Local Heroes: Boxing for a better life in Kenyan slums

This boxing club in Kenya is giving young boys hope and strength.

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  • Rate of people with Covid antibodies ‘levels off’ across most of UK

    ‘Clear pattern’ between Covid vaccinations and antibody positivity across UK, says Office for National Statistics

  • Prince Philip funeral: Duke's respect for Navy fliers to feature in adapted hymn

    The hymn Eternal Father, Strong To Save will feature in the Duke of Edinburgh's funeral on Saturday, with the possible addition of a little-known extra verse at his request. Better known as "For Those in Peril on the Sea" after the last line, the usually four-verse hymn is considered especially poignant by military sailors. Rarely heard outside military circles, however, are two verses written specifically for aviators. They are inserted between the second and third verses. The additional words are understood to feature occasionally at Fleet Air Arm funerals, the aviation branch of the Royal Navy. One such was sung at the funeral of the man who taught the Duke to fly, while he was a Royal Navy officer. Unexpectedly turning up to the funeral many years ago, the Duke further surprised the congregation by singing, along with just a couple of other attendees, the unfamiliar words, which are not included in standard hymn books.

  • Suspended Labour MP Claudia Webbe says ‘rich must be abolished’ to combat climate crisis

    Leicester East member earns £81,000 a year plus expenses – and continued claiming councillor’s allowance even after becoming MP

  • Greece to scrap quarantine for British tourists as Malta plans Covid certificate to lure UK visitors

    Greece is to throw open its borders from next week to visitors who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 or who have tested negative, in promising signs for British tourists hoping to book a holiday. It is encouraging news for Britons yearning for an Aegean break, even though there is a ban on non-essential international travel until May 17 at the earliest. Whether British tourists have to quarantine on their return home will depend on how Greece is classified under the traffic light system that will be announced by the government at some point in early May. The government has said that Britons should not book holidays yet because of the uncertainty of which countries will be green, amber and red. Current regulations state that all foreigners arriving in Greece have to show negative tests and then quarantine for seven days. But the Greek government plans to lift quarantine restrictions for travelers from the UK and the European Union as well as the US, Israel, Serbia and the United Arab Emirates. It comes as the country aims to open up to tourism from mid-May. "We will gradually lift the restrictions at the beginning of next week ahead of the opening on May 14," a senior tourism ministry official told Reuters. Visitors from Britain and the other countries will be allowed to fly in to the airports of Athens, Thessaloniki, Heraklion, Chania, Rhodes, Kos, Mykonos, Santorini and Corfu. Travelers will not have to go into quarantine as long as they prove that they have received two doses of a coronavirus vaccine or show a negative PCR test carried out 72 hours prior to their arrival. On arrival, however, they will be subject to local lockdown rules – a resurgence in cases over the winter means that Greece has been under tight restrictions for months. Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek prime minister, has strongly pushed the idea of Covid certificates as a way of kick-starting international travel this summer. That is crucial for Greece, where tourism accounts for a fifth of the economy. Meanwhile, Malta is holding bilateral talks with the UK about a digital coronavirus certificate that would allow British tourists to visit this summer, the country’s tourism minister said.

  • Nicola Sturgeon 'should thank Boris Johnson for refusing to sign up to EU vaccine scheme'

    Nicola Sturgeon should thank Boris Johnson for ignoring SNP demands to sign up to the EU's disastrous vaccine programme when she gets her first Covid jab on Thursday, the Scottish Tory leader has said. Douglas Ross said the First Minister would have faced a much longer wait to be vaccinated if Mr Johnson had heeded her party's demands for the UK to join the European scheme last year. The SNP confirmed that Ms Sturgeon, 50, is scheduled to receive her first jab after she launches her party's election manifesto on Thursday morning. A spokesman said: "These remarks from Douglas Ross are utterly pathetic but entirely in keeping with his petulant, puerile tone." A series of Ms Sturgeon's ministers demanded that the UK sign up to the EU's vaccine procurement plan last year and expressed outrage when Mr Johnson refused. Mike Russell, the Constitution Secretary, warned at the time: "This idiotic refusal is all about Brexit and nothing to do with the pandemic. It will cost lives." The decision was publicly opposed by a series of SNP MPs.

  • Ex-husband jailed for stalking TV weather presenter

    Jonathan Wignall was described by a judge as an ‘unrepentant, possessive bully’ for his campaign against presenter Ruth Dodsworth.

  • Britain's Princess Anne seen in public for first time since death of Philip

    Princess Anne, the daughter of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, was on Wednesday seen in public for the first time since the death of her father last week. Philip died at Windsor Castle on Friday, aged 99. "My father has been my teacher, my supporter and my critic, but mostly it is his example of a life well lived and service freely given that I most wanted to emulate," Anne, the Princess Royal, said in a statement on Sunday.

  • Boeing 737: History and safety record of the aeroplane

    The world’s biggest and most successful budget airlines, Ryanair and Southwest, fly 737s exclusively

  • Latest weekly Covid-19 rates for local authority areas in England

    Around one in five local areas have recorded a week-on-week rise in rates.

  • PMQs sketch: Boris Johnson gets amnesia as questions pile up about ‘Dave’

    Starmer scores - but Johnson’s relaxed gait suggets he thinks nobody is paying any attention

  • Burkina Faso ex-president Compaoré to be tried for Thomas Sankara's 1987 murder

    In Burkina Faso, judges have ruled that exiled former president Blaise Compaoré must stand trial for his role in the assassination of Thomas Sankara, whom he overthrew in a coup d'état in 1987. Also, a Tuareg leader in Mali has been shot dead in the capital Bamako. Sidi Brahim Ould Sidati was a key figure in a 2015 peace accord. And in a major step forward for the protection of women and children in Gabon, customary marriages are finally recognised by the state.

  • Scots could be forced to travel to London for flights abroad, airport chief warns

    Scots will be forced to travel to London if they want to catch a flight abroad unless SNP ministers come up with an urgent action plan to revive the ailing travel industry, Edinburgh Airport's chief has warned. Setting out the airport’s ‘asks’ for the new Scottish government, Gordon Dewar said that Scotland’s global influence and economic competitiveness will be undermined unless ministers “engage meaningfully” with airports and airlines. While a report found that Edinburgh Airport alone generated £1.4 billion in gross value added and 28,000 jobs to the economy in 2019, SNP ministers have been heavily criticised for failing to provide a detailed recovery plan for the beleaguered sector, and implementing a controversial blanket quarantine policy with a loophole that allowed foreign travellers to skip isolation by travelling into Scotland via England.

  • Black people are going missing in vast numbers - but campaigners say their cases are being ignored

    Exclusive: Black people are four times more likely to be reported as missing in England and Wales - campaigners demand that this disparity is addressed

  • Heart problems killed George Floyd, pathologist testifies at Derek Chauvin trial

    Most medical experts who have testified so far blamed Mr Floyd’s death on police, not any underlying conditions

  • Ex-Hollyoaks star Danny Mac "so excited" to welcome first child with Carley Stenson

    "We're just getting on with it the best we can."

  • David Cameron: Tory MPs vote down Labour’s attempt to force parliamentary inquiry into Greensill lobbying scandal

    Conservative MPs have voted down an attempt by Labour to force a parliamentary inquiry into the Greensill lobbying scandal. Labour has claimed the Greensill affair marks the return of “Tory sleaze” at the heart of government. The row erupted after it emerged the former Tory prime minister David Cameron had lobbied the chancellor Rishi Sunak, including by text, to include Greensill in the government’s Covid-19 loan scheme.

  • Royal family release unseen pictures of Duke of Edinburgh surrounded by great-grandchildren

    The Royal family have released unseen pictures of the Duke of Edinburgh surrounded by his great-grandchildren ahead of his funeral on Saturday. The pictures of Prince Philip include a photograph taken by the Duchess of Cambridge of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh surrounded by seven of their great-grandchildren at Balmoral Castle in 2018. In another, posted on the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's Twitter account, William and Kate are seen along with Prince George and Princess Charlotte in a photo with Philip and the Queen at Balmoral in 2015.

  • Denmark becomes world's first country to stop using AstraZeneca vaccine

    Denmark became the first country in the world to permanently stop using the AstraZeneca vaccine on Wednesday, as the European Commission president hinted that Brussels would not renew its contract with the company next year. Danish health authorities said they would stop using the Oxford University jab because of a possible link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), a brain blood clot. Denmark was the first EU country to suspend the use of the shot on March 11. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has said that the benefits of the vaccine, which is significantly cheaper than the others and easy to story, far outweigh the health risks. Some EU countries including France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands have introduced age restrictions on the jab’s use; limiting it to the over 55s and 60s. The UK has restricted it to the over 30s. Portugal has called on all EU countries to adopt the same over 60s only restriction as part of a common European approach. The decision will delay Denmark's vaccination scheme to early August rather than July 25 but the country is easing its lockdown restrictions as infections drop.

  • London Covid cases by borough revealed as capital hits 4 million vaccine doses

    Infections have fallen so far in one borough that the rate was equivalent to less than one confirmed case a day per 100,000 people

  • A gold nose pin, boxes of eggs, or a tax rebate: Covid vaccine incentives around the world

    A gold nose pin, boxes of eggs, or a tax rebate: Covid vaccine incentives around the worldMembers of the public are being offered gifts and discounts to encourage vaccine take-upSee all our coronavirus coverage A man receives a dose of Covid-19 coronavirus vaccine in Dhaka Photograph: Suvra Kanti Das/ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock