Sunday, July 5

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Trump backs Boris to be the next PM
America, Featured

Trump backs Boris to be the next PM

    Donald Trump has backed Boris Johnson to be the next Prime Minister while Nigel Farage said he has been "banned" from meeting the US president. Mr Trump, who is visiting the UK for a three-day state visit on Monday, said he thinks the former foreign secretary would be "excellent" as a successor to Theresa May. Speaking to the Sun, Mr Trump said: "I think Boris would do a very good job. I think he would be excellent." The President added: "I like him. I have always liked him. I don't know that he is going to be chosen, but I think he is a very good guy, a very talented person. "He has been very positive about me and our country." Mr Trump also said other candidates have approached him in a bid to secure his endorsement. According to the Times, senior White House ...
I identify as bisexual what I wish people understood
Featured, Life Style

I identify as bisexual what I wish people understood

    According to the Kinsey Scale, sexuality is a spectrum. The way that you identify is not limited to "gay" or "straight," and sometimes, it's not limited to an identity at all. There's a societal pressure to choose a label to make your identity more simple or convenient for other people, and in doing so, it can be difficult to experience your journey on your own terms. It took me many years to understand and accept that I am bisexual. Even as I say that, the identifier doesn't quite sum it all up, because there's more to my sexuality than the perception attached it's label. There are a lot of misconceptions about what bisexuality means and looks like, and sometimes the stigma makes me want to scream. Let me clear some things up. I'm notonlyattracted to people who i...
Javid says No to 2nd Brexit vote
Featured, United Kingdom

Javid says No to 2nd Brexit vote

    Tory leadership contender Sajid Javid has ruled out a second referendum, a general election and revoking Article 50 should he win the keys to Number 10. The home secretary is one of a dozen Conservatives vying to become the next prime minister. Writing in the Daily Mail, he said the public had voted for Brexit "in good faith" and MPs and the government have "a duty to get on and deliver on the result". "The voters have been asked their opinion more than enough times. Never in this country's history have we asked people to go to the polls a second time without implementing their verdict from the first," he said. "Another vote before we leave would be disastrous for trust in politics, and cause the kind of chaos that risks handing Jeremy Corbyn and his hard-left sup...
How the Airbnb boom is putting pressure on housing
Extras, Featured

How the Airbnb boom is putting pressure on housing

    Everyone knows that Google, Apple and Facebook are big, and that Uber and Netflix are fairly sizeable too. But far fewer people are aware just how enormous Airbnb and its rivals have become not in the boulevards and piazzas of foreign cities, but right here, in the UK. The scale of the growth is not only remarkable, but also largely untracked. We are blind to the amount of short-term letting that goes on, said Ian Adams, cabinet member for Westminster Council, which estimates that as many as one in 15 housing units in the borough are being let as short-term rentals. According to the last figures released by Airbnb, two million guests stayed at 64,000 London listings between 1 July 2016 and 1 July 2017, a growth of 49% on the previous year. When you factor in riva...
Shamima Begum was groomed and UK failed to protect her, says lawyer
Featured, United Kingdom

Shamima Begum was groomed and UK failed to protect her, says lawyer

    Islamic State bride Shamima Begum was "groomed and radicalised" due to a failure by UK authorities to protect her from the influence of extremists, the lawyer representing her family has said. The 19-year-old was a schoolgirl when she left her home in Bethnal Green, London, to join the terror cult in 2015, and made headlines when she resurfaced in a Syrian refugee camp earlier this year. Her bid to return to the UK following the birth of a baby boy in February failed to move Home Secretary Sajid Javid, who controversially stripped her of British citizenship. Mr Javid has now been accused of "human fly-tipping" by the lawyer representing the Begum family, who used a letter published in The Times to claim the Tory leadership hopeful used the case to further his caree...
Corbyn pledges Labour will back referendum on any Brexit deal
Featured, United Kingdom

Corbyn pledges Labour will back referendum on any Brexit deal

    Jeremy Corbyn has pledged that Labour will back a second referendum on any Brexit deal put to parliament, but warned of a deliberately inflamed divide as he sought to calm tempers among senior party figures. The Labour leader, who is visiting Dublin to meet Irish taoiseach Leo Varadkar on Thursday, said his party would do whatever is necessary to stop a disastrous no-deal outcome and said Labour would work across party lines to block a new Brexiter prime minister who could crash the UK out of the EU. Faced with the threat of no deal and a prime minister with no mandate, the only way out of the Brexit crisis ripping our country apart is now to go back to the people, he said, speaking ahead of his visit to Ireland. Let the people decide the country’s future, either i...
More than 750,000 EU citizens apply to stay in UK
Featured, United Kingdom

More than 750,000 EU citizens apply to stay in UK

    More than 750,000 applications from EU citizens wishing to continue living and working in the UK post-Brexit have been received by the Home Office. Home Secretary Sajid Javid said the first figures released on applications to the EU Settlement Scheme were hugely encouraging. The scheme allows millions of EU nationals in the UK to secure their right to stay in the country post-Brexit. More than three million people are eligible to apply to carry on living and working in the country. A report by the Home Office, also out today, found that two-thirds of people who were given their status by the end of April had received settled status, while a third were granted pre-settled status. Around 570,000 applications had been received from EU citizens in England, 30,000 from...
Why cabin crew greet you in this way
Featured, United Kingdom

Why cabin crew greet you in this way

    Calling all frequent globe-trotters, have you ever wondered why flight attendants greet you with their hands behind their back? Perhaps some of you have never even questioned the cabin crew’s stance. It’s surely just a polite gesture, right? Well, it’s been revealed that there’s a clever reason behind their upright posture. As passengers board the plane, members of the cabin crew team are required to count each person using a clicker. In order to be discreet while they smile and welcome you onboard, the nifty little device is held behind their back. Eagle-eyed passengers on long-haul flights may have even noticed that sometimes the aircraft team walk up and down the aisle using the clicking device before take-off. When they perform a head count, it’s actually mo...
London Bridge terrorists may have changed targets
Featured, London

London Bridge terrorists may have changed targets

    The London Bridge terrorists could have been targeting Oxford Street when they decided to divert on their way there, an inquest has heard. Eight people were killed and 48 were injured when Khuram Butt, 27, Rachid Redouane, 30, and Youssef Zaghba, 22, launched their van and knife attack on June 3 2017. The three men had mowed down pedestrians on London Bridge before rampaging through Borough Market, the Old Bailey heard. But the court was told a mobile phone was later found in their van with directions to London's busy shopping district. Acting Detective Chief Inspector Wayne Jolley said it was possible the attackers could have switched their attention to London Bridge "en route" from east London where they lived. The hearing also heard how the terrorists used 12i...
Gove to offer three million EU nationals British passports
Featured, United Kingdom

Gove to offer three million EU nationals British passports

    The environment secretary, who threw his hat into the ring for the Tory leadership at the weekend, will make the offer to EU nationals who were living in the UK at the time of the June 2016 referendum. The £1,330 naturalisation fee would be waived as a gesture of goodwill, Michael Gove's aides confirmed to Sky News. There are understood to be three million EU citizens in the UK who would be eligible, once they have been resident for five years. The proposal to be formally unveiled next week is a victory for Conservative MP Alberto Costa who has been campaigning for the rights of EU citizens post-Brexit for many months. The Home Office's settled status scheme, under which EU citizens must prove they have lived in the UK for five years or they stand to lose their ri...