Head of the Armed Forces Sir Richard Knighton has warned the UK is not as ready as needed for a full-scale conflict.
He avoided questions on a reported shortfall in government defence spending. Last week, The Times and The Sun reported the Ministry of Defence may require an extra £28 billion over the next four years, prompting a rewrite of the defence investment plan. The plan, originally due last autumn, has been delayed. Speaking to the parliamentary Defence Committee, Sir Richard said he could not provide a publication date but added the department was working flat out on it.
Four NHS hospital trusts have declared critical incidents due to significant pressures on services after a surge in complex accident and emergency admissions.
NHS Surrey Heartlands said the situation was being exacerbated by increases in flu and norovirus cases and a rise in staff sickness. It said cold weather had affected frailer patients who required hospital admission. The critical incidents affect Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust, Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust, and Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust.
The offence of creating non consensual intimate images will come into force this week, technology secretary Liz Kendall has announced.
She said the law would make it illegal for companies to supply tools designed to create such images. The move follows controversy involving Grok, an artificial intelligence chatbot on Elon Musk’s X platform, which created almost nude images of people without consent. Ofcom has launched a formal investigation into the tool over its use to create sexualised imagery of women and children.
A group of Labour MPs have urged the government to reject China’s plan to build a mega embassy in London.
In a letter to communities secretary Steve Reed, nine MPs raise security concerns about the proposed site and warn it would be used to step up intimidation against dissidents. Local residents living in flats at Royal Mint Court say they are preparing a legal challenge if the project is approved.
Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi claims nationwide protests are now “under total control,” according to remarks reported by Al Jazeera.
He says the country is ready for both war and dialogue, while blaming Donald Trump and Israel for the violence. Araghchi added: “That’s why the demonstrations turned violent and bloody to give an excuse to the American president to intervene.”
The daughter of a taxi driver killed in a head-on collision that also claimed the lives of three teenagers says she is “in shock” and it feels like “a bad dream.”
Masroob Ali, 54, from Blackburn, died when his taxi collided with another car on Wigan Road in Bolton on Sunday. Humayra Ali, 29, described her family as “devastated” and heartbroken, saying: “My first thought was how scared my father must have been in that one split moment before his life was lost.”
Instagram has denied it suffered a data breach after many users received emails prompting them to reset their passwords.
The company said it had resolved a problem that allowed “an external party” to trigger legitimate password reset requests. Instagram confirmed there had been no breach of its systems and reassured users that their accounts remain secure.
Stores in Slough have relocated to The Observatory Shopping Centre, as Queensmere is set to close this week under a sixteen hundred home redevelopment plan.
Queensmere Shopping Centre will shut for the final time on January seventeenth, marking the first phase of regeneration by developer Berkeley Homes. The site is due to be demolished, with retailers moving into The Observatory.
Nadim Zahawi, former Conservative chancellor under Boris Johnson, has defected to Reform UK, the party has announced.
The former Conservative MP was introduced by Nigel Farage at a news conference in central London. Zahawi was first elected as the MP for Stratford-on-Avon in 2010 and became a minister in 2018 under Theresa May’s government.
A man who left a football player with a serious injury and permanent facial disfigurement by throwing part of a seat onto the pitch has been jailed for eighteen months.
David Gowans, thirty one, threw the projectile after a league match between Aberdeen and Dundee United at Tannadice on seventeen May twenty twenty five. It struck then Aberdeen player Jack MacKenzie in the face, leaving him with a deep two inch laceration to his left eyebrow and a five centimetre abrasion below his left eye.
Ofcom has launched a formal investigation into X’s AI tool Grok over its use in creating sexualised imagery of women and children.
The watchdog said it contacted the social media platform last Monday and set a firm deadline of last Friday to explain what steps had been taken to protect users in the UK. The company replied by the deadline, and Ofcom has since carried out an expedited assessment of available evidence as a matter of urgency.
London has recorded the lowest number of homicides in more than a decade, according to Metropolitan Police figures.
The force says there were 97 killings in the capital last year, an eleven per cent fall on 2024’s total of 109. It is the lowest figure since 2014, when 95 homicides were recorded. The figures follow claims by Donald Trump that crime levels were “crazy” in London, allegations the Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley dismissed as complete nonsense.
The number of people killed in anti-government protests across Iran has risen to more than five hundred, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency.
Donald Trump says he is weighing a range of responses to the unrest. Information remains limited because a communications blackout is in place across Iran’s thirty one provinces. Protests began in late December after a sharp fall in the value of the rial and have entered a third week, becoming the most serious challenge to the regime for several years.
A man has been arrested after reports of a suspicious barefoot man in people’s gardens.
Police say there were reports of attempted thefts in Ashcroft Road and Murrin Road. On January sixth, a resident contacted officers after seeing a man trying to open a neighbour’s back door. He ran off when challenged. Although not caught that day, officers later recovered and returned a stolen mountain bike taken from a garden in Ashcroft Road.
