United Kingdom

    Two ambulances have been damaged by bricks thrown from a Birmingham overpass in a dangerous and idiotic attack. Authorities are appealing for information about the incident which took place on Borchfield Road, at the junction of Aston Lane, between 2.30pm and 3pm on Tuesday. Nathan Hudson, emergency services operations delivery director for West Midlands Ambulance Service, said: It is hard to put into words how angry and disappointing these incidents are. Throwing a brick at any vehicle is dangerous and idiotic, but when it is an ambulance responding to an emergency, it beggars belief. The first ambulance suffered a cracked windshield while racing to help a patient with breathing difficulties, forcing it to stop and causing a delay to paramedics delivering help. A...

    Luisa Cieslak said the dog began attacking her pet poodle Cha Cha after it entered through the open back door of her house in Wood Green, north London on 15 September. As the 61-year-old tried to protect her pet the creature turned on her, sinking its teeth into her hands and leaving deep wounds. Cha Cha died from her injuries. Ms Cieslak, who suffers with angina, ileostomy and diabetes, told The Sun that it was the most terrifying moment of my life. She added: I thought the dog was going to kill me. After suffering cuts and ligament damage to her hands, Ms Cieslak said she didn't believe they would ever be the same again. She added that her 98-year-old mother was hospitalised with shock, while her daughter Belinda who was also present at the time of the attack ...

    A pensioner has been found alive and well in a care home five days after a fire tore through the rest of the building. The 74-year-old man was sitting in his apartment in the Washington DC complex and is expected to survive. He was found by a team assessing the damage to the four-storey retirement block, which had been home to more than 100 elderly people. Mayor Muriel Bowser said: The resident was found by crews hired by the building owners to evaluate the safety of the structure. It appears that, based on the report that I got from the building workers, that he was sitting in his apartment. One rescuer said: And he wanted to walk out, but we put him in a chair. For someone who has been in that situation for as long as he has, he seemed in incredibly good shape....

    Labour is likely to vote down any withdrawal agreement Theresa May reaches with the EU, even if the alternative she presents is crashing out without a deal, the party’s Brexit spokesman has said. Keir Starmer predicted the deal the prime minister was likely to secure in the coming weeks would fail Labour’s six tests, so the party was preparing to reject it in parliament. In a speech to Labour’s conference in Liverpool on Tuesday, Starmer will formalise the party’s resolve to try to scupper any agreement that amounts to a blind Brexit. He will say: If Theresa May brings back a deal that fails our tests and that looks increasingly likely Labour will vote against it. No ifs, no buts. On Today, Starmer rejected May’s argument that the alternative to the deal she hoped ...

    Queen Elizabeth II during her visit to the Chichester Festival Theatre in Chichester Queen Elizabeth II was spotted feeding a horse last weekend while on her way to a hunting trip with her friends. Her Majesty stopped her Range Rover to feed a chestnut horse with a handful of treats. Kat Clementine, a journalist for Express, said that this is the Queen’s last week in Balmoral since her summer vacation is coming to an end. During her recent sighting, the Queen was photographed in her grey anorak, a silk headscarf, and a pair of sunglasses. She also inspected her horses on the way back from having lunch at Glen Cova with the Royal Shooting Party. On her way to the hunting trip in the grounds of Balmoral, the monarch was seen giving her chauffeur a day off. She was th...

    Laura Plummer from Hull, who is currently held in an Egyptian jail after being accused of drug smuggling A British woman jailed in Egypt for taking hundreds of painkillers into the country has lost an appeal against her conviction, it has been reported. Laura Plummer, 34, was sentenced to three years in prison on Boxing Day last year after she was found to be carrying 290 Tramadol tablets in her suitcase. The shop worker had hoped Egypt's appeal court would accept she had no way of knowing the pills were illegal in the country, but judges in Cairo upheld her conviction and jail term, The Sun reported. Ms Plummer, from Hull, told the paper: I thought the appeal judges would see sense and realise I couldn't have known the tablets were banned. It's just so absurd. T...

    EU leaders have insisted a Brexit deal remains possible despite flatly rejecting the Chequers proposal put forward by Theresa May during an acrimonious summit in Salzburg. The prime minister endured a brutal reception from the national newspapers upon her return to London, with her treatment in the Austrian city widely seen as a humiliation. Amid the fallout, Mrs May used a surprise statement in Downing Street on Friday to issue an ultimatum to the bloc to accept her strategy or come up with counter proposals. She declared the UK would continue preparations for a no-deal Brexit, acknowledging that the two parties had reached an impasse over two big problems in negotiations. The address was commended by senior Conservatives and Brexiteer MPs, although the latter ha...

    Britain’s first unmanned trains have sparked a safety row as politicians and union officials voiced concerns about football crowds on match days. The new Glasgow Subway trains were announced to much fanfare this week, designed to be driverless and completely unstaffed by 2021. As well as having no drivers, they will also have no door staff. While some lauded this as the future of transport, others worried that passenger safety was not being prioritised. Pat McIlvogue, a regional officer for the Unite union, said there were worries about overcrowding and rowdy passenger behaviour on match days. He told The Telegraph: Match days are a well-used situation and how they're going to manage the influx of traffic and people piling into doors when the doors are shut, what ...

    Comcast said its bid came with a series of legally binding commitments on Sky ownership and UK investment Comcast has triumphed in the auction to buy Sky plc, the owner of Sky News, for £29.7bn in the biggest takeover ever seen in Europe's media industry. The US giant's victory follows a dramatic shoot-out with US entertainment giant 21st Century Fox in a rare three-round auction overseen by the Takeover Panel. The news ends 21 months of uncertainty for Sky over its ownership. Both companies want Sky to help them compete more effectively with the new wave of online entertainment providers, including streaming services provided by the likes of Netflix and Amazon Video, who sell their content directly to viewers. Comcast in particular wants Sky to give it a presence...

    Heavy rain and strong winds could put lives at risk today, with large parts of the country set to be battered by extreme weather, forecasters have warned. The Met Office has issued a yellow warning covering southern England, Wales, the Midlands, Yorkshire and North West England. It says there is a danger to life as a result of flying debris. The wind and rain are likely to cause chaos on roads and rail networks, and homes and businesses will be at risk of flooding. The warning is in place between 6am and midnight on Sunday, during which time up to 50mm of rain could fall in some areas. A Met Office statement said: During Sunday there is the potential for a developing weather system to track across southern UK, which is likely to bring a swathe of persistent and a...