NHS cuts ‘could lead to another Baby P case’ as safety staff face axe

NHS cuts to key safety roles could trigger more abuse and child deaths, such as those of Baby P and Victoria Climbié, doctors and experts have warned.

Medical staff responsible for safeguarding in their area are legally required to flag concerns about vulnerable patients, but their roles are at risk of being axed as local NHS bodies scramble to make government-imposed cost savings, doctors have told The Independent.

Almost two dozen healthcare professionals, medical royal colleges, alongside children’s charity the NSPCC, have written to health secretary Wes Streeting urging him to protect the roles.

The letter to Mr Steeting, shared with The Independent, said: “The NHS has a crucial role to play in protecting children.

“Given the scale and pace of reform, we ask you to urgently send a clear message to the public and all those who work to protect babies. This should guarantee that keeping children safe will remain a priority for the NHS and that ICBs will be fully resourced to carry out their child safeguarding duties.”

The NSPCC warned that any cuts to safeguarding could result in a reduction in the tens of thousands of vital alerts already made by healthcare professionals every year – which has decreased since the pandemic, from 96,300 in 2020 to 91,370 in 2024.

Dr Peter Green, chair of the national network of designated health professionals and doctors for child safeguarding, told The Independent there was a risk that cases such as Baby P and Victoria Climbie will occur more frequently as a result of any cuts.

Dr Green said: “There is a clear risk of those cases significantly increasing. The risk of those cases is obviously going to increase by not having the [NHS’] oversight and learning when things go wrong.”

Baby P, Peter Connelly, died in August 2007 after suffering dozens of injuries at the hands of his mother, her boyfriend and his brother. A review of the high-profile case revealed a series of failings before his death by authorities, such as healthcare professionals and Haringey Council.

Eight-year-old Victoria Climbie was murdered in 2000, by her aunt and her boyfriend, and an inquiry into her death led to sweeping changes to child protection laws.

It is not known how many NHS safeguarding roles are at risk, but all local NHS bodies must make 50 per cent cuts to staffing as a result of the government’s plans to abolish NHS England. Safeguarding was listed in official guidance as one area that could be targeted.

Urging Mr Streeting to protect the roles, the NSPCC also pointed to cases where children have died following horrific abuse or neglect, such as three-year-old Abiyah Yasharahyalah, Star Hobson, aged 1, and Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, aged 6.

Abiyah died in 2020, having been starved by his parents and buried in their garden – a case which showed clear signs of “medical neglect” was overlooked by authorities.

The review into his care found agencies that came into contact with his family showed a “general lack of knowledge or assessment of the parents’ belief systems”, saw him kept on an extreme vegan diet, leading to an “insufficient understanding about the impact on his care”.

It concluded, his parents’ culture and beliefs had a detrimental impact on his health, welfare and safety. He died from a respiratory illness, worsened by severe malnourishment, rickets, anaemia and stunted growth.

According to the review, his parents failed to provide appropriate healthcare, ignored medical recommendations and cut off contact with health professionals who could support the child’s condition.

It also found opportunities for preventative care advice were missed as Abiyah was not brought to his health visiting assessments at the age of one and two years old.

A national review following Star’s death in 2020 highlighted various gaps in the capacity of health services. One example given was significant increases in the workload for health visitors in the area that meant a pre-birth family health needs assessment was not conducted.

And in Arthur’s case, a limited capacity in children’s mental health services before his death in 2020 may have impacted responses to his emotional and mental health needs.

The NSPCC told The Independent that during the pandemic, health visitors who are key in spotting abuse, were instead moved to work on Covid wards, and the 50 per cent still working as health visitors had their caseloads increased.

In the same year, incidents of death or serious harm to children under one soared by almost a third in England.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We are working closely with NHS England to maintain the safeguarding of vulnerable children and ensure their wellbeing remains at the heart of healthcare delivery.

“By reforming the NHS organisations, we are removing duplication and driving up efficiency, so they can provide better services for patients.

“We expect NHS organisations to work together and with other agencies in the interests of children and young people.”

‘Peacemaker’ Trump has launched almost as many airstrikes in five months as Biden did in four years

In his inaugural address, Donald Trump said his “proudest legacy” as president will be that of a “peacemaker.”

“Our power will stop all wars and bring a new spirit of unity to a world that has been angry, violent and totally unpredictable,” the president said in his remarks on January 20.

But six months later, Trump has already launched nearly as many airstrikes on foreign nations as Joe Biden did within four years, with analysts asking whether the president’s plan to end so-called “forever wars” involves overwhelming firepower to stop them from happening in the first place.

Since Trump returned to the White House, the United States has carried out at least 529 bombings in more than 240 locations in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, according to Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED), an international data collection nonprofit. His predecessor’s administration launched 555.

“Trump’s preference for engagement begs the question: Does this contradict his promise to end America’s wars — or are the foreign strikes how he wishes to keep that promise?” ACLED president Clionadh Raleigh said in a statement. “The recent airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear sites have been framed as a major turning point in U.S. foreign policy. But if you take a step back, they don’t stand out — they fit.”

“All of President Trump’s decisive actions have been overwhelmingly popular and resulted in greater peace,” White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement to The Independent.

“Operation Midnight Hammer successfully obliterated Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and [the Department of Defense’s] successful strikes against ISIS and other malign groups killed terrorists want to do harm to Americans,” she added.

“Anyone who sympathizes with evil terrorists and wants them to live should look inward,” she said.

A majority of the U.S. military’s airstrikes thus far have targeted Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen in an effort to stop their attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea launched in retaliation for Israel’s war in Gaza.

The administration struck Yemen at least 474 times within three months, ACLED found. The Biden administration launched 294 attacks in Yemen within roughly 12 months.

Trump’s airstrikes in Yemen have reportedly killed as many civilians within the eight-week bombing campaign as in the previous two decades of U.S. attacks targeting militants in the country, according to nonprofit watchdog Airwars. At least 224 civilians were killed during the campaign between March and May, compared to 258 deaths between 2002 and 2024, that report found.

The administration also launched 44 airstrikes in Somalia to target Islamic State operatives, according to ACLED.

Trump first ordered the airstrikes in February, marking the first attacks in the African nation in his second term.

“The U.S. military is moving faster, hitting harder, and doing so with fewer constraints,” according to Raleigh. “Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and now Iran are all familiar terrain, but this isn’t about geography — it’s about frequency.”

Targeted airstrikes don’t appear to be a last-resort measure under the Trump administration but “the first move,” Raleigh added.

“While Trump has repeatedly promised to end America’s ‘forever wars,’ he has rarely elaborated on how,” Raleigh said. “These early months suggest the plan may be to use overwhelming firepower to end fights before they begin, or before they drag on.”

Throughout his campaign, the president accused Biden and, later, his Democratic rival Kamala Harris of leading the United States into World War III. “These are wars that will never end with him,” Trump said of Biden during a presidential debate in June 2024. “We’re closer to World War III than anybody can imagine.”

Receiving the endorsement of now-intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard last year, Trump said the pair was “uniting forces to end the endless foreign wars.”

“I am confident that his first task will be to do the work to walk us back from the brink of war,” Gabbard said at the time. “We cannot be prosperous unless we are at peace.”

Trump — vocal about his desire for a Nobel Peace Prize, and nominated for the honor by at least four of his allies — also promised his administration would bring an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine and Israel’s war in Gaza.

On Monday, the president laid out prospective steps to pressure Russia to end its war, including sending more weapons to Ukraine and threatening economic sanctions in Moscow if there is no peace agreement within 50 days.

“I felt we had a deal about four times,” Trump said. “But it just kept going on and on.”

His administration has also failed to broker a ceasefire in Gaza as Palestinians face threats of famine and Israeli airstrikes continue to bombard the strip. A tentative Trump-backed plan to force hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians into an area controlled by Israel’s military close to the Gaza-Egypt border has also threatened to derail ceasefire talks.

The Independent has requested comment Department of Defense.

Pair who cut down Sycamore Gap tree in ‘sheer bravado’ jailed

Two former friends who cut down the Sycamore Gap tree out of “sheer bravado” have each been jailed for four years and three months.

Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers may have hoped for a softer sentence after finally admitting their roles in chopping down the much-loved tree, which had stood for around 150 years.

Carruthers, a 32-year-old mechanic, confessed to cutting down the tree in an act of “drunken stupidity”, but claimed he could not remember committing the offence after drinking a bottle of whisky.

His one-time best pal Graham, 39, took a vantage point to film the vandalism on his mobile phone, saying he “just went along with it”.

Their explanations, however, were dismissed as not “wholly honest” by Ms Justice Lambert, who told them their mission was planned and “gave you some sort of thrill”.

At Newcastle Crown Court on Tuesday, the pair, who sat several metres apart in the dock, showed no reaction as they were handed their prison sentence in a courtroom packed with journalists and members of the public.

Both men had already been convicted of criminal damage to the tree and Hadrian’s Wall, which it fell on, in May.

Sentencing the defendants, Ms Justice Lambert told them their motivation was still not clear, but a large factor seemed to be “sheer bravado”.

She said: “Felling the tree in the middle of the night in a storm gave you some sort of thrill.

“You revelled in the coverage, taking pride in what you have done, knowing you were responsible for the crime so many people were talking about.”

Summing up what happened from the pair’s admissions in their pre-sentence reports, she added: “Adam Carruthers, your account that you had so much to drink that you had no memory of what happened is not plausible.

“The tree felling demonstrated skill and required deliberate and coordinated actions by you … this was not the work of someone whose actions were significantly impaired through drink.

“Nor, Daniel Graham, do I accept you just went along with your co-defendant. You filmed the whole event, you took photos of the chainsaw and wedge of trunk in the boot of your Range Rover. The next day, you appeared to revel in coverage of your actions in the media.”

Despite the difference in roles, and Graham’s claim he was being led by Carruthers’ “dream”, Ms Justice Lambert said both defendants were equally culpable.

At their trial, the jurors, who took just five hours to reach their verdicts, heard how the pair had travelled for more than 40 minutes from their homes in Cumbria to the landmark tree, before carrying their equipment across pitch-black moorland during a storm in September 2023.

They took a wedge from the tree as a trophy that has never been recovered, and relished the media coverage as news of the vandalism caused national and international headlines.

Andrew Gurney, speaking on behalf of Carruthers, told the court his client had chopped down the tree in an act that was “no more than drunken stupidity”.

“He felled that tree and it is something he will regret for the rest of his life. There’s no better explanation than that,” he added.

Chris Knox, representing Graham, said the groundworker was a “troubled man who has had very real difficulties in his life”. He said his client had also received hate mail, although this mitigation was discounted by Ms Justice Lambert during sentencing.

Andrew Poad, a National Trust manager, gave a victim impact statement which was read in court: “This iconic tree can never be replaced. Whilst the National Trust has cared for it on behalf of the nation, it belonged to the people. It was totemic.”

The tree, initially valued at £622,191, was a symbol of Northumberland, a site of countless family visits and featured in the Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

Its destruction took less than three minutes.

Two weeks after the damage, Northumbria Police received “a single strand of intelligence” that named Carruthers and Graham, before detectives linked Graham’s Range Rover with the area close to Sycamore Gap using automatic number-plate recognition on the night of 27 September 2023.

When police arrested the duo and searched Graham’s phone, they found the two-minute and 41-second video, which showed the tree being cut down at 12.30am. Messages and voice notes between Graham and Carruthers the next day showed them talking about the story going “wild” and “viral”.

Ms Justice Lambert said their offence had “an extraordinary social impact” and that it had caused “widespread distress”.

John Torode sacked from MasterChef over ‘extremely offensive racism’

John Torode has been sacked from MasterChef after the BBC upheld a complaint against the presenter involving “an extremely offensive racist term”.

It comes just over 24 hours after a report upheld 45 allegations of misconduct by Torode’s former co-presenter Gregg Wallace, including one of unwelcome physical contact, which saw him fired from the long-running cookery show.

Now the BBC has confirmed that Torode, who has hosted MasterChef since 2005, has also been dropped after an allegation of racist language used by the star was substantiated during an investigation into Wallace’s behaviour.

However, the celebrity chef said he had not been informed about his sacking from the BBC or the cookery show’s production company Banijay UK, and instead learnt the news while reading media reports. The Independent has contacted the BBC and Banijay for comment.

On Monday (14 July), Torode, 59, confirmed that he was being investigated over his language, but said he had “no recollection of the incident” and was “shocked and saddened” by the allegation.

“I’d hoped that I’d have some say in my exit from a show I’ve worked on since its relaunch in 2005, but events in the last few days seem to have prevented that,” Torode said in a statement.

“Over the past few months, I have been considering my life and the shape of it now and in the future,” he continued. revealing it was “time to pass the cutlery to someone else”.

In a statement, the BBC said that the allegation against Torode involved “an extremely offensive racist term being used in the workplace” and was investigated and substantiated by the independent investigation led by the law firm, Lewis Silkin”.

Australian-British star Torode, who shot to fame as a chef on ITV daytime show This Morning, denies the allegation and said he knows any racial language “is wholly unacceptable in any environment”.

The corporation’s statement continued: “The BBC takes this upheld finding extremely seriously. We will not tolerate racist language of any kind and, as we have already said, we told Banijay UK, the makers of MasterChef, that action must be taken. John Torode’s contract on MasterChef will not be renewed.”

Reports in The Sun said Torode had been asked to leave the show and claim he had mental health issues following the allegation. The presenter has already shot an unaired series alongside Wallace – and the BBC has said it is still unsure what to do with the episodes.

Torode added in his own statement: “I will watch fondly from afar as I now focus on the many other exciting projects that I have been working towards. My tummy will be grateful for a rest after 20 years of eating, but what a joy it has been.

“ Life is everchanging and ever moving & sometimes personal happiness and fulfilment lay elsewhere. Thank you for the many years of MasterChef.”

The decision to drop Torode arrives after it was revealed his MasterChef co-host Wallace had also been fired from the series after a seven-month investigation into his behaviour upheld more than half of the 83 allegations against him, including inappropriate sexual language and being in a state of undress.

Wallace said he is “deeply sorry for any distress” caused after the findings and that he “never set out to harm or humiliate” anyone with his behaviour.

The presenter faced multiple accusations, including claims that he made inappropriate sexual jokes, asked for the phone numbers of female production staff, and behaved unprofessionally around female colleagues on set.

The report noted that during the course of the investigation, which was over a seven-month period, Wallace was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, and said that the findings should be viewed in the context of his neurodiversity.

In his statement, Wallace, 60, added: “I’m relieved that the Banijay report fully recognises that my behaviour changed profoundly in 2018. Some of my humour and language missed the mark. I never set out to harm or humiliate. I always tried to bring warmth and support to MasterChef, on screen and off.

“After nearly 20 years on the show, I now see that certain patterns, shaped by traits I’ve only recently begun to understand, may have been misread. I also accept that more could have been done, by others and by myself, to address concerns earlier.

“A late autism diagnosis has helped me understand how I communicate and how I’m perceived. I’m still learning.”

He praised the show’s production company, Banijay, saying they had “given me great support, and I thank them”. However, he criticised the BBC for “exposing” him to “trial by media fuelled by rumour and clickbait”.

A statement from Wallace’s lawyers last November when reports first surfaced, said that it “is entirely false that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature”.

The relationship between Torode and Wallace, who have both presented the cooking programme since 2005, has always been mired in complication.

Despite being Wallace’s best man in 2016, Torode later claimed he had never been friends with his co-host, telling The Mirror in 2017: “We’ve not been to each other’s houses. If we go away to somewhere like South Africa, we do things separately. If we do go out for a drink, I’ll invariably be at one end of a big old table and he’ll be at the other.”

However, Wallace had a different view, telling ITV series Lorraine that same year: “I film with John six or seven months of the year, so we are very close to each other physically, and emotionally we are very close to each other. What’s great about having a partnership is that if one of you is a bit off, a bit down, the other one naturally steps up, so I rely on John a lot.”

In 2022, Torode was made an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, for services to food and charity.

Here’s how Gyokeres can solve Arsenal’s biggest weakness

Arsenal’s history could have been very different without Harry Woods. Without him, there may have been no Herbert Chapman, no trio of league titles in the 1930s, no status as London’s biggest club.

Arsenal narrowly avoided relegation in 1923-24. They only won 12 league games that season. Woods scored in six of them. He was Arsenal’s top scorer.

He also got a mere nine league goals. Which had a renewed pertinence more than a century later when Kai Havertz emulated him: for the first time in 101 years, Arsenal had no player in double figures for league goals.

Sporting CP did not have a similar problem. Viktor Gyokeres, who has been pushing for a move to the Emirates, hit 39 league goals at an average of one every 72 minutes. That was one more than Arsenal’s top five scorers – Havertz, Gabriel Martinelli, Leandro Trossard, Mikel Merino and Bukayo Saka – got between them.

A different club in a different league makes for an inexact comparison. Injuries to first Martin Odegaard and then Saka affected Arsenal’s supply line. But for three months on the sidelines, Havertz would probably have ended with around 14 league goals and more than 20 in all competitions.

And yet the numbers presented an irrefutable case for Arsenal to finally do what their fans had been urging them to: sign a striker. Mikel Arteta had accumulated an extraordinary array of left-backs, ventured into the goalkeeping market on an annual basis, and continually sought solidity from central midfielders. His model of sharing goals around the side had largely worked well in 2022-23, when Arsenal scored 88 times in the league, and 2023-24, when they struck 91 times, but not as their return dropped to 69 goals last season.

Enter Gyokeres. Expectations could be both simplistic and demanding. Make Arsenal score at the rate of Liverpool or Manchester City. Make Arsenal champions. So, no pressure there.

Comparisons could be drawn – and no doubt will be when they face City in September – with Erling Haaland, another out-and-out No 9 signed by a manager who had tended to favour false nines. Which, once again, could feel a steep ask given Gyokeres’s last taste of English football was to score 22 times in a season when Coventry reached the Championship play-offs.

He is a better player now, but one question is how his goal-a-game return in Portugal (68 in 66 in the Primeira Liga) translates to the Premier League; a tally of six in last season’s Champions League offers encouragement. Another is if Arteta can recalibrate his team to play to the strengths of a specialist goalscorer. A trademark Gyokeres strike often involved him running in behind the opposition defence. It isn’t really a typical Arsenal goal, though that reflects on the relative strengths of Havertz, Trossard and Gabriel Jesus.

If a criticism of Arteta’s Arsenal is that they can be too slow and structured, Gyokeres may prefer them to get the ball forward quicker. Certainly, he should add more of a threat on the counterattack, but if part of Arteta’s preference for forwards who could drop deep was to add an extra body in midfield, that – along with the arrival of Martin Zubimendi – should necessitate a shift.

Arsenal may expect an early return. Given the saga – albeit one stripped of drama in the long periods when absolutely nothing happened – of whether they would sign Gyokeres or Benjamin Sesko, there was always a fundamental difference between the Swede and the Slovenian. Gyokeres, now 27, is five years older.

He comes for a decent price, at £63.5m, but with far less resale value than the RB Leipzig forward. Arsenal’s eventual preference for Gyokeres may suggest a sense that Sesko has not kicked on. That Gyokeres failed to report for training at Sporting in a bid to force the move indicated his preference was for Arsenal.

If Havertz, by and large, did a fine job in attack, it will be instructive if he is reinvented as a midfielder or if he has a job-share in attack with Gyokeres. There may well be types of fixtures when Arteta prefers the German. Yet there are also sorts of games that explain the need for a specialist scorer. When Arteta’s model otherwise worked well in 2023-24, Arsenal drew a blank in five league games. That number remained the same last year, but there were 18 when they scored one or none; for Liverpool, the corresponding figure was just seven.

They were the occasions when they required the professional predator, the scrappy goal. It hasn’t really been their way. But then perhaps there has been a belated recognition that, as Arsenal came second, second and second, that another dimension is needed.

No Arsenal player has scored 20 Premier League goals in a season since Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in 2019-20, which the Gunners ended with Arteta in charge, but started under Unai Emery. Indeed, in all competitions, only Saka, in 2023-24, has reached the 20 mark in a full campaign under Arteta.

Stay fit and Gyokeres ought to improve on that. Maybe moving to focus on one striker will come at a cost to the goal returns of others, but, in the 35 seasons since 1990, there are only six in which no Arsenal player has reached 18 goals in all competitions. Four of them were under Arteta. His methods have worked up to a point. Now Gyokeres is the face of a change in approach.

When my friends were facing cancer, a community of people stepped up

When I was younger, I used to worry incessantly about my parents getting cancer. I’d lay awake at night, ruminating on what would happen to my brother and I if they did. Who would support us? Thankfully, both are still cancer-free, well into their seventies.

However, now that I’m a parent myself, I worry about my children. Many people believe that cancer only really happens to people in old age, but that’s just not true. One beloved friend’s daughter died of leukaemia in 2020, aged just five; an unthinkable horror that changed the lives of everyone who knew her and her family.

And with Macmillan Cancer Support reporting that almost 3.5 million people in the UK are living with cancer, I also worry about my friends – parents themselves, their lives touched by cancer. One friend sat me down in our favourite local café, our toddlers playing at our feet, to break the news that she was about to undergo a double mastectomy. We cried together.

Another friend, Sarah, a single parent to two teenage girls, was diagnosed with breast cancer the day before we heard that King Charles had cancer, and a month before the Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, announced her own diagnosis in March last year. It seemed like cancer was everywhere.

As a result, Sarah put 2024 on hold – she missed her daughter’s last sports day and last concert at primary school and had to find a whole new way of co-ordinating family life.

“I’m lucky in some ways that my children are teenagers, so they are able to look after themselves to some degree – but I’m also a single parent, so there are some things that they can’t do, or struggle with, due to their age,” she tells me.

“I have even set up multiple alarms on our Alexa reminding them to put their packed lunches in their bags or leave for school, just in case I can’t get up.”

Sarah says she thought she knew quite a lot about cancer prior to her diagnosis, but now admits she “really didn’t”. She explains: “There are so many terms and procedures to understand – stages and grades, not to mention over 100 different chemotherapy drugs.”

Sarah tells me about the exhausting cumulative effect of chemotherapy, which she endured every three weeks during her cancer treatment: “After the very first lot, I slept for a few hours and felt much better pretty quickly. For my last rounds, I slept for 48 hours solid and even days later, I needed to have a nap in the middle of the day and was in bed by 8pm.”

Sarah’s now finished chemotherapy and, a year on from her diagnosis, is turning 50. She’s throwing a huge party to celebrate not only the birthday milestone, but getting over this “annus horriblis” – a year she couldn’t have gotten through without the people around her.

“People can do so much for us when we are unwell – and I am forever grateful,” she says. “I’ve been really overwhelmed by the support that my friends have given me; from ferrying around my children to and from after-school events and sleepovers when things get bad, to my 75-year-old neighbour mowing the lawn. One friend popped round with a huge pot of pasta sauce and I even had a gift box from a recruiter at work.”

What talking to my strong, resilient friends about their cancer journeys has made me realise most, is the power of community: for when we receive the worst news imaginable, what we need is people around us to see us through. A community of other women: friends, school mums, neighbours.

They had people willing to make them food, pick up their children, go shopping for them or to just sit with them and listen. They had support when they decided to raise money for cancer support charities, when they did fundraisers such as hosting a Macmillan Coffee Morning.

It takes a village to raise a child – and that village will be with you every step of the way when you need them most.

Find out how you can help raise vital funds by hosting a Macmillan Coffee Morning. Sign up now on the Macmillan website

Macmillan Cancer Support, registered charity in England and Wales (261017), Scotland (SC039907) and the Isle of Man (604). Also operating in Northern Ireland.

UK could see fourth heatwave before downpours and thunderstorms

Parts of the UK could see yet another heatwave by the end of this week, according to forecasters.

Britons are also being warned of thunderstorms in places throughout the week, with the potential for “torrential downfalls” over the weekend and possible weather warnings to be issued.

Rain might be welcome for some, coming amid warnings from the Environment Agency that up to five more regions could be in a drought by September, with more hosepipe bans on the way.

Much of the UK experienced a brief reprieve from the hot weather on Tuesday as the third heatwave of the summer started to come to an end. Temperatures exceeded 30C in several parts of the country and broke multiple records over the weekend.

But just as Britons are recovering from the weekend’s intense heat, the Met Office has revealed they should start bracing themselves for yet another potential heatwave.

Meteorologist Tom Morgan told The Independent that Tuesday has been a “much cooler and showery day”, with much of the country seeing showers and rainy spells.

He predicted a “changeable” week ahead as well, but said that temperatures will “rebound” from Tuesday to above average once again.

On the question of a fourth heatwave, he said: “From a technical point of view, there is the potential for some places to reach heatwave status.

“But it’s not going to be anything like the most recent heatwave, which saw temperatures reach the high 20s or low 30s.

“Currently, we’re expecting temperatures of 29C in south east England on Thursday and Friday, then it might well be 28C or similar on Saturday.

“Most likely, it’s a few individual weather stations that reach the criteria for a heatwave… but that won’t be for everyone, it will be a small minority of places where there is a technical heatwave.”

The Met Office defines a heatwave as “an extended period of hot weather relative to the expected conditions of the area at that time of year, which may be accompanied by high humidity”. In the UK, hot weather can only be classified as a heatwave if it meets a daily maximum temperature consistently for three days in a row, with the threshold varying across different parts of the UK between 25C and 28C.

The peak of the last heatwave hit on Saturday, when Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales all recorded their warmest day of the year so far – with Scotland and Northern Ireland reaching temperatures they have not hit in years. Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire hit 30.8C while Achnagart in the Scottish Highlands reached 30.4C, Cardiff’s Bute Park 30.2C and Castlederg in Co Tyrone 27.1C.

A host of warnings were issued over dangers arising out of the hot temperatures. These included amber and yellow heat health alerts in place across England – warning of the potential for a rise in deaths – while fire chiefs urged people to stay safe over the increased risk of wildfires, with blazes breaking out in London, Surrey, and Perth in Scotland.

But Mr Morgan offered reassurance that there is “nothing like that on the way”. He said that “there will be essentially fairly typical warm summer weather this week, as opposed to the recent weather where we’ve seen it hot and impactful”, citing the uncomfortable sleeping conditions many have been complaining of.

The summer’s third heatwave saw a hosepipe ban come into force in Yorkshire, with similar restrictions issued for Kent and Sussex from 18 July following one of the UK’s driest springs on record. Currently, three areas of the UK – Cumbria and Lancashire, Yorkshire and Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire – are in drought. And millions more people could face these conditions across the Midlands and central southern regions this year, under the Environment Agency’s reasonable worst cast scenario.

However, Mr Morgan said the UK is set for a wetter week this week. Many Britons should brace for thunderstorms, he warned, with weather warnings potentially being issued in the coming days.

The meteorologist explained that much of the UK should see “dry, warmer weather” on Wednesday, before the end of the week becomes more showery.

There is currently a fairly “isolated” thunderstorm warning in place for Northern Ireland, a region that will again see a risk of thunderstorms on Thursday, he said.

Then, central and southern England as well as Wales are all set for thunderstorms and “really torrential downfalls” into the weekend.

He said: “There will be further thunderstorms in the week ahead and indeed the weekend. It is a warm, humid picture into the weekend…

“Anyone with outdoor plans should keep an eye on the forecast for the week ahead.

“There is the potential for weather warnings in the lead up to the weekend.

“It’s looking much wetter, and potentially very wet in places, compared to the weekend just gone.”

US House Speaker breaks with Trump and calls for release of Epstein files

Popular podcaster Joe Rogan ripped into the Justice Department’s handling of the so-called Epstein files as House Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans broke away from President Donald Trump over the issue.

Earlier this month, the DOJ and FBI said in a memo there was never any client list of high-profile names associated with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The Trump administration has faced backlash over this new development, as it had promised to release files about the federal investigation into the late financier.

Rogan ranted about the feds on an episode of his podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience,” released Tuesday.

“They’ve got videotape and all a sudden they don’t,” Rogan said. “You had the director of the FBI on this show saying, ‘If there was [a videotape], nothing you’re looking for is on those tapes,’” referring to Kash Patel’s interview with Rogan in June.

During his appearance, Patel indicated there was no video evidence of people committing crimes on Epstein’s private island.

“Why’d they say there was thousands of hours of tapes of people doing horrible s***? Why’d they say that? Didn’t [Attorney General] Pam Bondi say that?” Rogan said during Tuesday’s rant.

Bondi told reporters in May, “There are tens of thousands of videos of Epstein with children or child porn and there are hundreds of victims,” according to the Miami Herald.

The feds’ July memo said there was “a large volume of images of Epstein, images and videos of victims who are either minors or appear to be minors, and over ten thousand downloaded videos and images of illegal child sex abuse material and other pornography.”

But when it came to potential allegations against third parties, the memo stated: “There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions.”

Johnson, a Louisiana Republican and close ally to Trump, told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson in an interview Tuesday he supported the release of the Epstein files.

“I’m for transparency,” Johnson said, per The Washington Post. “It’s a very delicate subject, but we should put everything out there and let the people decide it.”

Despite his vocal support, Johnson opposed a procedural motion advanced by House Democrats Tuesday that would have allowed lawmakers to vote to release the Epstein files.

But Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, wrote on X Tuesday he would force a House vote on “releasing the COMPLETE files.”

“We all deserve to know what’s in the Epstein files, who’s implicated, and how deep this corruption goes. Americans were promised justice and transparency,” he said.

Earlier this month, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a prominent Georgia figure in Trump’s base, told Real America’s Voice network, “I think the Department of Justice and the FBI has more explaining to do — this is Jeffrey Epstein,” per The Hill.

“This is the most famous pedophile in modern-day history, and people are absolutely not going to accept just a memo that was written that says there is no client list,” she said.

Trump on Tuesday claimed that former President Barack Obama and former FBI Director James Comey “made up” the Epstein files.

Leaving for an event in Pennsylvania from the White House, the president was asked by a reporter if Attorney General Bondi had revealed whether his name appeared in any of the Justice Department’s files on the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“She’s given us just a very quick briefing, and in terms of the credibility of the different things that they’ve seen,” Trump said. “And I would say that, you know, these files were made up by Comey. They were made up by Obama.”

Obama, a Democrat, served in the White House from 2009 to 2017, while Comey led the FBI from 2013 until May 2017. Epstein died in prison in 2019.

When asked about the memo at a recent Cabinet meeting, Trump said, “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy’s been talked about for years.”

“I mean, I can’t believe you’re asking a question on Epstein at a time like this, where we’re having some of the greatest success and also tragedy with what happened in Texas. It just seems like a desecration,” Trump said, referring to the July 4 flooding disaster along the Guadalupe River.