United Kingdom

    While you may assume her Royal Majesty the Queen enjoys fine dining every day, this isn't always the case. According to The Telegraph, twice a week the head chef to the royal household, Mark Flanagan, provides the Queen with menu suggestion which she can approve by ticking off or crossing out. However, Darren McGrady, a former chef in the royal kitchens, said that the Queen is not a foodie. She eats to live, unlike Prince Philip who loves to eat and would stand and talk food all day. When she dines on her own, he added, she’s very disciplined. No starch is the rule. We took a look at the Queen's typical day of eating and drinking, from the tea she drinks and biscuits she eats when she wakes up to her low-carb lunches, her nightly glass of Champagne, and penchant for chocol...

    Sir Vince Cable has said he still believes there is a significant possibility that Brexit will not happen. The Liberal Democrat leader told an audience at the Edinburgh International Book Festival that he stood by the view that the UK might not leave the European Union (EU). Sir Vince said a combination of the politics of Brexit unravelling and the sheer practical difficulties could stop UK Government plans to leave the bloc. The former business secretary told the audience in the Scottish capital: I think there is more than a possibility that it may never happen. I'm not saying it definitely won't but there is a significant possibility. The MP for Twickenham, who lost his seat in 2015 but was reelected in this year's snap general election, said the Government was dependent...

    Britain's most advanced warship ever will arrive in her home dock today for the first time. The £3 billion HMS Queen Elizabeth is expected to arrive in Portsmouth on Wednesday, a day earlier than previously expected, after weather conditions had formerly prevented the exact date from being set. It is the largest aircraft carrier ever to be built in Britain, and is expected to be the Navy's flagship craft for at least 50 years. The 280-metre vessel weighs 65,000 tonnes but can travel up to 500 miles a day. It was previously forecast to reach its Hampshire base between August 17-22, after setting out from Scotland's Rosyth dockyard in June. More than 60 Royal Navy sailors and Royal Marines took part in a training exercise aboard the American USS George HW Bush earlier this m...

    North Korean leader Kim Jong Un salutes at a parade in Pyongyang, North Korea. A new Korean War is now a real possibility, partly because Donald Trump is so volatile and impulsive, a leading think tank has warned the British government. Civil servants were urged by Malcolm Chalmers, Deputy Director General at the Royal United Services Institute, to begin preparations immediately for the possible outbreak of war between the US and North Korea. Tensions between the two countries have been steadily increasing in recent months, with Mr Trump most recently saying the US was “locked and loaded” in the face of North Korean missile threats against Guam. As a close ally of the US, the UK would most likely be asked to provide assistance in the event of a conflict on the Korean penin...

    A Japanese fungus which is resistant to drugs has spread to at least 55 hospitals across the UK, public health officials have warned. NHS trusts have been ordered to carry out deep cleans of all affected areas after more than 200 patients were found to be infected or carrying the potentially fatal pathogen. Infection experts are alarmed by the spread of the fungus, which has been likened to a superbug because it has already proved resistant to the main three classes of drug treatment. The fungus, called Candida auris, was first identified in Japan in 2009, in the ear canal of a 70-year-old woman. Since then it has spread rapidy around the globe, emerging in at least five continents, with the first UK case detected in 2013. Healthy patients can usually fend off the fungus, ...

    A charity that made unauthorised payments and failed to keep proper records of decision-making is the first to have received an official warning from the Charity Commission. The Derbyshire based National Hereditary Breast Cancer Helpline was set up by Wendy Watson in 1996 after she underwent a pre-emptive double mastectomy the same procedure that Hollywood star Angelina Jolie had four years earlier, when she was 37. Figures from the accounts show that in 2014/15 the charity's total expenses were £909,634 of which only three per cent, or £27,403, was listed as being spent on charitable activities, with £874,539 set down as fundraising expenses and other costs. The following financial year, total expenses were £947,824, of which £929,975 was spent on charitable activities. T...

    Ukip’s decision to allow an anti Islam campaigner onto the leadership ballot has threatened to split the party in two, with a number of high profile members threatening to quit if she wins the race to succeed Paul Nuttall. The selection of Anne Marie Waters, who founded the Sharia Watch pressure group, has polarised the party, with former leader Nigel Farage warning that Ukip will be finished if it places Islam at the heart of its agenda. Other Ukip members are understood to share Mr Farage’s concerns, with several pointing to Paul Nuttall’s divisive burka ban during the general election as evidence that anti-Islamic policies are harming the party’s fortunes. Ms Water’s announcement as candidate has already resulted in senior official Mike Hookem resigning his position as ...

    David Davis backed a City high-flyer’s appeal against a huge fine for insider dealing a month after accepting a lucrative position at one of his companies, the Observer has established. The Brexit secretary has been a staunch ally of star banker Ian Hannam for many years. Both men were members of 21 SAS Reserve Regiment and Hannam donated £2,000 to Davis’s Tory leadership campaign in 2005. But their relationship deepened in 2012 when Davis criticised the Financial Services Authority in its pursuit of the City’s leading dealmaker, who was forced to leave his job with JP Morgan after being found guilty of market abuse. The £450,000 fine imposed by the FSA (replaced by the Financial Conduct Authority or FCA in 2013) was one of the largest handed down to an individual and was ...

    A CCTV image, received via the Metropolitan Police, shows a male jogger on Putney Bridge in London. The man arrested in the jogger rage attack in London is a 50-year-old American who is a partner at a private equity firm in an affluent section of the city, according to a report. Eric Bellquist was detained on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm after a 33-year-old woman was bumped into the path of a bus on a bridge, the London Evening Standard reported. The graduate of the University of Colorado at Boulder has denied being the jogger saying he was in the US at the time of the May 5 incident on the Putney Bridge, according to the paper. Bellquist works for Hutton Collins Partners, which owns restaurant chains, and sits on the chains’ boards as a non-executive director...

    Prince Harry ’s girlfriend Meghan Markle has won her first seal of approval from the Royal Family. But the American telly star has been warned that joining The Firm, as the royals are nicknamed, will be nerve-racking. Speaking exclusively to the Sunday People , Zara Phillips husband Mike Tindall is the first member of the royals to publicly comment on Harry’s year-long relationship with the 36-year-old beauty from the TV legal drama Suits. Ex-England rugby star Mike, married to Harry’s cousin, is confident the actress will survive the same intense public scrutiny that he experienced after joining The Firm. Mike, 38, a commoner like Meghan, said: “It comes with a lot of history and the family that it is. It’s obviously nerve-racking. But she has been under enough scru...