UAE visitors get "Martian Ink" passport stamp commemorating Hope probe

Visitors arriving at UAE airports receive a "Martian Ink" stamp on their passports, in commemoration to the Hope probe’s historic arrival to Mars.

Latest stories

  • Home and Away's Kieran flees Summer Bay after outbursts

    Police are called after a nasty incident.

  • Trump claims total credit for vaccines almost exactly a year after saying Covid would disappear ‘like a miracle’

    Ex-president says he handed Joe Biden a ‘modern day medical miracle’

  • Gordon Ramsay criticised for commenting on woman's teeth during 'Saturday Night Takeaway' game

    The celebrity chef is under fire on Twitter after making a 'humiliating' remark about a woman's teeth.

  • Budget 2021: Sunak’s £5bn plan to rescue high streets from collapse

    Budget 2021: Sunak’s £5bn plan to rescue high streets from collapse. Grants will be offered to stricken shops and pubs but NHS fears its pleas for cash will be ignored

  • Nicola Sturgeon faces triple threat as MSPs demand evidence to corroborate Alex Salmond allegations

    Nicola Sturgeon is facing a triple threat to her political career as a Holyrood inquiry and opposition MSPs demanded the evidence that would corroborate Alex Salmond's claim she had repeatedly breached the ministerial code. Ahead of the First Minister's appearance on Wednesday, the committee conducting the inquiry is on Monday expected to formally request a cache of documents from Mr Salmond's solicitors that he claimed proved there was a "malicious" plot against him. It is understood a majority of the committee supports the move, which was suggested by Mr Salmond in his closing remarks of his six-hour evidence session on Friday as a means of circumventing the Scottish Government and Crown Office. MSPs hope to have the evidence cleared by the committee's legal advisors in time for Lord Advocate James Wolffe and Crown agent David Harvie giving evidence on Tuesday and Ms Sturgeon on Wednesday. The First Minister is believed to have set aside five hours in her diary. The Scottish Tories also lodged a motion of no confidence in John Swinney, the Deputy First Minister, over his refusal to hand over the SNP government's legal advice during Mr Salmond's successful judicial review. Douglas Ross, their leader, gave Mr Swinney 24 hours to release the advice or face a vote to remove him after the SNP government ignored two Holyrood demands for it to be provided. The Liberal Democrats said they would back the Tory motion and it will be considered today by Anas Sarwar, the new Scottish Labour leader. It is understood that the Greens will wait to see what is said in the motion before making a decision. Mr Salmond told the inquiry that the external counsel appointed by Ms Sturgeon's government advised that it would probably lose the case and later threatened to resign unless it was conceded. The Scottish Government has been accused of wasting £600,000 of public money by only collapsing the judicial review case at the eleventh hour, a potential breach of the ministerial code.

  • First cases of ‘concerning’ Brazil Covid variant detected in UK

    Three cases of new variant identified in England and three in Scotland

  • 20ft-long king cobra caught in family's home

    A 20ft-long deadly cobra sparked panic after it was caught slithering through a family's home.

  • Nearly a quarter of NHS staff in London are refusing Covid vaccines

    Almost a quarter of NHS staff in some parts of the country are refusing Covid jabs, with official statistics showing more than 200,000 health and care workers putting patients at risk. NHS figures show that 91 percent of front line healthcare staff across the country have taken up the offer of a vaccine, but that dips to 76 per cent in London – the worst refusal rate. In total, more than 41,000 front line healthcare workers in the capital, including medics, hospital porters, cleaners and laboratory staff, have not had the jab. The national picture among care home staff is even worse, with uptake of less than 73 percent. The statistics show that around 106,000 front line healthcare staff and more than 121,000 care workers have yet to take up the vaccine. Last week, Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, said NHS and care home staff had a "professional responsibility" to get vaccinated, while the Queen said those who refuse the vaccine "ought to think about other people rather than themselves".

  • Ant and Dec forced to apologise after Gordon Ramsay ‘swears’ on Saturday Night Takeaway

    Ant and Dec joked they had installed a ‘bleeper machine’ for the notoriously sweary chef

  • Prince Harry tells Oprah he worried history would repeat itself

    Prince Harry, who shocked Britain last year when he and his wife Meghan stepped back from royal duties, told U.S. interviewer Oprah Winfrey that he had worried about history repeating itself, according to excerpts released on Sunday. The CBS broadcast network released two brief clips from Winfrey's interview of the couple, which is scheduled to air on March 7. "My biggest concern was history repeating itself," Harry said, apparently referring to his mother Princess Diana, who was hounded by the British press and died at age 36 in a car crash in Paris after her divorce from Prince Charles.

  • Germany urged to follow Britain’s vaccine strategy as regulators look set to approve AstraZeneca for over 65s

    Germany was under pressure to change its Covid vaccination strategy on Sunday after the country's top vaccine regulator acknowledged that advice against giving the AstraZeneca jab to over 65s had been flawed. The announcement came as a term of German scientists called on the government to follow the UK in delaying second doses after a study showed it could save up to 15,000 lives. Thomas Mertens, the head of Germany’s Standing Committee on Vaccination (Stiko), said on Saturday that the country was likely to change its controversial guidelines against not to give the AstraZeneca vaccine to over 65s, saying errors had been made. Promising “a new, updated recommendation very soon”, Mertens said: “somehow the whole thing went very badly”. “We had the data that we had and based on this data we made the recommendation. But we never criticized the vaccine. We only criticised the fact that the data situation for the age group over 65 was not good or not sufficient,” he said on Germany’s ZDF news network.

  • Covid ‘likely to get worse again’ as new variants spread, Biden warns

    ‘The current improvement could reverse’, says president of rising infections

  • Nearly two million people age 60 to 63 to be offered Covid vaccine

    Nearly two million people aged 60 to 63 in England are being invited to book a coronavirus jab as part of the continued expansion of the vaccine programme. NHS England said that the letters will start landing on doormats from Monday, explaining how people can make an appointment to get jabbed through the national booking service. They have been sent out after more than three in four people aged 65 to 70 took up the offer of a vaccination, it added. It comes as leaders from 60 of the UK's black majority churches joined forces on Sunday to show their support for the Covid-19 vaccine to their congregations. They will say they support the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine programme, and urge their congregations to seek out the facts about the vaccine from trusted sources. They will also say that they have either already been vaccinated or that they will get the vaccine when it is their turn. The alliance of Christian leaders, which includes Bishop of Dover the Rt Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin, said they felt compelled to act after data suggested black people are among those most likely to be hesitant about receiving the Covid-19 vaccine. Bishop Hudson-Wilkin said: "When you are offered the Covid vaccine, please take it. "This is our chance to show we care for ourselves and our neighbours. "Don't let misinformation rob you of your opportunity to protect yourself and others." This initiative has been organised by Christian umbrella organisations Churches Together in England, Evangelical Alliance and YourNeighbour.

  • As it happened: Donald Trump says he may run for White House again in CPAC speech

    Donald Trump has told conservatives at a conference in Florida that he is considering running for the White House for a third time. "A Republican president will make a winning return to the White House," he promised the crowd at the CPAC conference in Orlando. "Who will that be?" he said, smiling broadly. "Who, who, who will that be...?" In a speech that touched on the common themes of Trumpism, the former president repeated false claims of election fraud and accused Democrats of "recklessly eliminating our border". The address was his first major public appearance since retreating to Mar-a-Lago, his private club in southern Florida, after quitting Washington last month. Read how it happened below.

  • Debbie McGee says she and Paul Daniels' son have mended their relationship after estate dispute

    Paul Daniels Jr. previously referred to his late father's wife as a 'witch'.

  • Quarantining couple found dead by their 11-year-old daughter

    They had been isolating in their basement bedroom after receiving positive tests for virus

  • 'Dancing On Ice' fans accuse judges of upping scores to save disaster series

    The show returned to the ice...with some suspiciously high marks.

  • Revealed: Rishi Sunak’s £5bn lifeline to help the High Street recover from Covid

    Pubs, restaurants, shops and other businesses hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic will be boosted by a £5 billion grant scheme to help them reopen as the lockdown is eased. Chancellor Rishi Sunak will announce the “restart grants” worth up to £6,000 per premises to help non-essential retailers reopen and trade safely at his Budget on Wednesday.

  • Trump targets disloyal Republicans, repeats election lies and hints at 2024 run

    Former President Donald Trump hinted on Sunday at a possible presidential run in 2024, attacked President Joe Biden and repeated his fraudulent claims he won the 2020 election in his first major appearance since leaving the White House nearly six weeks ago. Addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, Trump vowed to help Republicans try to regain majorities - lost during his presidency - in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate in 2022 congressional elections and dangled himself as a possibility for president in 2024. Trump's weeks away from Washington do not appear to have dimmed his anger at Republicans who voted to impeach or convict in a failed congressional effort to hold him responsible for inciting a deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

  • Court papers reveal reason for Kim Kardashian and Kanye West divorce

    Kim Kardashian West has cited “irreconcilable differences” as the reason she is divorcing rapper Kanye West. The reality TV star filed divorce papers with an LA court that also confirmed she is seeking joint custody of their four children - North, seven, Saint, five, Chicago, three, and Psalm, one. The businesswoman has enlisted the services of lawyer Laura Wasser, who earned the title “disso queen” thanks to her work sorting out the divorces of high-profile celebrities.