News 14/07/26

Ann Widdecombe was the victim of a targeted attack, according to the head of counter-terrorism policing, Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor.

He confirmed that officers are working to understand the planning, preparation and motivation behind the assault. Following extensive searches, police have secured a further warrant to detain the twenty-eight-year-old white male suspect for up to seven days under the Terrorism Act.

The UK will hold its largest home defence exercise in decades next year to prepare the country for the possibility of war.

Dubbed Operation Albiston Shadow, the Cabinet Office scenario will involve ministers and hundreds of officials testing responses to hybrid attacks. The exercise will simulate threats under the threshold of conventional warfare, which could include cyber-attacks, sabotage or assassinations.

Police believe the deaths of three people from the same family in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, involved a double murder.

The bodies of a forty-one-year-old man, a thirty-nine-year-old woman and an eight-year-old girl were discovered at a house in the Old Cullybackey Road area yesterday. Superintendent William Calderwood described it as a shocking scene and expressed his sympathies to loved ones.

The UK government wasted nearly two thirds of the money it spent on protective equipment, almost £10bn, and had perilous stockpiles that were unprepared for the pandemic, the Covid inquiry has found.

Inquiry chair Baroness Hallett said the waste was vast, adding that inadequate planning caused unnecessary delays in providing PPE and ventilators to doctors and nurses.

Former Radio 2 presenter Scott Mills was the BBC’s highest earner until he was sacked in March, latest figures reveal.

Mills, 53, earned between £745,000 and &749,999 for the year ending in March. He was sacked shortly before it emerged that police had launched an investigation into historical allegations of serious sexual offences.

Wildfires continue to burn in parts of the UK as firefighters face extreme pressure due to the prolonged heatwave, the National Fire Chiefs Council has warned.

Around 19 fires remain active across the country, with no rain forecast. Major incidents were declared in Conwy and Glossop on Sunday, with firefighters still tackling the flames on Tuesday.

A man has been jailed for life after being found guilty of the rape and murder of his estranged wife and staging a scene to make her death look like suicide.

Michael Thompson, 56, from Northampton, refused to enter court for sentencing. Judge Nirmal Shant KC sentenced him to a minimum term of 33 years, calling his absence an act of cowardice.

South East Water is facing a £30.5m redress package for multiple customer service failures, the industry watchdog has announced.

Ofwat said on Tuesday that the company, which has suffered a series of supply interruptions, must foot the bill for its shortcomings rather than place the burden on household bills. This penalty comes on top of a twenty-two million pound fine received in March for water supply failures in Kent and Sussex between 2020 and 2023, which affected more than two hundred and eighty-six thousand people.

One crew member has been killed and several injured after two tankers were hit by Iranian missiles in the Strait of Hormuz.

The UAE’s ministry of defence says the deceased worker was Indian, while eight other crew members of Indian and Ukrainian nationality were wounded. Condemning the incident, the ministry described it as a brazen attack and a clear breach of international law, adding that the strikes took place in Omani territorial waters.

Researchers are warning that the persistent educational disadvantage gap in schools will be an early challenge for the next prime minister.

Andy Burnham is set to succeed Sir Keir Starmer in Downing Street later this month. According to the Education Policy Institute, achievement gaps between pupils from richer and poorer backgrounds remain wider than they were before the pandemic, across all phases of education.

A public art trail featuring thirty specially decorated elephants has been installed overnight across Windsor and Slough.

The Thames Hospice project, called Trunks Across the Thames, will run until the thirteenth of September before the sculptures are auctioned off to raise vital funds. Author and illustrator Charlie Mackesy is among the figures who painted one of the elephants in support of the appeal.