United Kingdom

Five women say they were raped by former Harrods boss Mohamed Al Fayed when they worked at the luxury London department store.

The BBC has heard testimony from more than 20 female ex-employees who say the billionaire, who died last year aged 94, sexually assaulted them - including rape.

The documentary and podcast - Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods - gathered evidence that, during Fayed’s ownership, Harrods not only failed to intervene, but helped cover up abuse allegations.

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“The spider’s web of corruption and abuse in this company was unbelievable and very dark,” says barrister Bruce Drummond, from a legal team representing a number of the women.

Warning: this story contains details some may find distressing.

The NHS is going to use drones to fly blood samples across London to avoid the traffic.

Drone flights will mean the samples can be transported in a fraction of the time it currently takes couriers via road, officials said.

Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust has launched a pilot scheme that intends to drastically speed up the time taken to move blood from major hospitals in the capital to labs for analysis.

Usually, moving samples between Guy's Hospital and the lab at St Thomas' Hospital takes more than half an hour on the road.

However, the same journey can be done in less than two minutes by drone, officials said.

The research team also said there were environmental benefits to the switch in transport methods.

The owner of the Guardian has confirmed it is in talks to sell the Observer, the world's oldest Sunday newspaper, to Tortoise Media.

Tortoise has approached Guardian Media Group (GMG) with an offer to invest around £25m over the next five years on the "editorial and commercial renewal" of the Observer.

Tortoise was launched five years ago by James Harding, a former BBC News chief and a former editor of the Times newspaper.

The Guardian reported that the title will remain a seven-day-a-week digital operation regardless of the outcome of negotiations with Tortoise about the Observer.

Observer staff were told that the investment would "help to safeguard its future" as a standalone product.

GMG is not actively trying to sell the Observer, but it is examining the Tortoise proposal to see if it is viable.

Founded in 1791, the Observer is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper, with a staff of around 70.

Social disadvantage is now so entrenched in “left behind” areas that a young person growing up poor in parts of London has a significantly better chance of going to university and getting a good job than a child of a similar background from the north-east of England, the UK’s social mobility commissioner has said.

Alun Francis, whose remit is to assess progress in improving social mobility in the UK and to promote social mobility in England, said the “geography of disadvantage” had become increasingly marked in recent years, with deprived northern post-industrial and rural areas and seaside towns falling further behind England’s thriving south-east in terms of economic and social opportunity.

Francis called for “decisive and bold” government action to drive economic growth in left-behind areas and narrow a widening north-south divide, arguing that past attempts to drive social mobility by focusing mainly on educational achievement to drive life chances had failed to shift the dial for many young people.

The report found that working-class teenagers in areas of London with high levels of poverty such as Islington, Hackney and Newham were 19 percentage points more likely to experience upward mobility than contemporaries in similarly deprived places in the north of England such as Sunderland, Hull, Gateshead and Barnsley.

The capital’s superior economic and job opportunities were likely to partly explain these differences, the commission suggested. Ethnicity could also be a factor, with London’s larger immigrant population more likely to see educational attainment as a tool to improve their children’s life chances.

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In an interview with the Guardian before the Social Mobility Commission’s 2024 State of the Nation report, Francis called for an “honest” assessment of why white British youngsters from the poorest backgrounds consistently under-attained educationally and were less socially mobile compared with their peers.

He said white British people were “at the top of the social mobility tree and the bottom, like bookends”, adding: “We need to ask harder questions about why, and not be constrained by being anxious about what we might find, because if we want to bridge people’s outcomes of life we need to be really honest, to find a better answer.”

Francis, who is principal of Blackpool and the Fylde further education college, said while white British children on free school meals persistently underperformed at school, children with a Chinese background on free school meals outperformed the national average for non-free school meal children at ages 11 and 16.

It was important to avoid “simplistic and misleading” accounts that assumed social mobility was getting worse on all counts, he said. Poverty was not the only determinant of life chances, he added: “What are the things that enable some people to do well despite their circumstances, where others really do not?”

Asked whether there was a link between the August riots and deprivation in many of the communities where disorder took place, Francis acknowledged many of those towns had been ignored in terms of economic opportunity, saying: “In those areas we certainly created a climate where people do feel left behind.”

He added: “I would say in those areas the vast majority of people in straitened circumstances feel frustrated, a bit defeated, sometimes a bit sad, but I don’t think they always go on to the streets and become violent about it.”

More than 10,500 requests have been received by Welsh councils from residents to reassess roads that saw their limit lowered when the policy was introduced in September last year.

Police point to a drop in road causalities and crashes to suggest Wales' flagship policy is working, although a recent poll said seven in 10 people still oppose the new limit.

One motoring organisation has said traffic calming measures like speed bumps should be installed to force drivers to do 20mph.

Welsh ministers said a 20mph limit would reduce deaths and noise and encourage people to walk or cycle when it was implemented in September 2023 - but it caused controversy with some drivers.

The limit changed on about 35% of Welsh roads - about 22,000 miles (35,171 km) in total - last year where lamp-posts are no more than 200 yards (183m) apart.
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Statistics show a drop in casualties on 20mph and 30mph roads in Wales in the first three months of 2024, after the default built-up area limit was reduced.

The number of serious casualties or fatalities has dropped 23%, and Wales' largest police force says there have been at least 11 less deaths on the roads in their area.

The chances of Northern Ireland hosting matches at the Euro 2028 football tournament appear to have gone.

The UK government announced on Friday night that the estimated cost of rebuilding Casement Park stadium in Belfast has "risen dramatically" to more than £400m.

The government said it will not be providing funding to redevelop the stadium in time for the tournament.

It said there was a "significant risk" that the stadium would not be built in time.
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In order to be ready for the 2028 tournament, Casement Park needs to be rebuilt by the summer of 2027.

Northern Ireland could have a role as a training base or host warm-up matches at the existing Windsor Park stadium, but hosting tournament fixtures appears to be over.

Plans have been in place to build a new stadium at Casement Park since 2011.

The initial estimated cost of rebuilding Casement was £77.5m, with £62.5m coming from the Stormont executive and £15m from the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA).

That was more than a decade ago, and since then costs have risen dramatically.

To try to cater for soccer as well as GAA matches increased the cost further, as UEFA requires a higher specification of stadium.

Although hopes of being part of the Euro 2028 tournament may be over, it does not mean the stadium cannot be rebuilt for the GAA, which was the original purpose.

However, that will not be cheap either, and the GAA will be hoping that even though the UK government has said it will not be funding a Euro 2028 compliant stadium, it may still contribute to the redevelopment whenever it happens.

The Irish government has already pledged more than £40m.

The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons because of his age, was previously due to be sentenced on 2 September - but proceedings were adjourned when the court learned the boy's mother was on holiday in Ibiza.

The boy was accompanied by his uncle instead, but District Judge Joanne Hirst told Manchester Magistrates' Court she was "frankly astonished" and ordered a parental summons for the mother to explain herself.

The 30-year-old single mother, who also cannot be named because that would identify her son, appeared at the court on Wednesday alongside him and told the judge the Spanish island break had cost £1,200.

She had decided to fly abroad for the five-day trip the day before her son was due to appear in court last week to be sentenced after admitting two counts of violent disorder.

Explaining her absence, she told the judge she spoke with her solicitor and the Youth Justice team: "It was not put to me how much I needed to be there. Each one said, 'Is there an appropriate adult?' My brother - which is why I went on holiday."

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She told the youngster, who has ADHD, he had been involved in "the worst type of feral behaviour in our country" and if an adult, he would be going to jail for up to five years.

However, the judge said she was giving him a "chance" and instead ordered him to complete a 12-month referral order.

He was described as a "lovely" child by his mother, but who had at times a "chaotic" home life.

The boy told the judge he was "sorry" and that he was receiving help from social workers and had taken up boxing.

Previously; Boy, 12, cannot be sentenced over riots after mum left for Ibiza holiday

Think of British cultural exports in the 21st century and you might reach for the familiar examples: James Bond, Downton Abbey, Adele.

But in the algorithm-driven universe of TikTok where a trend known as “Britishcore” is one of the most in demand movements of the moment, it’s the mundane aspects of life in the UK which are going viral.

Britishcore first emerged as a cultural term at the turn of the decade, to describe ramshackle symbols of British life such as dilapidated pubs and lone traffic cones.

Now it has spread to include videos inspired by Trainspotting, lip-synching to Towie stars and satirical celebrations of the Oasis reunion.>

TikTok has flagged a surge in interest for UK fashion, comedy and travel on its platform as evidence of renewed interest in British culture – and typically wry takes on it.

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In one TikTok, US content creator @the_quivey10 lists the things he wants to do when he comes to England. They include everyday activities popularised by BritishCore TikToks such as going on a “cheeky Tesco run” and grabbing a Greggs sausage roll.

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Alwyn Turner, senior lecturer at the University of Chichester and an expert in British popular culture, said a “sense of cheekiness” is what links together some of the UK’s most popular cultural exports.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/2686908

One of UK's oldest nuclear waste storage silos is currently leaking radioactive liquid into the ground. That is a “recurrence of a historic leak” that Sellafield Ltd, the company that operates the site, says first started in the 1970s.

Sellafield has also faced questions about its working culture and adherence to safety rules. The company is currently awaiting sentencing after it pleaded guilty, in June, to charges related to cyber-security failings.