UK

“It is time for the country to unite. Full stop!” Gareth Southgate said, with added purpose as Euro 2020 finally got under way in Rome. He is steadfast in his support for his England players choosing to still “take the knee” before kick-off – despite booing from some sections of the limited number of England

A second person has been charged in connection with the shooting of black equal rights activist Sasha Johnson at a party in south London in late May. Devonte Brown, 18, of Southwark, was charged with conspiracy to murder, the Metropolitan Police said, nearly two weeks after Cameron Deriggs appeared in court charged with the same

England’s R number has jumped to between 1.2 and 1.4, according to new figures. R represents the average number of people each person with COVID-19 goes on to infect. Last week, the estimated R number was between 1 and 1.2 in England. An outbreak can grow exponentially when the figure is above 1. When it

The scientists behind some of the most significant advancements in the battle against COVID -19 have been commended in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list. The life-saving work of those involved in the creation of coronavirus vaccines is celebrated in this year’s list, with the heroes behind the design of the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab recognised for their

The UK will donate at least 100 million surplus COVID vaccines to other countries within the next year, Boris Johnson has pledged. As he prepares to welcome world leaders to Cornwall for the G7 summit, the prime minister has vowed to “take a massive step towards beating this pandemic for good”. Mr Johnson’s action builds

A woman whose employment contract was not renewed after expressing views that sex cannot be changed and transgender women are “not women” has won an appeal against an employment tribunal. In 2018, Maya Forstater posted a number of tweets expressing her beliefs about sex and gender, including her opposition to proposed reform of the Gender

Sexual harassment, online sexual abuse and sharing nude photos are becoming “normalised” among school children according to a review by Ofsted.  The chief Inspector of schools says she was “shocked” after her discovering teachers, government, and indeed Ofsted itself, were under-prepared for the scale of sexual abuse among children. Ofsted’s inspectors visited 32 state and

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has called for vaccinations for 18 to 30-year-olds to be included in the government’s “strengthened support package” to tackle the Delta variant. On Wednesday the health secretary asked people in Greater Manchester and Lancashire to minimise travel and meet people outside where possible to prevent the variant spreading further there.

Boris Johnson is battling to avoid a sausage trade war with Brussels which could see chilled meats barred from shops in Northern Ireland from the end of this month. The PM’s Brexit minister Lord Frost is holding a showdown with a top EU official who is threatening to prevent sausages and mince produced in Britain

Former Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens has admitted to the kidnap and rape of Sarah Everard at the Old Bailey. Sarah, 33, vanished while walking home from a friend’s house in Clapham, south London, in March. Couzens, 48, appeared at the Old Bailey on Tuesday morning when he entered the guilty pleas. Appearing via video

Spilling into the arrivals hall are hundreds of passengers with relief written on their faces. They know they have narrowly succeeded in beating a significant deadline that means they are free from self-isolation but in doing so, perhaps also out of pocket. In some cases passengers have spent hundreds of pounds on new flights in

Boris Johnson could narrowly avoid a rebellion by some of his own Conservative MPs as a vote over cuts to the foreign aid budget hangs in the balance. Thirty Tories, including former prime minister Theresa May and four other cabinet ministers, were backing a rebellion against the £4bn reduction and had hoped to force a

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have welcomed their second child – a baby daughter named Lilibet “Lili” Diana Mountbatten-Windsor. Harry and Meghan announced that the infant, a first sibling for Archie, was born on Friday in California. Lili is named after her great-grandmother the Queen – who was affectionately nicknamed Lilibet by her family

Tony Blair has said it is “time to distinguish” between people who have and haven’t had a coronavirus vaccine. The former prime minister has warned it “makes no sense at all to treat those who have had vaccination the same as those who haven’t” – and said relaxing measures for those who have had both

Social media companies must do better in removing posts that are “glamourising” dangerous migrant crossings, the home secretary says. Priti Patel wrote to the companies on Saturday to say they must deal with the “totally unacceptable” posts promoting the “lethal crossings”. Among them is a video on TikTok which has been watched more than 800,000

The government is “drawing up other options” before making a decision on whether to completely lift COVID restrictions on 21 June. A government figure said Number 10 was still planning to go ahead with the final step in the roadmap, but is waiting for more data before taking any decisions. “It would be remiss of