United Kingdom

    Theresa May has four days to salvage Brexit deal or faces leadership threat The British prime minister reportedly has until the end of the week to rescue the Brexit deal scuppered by the Democratic Unionist Party party propping up her government, or face a leadership challenge. Theresa May will hold urgent talks on Tuesday (5 December) with DUP leader, Arlene Foster, who vetoed the Brexit deal over concerns that Northern Ireland would have a different post-Brexit status than the rest of the UK. Before opposing the deal on Monday (4 December), it emerged that DUP leader Foster only knew the outline of the Brexit document, but not the wording that specified how Northern Ireland could effectively remain in the customs union and the single market. And while the prime minister ...

    Prince Harry and fiancée Meghan Markle made their first official visit together since getting engaged on Friday in Nottingham. The couple were greeted by royal fans and well-wishers during their visit, with one young woman in particular revealing a touching anecdote about bride-to-be Meghan. Emily Harland, 21, from Australia told the Nottingham Post that the American actress made a sweet gesture on the cold day. Emily, a student at Coventry University, told the paper that when Harry discovered her hands were chilly before their handshake, Meghan pulled a surprise item from her pocket to help. Emily said: He was going to shake my hand but my hands were cold and Meghan reached into her pocket and gave me a heat pack. I said thank you. I thought they were really sweet. Meghan...

    A mum says her teenage daughter discovered a help me note hidden inside an Amazon Christmas delivery. Kim Dorsett said April, 13, found the words scrawled onto an invoice inside a £30 make-up advent calendar ordered by her dad Philip. PMP is the recruitment agency used by Amazon to fill jobs at its distribution sites. The discovery comes just over a week after a Sunday Mirror investigation exposed shocking working conditions inside Amazon's huge warehouse in Tilbury, Essex. Our exposé found exhausted warehouse staff were falling asleep on their feet as they chased impossible targets. A parcel is expected to be packed and ready every 30 seconds. Kim, 32, from Bolton, Greater Manchester, said: I want to know if it's a prank or if they have people in sweatshops. We asked Apri...

    Meena got chickenpox, measles and the mumps in prison. She was born there, nursed there and weaned there. Now 11 years old, she has spent her entire life in prison and will probably spend the rest of her childhood there as well. The girl has never committed a crime, but her mother, Shirin Gul, is a convicted serial killer serving a life sentence, and under Afghan prison policy she can keep her daughter with her until she turns 18. Meena was even conceived in prison, and has never been out, not even for a brief visit. She has never seen a television set, she said, and has no idea what the world outside the walls looks like. Her plight is extreme, but not unique. In the women’s wing of the Nangarhar provincial prison here, she is one of 36 children jailed with their mothers,...

    Theresa May was plunged into a new crisis on Saturday night after the government’s social mobility adviser revealed he and his team were quitting, warning the prime minister was failing over her pledge to build a fairer Britain. In a major blow to No 10, Alan Milburn, the former Labour cabinet minister who chairs the government’s social mobility commission, said he and all three of his fellow commissioners were walking out including leading conservative Gillian Shephard. The move will be seen as a direct challenge to May’s Downing Street vow to place fairness and social justice at the heart of her premiership. In his resignation letter, seen by the Observer, Milburn warns that dealing with Brexit means that the government does not seem to have the necessary bandwidth to en...

    Yes, we're still gawking at Meghan Markle's stunning diamond ring. But we've moved on - for a minute, at least - to Prince Harry's unusual hand gesture in their engagement photos outside Kensington palace. In many of the photos, you can see Harry's hand tucked nicely into his suit jacket. And this isn't the first time that Harry has been spotted doing this from movie premieres to engagements with America's First Ladies, Harry's nervous tick (or intentional gesture) has made an appearance. So, this left us and many others wondering: Can we chalk this up to a bad habit or does it have a deeper meaning? Traci Brown, body language expert and author of Persuasion Point: Body Language and Speech Influence, told GoodHousekeeping.com that Harry's behavior may be a combination of t...

    Irish citizens in Britain could lose their right to live, work and get NHS services in the country after Brexit, according to a new report that warns that the special status enjoyed by thousands of Irish in the UK is far from secure. Laws governing their status are a “patchwork” that could fall apart under post-Brexit political and practical pressures, says the report, which comes before Monday’s launch of a campaign urging the UK government to pass legislation that would guarantee the longstanding rights of Irish citizens. The document, drawn up by legal experts on behalf of the Irish Traveller Movement (ITM), concludes that many of the rights currently enjoyed by Irish nationals in the UK exist only because they are EU citizens. It warns that the Irish might be caught up...

    Christians should pray for Prince George to be gay in order to force the Church of England to support same-sex marriage, a senior Anglican minister has said. The Very Rev Kelvin Holdsworth wrote in a blog post that Christians should hope that the Lord blesses George with the love of a fine young gentleman to help the progression of LGBTQ+ rights in the church. He wrote: If people don’t want to engage in campaigning in this way, they do in England have another unique option, which is to pray in the privacy of their hearts (or in public if they dare) for the Lord to bless Prince George with a love, when he grows up, of a fine young gentleman. A royal wedding might sort things out remarkably easily, though we might have to wait 25 years for that to happen. Who knows whether t...

    The little-known Italian brand Parosh experienced the greatest PR boost in its 25 year history on Monday, when American actress Meghan Markle chose to wear one of its green fitted dresses to announce her engagement to Prince Harry. As thousands of fans tuned in again this morning to see the couple arrive for their first day of duties in Nottingham, many of the world’s designers will have also been on standby again, just in case the royal-to-be has been shopping, incognito, in one of their stores. Almost overnight, a thumbs up from Markle has become the most sought-after endorsement a brand can get and today’s chosen ones included a mix of her go-to American labels, with some newly discovered British brands too. The double-breasted military maxi coat by American outerwear l...

    Benefit fraud has reached record levels after it rose by £200 million in the space of a year, the Department of Work and Pensions has admitted. Fraud swallowed up almost £2.1 billion of the department’s total budget of £174 billion the equivalent of £40 million per week. It means that the DWP now loses almost twice as much money to fraud as the entire budget of the Foreign Office, which is £1.1 billion per year. MPs said David Gauke, the Work and Pensions Secretary, now had questions to answer over why the figures have gone up despite repeated assurances that they would be brought under control. Figures released by the DWP show that in 2016/17 the total amount of money lost to overpayments which counts both fraud and errors by staff stood at £3.6 billion, up £300 million f...