Local News

Two teenagers have been jailed after being found guilty of the manslaughter of a 14-year-old boy.Gordon Gault was stabbed on the arm with a machete as he rode on the back of a friend's e-bike in Newcastle's West End in November 2022. He died six days later in hospital. The deadly attack, which also saw one of his associates slashed in the back, broke out when two rival gangs went […]

A minister has admitted that the government's desire to scrap national insurance could take "several parliaments" to achieve as confusion over the policy mounts.In his budget earlier this week, Jeremy Hunt slashed national insurance by 2p and said the government intended to scrap payments entirely, branding them "unfair" and a "double taxation" on work. However, following a backlash and questions from Labour over how abolishing the tax would be funded, […]

The UK has no "credible" plan to buy all the weapons it needs after a huge jump in the cost of the nuclear deterrent helped to create a record funding gap, a group of MPs has warned.Inflation and a weak pound also contributed to the hole of at least £16.9bn in a rolling, 10-year plan to procure equipment for the Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, the Public Accounts […]

The number of whooping cough cases in the UK has soared - prompting health officials to raise concerns about vaccine uptake.There were 553 new cases of the highly contagious infection in January, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said. This compares with 858 cases for the whole of 2023.Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, is a bacterial infection of the lungs and breathing tubes which can cause serious health problems.Symptoms […]

Christian Horner has said the "intrusion on my family is now enough" and "has been very trying" after scrutiny following claims that he behaved inappropriately towards a female member of Red Bull staff.Speaking at a news conference in Saudi Arabia, he said: "There's been a lot of coverage surrounding this."One has to go back to the basis. A grievance was raised, fully investigated and it was dismissed. We move onwards.""It […]

The defence secretary has warned that the UK is in a "pre-war world", friends and foes are ramping up defence spending, yet the Treasury had nothing new for Britain's armed forces.In fact, the level of funding set out in official tables in the spring budget on Wednesday appeared to track a decline of £2.5bn in defence spending in the financial year to March 2025 compared with the previous 12 months […]

Dog thefts are up across the UK and just one in six were returned to their owners in 2023 - the lowest level since insurer Direct Line started tracking the data in 2015.Police figures suggest at least 2,290 dogs were stolen last year, an increase of 6% from 2022, and most are reported in London, Kent, and West Yorkshire. English Bulldogs, French Bulldogs and XL bullys were the most frequently […]

A notorious killer has told British detectives where he buried his victim's remains 55 years ago, after they flew to his Caribbean home to interview him.Nizamodeen Hosein was convicted of kidnapping and killing Muriel McKay, who he mistook for the then wife of newspaper magnate Rupert Murdoch, in one of the first British murder trials without a body. But this week, he agreed to meet a team of Scotland Yard […]

Southampton's match against Preston this evening has been postponed after a fire broke out next to St Mary's stadium.Fire crews are tackling the blaze which broke out just after 1pm this afternoon affecting four industrial units in Marine Parade, Southampton. It isn't clear what caused the fire and a number of emergency responders rushed to the scene.Southampton FC had been due to play Preston in the stadium this evening in […]