to locate a relative to whom his DNA could be matched, providing this lonely corpse with a name: Artin Iran Nezhad.
Others remain nameless. Of the tens of thousands who die trying to reach Europe, only about a fifth are ever formally identified. For their relatives, this lack of closure is a continuing trauma. However, a recently established network of forensic scientists is trying to change this, through the development of new technologies and processes to aid identification efforts.
Continue reading...Matthew Booth, from Bolton, is facing further time in jail after claims he has restarted a relationship with an ex
A Bolton man who is on the run after being recalled to prison indefinitely has made a direct plea to the justice secretary to intervene in his case.
Matthew Booth, 33, is wanted by police on recall to prison for a crime he committed when he was 15 and for which he has served a sentence.
Continue reading...Admissions for vitamin or iron deficiencies up by more than 10% year on year and as much as tenfold on 1998-99
The number of people admitted to hospital in England because of a lack of vitamins or minerals is soaring, according to analysis of NHS figures.
In 2023-24 there were 191,927 admissions where the main reason was a lack of iron, up 11% on 2022-23. The figure is almost 10 times the 20,396 hospital admissions for lack of iron in 1998-99.
Continue reading...Ever growing numbers of people find themselves unable to get NHS treatment or pay for the alternative
Exclusive: patients unable to get dental care after ‘eye-watering’ rise in private fees
The inability of millions of patients to access an NHS dentist is one of the longest-running injustices in the history of the health service. The misery and the harm it causes is profound and well documented. The scandal is not new.
Going private is often the only alternative. If it means getting a checkup, a scale and polish, a filling, an extraction or if necessary a root canal, many will pay. Anything to keep your teeth in good nick.
Continue reading...Exclusive: warning that lack of NHS dentists and soaring cost of private work puts essential care out of reach for many
How soaring fees for private care are deepening England’s dentistry crisis
Private dentists are cashing in on the scarcity of NHS treatment by hiking their charges for fillings, checkups and extractions to “eye-watering” levels, research has found.
Patients are paying as much as £775 for root canal work, £435 to have a tooth out and £325 for a white filling due to fees for common dental procedures soaring since 2022.
A white filling has gone from £105 to £129 – up 23%.
An extraction has risen from £105 to £139 – 32% more.
A half-hour scale and polish is now £75, up from £65 – a 15% jump.
An initial consultation for a new patient is up 23% from £65 to £80.
Continue reading...Stretched primary services causing increase in emergency visits for issues from coughs to hiccups, health leaders say
The number of people turning to A&E departments in England for minor ailments including hiccups, sore throats and coughs is soaring, as senior health leaders warn that NHS primary and community services are “massively overstretched”.
NHS data shows a large increase in people arriving at emergency departments for non-emergency ailments including backache, insomnia and earache.
Continue reading...Newly released files show proposals to divert £2m – earmarked to prevent conflict in Africa – to fund scheme
Tony Blair’s government discussed diverting £2m earmarked to prevent conflict in Africa in order to fund a controversial pilot scheme to process and house asylum-seekers in Tanzania, newly released government files show.
Under the scheme, Britain would have offered Tanzania an extra £4m in aid if it opened an asylum camp to house people claiming to be Somalian refugees while their applications to live in Britain were assessed.
Continue reading...Damning report reveals millions in England are living in poor-quality housing that threatens their health
Ministers have been warned that efforts to save the NHS and grow the economy will fail unless they tackle the housing crisis, as a damning report reveals millions of people are living in substandard homes that risk worsening their health.
In total, 4.5 million people aged 50 or above with an existing health condition in England are living in poor-quality housing with one or more problems such as rising damp, rot or decay that may be making them even sicker, the Centre for Ageing Better analysis found. Of those, 1.7 million are aged 70 or over.
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