Author: Darren Smith

The taxi driver who dropped Southport killer Axel Rudakubana at the children’s dance class where he murdered three girls, then waited 50 minutes before calling emergency services, has been stripped of his taxi licence by Sefton Council. Gary Poland, 56, drove away from Hart Space dance studio on 29 July 2024 after hearing what he believed were gunshots and seeing children fleeing the building in terror — but rather than dialling 999, he picked up another fare and returned home first. By the time he called emergency services, Alice Da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe,…

Around 100 firefighters and 15 fire engines have been deployed to a major warehouse fire on an industrial estate in Tottenham, with the London Fire Brigade urging local residents to keep their windows and doors shut due to a significant smoke plume rising over the area. The blaze broke out on Watermead Way on the A1055, on the border of Tottenham and Edmonton in north London. The London Fire Brigade confirmed the scale of the response, which represents one of the larger deployments seen in the capital in recent months. Residents and workers in the surrounding area have been advised…

Cristiano Ronaldo will retire from international football after the 2026 World Cup, his sister Kátia Aveiro has confirmed, telling fans to “say goodbye” to the 41-year-old’s Portugal career. Speaking to Sport TV outside Toronto Stadium just hours before Portugal’s round of 32 clash with Croatia, Aveiro said she had it from a reliable source that the tournament would be Ronaldo’s final appearance with the national team. “From the information I have, they can say goodbye,” she said. “Not today, but I believe this is the farewell. I’m talking about the national team. From a reliable source, it’s the ‘last dance’,…

In an exclusive interview with Britannia Daily, German Green MEP Jutta Paulus says many Albanians feel they are watching their homeland “sold off to billionaires”, explains why she opposed Albania’s Protected Areas Law amendments and discusses what the controversy could mean for the country’s EU ambitions. ‘Watching Their Homeland Sold Off To Billionaires’ A senior Member of the European Parliament has said many Albanians feel they are watching their homeland “sold off to billionaires”, arguing that, in her view, the country’s environmental protests have evolved into a broader movement centred on democracy, the rule of law and corruption. Jutta Paulus,…

Two people climbed to the summit of the Empire State Building in New York on Wednesday afternoon, unfurled a pro-peace banner, and appeared to get engaged at the top of one of the world’s most recognisable skyscrapers in one of the most surreal public stunts the city has seen in years. The pair, a man and a woman wearing dark outfits and masks, displayed a black flag with white lettering reading “When the power of love beats the love of power, the world knows peace” as NBC New York helicopters circled overhead capturing the extraordinary scenes. In a moment that…

Twenty-five inflatable boats destined for people smuggling gangs operating in the English Channel have been intercepted by Bulgarian customs officers in two separate seizures, in a joint operation involving the National Crime Agency and Home Office intelligence teams. The first seizure took place on Wednesday 24 June, when five boats were found in an HGV attempting to cross into Bulgaria at the Lesovo border crossing. Intelligence shared by the NCA and Home Office International Operations with Bulgarian partners through the NCA’s international network led to the discovery. Two days later, on Friday 26 June, a further 20 boats were found…

Scientists have detected and observed one of the most powerful explosions in the universe within just four minutes of it occurring, setting a record for the speed at which such events have been captured at specific wavelengths and opening a new window into the physics of some of the cosmos’s most violent phenomena. The explosion, a gamma-ray burst — the brightest type of explosion known to exist in the universe — was detected on 26 January 2026 by the Submillimeter Array observatory on Maunakea, Hawaii. Gamma-ray bursts are immense flashes of energy generated by jets fired across space, typically launched…

The Large Hadron Collider, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, has been switched off by CERN after running its final experiment, entering a four-year shutdown period ahead of a £1.29 billion upgrade that scientists say will transform its capabilities and potentially unlock some of the deepest secrets of the universe. The LHC, which has been operating since 2008, is not being decommissioned. It will return in 2030 as the High-Luminosity LHC, known as HiLumi LHC, having been rebuilt to be ten times more luminous and capable of generating around 100 times more data per run. CERN expects the upgrade to…

The family of the three-year-old boy who was thrown into a crocodile enclosure at a Cambridgeshire zoo have broken their silence to thank the staff who rescued their son, as he remains in hospital in a stable condition more than two weeks after the incident. The boy was seriously injured at Johnsons of Old Hurst, near Huntingdon, on 18 June, when a man threw him into the enclosure. Zoo owner’s wife Tracey Johnson was among those who leapt in to help pull the child to safety. In a statement, the family said: “We would like to thank the staff at…

The woman who lost both legs in the Monaco bomb blast that targeted Ukrainian oligarch Vadim Ermolaev was not his wife but his long-term mistress, with whom he has a 13-year-old son who was also wounded in the explosion, according to reports from Ukrainian sources. Anna Nasobina, 46, who describes herself as London-based, is fighting for her life in a serious condition after the shrapnel bomb detonated at the entrance to a residential building on Rue Révérend-Père-Louis-Frolla on the evening of 29 June. Initial reports had identified the injured woman as Ermolaev’s wife, also named Anna, but Ukrainian state media…