United Kingdom

    David Cameron has rejected calls to take in refugee children who have become separated from their parents and travelled to Europe. A Downing Street adviser told Sky News they did not want to create "a magnet" to attract more migrants to cross the Mediterranean. However, Britain has offered to resettle more vulnerable children from refugee camps near Syria and offer some assistance to migrant children in Europe. In a somewhat confusing announcement, the Government said a new initiative was being launched to help unaccompanied children in countries surrounding Syria who would be better off in the UK because their "needs cannot be met in the region". Immigration Minister James Brokenshire said the UK would work with the United Nations refugee agency - the UNHCR - to identify ...

    The CIA has posted online previously secret photographs purportedly showing UFOs or ‘flying saucers’ hovering over Britain. The hand selected images are among formerly classified files from the 1950s which were hidden away by the American spy agency. First released in 1978, the images show how the CIA carried out extensive and secretive investigations into whether extraterrestrial life exists. According to the documents released, one 1952 report entitled “Flying Saucers" said all but 100 UFO sightings had a reasonable explanation. It said: “Less than 100 reasonably credible reports remain ‘unexplainable’ at this time. It is recommended that CIA surveillance be continued. “It is strongly urged, however, that no reports of CIA interest or concern reach the press or public.” ...

    Bank of England governor Mark Carney said again that he was worried about the growth of buy-to-let (BTL) mortgages in Britain. Speaking to a panel of MPs today, the Evening Standard quoted him as saying: We think developments in the buy-to-let market have warranted heightened scrutiny and have done so for some time. As a general rule, any time you see a very sharp and sustained increase in activity in one area … it at least bears heightened scrutiny. The problem with BTL mortgages is that their interest rates reset at higher rates if the BoE rate changes, and they are often given to borrowers who have lower credit ratings than regular homeowners. (Plus, of course, they rely on a continued supply of new renters to make the payments, not merely the owner's own income.) And e...

    As part of the Government’s rollout of Universal Credit, ministers promised that no one moving to the new system of benefits would see a fall in their income. But it has now emerged that this guarantee was limited and would not apply to any claimant whose circumstances had “materially changed” once they had moved on to the new system of payments. As a result of the exemption any single parent who moves in with a partner or gets married will have their benefits reassessed at a new less generous rate after Universal Credit is introduced from 2017. George Osborne urged to make U-turn on universal credit Research suggests that there are currently up to a million single parents who could be affected by the change – which would cost them on average £1,080 a year. On Wednesday Li...

    A headteacher has written to parents to complain about the growing number doing the school run in their pyjamas. Kate Chisholm, head of the Skerne Park Academy primary school in Darlington, raised the issue after some parents started turning up at the school gates in slippers, and others even wore pyjamas to school assemblies and meetings. After asking the adults to “set a good example” in a letter sent out last week, she told the Press Association it is “not too much to ask parents to have a wash and get dressed” in the morning. Ms Chisholm said she believed most in the community supported her intervention, but admitted there had been negative responses too. She told the BBC that some parents said it was their “human right” to wear what they wanted, while some on Twitter ...

    Today Brandon Lewis MP announced £5m in government funding to combat the scourge of rogue landlords. Councils are in desperate need of additional funding to help them fix the problems associated with rogue landlords and there’s no doubt that this public money be put to good use. They will be better able to target notorious ‘beds in sheds’, cramped hellholes rented out for extortionate sums often to the most vulnerable in society.Alongside these extreme examples, the money will also be used to increase property inspections, carry out more raids, initiate more enforcement actions and (hopefully!) bring about more prosecutions. This is all, of course, tremendously positive. However, a back-of-an-envelope calculation on how this works makes this much less of a cause for celebr...

    A Swiss cleaning company employed by a McDonald’s franchisee in Geneva was caught recently having allegedly tricked several refugees into working as cleaners without pay for months at a time. According to The Local, several refugee cleaners said the company, which is a subsidiary of the Swiss cleaning firm Top Clean, told them that they could acquire residency permits for their workers in exchange for labour. The workers never got paid, but they thought maybe that was normal, and that they would get paid when they got their visas. They allegedly never got their visas either. “At first I thought it was normal to work for free in Switzerland to get a residency permit. My friends at the refugee home also did it,” said a Sudanese refugee named Yusef, who says he cleaned McDona...

    Tory peer Cecil Parkinson Former Conservative cabinet minister Lord Cecil Parkinson has died after a long battle with cancer, his family have said. The Tory peer, who served in several roles in Margaret Thatcher's government in the 1980s, was 84. A family spokesman said: "Cecil passed away on January 22 after a long battle with cancer. We shall miss him enormously. As a family, we should like to pay tribute to him as a beloved husband to Ann and brother to Norma, and a supportive and loving father to Mary, Emma and Joanna and grandfather to their children. We also salute his extraordinary commitment to British public life as a member of parliament, cabinet minister and peer - together with a distinguished career in business. The Conservative grandee, whose full title was L...

    A mother walking her son home from school saved the lives of seven suspected illegal immigrants after hearing screams and bangs from a refrigerated lorry. Seven Iranian and Iraqi nationals, including two children under 16, were discovered after Tammy Harris, 34, heard the sounds coming from the HGV. She begged the driver to look in the back of his lorry, which was carrying tonnes of chilled pears, and called police when she realised there were people inside. Officers arrested the immigrants after they were found stowed away in the back of a lorry in the village of Badsey, Worcs., on Thursday. The HGV had been transporting chilled pears from Portugal and it is estimated the immigrants, who were suffering frost bite, may have been inside for up to eight hours. Miss Harris was...

    Miss Durbin’s dress was measured to be five inches after kneeling on the floor which is withing the school code. A 17-year-old schoolgirl was allegedly forced her to kneel down by her headmaster so he could measure her dress. Amanda Durbin, a student at Edmonson County High School in Kentucky, chose to wear a red and black jumper dress, measuring five inches above the knee, with leggings to classes last week, WBKO reports. She was called to the headmaster’s office after the dress was thought to be too revealing where, Miss Durbin claims, she was told to kneel on the ground so her headmaster could measure how far her dress fell from the floor. The student admitted she was uncomfortable kneeling in front of Principal Tommy Hodges and requested her parents to be present. Ms D...