News 09/11/26

The UK government is expected to reduce its electric vehicle targets this week in a move likely to be welcomed by carmakers but opposed by environmental groups.

Current regulations dictate that eighty per cent of new cars sold in the UK must be electric by 2030, with all new cars required to be zero-emission by 2035. However, car manufacturers have long called for urgent relief amid cabinet debate surrounding the transition’s speed.

The world is on course for its hottest year on record due to climate change and El Niño, scientists have warned as COP31 opens in Turkey today.

Independent US research group Berkeley Earth stated it is ninety-five per cent confident that 2026 will surpass the record set in 2024. The forecast follows severe heat impacts, including European wildfires and a glacier collapse in Nepal that killed over one thousand people.

A gunman suspected of killing six people, including a British citizen, in Krakow on Saturday has died in hospital.

Regional Governor Krzysztof Jan Klęczar confirmed the victims included three Polish women, a British man, a woman of unconfirmed nationality, and a Polish man. The gunman is also suspected of killing three members of his own family during the incident.

The Met Office has issued yellow weather warnings for dense fog across Northern Ireland, much of England, and eastern Wales until late morning.

The warning area covers locations from Canterbury to Cardiff and Southampton to York, including London and Birmingham. Forecasters warn visibility could fall below fifty metres, creating difficult driving conditions alongside potential delays or cancellations across bus, train, ferry, and flight services.

A former Harrods employee has spoken out for the first time about being trafficked to the Scottish Highlands, drugged, and sexually assaulted by Salah Fayed, the brother of Mohamed Al Fayed.

Speaking under a pseudonym, the woman said she was recruited to what she believed was an executive training scheme in the 1990s before being flown to the family’s estate. She is among hundreds alleging abuse by the brothers.

Action from across society is needed to improve educational outcomes for white working-class children, according to the co-chair of an independent inquiry.

Following a summer report calling for once-in-a-generation system reforms, the inquiry’s next phase will focus on early years support and teenagers aged fourteen to nineteen. Education Secretary Lucy Powell confirmed she is backing the inquiry to address barriers holding pupils back.