United Kingdom

    Angela Merkel and François Hollande have responded curtly but defiantly after Donald Trump cast further doubt on his commitment to Nato and gave strong hints that he would not support EU cohesion once in office. We Europeans have our fate in our own hands, the German chancellor said after the publication of the US president-elect’s interviews with the Times and German tabloid Bild. He has presented his positions once more. They have been known for a while. My positions are also known. Shutterstock Donald Trump transition meetings, New York, USA - 13 Jan 2017 In the Times interview, Trump complained that Nato had become obsolete because it hadn’t taken care of terror  a comment later welcomed by the Kremlin. He suggested that other European countries would follow in Britain...

    Theresa May will unveil 12 negotiating objectives for the UK government at a major speech in central London on Tuesday (17 January) as the prime minister rejects a half-in, half-out Brexit. The Conservative premier will also stress that she wants the EU to succeed after the UK's split from the economic and political bloc, while calling for a new and equal partnership with just months to go before Brexit talks begin. We will continue to be reliable partners, willing allies and close friends. We want to buy your goods, sell you ours, trade with you as freely as possible, and work with one another to make sure we are all safer, more secure and more prosperous through continued friendship, May will say. Theresa May She will add: We seek a new and equal partnership between an i...

    Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, is to land more than £15m from an education business he helped set up, even as he fights an increasingly intense political battle over the NHS’s latest winter crisis. Sky News has learnt that Hotcourses, a listings service set up by Mr Hunt and his business partner Mike Elms in 1996, is expected to announce this week that it has been sold for between £30m and £35m. A deal was said by a legal source to be close to being signed on Sunday evening. Filings at Companies House suggest that Mr Hunt owns approximately 48% of the shares in Hotcourses, meaning a takeover worth £35m would yield a payday for the cabinet minister worth £16.8m. The latest register of MPs' interests says only that he holds more than 15% of the business. The prospective ...

    Meghan Markle's half-brother has reportedly been arrested after allegedly holding a gun to a woman's head following a drunken argument. Thomas Markle Jr was arrested late on Thursday (12 January) in Grants Pass, Oregon. He was taken into custody after an alleged altercation with a woman that escalated into violence. The 50-year-old was charged with menacing, pointing a firearm at another person, and unlawful use of a weapon, according to public police records. Deputy Jill Elardi, of Josephine County Sheriff's Office, confirmed the arrest and charges saying: He was arrested at 11pm on January 12 and released on Friday at 10am. He will be going to court for it. He was released after 3am after his ex-wife Tracy Dooley posted bail of $1,500 (£1,200). "When he called he sounded...

    Two million people were freed from Islamic State rule in 2016, the Defence Secretary has said. Sir Michael Fallon said substantial progress has been made in driving the terror group, which is also known as Daesh, out of Iraq. The city of Mosul, Islamic State's last stronghold in Iraq, is expected to fall to local forces this year. US-backed militias from the Syrian Democratic Forces are also encircling the city of Raqqa, which is Islamic State's de-facto capital. Estimates suggest that about 25,000 IS fighters were killed over the course of 2016, and the group is now in control of less than 10% of Iraqi territory. Officials say IS fighters have become increasingly disorganised recently - with militants resorting to desperate tactics such as hiding in hospitals, and burning...

    The chancellor, Philip Hammond, has said Britain could transform its economic model into that of a corporate tax haven if the EU fails to provide it with an agreement on market access after Brexit. In an interview with the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, Hammond commented that if Britain was left closed off from European markets after leaving the EU, it would consider leaving behind a European-style social model, with European-style taxation systems, European-style regulation systems and become something different. Asked to clarify his remark, the chancellor told his German interviewers: We could be forced to change our economic model and we will have to change our model to regain competitiveness. And you can be sure we will do whatever we have to do. The British people ...

    The Qur’an reading lead to a backlash with the cathedral saying it had received offensive messages on social media. The leader of the Scottish Anglican church has said he was deeply distressed at the widespread offence caused by a reading from the Qur’an at a service to mark the feast of the Epiphany at St Mary’s Cathedral in Glasgow. David Chillingworth, bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane, and primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, said in a statement: We also deeply regret the widespread abuse which has been received by the cathedral community. He has launched a review of interfaith work. His comments followed a row over the inclusion in the service of passages from the Qur’an read in Arabic from the cathedral’s lectern by a local Muslim student. The cathedral ...

    Theresa May is expected to announce the UK is prepared to leave the single market, the customs union and European Court of Justice. The PM’s willingness to give up membership of the single market will be made clear in a major speech at Lancaster House in London on Tuesday, according to the Sun on Sunday. Her red lines will be an end to free movement from the EU and clearance to hold bilateral trade talks with other countries, which it is thought will not be achievable while still in the single market. A Downing Street source told Sky News: The issue of the single market and the customs union will be answered on Tuesday when the Prime Minister sets out her negotiations. Pro-EU campaigner MP Anna Soubry has described the anticipated move as "grossly irresponsible, if true. T...

    The NHS is in the danger zone under the Tories and Labour would nationalising failing care homes to protect their elderly patients, Jeremy Corbyn will say. Corbyn will deny he speaks about the health service because it is a comfort zone for the party, as it wallows in the polls behind the Tories, and say he would provide a long-term funding solution to bring the NHS out of crisis. He will also pledge that a Labour government would consider taking failing care homes into public ownership, saying it was an “outrage” that a fifth of homes lacked the staff to properly look after residents. In a speech in London to the Fabian Society on Saturday, the Labour leader will say: Week after week at Prime Minister’s Questions, I’ve been challenging Theresa May over the crisis in the N...

    Theresa May has expressed frustration at the failure of more GP surgeries to offer extended opening hours amid intensifying pressure on NHS hospital services. The Prime Minister made clear her determination to press ahead with plans for surgeries in England to open 8am to 8pm seven days a week unless they can prove the demand is not there from patients. There is increasing exasperation among ministers that lack of GP appointments is driving patients to seek treatment in hard-pressed hospital accident and emergency departments. The director of acute care for NHS England Professor Keith Willett has recently estimated that 30% of the patients attending A&E would be better cared for elsewhere in the system. Meanwhile the latest official figures showed more than four in 10 ...