UK News

Union officials are “hopeful” that the materials needed to keep furnaces burning at the Scunthorpe steel plant will be delivered within the next 48 hours. It comes as British Steel has appointed interim executives as efforts continue to secure its future. British Steel announced Allan Bell as interim chief executive officer and Lisa Coulson as interim chief commercial officer with immediate effect on Monday. Staff at the firm and civil […]

Katy Perry has hailed the “incredible and inspiring” women who will be joining her on a flight into space. The 40-year-old US pop star is part of a six-woman crew on Jeff Bezos’s New Shepard NS-31 mission, organised by his partner, journalist Lauren Sanchez. Sanchez picked the crew, who also include CBS Mornings presenter Gayle King, former Nasa rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, astronaut and activist Amanda Nguyen and movie producer […]

Refuse workers involved in a long-running dispute over pay and jobs are to vote on a “partial deal” aimed at ending an all-out strike. Members of Unite in Birmingham walked out on March 11, leading to rubbish piling up in the streets and warnings of a public health emergency. The union is campaigning against plans to cut a post from the city’s refuse and recycling service which it says will […]

Drivers face a “hat-trick of hold-ups” as the bank holiday weekend coincides with the end of the Easter holidays for many schools, a motoring organisation warned. The RAC said traffic will be “equally severe” on Thursday, Good Friday and Saturday, with an estimated 2.7 million leisure trips by car planned across the UK each day. More than 19 million leisure journeys are planned between Thursday and Easter Monday, including 6.2 […]

Nearly half of teachers in England have seen the number of teaching posts left unfilled or temporarily filled increase over the past year, a survey suggests. More than two in three (71%) of teachers surveyed said staff absence due to sickness has increased in their workplace in the last year. A poll, of more than 14,100 National Education Union (NEU) teacher members in state schools in England, suggests more than […]

A man has been found dead among the debris of a terraced Nottinghamshire house that was destroyed by a “gas explosion”, police have said. A man has been found dead among the debris of a terraced Nottinghamshire house that was destroyed by a “gas explosion”, police have said. Emergency crews were called to the incident in John Street, Worksop, at 7.39pm on Saturday and the Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service […]

Two prison officers who were seriously injured as they were stabbed by Manchester bomb plotter Hashem Abedi are in a stable condition in hospital, the Prison Officers’ Association (POA) has said. Abedi threw hot cooking oil over three officers on Saturday before stabbing them with “home-made weapons”, said the POA, a trade union covering prison staff. Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP) NE is leading the investigation into the “serious assault”. The […]

The Business Secretary has issued instructions to British Steel, using the emergency powers approved by Parliament on Saturday to save the Scunthorpe blast furnaces. A Government source confirmed that Jonathan Reynolds had given directions to the company following the extraordinary sitting of Parliament. But they declined to give details of those instructions, saying they would not provide a running commentary on them. Earlier on Saturday, MPs and peers had approved […]

A major incident has been declared following an explosion at a home in Nottinghamshire. Nearby homes in Worksop have been evacuated as fire crews and the East Midlands Ambulance Service work to account for all residents. Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service said it received its first report about the incident in John Street at 7.39pm on Saturday. “This has now been declared a major incident, and we are likely to […]