United Kingdom

    BUPA has revealed that 32 million Brits wake up worrying about their health at precisely 4.05am. The report, which surveyed 4,000 British adults, revealed that more than three fifths of us wake up in the middle of the night, concerned that something on our to-do list hasn’t been checked off. So, what’s keeping us counting sheep? The most common things are overdue dental check-ups (25 per cent) losing weight (23 per cent) and talking to someone about stress or a mental health issue (20 per cent). “Modern influences such as busy lifestyles and social media pressures are some of the contributing factors to these being ranked so highly on the worry scale," explains Dr Luke James, Medical Director at Bupa Health Clinics. These were closely followed by booking a GP appointment f...

    This is the face of a physics teacher who had sex with a student in a plane toilet during a school trip. Eleanor Wilson, 28, who worked at a school in Bristol, engaged in drunken sexual activity with the pupil while returning home from a school trip to visit the Large Hadron Collider Geneva in 2015. Miss Wilson, who had trained as a Royal Navy Reservist, engaged in oral sex with the pupil in the toilet cubicle and then had full sex with him, a disciplinary panel found. Giving evidence, the unnamed pupil told the hearing the Miss Wilson was intoxicated during the encounter and admitted drinking five miniature bottles of wine himself on the flight. Their relationship continued for several months and they communicated by text message and met outside school, with Pupil A,...

    Consumers have less than three months to spend, bank or donate their old £1 coins before shops can refuse them. People are being urged to dig out their old coins which stop being legal tender on 15 October. The warning about the looming deadline comes as the Treasury announced there are now more new 12-sided pound coins in circulation than their predecessor. Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, Andrew Jones, who is visiting a coin storage facility in Belfast on Wednesday, said To have more new coins in circulation than old at this point is great news. However, with less than 100 days to go, the clock is ticking. We are urging the public to spend, bank or donate their old pound coins and asking businesses who are yet to do so, to update their systems before the old coin cea...

    A student has accused British authorities of racial discrimination after her family was forced to miss her graduation because they were refused entry to the country. Aster Abebe’s family were due to fly in from the US to see her graduate from the University of York on 15 July but their trip was derailed when they were told they were unable to board a flight from Brussels at the last moment. The 21-year-old said her extended family, who are all of Ethiopian descent, had spent a year planning the trip to the UK but it was ruined when three of her cousins were turned away at the boarding gate after being told UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) would not allow them into the country. The party of six, including her aunt, father and four cousins, had planned to take a Ryanair fligh...

David Blanchflower: Professor of economics at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, and member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee from June 2006 to May 2009 I keep waiting for the good news that the Brexiters told us would come once the vote to leave the EU was in. The vote was an unexpected shock to the markets that was always going to take a while to work its way into the main economic data. A year on, Britain is the slowest-growing country in both the G7 and the EU28. In the first quarter of 2017, the UK grew 0.2%, whereas the eurozone grew by 0.6%. As a result of the Brexit vote and the economic uncertainty it unleashed, Britain is fast becoming the sick man of Europe. That seems unlikely to change soon. Once again this month, there is only thin economic gruel in the data. ...

    has insisted he did not promise to write off student debt as he campaigned for the youth vote in the general election. The Labour leader has faced claims he used students as election fodder by indicating he would wipe out the sums they owed for their education. During the run-up to the June 8 vote, Mr Corbyn said he wanted to look at ways to reduce, ameliorate, lengthen the period of paying it off or some other means of reducing that debt burden. In the interview with NME, he added: And I don’t see why those that had the historical misfortune to be at university during the £9,000 period should be burdened excessively compared to those that went before or those that come after. I will deal with it. Mr Corbyn said the comments had not been a commitment to erase student debt ...

    Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May could face demands to quit by MPs from her Conservative Party. Grassroots members of the Conservative Party have called for Theresa May to quit by Christmas as dissenters eye David Davis as a possible replacement for the Prime Minister. A survey seen by The Observerfound the majority of Tory members either could not choose a successor to Ms May, supporting the belief of many commentators that a relative unknown could step out of the party’s shadows to become leader. The majority of those surveyed do not want Ms May to stand down, with just 22 per cent calling on her to quit and 71 per cent saying she should stay on as leader, fearful of the possibility of a general election. Our most-read, most-interesting, most-important stories of the...

    If your driving licence have this hidden code you run the risk of a fine If you're a safe, law-abiding driver than you'd be safe to assume you'll never incur a fine or penalty points, right? Well, not necessarily because it turns out that the back of driving licence holds a hidden code that could mean you're caught out without even realising it. The code in question comes under Section 12 on the reverse of your licence together with various information codes. One of the most common codes is '01' and it relates to the quality of your eyesight as stated by you at the time of receiving your licence, The Express reports. If you declared struggling with eyesight, or even having minor sight defects, then on signing for your driving licence you will have legally agreed to wear gl...

    Water was thrown over two women standing outside a mosque in an apparent fake acid attack police are treating as racially aggravated assault. The women, who were wearing traditional head coverings, were attacked as they waited outside the Bashir Ahmed Masjid in Southampton on Tuesday. CCTV footage shows a black car slowing down next to them before speeding away. The pair react in horror before realising they are unhurt. Five acid attacks in 90-minutes hit London The mosque, in the southern city's Portswood district, has been forced to issue a safety warning to worshippers. Police described the women as understandably shaken while on Facebook the mosque shared their fears that a subsequent attack could involve acid. It follows a string of acid attacks, including five commit...

    Lightning storms have lashed the south-east of England, hours after a village in Cornwall was cut off by flash floods. A yellow weather warning was put in place for London and the south east, as forecasters warned of frequent lightning. Thunderstorms are moving towards the London area. Intense rain, gusty winds, hail and frequent lightning all possible, the Met Office tweeted in the evening. As the storm rolled in, the lightning strikes were soon trending on Twitter as users, including comedian Bill Bailey, shared dramatic images of the storm. Earlier in the day, the severe weather had battered the south west of the country. Fire crews raced to the small Cornish seaside town of Coverack amid multiple reports of flooding as ferocious thunderstorms moved over the area. Local...