The Royal Navy is considering nuclear-powered surface ships that could stay at sea for years.

As part of what is understood to be a “long-term” plan, the Navy has asked the defence industry to explore nuclear power on its surface ships.

In the UK, nuclear propulsion is only used on submarines, however the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has issued a Request for Information (RFI) for updates on the use of Generation IV, an advanced nuclear technology.

The request will look at how Generation IV nuclear technologies, including larger nuclear reactors and micro-modular reactors, could power surface fleets.

The US has a number of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, including Nimitz and Gerald R. Ford-class ships. France’s Charles de Gaulle carrier is also nuclear-powered.

At a cost of $13 billion (£10 billion), the nuclear-powered USS Gerald R. Ford was commissioned in 2017 and is the US navy’s newest and costliest warship.

The Royal Navy’s two aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, cost £3 billion each. Commissioned in 2017, they are powered by gas and diesel engines. 

Both ships have been hit by malfunctions since they launched. HMS Queen Elizabeth was forced to pull out of the largest Nato exercise since the Cold War in February due to an issue with a propeller shaft.

In 2022, HMS Prince of Wales was forced to pull out of exercises with the US Navy after breaking down off the Isle of Wight due to a similar malfunction.

Tom Sharpe, a former Navy commander, described the RFI as “prudent planning” by the MoD, although cautioned the costs behind such a development.

“It isn’t about building a fleet of nuclear-powered cruisers any time soon,” he said. “That there is someone in a corner of the Naval Headquarters looking this far ahead, and not getting consumed by the day-to-day running of the fleet, is good news.”

‘Nuclear power all about cost vs gains’

He added: “Nuclear power in ships is all about cost vs operational gains. 

“In submarines, the gains are massive, which is why many are powered that way. In surface ships the operational gain is much less and so cost comes in earlier.”

The Government’s “Net Zero Strategy”, published in 2021, reinforced the importance of nuclear in the UK’s energy as it transitions to net zero by 2050.

The MoD’s request is an information-gathering exercise conducted in line with the Defence and Security Industrial Strategy (DSIS), according to the UK Defence Journal.

The RFI, which has a deadline of Oct 9 this year, adds: “The primary objective is to gather detailed information on GEN-4 nuclear-reactor designs, their feasibility for large surface ships (including support vessels and surface combatants), and the potential benefits and challenges associated with their use.”

Mr Sharpe added: “There is a gross tonnage above which this ratio changes in favour of nuclear propulsion, and it’s about 80,000 tons. This is why US carriers at 100,000 tons have it and ours, at 65,000 tons do not.”

He added that the Charles de Gaulle, which sits at 42,000 tons, is an expensive anomaly to be nuclear-powered.

“However, if Gen IV reactors are that much smaller, safer, more powerful and with less waste as the brochure suggests, then it’s possible the tonnage point at which nuclear propulsion becomes viable could change substantially,” Mr Sharpe said.

The RFI also highlights the need for detailed technical information. It says: “The Royal Navy is seeking information regarding integrating Generation-4 nuclear technologies for surface ship employment. Exploring scopes for alternative energy paradigms, the Royal Navy is gathering information on energy solutions for powering large surface ships.”

Pete Sandman, a Navy expert who runs the Navy Lookout blog, said he doubted the UK will see a nuclear-powered vessel in the near future, due to the “enormous overheads” that would come with instilling and maintaining such advanced technology.

“Nuclear propulsion comes with enormous overheads, maintenance, regulations and once you go nuclear things become way more expensive and complicated,” he said.

“You have nuclear regulatory bodies, people have to be trained to a very high standard and have 24-hour watches. Although infinite power comes with lots of downsides, for a surface ship, the case is less clear cut.”

A Royal Navy spokesman told The Telegraph: “This is simply an information gathering exercise.

“We strive to be at the cutting edge of technology, therefore such requests to our industry partners are entirely routine and no further discussions are being planned at this stage.”

Four million pensioners living alone face a fresh tax raid after Labour scrapped the winter fuel allowance, Sir Keir Starmer has hinted.

The Prime Minister and Downing Street officials on Wednesday refused to rule out scrapping a council tax break claimed by millions of one-person households.

Retirees make up about half of the 8.4 million people who will be affected if the council tax discount for single householders is abolished, analysis shows.

Ministers said on Wednesday that there would be no watering down of the plans to scrap winter fuel payments worth up to £300 for 10 million older people. The move would save around £1 billion a year.

Scrapping the 25 per cent single-person council tax discount would save the public purse £3 billion a year, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. It cuts around £543 per year from the average Band D council tax bill in 2024-25.

However, pensioners have warned that removing the discount would be an “unforgivable betrayal” of older people and could mean they lose their homes.

Sir Keir was challenged in the Commons by Tory MP Louie French to rule out “scrapping concessionary travel fares and council tax discounts” after Labour’s “disgraceful political decision” on winter fuel payments.

Sir Keir replied: “As he knows very well, I am not going to pre-empt the Budget. It will all be set out in due course.”

Outside the Commons a Downing Street spokesman, when asked if the Government was committed to free bus passes for pensioners, said: “We are. There are no plans to change that.”

She added: “The PM was making a broader point about not pre-empting the Budget. I think there were some other examples put to him as well but on bus passes we have been clear in answering that question – there are no plans.

“The Chancellor [Rachel Reeves] was also asked about this… she mentioned TV licences, prescriptions and bus passes to rule those out.”

Asked specifically about the single person’s council tax discount, the spokeswoman said: “On that, I would point you to his words about not getting ahead of the Budget.”

Angela Rayner, the Housing Secretary, has also previously refused to rule out scrapping the discount. On Wednesday, Ms Reeves fuelled speculation when she hinted the Budget could include further cuts to benefits.

She told broadcasters: “I have been really clear that the Budget on Oct 30 will require difficult decisions on tax, on spending and on welfare.”

Labour ‘hiding estimates of pensioner deaths’

Meanwhile, Sir Keir came under fire in the Commons for failing to publish an impact assessment of the impact of winter fuel payment cuts amid claims that nearly 4,000 pensioners could die by being denied the cash.

He was challenged by Rishi Sunak, the Conservative leader, to say whether the numbers were higher or lower than the 3,850 deaths that Labour itself previously forecast as a result of the policy.

“We know why he’s hiding the impact assessment. The Labour Party’s own previous analysis claimed that this policy could cause 3,850 deaths. So, are the numbers in his impact assessment higher or lower than that?” Mr Sunak asked during Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons.

Sir Keir replied: “We’re taking this decision to stabilise the economy. That means we can commit to the triple lock. By committing to the triple lock we can make sure payments of state pension are higher and therefore there’s more money in the pockets of pensioners, notwithstanding the tough action we need to take.

“But he goes around pretending that everything is fine. That’s the argument he tried in the election and that’s why he’s sitting there and we are sitting here.”

People in England and Wales not in receipt of Pension Credit or other means-tested benefits will lose out under the Government’s changes to the payments.

It is expected to reduce the numbers in receipt of the benefit from 11.4 million to 1.5 million, saving more than £1 billion this year.

Despite Tory attempts to annul the regulations provoking a Labour backbench rebellion in the Commons, the measures are expected to come into force next week.

President Joe Biden has worn a Donald Trump cap on a visit to a fire station in Pennsylvania.

Footage of  him sporting the hat at Shanksville Fire Station in the battleground state went viral online.

The White House said he was given it by a Trump supporter who persuaded him to wear it in a spirit of unity.

The president had said the bipartisan unity seen after 9/11 needed to return to the US, which has become increasingly polarised in recent years.

Andrew Bates, White House senior deputy press secretary, wrote on X: “@POTUS spoke about the country’s bipartisan unity after 9/11 and said we needed to get back to that.

“As a gesture, he gave a hat to a Trump supporter who then said that in the same spirit, POTUS should put on his Trump cap. He briefly wore it.”

The King found himself at the centre of a hug that turned into a scrum as he hosted the New Zealand women’s rugby team at Buckingham Palace.

The monarch, 75, who has been undergoing treatment for cancer, told the Black Ferns that he found the “warm hug” to be “very healing” as he delivered an off-the-cuff speech to the team ahead of their match against England’s Red Roses at Twickenham on Saturday.

Addressing the players in the Bow Room at the Palace, the King said: “I much appreciate this chance to meet you and to have such a warm hug from you. Very healing.”

Speaking about a recent decision not to include New Zealand in his travel plans when he visits Australia next month, the King said: “I’m extremely sorry I can’t come to New Zealand in later October – it’s on doctors’ orders.

“But I hope there will be another excuse [to visit] before too long. In the meantime, give my love to New Zealand.”

The King told the players, who are mostly in their twenties: “I hope you make the most of your time in the team because you don’t stay young for very long. In my experience it goes quicker than you think.”

The King had earlier arrived in the 1844 room, greeting Allan Bunting, the team’s director of rugby, with a hongi – a traditional Maori greeting of pressing noses together.

He met Mark Robinson, the chief executive of New Zealand rugby, Shannon Austin, the deputy high commissioner, and Kennedy Tukuafu and Ruahei Demant, the two captains of the team.

As he went through to the Bow Room, Charles met the other players and managed to get drawn into a group hug that caused him to burst out laughing.

Ayesha Leti-I’iga, a 25-year-old winger, said: “I asked him ‘can we have a hug?’ and the King said ‘yes’ but as I went in to hug him the others all jumped on top so it turned into more of a scrum.”

Liana Mikaele-Tu’u, a 22-year-old forward, said: “I thought you said ‘we’, so we all got involved!”

The King then had a separate hug with Tanya Kalounivale, 25, a prop.

She said: “The King said his position when he played rugby was a back-rower – a lock. He said that was the worst position because when the scrum collapses you’re in the middle of it.”

After meeting the players, Charles received a Black Ferns jersey signed by the squad and a replica wooden waka, a traditional maori boat engraved with the New Zealand proverb: “We are all in this together.”

Accepting the gifts, the King said: “I’m not sure I deserve this.” He told the team: “You can always blame me if you don’t win – you can say I interrupted your training.”

The King offered the squad his condolences for the death of Kiingi Tuheitia, the Maori king, whom he had known for decades.

He said that he had “spoken to him on the telephone so recently”, adding: “Suddenly to hear that he had died was a real shock.”

The team performed a waiata, a traditional song, for the King, before they posed together for a group photograph on the Grand Staircase.

The King and Queen will travel to Australia and Samoa in October. The visit to Australia will be Charles’s first visit to a Commonwealth realm since ascending the throne two years ago.

A Palace spokesman said on Tuesday that “difficult decisions” had been taken about the King’s programme to ensure the monarch’s comfort and wellbeing.

Russia has launched a major counter-offensive in an attempt to dislodge Ukrainian forces from its Kursk region.

Both Ukrainian and Russian sources said that Kyiv’s troops had started losing some of the ground they seized in the audacious incursion that began on Aug 6.

On Wednesday, Maj Gen Apti Alaudinov, who commands Chechen special forces fighting in Kursk, said Russian troops had gone on the offensive.

“The situation is good for us,” he said, according to Russian state news agency Tass.

“A total of about 10 settlements in the Kursk region have been liberated.”

Mash, a pro-Kremlin channel on the Telegram messaging app, reported that Moscow’s forces had advanced up to 150 square kilometres into the Ukrainian-held salient in a “local counter-offensive in the region”.

Other prominent Russian military bloggers said their country’s troops had seized control of Snagost, a village south of Korenevo on the Ukrainian left flank.

Battlefield footage shared on social media appeared to show at least eight armoured vehicles and tanks operated by Russia’s 51st Guards Airborne Regiment advancing on Snagost.

“It appears Russia was able to get the armoured force across the Seym River, despite Ukrainian strikes on the bridges,” Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the foreign policy research institute, a US think tank, said.

Kyiv had hoped by targeting bridges across the stretch of water it would hamper Russia’s ability to move troops and material to reinforce efforts to recapture lost territories across Kursk.

Moscow responded by building a series of temporary pontoon bridges across the water to replace the three main crossings.

Deep State, a popular Ukrainian war blog, also reported that Russians were able to launch the offensive after ferrying armoured vehicles across the river.

“The situation on the left flank of our group in Kursk worsened,” it wrote in a post late on Tuesday.

The blog, which has ties to the Ukrainian defence ministry, did not say whether Snagost had been lost in the fighting.

Prominent Russian military bloggers said Moscow’s forces were also advancing in the villages of Apanasovka and Byakhovo, south of the claimed capture of Snagost.

Russian sources also shared unverified clips of what they claimed to be the capture of Ukrainian prisoners of war caught in the advance.

Neither political or military officials in Ukraine made any public acknowledgement of the claimed Russian counter-offensive.

Russia’s defence ministry on Wednesday said Ukraine had sustained about 12,200 casualties in Kursk and lost nearly 100 tanks.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces continued to advance in other areas of Russia’s Kursk region, according to the US-based Institute for the Study of War.

The think-tank said geolocated footage had shown gains in eastern Komarovka, which lies south west of Korenevo.

Separate footage showed a Ukrainian advance south east of Vetreno, which is east of Korenevo.

With paintings of Mickey Mouse and Snow White next to the word “Love” scrawled on a white wall, it has all the hallmarks of an ordinary child’s bedroom.

Yet beneath the Disney characters lies a chamber of horrors where six Israeli hostages were imprisoned, tortured and ultimately executed by Hamas gunmen, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

On Tuesday, the Israeli army released footage of the tunnel in Gaza where it claims the group captured on Oct 7 were killed two weeks ago.

Video footage released by the IDF shows a massive tunnel shaft located inside what appeared to be a children’s bedroom in a home in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza.

The entrance appeared to have been covered by a removable floor. It led to a shaft running 20 metres deep, with four separate ladders to climb down to the main part of the tunnel.

Daniel Hagari, the IDF spokesman, estimated the narrow tunnel to be 120 metres long, 1.7 metres high and one metre wide. It had no rooms, just a single corridor.

A thick iron door separated the last part of the tunnel in which the hostages were kept for weeks, according to Israeli estimates.

In the video, the first items seen behind the iron door are bottles of urine, some kept in a bag.

A hole has been dug in the ground where a bucket was used as a toilet.

A battery charger hangs from the ceiling. On the floor lies a Koran, women’s clothes, mattresses, AK-47 magazines and a hairbrush.

Finally, a pool of blood is seen on the floor, showing where, according to the IDF, the hostages were executed.

The IDF also said tuna cans, energy bars and a chessboard were found inside the tunnel.

Throughout the war in Gaza, Israeli troops have been uncovering Hamas’s vast network of tunnels.

As well as homes, they have been embedded under schools, hospitals, apartments, mosques and UN facilities.

Many of the remaining 101 hostages are believed to be kept in tunnels similar to the one exposed on Tuesday.

Between two and six terrorists were guarding the hostages, according to Mr Hagari.

“Why murder them in a tunnel after they survived 11 months?” Mr Hagari asks in the video where he conducts a tour of the inside of the tunnel.

The IDF believes two terrorists executed the six hostages on Aug 29 before making their escape from the tunnel.

The bodies of Carmel Gat, 40, Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, Alex Lobanov, 32, Almog Sarusi, 27, and Ori Danino, 25, were discovered by Israeli forces the following day.

Mr Hagari said they were held in “horrific” conditions.

Mrs Yerushalmi weighed just 36kg (five-and-a-half stone), indicating that she was starved, a form of torture other hostages have testified to after their release or rescue from captivity in Gaza.

Other hostages who made it out alive have revealed they were sexually abused, beaten and psychologically tortured.

After the IDF released the footage from the tunnel, the Hostages Families Forum issued a statement saying the dry blood stains “leave no doubt as for the cruelty of their last moments”.

The six hostages “suffered until their last breath” and “fought for their lives until their death”, the Israel-based campaign group said.

“Hungry, exhausted, tortured, they cling to a single hope: that we will continue fighting for their freedom,” the forum added, before calling on the Israeli government to reach a ceasefire deal with Hamas.

“They trust us to bring them home. Every day in captivity is eternity. Every day that passes is a danger to their lives, hanging by a thread, at the mercy of terrorists capable of the worst crimes against humanity… A deal must be signed NOW!”

Avigdor Lieberman, the former defence minister, and Yisrael Beiteinu, the leader of the opposition party, also reacted strongly to the video, calling for an immediate halt to humanitarian aid into Gaza.

“No food, no water, no cigarettes, no fuel and no goods,” Mr Lieberman said, accusing Hamas of using the same methods to kill Jews as the Nazis.

It may be the birthplace of McDonald’s and Burger King, but America is no longer the home of the world’s best burger.

According to the “Michelin Guide for burgers”, the best burger in the world is now found in Spain – a country better known for small plates, jamón ibérico and Ferran Adrià’s signature creations at the legendary El Bulli restaurant.

But Hundred Burgers, in Valencia, clinched the top spot in the World’s Best Burgers 2024 rankings thanks to the quality of its 120-day aged beef that “melts in your mouth” and “super crispy” bacon.

“For us, receiving this recognition is the fulfilment of a lifelong dream,” Álex González, the restaurant’s co-founder, told Infobae Spain.

“We created the company with the aim of making a burger that would be a world reference and not even in our wildest dreams did we contemplate being chosen as the best burger in the world. So it is a huge honour.”

The restaurant’s rise to the top of the burger rankings is not by chance.

In 2017, Hundred Burgers’ founders Mr González-Urbón and Ezequiel Maldjian went on a four-day trip to New York to try the best 15 burgers in the city.

Initially, they did not think the trip would lead to their own restaurant. They were instead trying to improve the burgers served in Mr González’s mother’s restaurant.

But fast-forward to 2020 and the pair had opened the first Hundred Burgers branch, winning the “best burger in Spain award” shortly after.

Though their rise has been meteoric, it has not been without setbacks. One month after opening, the founders were forced to close their doors because of the Covid pandemic.

Hundred Burgers survived by temporarily becoming a delivery service, but eventually it  expanded across Valencia, where it has four sites, as well as to the capital city of Madrid, where it has three.

What makes the best burger in the world? The chefs start off every morning by baking demi-brioche bread buns in-house. The dough is fermented, kneaded and baked in their workshop, as the restaurant is keen to avoid serving frozen bread. Dry-aged Galician blond beef is then chopped up and formed into burgers by hand.

The most popular item on the Hundred Burgers menu is the Singular, which is topped with cheddar cheese, “Mum’s” barbecue sauce, bacon, caramelised onion and Camembert sauce. One of these will set you back €11.50 at any of their restaurants.

Other restaurants that made the top five were Au Cheval in Chicago and New York, Holy Burger in São Paulo and Funky Chicken Food Truck in Stockholm. Burger & Beyond, based in Manchester and London, missed out on the top five by just one spot.

A British man killed by a Spaniard with a garden hoe belonged to an “expat hooligan” community, the suspect’s lawyer said.

Martin Allwright, 59, died in hospital from head injuries on Aug 19 after being assaulted by one of his neighbours in southern Spain.

José Ramos has admitted striking Mr Allwright with a garden hoe but claims that the Briton threatened him first and he had previously reported his neighbour to police.

José Ramón Cantalejo, defending, said his client was a Spaniard in his fifties with no criminal record who had co-operated with police investigators.

Mr Cantalejo said that Spaniards in villages like El Palacés de Zurgena in Almería – where the attack took place – “live in terror of these British residents, many of whom are complete hooligans”.

The village is an area popular with UK retirees.

The lawyer said many British people in the region “do not learn a single word of Spanish in 10 or 15 years and yet they think this is their territory.”

“These are people who sell their houses in Glasgow or Birmingham to retire here,” he added. “They live like royalty but they don’t adapt to the social reality of the country.”

Mr Allwright, from Exeter and whose wife has launched a GoFundMe campaign to pay legal fees for “justice”, caused the confrontation that led to the fatal assault, the lawyer claimed.

Mr Cantalejo said Mr Allwright advanced towards Mr Ramos and his wife with a stone in his hand and his “dangerous dogs”.

“All my client did was to put himself between this man and his wife, striking him with the first thing that came to hand,” he said.

The lawyer blamed the “lobby effect” of the 34,000-strong British community in Almería for pressuring the judge into remanding his client in custody despite his co-operation with the investigation.

Italian special forces divers have embarked on an operation to recover video surveillance equipment that could explain why Mike Lynch’s superyacht sank.

The sinking of the Bayesian off the coast of Sicily last month resulted in seven deaths, including those of the British tech tycoon and his teenage daughter Hannah.

The challenging task has been assigned to specialist divers from a navy special forces unit called Comsubin, equivalent to Britain’s Special Boat Service, which normally specialises in underwater sabotage and coastal raids.

The divers are venturing to the wreck, 165ft beneath the sea and about half a mile off the fishing town of Porticello on the north coast of Sicily.

Investigators hope that, if they can be recovered intact, the surveillance cameras and other equipment will help them find out what happened on the night the Bayesian sank during a violent storm.

It is believed the lyacht was hit by a meteorological phenomenon known as a downburst, which can pack as much punch as a mini tornado.

The other victims of the Aug 19 tragedy were Recaldo Thomas, the ship’s chef, Jonathan Bloomer, the chairman of Morgan Stanley International, and his wife Judy, and Chris Morvillo, a lawyer at Clifford Chance, and his wife Neda Morvillo.

Fifteen people survived , including James Cutfield, the captain, from New Zealand. After being questioned by investigators in Sicily, he returned to the home he shares with his wife in Majorca. 

He is under investigation for possible charges of multiple manslaughter and causing a deadly shipwreck, but has not been charged.  Tim Parker Eaton and Matthew Griffiths, the two British crew members also under investigation, have also not been charged. 

Under the Italian legal system, being placed under investigation does not imply guilt and does not necessarily mean that charges will be brought.

Prosecutors investigating the tragedy are determined to raise the Bayesian and bring it to shore.

The objective is “to find out elements of the situation which led to the sinking”, said Raffaele Macauda, an admiral in the Italian coast guard who is involved in the enquiry. The navy divers’ inspection of the wreck “will help us draw up a plan to recover the yacht”, he said.

The operation to lift the yacht from the seabed will require a team of divers, a leading salvage expert said.

Nick Sloane, the South African who raised the Costa Concordia cruise ship after it capsized off the coast of Tuscany in 2012, told The Telegraph the divers would have to remove the vessel’s mast and rigging and empty thousands of litres of fuel from its tanks.

They would then have to connect rigging from the wreck to a barge equipped with cranes on the surface of the sea. The divers would work with remotely operated vehicles, underwater robots known as ROVs. Once on a barge, the yacht would be brought to a port and investigated for clues as to what went wrong.

Tracking data from on board the yacht suggests there was a 16-minute window between it being hit by the storm and sinking.

Although the incident is under investigation, the head of the company that built the yacht reiterated allegations that the sinking must have been caused by human error.

“From the analysis of the terrible 16 minutes of that night we maintain that the water must have entered from open hatches,” said Giovanni Costantino, the chief executive of Italian Sea Group, which owns Perini Navi, the company that built the Bayesian.

“We maintain the actions that you would expect from a crew were not taken. They should have prepared the vessel, closing all the hatches. It was unsinkable. If water had not entered, there would not have been any problems. The storm that was coming was clearly visible. It is significant that the local fishermen read the situation and decided not to go out to sea.

“The water must have started to enter from the stern and the stability was compromised.”

A Welsh village has succeeded in blocking a new housing estate because non-Welsh-speaking families could cause “significant harm” if they moved in.

Botwnnog community council in Gwynedd, North Wales, previously claimed English speakers could be a “degenerative influence” if they were allowed to settle in 18 affordable houses due to be built in the rural settlement.

On Monday, Gwynedd County Council’s planning committee voted to reject the application outright to “protect the Welsh language”, going against the advice of its own planning officials who said it should be approved.

Botwnnog is a village of fewer than 1,000 people in the Llŷn Peninsula, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty that juts out into the Irish Sea from the Welsh west coast.

Welsh is spoken at home by three-quarters of pupils at the village’s two schools which also teach in the native language, according to government statistics.

Plans to build a series of bungalows for social rent on farmland on the edge of the village sparked controversy in the rural community.

Village councillors claimed that the homes would present a “danger to the Welsh language and the fabric of the community” if approved.

But Robert Williams, the applicant, said the impact on the language would be small and the development would make a “significant contribution to local housing need”.

His view was supported by Gwynedd county council’s own planning officials.

On Monday Gareth Jones, a planning officer, told a meeting of the authority’s planning committee that there was “dire need” for affordable housing and there was “no hard evidence” that the Welsh language would be harmed substantially by the development.

“We would not be able to defend the decision [to reject the application],” he said.

But several local councillors spoke out against the proposals.

‘It will have drastic consequences’

Cllr Huw Rowlands said the development would “have an impact on the Welsh language”.

“If the wrong decision is made, it will have drastic consequences and it will be too late,” he said. “It is a proposal which could cause significant harm.”

Cllr Gareth Williams said the occupants would be from outside the area and their presence would be “detrimental to the culture”.

“Everyone in the local area feels very strongly against it,” he said.

Cllr Gareth Jones added: “There is extreme opposition locally – everyone is against it.”

Cllr Gruff Williams said: “They should locate the houses where the need is, mostly round the Caernarfon area.

“People say we are racists when we are trying to protect our language. It makes it difficult for people to stand up against these policies.”

The proposals were rejected by one vote, with six councillors supporting them and seven voting against.

There will now be a “cooling off” period until the next committee meeting on Sept 30.

Planning officials will draw up responses to the objections before the next meeting, where councillors will vote for a second time on the development.

Taylor Swift has officially endorsed Kamala Harris for president as she proudly claimed to be a “childless cat lady”.

The megastar shared her support for Ms Harris on Instagram after the end of the presidential debate, saying she “fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them”.

“I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos,” the Shake It Off singer wrote.

She signed off her post to her 283 million Instagram followers by referring to herself as a “Childless Cat Lady” along with a picture of her holding one of her beloved cats.

It is a reference to comments previously made by JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, accusing “childless of cat ladies” of running the United States, a much-derided comment that helped to turn him into one of the least popular vice-presidential candidates in history.

Tim Walz has said he is “incredibly grateful” to have Swift’s endorsement. When asked about it on MSNBC he also made an appeal to “Swifties” to “get things going”.

Swift had complimented Ms Harris’s choice of vice-presidential candidate who she said had been “been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades”.

Her post had been liked nearly 2 million times within 25 minutes.

Swift said she had watched the debate and urged her fans to do their research “the stances these candidates take on the topics that matter to you the most”.

She said she was motivated to share her voting decision after an AI image of her falsely endorsing Trump was posted on his website.

“It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation. It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth,” she said.

Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, formerly Twitter, responded sardonically to Swift in a post on the platform.

“Fine Taylor … you win … I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life,” he wrote.

Swift, who spent much of her career steering clear of mentioning politics over fear of isolating fans, came out in support of Joe Biden in 2020.

However, during this election cycle – her silence had weighed heavily.

Her endorsement of the Harris campaign comes at a critical time as both presidential hopefuls were largely neck-and-neck in the polls going into the debate. 

Swift, one of the most famous women in America, holds significant political sway owing to her enormous and fiercely loyal fan base.

When asked for his reaction to Swift’s endorsement in the spin room, Trump said: “I have no idea.”

It is not clear if the timing of the announcement was coordinated with the Harris campaign, but it played into the hands of the vice-president by helping to create a positive narrative for her in the aftermath of the first debate.

Mr Walz read the whole endorsement live on air during an MSNBC interview.

Celebrities have already had an impact on the race, with George Clooney’s opinion piece in The New York Times in July putting pressure on Joe Biden to step down.

Matt Damon, Ben Stiller and Lin-Manuel Miranda have also backed the Harris-Walz ticket.

But Trump thanked Brittany Mahomes, the wife of NFL star Patrick Mahomes and a close friend of Swift, for “defending him” after she liked pro-Trump posts on social media.

How far Swift’s endorsement will move voters remains to be seen, but she has had a seismic influence on popular culture this year, with her Eras tour literally causing small earthquakes because of the huge crowd sizes.

A man with severe learning disabilities jailed for shooting dead a shopkeeper has been cleared after 33 years.

Oliver Campbell spent 11 years in prison after being found guilty of killing Baldev Hoondle during a robbery at a Hackney off-licence on July 22 1990. He was released on licence in 2002.

Mr Campbell was 21 when he was jailed following a trial, having also been convicted of conspiracy to rob.

Three Court of Appeal judges ruled on Wednesday that Mr Campbell’s conviction was “unsafe”.

His case was referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigates potential miscarriages of justice, in 2022. Barristers told the court in February that “compelling” new evidence proved Mr Campbell “cannot be” the killer.

In their ruling, Lord Justice Holroyde, sitting with Mr Justice Bourne and Mrs Justice Stacey, said they had “concluded that the convictions are unsafe”.

He said: “We accept that, considered in the light of the fresh evidence, the rulings might be different.”

He continued: “A jury knowing of the fresh evidence would be considering the reliability of those confessions in a materially different context.

“In those circumstances, we cannot say that the fresh evidence could not reasonably have affected the decision of the jury to convict.”

‘I can start my life as an innocent man’

Following the judgment, Mr Campbell, now in his 50s, said: “The fight for justice is finally over after nearly 34 years. I can start my life as an innocent man.”

Mr Campbell suffered severe brain damage as an eight-month-old baby and continues to struggle with memory, concentration and retaining information.

His barrister, Michael Birnbaum KC, told the court earlier this year that there were “ample” grounds to find Mr Campbell’s conviction unsafe, suggesting that he was “badgered and bullied” by police into giving a false confession over his involvement.

Mr Birnbaum said that Mr Campbell’s learning disabilities meant he made admissions which were “simply absurd” and “nonsense”, and contained a “litany of inconsistencies” against the facts of the case.

The court heard that officers may have “deliberately lied” to adduce confessions from Mr Campbell, who was interviewed 14 times but in some cases did not have a solicitor or appropriate adult present.

Prof Gisli Hannes Gudjonsson, a forensic psychologist, also told judges that there was a “high risk” that Mr Campbell’s mental disabilities meant he gave a false confession as a form of “acquiescence” during “relentless” questioning.

Judges heard that jurors in the original trial were told the gunman wore a British Knights baseball cap, which was found a few hundred yards from the scene.

Mr Birnbaum said Mr Campbell had purchased the cap in the days before the killing, but hairs found inside it following the shooting were not his, and he was not picked out of an identity parade by Mr Hoondle’s son, despite him having come “face to face” with the gunman.

The barrister said: “The detectives were plainly convinced that, since he was the owner of the hat and had admitted a presence at the robbery, he must have been the shooter, and they were determined to get him to admit that fact.”

He continued: “[Mr Campbell believed] his least bad option was to admit it had all been an accident, and our suggestion is that he thought he could get away with doing that.”

The Australian breakdancer whose controversial performance during the Olympic Games earned her global mockery and a score of zero has been ranked world number one in her sport.

Rachael Gunn, known as “Raygun”, whose Olympics routine included a so-called kangaroo dance, has won the backing of the World Dance Sport Federation (WDSF), which placed her at the top of its latest international rankings.

The WDSF explained that ranking points for athletes were based on their top four performances for the previous 12 months.

The Olympic Games and two qualifying events were not included in its calculations due to what it called “limited-athlete quotas.”

The WDSF said its announcement aimed to “address concerns” and “provide clarity” about its rankings system.

“Until WDSF ranking events recommence later this year, therefore the world rankings as they currently stand should be interpreted in conjunction with results from recent global breaking competitions for a more accurate reflection of the global competitive landscape,” it added.

Raygun, a 37-year-old university lecturer from Sydney, found herself world number one after scoring 1,000 points in the WDSF Oceania Championship last October. However, her success will be short-lived as she will fall off the current rankings at the end of this coming October.

Despite her new-found fame, Raygun has hinted she will be stepping away from competing for a while. In a recent interview on Australian television, she admitted she did not want to be in the spotlight again.

“I don’t think I’ll be competing for a while. Not wanting to be in the spotlight, breaking, competing,” she told The Project TV programme. “You know, it was my medicine and then it turned into my source of stress.”

While her unorthodox breakdance routine at the Olympics was widely ridiculed, it did win her some unlikely fans. She was spotted dining with Boy George, and Sir Richard Branson asked her to dance with him.

While the Sydney academic’s performance has divided the breakdancing community, it has also raised questions about its merits as an Olympic sport.

Although it made its debut in Paris, it is not scheduled to be included in the next Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028.

Zack Slusser, the vice president of Breaking for Gold USA, called into question the WDSF’s standing in the breaking community. He told the Associated Press that the federation had failed to organise events that would “contribute to creating an accurate world ranking”.

He claimed that breakers only performed in WDSF competitions to gain points to qualify for the Olympics and that they had “no incentive” to continue taking part in the federation’s events after Paris.

A couple who were accused of harassing their neighbours by chanting and pointing their fingers while on a nearby beach were praying, a court has heard.

Nigel and Sheila Jacklin have been embroiled in an 11-year row with their neighbour, sparked by “noisy” building work.

The spat in the town of Bexhill-on-Sea, in East Sussex, saw the couple banned from looking into the home of neighbour Dr Stephane Duckett and his partner.

Earlier this year, they were again accused of “chanting, staring and sticking their fingers up” at their neighbour and his partner from a nearby beach. Both were charged with harassment, but claimed the chanting and finger-pointing were part of Mrs Jacklin’s Hindu prayer routine.

Mr Jacklin, 62, was also charged with assaulting a female friend of their neighbours during a separate row outside his £600,000 home.

All charges against the Jacklins – which they denied – were dropped on Tuesday when they appeared before magistrates in Brighton. They pleaded not guilty to harassment of their neighbour. Mrs Jacklin, 61, said the chanting, staring and movement of her fingers were a part of her Sanskrit mantras. Mr Jacklin also pleaded not guilty to an assault.

The Crown Prosecution Service had requested an adjournment, which was refused by the court – meaning no evidence was offered. The Jacklins were told they were “free to go”.

Mr Jacklin, a statistician and market researcher, said: “We are feeling relieved, elated and p—– off. This should never have gone to court.

“This is the fourth time my wife has been investigated for praying on the beach. We’ve been investigated 12 times, with no action taken against us in any case. That’s not a series of police mistakes – that is abuse of police power.”

Mr Jacklin, a councillor, said the couple had spent “tens of thousands of pounds” in legal fees over the repeated police investigations and court battles.

The row began in 2013 when Dr Duckett and Norinne Betjemann, his partner, bought a 120-year-old, disused glass glazing workshop opposite their house. The couple, from London, then set about converting it into a £400,000 weekend holiday home.

Mr and Mrs Jacklin made a series of complaints about their neighbours to the authorities, including noisy builders, verbal abuse and light pollution.

The Jacklins were then sent a community protection warning letter by Rother District Council. They were also banned from entering an “exclusion zone” around the property owned by Dr Duckett and Ms Betjemann.

In July last year, the Jacklins reported their neighbours for harassment when they claimed Mrs Jacklin was filmed as she tried to pray.

In September that year, Mr Jacklin claims he was assaulted after a friend of Dr Duckett approached them on the beach outside their home. As the couple made their way back to the house, Mr Jacklin claims the woman shouted to Mrs Jacklin: “The whole village wishes you were dead.”

He said he approached the woman and she “strangled” him before claiming he assaulted her, which he strongly denies.

He said: “The woman then claimed I bashed her against the fence, kicked her dog and repeatedly headbutted her. It was completely made up. When she throttled me, she came at me again and I put my hand out to stop her. That was the only contact we had.”

Mr Jacklin said CCTV footage of the three minutes in which the assault took place were never found, despite a request by his solicitors.

‘We should stand against abuse of power’

He called the ordeal a “spectacular misuse of police time”, adding: “I stood in the general election, and one of the reasons I decided to do so is because the police investigated us and not our neighbours. We should stand against abuse of power.

“My wife’s Hindu faith has helped her get through this. We’ve been there for 30 years and plan to live here forever.”

Dr Duckett has been contacted for comment.

A Crown Prosecution Service spokesman said: “We requested an adjournment in this case in order to discharge our disclosure obligations following late submissions by the defence. Unfortunately, this request was refused by the court and we were regrettably left with no option but to offer no evidence.”

The Jacklins dispute the Crown Prosecution Service comment that there were late submissions by their defence lawyers.

A Sussex Police spokesman said: “Sussex Police conducted a thorough, impartial investigation into multiple reports of harassment, and one reported assault, against three people between July and September 2023.

“Inquiries were conducted without prejudice, including multiple statements from the informants and witnesses, as well as interviews with both suspects.

“Evidence was submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service, which approved charges of harassment and assault by battery, before no evidence was offered after magistrates declined a request for adjournment from the Crown Prosecution Service.

“Sussex Police will continue to do all it can to protect our communities and secure justice for victims of crime.”

Peru’s former president Alberto Fujimori, who spent 16 years in prison for crimes against humanity, died on Wednesday at the age of 86 in Lima.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, his children Keiko, Hiro, Sachie and Kenji Fujimori wrote: “After a long battle with cancer, our father, Alberto Fujimori, has just departed to meet the Lord.

“We ask those who loved him to join us in praying for the eternal rest of his soul. Thank you for so much, Dad.”

Fujimori, who led Peru from 1990 to 2000, was released from prison on humanitarian grounds in December, two-thirds of the way through a 25-year sentence for crimes against humanity during his rule.

Sources close to his family told AFP earlier on Wednesday that his health had deteriorated rapidly after completing treatment for mouth cancer in August.

Just a month earlier, his daughter Keiko had announced that he would run for president again in 2026.

Fujimori, who was of Japanese heritage, was sent to prison in 2009 over massacres committed by army death squads in 1991 and 1992 in which 25 people, including a child, were killed in supposed anti-terrorist operations.

Ruthless legacy

Fujimori was loved by many for crushing the notorious left-wing Shining Path rebels, but hated by others for the ruthless, authoritarian way he governed.

Born in Lima on July 28, 1938, Fujimori was an agricultural engineer by training, then worked as a university lecturer in mathematics.

He studied in France and the United States, eventually earning a Master’s degree in mathematics.

Upon his return to Lima, he took a high-level post at his former university, before embarking on his unlikely career in politics.

In 1990, he defeated writer Mario Vargas Llosa to win the presidency – a surprise result.

One of the most dramatic episodes of Fujimori’s time in power was a four-month hostage ordeal at the Japanese embassy in Lima, which began in December 1996.

Commandos ended up raiding the embassy, saving nearly all the VIPs held by Tupac Amaru guerrillas and killing the 14 hostage-takers. That strengthened Fujimori’s reputation for fighting terrorism with a firm hand.

At the same time, he won popular support for boosting the economy of the South American country, a major mineral exporter.

His neo-liberal economic policies won him the support of the ruling class and international financial institutions.

Fujimori’s downfall began in 2000 after Montesinos was exposed for corruption. The president fled to Japan and sent a fax announcing his resignation.

Congress voted to sack him instead and ban him from public office for 10 years. He was eventually arrested when he set foot in Chile and extradited back to Peru for trial.

Fujimori was also found guilty of crimes against humanity for two massacres carried out by army death squads.

While in jail, Fujimori was in and out of the hospital with heart, back and stomach trouble. He had several operations to remove cancerous growths from his tongue.

In December 2017, then-president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski pardoned Fujimori due to his ill health.

But the Supreme Court later annulled the pardon and in January 2019, he was returned to jail from hospital.

Six aid workers were among dozens of people killed by Israeli airstrikes across Gaza on Wednesday, according to a United Nations agency. 

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine in the Near East (UNRWA) said the strikes on a school housing refugees in Nuseirat resulted in “the highest death toll among our staff in a single incident”. 

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that it was targeting Hamas operatives using the al-Jaouni Preparatory Boys School as a command room “to plan and execute terrorist attacks”. 

“Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence,” the IDF said.

Though the military said its strike was “precise”, doctors reported afterwards that the 18 casualties included women and children. 

Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, said the lack of accountability for the killing of humanitarian workers was “totally unacceptable”. 

The deaths demonstrated “very dramatic violations of the international humanitarian law and the total absence of an effective protection of civilians,” Mr Guterres said.

A total of 220 UNRWA staff have died during the conflict, the agency reported on Wednesday. 

Children’s bodies recovered from the rubble 

A total of at least 64 people were killed and 104 wounded when Israeli missiles and bombs hit homes across Gaza throughout Tuesday night and Wednesday, hospital officials reported. 

The UNRWA said one of the children found dead at the school was the daughter of Momin Selmi, a member of Gaza’s civil defence agency, which rescues wounded people and retrieves bodies after strikes.

Earlier, the IDF struck a home near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, killing 11 people, including six brothers and sisters ranging in age from 21 months to 21 years old, according to the European Hospital, which received the casualties.

A strike late Tuesday on a home in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza killed nine people, including six women and children, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry. The home reportedly belonged to Akram al-Najjar, a professor at the al-Quds Open University, who survived.

Another four people, including a woman and child, reportedly died when Israel bombed a residential apartment in the Tuffah neighbourhood in northern Gaza City.

Israeli jets also struck a group of people waiting to buy bread outside a bakery in the Nassr neighbourhood, in the city’s west. At least three people were killed. 

‘School has been targeted five times’

Gaza’s schools are packed with tens of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes by Israeli offensives and evacuation orders. 

At least 12,000 people have been sleeping at the al-Jaouni school. 

“All of a sudden there was a huge explosion. Women and children were blown to pieces,” a witness told Al Jazeera news agency. 

The UNRWA said the dead included six humanitarian workers who had been helping displaced civilians, including the manager of the refugee shelter. 

“Humanitarian staff, premises and operations have been blatantly and unabatedly disregarded since the beginning of the war,” the agency’s director, Philippe Lazzarini, wrote on X.

In a separate statement, the UNRWA said the school had been hit by Israeli strikes five times. 

“Among those killed was the manager of the UNRWA shelter and other team members providing assistance to displaced people,” a statement from the agency read. 

“Sincere condolences to their families and loved ones.”

It added: “Schools and other civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times, they are not a target.”

More than 90 per cent of Gaza’s school buildings have been severely or partially damaged in strikes, and more than half the schools housing displaced people have been hit, according to a survey in July by the Education Cluster, a collection of aid groups led by UNICEF and Save the Children.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed at least 41,084 Palestinians and wounded another 95,029, the territory’s Health Ministry said. 

The ministry’s count does not differentiate between civilians and militants. 

The National Health Service is in serious trouble, and the stark conclusion of a 242-page investigation by Lord Darzi is perhaps summed up best by one piece of data.

Fifteen years ago, patients turning up at A&E could expect to find 39 people ahead of them in the queue – a prospect few would relish. Now the number is beyond 100, the latest figures show.

When Labour won the election, Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, declared the NHS “broken”. 

A week later, he commissioned Lord Darzi, a leading surgeon and former health minister, to carry out an independent investigation into the state of the health service.

Lord Darzi was a Labour minister under Gordon Brown, from 2007 to 2009. His investigation – which will trigger fierce political rows – covers the period that followed, after the coalition government was formed.

More than 300 pieces of analysis were commissioned, with evidence collected from 227 organisations,

Some of the simple facts are the starkest. In 2010, 94 per cent of A&E patients were seen within four hours. By May this year that figure had dropped to just over 60 per cent, and nearly 10 per cent of all patients are now waiting for 12 hours or more.

The research goes further. “According to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, these long waits are likely to be causing an additional 14,000 deaths a year – more than double all British Armed Forces’ combat deaths since the health service was founded in 1948,” it says.

Lord Darzi concludes: “A&E is an awful state.”

Productivity

Even before the report was published, it was stoking political arguments.

Victoria Atkins, the shadow health secretary, said on Sunday that the findings would provide “cover for the Labour Party to raise our taxes in the budget in October”.

In fact, Lord Darzi’s report tells a more nuanced story, warning that far too much money has been poured into hospitals without any commensurate rise in patients receiving help. “The NHS has more resources than ever before, even if there is an urgent need to boost productivity,” he writes.

Lord Darzi found that hospital staff numbers had risen by 17 per cent since 2019. Despite this significant flow of resources into hospitals, output had not risen at nearly the same rate. “The result is that a large productivity gap has opened up,” he warns.

Overall, hospital productivity is at least 11.4 per cent lower than in 2019 – a key obstacle in clearing backlogs. As a result, the number of appointments, operations and procedures has failed to keep pace.

“Looking across clinical workforce crude productivity metrics, a pattern is readily apparent – productivity has fallen,” the report says.

Surgical activity is down by 15 per cent, while the number of outpatient appointments per consultant has fallen 10 per cent. Over the same period, the number of clinicians for each bed has increased by 13 per cent, while the number of  A&E attendances per clinician is down 23 per cent.

Lord Darzi suggests that several factors, including a lack of capital funding, have left the NHS unable to perform effectively. His report describes a “shortfall of £37 billion of capital investment”, saying this is what the service would have spent if it had matched peer countries on equipment, technology and equipment.

“Instead, we have crumbling buildings, mental health patients being accommodated in Victorian-era cells infested with vermin, with 17 men sharing two showers, and parts of the NHS operating in decrepit Portacabins,” the report says.

It points out that the 2010s were the most austere decade since the NHS was founded, with spending growing at around one per cent in real terms. The “starvation” of capital funding means staff are wasting vast amounts of time just to achieve the basics, such as phoning around wards in search of a bed.

“With the NHS budget at £165 billion this year, the health service’s productivity is vital for national prosperity,” says the report. “Moreover, the NHS must rebuild its capacity to get more people off waiting lists and back into work.”

On Thursday, the Prime Minister is expected to say that the public cannot afford to pay more for the NHS and that the service faces a “fork in the road” about how to meet the rising demands on it.

Speaking at an event in central London, Sir Keir Starmer will say: “Raise taxes on working people to meet the ever-higher costs of an ageing population – or reform to secure its [the NHS’s] future. We know working people can’t afford to pay more, so it’s reform or die.”

Lord Darzi’s report says far more of the NHS budget should be shifted out of hospitals entirely and used to fund GP and community services to keep people well for longer. This is a pledge Mr Streeting has already made, but has yet to flesh out.

Before Labour won the election, Mr Streeting told the Telegraph that Labour would divert billions of pounds from hospitals in an attempt to save “the front door” of the NHS.

Lord Darzi, a pioneering surgeon who was given the nickname Robo Doc for spearheading the use of keyhole surgery and robotics in operating theatres, also rails against the failure of the health service to embrace technology. He describes the last decade as “a missed opportunity to prepare the NHS for the future”.

The peer also highlights the “dire state of social care” in leaving thousands of patients in hospital without medical need, resulting in the system grinding to a  halt.

He takes shot at the Tories for the 2012 reorganisation of the NHS, which he describes as “a calamity without international precedent”, saying it distracted the management of the health service. The report suggests that the combination of austerity and the 2012 reforms left Britain in a weakened state when the pandemic hit, further damaging productivity.

“The NHS delayed, cancelled or postponed far more routine care during the pandemic than any comparable health system. Between 2019 and 2020, hip replacements in the UK fell by 46 per cent compared to the OECD average of 13 per cent,” says the report.

“Knee replacements crashed a staggering 68 per cent compared to an average fall of 20 per cent. Across the board, the number of discharges from UK hospitals fell by 18 per cent between 2019 and 2020 – the biggest drop across comparable countries.

“The state of the NHS today cannot be understood without recognising quite how much care was cancelled, discontinued or postponed during the pandemic.”

Cancer

Lord Darzi said that despite working in the NHS for more than 30 years, he had been shocked by what he found during his investigation.

Britain has long lagged behind other nations for cancer survival, despite repeated pledges to tackle failings that cut lives short. However, the investigation found that “no progress whatsoever” was made in improving early diagnosis of cancer between 2013 and 2021, with a slight improvement since.

Death rates from cancer are “substantially higher” in the UK than other western European and Nordic countries, as well as the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Britain’s survival rates lag behind countries such as Norway, Sweden, and Denmark on all major cancers, the report says, as well as European and other English-speaking countries for lung, breast and colon cancers.

An increase in cancer mortality since Covid is forecast to set the UK’s death rate back by more than a decade, while other English-speaking countries were hardly impacted by the pandemic.

Under NHS targets, patients with suspected cancer should start treatment within 62 days of an urgent referral. In fact, this happens in less than two in three cases, with a target of 85 per cent unmet since 2015.

“How long people wait, and the quality of treatment, are at the heart of the social contract between the NHS and the people,” says the report. “The NHS has not been able to meet the most important promises made to the people since 2015.”

Worklessness

A record 2.8 million people are economically inactive because of long-term sickness. That is an 800,000 increase on pre-pandemic levels, with most of the rise accounted for by mental health conditions, Lord Darzi notes.

A significant rise in musculoskeletal conditions, such as back pain, is also pushing increasing numbers out of the workplace, with young people most adversely affected.

Long-term sickness absence rates for people aged 16 to 34 with musculoskeletal conditions have reached 16.4 per cent, up from 9.7 per cent in 2015.

The latest figures show that around 6.4 million people are on waiting lists in England – of these, more than half are working age adults.

In his first speech as Health Secretary in July, Mr Streeting said the NHS must deliver the Treasury “billions of pounds of economic growth”.

But the report warns that the NHS can only contribute to national prosperity if it gets patients off waiting lists. “Having more people in work grows the economy and creates more tax receipts to fund public services,” it says. “There is therefore a virtuous circle if the NHS can help more people back into work.”

The production of an Amazon drama co-created by Neil Gaiman is reported to have stopped amid allegations of sexual misconduct against him.

The bestselling author has denied claims of sexual misconduct against five women, describing the accusations as “disturbing”.

Filming in Scotland for the third and final series of Good Omens, which also aired on BBC Two in 2020, is reported by showbusiness news website Deadline to have stopped.

The show stars David Tennant and Michael Sheen and is based on the 1990 novel of the same name, co-written by Gaiman, 63, with Terry Pratchett.

A series of sexual misconduct allegations have been made against Gaiman in recent months.

In an investigation for a Tortoise podcast co-hosted by Rachel Johnson, sister of Boris Johnson, two women claimed that he engaged them in sadomasochistic acts and told them to call him “master”.

Gaiman has strenuously denied the allegations and said all sex with the women was consensual. 

Other women have also come forward and accused him of sexual misconduct.

Julia Hobsbawm, a writer, accused Gaiman of making “an aggressive, unwanted pass” at her in 1986, jumping on her and French kissing her at her flat.

Gaiman has said that he stopped kissing Ms Hobsbawm as soon as he realised she did not want him to.

Gaiman has denied wrongdoing

Caroline Wallner, a mother of three, alleged that Gaiman pressured her to have sex with him over four years from 2017 in return for letting her live with her daughters at his property in upstate New York.

Gaiman has denied wrongdoing and said their relationship was consensual.

A fifth woman, who has not been named, accused Gaiman of kissing and groping her on a bus during a book tour of the United States in July 2013.

Gaiman has denied groping the woman and said he stopped kissing her when he realised she did not want him to continue.

Gaiman announced his divorce from Amanda Palmer, his second wife, in 2022. Previously they had spoken of having an open marriage.

The author is globally renowned for works including The Sandman, American Gods and Good Omens, as well as many popular works for children. His books have been adapted for film and television.

Last week, Disney was said to have put a planned adaptation of Gaiman’s young adult book The Graveyard Book on hold.

Gaiman’s representatives were approached for comment.

President Joe Biden has worn a Donald Trump cap on a visit to a fire station in Pennsylvania.

Footage of  him sporting the hat at Shanksville Fire Station in the battleground state went viral online.

The White House said he was given it by a Trump supporter who persuaded him to wear it in a spirit of unity.

The president had said the bipartisan unity seen after 9/11 needed to return to the US, which has become increasingly polarised in recent years.

Andrew Bates, White House senior deputy press secretary, wrote on X: “@POTUS spoke about the country’s bipartisan unity after 9/11 and said we needed to get back to that.

“As a gesture, he gave a hat to a Trump supporter who then said that in the same spirit, POTUS should put on his Trump cap. He briefly wore it.”

New studies have cast doubt on the widely held belief that Easter Island’s indigenous population collapsed after committing “ecocide”.

Scientists have long debated the riddles of the island, known for its huge stone statues called “moai” but also the theory that its inhabitants deforested the island, triggering their own demographic collapse in the 1600s.

But a study, published in Nature this week, found there was no evidence of a DNA bottleneck among the island’s Polynesian residents before the arrival of Europeans in 1722.

It examined genomes from the remains of 15 Rapa Nui (the indigenous name of the island and its population) who lived between 1670 and 1950 and found no signs of a sudden loss of genetic diversity.

“Our genetic analysis shows a stably growing population from the 13th century through to European contact,” said Barbara Sousa da Mota, the study author from the University of Lausanne.

“This stability is critical because it directly contradicts the idea of a dramatic pre-contact population collapse.”

The research bolsters the conclusion of another study, published in June in Science Advances, that used satellite images to map rock gardens on the island, a territory of Chile that lies 2,300 miles off South America’s Pacific coast.

Rock gardening is an ancient agricultural technique in which stones are mixed into the soil to boost harvests by maintaining nutrients and moisture.

Previously, it had been thought that 12 per cent of the island’s 63 square miles had been turned into rock gardens, enough to maintain a population of 15,000 people. But the new US-led research found that the real figure was less than one per cent.

Together, the two studies undercut the theory, popularised by the Pulitzer Prize-winning anthropologist and geographer Jared Diamond, that Easter Island once had a booming population of 15,000 whose environmental mismanagement resulted in a self-inflicted catastrophe.

Prof Diamond claimed that the Rapa Nui people deforested the island, which had been densely blanketed with endemic palms. The lack of resources then triggered famine, war and even cannibalism, he concluded.

His writings, which have also explored demographic and ecological collapses from Viking settlers in Greenland to the tribes of Papua New Guinea, have often been cited as a warning for humanity’s current ravaging of the natural environment.

The two new studies, however, paint a very different story, suggesting the population grew steadily from when Polynesians first populated Rapa Nui, believed to be around the 10th century, to the estimated 4,000 residents when Europeans arrived some 800 years later.

Today, only 3,000 Rapa Nui inhabitants remain on the island.

“When we label an entire culture as an example of bad choices, or as a cautionary tale of what not to do, we had better be right, otherwise we feed stereotypes,” said Dylan Davis, an environmental archaeologist at Columbia University and co-author of the Science Advances study.

“In this case, the Rapa Nui managed to survive in one of the most remote places on Earth and did so fairly sustainably until European contact. This suggests we can learn something from them about how to manage limited resources.”