Campaigners say banks and web platforms are being told to collect data on customers visiting blocked sites Major Russian companies have been conscripted into a “witch-hunt” against users trying to circumvent online controls, researchers have said, as the Kremlin continues trying to cut its citizens off from the global internet. Banks and web platforms are collecting data on users of virtual private networks (VPN) tools, which obscure an individual’s real location and allow them to access sites b
Michelle Sadio, 44, was shot near the River of Life Pentecostal church in Willesden in 2024 Two men have been found guilty of murdering an innocent woman and injuring two more people in a drive-by shooting outside a wake. Michelle Sadio, a mother of two, was shot outside the River of Life Pentecostal church in Willesden in north London on 14 December 2024. She had been among about 100 mourners, including children as young as five, at the wake for 80-year-old Dianne Boatong. Continue reading...
Sacked Foreign Office permanent secretary says he was under pressure from Downing Street over appointment of US ambassador UK politics live – latest updates The sacked senior civil servant Oliver Robbins has said he was subject to “constant pressure” when he arrived in the Foreign Office to get Peter Mandelson in post as soon as possible. He said the Cabinet Office urged the Foreign Office to allow Mandelson’s appointment as the UK’s ambassador to the US without the usual vetting process but the
Sacked Foreign Office chief tells MPs he was briefed that UKSV considered Mandelson ‘a borderline case’ UK politics live – latest updates An account of Peter Mandelson’s vetting process given by the former top civil servant Sir Olly Robbins has raised new questions about whether he was misled about the findings of the agency responsible for vetting. Robbins, who was sacked from his role of permanent secretary at the Foreign Office last week after revelations in the Guardian , gave testimony abou
Former President Barack Obama sits down with NBC's Jenna Bush Hager.
Guardian - World · Oct 8
ONS data for three months to February is not expected to alter Bank of England’s decision on interest rates Unemployment in the UK unexpectedly fell in the three months to February, according to official figures – but the fallout from the conflict in the Middle East is expected to cause a rise in job cuts. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that the rate of unemployment was 4.9% in the three months to February. This compares with 5.2% in the three months to January, a rate that econom
NBC News · Oct 8
King Charles honors Queen Elizabeth II's 100th birthday
Guardian - World · Oct 8
This year’s programme to feature ambitious pieces with lots of notes – and that’s just prog night The BBC has announced the 2026 Proms season, the 99th under the broadcaster’s control (the so-called Promenade concerts began in 1895). Seventy-two concerts in the Royal Albert Hall and 14 across the UK – in Bristol, Gateshead and, in a Proms first, Mold – will showcase a vast range of UK classical music talent. Sam Jackson, controller, BBC Radio 3 and BBC Proms, hailed a “creatively bold season tha
Guardian - World · Oct 8
Civil rights group logs 300% yearly rise from before war and says ‘authoritarian repression … went into overdrive’ A civil rights group dedicated to the defense of pro-Palestinian speech said that requests for legal assistance linked to Palestine-related activism in the US continues to far surpass pre-2023 levels, having logged 300% more requests for support last year than in any year prior to Israel’s war in Gaza. Palestine Legal logged some 1,131 requests in 2025. That was less than the record
