United Kingdom

    The High Court has blocked a mass legal action against Google over claims that it collected sensitive personal data from more than four million iPhone users. Mr Justice Warby, sitting in London, announced his decision on Monday. The litigation was brought by campaign group Google You Owe Us, led by former Which? director Richard Lloyd. The tech giant faced claims that it bypassed privacy settings on Apple iPhone handsets between August 2011 and February 2012 and used data to divide people into categories for advertisers. The campaign group hoped to win at least £1 billion in compensation for an estimated 4.4 million users of the device in the UK. At the first hearing of the case in London in May, lawyers for Mr Lloyd told the court that information collected by Go...

    More than a third of schoolgirls have been sexually harassed in public while wearing their school uniform. A survey of 1,004 girls aged between 14 and 21 found that 35% had received unwanted sexual attention or contact, including being groped, stared at, cat-called and wolf-whistled. One in eight of those were aged 12 or younger when they experienced this for the first time. The poll by Plan International UK also found that one in seven had been followed and 8% said they had been filmed or photographed by a stranger without their permission or had someone take a photo up their school skirt. More than a third of the girls said they had been sexually harassed while travelling to or from school. Jess from Glasgow said she was about 15 when a man on a train tried to p...

    Brexit has had a massive bearing on UK energy bills and consumers face further price rises if the pound falls further, according to a BP-backed energy startup. Steven Day, a co-founder of Pure Planet, an app-based renewable energy supplier, warned that the UK’s departure from the EU was the biggest political issue facing the energy sector at the moment. The very short-term stuff is the fog of Brexit. That is causing a major problem in terms of what costs consumers will face in 2019. If the pound gets devalued further, energy prices will go up again. That is unequivocal, he said. The UK only imports a small amount of electricity, around 6% of supplies, but imports more than half its gas, meaning the country pays more for the fuel when sterling weakens. The pound has...

    The Queen has made a private donation to help survivors of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia. It is believed about 200,000 people are in desperate need of help following the natural disaster. The death toll currently stands at 1,649, and a further 265 people still missing. Disasters Emergency Committee's fundraising appeal raised £6million in just one day as people rushed to help those affected by the tragedy. Today Buckingham Palace announced the Queen has made a private donation to the cause. Earlier this week she sent a message to the president of Indonesia Joko Widodo. It read: I was extremely sorry to hear about the terrible earthquake and tsunami in Sulawesi at the end of last week, particularly given these events happened so soon after t...

    Theresa May will make a daring pitch to disgruntled Labour voters in which she will urge them to consider supporting the Conservatives. The prime minister will set out a series of measures to build a country that works for everyone including securing the best Brexit deal. Writing in The Observer, Mrs May said: I believe that the principles which guide us - security for families and the country, freedom under the rule of law, and opportunity for everyone can unite our people and help build a better future for our country. In a move designed to capitalise on recent splits in the Labour party under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, Mrs May will say the Conservatives offer a positive and optimistic vision. Antisemitism has grown, the party's response to threats to our ...

    Theresa May has drawn up plans for a secret charm offensive aimed at persuading dozens of Labour MPs to back her Brexit deal even if it costs Jeremy Corbyn the chance to be prime minister, the Guardian has learned. Senior Conservatives say they have already been in private contact with a number of Labour MPs over a period of several months, making the case that the national interest in avoiding a no-deal outcome is more important than forcing a general election by defeating the government on May’s Brexit deal. Now, with talks in Brussels entering their frantic final phase, the prime minister and her party whips are stepping up efforts to win backing for a compromise deal that one minister described as a British blancmange. They are convinced they will need Labour v...

    UK house prices unexpectedly dropped at the fastest pace for almost six months in September, according to Halifax, as the number of homes for sale in 2018 fell to a decade low. Britain’s biggest mortgage lender said the average price of a home in Britain dropped to £225,995 last month, down 1.4% from the level recorded in August. The price of a home remained 2.5% higher than a year ago. City economists had forecast month-on-month growth of 0.2% in September. The latest snapshot of the housing market a little more than six months before Britain leaves the EU suggests sluggish levels of demand for home buying amid the political uncertainty of Brexit. Economists said the national picture painted by Halifax obscured some regional differences. London house prices are f...

    During his visit to Brighton on Wednesday, the Duke met a group of pupils who were showing off their flossing skills the dance move made popular by the highly addictive game, which has an age limit of 12. One Year 4 boy said: Harry came over and talked to us and asked us about Fortnite. His classmate, doing an impression for the cameras, interjected: He was like this: What is wrong with parents? Another pupil added: He asked how old we are. We said that we were eight and he said, You guys shouldn't really play Fortnite. Harry was seen crouching down and talking to the youngsters from Queen's Park Primary School, encouraging them to find other games to play like Minecraft. Harry and his wife Meghan spent the day in Sussex, touring their namesake county and visiting...

    Ireland’s prime minister has urged Theresa May to publish her revised Brexit border plan as soon as possible so the UK and EU can seal a Brexit deal in November. Leo Varadkar said the UK must not delay until a few days before a crunch summit on 17-18 October because the EU needed time to respond to it in a meaningful way if talks were to advance. We want there to be decisive progress at the October summit, so that allows us to seal a deal in November, he said. The Irish leader was speaking to journalists in between a series of meetings with EU leaders in Brussels, as exit talks enter a critical fortnight before the make-or-break October summit. Donald Tusk, the president of the European council, piled pressure on the British government to strike a compromise and cr...

    A teacher accused of having sex with a 16-year-old pupil in a plane toilet admitted to police she had flirted with him, a jury has heard. Eleanor Wilson, 29, told detectives she had given the boy her mobile telephone number and sent him flirty texts but said allegations she had had sex with him made her sick. Wilson told police the alleged incident on the plane did not happen and that during the flight she had instead been looking after students who were ill before falling asleep. The prosecution at Bristol crown court has claimed that the intimate relationship continued following their return from the school trip. Wilson allegedly informed the teenager she was pregnant with their child but was going to have an abortion. Wilson told police: The whole time I thought...