Making Headlines: £5,000 fine for breaching foreign holiday ban plus New York Covid variant detected

Making Headlines: £5,000 fine for breaching foreign holiday ban plus New York Covid variant detected

Latest stories

  • Biden’s White House communications strategy is driving Republicans insane

    In the words of one House Republican campaign operative, ‘It’s a nightmare’

  • Rockin' in the free world? Inside the rightwing takeover of protest music

    Rockin' in the free world? Inside the rightwing takeover of protest musicIt’s easy to laugh at hardcore patriots misunderstanding Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA, but such appropriation is increasingly widespread – and dangerously twisting the truth Bruce Springsteen in 1984, the year of Born in the USA, which was appropriated by the right. Photograph: Steve Granitz/WireImage

  • 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."

  • Penny Lancaster: I'm a fully qualified police officer ready to patrol the streets

    The 50-year-old model has received her warrant card and police badge after qualifying as a Special Constable.

  • 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

  • Labour accuse Boris Johnson of tolerating ‘sleaze’ as Tories whipped to oppose Greensill inquiry

    Boris Johnson was accused by Labour of tolerating a “sleazy culture” today as he ordered Conservative MPs to vote against a Parliamentary inquiry into the Greensill Capital lobbying row. The charge was thrown by shadow cabinet minister Rachel Reeves ahead of a Commons vote following claims that the collapsed finance house had preferential access to taxpayer loans because senior ministers were called by ex-PM David Cameron. The controversy widened today, with fresh allegations that lax rules in Whitehall were allowing potential conflicts of interest involving serving civil servants.

  • Rachel Riley Pregnant With Second Child With Ex-Strictly Pro Pasha Kovalev

    "Happy days for our little family," the Countdown presenter wrote on Instagram.

  • Covid infections being underestimated by more than half in Scotland – expert

    Professor Mark Woolhouse spoke at an event hosted by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

  • David Hasselhoff's daughter Hayley becomes first plus-size Playboy cover model

    The daughter of David Hasselhoff admits she is promoting a very different body image to 'Baywatch'.

  • 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.

  • Denmark 'permanently stops' using AstraZeneca vaccine

    Denmark will become the first EU country to permanently discontinue use of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine, according to reports. The decision, which follows a Tuesday statement by the Danish Medicines Agency that there was a link between the jab and blood clots, will delay Denmark’s vaccination roll out by a few weeks, Broadcaster TV 2 reported. Denmark, which was the first country to suspend the use of the jab on March 11, has approved the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson and Johnson vaccines. The Danish have suspended the J&J vaccine after the company halted its EU roll out on Wednesday, amid US reports it could cause blood clots. Copenhagen received about 1.5m vaccines under the EU’s joint procurement programme and used about 1.3m doses. 202,920 of those jabs were AstraZeneca with almost 1.2m being Pfizer. If the decision to stop using AstraZeneca completely is confirmed later today, Denmark will go further than any other EU country over the link between the jab and very rare blood clots.

  • Gay man jailed in Turkey threatened, beaten and burned with boiling water by homophobic inmates

    Fabien Azoulay, a LGBT+ Jewish Frenchman serving 16 years in a jail in Turkey has been harassed, beaten and burned with boiling water by inmates, his family say.

  • Expert warns ‘we could go back to square one’ over Covid-19

    Professor Anthony Harnden has urged the public to act cautiously for a little bit longer.

  • Quarter of Covid deaths not caused by virus, new figures show

    Almost a quarter of registered Covid deaths are people who are not dying from the disease, new official figures show, as the Government was urged to move faster with the roadmap in the light of increasingly positive data. The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that 23 per cent of coronavirus deaths registered are now people who have died "with" the virus rather than "from" an infection. This means that, while the person who died will have tested positive for Covid, that was not the primary cause of their death recorded on the death certificate. Other data also shows an increasingly positive picture of the state of the pandemic in the UK. Daily death figures by "date of death" reveal that Britain has had no more than 28 deaths a day since the beginning of April, even though the government-announced deaths have been as high as 60. This is because the Government gives a daily update on deaths based on the number reported that day, which can include deaths from days or weeks previously and therefore may not reflect the true decline in deaths. On Tuesday, the Government announced that there had been 23 further deaths.

  • Queen will have to sit alone at Prince Philip's funeral because of strict Covid rules

    The Queen faces the prospect of having to sit on her own during the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral because of strict Covid rules, it has emerged. The law states that anyone attending a funeral must stay at least two metres apart from anyone who is not part of their household, meaning all members of the Royal family will have to spread out in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. The Queen is not eligible to be in a support bubble because she does not live on her own, meaning the only person who could sit with her during the service would be a member of her Windsor Castle staff. The Duke’s private secretary, Brigadier Archie Miller-Bakewell, is expected to be one of the 30 mourners allowed at the ceremony, and as a member of “HMS Bubble” at Windsor may be the only attendee eligible by law to sit with the Queen.

  • Firm offers discounted PCR tests for holidaymakers

    The plan came after the travel industry expressed concern that testing requirements would make foreign holidays unaffordable for many people.

  • 'Rapping jihadi' who boasted about wanting to behead British soldiers sentenced to 19 years in prison

    A jihadist who plotted a lone-wolf knife attack has been jailed for life after a judge said he ought to have turned his back on extremism when two of his brothers were killed fighting for Islamic State in Syria. Sahayb Abu, an aspiring rapper, bought an 18-inch sword, a knife and combat clothing as he prepared to strike last summer. The 27-year-old, who is the fifth member of his family to be linked to extremism, also used a rap song to boast about wanting to behead British soldiers. Abu’s half-brothers, Wail and Suleyman Aweys, were killed in Syria after leaving the UK to fight for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (IS). His half-sister, Asma Aweys, 32, was jailed in January 2019, alongside her partner Abdulaziz Abu Munye, 29, and half brother Ahmed Aweys, 34, after she called Ariana Grande 'the devil' in the wake of the Manchester Arena attack in a family WhatsApp chat. Asma was imprisoned for 19 months for collecting terrorist information, while her partner received 15 months for dissemination. Ahmed was jailed for 25 months for also disseminating terrorist material. Last month an Old Bailey jury found Abu guilty of preparing to engage in terrorist acts and on Tuesday he was jailed for life and told he would have to spend a minimum of 19-years behind bars.

  • English universities despair as in-person teaching ruled out before 17 May

    English universities despair as in-person teaching ruled out before 17 MayMove likely to fuel demands for compensation with students saying they have already missed outCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverage Students walk past Coventry University library. University leaders had hoped to persuade ministers to ease Covid restrictions in line with the lifting of other lockdown measures in England. Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images

  • ‘If we don’t support them we’ll never get them back’: Punters brave Covid and the cold in return to the pub

    After months of disruption, Vincent Wood reports, a minority of the nation’s pubs are getting back to business – weather permitting

  • 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.