United Kingdom

    Britons living all around the world are applying for Irish passports to safeguard their positions after Brexit, the country’s UK ambassador has revealed. Daniel Mulhall said many of a record 500,000 applications in the first half of 2017 had come from British people who fear losing their rights to live and work in the EU after withdrawal. That increase comes on the back of a 40 per cent rise in the number of Britons seeking Irish passports in the second half of 2016, immediately after the EU referendum. It’s risen very significantly, Mr Mulhall told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. We have to attribute that to the impact of last year’s referendum. On the 500,000 applications from around the world, the outgoing ambassador said: That’s an extraordinary number of passports well...

    People who witness acid attacks can have an important role in minimising the harm to the victim, according to doctors. Dr Johann Grundlingh, consultant emergency physician at Barts Health NHS Trust, along with emergency medicine trainee Dr Jessie Payne and Dr Taj Hassan, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, claim that people need to be educated on how to deal with injuries caused by acid and other noxious substances. The trio, writing in the British Medical Journal, say the latest menace on our streets is leaving victims blind or severely disfigured, and is causing physical and mental distress for many. They suggest that corrosive substances now seem to be a replacement for carrying knives. The comments come after a recent spike in corrosive substance atta...

    The boy who had sex with his teacher on a flight home from a school trip, did not want her to lose her job as a result of their fling, his father has said. Eleanor Wilson was struck off by a professional conduct panel after it emerged she had had oral and full sex with a 16-year-old pupil. The 28-year-old former physics teacher had already been sacked from her job at the school in Bristol in May 2016. A friend said the pupil, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had bragged about sleeping with Ms Wilson on a school charity trip to Swaziland. He had also shown them raunchy text messages between the pair, they said. He said they had sex a lot on the trip to Africa and on the flight back, they told the MailOnline. But the boy's father, who cannot be named for legal reasons,...

    A junior doctor was found dead at a hospital where he worked after he reportedly killed himself. The unnamed medic, a man in his 30s, is understood to have been discovered in the doctors' academy building at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton on Monday night. Colleagues were first on the scene before police were called, Somerset Live reports. The sudden death has been referred to a coroner. The Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust said it had been supporting the man before his death but is now asking the question if this support was all that we could possibly have given. A message reportedly sent to staff said the junior doctor had apparently taken his own life. The email from Chief executive Dr Sam Barrell and his deputy Peter Lewis, posted on the Health Service Journ...

    A gang who styled themselves as the musketeers has been found guilty of plotting a bomb and knife attack in the UK. Naweed Ali and Khobaib Hussain from Birmingham, and Mohibur Rahman and Tahir Aziz from Stoke on Trent, stood trial at the Old Bailey after counter terror police found a pipe bomb described as viable. MI5 and undercover police officers had set up a fake firm in the city called Hero Couriers which employed both Hussain and Ali who were being monitored after earlier terrorist related convictions. The Old Bailey in central London During Naweed Ali's first day working at the Birmingham firm, police searched his black Seat car and were surprised to find the pipe bomb alongside ammunition, a handgun and a meat cleaver with the word Kafir scratched into the blade. It...

    British Airways systems have crashed at UK airport this morning, causing chaos for passengers. Passengers faced long queues at airports following a glitch with the airline's check-in system. Disruption was reported at airports including Heathrow, Gatwick and London City. The airline said it was having to use a manual check-in process which takes longer than the computerised system. One passenger described the bag drop area at Heathrow Terminal 5 as almost at a standstill. BA issued a statement shortly before 9am stating that the problem had been resolved and passengers were being checked in as normal. It went on: We are sorry for the temporary check-in problems which caused some delays for our customers first thing this morning. This issue is now resolved and our staff are...

    The hijab has become an optional uniform part of the Police Scotland. as the force works to encourage Muslim women to join the service. Previously, officers could wear the religious headscarf with approval but it is now formally part of the force uniform. Police Scotland said it is working to make the force representative of the communities we serve. The formal announcement was welcomed by the Scottish Police Muslim Association (SPMA), an organisation set up in 2010 to build closer ties with Muslim communities. Chief Constable Phil Gormley said: "I am delighted to make this announcement and welcome the support from both the Muslim community, and the wider community, as well as police officers and staff. Like many other employers, especially in the public sector, we are wor...

    The Queen rules the house with her meal choices, including banning garlic from all meals at Buckingham Palace and refusing to travel without a slice of her favorite cake with her. And just when you thought Queen Elizabeth II couldn’t be more of a culinary inspiration we dug up yet another tidbit that will make you wish you could spend just one day in her royal shoes. According to a report by Business Insider, the Queen enjoys not one, not two, not three, but four, yes four cocktails a day. Just before lunch Queen Elizabeth reportedly has her first cocktail of the day, a gin and Dubonnet with a slice of lemon and a lot of ice, according to Darren McGrady, a former royal chef. Then, during lunch, McGrady revealed to The Telegraph that the Queen will pair her simple lunch of ...

    Diana’s privacy over videos of her speaking candidly about her troubled marriage was breached long ago, and not by the voice coach who made them, his lawyer has said. As friends and family of the late princess condemned Channel 4’s forthcoming documentary based on the tapes, Diana: In Her Own Words, Marcus Rutherford, lawyer for Peter Settelen, defended the decision, saying: He was not her priest, doctor, therapist or lawyer. The broadcaster has come under fierce criticism over its decision ahead of the 20th anniversary of Diana’s death to play excerpts from the tapes it has acquired for an undisclosed sum from Settelen, an actor turned voice coach. They were made in her Kensington Palace apartment between 1992 and 1993 to help her with public speaking. Channel 4 said the ...

    Two men have been jailed for their part in a conspiracy to sell 30 tonnes of horsemeat as beef. Andronicos Sideras, 55, one of the owners of meat manufacturer Dinos & Sons, mixed the products together before the mixture was sold to other firms in a plot that deceived consumers and food processors. Ulrik Nielsen, 58, the Danish owner of FlexiFoods, bought horsemeat and beef from suppliers across Europe and had it delivered to Dinos in Tottenham, north London. Nielsen's right-hand man, Alex Beech, 44, arranged for the shipments to be transferred and handled the accounting. The majority of the meat, including some from farm horses not sold for slaughter, made it into the food chain and, while the face value of the fraud was £177,869, police said the true cost had probably...