‘Super Sunday’ for Team GB as Weston and Stoecker win skeleton gold

Great Britain’s most successful Winter Olympics in history reached new heights on Sunday as skeleton racers Matt Weston and Tabby Stoecker clinched gold in the mixed-team event.

The result meant that day nine of Milano-Cortina was Team GB’s most successful ever at a Winter Games, with two gold medals won in the space of around five hours, and three in 48, having never previously won more than one gold in a single Games.

Weston, 29, has made history twice at these Games, winning Britain’s first men’s skeleton Olympic gold on Friday before becoming the first Briton to win two medals at the same Winter Olympics on Sunday.

“Pretty special to be a part of that, to be honest,” Weston said. “I’m extremely proud of what I’ve been able to achieve in the past couple of days, especially to win the first-ever team event. It’s absolutely amazing, and to win it with such a great teammate is just the icing on the cake. I’m a bit more in control of my emotions this time! I’m just absolutely over the moon.”

Weston’s two golds put him among Britain’s most successful Winter Olympians, but he said: “I think to even consider putting my name next to those is a massive honour. I don’t want to be the one to say what position I am in there, but to have my name next to those is absolutely amazing. A lot of those guys have been a massive inspiration, especially within the sliding sports. The success that they’ve had has only opened the door for us to come here today and excel.”

Stoecker is an Olympic champion on her first appearance, improving on her fifth-place finish in the women’s event.

“What an honour, it’s incredible,” said Stoecker, still in disbelief. “The medal’s really heavy, it’s gold, I get to share it with Matt – it’s more than I could have ever hoped for.

“To be honest, I can’t even remember my run now. It’s just been such a whirlwind of emotions. I was trying to make some improvements on yesterday. I’m just really proud of myself to come away from my first games, a decent result yesterday and then a gold in the team event.”

Weston and Stoecker were the last team to set off in the inaugural mixed competition on a freezing night at the Cortina Sliding Centre. Stoecker was in the green for the first half of the track but lost time further down, leaving Weston with a 0.3 second deficit to overhaul.

And claw it back he did, finishing in 58.59 as the pair set a new track record time of 1:59.36, 0.17 seconds ahead of the German pair of Susanne Kreher and Axel Jungk, who added team silver to both their individual silvers.

On watching Weston bring home the gold, Stoecker said: “I’ve got a lot of trust in him. He’s the individual Olympic champ before this, and his standard of sliding is insane. So I had a lot of faith that he was going to lay down another exceptional run, but also it’s always nerve-wracking when you have to watch the clock and the splits and you’re not sure like how it’s going to go, but the flow that he has on the sled, it’s just unmatched, so from about halfway down I could feel that it was gold.”

Weston had no knowledge of how much time he had to make up. He said: “When I’m at the top of the track, I kind of put my helmet just low enough that I can’t see what the splits are. All I was doing was listening to my coach telling me the timings, and all I could think of was don’t false start. So I was just staying very calm, and trying to be as collected and as boring as possible, just tick the boxes, get the job done.”

Weston is famously a perfectionist, and asked whether this was finally a perfect run, he said: “I think corner nine, I wasn’t exactly smooth coming out.”

That didn’t matter, however, and the pair can now celebrate a hugely successful end to their Olympic campaigns with “a few pints and pizza”, Weston said, as well as with their families and friends, who all turned out to cheer them on despite minus 8C weather in Cortina.

Stoecker said: “I got to put my little my gold medal on my niece and nephew and they were saying how heavy it was, and that’s a moment that is going to last forever for me and hopefully for them too, so that was just incredible.”

After a slow start to this year’s Games, Team GB enjoyed a “Super Sunday” with Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale winning the country’s first ever gold medal on snow earlier in the mixed snowboard cross.

There was very nearly a third medal too as Britain’s second pair, Marcus Wyatt and Freya Tarbit, finished fourth in Cortina.

In a sign of Britain’s strength in depth, Tarbit was the fastest female athlete on the night. The 25-year-old raced the course in 1:00.47 to shave 0.3 seconds off the previous leading time, set by China, with Wyatt maintaining their lead to shoot to the top of the standings.

The pair set a then-track record time of 1:59.65 and watched on nervously as Kreher and Jungk set off.

Kreher finished a mere 0.12 seconds down on Tarbit and Wyatt crossed his fingers in the leader’s area as Jungk pushed off. The German clawed back precious milliseconds over the second half of the track, where he has been particularly strong this year, to push the British pair down the order by 0.12 seconds and guarantee a medal.

Germany’s Jacqueline Pfeifer and Christopher Grotheer – who both took bronze in their individual events – claimed another bronze, finishing 0.01 seconds down on their compatriots.

The mixed skeleton event sees the female athlete race down the track with the male athlete following immediately afterwards and their times added together, with the lowest aggregate time determining the winning team. Unlike in individual events, which are made up of four heats, every team only gets one run, with a Formula 1-style reaction start and time penalties imposed for false starts.

PM facing inquiry call over Labour think tank’s probe into journalists

Sir Keir Starmer is facing calls to order an inquiry into a Labour think tank’s investigation into journalists as he struggles to move on from the woes facing his premiership.

Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty said it would be “only right” to have a probe into Labour Together, which helped Sir Keir win the Labour leadership.

The calls heap pressure on government minister Josh Simons, who commissioned the 2023 report on reporters investigating the group’s funding.

The Sunday Times reported that the contents of an investigation by PR consultancy Apco were informally shared with Labour figures in 2024, including current cabinet ministers and special advisers. Apco was paid £36,000 to carry out the investigation in 2023.

The paper said it contained pages of “deeply personal and false claims” about one of the journalists, Gabriel Pogrund. It also discussed his Jewish background and included false claims about personal and professional relationships. It was also reported to have made “baseless claims” that the emails underpinning the journalists’ story were likely to have come from a hack of the Electoral Commission, suspected to have been carried out by the Kremlin .

The Conservative Party has written to Labour Party chair Anna Turley, urging her to investigate Mr Simons’s role in the decision to hire Apco.

It also urged Labour to investigate the role of other Labour Together directors, who include “serving cabinet ministers”, and to set out whether the party still considers it appropriate for Labour MPs to receive cash from the think tank.

The Labour Party should suspend all engagement with Labour Together “until all allegations have been independently investigated”, the Tories said.

The letter, from Tory chair Kevin Hollinrake, concluded: “Once again, the government is distracted from the serious challenges facing our country.

“The public deserve the full, unredacted facts about this latest scandal to engulf the top of the Labour Party. Nothing less will suffice.”

In a statement, Mr Hollinrake said: “Labour Together’s behaviour shows a worrying contempt for the free press, a fundamental foundation of our democracy.

“With its close and widely known links to the heart of government, serious questions must be answered about who was aware of these actions, including whether senior figures around the prime minister knew.

“After Starmer’s attempts to deflect from the Mandelson-Epstein affair, the public will accept nothing less than full transparency.”

Mr Simons was an ally of Morgan McSweeney, who previously ran Labour Together and who resigned from No 10 last week as the Mandelson scandal engulfed Downing Street. Mr Simons told the paper he said he had asked for information to be removed before passing the report to the intelligence agency GCHQ. No other British journalists were investigated as part of any document he or Labour Together ever received, he also said.

John McDonnell, Labour’s former chancellor, has called for an independent inquiry into the affair.

He said it was clear to him as ”secretary of the NUJ’s parliamentary group if true this is unacceptable”.

Another Labour MP, Karl Turner, called on the prime minister himself to look at the issue and said he should meet Mr McDonnell “to discuss” it.

Nadhim Zahawi, the former Conservative chancellor who has since defected to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, led demands for Sir Keir to reveal what he knew of the investigation.

He said: “This is a huge story. If this was any other party, the calls for an investigation would be deafening..”

Mr Doughty told Times Radio: “It’s only right that if there is an investigation, that’s able to run its course, and that we understand what happened. I want to see a country where journalists are able to do their job without fear or favour.”

Liz Truss shares photo with Donald Trump: ‘Right about everything’

Liz Truss has met with Donald Trump at his residence in Mar-a-Lago, sharing a photo of the moment on social media.

Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister captioned the image “right about everything” as she stood beaming next to the US president, reaffirming her MAGA allegiance in the photo on X.

President Trump has yet to mention the interaction with the former leader on his social media.

Since her seven week stint in office in 2022, Ms Truss has expressed enthusiastic support for President Trump and the MAGA movement while also blaming the end of her own premiership on “the deep state”.

In December, she vowed to spark a “Trump-style counter-revolution” against attacks on the free world on her podcast, The Liz Truss Show.

“The deep state tried to destroy me but now I’m back and excited to launch this show,” she said.

Last year as she visited the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland, she said that her own country was “failing” as she urged Elon Musk and his “nerd army of Muskrats” to examine the “British deep state”.

She has also claimed that Britain needs its own version of Donald Trump, calling for a movement in the UK similar to the MAGA movement.

Under Ms Truss’s premiership , the pound fell to a 37-year low after the City was “spooked” by a massive borrowing package to fund the biggest tax cuts for half a century.

The photo comes after President Trump has faced allegations of racism for sharing a video depicting ex-leader Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama as apes, which was removed from Truth Social 12 hours after it was posted.

A senior White House official saying a staffer posted it “erroneously” and the president refused to apologise as he said he “didn’t see the whole thing.”

Mr Obama broke his silence about the video in an interview with political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen. He replied: “First of all, I think it’s important to recognise that the majority of the American people find this behaviour deeply troubling.

“It is true that it gets attention. It’s true that it’s a distraction. But, as I’m traveling around the country, as you’re traveling around the country, you meet people — they still believe in decency, courtesy, kindness.”

Reform by-election candidate defends man who said ‘burn asylum hotels’

The Reform candidate in an upcoming Westminster by-election is under scrutiny after saying it was “insane” a man was jailed for 18 months for social media posts calling for people to burn asylum hotels to the ground.

Matt Goodwin responded to a Daily Mail report from December that Luke Yarwood, from Christchurch, Dorset, was jailed inciting racial hatred. He said in a post on X: “Welcome to the UK. Where you go to prison for 18 months for anti-immigration tweets. This is insane.”

Yarwood had reportedly called on Brits to “gang together, hit the streets and start the slaughter” in a series of anti-Muslim and anti-immigration posts from 21 December 2024 to 29 January 2025.

“Violence and murder is the only way now. Start off burning every migrant hotel then head off to MPs’ houses and Parliament, we need to take over by FORCE”, he said, following a car attack in Germany which killed six people, as misinformation spread on social media suggesting it was linked to Islamic extremism.”

While his lawyer reportedly defended him by pointing out that only 33 people had read the post, he was still jailed for 18 months.

Reform UK hit back at criticism around Mr Goodwin’s tweet, claiming it was “desperate stuff” from Labour after The i reported about his post and the party’s deputy leader Lucy Powell called on the Denton and Gorton candidate to reject support from members of his campaign team that have been accused of racism.

A Reform UK spokesman said: “This is desperate stuff from a Labour Party that has also just been revealed to have been smearing journalists. Criticising the fact that people are being jailed for what they write on social media is clearly not the same as defending those views.

“The fact that our political opponents are conflating these two things is outrageous and a sign of how desperate they have become. Vote Reform, vote for common sense.”

Mr Goodwin hit the headlines last week after The Independent revealed he had called for women and young girls to be given a “biological reality” check as he warned of an impending “fertility crisis”.

This publication also revealed that he had previously suggested people who don’t have children should be taxed extra as punishment and warned that “many women in Britain are having children much too late in life”.

The polling cited by Mr Goodwin, who is standing for Reform UK in the Gorton and Denton by-election at the end of this month, also showed more than 50 per cent of the public wanted taxes and spending to increase, while 40 per cent wanted them to remain the same.

He also once described his party’s economic plans as an “utterly toxic combination”, explaining that he “cannot stress enough how UNPOPULAR slashing taxes and cutting spending on public services is” in a post on LinkedIn three years ago.

The former academic was pointing to polling from the highly respected British Social Attitudes survey which showed that reducing both was backed by just 6 per cent of the public.

In November, Nigel Farage said his party “will cut spending” and “we want to cut taxes”. And last month he doubled down, saying: “We are going to reduce excessive government spending.”

In a speech last year, Mr Farage said “substantial tax cuts” were not realistic at the current moment “given the dire state” of the country’s finances but said that his party would raise the threshold at which workers start to pay tax and scrap Labour’s ‘family farm’ inheritance tax changes.

However, he rowed back from his party’s 2024 election promise to cut £90bn of taxes, which leading economic think tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said Reform had failed to set out how they would achieve.

Last month Mr Farage also told an event in Davos that he thought “the one big lesson of the Liz Truss-Kwasi Kwarteng Budget is that they did not propose to cut spending. So for our programme to work, what we absolutely have to tell people that we are going to reduce welfare spending, we are going to reduce excessive government spending.”

A Labour Party spokesperson said: “Matt Goodwin’s comments show that it’s not just Labour saying Reform’s economic plans are ludicrous – their own candidate thinks so too.

“Reform UK offers nothing but a return to austerity, enacted by a party stuffed full of the same Tories that broke our public services in the first place.”

A Reform spokesperson told The Independent: “Labour’s campaign in Gorton and Denton truly must be on the ropes if they have had to resort to polling analysis by Matt from three years ago when the economy was in a much different place.

“We will take no lectures from a party under whose watch the economy has tanked. By voting Reform the voters of Gorton and Denton can get Keir Starmer out and help bring an end to this failed Labour government.”

Flying start sends Arsenal on way to emphatic FA Cup win over Wigan

Arsenal scored four times in 17 first-half minutes to cruise through to the fifth round of the FA Cup with an emphatic 4-0 drubbing of League One Wigan.

Noni Madueke sent Mikel Arteta’s rampant side on their way after 11 minutes before Gabriel Martinelli doubled the hosts’ advantage seven minutes later.

Jack Hunt headed through his own net after 23 minutes and Arsenal were four to the good inside half-an-hour when Gabriel Jesus struck.

Arsenal failed to add to their tally, but their one-sided victory at the Emirates saw them advance beyond the fourth round for the first time since they won the FA Cup in 2020 and kept alive their outside chance of completing an unprecedented quadruple.

Arteta made eight changes to the side which drew at Brentford on Thursday, but he was still able to boast a front five of Bukayo Saka, Eberechi Eze, Madueke, Jesus and Martinelli.

Eze was hooked at half-time against Brentford after an underwhelming 45 minutes. And, with just one assist and no goals since his hat-trick against Tottenham in November, his form had been under the microscope.

However, here he was the architect of Arsenal’s opening two goals.

Eze played an eye-of-the-needle, no-look pass to Madueke, who ghosted in off the right flank and made no mistake with a cool first-time finish.

Eze was soon at the wheel again when he found Martinelli, who slotted past Sam Tickle.

Only five minutes had ticked on before Arsenal added to their lead.

Madueke raced past a flat-footed Morgan Fox and played in Saka. The England winger’s pull-back flicked off Jesus’ toes and a bamboozled Hunt headed past his own goalkeeper.

Wigan’s 6-1 defeat to Peterborough last weekend cost boss Ryan Lowe his job and the visiting supporters were chanting: “How s*** must you be, it’s only 3-0.”

The hymn sheet had to be revised in the 27th minute after Jesus latched on to Christian Norgaard’s long ball over the top and dinked his side’s fourth over the on-rushing Tickle.

Wigan are 22nd in League One, with six losses in their last seven, and stand-in boss Glenn Whelan might have been fearing the worst.

But his side navigated their way to the interval with the deficit still at four.

Indeed, they might have pulled one back, but Joe Taylor’s shot was expertly kept out by Kepa Arrizabalaga.

With Wolves and Tottenham to follow across the next seven days, Saka, still working his way back to full fitness following a hip problem, was replaced by Viktor Gyokeres at half-time.

And the Sweden international nearly made it five, only to see his first-time deflected effort rebound off a post, with Eze then smashing into the side-netting on the hour mark.

Tickle then got a strong left hand to Martinelli’s close-range header.

To Wigan’s credit, they avoided a Six Nations scoreline, which had looked a real possibility when Jesus scored, as the game fizzled out after an explosive opening half-an-hour.

However, it is Arteta’s men in the hat for Monday’s fifth-round draw in a campaign where they will roll into March with the Premier League, Champions League, Carabao Cup and FA Cup all still up for grabs.

Seven ways Amazon Business can make your budgets work harder in 2026

Late January marks the moment when the business year truly begins, making it the ideal time for companies of all sizes to maximise their early-year spending through smarter, business-focused purchasing with Amazon Business. Not surprisingly Amazon Business offers exceptional deals and special prices on everything your business needs during the Business Saving Event – until February 4. This is your last chance to save big on thousands of products, from office essentials to equipment upgrades, helping business leaders start the year organised, well-stocked, and ahead of the curve while freeing up valuable time to focus on serving their customers, but only until February 4.

Business-only rates and rapid delivery

Amazon Business is the online retailer’s platform for companies, retooling its familiar and intuitive shopping interface to create a business-focused experience. It helps teams stock up on core business essentials at the best possible price. Users benefit from business-only pricing available exclusively to registered Amazon Business customers, while Amazon’s rapid delivery times make it easy to plug last-minute gaps in supply.

Buying in bulk

Another way to stay fully stocked is to buy in bulk — and Amazon Business makes this flexible. You can purchase single items or pallet-sized orders of everything from stationery to cleaning supplies. Bulk buying improves budget efficiency, saves time, and comes with transparent guardrails for employees, as well as reorder lists for frequently purchased items.

Empowering teams

The beauty of Amazon’s business-specific platform is its familiar Amazon interface, making it easy for employees new to the procurement process to order essential supplies without involving business leaders. This not only saves time but empowers teams to work smarter and more efficiently.

Cost-aware purchasing and oversight

Consolidating your team into a single multi-user account gives you close oversight of spending and ensures budgets are allocated effectively. You can limit purchasing to approved items and guide team members toward approved suppliers, helping you stay on top of compliance goals.

Accessible spending data

Amazon Business accounts come with Amazon Business Analytics built in, providing instant visibility into your organisation’s purchase history. You can track spending, analyse trends, and create customised reports with intuitive visualisations, making it easier to identify savings opportunities and make data-driven buying decisions.

Simplified workflows

Amazon’s logistical expertise enables management of complex multi-address delivery preferences from a single centralised account. Delivery settings can be updated for multiple locations simultaneously, rather than individually. Combined with the platform’s unrivalled product range, this allows you to consolidate purchases across multiple suppliers into a single, streamlined procurement process, cutting down on administrative work.

Seamless integration

For companies using e-procurement and expense management systems such as Coupa, Concur Expense, or SAP Ariba, Amazon Business integrates seamlessly with over 300 platforms. VAT invoices are downloadable, and VAT-exclusive pricing is available, making it easier to incorporate spending data into decision-making processes.

Sign up for a free Amazon Business account to streamline your purchasing and take advantage of quantity discounts.

Met Office issues yellow weather warning as snow and rain to hit UK

A weather warning for ice have been issued across parts of the UK with experts warning residents to be braced for disruption.

The Met Office said that ice could develop across parts of Scotland and north-east England following a spell of rain and some hill snow during Sunday afternoon.

Temperatures are expected to fall below freezing as skies clear from the west through the evening and overnight, leading to ice forming on untreated surfaces.

The weather warning is in place from 8pm til 10am on Monday morning after a series of warnings have expired throughout the weekend. A yellow alert over snow covered parts of eastern England until 4 pm on Sunday.

The Met Office said that rain which pummelled the UK on Sunday morning would likely to turn to sleet and snow, with up to 4cm of snow expected in some areas of the Lincolnshire Wolds and parts of Norfolk and Suffolk. However, the snow was expected to turn back to rain later on in the day.

Meanwhile, the Environment Agency has urged the public to remain vigilant amid the ongoing flood risk.

There were 74 flood warnings and 162 flood alerts in place across England on Sunday morning.

In an update on Sunday afternoon, the Environment Agency said: “Ongoing impacts from groundwater are probable for parts of the south of England through the next five days.”

It added that ongoing flooding impacts are also likely from rivers across Somerset and Wiltshire, while river flooding is possible for parts of the Midlands from Sunday until Tuesday.

It warned that properties could flood and there could be travel disruption.

Rain is expected to clear in some eastern areas in the evening but heavy showers will continue through much of the night, according to the Met Office.

The snow warning for eastern England says “a spell of snow may lead to some disruption to travel”.

Met Office meteorologist Liam Eslick said temperatures during on Sunday evening shouldn’t dip below freezing overnight, meaning there isn’t expected to be too much frost in England.

Monday will see sunny spells and showers, with the risk of some hail and thunder in some areas. However, Tuesday is expected to be drier with sunny spells.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, there will be an increased risk of rain and some “perhaps some snow in the South.

Rain clearing eastern areas through the evening, but for many heavy showers will continue through much of the night. Some snow possible over the highest hills in the north.

A day of sunny spells and showers. Some of the showers will be heavy at times, with the risk of some hail and thunder. Snow showers in the far north.

Drier on Tuesday, with sunny spells. An increasing risk of rain and perhaps some hill snow on Wednesday and into Thursday in the south. Mostly dry elsewhere. Frosty nights.

Epstein survivor thought she was ‘going to die’ while being assaulted

A woman who was trafficked to Jeffrey Esptein’s private island said she thought she was going to die when he sexually abused her on a flight to the Caribbean.

Juliette Bryant, 43, said she was raped repeatedly by the pedophile financier after being recruited in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2002, when she was at university and an aspiring model.

She told Sky News that she believed her “dreams were all coming true” when she was recruited by a group of women at the age of 22, believing she would be able to “make a difference” for her family and improve their financial situation by modelling.

Juliette said she had initially been flown to New York before being told she would be travelling to the Caribbean with Epstein.

She told how the women who recruited her were waiting at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, where she boarded the private jet and was seated next to Epstein.

She said: “As the plane took off, he started forcibly touching me in between my legs, and I just freaked out and I suddenly realised – oh my God, my family aren’t going to see me again, these people might kill me’.

“I got such a fright, it was such a huge changing thing for me.

“I suddenly realised I had to be nice and be friendly, because I realised I was in great danger.”

Juliette said the women who recruited her for Epstein laughed when she was sexually assaulted on the flight.

“They saw and they just laughed,” she said. “I was really, really petrified. It really changed me, the whole thing, going through this.

“I just didn’t know what to do and I really thought that I was going to die.”

Juliette said she had “no way of getting away” once she arrived on Epstein’s private island – Little St James in the US Virgin Islands.

“They had my passport and by then we had landed on one of the Caribbean islands and then were taken on a helicopter to his island,” she said.

“There was just no way of getting away. I’m not strong enough to swim away. I wouldn’t be able to swim off there.”

She told Sky News she took more flights to Epstein’s homes in New York, Palm Beach, Paris and New Mexico.

She said she is still reckoning with the impact of his abuse.

“I look on Facebook, I see Epstein’s face. I look on X, I see Epstein’s face,” she said.

“I look at the news, there it is again. You know, there are times when it’s made me feel physically ill, to be honest, it is just constantly there and there is no way of escaping it.”

The US Justice Department has released millions of files related to the case of Epstein, shedding further light on his expansive network of high profile figures.

The latest release – expected to be the last – contains some three million pages, including 180,000 images and some 2,000 videos attached to the case. It brings the total to 3.5m documents released.

Epstein, who pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18 in 2008, died in New York in 2019 ahead of a pending trial.