UK

A 23-year-old man has been charged with the abduction and sexual assault of a six-year-old girl in Greater Manchester. Lewis Jones, of Liverpool, has been charged with two counts of sexual assault by penetration and one count of abduction. He will appear at Manchester and Salford Magistrates’ Court on Saturday, Greater Manchester Police said. Police

The Royal Air Force took steps to “artificially inflate” its diversity numbers in a bid to hit a key government target for female and ethnic minority recruits, three defence sources have claimed and leaked documents have suggested. The RAF denied it had acted in any way illegally with its recruitment practices. James Heappey, the Armed

A man who killed his wife on their wedding night and stuffed her body into a suitcase has been jailed for at least 21 years. The body of grandmother Dawn Walker, 52, was found four days after she married Thomas Nutt on 27 October last year. Nutt, 46, was convicted of murder earlier this month

Ryan Giggs has admitted trying to use his daughter as “a lever” to stop the police being called on the night he allegedly headbutted his ex-girlfriend – as an intimate love poem penned by the footballer was read at his trial. Giving evidence in court for a third day, the former Manchester United star denied

A-level grades received by UK students are lower this year than in 2021 and 2020 but remain higher than pre-pandemic levels – the last time students physically sat exams. Hundreds of thousands of pupils across England, Wales and Northern Ireland will be eagerly opening their results today – with teenagers in Scotland receiving theirs last

Rail, Tube and bus passengers are set to face four days of travel misery as tens of thousands of workers stage another round of strikes. In recent months, several strikes have been carried out as part of a long-running dispute over pay, jobs and working conditions. From Thursday, Network Rail, train companies, London Underground and

Police investigating the killing of 87-year-old Thomas O’Halloran who was stabbed to death have released pictures of a man seen running from the scene armed with a knife. Detectives have issued images of a man they are keen to identify as a matter of urgency following the killing of Mr O’Halloran, who had been riding a

A total of 11 government whips have announced they are backing Liz Truss’s campaign to become the next Conservative leader in the latest blow for rival Rishi Sunak. Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey, herself a supporter of the foreign secretary, revealed the move in a graphic posted on social media on Tuesday morning. The

Heavy rain and flooding have hit some parts of Devon and Cornwall as thunderstorms start to sweep across the South West and East of England. Videos shared on social media showed a roundabout near a river in Truro, Cornwall, quickly flooding as showers moved in. An amber thunderstorm warning has been issued by the Met

The government has agreed to offer £100,000 in compensation to victims of the infected blood scandal. It comes after decades of campaigning and government denial of responsibility. The announcement has had a mixed reception, because while survivors will now get long-overdue help and recognition, many others have already died and, apart from spouses, relatives of

The UK has become the first country to approve a COVID vaccine that targets both the original strain and the Omicron variant. The Moderna jab was given the green light by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) after it was found to meet the UK regulator’s standards of safety, quality and effectiveness. The

The UK is braced for several days of thunderstorms after a hot weekend which saw parts of the country grapple with wildfires – but the change in weather is likely to bring more danger rather than relief, meteorologists have warned. A lack of rain and high temperatures have caused drought conditions which have turned much

A teenage boy has died after going into the sea in Skegness, Lincolnshire. Police described him as “a child under the age of 16”, saying that he was in the water at around 6.15pm on Saturday. A search was carried out by officers and the coastguard, with the boy’s body found at around 11.30pm. No

More grass fires have broken out in scorching conditions – with firefighters warning that people are continuing to hold barbecues in parks and drop cigarettes out of car windows. Ten fire engines and around 70 firefighters were called to a fire in Enfield, north London, on Saturday afternoon. An area measuring about 900m by 600m

The stabbing of author Sir Salman Rushdie has shocked and horrified fellow writers and world leaders, with many praising him as a defender of free speech. The 75-year-old remains on a ventilator after being airlifted to hospital and undergoing hours of surgery following the attack in New York state. And while messages of support have

Droughts have been declared in parts of southwest, southern and central England and all of eastern England as high temperatures continue to fry the country. The affected areas are: • Devon and Cornwall• Solent and South Downs• Kent and South London• Herts and North London• East Anglia• Thames• Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire• East Midlands The announcement

Droughts could be declared in “quite a few regions” of the country tomorrow, a source from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has told Sky News. The news contradicts earlier suggestions that a drought would only be declared in the South West. The drought declaration is not expected to cover the whole country,

A drought is expected to be declared tomorrow in the South West, Sky News understands. It follows the start of a four-day amber heat warning, below normal levels in waterways, and England’s driest July since 1935 during which the temperature rose above 40C for the first time. The declaration means people living across the South

A man alleged to be the fourth member of the so-called “Beatles” Islamic State terror cell has been arrested in the UK. Aine Davis, 38, from Hammersmith, west London, was arrested on Wednesday evening after arriving at Luton airport on a flight from Turkey. He was detained in relation to offences under sections 15, 17

All children aged one to nine in London are to be offered a dose of the polio vaccine, after more of the virus was found in the city’s sewers. Vaccine-derived poliovirus has been detected in sewage in Barnet, Brent, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Islington, and Waltham Forest. The virus has also been found in lower

In Hampshire, locals and businesses are feeling the brunt of the tinder-dry conditions last month’s heatwave left behind. While they’ve been adapting to the parched conditions, there’s growing concerns over the heatwave arriving this week. We visited Odiham, one of Britain’s driest villages, where residents haven’t seen a drop of rain in the last month.

Energy bills are expected to rise even further this winter than previously forecast, according to the latest from energy consultancy Cornwall Insight. Bills are now expected to reach approximately £3,582 a year for the average household from October – up from the £3,359 predicted earlier this month. From January, the amount is expected to rise

NHS England says the number of people waiting two years or more for treatment has been dramatically reduced as part of its plan to address delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic. However, waits of more than two years used to be so rare that the NHS did not start publishing statistics for them until April

People will have to go without food and be unable to heat their homes by October if the government doesn’t take urgent action on the cost of living crisis, Gordon Brown has warned. Speaking to Sky News, the former Labour prime minister took aim at the Conservatives as he demanded further interventions and branded the

Children are being strip-searched by the Metropolitan Police without an appropriate adult present in almost a quarter of cases, with black boys disproportionately targeted, new data shows. The research, published by the children’s commissioner for England, revealed that officers from the force conducted intrusive searches on 650 young people aged 10 to 17 between 2018

Some families are up to £1,600 a year worse off because of the cost of living crisis – even after government help is taken into account. The poorest in society are suffering three major blows to their income in the year to October 2022, according to a report commissioned by former prime minister Gordon Brown.

Rail passengers are facing a fresh wave of disruption as train drivers from several companies have announced another strike over a long-running dispute about pay and working conditions. The 24-hour walkout on Saturday 13 August will coincide with a busy weekend of football, with Premier League games in Manchester, London, Birmingham and Brighton likely to

Archie Battersbee, who suffered “devastating” brain damage, has died after his life support was turned off. His mother Hollie Dance stood outside the hospital and said she was “the proudest mum in the world”. She said Archie was “such a beautiful little boy and he fought right until the very end, and I am so

Archie Battersbee’s parents have been refused permission to appeal against the High Court’s decision which denied them the right to have their son moved from hospital to a hospice to die. The family had applied to the Court of Appeal on Friday, challenging a ruling that blocked their plans to move him to a hospice

Archie Battersbee cannot be moved from hospital to a hospice, the High Court has ruled, denying an application from his family. His mother, Hollie Dance, said she wanted her brain-damaged son to “spend his last moments” together with family privately, but the High Court ruled this was not in Archie’s best interests. The judge has

Liz Truss has refused a Conservative Party member’s request for her to apologise for proposing to link public sector pay to local living costs – reiterating that the policy was “misrepresented”. On Monday night, the foreign secretary and Tory leadership frontrunner said she would save £8.8bn by introducing regional pay boards instead of national ones

The Bank of England has hiked interest rates by half a percentage point – the sixth rise since December and the biggest rise since 1995. This means the bank rate now stands at 1.75% – its highest level since late 2008 at the beginning of the global financial crisis. It will increase borrowing costs for

Archie Battersbee’s life support will be withdrawn at 11am, unless his family launch a High Court bid by 9am to move him to a hospice. His parents plan to file the application by the deadline. They lost their latest legal appeal to stop doctors ending life-sustaining hospital treatment for their brain-damaged son after a European