Prince William ‘pressures Eugenie and Beatrice’ over Andrew’s Royal Lodge demands

Prince William “pressured” princesses Eugenie and Beatrice to encourage Andrew to leave Royal Lodge amid growing public fury over his rent-free arrangement, according to new reports.

The Prince of Wales reportedly sat down with Andrew’s daughters and threatened to “re-examine” their titles if they did not ask their father to leave the property, according to the News Agents podcast.

Prince Andrew is reported to be in “advanced talks” over leaving the 30-bed mansion after it emerged he had paid a “peppercorn rent” for the last 20 years.

It comes after reports the disgraced royal hosted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein at Royal Lodge just days before the financier’s arrest.

Epstein stayed at the Windsor mansion alongside Ghislaine Maxwell and Harvey Weinstein as part of Andrew’s daughter Beatrice’s masked ball 18th birthday celebrations in 2006, reports the BBC.

The financier was arrested by police in Florida eight days after the event.

In 2019, Andrew told BBC Newsnight he “wasn’t aware” Epstein had an arrest warrant on his head when he was invited to his daughter’s birthday celebrations.

In recent weeks, Prince Andrew has faced continuing furore over his ties to Epstein, and the publication of the posthumous memoirs by his sexual assault accuser Virginia Giuffre. Andrew strenuously denies all accusations.

Amazon announces 14,000 job cuts in continued AI push

Amazon is cutting 14,000 corporate jobs as the nation’s second-largest retailer stakes a big “bet” on artificial intelligence to replace human workers.

The job cuts, announced Tuesday, are the first wave that could affect as many as 30,000 corporate jobs – the largest layoffs in the Jeff Bezos-owned company’s history, according to Reuters and the Wall Street Journal.

In a letter to staff, senior vice president of people and technology Beth Galetti explained the company’s decision, calling AI “the most transformative technology since the internet.” She said the emphasis would remain on people taking more ownership of work, with fewer layers in the hierarchy.

“The reductions we’re sharing today are a continuation of this work to get even stronger by further reducing bureaucracy, removing layers, and shifting resources to ensure we’re investing in our biggest bets and what matters most to our customers’ current and future needs,” Galetti said in the letter.

It is unclear what the impact on Amazon’s 75,000 U.K. workforce will be, but reports in Reuters and the WSJ suggested global divisions, including human resources, operations, devices and services, and Amazon Web Services, are expected to be affected.

In late July, Amazon announced its operating income had jumped from $14.7 billion a year ago to $19.2 billion, which Galetti alluded to in the letter.

“Some may ask why we’re reducing roles when the company is performing well. Across our businesses, we’re delivering great customer experiences every day, innovating at a rapid rate, and producing strong business results. What we need to remember is that the world is changing quickly,” Galetti said.

Intelligence analyst Amanda Goodall criticized the tone of Galetti’s letter, which was titled “Staying nimble and continuing to strengthen our organizations.”

“Dontcha just love these buzzwords they come up with to make it not feel so bad?” Goodall said in a post on X.

The cuts will impact almost a tenth of the company’s roughly 350,000 corporate workforce. Amazon employs more than 1.5 million staff in total, with the majority in warehouse roles around the world.

CEO Andy Jassy had previously cautioned staff that some roles within the company could be replaced by AI.

“As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done,” Jassy said in June. “We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs.”

Amazon has been trimming roles across the business in recent years, with cuts affecting divisions such as devices, communications and podcasting.

AI is already replacing thousands of jobs each month as the U.S. job market struggles amid global trade uncertainty, according to an August report.

Additional reporting by agencies

Zelensky says Ukraine ready for peace talks anywhere except Russia and Belarus

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has said that he is ready for peace talks to end the war in Ukraine anywhere except Russia and Belarus.

In comments to reporters released on Tuesday, Zelensky said he would not withdraw Ukrainian troops from additional territory first as Moscow has demanded.

“It’s absolutely clear that we’re approaching diplomacy only from the position where we currently stand. We will not take any steps back and leave one part of our state or another,” Zelensky said.

“And the important result is that the American side finally made this a public signal: President Trump came out with such a message.”

His comments came after Donald Trump warned Vladimir Putin that the US “has a nuclear submarine off your shore” as he condemned a Russian nuclear-capable cruise missile test as “inappropriate”.

Putin said Russia had successfully tested its Burevestnik cruise missile, a weapon Moscow says can pierce any defence shield, in a move that has infuriated Washington. Moscow said the Burevestnik had flown for 14,000km.

Why Justin Trudeau dating Katy Perry makes more sense than you think

Let’s call it a PDF. A Post Divorce Flex. A celebrity marriage breaks down, one partner moves out, lawyers are called in, stuff and real estate gets divided, co-parenting strategies are mapped out and access to dogs is agreed on. From then on, it’s a race to see who can date the hottest, most glamorous and famous person first. A new, younger and shinier partner to be seen out and about with – essentially flexing that newfound freedom with a happy confidence that says, “I’ve moved on!”

But as the former Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau makes it official with pop star Katy Perry, by holding hands after a date at the Crazy Horse Cabaret in Paris for her birthday, you have to ask, who’s flexing who exactly?

Is it multi-platinum-selling “Queen of Camp” hitmaker Katy, 41 – engaged to actor Orlando Bloom for five years, mother to his daughter Daisy Dove Bloom, and said to be worth around half a billion dollars (American $, not Canadian, obvs) – who is showing offJustin T? “Look at me! I used to be engaged to Legolas from fictional Middle-earth; now I’m dating a man who was a real world leader!”

Or is it the recently separated, now former Canadian prime minister Trudeau – married for 18 years to Sophie Gregoire, and a father to three children – who is flexing Katy like smooth maple syrup in his tight black T-shirt? “I was in a safe but dull, grown-up marriage to a first lady; now I’m walking out with a hot California pop-star girl… who kisses other girls!”

Perry and Trudeau first began fuelling dating rumours in July, when the pair were photographed out in Montreal. Trudeau then attended the singer’s Lifetimes Tour stop in the city two days later. Earlier this month, the “Firework” singer and her new beau were photographed on a yacht in Santa Barbara, California. And what did they talk about? Perhaps the common ground of parallel career slumps was something to bond over, politician and pop star having both endured recent, high-profile, career lows in 2025.

This was the year that super-liberal golden boy Trudeau turned into an unpopular and unvoteable political pariah, forced to resign as leader at the will of his own party. Meanwhile, Perry’s recent 143 album sold dismally, and her clunky live performances were widely ridiculed on social media… not to mention the cringey optics of that Jeff Bezos-funded farrago into outer space. So maybe the TruPerry/J-Kat union makes sense, as two currently un-hot celebrities making one battleworn but hyper-hot (and age-appropriate) couple?

Then again, the whole post-split rebound situation may all be part of a classic midlife crisis playbook that every newly single man in his fifties (yes, even this writer) falls into. And that particular script is basically a set of dumb, free and single lifestyle choices that revolve around showing off, trying out “new things”, indulging in frequent and unnecessary (and undignified) displays of buffness, and making questionable choices that are perhaps 10 or 15 years too young for a 53-year-old man.

The signs are there that this is where the J-Kat, TruPerry coupling is at. It’s not so much a match made in heaven as a midlife meltdown in motion. With Trudeau, it began with getting a Canadian Haida Raven tattoo on his 40th birthday, shown off on a muscly shoulder during a televised charity boxing match (fighting against Canadian senator Patrick Brazeau – Trudeau won, obvs).

Not long after the split from Gregoire, we were served shirtless pap shots of JT and KP canoodling on a yacht. And have you noticed how single Justin is now rocking that sartorial mullet of a combo – suits with trainers? More specifically, green and orange Adidas Gazelles with a Ted Baker whistle, to meet King Charles earlier this year.

While in power (and in wedlock), the PM used to travel around Ottawa in a series of boring Chevrolet Suburban people-movers. Nowadays, Trudeau’s ride of choice is the ultimate single man’s machine – a two-seater, pop-video-worthy 1960 Mercedes Benz 300SL roadster, inherited from his father. A trip to Coachella or the Burning Man festival must surely be on the TruPerry ’26 schedule.

This is the silly, regrettable stuff that happens when apparently sensible middle-aged people split up. Usually, the sort of amicable and respectful uncoupling one might hope for, prioritising minimal emotional harm and reframing the breakup not as a failure, but as a transition to a new life, does not play out.

It’s more of a sprint to the apps, and the one who gets spotted out with the fittest, cleverest, best-looking date first, wins. Reader, I did this too. Married for 20 years then divorced at 50, I was a PDF-ing cliche. Instead of a four-million-dollar Merc, a convertible Saab. No body ink, but definitely a few more buttons undone on my shirts, and some marked post-divorce weight loss (caused more by stress than by diet and gym visits). Best of all? A gazelle-legged fashion model on my arm at a high-profile media event. Was I ever so young and foolish?

Of course, the Trudeau boys have stellar form here. Justin’s dad, his predecessor as Canadian PM, aka “Swinging Pierre” and “Trendy Trudeau”, was an A-list modeliser and flexer. Trudeau senior dated Barbra Streisand, Superman actress Margot Kidder, and even Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall. “There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation,” he once said.

In 1991, following the breakdown of his 13-year marriage to wife Margaret Trudeau, Pierre Trudeau fathered a daughter with Deborah Coyne, a lawyer who ran for leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada in a 2013 election. Coyne came in fifth, soundly beaten by one Justin Trudeau… who won.

Pierre Trudeau, however, never wore Adidas Gazelle sneakers with a suit – the clearest sign yet that his son may not be cut from the same cloth, however much he thinks he is.

Nigel Farage has a secret weapon in his bid for No 10 – and he’s yet to truly use it

Danny Kruger, the MP who recently defected from the Conservatives to Reform, is billed as head of his new party’s “preparing for government” unit. He held a news conference today at which he declared confidently: “We will be ready.”

He promised that if Nigel Farage becomes prime minister at the next election, “we will have legislation drafted and ready to go”. Those with memories longer than that of a goldfish will remember similar talk from Keir Starmer before the last election. There was talk of legislating on day one; amended to “in the first 100 days” and then to “a bill will be published in the first 100 days”. The flagship bill on renters’ rights has only just become law after 15 months and the Employment Rights Bill is still in the House of Lords.

So why should we believe that Reform would do any better when it doesn’t have any policies and, if it forms a government, it will have a cabinet made up mostly of people who have not been MPs before, let alone ministers or even shadow ministers?

When I say Reform doesn’t have any policies, I mean that Farage a week ago ditched the tax and spending promises on which he fought the last election. That was progress of sorts, because those were promises of tax cuts and spending cuts with lower than Liz Truss levels of credibility.

But what have they been replaced with? Mere words. Farage said: “At the next election, we will present a rigorous and fully costed manifesto. Reform will never borrow to spend, as Labour and the Tories have done for so long; instead, we will ensure savings are made before implementing tax cuts. I will have more to say on all this in the coming weeks.”

But he didn’t have more to say this week, and nor did Kruger, beyond a vague reference to cutting the civil service “headcount” and the vacuous observation that the Treasury employed 26 officials at the time of Lloyd George’s People’s Budget in 1910.

To be fair, Reform does have a policy on the other central issue of British politics, namely stopping the boats. It published a short document two months ago called “Operation Restoring Justice” that proposed to detain and deport everyone arriving by small boat. Unfortunately, it didn’t say in which “remote” places these people would be held, or to where they would be deported, given that no country is prepared to receive most of them.

Farage’s credibility is further undermined by his unwillingness to say who would deliver his policies, such as they are. He refuses to answer questions about who would be chancellor in his government, although Richard Tice, the party’s deputy leader, and Zia Yusuf, the former party chair, both think they know who it should be. Last week Farage carried out an incomprehensible reshuffle, announcing that Yusuf was being replaced by Tice as head of the party’s Doge unit. This is the unit, with considerably fewer staff than Lloyd George’s Treasury, that is supposed to be making big savings in Reform-controlled local councils.

And – talking of Reform councils – five Kent county councillors were expelled yesterday for “bringing the party into disrepute”, which hardly suggests that the party there was “ready” for the responsibilities of office.

So, yes, there are many good reasons to mock Reform’s plans for government. But these may not be sufficient to prevent people voting for Farage to be prime minister when the time comes.

For one thing, I think Farage is serious about learning from his mistakes, and will do what he can to hold the party together while trying to keep his distance from the more toxic elements that anti-immigration parties are bound to attract.

For another, he will be reinforced by Tory defectors. If Reform continues to look set to overtake the Tories as the general election approaches, the trickle may become a flood. In which case the prospect of Robert Jenrick or Katie Lam as home secretary in a Reform government would add to Farage’s credibility.

Finally, I think that Farage’s opponents are complacent about the threat. As Kruger said today, people voted for change in 2019 and 2024, and they didn’t get it. Starmer is not just unpopular, he is hated. The Labour Party’s reputation is not much better, as today’s record low in a YouGov poll suggests.

At the last election, some of us tried to point out that Labour was not ready for government, but a lot of voters were desperate to turn the Tories out and said to themselves that Labour “couldn’t be any worse”. Next time many of them will want Labour out but will not be ready to give the Tories another chance – and they will dismiss attempts to warn them about Farage’s governing capability by saying he “couldn’t be any worse”.

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Reform plans to ‘dramatically’ cut civil service numbers in government

Reform plans to “dramatically” cut the number of civil servants if they win the next election, the party has said, despite the lack of government experience within the party.

Danny Kruger, who defected from the Tories last month, told a Westminster press conference that the party would not renew the leases on a number of government buildings, including those housing the Home Office and the Department for Transport.

He promised that the growth of the service in recent years will be “reversed” and pledged a “more concentrated government machine”, pledging to overhaul the code that governs Whitehall work.

The East Wiltshire MP, who defected to Mr Farage’s party in September, was assigned the role of leading Reform’s preparations for government.

The MP, who served as a shadow minister but has never held a cabinet role, told the press conference: “If we win the election we will have legislation drafted and ready to go, a new ministerial code and civil service code drafted, orders in council prepared, people lined up for key appointments, and it will all start on day one.”

He said that they were putting the “civil service on notice that under a Reform government we expect the headcount to fall dramatically”.

He also said that his party “don’t come with a chainsaw or a wrecking ball”, adding: “We respect the institutions of the country, the armed forces, the police, the church, the judiciary and we respect the professionalism and expertise of the people who work in them, so long as those people respect in their turn the right of parliament, and of ministers to make the rules they work by.”

Mr Kruger highlighted six buildings currently occupied by government departments where Reform would not plan on renewing the lease.

They included buildings on Marsham Street, Horseferry Road and Victoria Street, which house the Home Office, the Department for Transport and the Department of Health and Social Care respectively.

Asked by The Independent whether the reduction in office space would mean provision for civil servants to work from home, Mr Kruger said that the party is “against” the idea of work from home, believing it to be bad for productivity and staff wellbeing, but that they are confident that a reduction in headcount means they will be able to do without those buildings.

Mr Kruger was the first sitting Conservative MP to switch to Reform, and described the move at the time as “personally painful”, and described his former party as “over”.

“We have had a year of stasis and drift,” he said.

“And the sham unity that comes from not doing anything bold or difficult or controversial and the result is in the polls.”

Asked whether he thought he had made the right decision in his defection, the MP said on Tuesday: “I’ve been hugely inspired by the people I’ve met in Reform. This is a serious party taking its job seriously, and I’m very encouraged by that.”

Addressing the racism row which has embroiled the party after its MP Sarah Pochin said the sight of Black and Brown people in adverts “drives me mad”, Mr Kruger said every party is “going to have its bad days in the media”.

But he insisted Reform was seeing a “continued rise in popular support” and was setting its plans out in public “so that nobody can claim they were blindsided when we get into power”.

Reform continued to cement their lead in the polls with new figures from YouGov released on Tuesday.

Data indicated that Reform are 10 points ahead with 27 per cent of the public saying that they would back the party if there were a general election tomorrow.

Labour and the Conservatives are neck and neck on 17 per cent each, with the Greens and the Liberal Democrats not far behind on 16 per cent and 15 per cent respectively.

One dead and two injured in ‘senseless’ Uxbridge triple stabbing

One person has been arrested after a man was stabbed to death and two others, including a 14-year-old boy, were injured in west London.

Police and ambulance crews were called to Midhurst Gardens in Uxbridge where the three victims were stabbed.

A 49-year-old man was treated at the scene but died.

Another man, aged 45, suffered life-changing injuries, while the teenager’s injuries were not life-threatening or changing.

The Metropolitan Police said a 22-year-old man, who is an Afghan national, was arrested at the scene on suspicion of murder and attempted murder.

Chief Superintendent Jill Horsfall said: “This was a shocking and senseless act of violence that has left one man dead and two others injured.

“Our thoughts are with the victim’s family and friends at this unimaginably difficult time.

“The incident will have understandably caused concern to the local community. I have deployed multiple officers to the local area, they will be here throughout the week to provide reassurance while detectives work intensely to piece together the circumstances.

“I understand that there has been a lot of speculation online following on from this incident. We ask that you rely on us for information, and that you do not share sensitive footage.

“If anyone saw or has any information about the incident, then please come forward to police. We appreciate any information that you may have.

“There will be a crime scene and a heavy police presence within the area over the next few days, I thank residents for their patience.”

Anyone with information can call police on 101 quoting the reference 5129/27OCT, or to remain anonymous contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555111 or online.