General news

• Average Briton spends 26 days a year watching on-demand TV

  23-09-2018 23:00
  UKActive says people are ‘losing the balance and enjoyment that physical activity brings to our lives’.UK adults spend an average of 12 hours a week watching on-demand TV, around eight times longer than they spend exercising, a survey has found.The survey also found that the average adult spend 17 hours using a smartphone or tablet and 12 hours using social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
  
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• Shanker Singham: is he the brains of Brexit?

  23-09-2018 21:38
  Shanker Singham’s plans for a hard Brexit will be published by the Institute of Economic Affairs on Monday.Shanker Singham is known at Westminster as the “Brexiteers’ brain”.To his acolytes in the Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative party, the former Washington lobbyist and lawyer is one of the most brilliant trade experts of his generation.
  
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• May to face pressure to ditch Chequers plan in cabinet showdown

  23-09-2018 21:38
  Theresa May will come under intense pressure from leading Brexiters on Monday to ditch her Chequers proposals and back a free trade deal with the EU instead as she faces a bruising cabinet showdown in the wake of the disastrous Salzburg summit.The former Brexit secretary David Davis and leading Eurosceptic Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg are among those backing a report by the Institute of Economic Affairs which is expected to set out an alternative plan for a hard Brexit departure from the EU.Several c
  
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• JezFest did not make a profit, says Labour

  23-09-2018 20:35
  Labour has confirmed that its one-day music and politics festival Labour Live did not make a profit.The party’s treasurer, Diana Holland, said she did not believe a desire to make money was the reason for running it.The event, nicknamed JezFest, featured speeches from Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, performances from the bands Clean Bandit and the Magic Numbers, and political discussions.
  
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• Man in his 80s arrested on suspicion of murder in Norfolk

  23-09-2018 20:28
  A man in his 80s has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a woman was found dead in Norfolk.The victim, whose age Norfolk police did not disclose, was pronounced dead at the scene when police arrived to Churchill Place.“Clearly we are still in the early stages of our investigation and our enquiries remain ongoing,” said DI Chris Burgess.
  
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• Man in 80s arrested on suspicion of murder after woman found dead at home in Norfolk

  23-09-2018 20:18
  A man in his 80s has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a woman was found dead in Norfolk.Officers were called to a property in Churchill Place, Brooke, at around 10.30am on Sunday to reports a woman had been stabbed.The suspect was detained at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, according to the Eastern Daily Press.
  
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• Angela Rayner: Working Class Politicians Get Their Background 'Beaten Out Of Them'

  23-09-2018 20:14
  Angela Rayner's working class background would not stand in the way of her
  
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• As Comcast takes control of Sky, Murdoch could yet bounce back

  23-09-2018 19:46
  There are questions about whether Rupert Murdoch can continue to maintain his current level of political influence.Rupert Murdoch’s dream of taking full control of Sky dissolved on Saturday night as he was outbid by the US firm Comcast.Murdoch’s abrasive and headline-grabbing era in charge of Sky came to an end in a high-stakes auction.
  
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• Man 'with Taser' arrested at Buckingham Palace

  23-09-2018 19:13
  A man has been arrested at Buckingham Palace on suspicion of possessing a firearm.
  
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• Suede: Britpop was a monster and you can't blame us

  23-09-2018 18:57
  Arguably the best band in Britain in the early 90s, Suede are often labelled the founding fathers of Britpop.The group had already scored a number one album by the time bands such as Blur, Oasis and Pulp found their place in the nation's consciousness in the mid-90s, their eponymous debut winning the Mercury Prize in 1993.Speaking to Sky News on the launch of their eighth studio album (a milestone not many bands topping the charts in the 90s have reached), lead singer Brett Anderson and bass pla
  
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• Grayling’s on a siding to nothing with railways and Chequers

  23-09-2018 18:50
  The “sweeping review” of the rail system (Sweeping review, same old broom, 21 September) appears not to identify the gross regional disparities in infrastructure funding across different parts of Britain.The report on recent rail chaos only highlights two companies.• Chris Grayling’s staunch defence of the Chequers agreement is alarming (Report, 21 September).
  
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• Why Hampstead and Hull can’t agree on Brexit

  23-09-2018 18:49
  A Hull resident casts her vote in a bus being used as a polling station during the 2016 EU referendum.Polly Toynbee portrays a rerun of the Brexit referendum as a way in which Labour can keep both Hull and Hampstead happy (Labour’s path to power lies in putting Brexit to the people, 19 September).It isn’t – it represents Hampstead refusing to listen to Hull and telling Hull to keep voting until it votes the “right” way.
  
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• Politicians are to blame for prison crisis

  23-09-2018 18:49
  Placing Michael Spurr on notice of dismissal (‘Exemplary’ prisons chief told to quit amid jail crisis, 21 September) smacks of spite unprecedented since Michael Howard’s sacking of a progressive, humanitarian governor Richard Marriot and harrying of the then HMP director general Derek Rayner in the 90s but with this difference.Spurr’s laudable leadership is thwarted by a decade of top-slicing of Ministry of Justice budgets, with staff reductions and contraction of prisone
  
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• Liverpool Protest Demanding 'People's Vote' On Brexit Piles Pressure On Labour

  23-09-2018 18:38
  Chants of "we are European" and flags bearing the slogan "not a done deal"
  
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• Sport England launches £13.5m drive to boost secondary school PE

  23-09-2018 18:21
  More than a third of teachers say PE time has been cut for 14- to 16-year-olds in the past five years.Sport England is launching a £13.5m scheme to train 17,000 teachers in delivering PE and sport in school, after research found that almost 20% of secondary students hated PE lessons.With more than a quarter of the nation’s adults “inactive”, according to the Active Lives survey released in March, Sport England wants to ensure students are leaving secondary education with
  
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• People are taking to social media to celebrate Bisexual Visibility Day

  23-09-2018 18:21
  From myth-busting, to celebrating, to hilarious jokes, the LGBTQ+ community has been taking over social media.
  
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• Revealed: less than a third of young men prosecuted for rape are convicted

  23-09-2018 18:00
  Campaigners say the figures cast doubt on the ability of juries to provide equal access to justice for all rape complainants, regardless of the age of their alleged attacker.The crisis engulfing the criminal justice system over its approach to rape cases is revealed by startling figures that show less than a third of prosecutions brought against young men result in a conviction.The findings are the first in the Guardian’s series focusing on rape, which is consistently one of the most conte
  
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• Comcast's £30bn bid for Sky: what does it mean?

  23-09-2018 17:59
  Comcast is little known in the UK but is a major media force in the US.Why has Comcast bid £30bn for Sky?Traditional media companies are increasingly concerned about the threat from tech and streaming video companies such as Netflix.
  
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• Man arrested with taser at UK's Buckingham Palace visitor entrance - police

  23-09-2018 17:55
  A man has been arrested at the visitors' entrance to Queen Elizabeth's Buckingham Palace residence for possession of a taser, London's Metropolitan Police said on Sunday."Police were called at 12:47hrs on Sunday, 23 September to a report of a man detained by security staff at the visitor entrance to Buckingham Palace," the police said in a statement.
  
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• Sunday Shows Round-Up: Labour Conference, Election Speculation And Brexit

  23-09-2018 17:29
  As Labour conference got underway in Liverpool on Sunday morning, it was
  
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• Man arrested outside Buckingham Palace on suspicion of having Taser

  23-09-2018 17:27
  A man was detained by security staff at the visitor entrance to Buckingham Palace.A man has been arrested outside Buckingham Palace on suspicion of possessing a firearm.The 38-year-old was arrested on suspicion of having a Taser, and was taken into custody at a police station in central London.
  
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• Man Arrested At Buckingham Palace On Suspicion Of Possessing Taser

  23-09-2018 17:21
  A man has been arrested at Buckingham Palace on suspicion of possessing a
  
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• Welfare spending for UK's poorest shrinks by £37bn

  23-09-2018 17:02
  Field said the cuts were behind increases in food bank use and destitution.Spending on welfare benefits for the UK’s poorest families will have shrunk by nearly a quarter after a decade of austerity, according to new figures highlighting the plunge in living standards experienced by the worst-off.The figures, obtained by the Labour MP Frank Field, show that just under half the total savings will come from the freezing of most working-age benefit levels since 2016, a policy which will deliv
  
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• Students are sharing their hilarious thoughts from university Freshers’ Week

  23-09-2018 17:00
  Some universities across the UK held their orientation for new students this week – here are the funniest tweets.
  
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• Schoolgirl, 15, died after 'eating Pret a Manger baguette'

  23-09-2018 16:35
  The loss of their 15-year-old daughter who died following a severe allergic reaction is "a daily battle and the pain is indescribable", her family have said.Natasha Ednan-Laperouse's father's efforts when she collapsed during their flight from Heathrow to Nice in 2016 were sadly not enough to save her.Shortly before boarding the plane Natasha had eaten an artichoke, olive and tapenade baguette purchased from the main Pret a Manger shop in Terminal 5 at the west London airport.
  
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• Concerns grow for mother and five-year-old son who went missing in Greenwich

  23-09-2018 16:30
  Police have appealed for the public's help to find a mother and her son who have gone missing in the London borough of Greenwich.The Metropolitan Police, which is "growing increasingly concerned" for the pair, has described Ms Dedman as white and about 5ft 8in tall with long, brown hair.It is believed that Ms Dedman may be driving a white Vauxhall Corsa, with a registration of LJ14 LPA.
  
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• UK opposition leader will back second Brexit vote if party wants it

  23-09-2018 16:16
  British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn said on Sunday he would back a second Brexit referendum if his Labour Party votes to pursue the move, heaping pressure on Prime Minister Theresa May, whose plans for a divorce deal with the EU have hit an impasse.Corbyn, a veteran eurosceptic, has resisted growing demands to back a new "People's Vote" on the decision to quit the European Union, keen to keep those party members on board who voted in favour of Brexit at a 2016 referendum.
  
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• Seven ways to overcome loneliness

  23-09-2018 16:00
  Volunteering can be a really effective way of overcoming loneliness.According to the Campaign to End Loneliness, a commission originally set up by MP Jo Cox in 2016, loneliness can be as damaging as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.Having healthy social networks, on the other hand, can decrease risk of mortality and of developing diseases, as well as helping people recover when they are ill – and with 9 million adults describing themselves as “often or always lonely”, it is clear th
  
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• Hundreds Go Nude For Freezing Skinny Dip To Mark Autumn Equinox

  23-09-2018 14:43
  More than 600 people stripped naked to welcome the Autumn Equinox in the cold
  
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• Robert Peston Reveals Experience Of 'Predatory' Women Obsessed By His TV Fame

  23-09-2018 14:34
  Journalist Robert Peston has shared his experience of "predatory... stalky"
  
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• Siemens nears multi-billion euro deal in Iraq - Handelsblatt

  23-09-2018 14:25
  German engineering group Siemensis working on a deal worth up to 9 billion euros (8.09 billion pounds) to supply energy generation technology to Iraq, business daily Handelsblatt reported, citing government and industry sources.Siemens Chief Executive Joe Kaeser has travelled to Iraq to secure a memorandum of understanding with the country on Sunday, the paper said, adding the deal also involved power transmission technology.The Iraqi government has not made a decision whether to accept Siemens'
  
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• Labour prepared to vote down May's final Brexit deal, says Corbyn

  23-09-2018 14:10
  Jeremy Corbyn in Liverpool for the Labour party’s annual conference. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
  
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• EU's Brexit opposition fuelling far-right, Dominic Raab warns

  23-09-2018 14:10
  EU leaders are fuelling a rise of the far-right because of their refusal to accept democratic decisions like Brexit, Dominic Raab has warned."I think that's not the kind of language of either statesmanship or friendship, particularly at a summit," Mr Raab told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show.
  
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• Corbyn would back second Brexit vote

  23-09-2018 14:00
  Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn says he's willing to back a people's vote on Brexit.
  
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• Britain's opposition Labour backs new election over Brexit impasse

  23-09-2018 13:59
  Britain's opposition Labour Party prefers a new election to a second referendum on Brexit, its leader said on Sunday, heaping pressure on Prime Minister Theresa May whose plans for a deal with the EU have hit an impasse.Labour's Jeremy Corbyn has so far resisted calls to back a "People's Vote", or new referendum on the decision to quit the EU.
  
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• Exclusive: Labour To Fund 'Alcohol Care Teams' In Every English District Hospital

  23-09-2018 13:58
  Labour will ensure that every district general hospital in England has a
  
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• Jeremy Corbyn says he would be 'bound' by members' decision on Brexit referendum

  23-09-2018 13:54
  Jeremy Corbyn has said he will "obviously be bound" by what Labour members decide on a second Brexit referendum, amid growing calls for him to back the idea.The debate on whether the party should come out in favour of a vote on the terms of the exit deal Britain manages to strike with the European Union is set to dominate its annual conference in Liverpool.Mr Corbyn has been coming under increased pressure to throw his weight behind the idea - and on the eve of the annual gathering he gave his s
  
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• Dominic Raab rules out snap general election to save May's Brexit plan

  23-09-2018 12:45
  Raab says suggestions of a general election were ‘for the birds’ and vote was ‘not going to happen’.The Brexit secretary, Dominic Raab, has dismissed claims Theresa May could call a snap general election in the autumn to save her Brexit plans as he played down the chances of the government pivoting towards a Canada-style free trade deal.Raab insisted the government would keep negotiating with the EU on the basis of Chequers.
  
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• Labour MP Lisa Nandy backs male-female job-share for leadership

  23-09-2018 12:38
  A prominent female Labour MP has said the party should consider a man and woman holding the leadership in a job-sharing arrangement - which "absolutely" could continue into Downing Street.Lisa Nandy told Sky News she would like to see Labour follow the example of the Greens in electing a joint male-female team at the top of the party, keeping the arrangement if it wins power.The NEC move has sparked speculation the likes of Emily Thornberry, Angela Rayner or Rebecca Long-Bailey could put themsel
  
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• Corbyn would back Labour membership call for second referendum

  23-09-2018 11:50
  Jeremy Corbyn has said he would support a second referendum on Brexit if activists at his party conference voted for a change in Labour policy.The Labour leader said that the policy was not his first choice because he believed a general election would be a better way to resolve the political crisis over the nature of the UK’s departure from the EU.More than 100 constituency parties have submitted motions calling for a second vote on the conference floor.
  
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• UK standing firm on Brexit proposals, no election planned - Brexit minister Raab

  23-09-2018 11:45
  Britain is standing resolute on its proposals for a divorce deal with the European Union, Brexit minister Dominic Raab said on Sunday, ruling out an early election.At a summit in Austria on Thursday, EU leaders rejected Prime Minister Theresa May's "Chequers" plan, saying she needed to give ground on trade and customs arrangements for the UK border with Ireland."We have come up with a serious set of proposals...We are not just going to flit from plan to plan like some sort of diplomatic butterfl
  
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• Theresa May Urges Tories To Hold Brexit Nerves As No 10 Denies November Election Plot

  23-09-2018 11:26
  Theresa May has urged top Tories to "hold their nerve" as Brexit negotiations
  
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• UK government on verge of collapse - opposition Labour deputy leader

  23-09-2018 11:16
  British Prime Minister Theresa May's government is on the verge of collapse and there could be another national election soon, the opposition Labour Party's deputy leader Tom Watson said on Sunday.Watson also said that if members at Labour's annual conference in Liverpool backed the idea of holding a 'people's vote' second referendum on Brexit, it would be difficult for the party's leadership to ignore it."It seems to me inconceivable that if ... Labour Party conference decides it wants a manife
  
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• Burgon to set out Labour's five demands to tackle prisons crisis

  23-09-2018 11:12
  Richard Burgon will say the current state of prisons is too dangerous for both staff and inmates.The shadow justice secretary, Richard Burgon, will call on the government to fund an emergency five-point plan to end the escalating crisis in prisons in England and Wales.Addressing a meeting of the Labour police and crime commissioners’ group at the party’s annual conference in Liverpool, Burgon will say the current state of prisons is too dangerous for both staff and inmates.
  
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• British 'IS member' claiming to be Birmingham pharmacist held by Kurdish forces in Syria

  23-09-2018 10:51
  A Briton, who claims to be a pharmacist from Birmingham, has been detained in Syria on suspicion of being a member of Islamic State.The man, who said his name was Anwar Miah, was reportedly seized by Kurdish forces near the Iraqi border.Footage showing him wearing a blindfold and being questioned by his captors has been uploaded to social media by an account aligning itself with the YPG (Kurdish People's Protection Units)/Syrian Democratic Forces.
  
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• Ministers warn harder Brexit risks breaking up Britain

  23-09-2018 10:40
  Theresa May is being warned by cabinet colleagues that a shift towards a harder Brexit will hasten the break-up of the UK, amid a renewed attempt by Brexiters to secure a clean split from the European Union.With senior Tories warning that the prime minister now risks a diplomatic calamity on the scale of the Suez crisis, following her disastrous Salzburg summit, she is facing a renewed campaign among ministers and influential backbenchers to ditch her current plans and back a looser free trade d
  
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• Teenager Dead After Shooting In East London

  23-09-2018 09:45
  A teenager has died after he was shot in east London, sparking a murder probe.
  
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• Meghan reveals her 'something blue' was from first date with Harry

  23-09-2018 07:01
  The Duchess of Sussex has looked back to the "magical day" of her wedding and shared personal details about her gown and veil.Following the bride's tradition of having something old, new, borrowed and blue, Meghan revealed her "something blue" was from her first romantic encounter with Prince Harry.Meghan made her comments in a new ITV documentary, Queen of the World, when she was reunited with her bridal outfit at Buckingham Palace as it is prepared for a new exhibition.
  
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• Katie Hopkins to speak at far-right rally with Holocaust denier

  23-09-2018 07:00
  Hopkins says she is ‘standing up for Britain’.Katie Hopkins is due to address an extreme rightwing party on Sunday alongside speakers that include a Holocaust denier and a controversial US anti-Muslim campaigner who is banned from entering the UK.The former reality-TV star is due to appear at the conference of For Britain, a party founded by the former Ukip leadership contender and anti-Muslim activist Anne Marie Waters.
  
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• Health visitors struggling with ‘dangerously high’ caseloads

  23-09-2018 07:00
  Health visitors monitor mothers before childbirth and ensure children get a healthy start.Health visitors are struggling to care for families properly because they have “dangerously high” workloads in which some are looking after as many as 829 children, a study shows.Falling numbers of health visitors mean that in most parts of England they are now looking after more – often many more – under-fives than the recommended maximum 250.
  
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