Author: staff

On a low hill outside Huelva, at the point where the Río Tinto meets the Odiel before they flow into the Atlantic, stands one of the most decisive sites in world history: the monastery of Santa María de La Rábida. Without its walls, its friars and the faith invested there, it is quite possible that Christopher Columbus’s great enterprise would never have set sail from the nearby shores of Palos de la Frontera bound for the New World. The Franciscan presence here dates back to the early 13th century, when the first friars settled in this early hermitage on the…

Lammy went further than Leveson, pushing beyond his recommendation for judge-and-magistrate panels to replace juries in some cases and instead backing single-judge courts. The proposal raised concern among some lawmakers that a defining principle of the English justice system is under threat.  “We have heard the concerns about the balance between the speed [of the] justice system and people feel[ing] confident about the process,” Norris said Monday morning.  Early release  Norris has also been tasked with solving the hot-button issue of early release for prisoners, a Starmer-era bid to ease overcrowded jails. The justice secretary cited measures intended to reassure…

Published on 28/09/2026 – 15:40 GMT+2•Updated 15:49 Three people died and 102 were rescued after a small boat attempting to transport migrants across the English Channel came into difficulty on Monday, French authorities said. Rescuers were dispatched to the scene after receiving a distress call from the vessel, which had reportedly set sail from Blériot beach in the Pas-de-Calais region on Monday morning, and attempted to assist 105 passengers on board, according to France’s Channel and North Sea Maritime Prefecture. Three people – a 10-year-old child and two women – required urgent medical care and received immediate treatment but were…

The charity event pays tribute to the historic privileges of the Freemen of the City of London, who once had the right to drive livestock across the Thames without paying a toll. The modern version was revived in 2013. For Gloria Hunniford, 86, it was a first. The television presenter, who received the Freedom of the City earlier this year, led the flock with a shepherd’s crook decorated with a pink ribbon in memory of her daughter, Caron Keating, who died of breast cancer in 2004. Around 1,500 Freemen and guests joined the festivities, alongside rare-breed sheep, live shearing demonstrations…

Published on 28/09/2026 – 12:46 GMT+2 Nvidia is rolling out a security platform for artificial intelligence (AI) agents that more than 100 organisations are working with, including Anthropic, SpaceXAI and JPMorganChase. Called the Nvidia Open Agent Safety Platform, it is designed to set limits on what agents can access and put them in “quarantine” within milliseconds if they cross those limits, according to an announcement from the US chipmaker. The platform can be used across software and hardware, compute and robotics systems that run agents. “AI’s extraordinary potential for society will only be realised if we solve AI safety,” said…

Summer is officially over, and while the weather is still pretty fantastic right now, we can practically feel the dark, windy, cold nights creeping up on us already. To beat the inevitable seasonal depression, an escape somewhere sunny is a must – but we don’t want to pay a premium for it. Luckily for us, Post Office Travel Money has just unveiled its Winter Sun Report 2026 which compares the costs of common holiday purchases such as meals, drinks, sunscreen and insect repellent across 24 destinations to see where your money goes furthest. This year, Cape Town in South Africa…

In a speech delivered to a packed room, the pope did not specify what concessions he thought Kyiv or Moscow might have to make to secure peace. Russian forces are persistently bombing Ukraine and attempting to push forward in the Donetsk region, but the Kremlin’s military has so far failed to subjugate Kyiv after more than four and a half years of all-out war. The pontiff has taken an active role in recent months, pushing for an end to hostilities in Ukraine. In August, Leo sent Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the equivalent of his foreign minister, to Moscow to meet with…

Pope Leo XIV has praised multilateralism as “the best defence against the desire for dominance” in a speech in the French city of Metz, the birthplace of Robert Schuman, one of the founding fathers of European integration. The pontiff lamented a world marked by conflict, from war and hunger to deteriorating personal relations, describing an “increasingly uncivilised” climate. He also criticised the “lies and deception” he said were fuelling growing distrust between citizens and governments. Speaking in Schuman’s hometown, a city closely associated with European reconciliation, Leo said Europe could break this vicious cycle by reaffirming its commitment to the…

Fighting in the north of Ethiopia continued to rage over the weekend, raising fears of a return to a 2020-2022 war in which an estimated 600,000 people died. Heavy clashes have resumed between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the federal government since Wednesday. The TPLF has seized airports and launched attacks into the neighbouring Ethiopian states of Afar and Amhara, saying they were engaged in a “defensive war” against the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. The headquarters of Tigrai TV, seen as the key outlet for the rebel authorities in the Tigrayan capital Mekelle, was hit by a…

Washington and Beijing have now detailed the plan for which goods stand to gain from the trade deal struck at last week’s summit between US President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping. China’s list runs to 1,619 categories of American products, while the US list contains 77 categories of Chinese goods, but neither side has said how deep the cuts will be or when they will apply. The two countries will consider the products “with a view toward providing reduced tariff treatment to those goods in a reciprocal manner,” the White House stated. The lists were drawn up by…