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    Police are probing links ­between spy in the bag victim Gareth Williams and the poisoning of father and daughter Sergei Skripal and Yulia Skripal. Williams, 31, a codebreaker at Britain’s GCHQ eavesdropping centre who was on secondment to MI6, was found dead inside a locked red holdall in his bath eight years ago. At the time his bizarre death in his London flat was dismissed as a sex game that had gone wrong. But this week two counter-terrorism detectives from Salisbury, Wilts where the Skripals were poisoned by a Russian nerve agent will question KGB defector Boris Karpichkov about Williams’ death. Karpichkov, 59, claims that Williams was murdered with an untraceable poison because he had discovered the identity of a Russian mole at GCHQ. Karpichkov, a former m...

    Nine cabinet ministers, including the prime minister, are making more than £10,000 a year by acting as landlords, a Guardian analysis has found. Following Jeremy Hunt’s failure to declare the purchase of seven luxury flats that he subsequently rented out, an analysis of the parliamentary register of MPs’ interests shows eight other members of the cabinet own property that is rented out for a five-figure annual sum. The health secretary was forced to make an embarrassing apology on Friday after it emerged that he had failed to declare a business interest with both Companies House and the parliamentary register of MPs’ interests. Hunt has amended the register, which now shows that he has a half share of a holiday home in Italy, a half share in an office building in H...

    Russian intelligence agencies have been spying on former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter for at least five years, Britain has said in the latest twist in the Salisbury nerve agent attack. National Security Security Adviser Sir Mark Sedwill said cyber specialists from the GRU Russian military intelligence targeted Yulia Skripal’s email accounts as far back as 2013. In a letter to Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Sir Mark also said that in the 2000s the Russians had begun a programme to train personnel from special units in the use of chemical warfare agents. He said that it included investigating ways of delivering nerve agents by applying them to door handles. The strongest concentration of the Novichok nerve agent found in the Salisbury incide...

    Russia believes Yulia Skripal has been abducted by Britain and that the UK is faking sources in order to blame the Kremlin for her poisoning. The Russian foreign ministry's spokeswoman told Sky News they are also suspicious of statements from the 33-year-old released through Scotland Yard. Ms Skripal was discharged from hospital on Monday having spent five weeks being treated after she was poisoned in Salisbury alongside her ex-Russian spy father Sergei Skripal. Maria Zakharova told Sky News presenter Dermot Murnaghan, in Moscow: We just want to be sure that Yulia Skripal is actually better, that this is for real. We have zero information from officials in London about what is going on with her. We have suspicions that she's been abducted, held against her will. ...

    Jeremy Corbyn has accused the Government of waiting for instructions from Donald Trump on what to do over Syria. The Labour leader said the US president was giving contradictory signals and called for a UN-led investigation into the suspected chemical attack in Douma, outside the capital of Damascus, which killed scores of people. On Thursday, Theresa May won the backing of senior ministers on her ‘War Cabinet’ for action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as she and Trump agreed that the use of chemical weapons must not go unchallenged. Ministers had agreed it was “highly likely” Assad was responsible for the attack on Saturday on the rebel-held town of Douma - which reportedly left dozens dead, including children. Assad, as well as his allies in Iran and Ru...

    The schools across East Yorkshire reported receiving threatening emails about a bomb on Friday morning. According to the Hull Daily Mail, the threats have been made nationwide but this has not been confirmed by other police forces. One school Aldbrough Primary said it believes the email is a hoax but has contacted the police. You may have heard in the press about hoax emails being sent into Schools with a bomb threat. We wanted to alert you to the fact that Driffield School has received a threat this morning. We have been visited by the police who are treating this as a hoax. Posting on Facebook, the school said: "Dear Parent/carers, last term a number of schools received hoax bomb threats. We have received a bomb threat email this morning. We have informed the p...