News 07/08/26

Counter-terror police investigating the murder of Ann Widdecombe have reopened a probe into an attempted burglary reported more than a year before her death.

Joshua Kerry, twenty-eight, has been charged with murdering the former Tory minister, who was found dead at her Devon home on July ninth. The Metropolitan Police received a report in April 2025. A staff member has been referred to the police watchdog.

A man has been charged over the deaths of four people killed when a car crashed into a lamppost in Huyton, Merseyside.

Jack Diggle, Benjamin Dooley, Andrew Roberts, and Craig Shackleton-Brady died at the scene on East Prescot Road on July twenty-fourth. Police say a twenty-seven-year-old male passenger survived the crash in a black Seat Cupra and was taken to hospital.

Donald Trump has hit out at a US appeals court decision to block his $400m (£297m) White House ballroom.

The federal appeals court ordered the administration to stop construction on the site of the demolished East Wing. Posting on Truth Social, Mr Trump called the ballroom desperately needed, totally secure, ahead of schedule and under budget, saying the court refused to acknowledge it was a gift from him and great patriots.

At least one person has been injured in Odesa after a Russian strike hit the 34,000-seater Chornomorets Stadium.

Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said the shelling destroyed the roof, windows and stands. Regional governor Oleh Kiper confirmed a 29-year-old woman suffered shrapnel wounds, while authorities continue to assess the full extent of the damage caused by the attack.

An 11-year-old girl has died after emergency services found her in a river at a woodland park in Scotland.

A search took place following reports of concern for a girl at Gore Glen Woodland Park near Gorebridge in Midlothian. Police confirmed she was found yesterday afternoon and pronounced dead. Cordoned paths pass underneath Shank Bridge, which carries the A7 over Gore Water.

Scorching temperatures of 36C are expected in the UK next week, with heat health alerts in place and the risk of new droughts.

The Met Office says heatwave conditions will return through the weekend, reaching 36C in parts of East Anglia and south-east England by Thursday. The Environment Agency confirmed England received less than 10mm of rainfall for seven consecutive weeks.

A US appeals court has blocked Donald Trump’s $400m (£297m) White House ballroom.

The court ordered the administration to stop construction on the demolished East Wing site. A Washington court upheld an injunction won by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which sued after the administration tore down the East Wing to build a 90,000 sq ft ballroom without Congressional authorisation.

A sexual predator has been found guilty of murdering two women and violently raping a third amid missed opportunities to stop him.

Simon Levy, forty, left his rape victim for dead in January last year, before killing Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo, fifty-three, two months later, and Sheryl Wilkins, thirty-nine, five months after. The Old Bailey heard the Metropolitan Police closed the rape probe without formally interviewing her and released Levy under investigation after arresting him over the first murder.

Network Rail is facing scrutiny after a rare power failure at an operations centre in Manchester caused widespread commuter chaos.

Questions have been raised over how a short outage at one facility could severely disrupt the network. The publicly-owned body is responsible for operating and maintaining Britain’s railway infrastructure, including all tracks, signals, embankments, and major stations.

Acclaimed British music producer William Orbit, famed for his work with Madonna, Blur, All Saints and U2, has died aged sixty-nine.

A statement from family and friends confirmed he died at home on the twenty-third of July, though no cause of death was given. Born William Wainwright in North London, he reinvigorated Madonna’s career in nineteen-ninety-eight with the album Ray of Light.

England international footballer Ivan Toney has been charged with assault causing actual bodily harm following an incident at a Soho nightclub.

The thirty-year-old striker, who plays for Saudi Arabian club Al-Ahli, is accused of assault on Wardour Street in central London. Toney was charged on Thursday and will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in September. A spokesperson said he looks forward to clearing his name.

Seven people have died and more than thirty have been injured in a shooting at a school in Bangkok, Thailand’s prime minister has confirmed.

Nine of those injured remain in a severe condition. A rescue worker described finding victims with gunshot wounds before hearing a final gunshot, after which police reported finding the suspected shooter suffering from a gunshot wound.

Passengers across Greater Manchester and the North West face ongoing rail disruption following a major power failure, with affected operators among the UK’s worst performing.

Data from the railway regulator, the Office of Rail and Road, shows almost all impacted train companies, including Northern and Avanti West Coast, performed worse last year than the national target of sixty-seven point two per cent for delays.

Four men have been arrested and two are in a critical condition in hospital following violent disorder in South Wales.

Gwent Police said a group of men was involved in a disturbance in Pontnewynydd, near Pontypool, on Thursday evening. Firearms officers and the National Police Air Service supported officers at the scene on Mill Road. Two men remain detained.

At least two people have died in a school shooting in Thailand, according to media reports.

Broadcaster Thai PBS reports two people were killed and fifteen injured, while Reuters says a teacher died, four were injured, and the shooter killed himself. Nonthaburi police chief Dechrapee Kongdee confirmed the ninth-grade shooter was typically aged around fourteen.

The senior investigating officer in the PC Andrew Harper case says he is appalled that two of his killers will become eligible for early release next year under government plans to tackle prison overcrowding.

PC Harper, twenty-eight, from Wallingford, Oxfordshire, died in twenty-nineteen after being dragged behind a getaway car following a quad bike theft. His widow, Lissie Harper, is among those calling for Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers to be denied early release.

Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has been ordered by a US judge to pay £421m to address harm caused to children on its platforms.

Most of the money will fund youth treatment services, with the remainder spent on awareness, prevention and screening over the next five years. It follows a separate damages ruling, taking Meta’s total penalty to nearly one billion dollars.

The Conservatives say they would end social housing for foreign nationals in England if elected.

The party claims ending new tenancies for foreign nationals, plus current tenancies where neither partner is a UK, Irish or EU citizen, would free up over two hundred and twenty-eight thousand homes for British families. Labour dismissed the plan as an unserious, unworkable proposal that fails to tackle the housing crisis.