United Kingdom

    Stephen Humphris, from Liverpool, spotted the elderly homeless man struggling in the rain, before he stopped his number 86 bus and gave him a £5 note. Mr Humphris then asked his passenger Faris Khalifa to hand over the donation to the man. Mr Khalifa told the Liverpool Echo: “The driver’s actions impacted upon me greatly. "It was a Friday night - windy and cold with horizontal rain. "He called me over, handed me a £5 note and asked me to give it to an elderly homeless man across the street. It was the most amazing thing." Later that week, My Khalifa got in touch with several businesses in Liverpool to see if he could somehow repay Mr Humphris for his kindness. He told the Liverpool Echo: "Everyone I spoke to, without hesitation, donated the coolest things ever." He managed...

    A former Home Office terrorism adviser has claimed UK authorities are tackling the terror threat in the wrong way, which is contributing to the radicalisation of young British Muslims. Jahan Mahmood resigned from his government job in a disagreement over the country's counter terrorism strategy. He claims there are far too many arrests and most of those detained are never charged or convicted. His assertion is in part supported by a Sky News-commissioned analysis of arrest statistics, which reveals two-thirds of those detained under terror legislation last year were never charged with a terrorist offence. Of 289 terrorism-related arrests in 2014, just 102 were later charged with a terror offence - 35% of the total detained. The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), which...

    Muslim anti-Isis march not covered by mainstream media outlets, say organisers Organisers of an anti-Isis march that took place in London last week have spoken out after mainstream media outlets failed to cover it. Thousands of people took part in the annual UK Arbaeen Procession, coordinated by the Husaini Islamic Trust UK, on Sunday. Although Shia Muslims take part in the march each year to mark the Arbaeen, or mourning, anniversary of Imam Husain - a seventh-century leader who fought for social justice - this year organisers decided to use the event as a platform to denounce terrorism following the recent Isis attacks in Paris, Beirut and elsewhere. Organiser Waqar Haider said: "This year we had hundreds of placards which were basically saying ‘no’ to terrorism and ‘no’...

    Engineers will begin restoring power to 42,000 properties in the North West after unforeseen flood damage at one of the city's main substations caused another widespread outage on Monday afternoon. More than 19,000 Electricity North West customers in Lancaster are still relying on emergency generators which were mobilised on Sunday night as the damage caused by Storm Desmond became clear. In Cumbria, an estimated 1,450 properties remain without power, as engineers wait for floodwaters to recede so they can assess the damage and make essential repairs. In some cases, specialists have only been able to gain access to substations by boat. Sixteen severe flood warnings remain in place across northwest England, signalling a danger to life. The Met Office has issued a severe wea...

    Tristram Hunt, the former shadow education secretary, has called on Jeremy Corbyn to pull out of a Christmas fundraising event organised by the “disreputable” Stop the War coalition. Hunt called on the Labour leader not to attend the event in light of its decision to picket the Labour party’s headquarters last week and the “ugly comments” it has made about the shadow foreign secretary, Hilary Benn. Hunt told the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1 on Sunday: “I don’t think that he should go there. Stop the War coalition picketed the Labour party headquarters when we were trying to run a phone-bank for the Oldham byelection, so they were preventing the election of a Labour member of parliament. “We have also seen some pretty ugly comments from them about Hilary Benn and the fact that ...

    Corbyn condemns 'bullying' of Labour MPs who support bombing IS Jeremy Corbyn has condemned bullying towards Labour MPs who support bombing in Syria. As MPs held a marathon ten hour debate to discuss escalating the UK's involvement in the fight against ISIS, the Labour leader to Facebook to declare any such behaviour unacceptable. He said politics is about passion, values and principles", but that he wanted the debate to be conducted in a "comradely fashion. He went on: Over recent days I have received a number of reports that there have been some incidents where Labour Party members and MPs have been abused. He said the Prime Minister took part in similar abuse, when he reportedly declared anyone who would vote against action "terrorist sympathisers" in a private meeting ...

    Jim McMahon defeats Ukip challenge with massive majority in first poll test of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership Labour has comfortably won its first parliamentary by-election since Jeremy Corbyn became leader, storming ahead of Ukip by 10,835 votes in Oldham West and Royton in Greater Manchester. Jim McMahon, the 35-year-old leader of Oldham council, will swap the town hall for Westminster after persuading 17,322 people to vote for him. Turnout was 40.26% – not an embarrassment on a very rainy Thursday in December. Ukip’s John Bickley, a Cheshire-based businessman, was runner-up, on 6,487. It was his fourth second place in Greater Manchester in less than two years, having lost out to Labour in byelections in Wythenshawe and Sale East in February 2014 and Heywood and Middl...

    British lawmakers on Wednesday voted 397-223 to join the US and other nations in a bombing campaign against ISIS (also known as the Islamic State) in Syria. The vote came directly after Hilary Benn, the UK Labour Party's shadow foreign secretary, Conservative Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond called "one of the greatest speeches" in the British House of Commons' history. In the speech, Benn broke with his party's leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and called for the UK to extend its airstrikes to Syria. "We have a moral and practical duty to extend to Syria the acts we are now taking in Iraq," Benn told the Commons, addressing his party directly. "We are here faced by fascists," he said of ISIS. "Not just their calculated brutality but their belief that they are superior to every singl...

    MPs want a sugar tax on soft drinks and a restriction on TV junk food adverts to fight childhood obesity. The Commons Health Committee said there must be “broader and deeper controls on advertising and marketing to children”. It said: “A way would be to restrict all advertising of high fat, salt and sugar foods and drinks to after the 9pm watershed.” And it also demands a clamp on deals for unhealthy foods and a ban on sweets at the end of aisles and by check-outs. Fizzy drinks should state how many spoons of sugar they contain while use of cartoon characters and stars in children’s advertising “should be restricted.” MPs also want new guidelines on what constitutes a healthy school packed lunch. Tory MP Dr Sarah Wollaston, who chairs the committee, urged action. She said:...

    Britain is at risk of being prosecuted for war crimes because of growing evidence that missiles sold to Saudi Arabia have been used against civilian targets in Yemen’s brutal civil war, Foreign Office lawyers and diplomats have warned. Advisers to Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, have stepped up legal warnings that the sale of specialist missiles to the Saudis, deployed throughout nine months of almost daily bombing raids in west Yemen against Houthi rebels, may breach international humanitarian law. Since March this year, bombing raids and a blockade of ports imposed by the Saudi-led coalition of Sunni Gulf states have crippled much of Yemen. Although the political aim is to dislodge Houthi Shia rebels and restore the exiled President, Abed-Rabbo Mansour Hadi, thous...