News – World and UK

Britain will mark five years since Brexit on Friday with little fanfare as the Government pursues closer relations with the bloc. The UK officially left the EU at 11pm – midnight in Brussels – on January 31 2020, after three-and-a-half years of political wrangling that followed the 2016 Brexit referendum. The Conservatives have celebrated the anniversary, with shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel saying it marked five years since her […]

Online shopping fraud cost consumers more than £56 million last year, marking a rise of 20%. Consumers reported 68,000 cases of online shopping fraud in the 2023-24 financial year, with losses totalling more than £56.3 million, according to data from Action Fraud obtained by the Lib Dems through a Freedom of Information request. This is compared to £46.6 million of losses in the previous year to fraudulent online shopping scams […]

Scores of people staged a sit-down protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice on Thursday as bids to appeal against the sentences of more than a dozen climate activists continued at the Court of the Appeal. The Strand in central London was closed as campaigners sat outside the court building, with some holding pictures of 16 activists currently seeking to challenge their sentences for their involvement in climate protests. In […]

The Princess of Wales left her mark when she followed tradition and made a handprint for a children’s hospice she described as a “lifeline”. Kate celebrated becoming patron of Ty Hafan children’s hospice in South Wales by visiting the centre where she did not unveil a plaque but contributed to a wall of handprints from youngsters and their families supported by staff. She was announced as the hospice’s new figurehead […]

A BBC review into the conduct of Russell Brand during his time with the broadcaster has found a number of people “felt unable to raise” concerns about the presenter and believed he “would always get his way and therefore they stayed silent”. The review was carried out by Peter Johnston, BBC director of editorial complaints and reviews, and focused on Brand’s behaviour on BBC 6 Music and BBC Radio 2 […]

Royal Mail is set to be allowed to ditch Saturday deliveries for second class letters under plans being put forward by Ofcom that will also see wider postal delivery targets cut. The regulator said that after a consultation, it had provisionally concluded that reducing the second class letter service to alternate weekdays, while keeping first class deliveries six days a week, would continue to meet postal users’ needs. This would […]

President Donald Trump says he has been briefed on the “terrible accident” after a passenger jet collided on Wednesday with an Army helicopter while landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington DC. There was no immediate official word on casualties, but all take-offs and landings from the airport were halted as helicopters from law enforcement agencies across the region flew over the scene in search of survivors. In a […]

Fewer than half of parents think children should know how to use books correctly before starting primary school, a survey has suggested. Only three in four (76%) parents think children should be toilet trained before joining Reception, according to a poll for early years charity Kindred2. Children are entering primary school with delays in basic motor skills and a lack of core strength, teachers have suggested. It comes after the […]

Retail crime is “spiralling out of control” at more than 2,000 incidents a day, according to the latest figures. Incidents including racial and sexual abuse, physical assault and threats with weapons have reached three times the level they were in 2020, when there were 455 incidents a day, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) Annual Crime Survey shows. Over the last year, there were 70 incidents a day which involved a […]