At least 20 injured after vehicle ‘plows into crowd’ in Los Angeles

At least 20 people have been injured in Los Angeles after a vehicle plowed into a crowd outside an East Hollywood nightclub.

Authorities said three people are fighting to for their lives in a critical condition, with a further six seriously hurt after a car hit bystanders on Santa Monica Boulevard, near the intersection with Vermont Avenue.

A total of 19 others are believed to have suffered more minor injuries and have been described as in a “fair condition”.

An alert from the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) said 124 fire personnel responded, adding: “LAFD is coordinating patient triage and transport at this time.”

The vehicle is understood to have hit a taco cart and ploughed into pedestrians at around 2am local time after a driver lost consciousness. Many of those injured were said to be standing in line to get into the nightclub or getting food from the taco truck.

Speaking from the scene, LA Fire Department captain Adam Van Gerpen said “approximately 31 patients” are being treated.

He added: “This morning, about 2am, firefighters were dispatched out to a traffic accident.

“On arrival, they found that we had a multi-casualty incident with a number of victims on scene. Our firefighters quickly realised we had a large number of patients so we called for additional resources.

“Apparently somebody that lost consciousness inside the vehicle and drove into a taco cart and then ultimately ran into a large number of people that were outside a club in East Hollywood.

“Right now we have a total of approximately 31 patients. All of those patients are in the process of being treated and transported and evaluated.”

Live footage from the scene showed dozens of emergency responders treating victims on the road.

More follows on this breaking news story…

Syrian presidency announces ceasefire after days of violence

Syria’s Islamist-led government has begun deploying internal security forces in Sweida, a predominantly Druze area, following intense sectarian bloodshed that has claimed hundreds of lives.

The deployment, confirmed by an interior ministry spokesperson on Saturday, coincides with an urgent call from the Syrian presidency for an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire, urging all parties to commit to ending hostilities across all areas.

The internal developments came after US envoy Tom Barrack announced on Friday that Syria and Israel had agreed to a ceasefire.

Israel had intervened in the conflict earlier this week, hitting government forces and the defence ministry building in Damascus, while declaring support for the Druze minority.

Mr Barrack, who serves as both Washington’s Syria envoy and ambassador to Turkey, said the ceasefire is supported by Turkey, Jordan, and other neighbouring countries.

Syria’s Sweida province has been engulfed by nearly a week of violence which began with clashes between Bedouin fighters and Druze factions, before drawing in government security forces that were sent to the area by Damascus.

Mr Barrack said Israel and Syria had agreed to a ceasefire and called on Druze, Bedouins and Sunnis to put down their weapons “and together with other minorities build a new and united Syrian identity”.

Israel has said it aims to protect Syria’s Druze minority while adding that it wants areas of south Syria near its border to remain demilitarised. Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa has accused Israel of seeking to sow division among Syrians.

On Friday, an Israeli official said Israel agreed to allow Syrian forces limited access to the Sweida area for the next two days.

The Druze religious sect began as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shia Islam. More than half of the roughly million Druze worldwide live in Syria.

Most of the other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 War and annexed in 1981.

Ukraine war latest: Russian drone attack kills one in Odesa

Multiple cities in Ukraine were targeted by Russian drone attacks overnight, killing one in the Black Sea port of Odesa.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said over 300 drones and 30 missiles had been launched at Ukraine, with the Donetsk, Kirovohrad, Dnipro, Sumy, Kherson, Volyn, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, Odesa, and Zhytomyr among the regions affected.

Odesa mayor Hennady Trukhanov said at least 20 drones converged on the city early on Saturday, setting ablaze at least one multi-storey apartment building and killing one resident.

Pictures posted online showed a fire engulfing floors near the top of one building as Zelensky said six people – including a child – were injured in the attack.

Moscow’s mayor also said 13 drones had been downed or destroyed by Russian air defences overnight near the city. In a separate post, Russia’s Defence Ministry said it had downed 87 Ukrainian drones in different areas across Russia in a period of nearly five hours.

Meanwhile, Kyiv’s European allies have welcomed the EU’s 18th sanctions package targeting Moscow’s oil and gas industry.

When asked about the sanctions, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia had built a certain immunity to Western sanctions and adapted to them.

CCTV shows gunman entering busy park before shooting teenage boy

Chilling CCTV footage released by police shows the moment a masked gunman walked calmly into a crowded London park before shooting a 15-year-old boy in the chest.

The killer, wearing a dark cap and balaclava, had a handgun concealed in his jacket pocket as he strolled through the children’s play area at Emslie Horniman’s Pleasance Park in Ladbroke Grove, where hundreds were celebrating at a family fun day.

He opened fire on Rene Graham before jumping the park fence and chasing another man on foot, while brandishing the gun in his left hand.

Police have released the shocking footage a year after the teenager’s murder as they appeal for information about the unsolved shooting at 7.20pm on 21 July last year.

Metropolitan Police detectives believe the answers sit within a small pocket of the west London community and some know the identity of the killer.

Detective chief inspector Alison Foxwell, who is leading the investigation, said: “The person responsible for Rene’s murder opened fire in a busy park where dozens of people, including very young children, were enjoying themselves.

“Officers have appealed to the local community on multiple occasions – we believe there are people sitting on the name of the person responsible.

“This person, who was willing to take the life of Rene and risk the lives of others, remains in your community. Now is the time to get in touch with us to give Rene’s family the peace they deserve. Our thoughts, remain as ever, with them.”

She said Rene’s family remain devastated by his death. A man in his 20s has recently been interviewed under caution over the murder but they are continuing to investigate all lines of enquiry.

In a heartbreaking appeal last year, the teenager’s mother Janay John-Francois, begged people who may know “anything at all – or witnessed anything” to come forward, saying “your bravery could be the key to bringing peace to a broken family”.

In a personal plea, she said: “Today is my son, but tomorrow could be one of yours. Please stand with me through the darkest of times.

“From the depths of my shattered heart I implore you to please come forward and help me find justice for my son Rene Graham.”

She added: “The emptiness and heartbreak, there are no words that can capture the agony of my loss.

“This is a grief so profound I would not wish it upon my worst enemy – I’ve lost everything, my world will never be the same.”

Four men – two aged 21 and the others aged 20 and 25 – were arrested on suspicion of murder last year but were released with no further action.

Crimestoppers is offering a reward of up to £20,000 for information that leads to the identification and prosecution of those responsible for the murder.

Alexa Loukas, London regional manager for Crimestoppers, said: “Rene, was very sadly murdered last year in broad daylight with over two hundred people present.

“The significant and lasting impact on his family, friends, and the local community, cannot be underestimated and our thoughts and condolences are with his loved ones.

“We believe someone who either witnessed the incident or knows of someone who was there on the day, will have information. No matter how insignificant they think it could be, it could help bring those responsible to justice. You can contact Crimestoppers completely anonymously – we won’t ask for your name and are unable to identify your telephone number or IP address if you are reporting online.

“We don’t record calls, so once you have contacted our Charity there is no further involvement. Your information is passed anonymously on to the Police with no questions asked.

“Please do the right thing to find justice for Rene, who was only 15 years-old at the time of his death. Your information could make a real difference, and you may be eligible for a reward.”

You can contact Crimestoppers anonymously by calling 0800 555 111 or by visiting www.crimestoppers-uk.org.

Any information can be provided to police by calling 101 or messaging @MetCC on X, providing the reference CAD 6343/21Jul.

New weather warnings issued for millions as heavy rain batters the UK

Millions more people have been warned to expect heavy rain over the weekend as the Met Office issues fresh yellow weather warnings.

The forecasters have put out two new yellow weather warnings for Saturday, bringing to total number covering the UK to four in one day.

One new rain warning covers Wales and the South West of England and comes into place from 6pm today until 9pm on Sunday.

The Met Office said people in this area should prepare for the slight chance of power cuts and that homes and businesses could be flooded.

It has also issued a thunderstorm warning for some of Northern Ireland from midday until 6pm on Saturday.

These thunderstorms could bring 15-20mm of rain within an hour in places, with perhaps as much 30mm in a few hours, according to the Met Office.

Two other yellow warnings are also in place on Saturday. Most of England will be covered by a yellow warning from midnight to 9pm. Eastern Scotland is also facing a yellow warning from 4pm until midday on Sunday.

The alerts mean most of the country will be under a weather warning at some point over the weekend.

Chief Met Office meteorologist Andy Page said: “Intense rainfall will impact parts of the UK as thunderstorms move in from France.

“This weekend is expected to be busy on the roads as more schools in England and Wales break up for the summer holidays, so it’s important people keep up to date with the very latest forecast.

“There will be spells of more pleasant weather in parts of the UK through the weekend, with some sunny spells in between systems as they move through.”

Earlier on Saturday, an amber alert came into force for London, parts of the south and south east of England from 4am to 11am. Downpours were seen across the capital in what was the first amber warning issued for London since January 2 2024.

On Monday, a further warning for thunderstorms will come into place across much of England and Scotland. The yellow alert will begin at 11am and remain until 9pm.

Saturday:

Heavy, thundery rain moves north this morning, reaching Scotland by the afternoon. Torrential downpours may cause difficult conditions in places. Scattered showers follow across England and Wales, with thicker cloud and rain in the southwest later. Fresher, but still humid.

Saturday evening:

Rain, heavy in places across the southwest will spread slowly east overnight, reaching much of Wales and southern England by dawn. Rain, thundery at times will continue across northern areas.

Sunday:

Remaining unsettled on Sunday with showers or longer spells of rain, some heavy and thundery in places. Fresher than recent days but still warm particularly in any sunny spells.

Outlook for Monday to Wednesday:

Low pressure lingers into early next week, keeping conditions unsettled with sunny spells and heavy showers. Showers will gradually ease by Wednesday, with temperatures staying close to the seasonal average.

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.

Who will benefit the most from new rules about voter ID?

The announcement about giving the vote to 16- and 17-year-olds in all UK elections has obviously caused huge excitement, and some controversy. However, the experts say that the number of new voters will in practice be very small, and that it will make only a marginal difference to the result of a general election – because some won’t vote, and there’s no God-given law about them all voting Labour.

Much more significant are the new rules on voter ID. The range of acceptable documents will be widened to include, for example, bank cards. Whatever the advantage it might bestow on any particular party at an election, proponents say it will boost turnout, and engagement with the democratic process…

The government says its elections bill will allow people to use UK-issued bank cards as proof of identity, and of course, these do not usually carry an image of the user. In addition, there will be “more digital options to support voters and polling station staff, including allowing accepted IDs such as the Veteran Card and UK driving licence to be used at polling stations when they become available in digital format”.

The cynics say it is because it will benefit Labour disproportionately. Others say that, true or not, that’s less important than allowing people to vote, and that the threat of electoral fraud has been greatly exaggerated.

Historically, according to the Electoral Commission and the academics, there’s been little in Great Britain even in local elections, and it is virtually unknown in general elections. Where it has cropped up, such as in Tower Hamlets, it has been dealt with.

The counterclaim is that photo ID was brought in by the Conservatives in the last parliament in order to help them and to suppress the Labour vote. A point lost to history is that the 2019 Conservative manifesto did not specify “photo” ID as the preferred option. (Northern Ireland has needed photo ID for far longer, because of much more voter “personation”. Hence the local slogan “Vote early, vote often”.)

Probably in the hundreds of thousands, and maybe more. The polling company More in Common say that, on the basis of polling after the last election, more than 850,000 would have been turned away at the polling station for lack of ID, and – given that some returned – perhaps 400,000 lost their vote.

It affected voters from ethnic minority groups disproportionately: the poll suggested that 6.5 per cent of voters of colour were turned away from a polling booth at least once, compared with 2.5 per cent of white voters.

But of course, no one really has any idea how many voters didn’t even bother to go to the polls who wished to, because they knew they didn’t have the necessary ID – or they did but it had some minor discrepancy, such as a variation in their first name or the precise spelling of their surname.

Local council “greeters” posted outside polling stations may also have stopped people from entering the premises, and thus these would-be voters would have gone unnoticed by the local election officials or the Electoral Commission.

The government says that an increasingly automated voter registration system will also make it easier for people to register to vote, and will reduce the need for them to fill out their details across different government services on multiple occasions.

On balance, Labour, because of its relatively high vote among some ethnic minorities; but also, for that same reason, the Corbynite independents who took seats from Labour in strongly Muslim areas even in a strong year such as 2024. Reform UK might also see some benefit, because their vote is skewed towards more disadvantaged places, where turnouts are traditionally low. Automated registration among disaffected non-voters might give them a bit of a boost.

No. As with votes at 16, the numbers aren’t going to make that much of a difference, and in our present confused four- or five-party system, it’s hard to see anyone gaining a decisive advantage. And voting allegiances by age, class and ethnicity, for example, can shift over time anyway. But in a very close contest, who knows?

This seems to be another problem for turnout. The government says of last July: “Overall, 8 per cent of non-voters mentioned they did not vote because of an issue related to their postal vote (such as missing the deadline to apply, forms arriving late and forgetting to send their postal vote) – with this figure rising to 13 per cent in Scotland and Wales.”

The deterioration in the postal system has added fresh challenges to a method of voting many find essential, or more convenient. So the proposal is to change the deadline in Great Britain to apply for a postal vote, moving it from 11 to 14 working days before a poll, thereby providing more time between the application deadline and polling day.

This only became much of an issue in Britain after the contested 2020 US presidential election, and Donald Trump’s unfounded allegations that it was rigged. Nigel Farage and Reform UK make a big deal of it, and Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, has raised it again in the Commons this week, stating: “I have seen people carrying bag-loads of postal votes to a polling station on election day.” The relevant minister, Rushanara Ali, told him to tell the police.

Our failing water firms are a damning reflection of Broken Britain

The latest report from the Environment Agency on the state of Britain’s rivers is a veritable shower of euphemism and shame. “Serious pollution incidents”, the bland bureaucratic term preferred by the agency, are up by 60 per cent just in the last year.

We all know what that means: lumpy sewage in streams and on seashores that turns the stomach of anyone nearby, asphyxiates fish, and generally decimates the environment. “Wastewater” leaking out while being carried uphill is apparently a particular problem, one “impacting” swimmers.

Around 80 per cent of the most serious “incidents” were down to three companies – Thames Water (33 spillages), Southern Water (15) and Yorkshire Water (13).

There is no suggestion that the situation is likely to improve; indeed, all the talk is of Thames Water, the largest company of its kind in the country, collapsing under the weight of its own debt rather than its scandalous record on pollution.

It’s a damning reflection of “Broken Britain”. Why has a supposedly civilised G7 economy grown so easily accustomed to such an appalling state of affairs? It may be true that de-industrialisation has cleaned up some of the larger rivers and estuaries in recent decades, but the water companies, the regulators and successive governments can hardly take credit for that.

What they are responsible for is what is in their control – maintaining a sewage system that does what it is expected of it in the modern world. It is one of the most basic services – and yet in parts of the UK, it feels little more than a hopeless aspiration.

This river of excrement has been rolling for years, and, while the details can be complex, the principal streams of blame that feed into the scandal can be easily identified. Incomprehensibly weak regulation is the strongest of the currents, either because Ofwat was never given sufficient powers or a wide enough remit, or because it was incompetent, or all three.

There has never been a shortage of official bodies nominally overseeing matters – the Environment Agency and various iterations of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, as well as local authorities – but always a huge deficit of effective democratic control.

There is, of course, a fundamental contradiction at the heart of this particular privatised industry: the provision of clean running water and efficient sewage disposal may not align with the commercial imperatives of the companies denationalised in 1989 in England and Wales (Scotland and Northern Ireland were spared the experiment). Profit and public service can co-exist and even flourish – but not always, and not everywhere.

Even if the industry had been regulated better, the privatised model combined with zero competition and regulated tariffs was poorly prepared for the task of investing the vast sums needed to renew the crumbling Victorian infrastructure, let alone build the reservoirs and pipework required to cater for a population that was to expand by some 12 million in the ensuing decades. Some public services ought not to be expected, let alone forced, to turn a profit.

But from early on, the major weakness in the regulatory regime was becoming apparent – that while the need to monitor charges and water quality was recognised, there was no oversight of the financial health of the companies.

Once the shares had been acquired from the small shareholders in the initial public offerings and placed in the hands of private equity firms, the companies were free to load themselves with as much debt as they fancied – which paid for bumper dividends for the new shareholders. It left a vital public service hopelessly over-mortgaged.

The chance was taken for some lucrative asset stripping, even certain reservoirs were sold off, and the companies were left so enfeebled that if Ofwat tried to fine them, they could plausibly claim that they would go bust. They contrived to make themselves too big to fail. Or so they hoped.

On Monday, the government will publish a review of the industry by Sir Jon Cunliffe, the head of the Independent Water Commission, and its own proposals will follow. As we reported on Friday, the government is expected to scrap Ofwat. It must use the power of parliament to chart a new course for the industry.

Despite the pollution crisis, the Treasury cannot afford immediately to renationalise the most distressed of the operators, Thames Water, because of its enormous debts – more than £16bn.

It seems inevitable that Thames will fall into the special procedure that will ensure continuing water and sewage services to 15 million customers in southern England and London while the government takes control.

This is a far cheaper remedy for the taxpayer, but it does still mean that the considerable cost of cleaning up the rivers, keeping the taps on and the loos flushing will, to some extent, fall to the taxpayers as well as the bill payers. Either that, or we just get used to having the dirtiest rivers and beaches in Europe.