News 19/08/26

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are set to move back to the UK later this month.

The couple, who relocated to the United States in March 2020, will live in a non-royal residence outside London for an extended period. Their children, Archie and Lilibet, aged seven and five, are due to start at a British school in September. It is understood there will be no change to their status as non-working members of the Royal Family.

The Israeli military has confirmed for the first time that it opened fire on a car carrying five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, who was killed alongside six relatives in Gaza in 2024.

The Israel Defense Forces said it will open a criminal investigation into the killings of Hind, her family, and two paramedics whose ambulance was shelled while trying to reach her. The inquiry will also cover the killings of fifteen Palestinians in March 2025.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has admitted that Ukraine’s drone campaign targeting oil refineries and energy infrastructure is affecting his country’s economy.

Speaking at the Council for Strategic Development and National Projects in Moscow, the Russian leader nevertheless remained defiant about national economic performance, claiming that overall statistical data shows overall trends remain positive, despite growth being modest.

Male prisons across England and Wales have fewer than eighteen hundred spare places remaining, reaching the lowest capacity level since March.

Over eighty-three thousand spaces are now occupied by male inmates. Prison staff warned that high numbers of offenders being recalled for breaching licence conditions or re-offending have wiped out capacity gains. The shortage comes ahead of government plans to release around five thousand prisoners early starting in October.

More than £4,000 has been raised for a Slough family whose home was severely damaged in a devastating fire earlier this month.

The online GoFundMe appeal was set up by Igor Pajkanovity after his friend and colleague Alistair Mackenzie lost his family house and most of their personal belongings in the blaze on the eighth of August. Dozens of local supporters have donated to help the family rebuild.

A murder investigation is under way after nine people were taken to hospital following a house fire in west London.

Metropolitan Police were called to an address in Berkley Avenue, Hounslow, shortly after one o’clock this morning. A forty-eight-year-old woman died in hospital, while a forty-year-old woman remains in a life-threatening condition. Six men and another woman have been discharged after treatment for minor injuries.

Optimism over a potential breakthrough in personalised cancer treatment has sent shares in US pharmaceutical firm Moderna soaring by nearly one hundred per cent.

A late-stage trial of its experimental vaccine, called Intismeran, reduced skin cancer re-growth and stopped it spreading to other body parts. Intismeran combines a Merck immunotherapy drug with a made-to-order mRNA shot designed around mutations in individual tumours.

Plans are in development to invest almost five hundred thousand pounds into play areas across Slough, the local council leader has announced.

Two neighbourhoods, Britwell and Foxborough, will benefit from the government’s Pride in Place programme, bringing up to forty million pounds to selected local areas over ten years. Cabinet members also heard that a further one-point-five million pounds of government funding is set to be provided for local authority use.

Pupils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will receive GCSE, BTec and other Level Two results on Thursday.

While schools and colleges distribute grades in person, pupils at more than seven hundred and fifty English schools can access their results on mobile phones via a new app rolling out for the first time. The results come as ministers plan to boost technical education and tackle high resit numbers.

The Palestinian Embassy has identified a father who died alongside his partner and teenage daughter as Palestinian refugee Hossam al Khawas.

He was from the Rashidieh Camp in Lebanon. The embassy added that it has not yet been able to confirm the names of the other family members involved in the tragic incident.

Rail investigators looking into a train derailment in Lewes say a track geometry irregularity existed on the approach to the site.

The Rail Accident Investigation Branch confirmed the fault was visible on CCTV taken from a passing train prior to the accident in East Sussex, which left thirty people injured and twenty needing hospital care.

Two men have been jailed over violent anti-migrant protests outside a hotel housing asylum seekers in Essex last summer.

Jonathan Glover, aged forty-eight, and twenty-four-year-old Charlie Land were sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court for their unacceptable behaviour at The Bell Hotel in Epping. Glover was sentenced to thirty months in prison after both were convicted of violent disorder.

Ukraine’s parliament has approved Yevhenii Khmara as the country’s new defence minister.

His appointment was backed by three hundred and twelve politicians, comfortably exceeding the two hundred and twenty-six votes needed for a majority. He replaces Mykhailo Fedorov amid ongoing protests outside parliament this morning. Last night, Fedorov challenged President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to hold wartime elections, though the Ukrainian president is yet to respond.

Tennis player Nick Kyrgios has received a ban after testing positive for cocaine during an ATP tournament in Mallorca in June.

The International Tennis Integrity Agency announced the suspension of the thirty-one-year-old following the detection of a cocaine metabolite. Kyrgios, who reached a career-high world ranking of thirteen, had been provisionally suspended since early August after a WADA laboratory confirmed the presence of the banned stimulant.

The rate of UK inflation rose to 2.9% in July, official figures show, marking the fastest pace of price increases in four months.

Data from the Office for National Statistics reveals that overall prices have not risen this rapidly since March. The recent acceleration follows a period where prices were growing at a slower rate, with last month’s jump driven primarily by a 13% increase in household energy bills following the raising of the price cap.

London’s ultra-low emission zone has been linked to an improvement in children’s lung growth, according to a new study.

The ULEZ scheme charges drivers twelve pounds fifty a day for entering capital boroughs in older, more polluting vehicles. Measurements taken before its introduction showed children in London had significantly smaller lung size compared with those in Luton, but researchers found their lung health improved to comparable levels over five years.

Donald Trump has paused plans to impose fifty per cent tariffs on twenty billion dollars worth of Canadian goods, including vehicles, dairy and alcohol.

The US president announced on social media that a deal is close, putting the levies on hold for three days subject to finalising documents. The announcement came less than two hours before the tariffs were due to take effect, following talks with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Three members of the same family have died after getting into difficulty in the sea off Shoreham-by-Sea.

Sussex Police confirmed a man, a woman and a teenage girl died following the incident near Shoreham Port on Tuesday afternoon, while a younger girl remains in hospital in a critical condition. Emergency services, including lifeboats, air ambulances and coastguard crews, responded to the scene.

A man who failed to check if a waste collector was registered has been fined after his rubbish was found at a massive fly-tip in Denham.

Forty-three-year-old Naim Jashari was convicted at Aylesbury Crown Court of failing in his duty of care. Buckinghamshire Council officers traced waste back to him following an investigation at the site.

Former Ukrainian defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov has called for wartime elections in a video message on YouTube.

The thirty-five-year-old, who was fired from his cabinet role in July, said democracy cannot be held hostage by Russia. Elections are currently suspended in Ukraine under martial law, which was introduced following Russia’s invasion in February 2022.

A deaf patient was given a Covid jab instead of a flu vaccine because her doctor’s surgery failed to provide a sign language interpreter, a report by the health ombudsman reveals.

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman warned disabled people are being let down by inaccessible communications. The Department of Health said such experiences were completely unacceptable.