A woman killed in a house fire near Middlesbrough has been described by her mother as a beautiful soul who would have done anything for anybody.
Thirty-four-year-old Natalie McDonald died alongside her seven-year-old niece, Valentina Foster, in the blaze in Grangetown early on Wednesday. Cleveland Police confirmed a forty-eight-year-old woman remains critically ill in hospital, while three others received treatment for non-life-threatening injuries. Two men, aged twenty-three and thirty-one, have been arrested on suspicion of murder.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has announced he will host a summit with the first ministers of Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland in the autumn.
Speaking ahead of his first official visit to south Wales since taking control of the UK government, the Labour leader said he wants every leader signed up to creating good jobs in every community. Downing Street confirmed the leaders will meet at the National Economic Council in October.
A double killer who murdered and dismembered two women before dumping their remains in canals has died in prison.
Sixty-nine-year-old John Sweeney was serving a whole-life sentence for the murders of former girlfriends Paula Fields and Melissa Halstead. Thirty-one-year-old Miss Fields was killed in London in 2001, while American Miss Halstead was murdered in 1990 and found in Rotterdam, remaining unidentified for eighteen years.
Two men have been arrested on suspicion of murder following a house fire near Middlesbrough in which two people died, including a child.
Cleveland Police were called to a property in Grangetown at around twenty-twenty on Wednesday morning. The victims are yet to be formally identified. A forty-eight-year-old woman remains in a critical condition at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, while three other people are receiving hospital treatment for non-life-threatening injuries.
European nations are set to withdraw their threat to boycott FIFA competitions following a climbdown by president Gianni Infantino over plans to sell shares in the World Cup to private investors.
UEFA had threatened the boycott last month to force him to abandon the scheme. The decision means England will compete as planned next week at the Under-20s Women’s World Cup, the first FIFA event since the crisis began.
The United States has designated the UK-based group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, imposing sanctions against it.
The US Department of the Treasury accused the group of supporting numerous acts of terrorism since July 2020. Membership of the organisation became illegal in the UK in 2025 under anti-terror legislation. Co-founder Huda Ammori described the US decision as beyond hypocritical.
Tim Curry, star of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, has died at the age of eighty.
Curry, who played Dr Frank-N-Furter in the 1975 cult classic, also portrayed Pennywise the clown in the 1990 television adaptation of Stephen King’s It. His extensive screen credits included roles in Home Alone 2, The Hunt for Red October, Muppet Treasure Island, Addams Family Reunion, and Scary Movie 2.
At least thirty-three people from the UK are reported missing in Nepal, including a thirteen-year-old girl.
Nepal Tourism Board spokesperson Sunil Sharma confirmed one hundred and thirty-three people are missing from India, forty-seven from the US, thirty-four from Australia, and twenty-four from Canada. At least sixty-two missing Nepalis were among hundreds trekking at Gosaikunda lake in Rasuwa, coinciding with Friday’s Janai Purnima festival.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have arrived back in the UK.
Prince Harry, Meghan, and their children Archie and Lilibet are understood to have flown in privately from California, landing in Birmingham shortly before midday. A spokesperson for the Sussexes said they would not comment on the matter, while a source noted there appeared to be no police presence as the family departed the airport.
Two fires that destroyed nineteen homes in Stourbridge were started accidentally, according to West Midlands Fire Service.
The blazes began earlier this month in a field where agricultural machinery was being used. The fire was initially reported on the town’s golf course before spreading, destroying nineteen homes completely and damaging a further eighteen. In total, the flames covered around five hundred acres of land before being extinguished.
The King and Queen will undertake a royal visit to Antigua and Barbuda during an autumn tour, Buckingham Palace has announced.
Their visit to the Caribbean will coincide with their attendance at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting from the first to the fourth of November. Prior to the event, the King will visit The Bahamas followed by a state visit to Guyana.
Meta has agreed to pay up to twelve point $2.6bn to US states to settle claims that its social media platforms harmed children.
The landmark trial saw the company accused of deliberately designing addictive features on platforms including Facebook and Instagram. Meta denies wrongdoing, but has agreed to implement daily usage limits and restrict nighttime usage for children on both platforms.
A murder investigation has been launched after two people died in a house fire near Middlesbrough.
Cleveland Police were called to a property in the Grangetown area earlier this morning. A woman remains in a critical condition at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, while three other people are receiving hospital treatment for non-life-threatening injuries.
At least eight people have died in Nepal after an avalanche triggered flash flooding, with hundreds feared missing.
The Bhotekoshi River flooded at around nine in the morning, destroying several villages, roads and hydropower projects. Nepali government spokesperson Sasmit Pokharel confirmed authorities have asked both India and China to assist with rescue efforts following the disaster.
A French court has recognised cosmic radiation as a factor in the breast cancer of a long-serving flight attendant.
Fifty-nine-year-old former Air France stewardess Sophie Lainault sought to have her illness classed as an occupational disease. In a landmark ruling in Bayonne, the court confirmed cosmic radiation was one of three workplace hazards involved, alongside passive smoking—which was allowed on flights until 2000—and prolonged night work.
Hundreds of people are missing following a flash flood along the Nepal-Tibet border.
The Nepal Tourism Board confirmed it is working to verify the whereabouts of three hundred and eighty-four travellers, including two hundred and ninety-one foreign nationals and ninety-three Nepalis. The flood struck early on Wednesday morning in the Rasuwa region, north of Kathmandu, along the Bhote Koshi river.
A Libyan acquitted over the 1988 Lockerbie bombing has died aged seventy.
Al Amin Khalifah Fhimah was cleared of murdering two hundred and seventy people aboard Pan Am Flight 103, while co-accused Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted. Libyan Airlines announced Fhimah’s death on Facebook, expressing condolences to his family.
Former England footballer Raheem Sterling has been charged with dangerous driving, possession of nitrous oxide for wrongful inhalation, and failing to provide a specimen following a motorway crash.
Hampshire Police confirmed the thirty-one-year-old was involved in a single-vehicle collision in a Lamborghini on the M3 southbound near the Minley Interchange on the twenty-eighth of May. No other vehicles were involved and no injuries were reported. He will appear at Basingstoke Magistrates’ Court on the fifteenth of September.
Average annual energy bills will rise by sixty pounds for a typical household in October, energy regulator Ofgem has confirmed.
The four per cent increase on July’s price cap will see a typical dual fuel home pay one thousand se
ven hundred and twenty-three pounds a year, up from sixteen hundred and sixty-three pounds. The cap limits what suppliers charge per unit, meaning higher consumers pay more. The new level takes effect from the first of October until the end of the year.
At least fourteen babies have died after a fire broke out at a hospital nursery in Pakistan.
The blaze started early on Wednesday morning at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, a major government hospital housing at least fifteen newborns. Officials confirmed at least one baby was rescued. According to local reports, the fire was triggered by a fault in the air-conditioning system.
Dolly Parton died following a brief battle with cancer, her publicist Marcel Pariseau has revealed.
She passed away at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center surrounded by loved ones. Paying tribute, Pariseau said Parton spent her life bringing joy, laughter, hope, and integrity to everything she touched, while highlighting her generosity through book donations via her Imagination Library and her role in funding research for the coronavirus vaccine.
People sexually abused as children who seek help later in life for mental health issues are being failed by the NHS, according to senior doctors.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists has issued a public apology for decades of mismanagement and misdiagnosis in the UK, which it admits worsened trauma for some patients. The college acknowledged that staff focused too heavily on treating symptoms rather than addressing underlying past traumatic experiences.
Smokers looking to quit have the highest success rates when using nicotine e-cigarettes, a review of eighty major trials involving nearly thirty thousand people has found.
The Cochrane team discovered nicotine vapes were sixty per cent more effective than patches, gum, or support plans, boosting success rates from six in a hundred to one in ten. Researchers noted vapes also outperformed non-nicotine alternatives and could prove more effective than the NHS anti-smoking pill cytisine.
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