Boris Johnson was met with a mixed reaction as he arrived for the Queen’s Jubilee service

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was met with a mixed reaction from the crowd gathered for the second day of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebration as he arrived with his wife Carrie at St. Paul's Cathedral in London on Friday.

Both cheers and boos could be heard when the formally dressed couple was walking up the stairs of the cathedral for the National Service of Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, Johnson’s political opponent, Labour leader Keir Starmer, was met with complete silence.

Neither Johnson nor Carrie appeared to be bothered by the boos and whistling as they were smiling and chatting to each other on the way to the cathedral entrance. During the service, they also seemed to be in good spirits. The prime minister read a short excerpt from the Bible in front of the congregation, which was full of royals, dignitaries, and current and former politicians.

The four days of festivities come as Johnson battles mounting calls to resign both from the opposition and fellow Conservatives over the ‘Partygate’ scandal. An investigation into 16 gatherings that took place at government buildings during Britain’s nationwide lockdowns of 2020 and early 2021 concluded that many of them “should not have been allowed to happen.” The author of the report, senior civil servant Sue Gray, also stressed that Johnson has to personally “bear responsibility for this culture.”

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Despite growing pressure for a confidence vote from within his own party, the prime minister said that he was not going to “abandon” the nation as it faces economic hardships and the conflict in Ukraine.

Starmer, who over the last few months has repeatedly criticized Johnson for breaking the Covid rules, is now facing similar issues. The police are conducting an inquiry into a curry party that took place in the city of Durham last April. The so-called ‘Beergate’ investigation was opened after footage emerged showing the Labour leader sipping beer at the allegedly illegal gathering.

Starmer denies any wrongdoing but earlier made clear that if he were given a fine, he, unlike the prime minister, would resign.

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Assaults on UK officers hit around 80 per day in early 2021, statistics released by the PA news agency found, with police warning that Covid was used “as a weapon” by spitting at constables.

The data, covering the three months from March 23 to June 23 discovered that 7,537 assaults against officers, constables, and volunteers were recorded, with that panning out to around 80 per day. However, since the information collected only came from 31 out of the 43 police forces across the UK, the true scale of abuse leveled against officers could be much higher.

Cambridgeshire Constabulary recorded the most significant spike in assaults against its officers, compared to the same period in 2020. In the three months of 2021, there were 128 assaults recorded, compared with 58 in 2020 and 41 in 2019.

Dorset Police, Merseyside Police, and Avon and Somerset Police also saw a sizable increase in the number of assaults.

Cambridgeshire Constabulary’s Chief Constable Nick Dean told the media that the pandemic has seen abusive individuals start “using Covid as a weapon,” risking the health of officers by spitting at them.

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“Since restrictions [were imposed], we've seen other protests around climate change, Black Lives Matter, all of which put us at the forefront of managing large events with the potential of confrontation,” Dean stated, offering an explanation for the spike in violent incidents against police.

The violence experienced by officers ranged from “being pushed or kicked” and “being spat at” to “very serious” assaults. One officer was so badly assaulted by someone while on duty that they suffered a bleed on the brain and couldn’t work for the remainder of the year.

“Police officers and other emergency services workers should not have to face violence, abuse or threats of any kind. It is not part of the job,” a spokesperson for the National Police Chiefs’ Council said, as cited in the media.

Statistics for the whole of 2021 are yet to be released, however social tensions are not promising any reductions in numbers. Anti-lockdown protesters in the UK have clashed with police multiple times throughout the year. A ‘freedom rally’ held on December 18 descended into scuffles between police and self-styled ‘resistance groups’, as participants demanded politicians oppose the NHS vaccine mandate and Covid passports.

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Most Britons are sometimes afraid to express their political or social views for fear of a negative response, though two-thirds are still unaware what the phrase “cancel culture” means, a new poll from YouGov has revealed.

Over half (57%) of the survey’s 1,677 adult respondents said that, at least sometimes, they have stopped themselves from expressing their political or social views “for fear of judgment or negative responses from others.” Only 27% claimed that they always expressed their views.

Regarding which views Britons were most likely to hide, the poll revealed that in most cases, it was something that might be considered as “un-progressive.” For example, 33% of those who see high levels of immigration being a bad thing for the country said they hide their views on the issue from others, compared to only 10% of people with pro-immigration views doing the same.

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“This is the topic on which people are most likely to say they feel they have to keep quiet,” YouGov said of its findings.

Among other views that people prefer to keep hidden are “the belief that ethnic minorities in Britain have things as good as white Britons” and “transgender issues, which 29% of those who disagree with the statement ‘a transgender woman is a woman’ feel they have to frequently keep bottled up.”

Most respondents said they are reluctant to express support for a law forbidding full body and face veils, or to say that LGBTQ people and women have things as good as straight people and men.

“The exceptions to this trend are views on the British Empire and obesity, where both sides of the argument reported similar levels of reluctance to express themselves,” reads the report.

Meanwhile, some 43% of the poll’s participants said that protecting people from offensive or hateful speech should be the priority, while 38% would prioritize free speech interests.

The survey, conducted on November 19-21, also revealed that 65% do not know what “cancel culture” means. Some 38% of those who took part said they had never heard the expression.

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London Underground is facing the longest strike in the rail service’s history, with the train drivers’ union planning staff walkouts every weekend until summer 2022.

In a statement, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) announced the intended action, saying its members remain unhappy over night-shift arrangements that they feel are not family-friendly.

“Tube union RMT today confirmed strike action every weekend on the Night Tube from the start of the new year through to June in an ongoing fight to prevent the ripping up of staffing arrangements that would wreck the work-life balance of drivers,” the statement read.

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RMT has 83,000 members from more than 150 transport sector companies in the UK.
The action will be staged by RMT members working on the Central and Victoria Lines on Friday and Saturday nights, starting from January 7, from 8.30pm to 8am the next day.

“The union has made it clear that the mandate extends to other lines and will consider broadening the action if LU fails to respond,” RMT said.

Numerous recent Tube workers’ strikes have already caused severe disruption for thousands of Londoners. The protest actions came after RMT and the Underground’s authorities failed to reach agreement over working arrangements after the Night Tube service reopened last month.

“RMT has repeatedly put forward cost-neutral proposals that would repair the damage unleashed by deleting 200 driver posts and which would dig LU out of this mess. They have ignored us and that approach will have severe consequences for Londoners in the new year,” RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch said.

TFL has yet to respond to the announcement. Previously, it said that Tube drivers had received new rosters back in August and that the provisions included a number of assurances for staff, including guarantees that there would be no job losses. In regard to the key issue, the company said that Tube drivers would have to work just four nights a year and therefore the strike actions have been “unnecessary.”

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The NHS is set to provide children in England with life-changing treatment for peanut allergies in a European first after the UK’s medical service signed a deal for the “pioneering” oral medication after a successful study.

Palforzia was found to reduce the severity of symptoms, such as anaphylaxis, after those with allergic reactions consume peanuts. The study conducted at Evelina London Children’s Hospital was described as having transformative effects for the lives of the kids who participated.

Sophie Pratt, mother of nine-year-old Emily who took part in the study, praised the treatment for allowing her daughter to be “free from limits and the fear that the tiniest mistake could put her life at risk.”

The two studies found that six in 10 participants, aged between four and 17, who experienced an allergic reaction to just 10mg of peanut protein at the start of the experiment were able to consume 1,000mg at the end.

“This pioneering treatment can be life-changing for patients and their families and, thanks to the deal the NHS has struck, people here will be the first in Europe to benefit,” NHS medical director Professor Stephen Powis said.

It will reduce the fear and anxiety for patients and their families who may have been living with this allergy for years, and carrying around emergency medication.

With peanut allergies estimated to affect around one in 50 children across the UK, the NHS is expected to provide the treatment to around 600 kids. It works by giving children a controlled, consistent exposure to small amounts of protein with a view to helping them decrease their sensitivity to the food.

Eventually, the UK medical service hopes to be able to treat 2,000 children a year after striking a deal with the pharmaceutical company behind the drug.

Palforzia has already been approved for use in the United States, becoming the first, and so far only, FDA-backed treatment to tackle severe peanut allergies.

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Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has said he was “a little too undiplomatic” when he described Britain’s unvaccinated as “idiots” who put unnecessary strain on the NHS with their “irresponsible” decision not to get vaccinated.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s PM program on Wednesday evening, Blair reiterated his foreboding about the impact of Omicron on the National Health Service, but appeared to retract an earlier incendiary comment about Britain's unvaxxed.

“Possibly I was a little too undiplomatic in my use of language,” Blair stated when asked about remarks from earlier in the day, in which he had labeled anti-vaxxers as “idiots.”

The former PM had caused a stir in an interview with Times Radio on Wednesday morning, coming down hard on those who are yet to get their vaccine in the UK.

“Frankly, if you’re not vaccinated at the moment and you’re eligible and you’ve got no health reason for not being vaccinated, you’re not just irresponsible, I mean you’re an idiot,” Blair told Times Radio.

“I’m sorry, I mean that is, truthfully you are. Because this Omicron variant is so contagious, if you’re unvaccinated and you’re in circulation, you’re going to get it. And that is going to put a lot of strain on the health service,” the New Labour leader stated.

Blair said that Omicron, despite some evidence to suggest it is less virulent, could overwhelm the healthcare system, as it is vastly more contagious than previous variants.

Britain recorded more than 100,000 Covid-19 infections on Wednesday. Despite a successful booster campaign, some six million people haven’t been inoculated against Covid-19. This approximately 10% of the UK population makes up 43% of hospital admissions, and Health Minister Sajid Javid has said that nine of out 10 patients needing the most care against Covid-19 were unvaccinated.

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London’s Metropolitan Police has referred itself to the English police watchdog over claims that, during 2020, the force mishandled alleged parties in Downing Street that were in violation of Covid restrictions.

A complaint was formally made by the Green Party’s Baroness Jenny Jones, who claimed that officers stationed outside 10 Downing Street “must have known” an illegal gathering was taking place.

The complaint, which accuses the Met Police of having “deliberately failed to enforce” the rules, has been passed to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC). The police watchdog will now decide whether to conduct a formal investigation.

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The decision by the Met Police to refer itself for investigation comes a month after it was reported that 10 Downing Street had breached lockdown restrictions by holding a party on December 18, 2020.The story, first reported by the Mirror newspaper, has been followed by further allegations that government officials held other parties that broke their own strict Covid restrictions.

The Met Police has itself refused to investigate allegations parties were held, claiming that there is an “absence of evidence” and its policy is “not to investigate retrospective breaches” of Covid restrictions.

A separate inquiry has been ordered by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to investigate if the reported gatherings breached the rules.

The government’s inquiry was initially led by the Cabinet Secretary Simon Case until he stepped down from the role in the wake of reports he’d attended a drinks event himself in violation of lockdown rules. Senior civil servant Sue Gray has replaced Case in heading the inquiry.

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The UK has recorded 106,122 new Covid-19 cases in a 24-hour period. The figure marks the first time daily case numbers have exceeded 100,000 in the UK, and is the highest registered by British officials since the pandemic began.

On Wednesday, the UK government's Covid-19 dashboard showed that a staggering 106,122 new infections were registered on Tuesday, around 13,000 more than the previous high of 93,045, which was registered on December 17.

A total of 643,219 infections have been registered in the past seven days around the country, up 58.9% from the previous week.

Wednesday’s data was accompanied by the news that a further 140 people had lost their lives to the virus. Hospitalizations due to Covid are increasing, but at considerably slower rates than the growth being seen in infections.

The UK also broke another domestic record, according to Wednesday’s data, with more than one million vaccine doses administered in 24 hours for the first time. Approximately 1.06 million shots were rolled out on Tuesday, some 968,665 of which were booster jabs. The British government has put booster shots at the forefront of a national campaign to tackle the more contagious Omicron variant of Covid-19.

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The European Commission has confirmed that travelers from the UK will be charged a €7 ($7.92) visa fee from next year and forced to pre-register their details before being allowed to enter Schengen EU nations.

Speaking to the UK’s City AM newspaper, a spokesperson for the Commission confirmed on Wednesday that British travelers will be charged the visa fee in line with the bloc’s existing scheme for non-EU nations.

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The European Travel and Information and Authorization Scheme (ETIAS) currently allows residents of 61 non-EU countries to enter the Schengen zone with pre-authorization. Rather than needing a visa, the scheme charges a levy, which permits holders to stay in, and travel around, Schengen-signatory EU states for up to 90 days.

From late 2022, as part of post-Brexit arrangements, the UK will be added to ETIAS, covering all Schengen area nations as well as a number of non-Schengen ‘micro-states’ such as Vatican City.

The ETIAS scheme was first unveiled by the EU in 2016, as part of an effort to bolster security by allowing immigration officials to track visitors through the bloc, while not needing to impose a laborious visa scheme when traveling between member states.

When it was introduced, then-President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker praised the scheme as improving the management of EU borders, helping to decrease crime and terrorism, and reinforcing the bloc’s visa liberalization policy.

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Workers in Wales now face fines for unnecessary trips to their jobs but can freely enjoy pub crawls and social life, according to controversial new legislation aimed at curbing the spread of the Covid-19 Omicron variant.

“No person may leave the place where they are living, or remain away from that place, for the purposes of work or to provide voluntary or charitable services,” reads the recently amended guidance.

The new “work from home” rules apply to the non-essential workers who can work from home “where practicable” and, according to First Minister Mark Drakeford, are designed “to help control” Omicron’s rapid spread and “to prevent large numbers of people needing hospital care.”

Offenders face a £60 fine which can be cut to £30 if paid within two weeks following the date of the notice. A company might be forced to pay a £1,000 fine for each offense and £10,000 “in the case of the fourth and any subsequent such fixed penalty notice received.”

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The rules come into force on December 27. While outlawing non-essential trips to work, they do not ban various sorts of social activities, including visiting pubs and restaurants.

The nation’s Labour-run government’s decision to charge workers for trips to work has angered the Wales Trade Union Congress.

“A worker is not responsible for their place of work, their employer is,” Wales TUC General Secretary Shavanah Taj said in a statement, adding that imposing fines on workers sets a “really worrying precedent.” She expressed hope that the Welsh government would urgently repeal the measure.

The new fines are not the only grounds for criticism of the government’s announcement.

“From Monday, Welsh residents will be liable to a fine of £60 if they go to work in their office. They may, however, legally spend all day in the pub,” Conservative MP for Clwyd West David Jones wrote on Twitter.

He also pointed to the fact that prior to issuing a fine, police would have to assess if a person could actually work from home instead of going to the office.

There have also been some concerns voiced about the potential risk of completely deterring many people from work, but despite all these issues, the new measures have obviously added to Wales’ popularity on social media.

“Trying to avoid politics… but love Wales. 60 quid fine for going to work if it’s not essential, but pubs are open and you can go mingle… the priority choices!” one of the commenters said on Twitter.

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The research institute founded by former UK prime minister Tony Blair has called on the government to create a command-and-control team that could help it remain “ahead of the curve” and quickly roll out more vaccines.

In a paper published on Tuesday, the Tony Blair Institute said the British government should seek to develop infrastructure that would allow it to mobilize new vaccination campaigns within 48 hours.

With the prospect of yet more Covid variants emerging, it highlighted that “a fourth dose of the vaccine may soon be needed.”

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The institute contended that the ability to respond to future Covid strain outbreaks would depend on whether administrations could implement “a better approach to ‘command and control’ through a strong and coherent public-health emergency operations center.”

The non-profit organization said the emergence of Omicron highlighted the fact that governments are often forced to react, rather than working to “stay ahead of the curve.”

“To achieve this, we need to take decisions fast, take them in a coordinated manner, and execute effectively and at speed. Be prepared at all times,” the paper reads.

Noting examples from other nations, the institute said the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation should be doing more, including “rapidly” approving the use of Covid-19 vaccines in children aged five to 11 in an effort to reduce transmission.

It is also of the view that the government should be moving faster in approving antiviral drugs to treat Covid-19 infections.

Its paper calls for a renewed effort to inoculate the 6.2 million people in the UK who remain unvaccinated against Covid. Noting that those who are unvaccinated make up some 43% of hospital admissions, the authors suggest using anthropological research and behavioral science to understand why people aren’t adhering to public health guidance in getting their Covid shots.

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The Supreme Court has overturned a ruling that put into question London’s recognition of Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s head of state, putting the politician closer to taking control of almost $2bn in Venezuelan gold.

The Monday ruling is part of a court war which Guaido, the self-proclaimed ‘interim president’ of Venezuela, is waging against the country’s elected government over gold reserves put for safekeeping with the Bank of England.

An earlier ruling by an appeals court sided with the government in Caracas, stating that Guaido has no de facto power in Venezuela. Thus, his public recognition as the legitimate head of state by the British government was undermined by its implied recognition of the power that President Nicolas Maduro holds.

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The Supreme Court’s five-judge panel overturned that decision, however, stating that the British government “had conclusively recognized Mr. Guaido as Venezuela’s head of state.”

The Supreme Court said the historic distinction of recognition by the British legal system of a government as ‘de jure’ and ‘de facto’ was “now unlikely to have any useful role to play before courts in this jurisdiction.” It added that “the Court of Appeal’s reliance on the outdated concepts of de jure and de facto recognition was … misplaced.”

The latest ruling means that Guaido’s appointments of the management of the Venezuelan Central Bank will be recognized as valid by British courts. The bank is the entity that has a say on what happens to the Venezuelan gold reserves stored in the UK.

However, the court stressed that its decision was narrow and did not opine on the validity of rulings by the Venezuelan Supreme Tribunal of Justice, which dismissed Guaido’s claim on leadership in the country as unconstitutional. It referred that matter to the Commercial Court.

Guaido, then leader of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, rejected the outcome of the 2018 election in Venezuela, accusing Maduro of rigging the ballot. He proclaimed himself as the legitimate leader of the nation, getting instant recognition and support from the Donald Trump administration and American allies, including the UK.

His multiple attempts to seize actual power in Caracas have all failed. Several people appointed to various ‘offices’ in the Guaido ‘government’ got entangled in various corruption scandals, while others jumped ship.

Earlier this month, the team was abandoned by Julio Borges, who served as Guaido’s ‘foreign minister.’ He lashed out at former colleagues, saying they have turned into a “caste” and that the self-proclaimed government should “disappear” when its supposed mandate expires in January.

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Giant millipedes the size of a vehicle once slithered across north England before the age of the dinosaurs, a new study has revealed after scientists discovered the creature’s 326-million-year-old fossilized remains.

The creature, named Arthropleura, is believed to have broken the record for the largest-known arthropod, a grouping of invertebrates that includes insects and small sea creatures. But the fossil is thought to be only one section of a creature “as big as a car,” according to the authors of a paper published on Tuesday in the Journal of the Geological Society.

Researchers believe the 75-centimeter-long specimen represents a portion of Arthropleura’s exoskeleton that was shed near a river bed and then preserved by sand. The creature’s total length is estimated to have been 2.7-metres (about nine feet) and it would have weighed about 50kg (roughly 110 pounds).

The remains – the oldest ever found – date back to the Carboniferous Period, more than 100 million years before dinosaurs roamed the Earth. At the time, the landmass that would become the UK was positioned near the equator and enjoyed warm temperatures.

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Arthropleura’s size has previously been attributed to the higher oxygen concentration in the atmosphere at the time but the discovery suggests that the creature must have had a plant diet rich in nutrients. It may have also been a predator, preying on other invertebrates and small amphibians.

The fossil was found in January 2018 after a section of sandstone cliff fell onto the shore of a beach in Northumberland, near the border with Scotland. A group led by the study’s lead author, Neil Davies, an Earth scientist at Cambridge, stumbled on the find by “complete fluke.”

Noting that the specimen was “so large it took four of us to carry it up the cliff,” Davies said the lack of a complete set of remains – including a “fossilized head” – makes it “difficult to know everything about them.”

Arthropleura are thought to have gone extinct after about 45 million years due to reasons that are not yet clear. Theories include drier climates due to global warming and the rise of reptiles, who competed with them for food in the same areas.

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The UK has been condemned by a group of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and trade unions for “chasing colonial post-Brexit fantasies” at the expense of the world’s poorest in a rebrand of its development investment arm.

The joint letter from 12 organizations blasted the UK government’s proposal to turn the Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) into the British International Investment (BII), as part of a proposed update of the nation’s aid program.

The groups, including the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD), Global Justice Now, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and Unison, claimed the changes will see the UK focus “solely on private-sector investment and profit-making.”

Calling on the UK to “retain a strong poverty-reduction mandate,” the group warned the government must not fall into a trap of hoping that “economic benefits will trickle down to the world’s most marginalized communities.”

“There is a clear role for UK aid to play in supporting the ‘global south’ during the pandemic and against climate change, but instead the government is chasing colonial post-Brexit fantasies,” Global Justice Now development finance campaigner Daniel Willis said.

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The NGOs have previously condemned the government over its decision to cut international aid from 0.7% of gross national income to 0.5%, stating how the fall in funding will lead to “catastrophic cuts.”

Without the full aid budget previously allowed, the organizations believe funding could be diverted to projects that “provide an economic benefit to the UK, rather than to the world’s most marginalized communities.”

The UK government has previously defended itself against criticism for turning the CDC into the BII, arguing it will help “mobilize up to £8 billion a year of public and private sector investment in international projects by 2025.”

Describing the BII as a “key delivery vehicle,” UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss described the rebranding as a “win-win for all” that will work to pull low- and middle-income nations towards “free-market democracies,” while “building a network of liberty across the world.”

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A local council in northwest England has started looking for someone to manage the unique historic inn and the tiny Piel Island that hosts it. The one in the job is traditionally crowned the ‘King of Piel.’

Piel Island covers the area of just around 50 acres (20 hectares), sitting off the coast of Cumbria, near Barrow-in-Furness. But it’s not all about the size as the small piece of land boasts a medieval castle – built in the 14th century to counter Scottish raiders – and the famous Ship Inn, which itself has a history of over 300 years.

The pub that offers “fine traditional ales from local breweries, beers, wines and spirits to quench the thirsty traveler” had been operated by the Piel Island Pub Company since it reopened in July after all the Covid-19 curbs.

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But this was only a temporary arrangement, and last week Barrow Borough Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee announced that it’s looking to recruit a proper landlord to oversee the Ship Inn and the whole island for the next 10 years.

The vacant job must be filled before April when the tourist seasons kicks off and ferries begin circulating between the island and the mainland.

“It's important the right people are installed, people with sound local knowledge, a feel for the island and its history,” Frank Cassidy, the committee vice-chair, said about the possible applicants.

The one to meet all those criteria is going to be crowned the ‘King of Piel’ during a centuries-old special ceremony. Traditionally, the ‘monarch’ sits on an ancient chair, sporting a helmet and holding a sword in his hand, while beer is being poured over his head.

However, Chris Jones, the council's head of program management and climate change, warned that “there are significant constraints to living and working on Piel Island and people need to think about that.” The price for the title are uncertain local weather, isolation and long working hours.

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England should dispose of outdated parts of the process for the legal change of gender, including the requirement for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, a Parliament committee has said.

A ‘demedicalized’ gender-recognition procedure in England and Wales should switch towards a self-declaration model and get rid of or relax steps meant to show commitment to transitioning, a report by the Women and Equalities Committee recommends.

Its MPs on Tuesday offered a number of recommendations on how the Gender Recognition Act of 2004 should be updated to keep up with modern attitudes towards transgenderism.

Trans people must not be burdened with obtaining a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria to be recognized by the government according to their chosen gender, the Committee said. It cited a number of factors, including the tediousness of the process of obtaining the necessary medical documents, the social stigma associated with the diagnosis, and the fact that the current rules make applicants dependent on a third party for legally changing their gender.

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Some of the people called to consult with the committee argued that the medicalized process was unduly restrictive.

“We require someone to feel an anxiety, and to be in persistent and consistent distress, to be able to change their legal gender,” Nancy Kelley from pro-trans rights lobby group Stonewall was quoted as saying. “Not everybody experiences dysphoria in a way that satisfies the diagnosis criteria.”

The MPs also suggested abolishing the requirement for a person to submit evidence of their having lived under their acquired gender for at least two years before applying for a Gender Recognition Certificate.

“There is no clear, accepted or agreed definition of what living like a man or a woman is,” the panel said. “The requirement also risks entrenching outdated and unacceptable gender stereotypes.”

The report recommended changing the wording of the statutory declaration that applicants have to make to legally change their gender, stating their intention to live permanently–and until their death– in their acquired gender.

Making a false declaration is a punishable offense, and including such a penalty in the process was meant as a safeguard against frivolous applications. MPs said the “until death” part should be dropped in acknowledgement that some people “might regret their decision to legally transition” and would want to reverse it.

The Committee recognized concerns that relaxed rules could make the gender-recognition process more exposed to abuse by malicious actors and said that “robust guidance on how a system of self-declaration would work in practice should also be developed.”

For example, male prisoners with a record of sexual assault or domestic violence, who self-identify as a woman, should not be transferred to a women’s prison.

The MPs distanced themselves from the controversial issue of access of trans women athletes to women’s sports. They said that it was “absolutely essential that the integrity of women’s sport is maintained and not compromised” and called on relevant organizations to develop “clear, evidence-based guidance with practical examples for how to facilitate trans and gender non-conforming inclusive spaces in sports.”

Other recommendations include reserving the gender-recognition process for adults only, removing the requirement for spousal consent for married transitioning individuals, and possibly transferring the authority from the special Gender Recognition Panel to the Registrar General, similar to how it already works in Scotland.

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A former police officer has scored a legal victory over a UK police policy that records “gender critical” views as “non-crime hate incidents,” after a court ruled it unlawfully interferes with the right to freedom of expression.

In January 2020, Harry Miller was visited by former colleagues at Humberside Police after a member of the public complained about his allegedly “transphobic” tweets. The complaint was designated as a non-crime hate incident and recorded on a national database.

On Monday, however, the Court of Appeal in London ruled that the guidance – issued by the College of Policing – had been unlawfully used, and noted it’d had a “chilling effect” on Miller’s freedom of speech. The presiding judges also found that, while the guidance had legitimate crime prevention purposes, those aims could be met through less intrusive means.

Following the verdict, Miller said that being offensive was one of the “cornerstones of freedom” and that it “is not, and cannot, and should not be an offence” unless “speech turns to malicious communication or targeted harassment against an individual.”

According to the guidance on hate crimes, a ‘non-crime hate incident’ can be “any non-crime incident which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice.”

Waiting for Harry Miller to exit the Court of Appeal with an jist https://t.co/JJwmLLaJ5Z

— The Reclaim Party (@thereclaimparty) December 20, 2021

The complaint against Miller was in relation to a number of his tweets about transgender issues as part of the debate about reforming the Gender Recognition Act 2004. In one tweet, he reportedly wrote, “I was assigned mammal at birth, but my orientation is fish. Don’t mis-species me.”

Last year, the High Court had upheld Miller’s challenge against Humberside Police’s actions, ruling that they were a “disproportionate interference” with his right to free expression. However, it dismissed his case against the guidance on the grounds that it “serves legitimate purposes and is not disproportionate.”

However, Justice Victoria Sharp said on Monday that the “recording of non-crime hate incidents is plainly an interference with freedom of expression” and that the “knowledge that such matters are being recorded and stored in a police database is likely to have a serious ‘chilling effect’ on public debate.”

Mr Miller belongs to a group of people who could easily be stigmatized for their opinions and be subject to complaints by those offended by his views.

After the ruling, Assistant Chief Constable Iain Raphael of the College of Policing said it had tried to strike a balance “between the need to protect vulnerable people and communities from harm with the need to facilitate and protect freedom of speech.”

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Britain’s Queen Elizabeth will be remaining in Windsor Castle for the Christmas holidays, canceling previous plans to travel to Sandringham in Norfolk amid rising Covid-19 cases in the UK.

Buckingham Palace confirmed the cancellation of the traditional royal family gathering at Sandringham on Monday. The queen’s decision is a “personal one” and is a “precautionary approach,” palace aides said.

Family members will be joining the queen instead at Windsor, where the 95-year-old monarch has spent much of the pandemic, over the holidays. The queen previously canceled a holiday lunch with extended family out of precaution over the Covid pandemic and Omicron variant.

“All appropriate guidelines will be followed” for potential visitors of the queen over the Christmas period.

The queen also stayed in Windsor last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This will be her first Christmas without her husband, Prince Philip, who passed away earlier this year. Britain’s royal family traditionally celebrates Christmas by walking from the Sandringham estate to a nearby church for holiday services.

The UK announced more than 90,000 new Covid cases on Monday, with two of the previous three days also seeing jumps of 90,000.

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UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s woes grew on Monday, as new figures show his approval rating has declined to its lowest level since he took office, with most Britons expecting him to resign or be forced out in the near future.

An opinion poll released by Ipsos Mori found that six out of 10 respondents believe Johnson would not be prime minister by the end of 2022. The poll comes in the wake of a wave of allegations that a number of Conservative Party ministers and their staff – including Johnson and his office – had breached lockdown restrictions last year.

Meanwhile, a separate YouGov tracker poll has shown that the prime minister’s approval rating has fallen to its lowest level, 29%, since he entered Downing Street in 2019. Some 64% of respondents said they felt he was doing “badly” as PM.

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The latest figures mark a steep decline in support for the Conservative leader, who, in April 2020, secured a record-high approval rating of 66% as he worked to combat the Covid pandemic.

The findings also come a day after The Guardian published a photo purportedly showing Johnson, his wife, and 17 Downing Street staff members violating the government’s own rules during the first lockdown in May 2020. Downing Street has defended the image, claiming it shows a “work meeting.” despite bottles of wine and a cheese board being visible.

This is the latest alleged infringement of the rules to rock the government, with an investigation already underway into reports a number of parties were held in violation of Covid restrictions during November and December 2020.

Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, who was leading the probe into the alleged parties, was forced to step aside last week after it was claimed he was aware of or attended two gatherings at his own office in December last year. Senior civil servant Sue Gray has taken over the investigation.

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Academics hoping for promotion at University College London (UCL) reportedly have to limit the number of “dead white men” in their courses, under a scheme to “liberate” the curriculum from its “Eurocentric, male-dominated” focus.

An internal guidance document, titled UCL Academic Careers Framework, lists engaging with the university’s ‘Liberating the Curriculum’ (LTC) initiative as a core requirement for those seeking lecturer roles, according to The Telegraph, and has caused one professor there to anonymously describe it as approaching zealotry.

When applying for a promotion, candidates are apparently expected to “demonstrate the impact” of the initiative and then offer up an “indicator of impact” such as incorporating new material or making “substantial” revisions to old modules, while also accounting for student feedback.

According to UCL, the initiative is aimed at creating an “inclusive curriculum” that “[challenges] traditional Eurocentric, male dominated curricula” and “[ensures] the work of marginalized scholars on race, sexuality, gender and disability are fairly represented in curricula.”

The LTC working group of staff and students claims that several academic disciplines are “deeply exclusive and unfair” since they are “overly represented” by “dead white (able-bodied European) men.” The initiative also calls on professors to “be the change” and to “check their privilege.”

“I think this whole woke avalanche is really concerning because it is like a religious fervour,” an unnamed professor troubled by the LTC told The Telegraph.

Instead of looking at the evidence, it says some answers have got to be accepted and others cannot be accepted. That is poisonous – it is the wrong direction for a university to go in.

But a UCL spokesperson told the paper that the document is not a “checklist for promotion” and only offers “illustrative examples” of recommended actions. They added that a candidate would not be “expected to meet all of the criteria highlighted” in the guidance, but would instead be judged on the “evidenced impact and reach” of their work.

However, the paper also noted that the Free Speech Union has written to UCL’s leadership, urging its vice-chancellor to remove the requirement to adhere to the initiative immediately. The union’s general secretary, Toby Young, described the conditions for promotion as an “infringement of [the] right to free speech and almost certainly unlawful.”

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The UK government is backing a scientific study that will see human muscle cells launched into space on Tuesday from Kennedy Space Center as part of an experiment to discover how to help people live longer and healthier lives.

The study, titled MicroAge, will see a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket deliver the cells to the International Space Station (ISS) to explore what happens to human muscles, how people age and why.

The cells, the size of a grain of rice, have been grown in labs and placed into small holders that are the size of a pencil sharpener.

They will be electrically stimulated when they get to the ISS to induce contraction. Scientists are using the space station to conduct this investigation, as the lack go gravity causes weakness in muscles similar to that seen in people when they reach an older age.

“The research of our scientist astronauts like Tim Peake on muscle loss in the microgravity of space is helping identify potential cures for musculoskeletal disease, which causes agony to millions and costs the NHS billions,” UK science minister George Freeman said.

By harnessing the unique environment of the International Space Station our pioneering scientists could help us all live healthier, stronger lives.

“Ageing is one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century and we will learn a great deal about how muscle responds to microgravity and ageing from the data we obtain from this study,” Professor Malcolm Jackson, from the University of Liverpool, said.

A research team from the University of Liverpool will analyse the human muscle cells when they are brought back to Earth in January 2022, allowing them to compare the results to experiments that have been conducted back on earth.

The MicroAge study will launch at 10am GMT on Tuesday December 21.

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Anti-vaxxers have been booking up Covid-19 vaccine appointments and then not turning up to get jabbed, according to the Telegraph, as Britain rushes to vaccinate millions against Omicron.

Appointments at mass vaccination centers, including Wembley Stadium which is being used to roll out thousands of shots before Christmas, are being block-booked by people who have no intention of getting inoculated, according to the Telegraph on Sunday.

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The paper claimed that Wembley Stadium, where the anti-vaxxers had reportedly been employing their tactic, was quiet on Sunday morning. Staff told the Telegraph that patients had not arrived for their bookings and the center was “really quiet” by mid-morning.

However, a spokesman for North West London Integrated Care System said that the center would still make a big contribution to the UK’s inoculation effort. “Any suspected disruption has been offset by the number of walk-ins, including thousands of local residents, many of whom have made a big step in coming forwards to start their vaccination journey, as well as very high numbers of boosters,” the spokesperson stated.

The site was hoping to inoculate 10,000 people on Sunday, but only 2,500 had been administered by mid-afternoon, according to the Telegraph. It is understood that anti-vaxxers have employed similar tactics at other vaccination sites around the country.

The UK has administered more than 28 million boosters to fight back against the spread of the Omicron variant during the festive season. More than 900,000 shots were administered on Saturday alone.

Health Minister Sajid Javid has said that nine of out 10 patients needing the most care against Covid-19 were unvaccinated. “And I just cannot emphasise enough the impact that they are having on the rest of society,” he stated.

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The refusal of medical personnel to comply with the government’s vaccine mandate could result in entire hospital units being shut down, according to a top NHS official. The jab will become obligatory for health workers in April.

In “one representative example,” some 40 midwives at one hospital trust in England are refusing to get vaccinated against Covid-19, Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, has revealed. The maternity ward may be closed if the refuseniks are fired and no replacements can be found in time.

“Those staff, given their skills and their expertise, are not easily redeployed but they’re also extremely difficult to replace,” the official said, as quoted by The Guardian.

He didn’t name the trust involved, but acknowledged that it was representative of cases where resistance to the vaccine mandate was bringing the availability of patient service into question.

If sufficient numbers of unvaccinated staff in a particular service in a particular location choose not to get vaccinated, the viability and/or safety of that service could be at risk.

Maternity units are particularly vulnerable due to the continued shortage of trained midwives in England, with some 2,000 to 2,500 full-time job vacancies estimated to be vacant, the newspaper pointed out.

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The government announced the introduction of vaccine mandates in September, with April 1 set as the immunization deadline for medical and support staff who have face-to-face interactions with hospital patients. Health Secretary Sajid Javid told MPs last week that there were around 94,000 unvaccinated NHS workers, with the number dropping by 55,000 since the mandate was adopted.

The warning comes as England is facing a surge of infections due to the spread of the Omicron variant. The NHS is worried about a possible spike in hospitalizations in London, which has a lower vaccination rate compared to the rest of the country. In a worst-case scenario, a serious strain may be placed on hospital capacity.

Speaking in a separate interview with Times Radio, Hopson said the government should be ready to introduce stricter lockdown measures, should the new strain prove to be causing a significant number of serious Covid-19 cases. He said there was not yet data to back the argument for such a response, but added that the nation should be ready to implement such a decision as quickly as possible, if the circumstances arise.

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Former Brexit minister David Frost, who quit his job last week, has said his decision to leave the government wasn’t because of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s leadership but an inability to support Covid-19 restrictions.

Speaking to reporters outside his home on Monday, Lord Frost said that Boris Johnson had some difficult decisions ahead of him.

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The former minister said his decision to resign was not based on Johnson’s leadership but was about being unable to support his coercive policies on Covid-19.

“This is absolutely not about leadership. This is about policy differences,” Frost stated, adding, “I left the government because, as I think is well known, I couldn’t support certain policies – most recently on the Covid restrictions.”

He reiterated that he had intended to resign in the new year, but the decision had been brought forward. He had earlier noted that he wished to resign weeks ago but Johnson had persuaded him to stay on until January.

Frost said that he had the greatest of admiration for the prime minister, who has recently seen his popularity hit by a 2020 Christmas party scandal in which he is alleged to have taken part in activities that broke his own Covid rules.

It was announced on Sunday that Foreign Secretary Liz Truss will replace Lord Frost as the UK’s chief negotiator in post-Brexit talks with the EU.

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Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s brother Piers has been arrested for allegedly calling for the offices of pro-lockdown MPs to be burnt down during a protest against vaccination mandates in Westminster.

Corbyn was arrested in Southwark, London on Sunday at 1.45am local time, according to The Guardian, which cited Metropolitan police sources. Police had previously mentioned they were investigating a video in which the anti-lockdown protest leader appeared to be advocating arson.

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The brother of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn can be seen on the video, shot at Saturday’s protest outside Downing Street, calling on supporters to “hammer to death those scum who have decided to go ahead with introducing new fascism.” Informing his audience that there are websites with lists of MPs who fit that description, he recommended their constituents “go to their offices and — well, I would recommend burning them down, but I can’t say that on air.”

Audience members laugh in response, suggesting the remark was not made in seriousness, but Corbyn appears to realize he’s gone too far, repeating, “I hope we’re not on air.”

Corbyn also calls for anti-mandate protesters to “get a bit more physical,” urging demonstrators to “take down these lying vaccinators and we’ve got to take down these lying MPs.” Protesters, he said, should “support and welcome” those who have rebelled against PM Boris Johnson’s Covid-19 control measures in either party. Legislation to introduce vaccination certificates passed on Tuesday despite 99 Conservative MPs breaking with the party line to vote against it.

The protest attracted thousands of demonstrators who subsequently marched through the capital. Doctors have characterized the Omicron variant as comparatively mild, but that has not prevented governments from undergoing the now-routine process of locking down, renewing calls for vaccination and/or boosters, denouncing the unvaccinated, and unleashing the police on protesters.

Home Secretary Priti Patel demanded the police to investigate the “sickening” video, urging them to “take the strongest possible action” against Corbyn. The 74-year-old was arrested on “suspicion of encouragement to commit arson.” A fixture at anti-lockdown protests since London began implementing Covid-19 restrictions, Corbyn has been arrested several times for breaching government pandemic orders.

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A cache of sensitive information has been reportedly stolen and leaked by a group of cyber criminals, described by the media as ‘Russian hackers’, from a tech provider working with British law enforcement.

The breach took place in October, when tech provider Dacoll came under a phishing attack, the Daily Mail on Sunday reported. The IT company is contracted to handle highly-sensitive material, including access to the police national computer (PNC).

The cyber-criminal group Clop is believed to have gained access to the PNC data, holding records and personal data of some 13 million people, according to the outlet. The hacker group, believed to be of Russian origins, has attacked multiple high-profile targets lately, with Canada-based aircraft maker Bombardier and US-based tech company Accellion believed to be among its victims.

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The data stolen from Dacoll includes images of motorists, apparently taken from the national Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system, namely close-up images of speeding drivers. It was not immediately clear what other data might have been stolen by the hackers.

After the breach, Clop is said to have demanded ransom from the company. The demand was apparently refused, with the group reportedly leaking some of the data it obtained onto the dark web, as well as threatening to leak more if their demands were not met. The tech provider refused to reveal the scale of ransom demanded, trying to downplay the scale of the breach.

“We can confirm we were the victims of a cyber incident on October 5,” Dacoll said in a statement as quoted by the Daily Mail. “We were able to quickly return to our normal operational levels. The incident was limited to an internal network not linked to any of our clients’ networks or services.”

The breach has been also acknowledged by the British authorities, with the National Crime Agency stating that it has been aiding its investigation. “The agency is aware of an incident affecting Dacoll and we are supporting the investigation,” the agency stated.

Another government body, the National Cyber Security Centre confirmed the incident as well, stating that it has been working to “fully understand and mitigate any potential impact” of the data breach.

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A UK police force has mailed out a ‘Christmas card’ to hundreds of serial offenders, featuring a spoof travel website ad of their jail cells as a warning to “think again” before getting into trouble over the festive period.

The Cheshire Police sent out the cards as part of its ‘Operation Jingle’ crime prevention campaign for the county’s criminal element. It includes a mock listing for the “Cheshire Constabulary Classic Suite” on a Tripadvisor-esque travel site, “Celladvisor.”

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The spartan cell, which comes with a mattress and toilet, and includes meals “prepared by a respectable supermarket chain,” gets a half-star rating from 105 reviews and is ranked dead last among 999 accommodations in Cheshire.

The ad touts a “free cancellation” policy and the force’s ability to “always accommodate” offenders despite the “busy period,” but notes the lack of television or Wi-Fi. It also includes an anonymous review criticizing the “tough mattress, cold room ... minimal at best [toilet and wash facilities].”

Chief Constable Mark Roberts told the Daily Mail, however, that the aim of the ‘operation’ was to “deter criminals” and “minimise disruption across the county and keep people feeling safe and reassured over the festive period.”

This card has been designed in order to remind some of our more serial offenders that crime will not be tolerated, and if you do commit crime then we will target you.

A message from Roberts inside the card warns repeat offenders to “think again” if they are considering committing a crime, since spending Christmas in a cell is “not recommended.”

The tongue-in-cheek stunt was appreciated by some on social media, a number of whom noted on Facebook that “helpline numbers” would have added to the public safety message. But others said that the focus should be on “rehabilitation” instead.

Some said the cell’s conditions and meal provision would be a welcome change from going “hungry and homeless” over the holidays.

Not everyone was amused by the stunt, however. Former Home Secretary David Mellor called the Christmas cards “ludicrous.”

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Thousands of people, mostly women and girls, who were accused of witchcraft in Scotland hundreds of years ago are set to be pardoned following a two-year long campaign by the Witches of Scotland activist group.

The women’s alleged crimes were reportedly as varied as causing hangovers to meeting with the Devil — and more than half of those accused under the Witchcraft Act between 1563 and 1736 were executed. According to estimates cited by the Sunday Times, some 85% of the victims were female.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s administration has reportedly backed a bill proposed in parliament which calls on the government to posthumously clear the victims’ names. The likely pardon comes after a two-year long campaign led by a group named ‘Witches of Scotland’.

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Activists Claire Mitchell QC and Zoe Venditozzi launched a petition on International Women’s Day 2020, demanding that the authorities pardon, apologize, and memorialize those killed as witches in Scotland. On September 1, a parliamentary committee agreed to pass the issue on to the Scottish government.

The bill granting the pardon could be passed as early as summer 2022, according to media reports. Natalie Don, a Scottish National Party lawmaker, told the Sunday Times that it was right that “this wrong should be righted, that these people who were criminalised, mostly women, should be pardoned.”

Religion and superstition-fueled witch-hunts were not unique to Scotland, with similar practices seen in west Germany, France, northern Italy, and Switzerland, and what would later become the US. Tens of thousands of women accused of witchcraft were burned at the stake or hanged over a span of several centuries.

And while in the West, the prosecution of witches ceased by the late 18th century, elsewhere in the world witchcraft is still considered a crime. Saudi Arabia, for example, established an anti-witchcraft unit in 2009 and accused women have even been put to death. Similarly, the Central African Republic doles out extremely harsh punishments to those accused of being witches.

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Archaeologists have unearthed the “near-pristine” remains of five Ice Age mammoths while excavating a newly discovered 200,000-year-old graveyard in the UK. Tools perhaps used by Neanderthals to hunt the animals were also found.

The remains, including those of two adults, two juveniles, and an infant, belong to a species of Steppe mammoth, an ancestor of the Woolly mammoth. More bones are expected to be uncovered as digging continues at the vast site, a gravel quarry in the Cotswolds area near the town of Swindon.

Researchers estimate the mammoth remains and stone tools to be around 220,000 years old. The site is thought to have once been a fertile plain to which both animals and Neanderthals were drawn as temperatures fell.

Ranking the find among the “most important discoveries in British palaeontology,” evolutionary biologist Ben Garrod told The Observer that finding such well-preserved skeletons was “incredibly rare.” He said the Steppe mammoths were the largest of the species, once weighing as much as 15 tons – about two to three times the weight of an African elephant.

It’s a glimpse back in time. That’s incredibly important in terms of us understanding how climate change especially impacts environments, ecosystems and species.

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Excavation at the site began in 2019 after two amateur fossil hunters spotted the remains and a Neanderthal ax in 2017 and alerted archaeology group DigVentures. The team has since recovered bones including tusks, leg bones, ribs, and vertebrae – some of which show evidence of possible butchery marks. Flint tools thought to have been used to clean fresh hides were also found.

“Archaeological sites from this period are rare, and critical for understanding Neanderthal behaviour across Britain and Europe. Why did so many mammoths die here? Could Neanderthals have killed them? What can they tell us about life in ice-age Britain? The range of evidence at this site gives us a unique chance to address these questions,” Lisa Westcott Wilkins of DigVentures told The Observer.

Other discoveries at the site include giant elks – twice the size of the animals today – with 10-foot-wide antlers, dung beetles, which used animal droppings for food and shelter, and freshwater snails. Seeds, pollen, and fossils belonging to extinct plants have also been uncovered.

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London’s mayor has said he sees no way to avoid more Covid restrictions in the British capital amid a spike in Omicron infections, fearing without them the NHS would be brought to the brink of collapse.

In an interview with the BBC on Sunday, Sadiq Khan described new restrictions as “inevitable” and called for a “major package of financial support for our hospitality, culture, and retail [sectors]” for when that happens. He argued that if the authorities failed to bring in tougher restrictions “sooner rather than later,” the capital would see an even worse surge in positive cases and “potentially public services like the NHS on the verge of collapse, if not collapsing.”

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The London mayor said that in the British capital alone, nearly 30,000 new Covid cases have been recorded over the past 24 hours.

Khan’s comments come less than 24 hours after he declared a “major incident” in London amid rising numbers of Covid cases and the rapid spread of the Omicron strain in particular, which has already become a dominant variant in England and Scotland, supplanting Delta.

The term ‘major incident’ is used for events that require special arrangements on the part of emergency services, the NHS or city authorities, and which are “likely to involve serious harm, damage, disruption or risk to human life or welfare, essential services, the environment or national security.”

Khan said 1,534 people were currently hospitalized with Covid in the capital — a nearly 30% rise compared to last week.

When announcing the decision on Saturday, Khan pointed out that the “vast majority” of patients being treated in hospitals have not been inoculated. He urged Londoners to get vaccinated and receive a booster dose, particularly extending the call to some minority groups.

“In some pockets of London there are black Londoners, there are Muslim Londoners, there are Jewish Londoners, there are Eastern European Londoners, who still haven't had a vaccine,” he said.

Khan promised more venues in the capital would begin offering initial doses and boosters in the coming days. So far, 2.7 million Londoners have received a booster, according to government figures.

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UK Brexit Minister David Frost resigned on Saturday, warning against imposing new Covid-related restrictions. He said he had to step down prematurely after his plans were leaked to the media.

The resignation was first reported by the Mail on Sunday, which wrote about Frost’s growing disillusionment with the government’s economic policies in recent months.

In his farewell letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Frost said he initially planned to step down in January to ensure a smooth transition, but decided to resign immediately after his upcoming departure was leaked to the press. “It is disappointing that this plan has become public,” Frost said.

“Brexit is now secure,” and he and Johnson “have always shared the same approach” to it, he said. At the same time, Frost expressed frustration over the government bringing back pandemic-related restrictions.

You took a brave decision in July, against considerable opposition, to open up the country again. Sadly, it did not prove to be irreversible, as I wished, and believe you did too. I hope we can get back on track soon and not be tempted by the kind of coercive measures we have seen elsewhere.

In his response letter, Johnson thanked Frost for his “relentless hard work, resolve and vision” during the contentious talks with the EU. The prime minister noted that, under Frost’s watch, the UK completed its exit from the bloc and signed a trade deal with Brussels.

Frost’s departure comes at a difficult time for Johnson’s cabinet. The prime minister is facing an internal revolt of nearly 100 Conservative MPs who voted against the government’s plan on new Covid restrictions this week. Johnson has also been criticized for several Christmastime gatherings by government officials last year, which reportedly broke lockdown rules.

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Cabinet Minister Lord Frost has reportedly walked out of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government. Frost is believed to have grown disillusioned with Johnson’s Covid measures, tax hikes, and environmental policies.

Frost’s departure was reported by the Mail on Sunday, citing sources within the government. The minister, who negotiated Britain’s departure from the European Union, reportedly handed in his resignation a week ago, but was persuaded to stay on until January.

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Frost’s resignation was prompted by his growing “disillusionment” with Johnson’s government, the Mail reported. Specifically, he disagreed with the introduction of ‘Plan B’ coronavirus restrictions, income tax hikes announced in September, and the high cost of Johnson’s plan to lower carbon emissions to net zero by 2050.

Of these gripes, the ‘Plan B’ restrictions have been the most contentious for Johnson. Introduced earlier this month, the suite of measures includes a mask mandate for indoor venues, vaccine passes for nightclubs and large events, and daily testing for the close contacts of infected people.

The restrictions, which reports suggest that Johnson will soon be asked by ministers to expand into a full lockdown, have caused discontent even within Johnson’s own party, with 100 Conservative MPs refusing to vote on bringing in the vaccine pass system. Forty of these MPs voted against mandatory masking too.

The introduction of these measures was followed by a devastating loss for the Conservative Party at the ballot box. While the Tories had held the constituency of North Shropshire for nearly 200 years, Liberal Democrat Helen Morgan beat the Conservarive Neil Shastri-Hurst by nearly 6,000 votes in a by-election there on Thursday.

Public anger against Johnson stems not just from the introduction of new restrictions, but also from the revelation that staff at Downing Street and a number of other locations held Christmas parties last year, while ordinary Britons were forbidden from gathering. The cabinet minister assigned to investigate these events, Simon Case, resigned on Friday after it emerged that he too held a party in his office.

Frost has not publicly commented on his apparent resignation yet. As of late, Frost had been locked into negotiations with European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic on post-Brexit arrangements between the UK and EU.

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Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has announced a ‘major incident’ in the UK capital over the quickly deteriorating epidemiological situation prompted by the fast-spreading Omicron variant.

“Today I have declared a major incident in London because of the serious threat of Covid-19 to our city. This will help us avoid disruption to frontline services and to the life-saving booster vaccine rollout,” the mayor said on Twitter on Saturday.

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A major incident is announced when special arrangements by emergency services might be required to deal with a serious event or situation. Such incidents are “likely to involve serious harm, damage, disruption or risk to human life,” welfare, or essential services.

According to Khan’s office, the Strategic Coordinating Group will be reestablished “to seek further support from government to address the pressures facing the city.”

In the last week London has seen 65,525 new Covid cases, with 26,418 of those reported in the last 24 hour period – the highest number since the beginning of the pandemic.

Nationwide daily numbers have also hit new records. On Friday, more than 93,000 cases were reported across the UK. The skyrocketing figures have reportedly prompted the UK government to consider imposing a strict post-Christmas lockdown to curb Omicron’s spread.

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With Omicron taking London by storm, British researchers have found that those infected with the new Covid-19 strain could exhibit symptoms rarely reported before, including loss of appetite.

The researchers have studied data collected by the ZOE Covid Symptom study, a British app for tracking the virus symptoms. They compared London samples from early October, when the Delta variant was dominant, with more recent ones, from when Omicron began outdoing its predecessor, at least in the British capital.

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The analysis showed that only half of the app's users experienced the classic three symptoms featured in the UK government’s Covid-19 guidelines; fever, cough, and loss of smell or taste. However, among the symptoms that had previously either not cropped up at all or had only been reported on rare occasions, was a loss of appetite.

Even though the researchers warn that it is still early days and the dynamics might change down the road, so far the new strain appears to be less deadly and less likely to lead to hospitalization in general. One possible factor here, the scientists say, may be that the vast majority of app users have been vaccinated.

With the number of Omicron cases on the rise all across Britain, the UK government has ramped up its booster vaccine program. Addressing Britons on Thursday, Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid argued that the country had “no time to waste in the race between virus and the vaccine.”

On Saturday, London Mayor Sadiq Khan declared a major incident in the capital over the surge of Omicron cases.

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Anti-vaxxers have clashed with police during a demonstration against anti-Covid measures in central London as officials admit they are “extremely worried” about the epidemiological situation in the UK capital.

A ‘freedom rally’ organized by several self-described ‘resistance groups’ started at midday on Saturday at Parliament Square.

Its participants are protesting the vaccine mandate for NHS staff, the recent introduction of Covid-passports, and other pandemic-related measures. None of them are wearing masks or keeping social distance, with many holding banners against ‘medical apartheid’ and ‘tyranny’, along with hippie-style ‘Love wins’.

There have been some scuffles between demonstrators and law enforcement officers though generally the protest appears to be peaceful.

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Meanwhile, the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said earlier on Saturday that he was “extremely worried” about the speed of the spread of the new Covid variant Omicron, which is now dominant in the capital. He told reporters that growing numbers in cases are leading “to big issues in relation to staff absences and the ability of our public services to run at the optimal levels.”

The UK has registered record numbers of Covid-19 cases three days in a row with more than 93,000 recorded on Friday. Such figures have reportedly prompted the UK government to consider imposing a new two-week lockdown after Christmas.

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The UK could be heading for a post-Christmas lockdown, in which Brits would be forbidden from gathering indoors. Across Europe, governments are rolling out fresh restrictions to deal with the Omicron variant of Covid-19.

Although the Omicron variant of the coronavirus is highly transmissible and appears more resistant to vaccines, its symptoms have been described as only mild to moderate. Nevertheless, the UK may be returning to the restrictions of last spring, according to a report in the Times on Friday night.

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According to the report, ministers will present proposals to Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the coming days advocating for a return to levels of restriction not seen since April, when the UK was in ‘Step 2’ of its roadmap out of full-on winter lockdown. These restrictions would see indoor gatherings banned except for work purposes and outdoor service only in bars and restaurants.

This new lockdown could be in place as soon as December 27, and is described as a “circuit breaker” to slow the rapid rise in daily cases, which hit a record 93,000 on Friday. Despite the alarming surge in cases, Covid-related deaths have steadily fallen since early November, and ten times fewer people are dying with the virus now than at the beginning of the year.

The Times’ sources said that Parliament may be recalled early next week to debate the proposals, which have not yet been formally considered.

Johnson has thus far insisted that he is not in favor of “closing things down.” Despite Omicron’s apparent resistance to the current crop of vaccines, he has promoted booster shots as the main means of defeating the variant, promising this week to get every English adult a booster dose by the New Year.

His government is not the only one discussing another round of lockdowns. Ireland on Friday introduced earlier closing times for pubs and restaurants, effective Monday through to the end of January. In Denmark, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen also announced a raft of new restrictions including crowd limits and mask mandates in stores and the closure of entertainment venues, pending parliamentary approval.

In the Netherlands, government health advisers have recommended the closure of all but essential shops and services, with Prime Minister Mark Rutte due to make an announcement on Saturday evening.

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Oxford University’s race equality task force has reportedly published recommendations that could see academics judged and hired based on what’s been described by one professor as a “woke score.”

The proposals are aimed at raising the number of hires from ethnic minority backgrounds, according to The Telegraph, which reviewed the task force’s consultation document. The equality panel reportedly noted that it was “important to embed EDI [equality, diversity and inclusion]” into “all recruitment.”

A “centrally funded pool of trained EDI observers” should be set up to “provide support” to recruitment panels on request, the document says. The task force also called for “good citizenship and/or commitment to EDI work” to be “essential criteria” during reward and recognition processes.

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According to The Telegraph, students and staff have been asked to submit responses to the consultation by next Wednesday. Following this, the task force will create a strategy on equality and diversity that will be submitted to Oxford’s governing council for approval before it becomes official policy.

However, the paper reported that the proposals have drawn flak from senior academics at the university who worry that qualified candidates will be “[marked] down because they haven’t jumped on the woke bandwagon.”

“If we are supposed to pay attention to their EDI – their woke score – does this mean it doesn’t matter if they are useless at teaching and research? Or do you now have to get a minimum woke score to get a job?” an unnamed senior professor told The Telegraph.

The academic said one of the recommended ways to “tease out” a candidate’s views on diversity was to ask them for examples of how they had “called out these kinds of issues in [their] previous appointment.”

So you are being interviewed for a job in alchemy, yet you have to go out your way to show you have tried to virtue signal – to an old codger like me it just seems crazy.

An Oxford University spokesman said the document was not yet official policy, noting that a “detailed strategy” on the recommendations could come by the end of the academic year.

Other suggestions include a cross-faculty program of “inclusive teaching, curriculum diversification and decolonising activities” and training students and academics to “better understand microaggressions and stereotypes.”

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British rock star Sir Rod Stewart and his son, Sean Stewart, have pleaded guilty to battery over a New Year’s Eve incident at a Palm Beach hotel in Florida but will avoid any punishment.

The Stewarts were accused of a physical altercation with security guard Jessie Dixon at the exclusive Breakers Hotel on December 31, 2019. Court documents state that the incident was prompted by the refusal of hotel staff to let children from the Stewarts party into a private event.

According to Daily Mail, which has obtained hotel surveillance footage, Stewart, besides punching the guard, “even performed what appeared to be a Hitler salute with his right arm extended above his head while fingers of his left hand made a Hitler-style mustache.”

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The 76-year-old singer, who was knighted by the Duke of Cambridge on behalf of the Queen in 2016, later apologized for his behavior.

Stewart’s lawyer, Guy Fronstin explained in a statement to Boca News Now that his client chose to plead guilty to avoid the “unnecessary burden on the court and the public that a high profile proceeding would cause.”

As no one was injured during the incident, “Sir Rod Stewart was not convicted, nor sentenced to jail, or placed on probation,” the lawyer said.

The plea agreement was signed on Monday, December 13.

Dixon agreed with the outcome, a spokesperson for Palm Beach State Attorney Dave Aronberg confirmed in an email, as reported by Daily Mail.

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British Cabinet Secretary Simon Case will no longer investigate a series of alleged lockdown-breaching Christmas parties at Downing Street, after it emerged that a festive gathering was held in his office over the same period.

Case had been investigating a number of alleged festive gatherings held last winter at Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Downing Street office, as well as a party at the Department of Education. These events, at least one of which was attended by Johnson himself, reportedly took place in breach of the government’s own coronavirus restrictions.

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However, Case stepped down on Friday after it was revealed that a lockdown-defying party was held in his own office on December 17 last year. First reported by the Guido Fawkes gossip blog, the party was attended by around 15 people. Invites were sent out and the event featured “copious booze and music.”

"To ensure the ongoing investigation retains public confidence, the cabinet secretary has recused himself for the remainder of the process,” read a statement from Downing Street on Friday.

A government spokesperson downplayed the party, describing the event as a “virtual quiz” attended by half a dozen staffers in person in the cabinet secretary’s private office, but in which Case played no part. However, they said he walked past partiers on the way out of the building, indicating he was at least aware of the event at the time.

"No outside guests or other staff were invited or present. This lasted for an hour and drinks and snacks were bought by those attending. He also spoke briefly to staff in the office before leaving,” the spokesperson told the BBC.

The investigation will be taken over by senior civil servant Sue Gray. Gray ran the 2012 ‘ Plebgate’ inquiry that led to the resignation of minister Andrew Mitchell, oversaw several cabinet reshuffles, and investigated MP Damian Green for sexual harassment in 2017.

Opposition MPs were scathing in their criticism of the turn of events on Friday. "Boris Johnson as prime minister has set the tone for the civil service and the rest of government,” said Labour Party deputy leader Angela Rayner. "With each new revelation there is growing evidence of a culture of turning a blind eye to the rules.”

Ian Blackford, the Scottish National Party’s leader in Westminster, was more succinct. "This is a government that stinks of corruption and stinks of sleaze," he told the BBC.

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One of the most affluent men in Britain has been accused of excessive greed after he allegedly demanded annual rent of GBP600,000 for allowing a new train line to cross his land.

Ralph Percy, 12th Duke of Northumberland, owns land which will be crossed by the new Northumberland Line to service deprived communities – but that allegedly has not stopped the multi-millionaire from demanding eye-watering rent.

Under ancient ‘wayleave’ rules, landowners can allow access to their land for remuneration, including through annual rent as one of the options. Percy is reportedly worth £315 million and owns, among other assets, Alnwick Castle, featured in the ‘Harry Potter’ movies.

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A lawyer representing Northumberland County Council, Richard Turney, told a public inquiry in Blyth that wayleave rent provisions are “archaic” and related to “the original primary purpose of the railway, to serve coal mines.”

“This has culminated in the Duke of Northumberland twice threatening to terminate the wayleaves in a dispute over rent, including after this application was made, with an extraordinary demand for more than £600,000 in rent,” Turney said, according to the BBC’s Local Democracy Service.

The lawyer said the “stranglehold over public resources” is “inappropriate.”

Responding to Turney’s comments, a representative for Northumberland Estates, the company that manages the duke’s vast lands, told the media that it “strongly refutes the allegations” and “wholeheartedly” wishes success for the project.

The spokesperson claimed that the controversy is actually related to another “separate and a long running” dispute with Network Rail, who “are attempting to claim private property rights without appropriate consultation and compensation.”

The response did not seem to assuage the anger of local residents hoping to benefit from the new railway line. One Blyth resident told The Mirror that Percy “is already nicknamed ‘Scrooge McDuke’ by people around here and you can see why.”

The outcome of the inquiry, which was completed in early December, will be known in 2022, with the report due to be sent to the government for consideration.

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Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford has warned that the nation is facing an oncoming “storm of Omicron,” as he unveils a string of Covid restrictions in a bid to combat rising case numbers.

From December 26, Wales will shut nightclubs and reintroduce social distancing in shops and workplaces. Unveiling the stricter measures, Drakeford did not rule out going further after Christmas, imposing restrictions on households and bringing back limits on the hospitality sector.

Speaking to the BBC’s ‘Today’ program on Friday, the nation’s first minister warned that “Wales is in the calm before the storm.”

We see the storm of Omicron coming our way and we need to prepare for it now.

Acknowledging that Christmas is a “special” time of year for people, Drakeford said his administration was seeking to act in a “proportionate and fair” manner, urging citizens to act sensibly during the festive period.

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While not seeking to limit social gatherings over Christmas, the Welsh First Minister did recommend people temporarily avoid meeting “wider circles of friends” and hold smaller festive gatherings than usual.

The announcement from the Welsh leader comes after the UK reported a record number of Covid infections for the second day in a row, with 88,376 cases confirmed on Thursday.

While Wales has lower Omicron figures than elsewhere in the UK, with only 95 confirmed infections of the new variant, the regional public health agency fears it could see a “rapid increase over the coming days and weeks.”

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UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party lost a by-election on Thursday in an area it firmly held for almost 200 years. The Tory government has been marred by a lobbying scandal and an internal revolt.

Liberal Democrat Helen Morgan won 17,957 votes in North Shropshire, central England, beating her Tory opponent, Neil Shastri-Hurst, by nearly 6,000 votes.

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The result is a stunning upset for the Conservatives, who had represented North Shropshire in Parliament for the past 189 years, with the exception of the short period between 1904 and 1906, according to UK media. The party comfortably won the constituency in 2019, leading with a nearly 23,000-vote majority.

“Tonight, the people of North Shropshire have spoken on behalf of the British people,” Morgan said after the vote. “They have said loudly and clearly: Boris Johnson, the party is over.”

“Our country is crying out for leadership. Mr Johnson, you are no leader,” Morgan added.

The by-election was held after veteran MP Owen Paterson gave up his seat due to a lobbying scandal.

The defeat in North Shropshire, previously considered to be a safe Tory bastion, could be a sign of future electoral losses for Johnson’s party. The PM currently faces a revolt in Parliament, where nearly 100 Tories broke ranks this week and voted against the government’s proposal to introduce Covid passes for certain venues and events in England.

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The government has advised schools in England that they can prevent further disruptions to education caused by Covid-related staff shortages by bringing retired teachers back to work.

“We know that in areas with high absence, a particular issue can be the availability of supply staff,” Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi said in a letter to headteachers, published on Thursday.

The minister said his department would work with the education sector “to offer advice to ex-teachers who want to provide support to schools and colleges.” Saying that rehiring former teachers is “the best way to boost the temporary workforce available to the sector,” Zahawi called on headteachers to use their “own professional and personal networks to encourage others to sign up to offer temporary help.”

He added that the government is also discussing best “flexible curriculum delivery models” for those schools that are suffering “the most acute” staffing shortages.

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According to the department’s statistics for England, 2.4% of teachers and school leaders and 2.1% of teaching assistants and other staff in state-funded schools were absent on December 9 due to Covid-related reasons. Both numbers are up from the previous week, with some schools forced to finish the Autumn term earlier than scheduled due to staff absence.

The increasing pressure caused by Covid infections on schools and concerns over the transmissibility of Omicron prompted the Teachers’ Union NASUWT to this week urge the government to consider “the immediate introduction” of additional measures to slow the spread of infection and to “minimize further disruption” to lessons. In an open letter, published on December 13, the union suggested canceling non-essential activities, moving to online staff and parental meetings, and mandating staff “working from home where appropriate.”

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The Royal College of Emergency Medicine has warned that the UK's National Health Service is facing an “acute” staffing problem as it seeks to battle the spread of Omicron.

Speaking to BBC Radio on Thursday, the college’s president, Katherine Henderson, raised concerns that “even if we are not seeing a big rise in hospitalizations, [officials are] already seeing the effect on not having the staff to run shifts,” as the virus forces people to self-isolate.

“The acute problem is actually to do with staffing,” Henderson said, adding that medical professionals “are worried about patient harm coming about because we just don’t have the staff,” especially in London.

The warning that medical professionals could struggle to cope comes after the UK reported a record number of new Covid cases on Wednesday, with 78,610 infections marking the highest daily total since the start of the pandemic.

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Henderson, who alongside her work at the medical body is an emergency consultant in London, cited how absences of doctors and nurses who are unwell are leaving around a 10% staff shortage that risks hitting their ability to provide care to patients.

The confirmation of staff shortages comes after senior NHS figures warned that illness and self-isolation were beginning to stretch the medical service to its limits, with colleagues forced to cover extra shifts to make up for absences.

Hospitals across England have reportedly been told to discharge as many patients as they possibly can to clear spaces for potential Covid admissions as the Omicron variant spreads throughout the UK and elsewhere.

The concern about the situation across the NHS comes after a medical expert, Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, told the UK’s Sky News that a million people could be self-isolating in Britain after testing positive for Covid on Christmas Day, given the speed at which the new variant is moving through the country.

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England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, has urged Britons to cut down on the number of “less important” social interactions they engage in this festive season given the rapid pace of Omicron’s spread.

Speaking at a press conference with Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday – the same day the country recorded its highest daily number of new cases since the beginning of the pandemic – Whitty said the Omicron strain is moving at an “absolutely phenomenal pace.”

He also cautioned against assuming that it causes milder infections than other Covid strains, saying it is too early to tell.

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Answering questions from MPs on Thursday, Whitty reiterated that the new variant “is highly transmissible,” and as a consequence, “it is sensible” for people to start choosing which invitations to accept, while rejecting “less important” ones. That will help to reduce the chances of catching Covid and passing it on, he added.

“This is a period to prioritize,” Whitty said.

Examples of this prioritization have come quickly, with Queen Elizabeth II announcing on Thursday the cancelation of the traditional pre-Christmas lunch for her extended family, which was to be held next week.

Following Whitty’s warnings, a number of businesses have called on the government to support them, citing a dramatic increase in cancelation rates as people heed the advice to limit social contacts.

Whitty’s comments were met with criticism on social media, with some taking him to task for becoming ‘political’. Responding on Thursday, Whitty said the role of holders of his post, dating back to the 1850s, has been to provide health advice to the public.

Some critics of the government’s handling of the pandemic consider Whitty something of an adversary. The professor has been publicly harassed, and in July, a man was charged with assault after he and a friend recorded themselves grabbing at Whitty in a London park.

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Queen Elizabeth has called off her traditional pre-Christmas family lunch next week as a precaution amid a surge in Covid-19 Omicron cases, according to a palace source.

On Thursday, sources at Buckingham Palace told Reuters that Queen Elizabeth had canceled a pre-Christmas lunch with her family which was due to take place next week. The source said she does not want to put other Christmas arrangements at risk amid the spread of the Omicron variant.

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“The pre-Christmas family lunch will not be going ahead,” the source stated, adding that “the decision is a precautionary one as it is felt to put too many people's Christmas arrangements at risk if it went ahead.”

"While there is regret that it is canceled, there is a belief it is the right thing to do for all,” the source said.

The move comes amid a new wave of Covid-19 infections in the UK, partially driven by the arrival of the Omicron variant which is more contagious – though seemingly less severe – than strains that have gone before.

The monarch was forced to cancel a number of engagements earlier in the year due to recommendations from her physicians. The Queen, 95, is understood to be in good health.

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The UK government is facing new challenges with its Test and Trace system as government figures show hundreds of thousands of citizens who’ve contracted Covid-19 aren’t using the NHS app, impacting the close contact tracking.

Across England and Wales, official UK figures estimate that only around 50% of the population are using the app. The government’s recently released data suggests the situation is worse than that, as with around 300,000 people testing positive each week, it would be expected that 150,000 people are ‘pinging’ their close contacts via the Test and Trace system. However, figures show that the real number is about half of that.

Similarly, in Scotland, under half of all residents have downloaded the app, with less than 20% of people who have got it using it to inform individuals who have been nearby that they have tested positive.

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Back in the summer, ahead of what became known as ‘Freedom Day,’ when Covid-19 restrictions were lifted, a poll conducted by Savanta ComRes found that 20% of UK adults admitted they had deleted the app.

The mass deletion came amid the so-called “pingdemic” in July, which saw more than 600,000 people in one week getting told to self-isolate as a result of coming into close contact with an infected person.

The £37 billion Test and Trace system works by alerting individuals who’ve been in close contact with someone who later tests positive, if both people have the app installed on their devices.

It was designed to allow the NHS to swiftly inform individuals who might have been exposed to Covid-19 to self-isolate or get tested to limit the spread of the virus.

The UK Health Security Agency, the nation’s public health protection and infectious disease capability body, has previously urged citizens to use the app, citing it as a vital tool in the fight against the pandemic, allowing officials to prevent thousands of Covid cases from spreading.

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The UK has recorded 78,610 new Covid-19 infections in the last 24 hours, the country’s highest since the pandemic began, as Westminster embarks on an ambitious booster campaign to slow the spread of the Omicron variant.

On Wednesday, the UK government’s Covid-19 dashboard showed that some 78,610 new infections had been registered in the last 24-hour recording period. The figure represents a huge increase on the total a day earlier (59,610), as well as the number reported last Wednesday (51,342).

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The latest single-day figure is also the highest recorded in the UK since the pandemic began, although testing capacity was substantially lower during the first wave of Covid-19.

The government’s dashboard suggests that there are 522.2 cases of Covid-19 per 100,000 people in the country. Case numbers over the last seven days are also 19.1% higher than the preceding week.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has vowed to enhance the speed of the national booster vaccine campaign in an effort to slow the spread of the virus around the festive period. Over 656,700 vaccine shots were administered over the last 24 hours.

Government officials have warned that the more contagious Omicron variant, which also evades vaccine-induced immunity in many people, is likely to become the most prevalent strain in the coming days.

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A former hospital worker has been handed two whole life sentences to be served concurrently with a 12-year jail term for murdering two women and sexually abusing 100 female corpses.

On Wednesday, Maidstone Crown Court in the UK's Kent county ruled that David Fuller, 67, should never be released from prison due to the heinous nature of the crimes he committed. “Your actions go against everything that is right and humane. They are incomprehensible. You had no regard for the dignity of the dead,” Justice Cheema-Grubb told Fuller during sentencing.

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Fuller had pleaded guilty to the murder of Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce in two separate attacks in Tunbridge Wells in 1987. He also abused female corpses, including those belonging to children, in two Kent morgues while working as a hospital electrician over a period of 12 years.

He was arrested in 2020 as advances in DNA testing linked him to the two killings. On searching Fuller’s house, police found footage in which the murderer had recorded himself sexually abusing corpses in morgues.

Fuller had even labelled folders with names of the victims. The abuses are believed to have taken place between 2008 and November 2020. The dead bodies of three children were among those he molested.

In November, Health Secretary Sajid Javid announced an investigation into how Fuller was able to sexually abuse corpses undetected over such a long period of time.

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A record number of people in the UK might have to spend Christmas Day in isolation this year after contracting Covid-19 due to the fast-spreading Omicron strain, according to the British media, citing government forecasts.

Anyone in the UK who tests positive for Covid-19 from Wednesday onwards will have to spend Christmas Day in isolation under current government regulations. The rules issued by the UK Health Security Agency demand that anyone who gets a positive test goes into quarantine for 10 days. If that person then develops any Covid-19 symptoms during this period, they will have to spend another 10 days in isolation, starting from the day the symptoms first appeared.

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The government believes there might be four times as many people self-isolating this Christmas Day than on December 25, 2020. The total number of Omicron cases reported in the UK rose from 4,713 to 5,346 over the past 24 hours, with 633 new infections linked to the highly transmissible new strain.

The overall number of new daily infections amounted to 59,610 and has gone up by more than 30% in just a week. This is the highest such figure since January, when almost 60,000 new cases were reported. At this rate, the UK may see some 100,000 people infected with Omicron on Christmas Eve, and around one million Brits isolating the next day, media projections say, using the government data.

Omicron appears to be “the most significant threat we have had since the start of the pandemic,” Dr Jenny Harries, CEO of the UK Health Security Agency, told MPs on Wednesday, adding that the time taken for the number of new Omicron infections to double “is shortening.” Earlier, England’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, also warned that the new strain is spreading “unbelievably fast.”

The Omicron strain has already become dominant in London where it currently accounts for over 50% of all new cases, according to the British media. It has also caused more than a quarter of all new cases in the east and southeast of England.

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The UK Supreme Court has rejected a legal challenge brought against the government over its failure to provide gender neutral passports after an LGBTQ rights campaigner claimed the lack of an 'X' option breaches human rights laws.

Christie Elan-Cane, who identifies as a “non-gendered” individual “fighting for legal recognition,” initially launched the legal challenge to secure legal recognition for British people who don’t identify as male or female.

The legal bid was rejected by the Court of Appeal in March 2020, which said the current policy does not breach human rights. The Supreme Court unanimously dismissed Elan-Cane’s appeal on Wednesday, handing the Home Office another win.

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Defending the existing rule, which requires UK citizens to identify as either male or female on their passports, the Supreme Court said that gender forms part of the process that helps authorities confirm an applicant’s identity.

“It is therefore the gender recognised for legal purposes and recorded in those documents which is relevant,” Lord Reed, the president of the Supreme Court, said in the ruling, dismissing gender as not being “a particularly important facet of the appellant's existence or identity.”

Elan-Cane responded to the ruling on Twitter, declaring that the "UK government and judicial system are on the wrong side of history,” failing to provide recognition for non-gendered individuals.

Vowing that the Supreme Court’s decision is “not the end,” Elan-Cane will now seek to secure a positive ruling from the European Court of Human Rights, which would overturn the decision from the British courts.

Argentina, Australia, Canada, Denmark, India, Malta, Nepal, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Pakistan all issue gender neutral passports. Germany also offers an additional intersex category.

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British police have been given a new toolkit to fight back against an “epidemic” of misogyny and sexual harassment, with acts such as leering and wolf-whistling being included in a list of prosecutable misdemeanors.

On Wednesday, the British College of Policing issued a guide for officers to help them deal with sexual harassment against women. The document encourages police forces to pursue prosecution under public order laws for singular offenses and charging under a 1997 harassment act when an individual repeatedly engages in behavior which includes catcalling and wolf whistling.

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The police have also been told to take “preventative” measures, such as public space protection orders and criminal behavior orders which prevent people from visiting prescribed public spaces.

Officers have been advised to pursue criminal charges or apply preventative strategies for a list of offences, including kerb crawling, cornering, and upskirting, as well as leering and persistent staring. Viewing pornography in public is also included.

Chief Constable Andy Marsh, chief executive of the College of Policing, said in a statement that there was “epidemic” of “industrial” level violence and harassment against women. Some 1.6 million offences against women are recorded each year.

Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blythe, the national police coordinator for violence against women and girls, said that women must come forward to report harassment, adding that it is important the public knows the police will use the powers made available to them.

Officials within Britain’s police have repeatedly stated their desire to enhance public trust in law enforcement in the aftermath of the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by Met officer Wayne Couzens earlier this year.

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UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced a rebellion in his own party on Tuesday, as around 100 Conservative MPs refused to support a vote on Covid passes. The measure was nonetheless still passed and will come into effect this week.

The NHS Covid Pass, an app which shows proof on a mobile device of full vaccination or a negative Covid test, will now be required to enter nightclubs and other large venues or events across England. The measure was passed in the House of Commons on Tuesday with a 369 to 126 vote, with more than 90 Conservatives voting against the government’s motion.

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In an address to the nation on Sunday, Johnson warned that a “tidal wave” of Omicron cases was headed England’s way, and the impact would undoubtedly be greater because it is wintertime. However, he failed to summon the full support of his own party during Tuesday’s vote, and subsequently faced his biggest rebellion yet from fellow Tories. The pass will be mandatory in the aforementioned circumstances from Wednesday.

The prime minister has already weathered opposition from within his own party regarding pandemic-era restrictions. He has come under heavy scrutiny over recent reports that he sanctioned or attended a number of parties at Downing Street last Christmas, at a time when all social gatherings were banned in England.

Those who spoke against the Covid pass had argued that the new steps intended to curb the virus were extreme and would infringe on civil liberties. One of the Tory rebels, backbencher Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, told the BBC the message implied in the rebellion meant a challenge to Johnson’s tenure as PM had “got to be on the cards” next year.

Other measures passed in the Commons on Tuesday evening as part of the country’s ‘Plan B’ to combat coronavirus included an extension of mandatory masking at most indoor venues. This was voted against by 40 Conservative MPs.

England has registered nearly 11 million positive Covid-19 cases, with recent figures trending upward. At least one person has died from the Omicron variant, Johnson confirmed on Monday, and health officials have said the new strain is accounting for around 20% of positive cases across the country at present.

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The British government is removing all the countries named on England’s pandemic travel red list, Secretary for Transport Grant Shapps has announced.

“From 4am on Wednesday, December 15, all 11 countries will be removed from England’s travel list,” Shapps revealed in a statement posted on Twitter on Tuesday.

He added that all current Covid testing measures for travelers arriving into the country would remain in place, but would be reviewed “in the first week of January.”

Shapps said all travel measures remained subject to review, and the government was prepared to impose new restrictions “should there be a need to do so to protect public health.”

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There are growing indications that Omicron – the new Covid-19 variant that has prompted the recent bans and restrictions – is milder than earlier-detected strains.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid told Parliament the decision to clear the red list was taken because the travel ban was not proving to be as effective as had been expected. He said that, given Omicron had “spread so widely across the world,” the red list was now proving “less effective in slowing the incursion of Omicron from abroad.”

The red list announcement came on the same day the government put forward a number of new domestic restrictions for parliamentary approval, including Covid passes for entry into nightclubs and larger venues in England. A number of Conservative MPs – the prime minister's party – have already indicated they intend to vote against these proposals.

Also on Tuesday, Professor Kevin Fenton, the London regional director of Public Health England, told the Evening Standard the latest data showed Omicron had become the dominant strain of Covid infections across the capital.

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British MPs have passed a bill which makes sweeping changes to asylum and refugee rules as well as giving the home secretary the power to remove someone’s citizenship without telling them.

Last Wednesday, amid media uproar about a 2020 Downing Street Christmas party that allegedly defied Covid-19 rules, British MPs passed the Nationality and Borders Bill through the House of Commons. The bill, which aims to tighten up rules around migration and asylum, passed 298 to 231.

“Our Bill will bring in a new, comprehensive, fair but firm long-term plan that seeks to address the challenge of illegal migration head on,” Home Secretary Priti Patel told the Commons.

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The legalization has been widely criticized for a number of reasons; first among them is the move to give the home secretary the power to revoke citizenship without telling people. Clause 9 – “Notice of decision to deprive a person of citizenship” – gives the exemption from having to provide notice of the removal of citizenship.

The exemption is applicable when the home secretary does not have the required information to give notice, as well as for any other reason deemed “reasonably practicable.” It is also noted that notice should not be given if it endangers national security, diplomatic relations, or if it’s in the public interest.

More than 250,000 people have since signed a petition calling for Clause 9 to be removed from the bill.

The bill also creates a two-tier asylum system, separating those that have arrived from dangerous countries from those who have arrived from elsewhere in the world. Asylum seekers are also required to make their claim at a “designated space” and criminalizes illegally arriving in the UK.

The bill will be read in the House of Lords in the new year before moving to Royal Assent.

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Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab will unveil his proposal to revise UK human rights legislation on Tuesday in a bid to challenge “wokery and political correctness” and prevent “spurious” claims being made.

The announcement of the reforms, which have already faced opposition ahead of their formal introduction, will coincide with the publication of an independent review into the Human Rights Act by the Ministry of Justice.

By altering the legislation, the UK government will seek to expedite the deportation of foreign criminals and allow British-based judges to overrule judgements handed down by the European Court of Human Rights instead of “blindly” accepting them.

Ahead of Raab’s formal rollout of the overhaul, the Ministry of Justice warned that, unchanged, current human-rights legislation would allow free speech to be crippled “by wokery or political correctness.”

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Barrister Martha Spurrier, director of civil-rights group Liberty, condemned the proposal, arguing that, while they are “cast as strengthening our rights,” the new laws would result in them being “fatally weakened.”

This government is systematically shutting down all avenues of accountability through a succession of rushed and oppressive bills.

Despite Raab’s contention that the law change is needed to provide a balance between freedom of expression and the right to privacy, legal figures have warned the proposed revisions to the act could be “dangerous.”

Stephanie Boyce, the president of the Law Society, the professional body that represents UK solicitors, urged the government not to pursue politically driven judicial changes. “Talk of restricting rights is dangerous and does not reflect the nuanced job the courts have to do,” Boyce stated.

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UK health officials were forced to correct Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab, following interviews on Tuesday during which he twice gave the wrong number of hospitalized Omicron patients, providing wildly inaccurate figures.

Speaking to Sky News, Raab told host Kay Burley there were a “significant number” of patients in hospital who had been infected with the new Omicron variant of Covid-19, before stating that it was “250 the last time I looked.”

Later in the same hour, he significantly revised that figure downwards from 250 to nine. However, while closer, it was still incorrect.

Health officials were forced to issue a correction on behalf of the government, stating that the exact number presently in hospital with the new variant was 10.

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During his first interview, Raab had sought to warn the public that, based on the current rate of transmission, “we will see those numbers increase very dramatically,” claiming that some of those hospitalized “will possibly die or have a very serious suffering.”

He admitted the government didn’t yet “know the full severity” of the new strain, but urged the public to “take action now,” even “if the severity is relatively low.”

On Monday, Health Secretary Sajid Javid confirmed there have so far been 4,713 confirmed cases of Omicron in the UK, and warned that it was set to become the dominant variant in London within the “next 48 hours.”

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The NHS website for booking Covid-19 vaccinations went down as tens of thousands of people logged on to reserve their booster shot after the UK government rolled out its plan to offer one to all adults by the end of the year.

Shortly after putting people into e-queues on Monday, the appointment-booking website went down due to “technical difficulties.” It was reportedly the service’s second crash following Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s announcement Sunday night about ramping up the program to fight the Omicron variant and urging those eligible to “get boosted now.”

Later in the morning, the website was apparently working again intermittently, but people were waiting in queues of between 10,000 and 15,000. According to the BBC, the health department had claimed the crash was caused because more than 100,000 people had tried to get an appointment.

The prime minister’s official spokesman told the public broadcaster that the NHS was working to ensure there was “further capacity” on the website to book booster jabs in an effort to “adapt to the increased demand.”

In a later tweet, the NHS noted that the booking service was “currently facing extremely high demand” and had resorted to “operating a queueing system.” It advised applicants “experiencing waits” to try again “later today or tomorrow.”

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Under the new plan, people aged 30 and above are now eligible to book their third shot online via the NHS website, while people aged 18 to 29 can book online starting Wednesday. However, all adults have been able to get vaccinated at walk-in centers since Monday. This has led to long lines outside pharmacies, hospitals, and temporary vaccine sites across the country.

Meanwhile, “exceptionally high demand” forced the UK Health Security Agency to suspend the online ordering of lateral flow test kits from the government website in order to “fulfill existing orders.” The website noted that there were “no more home tests available” but said that the rapid test kits – which allow people to self-test for Covid-19 – could be collected from “local pharmacies, some community sites and some schools and colleges.”

On Monday, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace confirmed 750 military personnel had been deployed to boost the rollout of the government program, while Health Secretary Sajid Javid warned the UK was in a “race between the virus and the vaccine” due to the “phenomenal” spread of the Omicron variant.

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The UK’s NHS Blood and Transplant service has warned it’s facing a “critical” situation over the winter, as seasonal viruses such as cold and flu halt donations, leaving blood stocks at a dangerously low level.

While it seeks to maintain at least five days’ worth of reserves across the UK, its stocks are currently at risk of falling to below two days’ worth.

This is the second time in the past 12 months that the NHS has stated that it is facing a critical incident. During the summer, it warned it was struggling to cope with high demand, with the Covid pandemic increasing the volume of 999 calls to the second-highest level they’ve ever reached.

Blood stocks haven’t been this low since the 2018 ‘beast from the east’ storm, which prevented would-be donors from giving blood. Bad weather in 2019 further hampered donation drives and also caused a drop in supplies.

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“Winter is always a challenging period for blood stocks, but seasonal pressures are happening earlier, and we are concerned that the colder weather and higher rates of cold and flu, alongside Covid-19, including the booster vaccine programme, could make the situation more critical this year,” the NHS Blood and Transplant service said in a statement.

Calling on people to support the NHS during this difficult time, it urged “existing and returning donors” to “act now to help build stocks … to ensure patients continue to get the lifesaving blood they need.” It had previously warned that, without any changes to the current situation, it would be facing “insufficient” stocks from January to March 2022, forcing the NHS to review its approach for the post-winter period.

While not the main reason cited for the low supplies, the service raised concerns about the long-lasting effects of the Covid pandemic, with the situation over the past two years having “prompted concerns” about donation levels.

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The new Omicron strain has claimed its first victim in the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed during a visit to a vaccination clinic in West London.

Johnson made the announcement on Monday, saying, “Omicron is producing hospitalizations and, sadly, at least one patient has been confirmed to have died,” as quoted by the British media.

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The premier called on people not to write off Omicron as a “milder version of the virus,” pointing to the “sheer pace at which it accelerates through the population.”

The takeaway message from Johnson’s statement was that a booster dose of Covid vaccine could minimize the risk of infection or, failing that, at least render the symptoms less dangerous.

On Sunday, the prime minister had warned people in the UK that there was a “tidal wave of Omicron coming.” He had also set a new deadline: that, by the end of December, boosters would be available for all those willing to get additional protection from the virus.

A total of 3,137 Omicron cases have been detected in the UK to date, according to Sky News. However, most of those patients are being treated at home, with only 10 of them currently hospitalized in England, Health Secretary Sajid Javid revealed on Monday.

Amid the rapid spread of the new strain, the British government made the decision on Sunday to move the nationwide Covid alert level from 3 to 4, which indicates that “transmission is high, and direct Covid-19 pressure on healthcare services is widespread and substantial or rising.”

Omicron was first reported in South Africa on November 24, with the World Health Organization raising the alarm over the new strain’s extensive mutations, which have the potential to make it more contagious or deadly. The news triggered a panicked reaction, with European nations imposing travel bans on South Africa and several other countries on the continent.

However, that did not stop Omicron making landfall in Europe, with the first case being detected in Belgium on November 27. Shortly afterwards, the mutated virus was identified in most other European nations, including the UK, as well as in the US, Russia, Japan, and other countries across the world.

The jury is still out on whether Omicron is more deadly than its predecessors, and how existing vaccines are likely to fare against the new strain.

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The UK has said that the Omicron variant of Covid-19 now represents around 40% of all infections in London and was growing at a “phenomenal rate” as the government called for more people to get their third vaccine dose.

Speaking on Monday, Health Secretary Sajid Javid told Sky News that the government could not be sure that the Omicron variant of Covid-19 was less virulent than previous strains of the virus.

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“Even when a virus is mild, a small percentage of people from a very large number still can equal a high number of hospitalizations,” Javid stated. He added that 10 people were in hospital with the new variant.

The health minister warned that there was now a new race between the vaccine and the virus, and enhancing the booster program would be the best way to protect against another deadly wave of infection.

Javid stated that the strain, which emerged in southern Africa and has been shown to partially evade existing vaccines, accounted for about 40% of all infections in London.

“What we now know about Omicron is that... it’s spreading at a phenomenal rate, something that we’ve never seen before, it’s doubling every two to three days in infections,” Javid claimed.

Speaking on Sunday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned of a “tidal wave” of Omicron infections which would soon hit the UK. Britain has introduced tougher Covid restrictions since the variant was first detected on November 27 and has enhanced its vaccine booster campaign.

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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised to offer booster shots to every English adult by the New Year, warning that two doses are “simply not enough” for the coming “tidal wave” of the Omicron variant of Covid-19.

“Do not make the mistake of thinking Omicron can’t hurt you, can’t make you and your loved ones seriously ill,” Johnson warned, declaring that the variant was “doubling” in the UK.

“No one should be in any doubt – there is a tidal wave of Omicron coming,” the PM said, noting that the UK’s four health ministers had raised the “Covid threat level” to its second-highest point.

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“Today we’re launching the Omicron Emergency Booster National Mission – unlike anything we’ve done before in the vaccination program – to get boosted now,” Johnson announced, declaring that all eligible English adults over 18 would be given a chance to get their booster shots before the New Year. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland would also have vaccinations “accelerated.”

“To hit the pace we need, we’ll need to match the NHS’ best vaccination day so far, and then beat that day after day,” the PM continued, saying Britons must make sacrifices now lest the “wave of Omicron” force the postponement and cancelation of urgent medical procedures in the New Year. Thousands more “volunteer vaccinators” and dozens more vaccination sites would be deployed to help the effort.

READ MORE: Optimistic & pessimistic Omicron scenarios revealed

Despite the hard sell, there is still little evidence that Omicron is more severe than any of the other variants to have surfaced over the past year, despite increasing vaccination rates. Some early research into the new variant has confirmed fears of its higher transmissibility and the reduced effectiveness of vaccines. However, the vast majority of reported cases so far seem to be light or moderate.

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The owner of a Cardiff micropub has apologized for abusing the Test and Trace system to send “creepy” messages to a female customer. It’s not the first time a woman has been harassed after providing her info to a business.

St Canna’s Ale House proprietor James Karran has apologized for “letting down the community” by messaging a woman who visited his bar using the contact details he’d obtained from her Test and Trace input – the method by which customers who may have been in the proximity of a customer who subsequently tested positive for Covid can be contacted. The woman and her partner were outraged by the message, which they described as “creepy.”

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“Just so you know, you’ve got a super-pretty face so you’re allowed not to wear a mask at the bar. Everyone else must wear one,” Karran reportedly texted the woman several weeks ago. Her angry partner tore into the landlord on Facebook for taking the details she’d filled out on a Test and Trace sheet and “messag[ing] her illegally.” Referring to still-valid EU law on data protection, he said his girlfriend had been the “victim of a GDPR breach” and excoriated Karran for his “absolutely awful behavior.”

While the landlord responded to the post with “profound apologies,” and begged the couple not to “take it further,” the micropub’s founders did not comment on the incident until Friday, when they announced a PR campaign aimed at “re-establishing our reputation for safety and welcome to all.” The multi-level initiative apparently included becoming “accredited with the Good Night Out campaign [which combats sexual harassment]; implementing a ‘safer spaces’ policy,” overhauling its Covid-19 policy, and supporting the domestic-abuse charity Women’s Aid. However, many online have questioned whether the about-face was sincere.

Similar cases have occurred across the UK during the pandemic, ever since venues using Test and Trace methods – which either require punters to sign in using the NHS phone app or on an old-school paper form – became the norm. Over a year ago, the practice of bartenders hitting on young women whose numbers they’d gleaned from sign-in sheets was already making headlines as the likes of the Daily Mail wondered if the program hadn’t turned into a “stalker’s charter.”

While the Information Commissioner’s Office had sternly warned all venues that they were forbidden to “use the personal information that [they] collect for contact tracing for other purposes,” that hasn’t stopped some publicans from doing just that, perhaps assuming the attraction was mutual, or the object of their affection wouldn’t mind having their privacy violated. In practice, however, those harassed in this way said the incidents had not only brought back unpleasant memories, but had also affected their behavior in public, or spilled over into how they felt about the government’s Covid-19 directives.

Failure to comply with collecting Test and Trace details for the NHS is punishable by a fine from £1,000 to £4,000 ($1,326 to $5,307), but the program was initially rolled out without instructions as to how that data should be stored and secured, turning the whole system into what privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch referred to as a “free-for-all.”

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The UK has raised its Covid alert level from three to four – its second-highest – as transmission of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus “is high or rising exponentially.”

“Early evidence shows that Omicron is spreading much faster than Delta, and that vaccine protection against symptomatic disease from Omicron is reduced,” read a statement from the government on Sunday.

Raising the alert level to four does not immediately introduce any new restrictions. Rather, it indicates that Covid-19 “is in general circulation" and that "transmission is high or rising exponentially.”

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As of Sunday, there have been more than 3,000 confirmed cases of the new strain of Covid-19 in the UK, and Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi told the BBC that the first patients had been admitted to hospital with an Omicron infection.

Despite the government having expressed a concern that the variant might be more resistant to vaccines than previous strains, Zahawi said a “national endeavour” was needed to win the “race against Omicron” by getting more people vaccinated.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is due to address the public later on Sunday to speak about the UK’s vaccine booster program.

In addition to raising the alert level, the government has introduced ‘Plan B’ restrictions and is reportedly considering an even stronger suite of restrictions dubbed ‘Plan C,’ should the current controls fail to slow the spread of the new variant. People are currently being advised to work from home if possible, and, from Wednesday, the NHS Covid pass will be required to enter certain venues, such as large gatherings and nightclubs.

However, despite the government’s alarm, the Omicron variant by most accounts causes only mild to moderate symptoms in those it infects. Furthermore, in the weeks since it was first discovered in Botswana, the variant has not caused a single death, according to the World Health Organization.

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Scotland’s privacy regulators are investigating a government census asking children as young as 14 a range of intimate questions about their sex lives, including whether they’ve ever had anal sex.

Drafted by the government, the controversial ‘Health and Wellbeing Census’ has already been handed out to secondary school students in 11 of Scotland’s 32 local authorities, The Herald reported on Saturday. A total of 14 have declined to distribute it, while others want changes to a controversial section on sexual health.

This section asks children whether they have had “sexual experiences,” including “oral sex” or “vaginal or anal sex.” Other questions ask how many sexual partners the children have had in the past year, and a full list of questions has not been made available to parents.

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Parents have expressed concerns about these questions, and the survey is also being investigated by Scotland’s Information Commissioner’s Office, which is responsible for upholding data privacy. While the census has been described by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon as anonymous, reporting by The Herald found that local authorities will be able to identify participants by cross-checking their census forms against a separate database.

The government says that individual children may be identified if local authorities “see anything in the answers provided by some children and young people that raises some concerns.”

Privacy concerns aside, opposition to the survey has also come from conservative groups. The Family Education Trust (FET) warned that the census essentially asks children to admit to “illegal activity,” as most participants would be under the age of consent.

“You will be aware of the negligence that was shown by many local authorities in dealing [with] the sexual abuse of young girls by grooming gangs,” the FET wrote in a letter to Scottish Health Secretary Humza Yousaf last month. “The problem in many cases was that the local authority treated having underage sex as a normal part of growing up, thus allowing the abuse to continue.

“The questions in this survey display the same irresponsible attitude to young people’s sexual activity that was shown by so many local authorities,” the letter concluded.

Amid mounting controversy, Sturgeon told the Scottish parliament on Thursday that children will be free to opt out of the survey or skip questions that make them uncomfortable. She insisted, however, that the census asks vital questions for crafting policy for kids.

“We can refuse to ask the questions so that we don’t know the answers, or we can get the answers that then allows us to better support young people,” she said.

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Crowds desperate to buy shirts designed by the mysterious street artist Banksy have been seen in Bristol, UK. They were released to support protesters on trial for toppling a slave trader statue during a Black Lives Matter march.

Banksy designed the limited edition “souvenir shirts” to mark the trial of four people charged with damaging a controversial statue in Bristol last year. “All proceeds to the defendants so they can go for a pint,” the artist wrote on Instagram.

Queuing around the block for a #banksy t-shirt in Bristol. Money from sales will go towards legal fees for “colston four” trial starting Monday. They are accused of criminal damage following toppling of statue of slave trader Edward Colston @itvnews pic.twitter.com/UzxZyGFD9T

— Rupert Evelyn (@rupertevelyn) December 11, 2021

Sold for £25 ($33) plus VAT and limited to only one item per person at several shops, the shirt has been in such demand that people queued around blocks to get it. An almost two-minute long video posted on Twitter shows an endless line of customers.

This is the queue at Frontline Video in St Paul’s to get the #Banksy t-shirt in support of the #Colston4 #ColstonStatueTopplers pic.twitter.com/fJmub97kYH

— Estel Farell-Roig (@EstelFR1) December 11, 2021

UK media reported that “thousands” were eager to raise cash for the protesters by purchasing the gray T-shirt, which depicts an empty plinth with ‘Bristol’ written above it. It refers to a toppled bronze memorial to the 17th century merchant Edward Colston, who was involved in the transatlantic slave trade.

A customer chooses his size of the #Banksy limited edition t-shirt in That Thing on Stokes Croft, Bristol. pic.twitter.com/tSVo0JDIZA

— Anthony Ward (@Anth0ny_Ward) December 11, 2021

The activists, known as the ‘Colston Four’, are facing a trial at Bristol Crown Court next week, charged with inflicting criminal damage to a monument belonging to the city council. The men – who have all pleaded not guilty – are accused of sinking the statue “without lawful excuse.” Praised by some for leaving money to various charitable causes after his death, the controversial trader’s statue was attacked in June 2020, when a protest supporting the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement was happening in the city.

READ MORE: School to change name after founder’s statue dumped in harbor during BLM protests

The damaged plinth and graffitied statue was later recovered by the city council from Bristol Harbour, where it was thrown during the unrest, and re-emerged as a local museum exhibit, alongside a curated selection of BLM posters from the march. A sculpture of a BLM protester was erected on the empty plinth previously occupied by Colston.

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Fully vaccinated Brits who come in contact with a suspected case of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 will no longer have to isolate for 10 days, and will instead be asked to take a daily rapid test.

The new guidance was announced by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) on Sunday, and comes into effect on Tuesday. It replaces earlier advice that required anyone suspected of being in contact with an Omicron case to immediately isolate at home for 10 days.

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Anyone whose test comes back positive will then have to isolate, and unvaccinated people will have to isolate regardless, the DHSC said.

While rapid tests are widely available free of charge, the success of the guidance remains to be seen. Recent statistics show that use of the NHS’ contact tracing app is falling, and the number of check-ins to venues fell by 99% since June. The number of times people used the app to log their symptoms also fell by 74% since July.

“Our test, trace and isolate system is broken,” Dr. Deepti Gurdasani, an epidemiologist at London’s Queen Mary University, told The Independent earlier this month. “With more than 40,000 cases a day, our system is very likely overwhelmed, and it is very unlikely to be able to deal with additional strain. We need to bring cases down considerably for this to be functional.”

The Omicron variant of Covid-19 has spread rapidly around the world since it was first discovered in Botswana last month. While the World Health Organization has not recorded any deaths as a result of the strain, and while those infected have thus far suffered mild symptoms, it is thought to be highly transmissible, presenting a challenge to governments attempting to bring down case numbers.

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Amid an ongoing scandal over a Christmas party in Downing Street, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is once again under fire for apparently hosting another festive event days beforehand.

A photo published by The Mirror on Saturday shows Johnson apparently reading out questions to staff at a Christmas quiz in Downing Street on December 15, 2020. Johnson is flanked on either side by aides wearing tinsel and a Santa hat.

Although the quiz was supposedly a virtual one, in which staff answered questions from their computers, an unnamed source told The Mirror that “many staff huddled by computers, conferring on questions and knocking back fizz, wine and beer from a local Tesco Metro.”

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At the time, Londoners were forbidden from mixing with others from outside their household, and government guidance advised against Christmas parties in most cases.

Johnson’s office downplayed the party, telling the newspaper that “this was a virtual quiz,” and that “Downing Street staff were often required to be in the office to work on the pandemic response so those who were in the office for work may have attended virtually from their desks.”

Johnson has already seen his approval ratings plummet and his spokeswoman resign over revelations that Downing Street staffers held a party there on December 18, days after the quiz. The lockdown-defying party is one of several events currently being investigated by Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, and former chief of staff Dominic Cummings claimed on Friday that there are more parties yet to be revealed, and “there’s lots of pictures of the parties which will inevitably get out.”

Case is also investigating a leaving party at Number 10 on November 27, 2020, and a party in the Education Department on December 10, although media reports suggest that other events took place at Johnson’s flat, the Treasury, and Johnson’s own residence.

The Labour Party has hammered Johnson for his apparent disregard for his government’s own coronavirus restrictions. “Despite repeated denials of parties in Number 10, it now transpires that there were numerous parties, gatherings and the prime minister even took part in a festive quiz,” Labour Deputy Leader Angela Rayner said.

“Boris Johnson really believes it’s one rule for him, another for everyone else. He is a man unfit to lead this country.”

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The British Council has issued a “non-discriminatory” guide to staffers that frowns on the use of “problematic” terms such as “Brits” or “native English speakers” so as to “reflect the diversity of [its] audience.”

The taxpayer-funded organization, which is tasked with improving the UK’s global standing, has apparently warned employees not to use “careless, uninformed or ill-considered” language that can “categorise, marginalise, exclude or stereotype.”

The document, which was reviewed by the Daily Mail, cautions against using the word ‘Brits’ to refer to people from the UK, since the term “generally does not include people from Northern Ireland.” It also discourages describing a country as “developing,” suggesting that staff use “lower-income country, middle-income country or fragile and conflict-affected state” instead.

In addition, traditionally used figures of speech such as “British English” and “Queen’s English” have been branded “problematic” because using them supposedly “implies that these varieties of English are more correct or of greater importance than others.”

Similarly, it recommends that the phrase “native English speaker” be avoided as it is “often understood to relate to countries like the UK, the USA and Australia, and to discriminate against others who are often called non-native speakers.”

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Other standard communications practices to watch out for apparently include using “guys” when addressing or referring to a group of people, as the term is “usually associated with men and can be perceived as excluding women.” Instead, the document suggests alternatives such as “folks,” “team,” “friends,” and “everyone.”

Even the term “politically correct” is considered off-limits, as its usage “downplays and trivialises the hurt and offence caused” in certain circumstances. Meanwhile, using popular phrases with mental-health connotations – describing something as “insane” or someone as “[having] a fit”, for instance – has also been discouraged.

Explaining that the guide was “advisory” rather than “prescriptive,” an unnamed British Council spokesperson told the Daily Mail the organization’s growing global reach meant it was “important the language we use reflects the diversity of our audience” and is “as inclusive as possible.”

However, novelist Julian Fellowes told the paper the guidance was doing the “exact opposite” of “encouraging people not to take offence when no offence is intended.”

The British Council will reportedly receive £189 million in funding from the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office this year.

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The UK defense ministry has reportedly pulled an “inclusive language” guide that instructed troops on how to communicate without causing offense. Critics had slammed the rules, which featured gender discourse, as “woke nonsense.”

The rules outlined in the Inclusive Language Guide 2021 were produced by the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) Diversity and Inclusion Directorate. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace was reportedly “unhappy” with the 30-page document and ordered it to be revised, senior ministry sources told the Daily Mail.

According to the paper, the guidance contained a section titled ‘Woman or female’ that advised service personnel about how “not all women are biologically female” and examined how the two words “mean different things but are often used interchangeably.” It noted that referring to women as females was “perceived by many as reducing a woman to her reproductive parts and abilities.”

Not all women are biologically female, and the conflation of ‘female’ to ‘woman’ erases gender nonconforming people and members of the trans community.

Other recommendations to British Armed Forces members focused on avoiding common phrases such as “deaf to our pleas,” “crippled by debt,” and “blind drunk” in case it offended disabled people. But the guide denied it was an “attempt to police language” or “restrict... personal style of communication.”

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The MoD had previously defended the document as a “practical toolkit” to teach troops why “certain words or use of language is hurtful or non-inclusive,” and how to “speak more powerfully, precisely and respectfully.”

However, the MoD source told the Daily Mail that Wallace had decided to amend the guidance “over the past few weeks” after being “unhappy with the current approach and with the lack of consultation and piloting before publication.”

While welcoming the defence secretary’s intervention, Tory MP Peter Bone questioned why the ministry had produced the booklet – which he described as “political correctness gone mad” and “woke nonsense” – in the first place. He urged Wallace to put the “absurd” document “through the shredder.”

But the ministry source maintained that a new version of the document would be published, telling the paper that “criticism over the conduct and attitudes across the Armed Forces” had shown it was needed.

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British scientists have employed mathematical modeling to forecast the potential impact of the ‘super-mutant’ Omicron variant of Covid-19 in England, advocating additional control measures to avoid the worst-case scenario.

Every scenario considered by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) included a wave of transmission caused by Omicron, which has more mutations than any other known strains of the virus.

Their most optimistic projection suggested that if no additional anti-coronavirus measures are implemented, some 175,000 people are going to end up in hospital and around 24,700 will die in England due to the new variant between December 1, 2021 and April 30, 2022.

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The most pessimistic scenario, in which Omicron would show high immune escape and booster shots would prove ineffective against it, promised 492,000 hospitalizations and 74,800 deaths during the period.

However, those numbers could be significantly reduced if control measures, including the closure of entertainment venues, limitations on public gatherings, and restrictions on indoor hospitality, are introduced early next year, the researchers insisted.

“These are early estimates, but they do suggest that overall Omicron is outcompeting Delta rapidly by evading vaccines to a substantial degree. If current trends continue then Omicron may represent half of UK cases by the end of December,” said Dr. Nick Davies, who co-authored the paper that has yet to be peer reviewed.

The team at LSHTM pointed out that their projections were subject to “considerable uncertainty” due to insufficient data on Omicron at the moment and the fact the authorities haven’t yet fully formulated their response to the threat.

The detection of Omicron in South Africa last month led to concerns and travel bans around the globe. Some early research into the new variant has confirmed fears of its higher transmissibility and the reduced effectiveness of vaccines. However, the strain doesn’t appear to make the disease more serious, with the vast majority of reported cases being light or moderate.

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WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange has suffered a ministroke due to the extreme stress of fighting extradition to the US from the UK’s maximum-security Belmarsh Prison, according to his fiancee Stella Moris.

Assange was diagnosed with a transient ischemic attack following one of his High Court appeal appearances via video link back on October 27, the mother of his two children revealed to the Mail on Sunday. Also called a ministroke, TIA is often seen as a warning sign of a possible major stroke in future and requires medical attention. Assange has since had an MRI scan and is now reportedly taking anti-stroke medication.

BREAKING: Julian #Assange suffered a stroke on the first day of the High Court appeal hearing on October 27th.

He needs to be freed. Now. #FreeAssange https://t.co/yNg8HGUoAD

— Stella Moris #FreeAssangeNOW (@StellaMoris1) December 11, 2021

“Julian is struggling and I fear this ministroke could be the precursor to a more major attack. It compounds our fears about his ability to survive the longer this long legal battle goes on,” Moris said.

The statements of Stella Moris, Assange's fiance, his family and friends, his legal team, as well as detailed letters from doctors on his health, are not melodramatic tall tales. Even the High Court upheld district judge's conclusions, and Biden DOJ is pushing him toward death.

— Kevin Gosztola (@kgosztola) December 11, 2021

The UK High Court on Friday granted the US’ request to extradite Assange, a request it had previously blocked due to Assange’s declining mental health. While the ruling is not final and can be appealed by Assange’s legal team, it brings the former WikiLeaks boss one step closer to a trial on US soil, where he faces a possible 175 years behind bars if convicted of espionage.

Read more

“The never-ending court cases are extremely stressful mentally,” Moris added.

Look at animals trapped in cages in a zoo. It cuts their life short. That's what's happening to Julian.

Assange’s plight and declining health have long been recognized by free speech and press freedom activists, and the deprivations endured by Assange during his years in detention have been criticized by human rights organizations.

Revealed: The shocking conditions at Belmarsh Prison to which Julian Assange is exposed

In 2019, the UN special rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, whose team visited Assange in Belmarsh, said that he showed “all the symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture.”

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London Metropolitan Police officers confronted and fatally shot an armed man near Kensington Palace, home of Prince William and Kate Middleton. The incident is not being treated as terrorism.

Officers were dispatched to Marloes Road in the central London borough of Kensington on Saturday afternoon to investigate reports of an armed man entering a bank and a bookmakers. According to a police statement, the man left the scene in a vehicle and was stopped at Palace Gate shortly afterwards.

Police say shots were fired and the man “sustained gunshot wounds” before being pronounced dead at the scene shortly afterwards.

Details of the incident are scarce. Online news outlet MyLondon quoted some witnesses as hearing three shots, and others described hearing police ordering the suspect to raise his hands. After the shooting, officers were seen performing CPR on the man.

Video footage from the scene shows a heavy police presence in place around an hour after the incident, which the Metropolitan Police said on Twitter would “remain the case for some time.”

DEVELOPING: 'Three loud bangs' heard in Kensington. Possible shooting near Kensington Palace, London. Awaiting further details. pic.twitter.com/sGgFSQjjqT

— Urban Pictures (@Urban_Pictures) December 11, 2021

The shooting took place a short walk from Kensington Palace, home of Prince William and his wife, the Duchess of Cambridge. Though police are still making efforts to identify the gunman, the incident is not being treated as terrorism.

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The infamous Christmas party at Downing Street apparently wasn’t the only lockdown-defying soiree hosted by top Conservative Party officials. According to reports, evidence of more ill-advised gatherings is about to come out.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s ratings have plummeted after footage leaked this week showed Downing Street staffers laughing and joking about a Christmas party held there last December 18, while the rest of the country was under Tier 3 lockdown restrictions. The scandal has already led to the resignation of Johnson’s spokeswoman, and Cabinet Secretary Simon Case has expanded his probe into the party to include two other gatherings: a leaving party at Number 10 on November 27, 2020, and and a party in the Education Department on December 10.

However, these events are just the tip of the iceberg, according to Downing Street insiders and media reports.

Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s former chief of staff, described the leaving party as a “red herring,” and said Case should instead look into a party at Johnson’s flat on November 13, as well as “other flat parties.”

Will the CABSEC also be asked to investigate the *flat* party on Fri 13 Nov, the other flat parties, & the flat's 'bubble' policy...?

— Dominic Cummings (@Dominic2306) December 8, 2021

Cumings claimed on Friday that there are yet more parties to be revealed, and that “there's lots of pictures of the parties which will inevitably get out.” The Guardian reported on Friday that in addition to the November 13 party referenced by Cummings, “various little drinks things” took place in Downing Street and at the PM’s residence during the first lockdown of spring 2020, including a “wine and pizza” gathering for Tory advisors after a Covid press conference.

Days before the Downing Street party that triggered the current scandal, Conservative Party staff “danced and drank wine late into the night” at a “raucous” party, The Times reported on Thursday. The event took place in the basement of the party’s London headquarters, and staff were allegedly reprimanded for damaging a door in the building. Several of Johnson’s aides were reportedly present.

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It’s not just Johnson embroiled in the party fiasco. A Times report on Saturday said around two dozen Treasury staff held a drinks party in their office last November 25 to celebrate Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s spending review. At the time, the public was advised to remain at home except for exercise or food.

The Times’ sources said the party wasn’t planned, and that Sunak apparently wasn’t in attendance or aware of the event.

Case’s inquiry is set to wrap up before Christmas, though the mood in Downing Street will not be a festive one. A spokesperson for Johnson announced on Friday that Christmas parties would be canceled at Number 10 this year, after the government introduced Plan B restrictions. The spokesperson insisted that the public would be free to gather in hospitality venues, and denied that the cancellations had anything to do with the scandal currently engulfing the prime minister.

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Popular UK clothing chain John Lewis has yanked a child’s party dress from its website following outrage over the item’s provocative product name – “Lollita dress” – evoked the infamous Nabokov pedophilia novel by a similar name.

The “Chi Chi London Girls’ Lollita Party Dress” was marketed for children three to 11 years old for £50 ($66) on John Lewis’ website. It was described as “sure to become a partywear favorite” and said to feature “delicate metallic embroidery, scalloped edges and a chiffon skirt with tulle underlay that’s perfect for twirling on the dance floor.”

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Parents of the young girls who’d theoretically be wearing the dress, however, weren’t moved by the description so much as by the name of the product itself, which is one letter off from ‘Lolita’, the classic Vladimir Nabokov novel detailing a forbidden pedophilic affair between an aging professor and his 12-year-old lust object Dolores Haze (“Lolita”), whom he grooms over the course of the narrative.

The name likely drew an even bigger reaction due to the ongoing sex-trafficking trial of British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell. She was allegedly the chief procurer for Jeffrey Epstein, the now-deceased convicted sex offender who infamously flew around in a private plane called the “Lolita Express” with a bevy of underage girls accompanying him to administer “erotic massages” and be lent out to his powerful friends.

Lolita also refers to a Japanese fashion subculture influenced by Victorian-era clothing, and sometimes referred to more specifically as “Elegant Gothic Lolita.”

If you were going to think of a name for a child’s party dress, what would you NOT call it? pic.twitter.com/yppG3Lgu3z

— Victoria Coren Mitchell (@VictoriaCoren) December 9, 2021

TV presenter Victoria Coren Mitchell tweeted a photo of the listing (which has since been removed from John Lewis’ site) and asked her followers what the worst name for a children’s party dress could possibly be, showing the picture as if to answer the question.

The chain apologized “for the upset” through a spokesperson, noting it had removed the product from sale as soon as it was notified (though it’s not clear whether the notification came through social media coverage or direct contact).

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Former spymasters who become media “talking heads” need to be under added scrutiny to ensure they don’t reveal state secrets, the UK Parliament’s intelligence watchdog has said. It called for top spies who do so to be punished.

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In its annual report on Friday, the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) expressed “concern” over such disclosures. The MPs specifically referred to former Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) director Robert Hannigan providing “operational details” to a 2019 Channel 4 documentary about efforts to track and kill UK-linked Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) executioner ‘Jihadi John’ (real name Mohammed Emwazi).

According to the report, Hannigan, who headed the spy agency between 2014 and 2017, spoke without getting prior approval about how Emwazi used “encryption products” to hide his whereabouts. He also revealed that agencies had identified him by his distinctive “size, his hands and above all his voice.”

Noting that “no substantive action” was taken against Hannigan for the “apparent breach of the Official Secrets Act,” the ISC said “further thought and scrutiny” was needed about the obligations of ex-spies, since it appeared they could “breach” their responsibilities with “no sanctions resulting.”

It sends entirely the wrong message to those who may be tempted to breach those obligations themselves, and to those who risk their lives to protect them.

However, the ISC’s criticism prompted warnings from Ciaran Martin, a former head of GCHQ off-shoot National Cyber Security Centre, about the risk of “pushing debate and public discussion” about intelligence and security matters “back into the shadows.”

Martin told Sky News that it was possible to balance “healthy... public debate” about intelligence issues without “compromising” operations, pointing to how the work of former spy community members in academia was seen as a “national asset” in the US.

Meanwhile, an unnamed government spokesperson told the outlet that they were confident the Hannigan episode was “handled appropriately at the time” – adding that it was “properly investigated, and that appropriate action was taken, with due respect of relevant legislation.”

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Former Conservative minister Andrew Griffiths has been found guilty of raping his sleeping wife and subjecting her to coercive control, a UK judge ruled on Friday.

The ruling, released on Friday, outlined the allegations made by his then-wife Kate Griffiths during their five-year marriage. At the conclusion of the case, the judge accepted the claims that he had pressured her into sex, as well as physically and verbally abusing her.

Among the charges, Kate, who replaced her ex-husband as Conservative MP for Burton, claimed he raped her when she was asleep and exerted coercive control over her. Andrew “adamantly denied” the charge of rape, as well as rejecting the other allegations made.

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Andrew was forced to resign from his position as a government minister in 2018 when it was reported that he sent around 2,000 sexually explicit messages to female constituents. He stood down as MP at the next election in 2019.

The allegations of abuse were made during a hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, where Andrew was seeking to get more time to spend with a child at the center of the case. Media outlets had initially been prohibited from naming either Andrew or Kate Griffiths but, following an application by two journalists, Kate backed removing their anonymity.

Since the case was heard in a civil court, Judge Elizabeth Williscroft’s ruling was made based on a lower standard of proof than would be required for criminal prosecution.

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The UK government has released its proposal to introduce “one of the toughest bans in the world” on the importing of hunting trophies from endangered animals, almost two years after promising to address the issue.

Laying out the government’s approach on Friday, Environment Secretary George Eustice stated that he was “appalled at the thought of hunters bringing back trophies,” pleading to strengthen protections for endangered animals.

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The Conservative Party promised during the 2019 election to block hunters from importing trophies from endangered animals. Since that pledge was made, the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting (CBTH) has estimated that around 300 trophies from endangered animals have been brought to Britain.

CBTH founder Eduardo Goncalves welcomed the proposal but criticized the government for the delay, stating that many animals have been “cruelly and needlessly killed in that time,” and urging the government to bring the bill forward for a vote “as quickly as possible.”

The government’s proposed ban would prevent the importing of hunting trophies from endangered animals, regardless of whether they are wild or bred in captivity for the specific purpose of hunting. Anyone breaching the rules would face up to five years in prison.

As it stands, the government’s measure will aim to protect around 7,000 animals that are currently threatened by international trade, including the “Big Five” – buffalo, elephants, leopards, lions, and rhinos.

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London’s Metropolitan Police deny that “institutional homophobia” hindered their investigation into a serial killer targeting young gay men. They say their inexperience with the gay scene allowed the killer to go free for so long.

Stephen Port was sentenced in 2016 to life in prison for the murder of four men he met via the dating app Grindr. Port called an ambulance for his first victim, and left the next three in the same churchyard near his flat in the London borough of Barking between July 2014 and September 2015. Despite the similarities between the killings, police initially failed to link them, and rebuffed claims from the force’s own LGBT advisory group that a serial killer was on the loose. By the time he was caught, Port had drugged and raped eight other victims, who survived.

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At an inquest on Friday, Metropolitan Police Commander Jon Savell rejected claims “that the men’s sexuality played a part in our response,” the Independent reported. However, Savell did say that his officers had a “lack of awareness” about the dangers of the date rape drug GHB and its use by gay men.

Lawyers representing the families of Port’s victims earlier accused the police of failing to properly investigate the murders due to “institutional homophobia” within the force, something Assistant Commissioner Helen Ball denied.

“We don’t see institutional homophobia, we don’t see homophobia on the part of officers, we do see all sorts of errors in the investigation which came together in a truly dreadful way,” she told the inquest.

Some of these errors, the inquest heard, included the police neglecting to search Port’s laptop for 10 months, during which time he killed his second and third victims. When an officer finally did search the computer, he failed to register Port’s interest in rape pornography as suspicious. The inquest also heard how the Metropolitan Police’s major investigations team declined to take over the case from local officers in Barking and Dagenham, who themselves had failed to notice a previous rape claim against Port.

Detective Inspector Tony Kirk, who led local policing in Barking at the time of the murders, said that his officers dealt with “hundreds of crimes every day,” meaning complex investigations had to “take a back seat.”

Speaking through his lawyer after the inquest, Ricky Waumsley, a partner of one of Port’s victims Daniel Whitworth, called on Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick to resign. “Ricky is shocked to hear the extent of the police incompetence,” the lawyer told reporters. “Ricky continues to believe that there was police prejudice during the investigation.”

Whitworth’s father called the police’s investigation “abominable,” and told Sky News how "time after time after time, from top to bottom in the Barking borough, the performance of the police has been inexplicable.”

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The UK government is reportedly considering implementing ‘Plan C’ Covid restrictions to combat the threat of the Omicron variant, as Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon warns the nation is facing a “tsunami” of cases.

Citing an unnamed government source, the UK’s Daily Mail reported on Friday that it is now “very likely” further restrictions will be announced by the government, including restricting care home visits and making masks compulsory in pubs and restaurants.

The alleged move has been dubbed ‘Plan C’, with it potentially coming days after the government rolled out tighter measures under its ‘Plan B’ proposal to reduce the threat posed by the Omicron variant.

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The potential expansion of the country’s Covid restrictions follows a statement by Sturgeon that the UK is facing a “potential tsunami of infections” fueled by the Omicron strain, with it showing “the fastest exponential growth” officials have seen so far during the pandemic.

Campaigners reacted to the rumor that Covid rules could be tightened, telling the Mail that the potential measures are “devastating” and “heartbreaking,” as it could prevent people from spending what could be their last Christmas with loved ones.

Currently, the UK government is urging people to work from home if they can from Monday, and from Wednesday the NHS Covid pass will be required to enter certain venues, such as large gatherings and nightclubs.

The UK government has stated it will review the measures on January 5, deciding whether to lift them later that month or extend them if the risk remains.

So far, over 800 cases of the Omicron variant have been detected in the UK, with fears that the new strain is rapidly spreading since it first emerged in the country last month.

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A British High Court has ruled that Julian Assange can be extradited to the US to face espionage charges. Here’s how the WikiLeaks co-founder ended up behind bars and what could come next.

Assange was placed in London’s Belmarsh Prison in 2019 after nearly seven years of hiding inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in the UK capital.

Who is Julian Assange?

Australian-born Assange co-founded WikiLeaks, a group that publishes classified materials “involving war, spying and corruption,” according to its website.

WikiLeaks famously released a video of US military choppers gunning down civilians in Baghdad in 2007, among other things. The organization also released confidential correspondence between US diplomatic missions around the world, causing further embarrassment for Washington.

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Why does Washington want Assange extradited?

The US Department of Justice charged Assange with espionage in 2019, over his role in “one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States.”

According to the indictment, WikiLeaks illegally obtained roughly 90,000 Afghanistan war reports, 400,000 Iraq war reports, 800 Guantanamo Bay detainee assessment briefs, and 250,000 US Department of State diplomatic cables.

How did Assange end up in British jail?

The journalist first got into trouble after a rape investigation was opened against him in Sweden. Fearing extradition, Assange jumped bail and hid in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2012, where he requested asylum. The rape case against him was eventually dropped.

Assange was ejected from the embassy in 2019 after Ecuador accused him of violating asylum terms. He was immediately arrested by British police and sentenced later that year to 50 weeks in jail for skipping bail.

In January, a London court refused to hand Assange over to the US, citing health concerns. “I find that the mental condition of Mr Assange is such that it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America,” judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled at the time.

The US appealed the decision and won. Ruling in favor of extradition on Friday, Lord Chief Justice Ian Burnett said that Washington provided additional assurances that reduce the risk of Assange committing suicide behind bars. “That risk is in our judgment excluded by the assurances which are offered,” Burnett said.

What’s next for Assange?

Assange’s fiancée, Stella Moris, said his legal team will appeal the decision “at the earliest possible moment.” If the appeal gets thrown out, it will ultimately be for the British government to decide whether to extradite Assange.

In the US, the WikiLeaks co-founder could face up to 175 years in jail, if found guilty on all charges, according to his legal team. Assange’s supporters, family and loved ones repeatedly warned that his health had deteriorated significantly over the years he had spent in confinement.

In 2019, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, whose team visited Assange in Belmarsh, said that he showed “all the symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture.”

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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has seen his party’s ratings drop in the wake of the political crisis caused by a scandal over last year’s Downing Street Christmas celebrations.

A Times/YouGov poll, held on December 8-9 with the participation of 1,686 UK adults, puts the Tories at 33%, three percentage points down, while Labour is leading now with 37%, four points higher than the poll of December 1-2.

For Conservatives it is the worst rating for 11 months, while Labour’s lead is the biggest since January.

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The survey was conducted at the height of the scandal prompted by a leaked video apparently showing Downing Street staffers joking and laughing about a party, allegedly held on December 18, 2020, during the strict Tier 3-level lockdown. The prime minister was forced to publicly apologize over the incident and to announce an internal review. The scandal over the video also prompted Johnson’s senior adviser Allegra Stratton’s resignation.

YouGov data shows that 78% of people believe that a rules-violating Christmas party actually took place, despite the government’s denials.

Another poll, conducted by Survation on December 8-9 with 1,178 UK adults taking part, has seen support for the opposition party rising to 40%, which is the record high of that survey since January 2019. Meanwhile, the popularity of Conservatives slumped to 34%, the lowest level since July 2019, when Boris Johnson became a prime minister.

“In terms of vote share, were these types of figures seen at the next General Election a Labour lead of this size would easily make Labour the largest party in the Commons with over 300 seats, albeit short of an overall majority,” the report said.

Seventy-eight percent of the respondents believe the Christmas party took place, with as much as 70% of Conservative voters sharing that opinion.

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The UK High Court has granted the US government’s appeal over the refusal to extradite WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange, opening the door for his eventual trial on American soil on espionage charges.

In January, a district court denied the US extradition request, citing the vulnerable mental state of the publisher and the possibility that he would take his own life if subjected to brutal prison conditions in the US.

The High Court’s ruling is not final since it can be appealed. Assange’s fiancee, Stella Moris, called the decision “a grave miscarriage of justice.” The case has been remitted to the Westminster Magistrates Court.

BREAKING: High Court decision “Grave miscarriage of justice,” says Julian Assange’s fiancee, as a UK court overturns an earlier decision blocking the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States | @StellaMoris1 #FreeAssangeNOW #AssangeCase pic.twitter.com/Jc98oAfvuP

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 10, 2021

The High Court said it was satisfied with the US lawyer’s assurances that the so-called Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) would not be applied to Assange when in US custody. An earlier refusal to extradite him was partially justified by the fact that he could be subjected to SAMs. The US team argued during appeal hearings that if the American side knew it was an issue, they would have offered assurances to the contrary during the original process.

SAMs are special restrictions that the US prison system may order for inmates deemed to be dangerous. They include isolation from other prisoners at a maximum security facility. Critics say they are dehumanizing and in some cases may amount to psychological torture.

Assange has been in various forms of isolation since June 2012, when he sheltered at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He was granted sanctuary there due to an ongoing extradition process at the request of Sweden, which at the time was seeking to investigate him over allegations that he had sex with two women without receiving their consent to not use protection. The charges have since been dropped.

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The Australian said the prosecution by Sweden was a ruse meant to get him on Swedish soil, where he would be subjected to an extradition request by the US. He breached the bail granted to him by the UK justice system after taking refuge at the embassy.

After a new government took power in Ecuador, which then sought rapprochement with the US, Assange’s situation at the embassy became insecure. In 2019, Metropolitan police were invited in to take him into custody. He was convicted of skipping bail and retained at the maximum security Belmarsh Prison for the duration of his US extradition trial.

While at the embassy, Assange was subjected to secret surveillance, allegedly conducted by a security firm hired to protect the embassy and compromised by the CIA. The US spy agency also reportedly contemplated kidnapping or even assassinating Assange, after WikiLeaks obtained a trove of files related to the CIA’s hacking tools, which the transparency organization dubbed ‘Vault 7’.

The US charged Assange with a number of crimes related to his communications with whistleblowers, most importantly Chelsea Manning, who leaked to WikiLeaks classified materials about US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He faces up to 175 years in prison if convicted.

Assange supporters say he is being persecuted for exposing the crimes of the US government and its allies, and that countries prosecuting him are effectively discouraging investigative journalism on a global scale.

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A massive rave at Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s residence with over a million potential attendees is being organised on Facebook in protest over an alleged Downing Street Christmas party last year as the country was locked down.

Johnson has been at the center of political controversy this month after it was alleged by multiple sources that a Christmas party with dozens of attendees was held at Downing Street last year, while millions of Brits were told by the government to stay at home and away from their families to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

In protest of the allegations, DJ Jon Mancini has organised a festive rave at the prime minister’s residence set for Christmas Eve, with over one million people already RSVPing to the event.

“MASSIVE RAVE AT 10 DOWNING STREET. LINE UP,” the event page on Facebook declares, advising that “no social distancing” is required.

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Though a disclaimer at the bottom of the page states that the event “is not real” and is merely intended to poke “fun at the powers that be,” over 442,000 Facebook users have said that they will attend the party, while a further 602,000 have marked themselves as interested.

“You know some police chief in London has already held a meeting about ramping security up on xmas eve due to this event,” one Facebook user said, while another joked: “I’m assuming that although we're all going, we're not going to actually tell anyone it took place right?”

Several sources have told the media that a Christmas party took place last year and a leaked video of former Downing Street Press Secretary Allegra Stratton joking about a party went viral this month.

In the footage from a press conference rehearsal, Stratton was asked about a “Downing Street Christmas Party on Friday night,” to which she responded, “Is cheese and wine alright? It was a business meeting.”

Warning the colleague who asked the question that the mock press conference was being “recorded,” Stratton added, “This fictional party was a business meeting and it was not socially distanced” while laughing.

One unnamed source told the BBC that the “fictional party” did in fact take place and that “party games were played, food and drink were served, and the party went on past midnight.”

Despite the unserious nature of the planned Christmas rave, it is currently unknown whether any Brits will turn up at the prime minister’s address on Christmas Eve in protest.

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The UK's Counter-Terrorism Policing (CTP) unit has said it foiled seven "late-stage" attacks since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. The report comes after the country recently saw two attacks within weeks of each other.

In a press release on Thursday, the CTP claimed to have diverted a total of 32 “late-stage” planned terrorism incidents since March 2017, seven of which took place after the start of the pandemic. The cases were most commonly linked with Islamic extremism (18), extreme right-wing terrorism (12), and left/anarchist/single issue terrorism (2), according to the agency's statistics.

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Senior National Coordinator for CTP Dean Haydon acknowledged that the UK had recently “suffered two terror attacks in quick succession”, and warned of an ongoing “sustained and high tempo threat” heading into the “festive period”. He also urged the public to do their part lest the nation's children become radicalized.

“We are very concerned that children are becoming an increasing proportion of our arrests,” he added.

Though the overall arrest rate has actually declined given the Covid lockdowns that kept most of the British public indoors, 25 children were taken into custody since March 2020 in connection with terrorism offenses. That figure nevertheless represents the largest number of kids jailed in any 12-month period, according to the CTP report.

It's not clear if this is due to more anti-terrorism investigations being conducted against under-18s or if that group has actually become more of a threat. However, the boss of MI5 acknowledged earlier this year that agents were now investigating teens as young as 13.

Beyond the seven incidents mentioned in the Thursday report as having been thwarted by police, the UK suffered two fatal terrorist attacks in recent months. In October, Tory MP David Amess was stabbed to death by a man who had reportedly been plotting to kill a lawmaker for years and considered himself affiliated with the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorist group.

Last month, a man hired a taxi and blew himself up using an improvised explosive device outside Liverpool Women's Hospital. The taxi driver managed to escape the vehicle with minor injuries.

Following the Liverpool attack, the government raised its terrorism threat level to “Severe.” Such a designation means an attack is “highly likely,” the CTP reminded the public, urging them not to “let their guard drop” over the holidays.

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The UK High Court is set to issue its ruling on Friday morning on the American government's appeal over the refusal to extradite WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange.

The court recently heard the appeal against a lower court decision that refused to extradite the journalist to face charges over leaked classified US documents.

In the original ruling, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser stated that she could not approve the extradition as it would be “oppressive” to do so when Assange is at risk of mental health deterioration and suicide in US custody.

BREAKING: Ruling on the US's appeal against refusal to extradite Julian Assange will be given tomorrow, December 10th at 10.15am at the Court of Appeal in London #FreeAssangeNOW pic.twitter.com/ncVodVFoGp

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 9, 2021

The US government has sought to alleviate the British judicial system’s concerns by claiming Assange will not be held in isolation at a supermax federal prison if he is extradited. However, Assange’s lawyers have continued to warn that he is a suicide risk if detained by the US, as well as raising concerns over the “trustworthiness” of America’s guarantees.

Pointing to reports that the CIA had plotted to kidnap Assange and poison him while he was claiming asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, Mark Summers, a barrister representing the journalist, said that US intelligence agencies have an “obsession” with his client.

Initial estimates presented by Assange’s team during the court case stated that, if convicted on the charges the US has floated, he could face up to 175 years in prison. However, the US government refuted that, arguing it’s hard to put an exact number on it at this stage and any sentence could be significantly shorter.

While the two judges overseeing the appeal have not yet indicated how they might rule, as the hearings came to an end in October, one of those present, Lord Chief Justice Ian Burnett, told both parties “you’ve given us much to think about.”

The US is seeking to extradite Assange over the publication of thousands of classified documents released by WikiLeaks between 2010 and 2011. The publications revealed information about the actions of the US and its allies during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, including claims that the US military killed hundreds of Afghan civilians and 66,000 non-combatants in Iraq, as well as accusing Iraqi forces of torturing prisoners.

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The Conservative Party broke funding regulations by failing to properly report a donation spent on refurbishment works at Boris Johnson’s Downing Street residence, the Electoral Commission has said.

After an investigation into the controversial transactions, the commission said the Tories failed to report £52,801.72 (about $70,000) received as part of a larger donation from consultancy firm Huntswood Associates Limited in October 2020. The sum covered the cost of refurbishments at the prime minister’s residence at 11 Downing Street.

The sum was not reported to the Commission itself and not accurately recorded in the party’s own internal documents, the investigation said, indicating “serious failings in the party’s compliance systems.”

The Tories were fined a total of £17,800 ($23,500) over the failures. A spokesperson for the party said it is considering appealing the ruling. A decision on whether to challenge the Commission is to be taken within 28 working days.

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A May report by Lord Geidt, the independent adviser on ministers’ interests, said Johnson acted “unwisely” by allowing the refurbishment of his flat to go “without more rigorous regard for how this would be funded.”

The work had been partially paid for by Lord David Brownlow through the firm he controls. The company donated £67,801.72 ($89,500) to the Conservative Party for the purpose of repaying to the Cabinet Office its expenses on the project. Only £15,000 of the sum was disclosed in the party’s Q4 2020 donation report, the Commission said.

Lord Brownlow and government officials apparently had some debate over how much the refurbishment would cost and how it would be paid for. In September, the former secured a promise that no additional work would be done at Johnson’s residence without his prior authorization, the Commission report said.

On the day the donation was made, Lord Brownlow wrote that he would pay the full sum, which “includes the £15,000 you and I have agreed and £52,801.72 to cover payments The Party has made,” on behalf of a trust fund that was due to be created as an intermediary.

There were further payments to the refurbishment supplier that were made by Lord Brownlow personally, but the Commission agreed that they were outside of the scope of their investigation of Tory finances. It said it was satisfied that the party's failures “arose from the party having inadequate systems” for reporting, but stressed that it “does not amount to a reasonable excuse.”

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Hundreds of people gathered outside Westminster Palace late on Wednesday to protest against the bill granting sweeping powers to the UK police. The rally quickly spiraled into clashes between protesters and police officers.

The protesters came to Parliament Square in Westminster as the new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill was debated in the House of Lords. The controversial draft legislation would expand police powers to restrict and control all public protests, while reinforcing the punishment for causing a public disturbance.

The demonstrators that arrived at the square were seen carrying banners and placards that read: “Kill the Bill” and “No more police powers.” Some of them were beating drums while others were wearing orange prison uniforms with black hoods over their heads. The protesters were also heard chanting slogans like “who do you protect?” and “who do you serve?”

If you stop the voice of the people, you stop democracy. Kill, kill, kill the bill #killthebill #pcscbill #protest #speakout #wewillnotbesilenced pic.twitter.com/VykTodTy8i

— XR Worthing (@XRWorthing) December 8, 2021

Photos from tonight’s #KillTheBill protest. #PCSCBill #RightToProtest ? @XRWorthing? We’re in a #ClimateCrisis and if our rights to protest are taken away even more people are going to suffer and die. Photos by Clare. pic.twitter.com/nintKuiuCv

— WorthingCAN ? (@WorthingCan) December 8, 2021

Some protesters were apparently also expressing their discontent with the new Covid-19 restrictions announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson earlier on Wednesday, while others criticized government climate policy.

A lot of energy down at the Kill the Bill protest in London tonight. We won’t be silenced! Join us in Norwich, 1pm, Saturday outside City Hall for more of the same. #KillTheBill #FreedomToProtest #PCSCBill pic.twitter.com/I0lXf9YXuA

— XRNorwich (@NorwichXr) December 8, 2021

Tensions were running high at the square as the situation quickly turned violent. Videos published on social media showed protesters scuffling with police as the officers sought to push the densely packed crowd away. Traffic was also briefly brought to a standstill near the Whitehall and Westminster Bridges. Police have yet to comment on these events. It is not clear if anyone was arrested following the incident.

Protesters scuffle with police in #ParliamentSquare during the third reading of the #PCSCBill. If passed it may restrict people's ability to protest by giving ministers power to shut down ones they don't agree with. #KillTheBill #LondonProtest #PoliceBill #Protest pic.twitter.com/nHZ2vqEAaP

— Eleventh Hour (@EleventhHourPh1) December 9, 2021

The controversial bill was passed by the House of Commons in July. The draft legislation has been a constant source of public discontent as protest rallies were repeatedly held in London and other British cities to denounce it.

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A photo of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his partner Ghislaine Maxwell at Queen Elizabeth II’s log cabin was released during Maxwell’s trial, with the two sitting in the same spot where the Queen was photographed.

The previously unseen image – which shows Epstein and Maxwell cuddling on a bench outside the cabin on the Queen’s Balmoral Castle estate in Scotland – was released as part of Maxwell’s trial in New York this week. The image had been seized from Epstein’s house during an FBI raid in 2019.

A photo of Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein lounging in the Queen's Balmoral log cabin has been shown at her trial in NYC today, Dec 8. The image (circa 1999, when Prince Andrew hosted Epstein there) was presented alongside others to illustrate the pair's close relationship. pic.twitter.com/Nb7sOELBuP

— Omid Scobie (@scobie) December 8, 2021

The photo appears to have been taken around 1999, when Prince Andrew reportedly hosted Epstein and his entourage, including a young woman in her 20s, at the posh country estate.

A similar photograph exists of the Queen sitting in the exact same spot as Epstein – with the unique markings on the logs above their heads identical. The royal family has not commented on the release of the photograph.

READ MORE: Twitter suspends popular Ghislaine Maxwell ‘trial tracker’ account

Epstein – a serial child sex offender – was found dead in his New York City jail cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial for charges of underage sex trafficking.

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Ghislaine, who was once Epstein’s romantic partner, has been accused of procuring underage girls for the late sex offender and is currently on trial for charges of conspiracy, underage sex trafficking, and enticement and transportation of a minor.

The photo released this week is not the first time Maxwell has been pictured on royal property.

Last year, a 2002 photo was made public showing Maxwell and actor Kevin Spacey sitting on royal thrones during a private tour of Buckingham Palace. The pair reportedly visited Buckingham Palace with former US President Bill Clinton, who was a close associate of Epstein.

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British PM Boris Johnson has unveiled revised Covid-19 rules, which he said are designed to stop the spread of the Omicron variant. Most will be familiar to Brits, who may feel a sense of deja vu from earlier pandemic ‘waves’.

Work from home

Those who can work from home should do so as of next week, Johnson announced in a Wednesday evening press conference, while admitting it would be “hard” for many people to make the shift. The switch back to remote working starts on December 13 and is far from the first time people in England have been asked to stay home during the workday.

Mask mandates

Masks will once again be required for entering most public venues, with seemingly-obvious exemptions for individuals who are “eating, drinking, exercising or singing.”

Covid pass

Beyond mask mandates, Covid passports will also become a requirement for anyone seeking to enter a nightclub or other theater-type venue beyond a certain size. Unseated indoor venues with over 500 guests, unseated outdoor venues with over 4,000 patrons, and any venue with over 10,000 people require Covid passes to enter. A negative lateral flow test is also sufficient, he added.

Anyone with two doses of the vaccine under their sleeve is eligible for the NHS Covid pass, though the government hinted that boosters will soon be required as well.

Preemptive strike

While the South African scientists who discovered the Omicron variant have stressed that there is not yet any cause for alarm, indicating the strain while infectious does not seem to be especially harmful, Johnson insisted there was no way to tell that it wouldn’t result in a spike of hospitalizations and deaths. Therefore, “now it is proportionate and the responsible thing to move to Plan B in England,” he said.

Not a lockdown

Despite the new rules’ close resemblance to previous lockdowns in England, Johnson insisted on Wednesday that the move to Plan B “is not a lockdown,” insisting the rules would be reviewed “no later” than early January. Speaking in Parliament at the same time as Johnson’s press conference, Health Secretary Sajid Javid told MPs that the restrictions would end on January 26.

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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced new Covid restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of the new Omicron variant, including the return of work from home advice and introducing coronavirus passes in certain settings.

From December 13, everyone across England who can work from home should do it, Johnson said at a televised press conference on Wednesday evening. He acknowledged that “it will be hard for many people” to make the change.

As of Friday, wearing masks will become mandatory once again for most public venues, including theaters, with Covid passes required for entry into nightclubs and large venues from next week. However, face masks will not be necessary while “eating, drinking, exercising or singing,” the prime minister noted.

The Covid pass showing a person's vaccine status will be required for patrons to enter unseated indoor venues with more than 500 people, unseated outdoor venues with more than 4,000 people, and any venue with more than 10,000 people.

The NHS Covid pass is available for those who have received two doses but that matter will be kept under review, Johnson said, as the booster program is being rolled out.

The PM said that while it can’t be assumed yet that Omicron is less severe than previous Covid variants, its quick spread to date might result in increasing numbers of hospitalizations and deaths. Therefore, he said, “now it is proportionate and the responsible thing to move to Plan B in England,” while continuing to work closely with the devolved authorities in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.

“It is not a lockdown,” Johnson added, noting that the Plan B measures would be further reviewed “no later” than early January and possibly before.

The Chief Medical Officer for England, Chris Whitty, told the press briefing that while there is still a lot of uncertainty around the new variant, it presents a different risk to the Delta strain and there's a "reasonable chance" of some degree of "vaccine escape" by Omicron.

The total number of Omicron cases in the UK amounted to 568 as of Wednesday, including 131 recorded in the last 24 hours.

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Boris Johnson spokesperson Allegra Stratton has announced her resignation hours after the prime minister publicly apologized for jokes she made about a potentially illegal Downing Street Christmas party last year.

The prime minister has been grilled by MPs over a leaked video, which shows Stratton laughing at a mock press conference and joking that “this fictional party was a business meeting … and it was not socially distanced.”

Stratton was government spokesperson for the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.On Wednesday evening, a crying Stratton shared her fears that the clip had become a distraction in the nation’s fight against Covid-19 and offered “profound apologies” to everyone affected by the pandemic.

"I will regret those remarks for the rest of my days"

Allegra Stratton gives a tearful statement as she resigns as government adviser, after she was seen in video joking about lockdown Christmas party at No 10 https://t.co/xr1lLgIXwI pic.twitter.com/Idqbe5vgtO

— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) December 8, 2021

“I will regret those remarks for the rest of my days,” she said, announcing her resignation from her £125,000-a-year role without mentioning the ill-fated party.

She acknowledged that her remarks “seemed to make light of the rules” and said that was “never my intention.”

The Christmas gathering that has plunged Whitehall into chaos allegedly took place on December 18, during the strict Tier 3-level lockdown.The government has consistently denied holding Christmas events last year and violating Covid rules.

READ MORE: Finland PM apologizes over Covid-related mishap

Johnson told the House of Commons earlier on Wednesday that an internal review would be conducted and measures would be taken against anyone found to have breached the regulations. Saying he was “sickened” by the video of Stratton, the prime minister underlined that he was repeatedly assured that the rules had been followed.

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An independent government review has recommended that UK legislators make hostility against individuals because of their sex or gender a hate crime, to help stamp out the “growing threat” of “extreme misogyny.”

The recommendations, laid out in a report released on Tuesday, seek to extend the existing definition of hate speech to prosecute anti-women attitudes and sexual harassment.

As part of a mission to “protect women and girls” and tackle the “terrible impact” hate crimes have on victims, Professor Penney Lewis, the criminal law commissioner at the Law Commission, unveiled a string of potential legislative changes.

The aim of the review was to explore how to address the fact that hate crime laws currently “don’t protect all five [legally] protected characteristics to the same degree.”

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The Law Commission identified a “growing threat of ‘incel’ ideology,” which encourages “the rape and/or murder of women,” as an area of deep concern. The Commission for Countering Extremism backed up this assessment, fearing that this behavior constitutes “extremist hatred” that has “been fuelled online” and has led to “real-world violence.”

Alongside a move to expand what is covered by the legal definition of hate speech, the Law Commission sought to link it with new protections for freedom of expression. Political discussions, such as those criticizing foreign governments, cultural practices, and immigration policies, would be protected under the new proposals, as well as “neutral reporting” of hate crimes committed by other individuals.

The commission also outlined how the government could similarly seek to bolster protection for disability and LGBT+ victims, warning that, without improvements, it will continue to send a “distinctly negative message to victims of hate crimes.”

The UK Home Office said it would “carefully” examine the proposals before the government issues a formal response on the recommended reforms.

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The archbishop of Canterbury has slammed the UK’s Covid-19 travel restrictions as “travel apartheid” and described the revival of its red list over the Omicron variant as “morally wrong.”

“With Omicron set to become the dominant variant in the UK, I appeal to the British government to remove Nigeria and South Africa from the red list – together with all other countries currently on it,” Justin Welby wrote in a series of tweets.

The rebuke comes days after Britain imposed severe travel restrictions on a number of African countries in an attempt to curb the spread of the new variant. The rules mean travelers from red list countries will need to quarantine in hotels, at their own expense, for 10 days.

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In the rare political statement, the archbishop called for vaccine equity and underlined the necessity of finding “fair and effective approaches” to let vaccinated and tested people enter the UK.“We cannot have ‘travel apartheid’,” he added, echoing the reaction of Nigeria’s high commissioner to the UK, who told the BBC on Monday that a “global approach” not a “selective” one was needed.

“It is also morally wrong – and self-defeating – effectively to punish other nations for being transparent when they discover new Covid variants,” Welby said.

The archbishop’s view on travel bans is shared by a senior emergency officer at World Health Organization’s regional office for Europe. Dr. Catherine Smallwood recently said, “Disease outbreaks are contained at their source, not at their borders,” and that travel bans are “unfair” and “not effective in preventing spread of disease.”

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Four major British broadcasters have agreed to avoid using the acronym BAME, which means “black, Asian and minority ethnic”, following the recent recommendation to use “more nuanced” terms for specific ethnic groups.

The BBC, ITV, Channel 4, and Channel 5 announced on Tuesday that they will now avoid using the term BAME in their news content and corporate communications.

“The move towards specificity, and away from a catch-all term, paves the way for greater acknowledgement of the unique experience of people from different ethnic backgrounds and offers insight into the issues facing specific groups,” reads the broadcasters’ rare joint press statement.

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The report, conducted by Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity (LHC), says that intensifying use of the collective term BAME in 2020 coincided with Black Lives Matter movement and Covid pandemic, which exposed “ethnically-marked health and other inequalities”.

“Interestingly, both these developments have required the need for a more nuanced and culturally astute understanding of specific ethnic demographic groups,” reads the report. It also notes that the “catch-all term” now has “specific negative connotations” and therefore should be used with “particular care”. The advice for the broadcasters was to choose more specific ethnicity-describing definitions and to limit the use of the acronym by reported speech. In those cases where a wider term is needed, they advised using “Black, Asian and minority ethnic”.

The authors of the review welcomed the announcement by the four broadcast outlets, saying that they are “very happy that British broadcasters are taking the issue of racial language seriously”.

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UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is under fire over claims a Christmas party was held at Downing Street last year in violation of Covid rules after a video surfaced of government officials joking about the event.

The Conservative party has repeatedly denied holding Christmas events at Downing Street since reports first emerged in the UK’s Mirror newspaper last week. Defending themselves against the claims, the Tories have repeatedly stated that “There was no Christmas party. Covid rules have been followed at all times.”

However, a video released by ITV on Tuesday of a mock televised press briefing has sparked accusations that the government lied about the event. Filmed days after the alleged party took place, government officials joked about “cheese and wine” being served at the event, excusing the lack of social distancing by claiming it was a “business meeting.”

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The prime minister’s then-press secretary, Allegra Stratton, while laughing at the comments made by Downing Street staff, quickly reminded her colleagues that the test briefing was being “recorded” before suggesting the event in question is a “fictional party.”

Following the release of the video, government ministers pulled out of TV interviews on Wednesday morning. Health Secretary Sajid Javid was set to do the media rounds, speaking to key outlets in the UK about the government’s Covid booster campaign but he withdrew. No one was offered as a replacement, according to the BBC and Sky News.

Responding to the newly released footage at the weekly Prime Minister's Questions session on Wednesday, Johnson apologized over the clip, accepting the “anger up and down the country” at staff laughing about lockdown measures. While maintaining that “no Covid rules were broken,” the prime minister has said he will direct officials to investigate the situation and assess whether Covid restrictions were violated.

Labour Leader Keir Starmer decried the prime minister for pushing “shameful” lies, demanding he “come clean and apologise.” The Scottish National Party’s Westminster Leader, Ian Blackford, went further in his condemnation, declaring that the “prime minister’s position is untenable.”

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ITV breakfast television show ‘Good Morning Britain’ received backlash on social media after deleting a poll which showed a vast majority of respondents opposed mandatory Covid-19 vaccination.

The poll, which asked viewers whether it was “time to make vaccines mandatory” in response to the spread of the Covid-19 Omicron variant, was posted to Twitter on Tuesday and soon received more than 42,000 votes.

A whopping 89% of those who voted opposed any scheme to make vaccination mandatory, with just 11% in favor.

After the poll went viral, however, social media users noticed that it had been deleted by the Good Morning Britain Twitter account, and critics accused the program of trying to cover up the public consensus.

Spread misinformation ?
Delete poll when it's clear the public have rejected your tyrannical agenda ?
A great week for @GMB and journalism. pic.twitter.com/h6zA3o2uhE

— Oliver Smith (@ollysmithtravel) December 7, 2021

“Why did you delete this poll, is it because you were asked? Or because it shows the people don’t support this s**t, this tyrannical future your colleagues seem to want. We see you,” one person said, while another suggested, “Guess that wasn’t the answer they were looking for.”

I see @GMB has deleted their poll. Why?

It looks like a firm NO to mandatory vax. pic.twitter.com/ZjGtW81mlN

— Lange (@djlange) December 7, 2021

Good Morning Britain – which was hosted by controversial commentator Piers Morgan before his departure in March – did not explain why it removed the poll.

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The new British Chief of the Defence Staff Tony Radakin has named specific countries as rivals who are currently creating a situation more “complex and dangerous” for the UK than previously in the last 30 years.

“The world is undoubtedly more prosperous today and yet our security outlook is far more complex and dangerous than at any time over the past 30 years,” the admiral said in a speech Tuesday, his first as the head of the armed forces.

Radakin named Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea as the four main rivals to the UK and its allies.

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China, the military official alleged, is “challenging international norms of behavior” through “freedom of navigation, economic intimidation or wolf warrior diplomacy.”

Russia, on the other hand, presents a “threat to our values and interests,” while Iran and North Korea could present potential “nuclear or ballistic” threats, Radakin said.

In response, Radakin added, the British military needs to focus on “high impact, low footprint” operations.

“We have to ‘up the punch’ we bring across all domains as increasingly, the political need is for ‘high impact and low footprint’ operations,” he said.

In his speech, Radakin also called for more diversity in the military’s ranks, particularly more women. He also touched on false expense reports filed by some military members for personal benefit, such as claiming false school costs.

“This is not about wokefulness. It is about woefulness. The woefulness of too few women … not reflecting the ethnic, religious and cognitive diversity of our nation … not following our own values, whether respect for each other or the simple integrity of claiming expenses,” Radakin noted.

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Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is urging citizens to repeatedly test themselves for Covid-19 before any public outing, claiming she herself does these check-ups on a daily basis.

“We are asking everyone to do a lateral flow test before mixing with people from other households and on every occasion that you intend on doing so,” Sturgeon said during a Tuesday address to Parliament.

This testing should be done before a visit to another household or to a pub, restaurant, or supermarket. Sturgeon claimed she is getting tested every single day before beginning work and will require Covid tests from guests visiting over the holidays.

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Scottish officials have warned potential closures and restrictions could be ahead for citizens as Covid cases have upticked and dozens of cases of the Omicron variant have been found in recent weeks. As of Tuesday, there are 99 cases of the variant in Scotland, an increase of 28 overnight.

Sturgeon said new potential measures are being looked at daily to curb the virus, but as of now no new measures are being put in place.

“Acting preventatively is often the best way of ensuring that action can remain limited and proportionate,” she said. “However, after two years of restrictions… we know that it is ever more important to minimize further restrictions as far as possible.”

The Scottish leader also urged businesses to enable their workforces to work from home until at least mid-January. She called on citizens to return to “basics” by wearing face coverings indoors, ventilating rooms, and keeping good hand hygiene.

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Early Covid-19 symptoms mirror vaccine side effects, according to a recent study that warns people who suffer headaches, fatigue, or fever after being jabbed to assume they have been infected, get tested, and isolate themselves.

The findings, published last week in the eClinical Medicine journal, show there is no way to tell if the symptoms are from the disease or an adverse reaction to the shot unless a screening test is taken. Researchers at King’s College London have raised concerns that the recently vaccinated could be inadvertently spreading the virus, thinking their symptoms were from the jab.

According to the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), more than one in 10 people can suffer minor adverse reactions to the vaccines – and the researchers found that 1% of the 362,770 people who reported symptoms in the week following the jab actually had Covid-19.

The study was based on data from those vaccinated with the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines between December 2020 and May 2021.

The findings come amid a rise in cases and ahead of a high-profile booster vaccination drive for all adults in the UK, as officials worry about the potential impact of the virus’ Omicron variant.

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Due to the higher risk of community transmission, researchers warn that it is more crucial than ever to check whether post-vaccination symptoms are in fact due to Covid-19. They noted that immunity to the virus does not occur immediately after getting the shot.

To identify the differences between early Covid infections and possible vaccine side effects, the scientists used machine learning models to review some 28 symptoms associated with the disease. They also analyzed three core clinical symptoms emphasized by the NHS: high temperature, new continuous cough, and loss/change in sense of smell.

“Both the machine learning models and the clinical model found it difficult to differentiate between symptoms associated with a positive test result and vaccine side effects. This is why anyone with symptoms should have a test. Ultimately, this will help us avoid spreading the virus this Christmas,” study co-author Dr. Liane Canas said.

The study did not reveal if the findings varied according to the particular vaccine received.

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