Author: Darren Smith

A man who repeatedly raped a teenage girl in the early 1990s has been jailed for eight and a half years after the victim came forward decades later and reported her ordeal to police. Craig Haines, now 53, carried out the attacks between December 1991 and April 1992 at his home address in Dale Road, Rochester, when he was 18 years old. On occasions he also threatened the victim with violence. Haines was placed on the sex offenders register for life following his sentencing at Southwark Crown Court on 11 June. When first interviewed by officers, Haines initially denied even…

A major incident was declared after a massive fire ripped through a recycling plant in Widnes, Cheshire, sending towering plumes of black smoke into the sky as 450 tonnes of cardboard went up in flames during the sweltering heatwave. Twenty-eight fire engines attended the blaze at Everite Road on Monday evening, with additional support called in from Lancashire and Greater Manchester as crews battled through the night to bring the inferno under control. Drone footage circulating online showed huge fireballs tearing through the single-storey building, which was at risk of structural collapse by 5.30pm as firefighters urged residents and businesses…

A rapidly spreading wildfire has burned through 10,000 acres in Beaver County, Utah in a matter of hours, forcing the mandatory evacuation of multiple communities as the state battles several major fires simultaneously across its central region. The Cottonwood Fire was first reported at 3.36pm on Monday after sparking near milepost 5 on State Route 153, before spreading to Beaver Mountain almost directly east of the town. It quickly grew to 10,000 acres by 10.45pm, according to Utah Fire Info. The fire started in the Fishlake National Forest on the Beaver Ranger District near Cottonwood Campground, off Highway 153. All…

France has shut down a nuclear reactor near Toulouse after cooling water drawn from a nearby river became too warm to use safely, as a catastrophic “heat dome” baking western Europe has killed dozens of people in swimming accidents, left two toddlers dead in a car, and pushed temperatures toward 46C in parts of the continent. The Golfech nuclear plant, cooled by the Garonne river, was taken offline after the water exceeded the safe temperature threshold of 28C. The shutdown adds an energy crisis dimension to a public health emergency that French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said has claimed 40…

Three men have been charged with the murder of an 18-year-old who was allegedly stabbed on a residential street before being bundled into a car and driven to a hospital where he was left outside to die, as tributes pour in describing him as a devoted son and brother. Kyeron Wheeler was found outside Poole Hospital in Dorset at 2.13am on Friday, having apparently been driven approximately a mile from where he was attacked. He died shortly after being found. Three men — Dluwadamilare Aremu, 22, a Nigerian national, Trevor Gonzo, 22, and Callum Roberts, 20 — have been charged…

NATO is bracing for a new era of warfare in which thousands of artificial intelligence-controlled drones operate as a single deadly unit, with a senior alliance general warning the technology could rival nuclear weapons in destructive power and reshape global military deterrence within five years. Major-General Constantin-Adrian Ciolponea, who represents NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation in Europe, told The Times that the defence bloc must urgently adapt to what he described as “swarm-type attacks” on a massive scale. “The next stage of evolution for drones will be swarm-type attacks when you don’t have one or two, ten or twenty —…

A mother told police she had “forgotten her children” while out shopping after her two young sons were found dead in a car parked in their grandmother’s garden during France’s devastating heatwave, with temperatures approaching 40C when the boys suffered fatal cardiac arrests. The brothers, aged two and four, were discovered by firefighters in Vaucluse, in southern France, after emergency services received a call at around 1.20pm on Monday. A police source told French newspaper Le Parisien that the 33-year-old mother said she had forgotten the children while she had been out shopping. Prosecutors had initially suggested the boys may…

South Yorkshire Police has launched an internal investigation after footage emerged showing officers pointing a taser and swinging batons at a group of teenage girls during a street confrontation in Rotherham, with the force itself describing the scenes as “appearing nothing short of shocking.” The video, which was posted to Facebook by a mother who said her daughter was among the girls involved, shows a dramatic altercation on what appears to be a residential street on Saturday evening. Officers in high-visibility jackets can be seen ordering the group to disperse and accusing them of breaching the peace. The situation escalates…

Thunderstorms, lightning and flash flooding caused widespread chaos across Britain overnight and into Monday morning, shutting parts of the London Underground, cancelling trains and setting houses ablaze — just hours before the country braces for what could become its hottest June day on record. London was hit by around 3,000 lightning strikes overnight as severe storms swept across southern England. The London Fire Brigade responded to approximately 400 calls, including two house fires believed to have been triggered by lightning strikes and a series of flooded homes. Large parts of the South West were also battered by the storms, with…

Ukraine has struck a thermal power plant and major fuel infrastructure across Russian-occupied Crimea, knocking out electricity to large parts of the peninsula and triggering a civilian fuel ban as Kyiv’s campaign to turn Crimea into an isolated “island” intensifies. Electricity went out in Feodosia, Kerch, Sevastopol and several other areas of occupied Crimea following a series of overnight drone and missile strikes. The Tavriiska thermal power plant sustained damage in the attack, with a burned-out tank visible on the station’s premises, a charred and deformed façade on a nearby building, and a hole recorded in the wall of the…