A Russian mum-of-three with minimal political experience admits she is ‘afraid’ as she launches a campaign to oust Vladimir Putin.

Ekaterina Duntsova, 40, is gaining momentum for her nomination to fight in the 2024 presidential election.

The Siberian-born lawyer and journalist wants to kick out the president after years in power as elections loom in Russia next year.

‘Why did I make this decision? I love our country, I want Russia to be a thriving democratic and peaceful state. But right now our country is moving in a completely different direction,’ said she said.

‘I understand that many right now want to wait it out…but we need to act…

‘Let’s at least try! Let’s try to win this “election”!’

Ekaterina’s policies include a cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, democratic reforms and the release of political prisoners.

She believes voters are ready to rebel against the current autocracy.

She claims that her age, compared to Putin, 71, along with her gender and lack of political experience may count in her favour.

But Ekaterina is also aware that presidential elections are routinely rigged so the dictator virtually cannot lose.

She has even been forced to deny that she is an officially sanctioned ‘spoiler candidate’.

This is a tactic used by the Kremlin to attract votes from, for example, liberally minded voters to nominees who will be prevented from succeeding.

‘I am definitely not a spoiler,’ she said.

‘This was my decision and it will be executed up to the point of my abilities.’

The most obvious pro-democracy, anti-war candidates who have exposed ‘endemic corruption’ under Putin are jailed on bogus convictions – like opposition leader Alexei Navalny – or exiled.

Putin, who has held continuous positions of the highest authority since 1999, has been subject to dozens of rumours about his health in recent years.

The most recent claims include that he had suffered heart problems and was employing body doubles to appear in the public eye.

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Announcing her candidacy, Ekaterina said: ‘The friends with whom I discussed my decision asked me: “Do you seriously believe that in modern Russia something can be changed through these elections?

‘”Do you believe that you will be admitted and registered as a candidate?”

‘”Aren’t you afraid that you will be imprisoned?”

‘Of course, I have no illusions about these “elections”, and, like any normal person, I am afraid.

‘But I have hope that Russia can be changed democratically.’

A sign of Kremlin concern is that she was already ordered to appear before prosecutors and underwent an interrogation on her views on Putin’s war against Ukraine.

She cited her constitutional right not to answer but signed a statement verifying she is the owner of her social media account.

She said she is backed by her three children, Maria, 19, Sophia, 16, and Sylvester, 10, who all live with her in Rzhev, a backwater town in Tver region on the rail line between Moscow and Latvian capital Riga.

She was formerly on the local council in her town, and coordinates a group searching for missing children and adults.

She is gathering the 300,000 signatures she needs to register her candidacy and has had expressions of support from all around Russia.

Ekaterina must also hold a meeting of 500 close supporters – which she vows to do in Moscow.

Political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann said: ‘This is a candidate with a clear anti-war stance.

‘Without reservations, without ambiguities… and a woman, which, as we know from numerous sociological results, rather impresses than disgusts the voter…

‘Some kind of spontaneous political activity is happening, it has not yet died in Russia, despite all the unfavourable conditions.’

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It is accused of carrying out poor investigations into crimes particularly those of sex offenders, leading to poor results for victims.

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Heart-melting footage has revealed how an adorable puppy learned how to walk and wag his tail again after becoming paraplegic in a freak accident.

Sussex spaniel Elton has proved new dogs can learn old tricks by making a remarkable recovery after he fell off a 50cm wall and landed on his back.

Eleven-week-old Elton was rushed to the vets who told distraught owner, Philippa Gascoyne, that he had severely bruised his spinal cord and may never walk again.

But the plucky puppy defied expectations and is now back on his paws again.

Elton was admitted to Willows Veterinary Centre and Referral Service in Solihull, West Midlands, for intensive physiotherapy sessions.

He underwent daily physiotherapy sessions and laser therapy to stimulate the muscles in his back and tail.

After just two weeks, he was well enough to return home to Philippa – and take on a starring role in Channel 5 show, The Dog Hospital, alongside master dog trainer, Graeme Hall, known as the ‘Dogfather’.

Recalling the moment he plunged off the wall, Philippa, from Ashbourne in Derbyshire, said: ‘It was awful, especially as I was only two metres from him when it happened.

‘Elton just jumped off a small wall that borders the garden path and you can’t understand how such a small fall can cause such horrific injuries.

‘It destroyed me inside to know I had not been able to prevent it happening.

‘He was squealing on the floor. I tried to get him to stand up but there was nothing in his back legs, no movement at all and not even a wag of his tail.’

Veterinary physiotherapist Holly Finelli said: ‘Elton was completely paraplegic when he came to us.

‘He had no movement of his back legs or tail and we were not sure whether he would regain movement again.

The fact he was a such a young puppy added to the challenge as he was very playful and couldn’t concentrate on a particular activity for long.

‘We soon found food was the way to his heart! This enabled a slightly longer concentration time to perform the physiotherapy.’

Elton has now regained full mobility and was discharged from the care of Willows after six months.

Philippa added: ‘To have him back on his legs means more than you can imagine. I’m so happy and I can’t thank Holly and Willows enough.’

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The UK is set to see its coldest night of the year this week, with some areas dipping as low as -5°C in an arctic blast.

The Met Office temperatures will drop to -5°C in Scotland and -4°C in the midlands on Saturday night, with day time figures to say in the single digits.

The south coast will also see low temperatures, with some areas reaching lows of -3°C.

They added a widespread frost is likely on Friday and Saturday as arctic air sweeps across the country.

‘Nagging winds’ will hit the North East of the UK, which are forecast to whip up high waves and pose challenged to lorries over the weekend.

A yellow warning has been posted for the Shetland archipelago, where gusts could reach 60mph between 10pm and 6am over the next 24 hours.

A Met Office spokesman said the cold and variable weather is to be expected at this time of year, though the UK has historically had the first frosts in October.

He said: ‘We can see there’s big swings in temperatures, all it takes is a quick change from a southern wind into a north wind to have that change.

‘It’s not unusual to see these changes.’

The Met Office said sleet and snow may fall in the north of Scotland and on peaks above 400 metres (1,312ft) high.

But Saturday is set to be dry – although with a ‘cold feeling’.

The Met Office said: ‘After a cold frosty start, it will be a mainly dry day with light winds and plenty of sunny spells.’

On Sunday, temperatures are set to begin to rise again with some showers possible.

‘A frosty start, then turning cloudier and less cold on Sunday with some rain possible,’ forecasters said.

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Kim Jong-un celebrated in style with his daughter at a banquet following a successful spy satellite launch.

The trench coat wearing dictator was joined by his daughter who donned a space agency t-shirt to celebrate the good news for North Korea.

Kim Jong-un was seen clapping and grinning away, while his daughter Kim Ju-ae who is believed to be aged 10 appeared more reserved with her expression.

In traditional North Korean style, the launch was blasted across state media to the country’s delight.

Scores of technicians from the National Aerospace Technology Administration joined Kim’s daughter in sporting the blue and red NATA t-shirts.

But interestingly Kim did not opt for one and instead wore his classic black trench coat.

He was also spotted celebrating the success with young scientists – a slight change from surrounding himself with North Korea’s senior cadres, top military officials and soldiers.

Earlier in the week Kim stunned with a light brown coat as he attended the launch of a spy satellite.

KCNA state news agency said North Korea has a fair few reasons to do this. ‘Strengthening its self-defensive capabilities’ and ‘defiantly ramping up war preparedness’ in the face of ‘the enemies’ dangerous military moves’ being among them.

Kim casually watched the ‘successful’ rocket liftoff that came after two failed attempts to launch spy satellites this year.

He has also increasingly started taking his daughter to missile launches for some apparent work experience.

Like her dad she’s quite the style icon after she was spotted wearing a £1,950 Christian Dior jacket in March.

She could be seen wearing the plush patterned hoodie as she watched the launch of the Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile at Pyongyang International Airport on March 16.

She only appeared in public for the first time last November – at a massive ballistic missile launch, of course.

She was, for a time, simply known as Kim’s ‘beloved daughter’, though some see her sudden presence in the public eye as a sign she’s his heir-apparent.

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Decades after they were wiped out by Soviet hunters, blue whales are making a return to the crystal clear waters of the Seychelles.

Researchers spent a year recording beneath the waves to detect the whales after filmmakers caught sight of them in 2021, and found they could be breeding in the area.

Blue whales are the largest animal to have ever lived on Earth, growing up to 30m in length and weighing up to 150 tons. Once prolific in the Indian Ocean and beyond, sustained hunting in the 20th century resulted in more than 340,000 being killed.

The species is now classified as endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

However, numbers are increasing following a near worldwide ban on whaling, and their return to the Seychelles has been described as a ‘conservation win’ by the team, who published their findings in the journal Endangered Species Research.

‘It turns out if you stop killing animals on mass scales and you give them a chance to rebound, they can recover,’ said Dr Kate Stafford, one of the lead investigators.

Speaking to the BBC, she added: ‘We want to know where they are coming back, and knowing there’s a population around the Seychelles is incredibly exciting.’

Populations around the tropical islands were particularly targeted in the early decades of last century by Soviet whalers on their way to and from the Antarctic.

To determine whether the magnificent species had returned to the region, Dr Stafford and the team spent a month surveying the waters and listening to an underwater microphone for signs of them. 

Unfortunately, there were none.

‘We heard remarkable things – the tapping of sperm whales thousands of feet down and dolphins echolocating and communicating, but sadly no blue whales,’ said wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson, speaking to BBC News.

However, the team had also planted a sound trap, which recorded every 15 minutes for a year. Within the masses of audio data were the loud and low sounds of blue whales, mainly during March and April.

‘This means the Seychelles could be really important for blue whales,’ said Dr Stafford. ‘They sing during the breeding season and we think it’s probably the males who are singing, based on what we know about other whales.

‘So there’s also potential that the Seychelles is a breeding area or a nursery area.’

However, the song of the blue whale, despite being the loudest in nature, is inaudible to humans. 

Although reaching up to 188 decibels, equivalent to a jet engine, the frequency is so low it is beyond the range of human hearing.

What humans can hear are the whales’ ‘harmonics’, higher frequency sounds emitted when they sing.

‘It’s this really low, deep, consistent pulse,’ said Mr Watson.

‘When I recorded blue whales in Mexico, that was what was resonating in my headphones.’

The recordings even allowed the team to see which population was visiting the Seychelles, identifying them as a group normally found in the northern Indian Ocean.

The Seychelles is just one area in which blue whales are making a return. In recent years they have returned to the waters around South Georgia, and in 2021 they were spotted off Spain’s Atlantic coast for the first time in more than 40 years.

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A couple say they are exhausted and feel miserable after spending the last eight years receiving incorrect Boots deliveries.

Martin and Brenda Tizzard, from Walton, Liverpool, share a similar address with a local Boots store and say they have lost count of how many parcels are wrongfully delivered to their home.

The frequent deliveries have made it a routine for the husband and wife to walk up the road to drop off deliveries.

Martin said: ‘The amount of times we have to go over to that Boots we might as well be unpaid workers.

‘These boxes are big and god knows what’s in them. I think some of these deliveries could be worth a lot of money.’

The couple’s torture began when new shopping units opened in 2015 on their street.

‘It was a big event when the Boots opened. The Mayor at the time came over to open them,’ Martin said.

‘We’ve lived here for 16 years this situation with deliveries from Boots has made it a nightmare.’

The 68-year-old believes the issue is due to Boots having a similar address to his own and the close proximity of the store and his home.

Google Maps also says the Boots store is Martin and Brenda’s home.

Delivery drivers go ‘name blind’ and just see the address rather than who it is addressed to.

Martin said: ‘I tell the drivers they’ve got the wrong address and they just say “all I see is the number”.’

The mix-up isn’t isolated to just one particular delivery company either.

He said: ‘I think there’s about five or six delivery companies that have wrongly delivered it could be more it’s hard tell when they deliver in white vans.’

While Martin can see the funny side of the couple’s predicament it still causes a lot of trouble for them.

He said: ‘My wife has got arthritis and it does her no good to keep hobbling over the road to drop stuff off. I’m really at my wits end now.’

He also acknowledges the seriousness associated with the wrongful delivery of these parcels.

‘I don’t know how people sleep at night knowing these parcels could end up in the wrong hands,’ he said.

Martin has attempted to solve the issue with Boots but has so far been unsuccessful.

He said: ‘When I go into the shop they just shrug their shoulders. I feel like we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.

‘I’ve never been in touch with the delivery companies because there’s no way of contacting them and a lot of them drive white vans. I’m often never sure where the deliveries are coming from.’

Boots have been contacted for comment.

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A pair of elderly thieves may have been in for a shock after pinching a businessman’s shopping from the back of his car.

Ian Russell said an ‘old couple’ were seen taking his carrier bags out of the boot in the car park of the Crown pub in Bridgnorth, Shropshire last weekend.

But the Shropshire Star reported the bags simply contained an extra large box of medicine used to help in the recovery from diarrhoea.

Ian, a managing director at building supplier R&B, wrote on Facebook: ‘To the old couple seen stealing my shopping bags from rear of my vehicle at 5pm tonight [Saturday] on the Crown car park.

‘I sincerely hope that you need the large box of Diarolite more than me.’

The couple now appear to be on the run.

Thieves have also made off with other unusual items this year.

Some people managed to swipe an eight-foot-tall gorilla statue from a garden centre in Scotland in March, in what appeared to be a targeted attack.

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Wearing a ‘Bring Gary Home’ badge, owner Andrew Scott said the statue ‘brought a lot of joy’ to customers and was ‘an excellent reference point’ to delivery drivers.

‘We ask that you keep a lookout for Gary in the hope that he is returned safe and sound to his family,’ he added.

One man is now known as ‘Captain Underpants’ after chasing a thief down the road in just his underpants in the freezing cold two Decembers ago.

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A blast of cold arctic air is likely to sweep the UK this week, bringing the possibility of snow in some areas, weather forecasters say.

But the potential of snowy weather has many wondering if we’re likely to see London covered in snow around the festive season.

When was the last white Christmas in London?

When did London last have a white Christmas?

According to the Met Office, a white Christmas is officially recorded whenever a snowflake falls on Christmas day.

The most recent times London had a snowy holiday was in 2022, with 2021, 2020 and 2017 also being classed white Christmases.

But most of us think of a white Christmas as blankets of snow covering the UK – yet London hasn’t seen a true white Christmas for 20 years.

London has technically had six white Christmases since 1960: 1964, 1968, 1970, 1976, 1996 and 1999.

However, white Christmases in London have not always been so rare.

According to the Met Office  “winters were particularly persistent and severe” from 1550-1850, as Britain (and the entire Northern hemisphere) was going through what is now known as the Little Ice Age.

This is why we see such harsh descriptions of winter in the novels of Charles Dickens, such as in A Christmas Carol.

During this time snowfall was common and the river Thames would even completely freeze over, meaning that people could ice skate on it.

Football pitches, bowling matches, fruit-sellers, shoemakers and even barbers were also set up on the ice, in what was known as Frost Fairs – can you imagine that happening now?

The Met office added: ‘Since 1960, around half of the years have seen at least 5% of the network record snow falling on Christmas Day.

‘This means we can probably expect more than half of all Christmas Days to be a white Christmas.’

Will we have a white Christmas this year?

It’s too early to truly tell if we’ll have a white Christmas this year, but in the next few weeks a cold snap will hit the UK.

A ‘reasonably strong signal’ has been detected for a downturn on Friday, bringing yet more showers in Scotland and north-east England that could fall as sleet and snow over hills.

‘There is a 70 per cent chance that areas as far south as southern England could experience overnight frosts and a general reduction in temperature,’ Met Office Deputy Chief Forecaster Helen Caughey said.

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Earthlings, be prepared – the Sun is firing out a barrage of solar storms, and they’ll soon be heading our way.

The cause? A growing group of angry sunspots, stretching 120,000 miles across our star’s surface.

Sunspots and the area around them are where solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) form, bursts of electromagnetic radiation and solar particles blasted out into space by the Sun. When these hit Earth, they can mess with the atmosphere, causing communication blackouts.

At the moment the sunspots are not pointing directly towards us, but as the Sun continues its slow rotation – it takes about 27 days to spin once on its axis – eventually we’ll be right in the firing line.

The first of the group, catchily named AR3491, first loomed into view on November 18, quickly followed by at least five more, forming a ‘solar archipelago’ of sunspots.

Solar monitoring website SpaceWeatherLive.com has already recorded at least 3 M-class and 16 C-class solar flares from the group, the second- and third-most powerful type of flare.

There will likely be many more flares over the coming weeks, including some of the most powerful, X-class flares, all of which could hit Earth.

When X-class flares hit in July and August, they caused radio blackouts across the US and the Pacific.

Solar flares are caused when giant loops of plasma erupt from the Sun’s surface and eventually snap, like an elastic band. This releases massive amounts of electromagnetic energy into space. Astronomers say they have already seen loops more than 40,000 miles high emerging from the archipelago.

Sunspots also birth coronal mass ejections (CMEs), huge clouds of charged solar particles that cause disturbances in the planet’s magnetic field.

CMEs are much slower moving, taking days to travel from the Sun to Earth – solar flares move at the speed of light, reaching the planet in about eight minutes.

While solar flares and CMEs can both disrupt communications by upsetting the ionosphere, on the plus side they also create stunning aurora, often much further from the poles than normal.

The sunspot archipelago is just the latest sign that the Sun is approaching its solar maximum, the point in its 11-year cycle at which it is most active.

Earlier this year a rare ‘cannibal’ CME was spotted, a bizarre phenomenon when a smaller CME is ‘eaten’ by a larger, faster moving CME.

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A Brazilian Deliveroo driver is being hailed as a hero after he stopped a knife attack outside a school in Dublin by smashing the attacker with his helmet.

An unprecedented wave of riots swept through Dublin last night after a knifeman injured three children and two adults in a terrifying attack outside Coláiste Mhuire on Parnell Square on Thursday afternoon.

But before the assailant could do further damage, he was stopped by Caio Benicio, 43, who stepped in to subdue the attacker after watching things unfold from his motorcycle.

Follow the latest on the Dublin stabbings and riots on our live blog.

‘I saw the guy pulling the teacher, picking up the child. I stopped to see what was happening. I thought it was a normal fight,’ he said in a WhatsApp audio message which has since gone viral.

‘Then the teacher pulled the child, the guy pulled another child and pulled a knife. A five-year-old child!’

‘Man, I threw the bike on the ground and went after the guy,’’ he added. ‘The guy stabbing the girl… I didn’t even think about it. I took my helmet off and hit… which knocked the guy down.

‘I think I managed to knock the guy down with the helmet, I hit him in the head.’

Following Mr Benicio’s intervention, a number of onlookers stepped in to restrain the attacker until the police arrived.

Speaking to The Journal after the attack, the 43-year-old Brazilian said: ‘I have two kids myself, so I had to do something. I did what anyone would do. People were there but they couldn’t step in because he was armed, but I knew I could use my helmet as a weapon.’

But despite the heroics, his thoughts are focused firmly on the five-year-old victim currently in critical condition.

‘I am praying, it’s all I am thinking of. I saw her in the ambulance, she looked so vulnerable, I had to go with gardaí then. I am waiting for news about her. I am hoping,’ he said.

‘If a child didn’t survive, I would always think, I could have been faster. I chose to have surgery on my knee recently, it made me slow to get off the bike, could I have been faster?

‘If all the victims survive, I will be thankful that I was in the right place, at the right time,’ he added.

Mr Benicio came to work in Ireland after his restaurant in Brazil burned down. He hopes his children can one day come over and join him.

He said he was saddened by the chaos which took place on the streets of Dublin last night, which appeared to be driven by an anti-immigrant sentiment.

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris last night blamed a ‘lunatic hooligan faction’ for the destruction in the city which saw vehicles torched, shops looted and police attacked as the city became ‘under siege’.

A police source later told the Irish Daily Mail: ‘We have to say fair play to those people who stepped in. They gave that man a good hiding to make sure he wasn’t going to get up and hurt more people, but I can tell you now that they saved lives.’

Responding to last night’s violence, Ireland’s Justice Minister Helen McEntee said: ‘This afternoon innocent young children were brutally attacked with their carer and I want to be very clear the person responsible will be held accountable and brought to justice.’

She continued: ‘I also want to be very clear there’s a group of people, thugs, criminals, who are using this appalling attack to sow division and wreak havoc in our city centre. I’ve spoken with the Garda Commissioner and every force possible is being used by the gardaí to restore order to this city.

‘There will be arrests, people will be put in prison and order will be restored in this city.

‘This will not be tolerated.’

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A man has been shot dead after a stand-off with armed police in east London.

Officers rushed to a property in Dagenham on Thursday night after the man called the police and said he wanted to take his own life.

During the phone call shortly before 8pm, he also told cops he had a loaded gun at his home in Weston Green.

Armed police and a specialist negotiator were involved in a back and forth with the man, believed to be aged 40, for around one hour.

Despite attempts to bring the incident to a safe conclusion, officers fired shots at around 9pm.

The Met said a non-police issue gun was found at the property and a search suggests no one else was there at the time of the incident.

Emergency first aid, including CPR, was carried out by paramedics but the man was pronounced dead at the scene at 9.30pm.

An investigation has now been launched.

Pictures show forensics investigating and a white tent has been erected directly outside the front of the house.

Commander Kyle Gordon, frontline policing commander for north and east London, said: ‘My thoughts are with the loved ones of the man who has died, with the local community in Dagenham and the officers involved in this incident.

‘While formal identification has yet to take place, officers believe he was aged 40.

‘His next of kin has been informed.

‘They will receive our full support.’

The Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards was made aware immediately after the incident and the Independent Office for Police Conduct has been informed.

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The UK could see its coldest night of the year this weekend, with an arctic blast set to bring snow and sub-zero temperatures.

The Met Office said sleet and snow may fall in the north of Scotland and on peaks above 400 metres (1,312ft) high.

Meteorologists believe Saturday night will see thermometers hitting minus 4C in Wales and minus 5C in the rural South West.

Daytime temperatures are not expected to reach double digits during the day on Saturday but will be returning to above 10C by Sunday and into the following week.

A Met Office spokesman said the cold and variable weather is to be expected at this time of year, though the UK has historically had the first frosts in October.

He said: ‘We can see there’s big swings in temperatures, all it takes is a quick change from a southern wind into a north wind to have that change.

‘It’s not unusual to see these changes.’

A yellow warning has been posted for the Shetland archipelago, where gusts could reach 60mph between 10pm and 6am over the next 24 hours.

The north of the archipelago is forecast to face the coldest temperatures in the country.

‘Nagging winds’ are hitting the north-east of the UK and are forecasted to whip up high waves and pose challenges to lorries over the weekend.

The strong winds are affecting the east of the country down to Norfolk but are calmer in more southernly regions.

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A man allegedly kidnapped and murdered a couple he was renting from after finding out he was on the brink of being evicted.

Timothy Burke, 45, was arrested on Friday in connection to the deaths of Karen Koep and Davido, who went missing a week ago.

The bodies of the couple have not yet been found.

Burke was renting from Davido, who does not legally have a last name. Davido’s close friend told law enforcement officials that he believed he was about to evict Burke.

The couple rented their property on Stedman Road Southeast in Lake Forest, Washington, to tenants in camper vans, even if they were unable to pay, according to records obtained by The Seattle Times.

They were last heard from on November 10.

Koep did not show up to work, prompting her office manager to call for a welfare check on November 13.

When sheriff’s deputies entered the couple’s home, they found two big blood stains in the living room, stated a prosecutor. Two law enforcement officers at the scene assessed that it was enough blood loss to lead to death.

Deputies also discovered two bullet holes in the wall, and neighbors said they heard shots fired on Friday or Saturday, court documents state. There were also signs of someone using bleach and a vacuum to try to remove the blood stains.

Detectives believe someone was dragged to the garage where a car might have been. Koep’s vehicle has not been found.

A detective also found a partially written eviction notice by Davido for Burke.

Burke appeared in Thurston County Superior Court on Monday and has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

The couple went missing the same week that a New York City landlord turned himself in for fatally stabbing three people, saying he was ‘having issues with his tenants’.

And earlier this month, a Brooklyn landlord was charged with eight counts of attempted murder after allegedly setting fire to a building over unpaid rent, causing the parents in the home to toss four of their children down to neighbors on the ground to save them.

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A ‘lawless’ estate made of £1,560-a-month shipping containers is set to be torn down, but families are worried they could be left homeless.

Marston Court estate in west London is made up of makeshift homes created from metal shipping containers, and has reportedly become a magnet for drug dealers and knife-wielding thugs.

Ealing Council officials sent letters ordering residents to leave their homes by December 12 or to take temporary accommodation offered to them.

The council will make a final decision on whether to decommission the homes on December 6.

Two families revealed they were offered ‘unsuitable’ accommodation fifteen miles away in Slough.

One mum told MailOnline she was moving from one nightmare scenario to another.

‘The council have told us they will make only one offer of putting us up in temporary accommodation somewhere else,’ she said.

‘The council have said if we don’t accept their offer they will no longer have a legal responsibility to provide housing for us and we will be on our own.

‘It couldn’t have happened at a worse time. We don’t know if we will have a roof over our heads this Christmas.’

The residents previously told MyLondon how their homes were infested with mould and rodents.

Resident Erin Martin said at the time: ‘When we moved in here, our shower didn’t have any hot water and neither did the kitchen sink.

‘It took them two years to come and fix it. Me and my kids were bathing using a bucket and a kettle for two years, just so they could come in 20 minutes and fix it, my sink still isn’t giving me hot water.

‘They don’t make it easy to know who to talk to, who to ring, who to speak to, there is no information.

‘Eight years, I have been waiting for Ealing Council to house me, for eight years. Everywhere I have been put is “temporary”. Eight years isn’t temporary.’

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A small plane crashed into the parking lot of a mall, killing an elderly award-winning pilot who was en route to his family for Thanksgiving.

Elzie Monroe McDonald, 87, crashed landed his single-engine Mooney M20 outside of a strip mall in Plano, Texas, around 6pm on Tuesday, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

He was just days away from his 88th birthday, his family told WFAA, and was flying to the Dallas area to visit them for the holiday.

McDonald was trying a go-around, which is an aborted landing attempt in which the plane as it approaches land, then flies back up, stated a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) incident report on Wednesday.

A video showed the plane crashed close to the Nail Addiction salon and just missed striking one of the employees.

‘He’s safe but he’s mentally affected,’ the salon owner told NBC 5, which obtained the clip. ‘He and his wife couldn’t sleep last night. I and my wife couldn’t sleep last night, either. Everyone is still very shocked from the incident.’

The owner of Mama’s Daughters’ Diner next door, Nancy Procaccini, also could not sleep afterward.

‘I love my staff. And I love my customers dearly. And it was just so close,’ she told the TV station. ‘You know, you could picture yourself being almost in a wreck and it’s like, you can almost feel like you were hit. That’s the way it felt for me.’

Witnesses heard a loud boom and saw the right wing dip right before the aircraft crashed, according to The Dallas Morning News.

No one else was aboard.

The plane, which was registered to McDonald, went down less than a mile away from Air-Park Dallas Airport, which does not have an air traffic control tower.

McDonald, of Aguila, Arizona, had recently received an FAA Master Pilot Award, which is given to those who have flown safely for 50 or more years, the Wickenburg Sun reported.

The crash happened just weeks after a pilot flying a single-engine Cessna Skyhawk 172M plane crashed itinto the Florida Everglades on Halloween. The pilot survived a night in the alligator-infested swamp and was found with a wounded leg and rescued.

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Irish MMA and boxing champion Conor McGregor has weighed in on the knife attack in Dublin and subsequent violent protests.

He shared his thoughts on X in response to Garda commissioner Drew Harris referring to the protesters as a ‘hooligan faction driven by far right ideology’.

Three children aged between five and six, and a woman in her 30s, were hospitalised after an attack outside a school in Dublin city centre this afternoon.

Follow the latest on the Dublin stabbings and riots on our live blog.

He has used his platform to call for action and criticise the chief of police.

McGregor said: ‘Innocent children ruthlessly stabbed by a mentally deranged non-national in Dublin, Ireland today.

‘Our chief of police had this to say on the riots in the aftermath. Drew, not good enough.

‘There is grave danger among us in Ireland that should never be here in the first place, and there has been zero action done to support the public in any way, shape or form with this frightening act.

‘Not good enough. Make change or make way. Ireland for the victory. God bless those attacked today, we pray.’

Irish police have not yet confirmed the nationality of the ‘person of interest’, a man in his 50s, who was hospitalised with serious injuries following the attack.

McGregor has since sent out further tweets, saying: ‘You reap what you sow.

‘Any update on the wellbeing of those stabbed today? Absolutely horrific scenes all day, my stomach is churning.

‘With no action being taken at all during these ever more frequent events, like literally zero action taken whatsoever, how do we expect an end to this?

‘We need reform. We need action!’

MORE : Deliveroo rider took down Dublin knife attacker by hitting him with his helmet

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A couple living in the Cotswolds were gobsmacked when a cup in their garage turned out to be an antique Chinese treasure from the Qing Dynasty worth thousands of pounds.

The centuries-old rhinoceros horn libation cup was found by an antiques expert during a routine house visit to the area.

The ‘mystical antique’ is thought to have detected poison and may have held aphrodisiac qualities around 350 years ago.

The late 17th or early 18th century cup is now estimated to fetch between £3,000-£5,000 when it goes up for auction at Hansons Auctioneers on November 30.

Charles Hanson, owner of Hansons and star of TV’s Bargain Hunt and Antiques Road Trip, said: ‘I regularly visit clients’ homes to assess antiques for potential consignment to auction.

‘I’d completed my visit and was sitting in my car, about to drive off with a wave, when the couple asked if they could show me one more thing.

‘They disappeared into the garage. Usually I don’t expect too much but this was very different.

‘What was placed into my hands was a magical find – a rare Chinese object dating back to the late 17th or early 18th century. I instantly recognised it as a libation cup. It was beautifully carved out of rhinoceros horn and displayed intricate detail.

‘The honey-caramel object is from the Kangxi Period (1662-1723) of the Qing Dynasty. It would have been crafted just after the Ming period.

‘Rhinoceros horn libation cups were used for communal drinking at important ceremonial occasions in Chinese scholarly circles.’

Mr Hanson explained the cups were considered to be magical objects, as the rhinoceros horns were thought to contain aphrodisiac properties.

He added: ‘It was believed the horn would change colours to alert a drinker to the presence of poison.

‘It represents victory. Its special place in Chinese culture enhances its importance and value.

‘Though called libation cups, these vessels would have been primarily used for display, accompanied by beautifully crafted hardwood stands.’

It remains to be known exactly how much the unique cup will fetch when it goes up to auction.

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New York City’s mayor has been accused of sexually assaulting a woman he worked with 30 years ago.

Mayor Eric Adams was hit with the legal action under the Adult Survivors Act, which went into effect in November 2022 and created a one-year window for sexual abuse victims to sue in federal or state courts in cases past their statue of limitations.

‘Plaintiff was sexually assaulted by Defendant Eric Adams in New York, New York in 1993 while they both worked for the City of New York,’ states the summons, according to The Messenger.

‘The claims brought here allege intentional and negligent acts and omissions for physical, psychological, and other injuries suffered as a result of conduct that would constitute sexual offenses.’

The summons informing of legal action, which is followed by a formal complaint, was only three pages long and did not provide further details on the alleged encounter.

Adams denied the allegations through a City Hall spokesperson.

‘If they ever met, he doesn’t recall it,’ the spokesperson told the news outlet.

‘But he would never do anything to physically harm another person and vigorously denies any such claim.’

The woman seeks a trial and at least $5million in damages, the filing shows.

She made the filing in state Supreme Court in Manhattan on Wednesday night, the day before the window opened up by the act closes.

Other public figures who have been sued under the act include former President Donald Trump and disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein.

The sexual assault claims are the latest problems facing Adams, a former police captain who was elected mayor in 2021.

He is subject to a federal investigation on whether he colluded with the Turkish government and accepted illegal contributions for his campaign. FBI agents raided the home of his campaign’s chief fundraiser and earlier this month seized the mayor’s phones and iPad on the street in Manhattan.

Adams has denied any wrongdoing and stated he has ‘nothing to hide’.

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A little boy has been reunited with his lost plush monkey after it went on a 600-mile train adventure.

Kayna Tay, 43, and her three-year-old son misplaced the beloved toy, which the tot had since birth, while changing carriages from Oakham, East Midlands, to Bristol Temple Meads.

After finally arriving to Birmingham New Street, they realised they left the boy’s favourite monkey behind – so they rushed to the station reception to report it.

Customer service assistants Leon Allen and Vinny Murphy arranged for a search to take place, and the toy was found after the train arrived in Edinburgh.

The cuddly primate travelled back down to Birmingham New Street on Network Rail that same day.

While being stored overnight at the station’s reception, staff dressed it in a tiny, hand-knitted jumper made as a Christmas decoration, featuring a sparkly double arrow rail logo.

The toy was then placed on a train to Bristol Temple Meads on Tuesday, from where Ms Tay collected it.

Network Rail said it clocked up an extra 619 miles on top of its planned trip, with journeys on CrossCountry, Avanti West Coast and Great Western Railway services.

Ms Tay said: ‘My little boy was inconsolable when we realised we’d lost Monkey on the train and we arrived at Birmingham New Street.

‘But the treatment we received from the customer services team there, who mounted a miracle mission to find the monkey again, was above and beyond what I could have expected.

‘I can’t thank everyone involved enough, across all the train companies, for not only making my little boy smile again, but he loves Monkey’s new jumper and is full of questions, fascinated by the adventure he’s been on.’

Mr Murphy said: ‘It was heartbreaking to see Kayna’s little lad so upset that he’d left his best friend on the train, so it was the least we could do to get straight on the phone to try and track him down.

‘Spotting a tiny Christmas jumper in our station reception for him to wear was then the icing on the cake.

‘We’re so pleased we could have helped. Monkey is back home for cuddles where he belongs.’

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Locals in a village ‘dying’ due to traffic gridlock said are stunned as a bypass is finally going ahead – after a 100-year wait.

Banwell, Somerset, has suffered from severe congestion for decades, making the centre essentially a ‘no go’ zone for its 3,200 residents.

The once-thriving community has lost dozens of shops with health studies also showing higher rates of breathing-related health issues among its school pupils.

But planning permission and funding has now been secured for the long-awaited bypass – with hopes that it will be fully open to traffic by March 2026.

Some life-long residents in Banwell said it was a day they never thought they’d see – with many saying their relatives were involved in initial proposals as far back as 1927.

Local historian Roy Rice, 79, who has lived his whole life in the village, said: ‘My uncle, Wally Richards, when he was 11, helped the survey and put the pegs in of the original bypass plan.

‘It was a different variation in 1927. It will be 99 years since then when it finally opens. He is no longer with us but I am sure he would be very surprised we are still talking about it nearly 100 years later.

‘It will make a huge difference to the village and we will certainly have a big party when the bypass opens. We are fully aware it is not being built for us, but it can not be a bad thing for Banwell.’

The final approval for the two mile bypass came when North Somerset council voted unanimously in favour of the £56.5 million contract at a meeting last week.

A total of £89.2 million funding has been approved for the scheme and includes costs such as consultants, utilities, and contingency money.

And studies showed the proposed bypass could reduce traffic through the village by up to 78%.

Mr Roy added: ‘There has been three or four different routes proposed over the years. The original route was a lot closer to the village.

‘What we have going ahead is the lesser of two evils.

‘Banwell has lost a lot of shops as you can not stop there, maybe around 30-40 shops in the centre.

‘There was a lot of industry and a lot of businesses, a brewery, mill, blacksmith. It was once a thriving area.

‘As they shut, no one wants to take them on. Hopefully the bypass will bring life back to the centre of the village.’

Paul Harding, 58, who is vice chairman of Banwell parish council, said there have been a number of barriers to the bypass, including lack of political will, funding issues and initial opposition from farmers.

Mr Harding added: ‘The process started in 1927. Why it has taken so long is a very good question.

‘The authorities initially did not want a bypass. In the 1960s they knocked houses down and pushed the railway bridge down, opening it up for lorries.

‘Traffic has got so much worse. For some time they did not want it as they did not want the houses that go with it.’

MORE : UK’s most unhealthy neighbourhoods revealed

Wally Rice, 85, who was also a former councillor and has lived in Banwell his entire life, said: ‘I am surprised that this has happened in my lifetime.

‘I remember first started discussing it when I was a schoolboy, about 17. I was also a councillor and it was touched on regularly. People talked about it, but those running the council did not really want it at the time.

‘It is not a perfect solution but is a damn sight better than what we have at the moment.’

Despite the majority being in favour of the scheme, some residents expressed doubts it would make a big difference.

Eric Small, 82, of Banwell, added: ‘I have the minority view in the village and doubt it will do very much. A bigger issue for me is that weight and size restrictions are not enforced.

‘All heavy traffic comes through on the road to Banwell. If they are not driving through small villages, they are going to cut straight through small farms. It is going to destroy and split farms and make them unviable.’

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A Russian state television war reporter has died after a Ukrainian kamikaze drone strike in occupied Ukraine.

Boris Maksudov, 38, a Rossiya-24 reporter, sustained shrapnel injuries and died during a medical evacuation earlier today.

Vladimir Putin’s favourite TV propagandist broke the news of the reporter’s death live on his YouTube channel.

Dmitry Kiselev, general director of the Rossiya Segodnya media group, said: ‘Tragic news has just arrived. Our colleague died on the road to Dzhankoy at 6am. Boris Maksudov died of his wounds. The guys were fighting for his life.

‘He was seriously wounded yesterday near Mirny when the Ukronazis fired on a group of VGTRK [Russian state media] journalists.’

He added: ‘The profession of journalism today is increasingly painted in khaki colours, and on top of that there is often also blood.

‘Ours [Russian forces and propagandists] are there to finish off this horrible [Ukrainian] regime, to bring a just peace closer. Let’s work, brothers.’

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova – on air with Solovyov when the news broke – claimed Ukraine saw reporters like Maksudov as ‘legitimate targets’.

The Russian Defence Ministry has since claimed the Russian journalists had been deliberately targeted.

There were angry statements today that military personnel at the scene had issued ‘blatant lies’ to commanders about the popular reporter’s condition after he was wounded in the drone attack.

This may have stopped him receiving proper treatment for serious wounds.

Pro-war blogger Roman Saponkov said: ‘They lied that there was a light injury in the arm and leg, although in fact it turned out that there were open fractures of the limbs and severed fingers.

‘If they had told the truth about the serious injury, perhaps they could have reacted earlier and this could well have saved a life’

It appears Makusdov died today as he was being moved to a hospital – footage showed the pro-war reporter after he was wounded being moved by an army vehicle.

In his final dispatch before he was hit, he is seen with a thumbs-up to the camera.

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A mum-of-four who was held at gunpoint by her stalker ex-boyfriend has slammed his upcoming release from jail in February – despite a parole panel finding he would not be safe in the community.

Gareth Wyn Jones, 59, is serving a four-and-a-half year jail term for holding Rhianon Bragg hostage overnight after she ended their relationship in 2019, stalking her and making threats to kill.

The parole board found it would not be safe to release him and he had never accepted culpability for his crimes – but despite this he is still due for automatic release in February.

The former mechanic will spend five years on licence when he is released from prison, meaning he will be jailed again if he commits further crimes.

Ms Bragg, 51, from Snowdownia, north Wales, is still living in fear: ‘I cannot conceive how anything other than a completely blinkered, unjoined up, broken justice system, would release an offender that it had just classed as too high risk to release.

‘It’s mind-blowing, absolute madness – what will they say to his next victims? It’s not like they’re pretending he won’t reoffend.

‘We’re hoping for a workable, sustainably funded Victims Bill. I think there’s no hope of that, when the system can’t even contain known offenders. We are just guinea pigs.’

A summary of the parole board panel’s decision on Jones said that he had held ‘traditional beliefs around gender roles in relationships and evidenced jealousy and a sense of entitlement’, while struggling to manage conflict.

It found that he saw asking for help as a sign of weakness, and noted there were emotional and mental health difficulties in this case.

A release plan where Jones would live in designated accommodation with strict limits on his contacts, movements and activities was not deemed ‘robust’ enough.

The panel said: ‘After considering the circumstances of his offending, the progress made while in custody and the evidence presented in the dossier, the panel was not satisfied that release at this point would be safe for the protection of the public.’

Ms Bragg said while she’s relieved the parole board recognise how unsafe Jones is, she feels she’s not been listened to.

She said: ‘I have always said that he was mentally unwell and that he wouldn’t think he had done anything wrong. I don’t think that’s really been taken into account, at least now that’s been stated.

‘The night he held me hostage and was threatening to murder me, he even said that I had made his life harder because I hadn’t started a new relationship. He tried to use jealousy as an excuse, when there had never been anyone else to be jealous of.’

Despite Ms Bragg reporting Jones to the police a number of times, and his previous three arrests, no further action was taken and Jones’ previously confiscated firearms were returned.

Prosecutors later admitted they could have charged Jones three months earlier with harassment and spared Ms Bragg her gunpoint ordeal.

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In today’s MetroTalk, a reader shares what they think to be the British view on white privilege and political correctness. Could it be that some of us find PC-ness challenging because it dares to prioritise the minority?

Meanwhile, readers are also discussing: the ways the wealthy and the lets say: less well off, game the system, whether to keep monuments to barbaric philanthropists, immigration and their memories of a Labour government.

And do you agree with the reader who says we should respect politicians as much as we respect scientists?

Share your thoughts in the comments.

Tax avoidance isn’t just for the wealthy

In response to comments about the wealthy manipulating tax systems (MetroTalk, Wed), I don’t believe they are the only ones who do this. I knew someone years back who claimed the dole but ‘worked’ on the side. And how many tradespeople charge less (VAT-free) and trouser their earnings? Do those who get tips declare it all? Bob, Hayes

‘Not every immigrant becomes a Mo Farah’

Ryan Cooper (MetroTalk, Tues) lectures us on the benefits of immigration and sums up with a command that, ‘It’s time to open our minds, open our hearts and open our borders.’

Could open-borders fanatics like him declare what scale of immigration they would prefer and what, if any, control over our borders there should be?

Has Ryan ‘opened his heart’ for the people who have lived in this country all of their lives, paid taxes and then found they can’t get a place at their local school, an appointment with the dentist, GP or hospital, or a place on the housing list, all because of the unprecedented growth in the UK population due to immigration?

Perhaps these things don’t affect open-border fanatics because they can afford to go private, or if they do, they are outweighed by the benefits of cheap labour from around the world, ransacking undeveloped countries for workers in something akin to latter-day imperialism.

Mr Cooper cherry picks the immigrants into this country that demonstrate his ‘net benefit’ analysis while ignoring the reality that for every Mo Farah there is also a Yaqub Ahmed (the Somalian rapist it took five years and a million pounds to deport). David, Durham

Does a slave-trader’s philanthropy mean we should ignore his atrocities?

In response to Mark Taha (MetroTalk, Tue) regarding statues.

I accept that we all have our own heroes, and there will be edge cases, where a controversial figure was admired by a number of people – in those instances, I’d be willing to give the benefit of the doubt and leave any monuments as they are.

Bristol slave trader Sir Edward Colston was absolutely not an ‘edge case’. He remorselessly subjected thousands of people to lifetimes of disgusting abuse.

Yes, it was legal at the time but so was burning ‘witches’ – does that legitimise it?

We should be celebrating the fact that we have moved on from this barbarity and now live in a fairer, safer, happier world.

I don’t care how Colston or anyone else used their ill-gotten gains. Heck, even Jimmy Savile raised cash for charity.Rob Slater, Norfolk

It’s not free speech people hate

Ben (MetroTalk, Wed) defends Nigel Farage, saying people just don’t like free speech. He is mixing up free speech with hate speech and lies, against which we have laws in this country. Kara, London

‘I fear the economical damage of another Tory government’

Kay (MetroTalk, Wed) says she is ‘horrified’ by the thought of a Labour government as she knows how ‘disastrous’ that has proved for working people.

Kay says she is in her 50s, so the only Labour government during her working life would be the New Labour government, led by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

I was working throughout the same period and my recollection is different.

There were certainly mistakes made but up until the credit crunch – a global phenomenon the UK entered with a AAA+ economic rating from all the recognised international credit rating agencies – the UK economy was growing much faster, and the GDP-to-debt ratio was far lower than it has been since 2010.

My fear is there would be even more damage done to the economy if we were to elect yet another Tory government. David, Eltham

Politicians have to consider more than just ‘the science’

Many people in Wednesday’s MetroTalk condemned politicians’ approach towards the pandemic after hearing scientists’ testimonies at the Covid Inquiry.

They all had sympathy towards scientists and hatred towards politicians.
The readers claim politicians must follow science. But what does science say about pandemics?

The scientists in Sweden did not recommend lockdown, whereas in many countries they did. Which recommendations should a politician follow? And in the end, Sweden did not perform any worse at all.

The fact is that politicians should collect scientific facts, get recommendations from scientists but ultimately it is the politicians who must decide.

Because a scientific adviser can only know their part while a politician has to take into account many factors – the cost of the lockdown, compensations for the affected people, economic results like shrinking of GDP, etc.

We must respect science but we must respect politicians, too. Murat Yildirimoglu, Bedford

MORE : UK pandemic plan was ‘woefully deficient’ even for flu pandemic

MORE : When is the next UK general election and could it be brought forward?

MORE : I’m A Celebrity’s Nella Rose tells Nigel Farage ‘Black people don’t like you’ in huge clash

A visitor to Edinburgh’s Christmas Market has slammed the measly portion of salt and pepper chicken and chips she received – for a whopping £12.

Edinburgh local Natalie posted her meagre portion on TikTok, where others found the portion size outrageous compared to the price.

She said: ‘When they say go to hell but it’s £12 for some salt and pepper chicken and chips at Winter Wonderland.’

The prices of Christmas market foods and drinks have long been a point of scrutiny of many visitors.

But Europe’s best value Christmas market has been named as Riga, in Latvia.

The research, by the Post Office, factored in the cost of things like flights, transfers, meals and those all important Christmas market must-haves such as mulled wine and cakes.

Two people can head to Riga for two nights for just £506. A glass of mulled wine, punch or gluhwein there is a bargain at just £3.50 and a seasonal treat like a gingerbread or stollen is just £3.12.

Even a caffeine hit is great value – a cup of coffee is just £1.96.

If you don’t quite fancy Riga, there are still some other cheap Christmas market hotspots to visit.

Stockholm, Sweden, was a perhaps surprising runner up, thanks to cheaper flight costs – overall, costs were down 25% compared to last year. Here, a glass of mulled win costs £3.88. Overall, a two day break for two will cost £559.50.

Rounding out the top three was the Croatian capital of Zagreb, where costs are just 10p higher than Stockholm. A festive mini break here will set you back just £559.60.

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A baby boy died just 24 hours after a doctor misdiagnosed him with tonsillitis – after they missed the signs of bacterial meningitis.

Nine-month-old Lucas Thomas Munslow from Flint, Wales, died due to ‘avoidable circumstances’, his family said.

The little boy died at Bodelwyddan hospital in May 2019, where just hours earlier doctors told his parents he was safe to return home with a case of ‘viral tonsillitis’.

An inquest into baby Lucas’s death by John Gittins, senior coroner for North Wales East and Central, revealed staff at the hospital had shown ‘poor practice’.

The emergency department did not think Lucas was severely ill when his parents rushed him to hospital, and classified him as a yellow case, to be seen in an hour – rather than an orange case, which would have had him seen in ten minutes.

The nurse who saw Lucas said he was ‘stiff and vacant’ and had a squint, but the doctor who treated and discharged the lad said there were ‘no red flags’.

MORE : Cases of meningitis ‘more than doubled last year’ after lockdown was lifted

A statement from Lucas’s family said: ‘We lost Lucas, our first-born baby boy, in circumstances that could have been avoided.

‘We have been left deeply traumatised by the death of Lucas and continue to suffer as we try to come to terms with our loss.’

The family said they are considering whether to pursue a claim against the hospital for clinical negligence.

The bacterial infection mainly affects babies and children, and vaccinations are available for babies up to one year old.

Meningitis and septicaemia often happen together and usually begin with a fever, vomiting, a headache and generally feeling unwell.

For this reason it can be easy to brush the illness off as a common cold or flu – but there are some very easy steps to take to spot the illness early.

Limb pain, pale skin, and cold hands and feet often appear earlier than the rash.

These symptoms may coincide with neck stiffness, dislike of bright lights and confusion.

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A tech multi-millionaire who was awarded an MBE for services to the digital economy has been convicted of drugging and raping two women in the early 1990s.

Lawrence Jones has already been behind bars for 10 months after he was previously convicted of sexually assaulting an ex-employee in an separate trial.

The 55-year-old was remanded in custody after a jury at Manchester Crown Court found him guilty in January – but reporting restrictions were only lifted today following the conclusion of the latest trial.

Jones and his wife Gail created the web hosting provider UKFast from their spare bedroom in September 1999, and the company went on to work with clients including the NHS and the Ministry of Defence.

In January 2019, an ex-employee called police to accuse him of forcing himself on her to have sex in 2010, among a string of other allegations.

Afterwards, a second woman said she had been sexually assaulted by Jones at a hotel during a business trip in 2013.

Prosecutor Eloise Marshall KC told the jury at Jones’s first trial that the woman discovered her room was part of a penthouse suite that connected to the defendant’s bedroom.

The pair had drinks at the bar before returning to the room, Ms Marshall said, and Jones became ‘more persistent’ in his approaches ‘despite her clear resistance’.

She continued: ‘He put his arm around her and started dragging her in towards him. He ignored (the complainant) repeatedly who was clearly telling him that she did not want to engage in this sort of behaviour.

‘Things escalated and he started asking: “Let me see your knickers”. As he said that he placed his hands on her body, on her legs and became quite forceful trying to prise her legs apart, with his hands on the inside of her thighs.

‘This caused her dress to ride up and as she was trying to pull it down and get away, he was trying to get on top of her.’

She managed to escape into her own room and locked the door behind her, the prosecutor said.

The woman later left the company after Jones ‘paid for her silence’ with a £13,000 settlement that required her to sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement), Ms Marshall added.

Giving evidence, Jones told the prosecutor: ‘I put my hands on people’s shoulders but only people I thought I had a really good relationship with. There’s nothing sexual about what I was doing.

‘I gave hugs to people, that’s the sort of person I am.’

He said the woman in question was ‘flirtatious’ as she ‘quickly became drunk’ at the bar.

Jones was cleared of the allegations made by the first complainant in January 2019: one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault.

At the second trial this month, Jones denied attacking two women at the flat where he lived in Salford in the 1990s.

The women had come forward to the police separately in 2021 and 2022, and did not know each other.

One described being given something to sniff which had an ‘immediate impact’ on her, while the other said she had been overly affected by a glass of wine and what she thought was cannabis.

Ms Marshall told jurors: ‘Both women were stupefied and left partially conscious but unable to react.

‘Such was the effect of the drugs that the women, even then, were unclear about what drug had been used and exactly what had happened to them.’

Mrs Jones, who attended every day of the two trials to support her husband, held her hand over her mouth as the jury foreman delivered the unanimous verdict after four hours of deliberations.

Jones will be sentenced for all the cases on December 1.

Isla Chilton, senior district crown prosecutor for CPS North West’s rape and serious sexual offence unit, said: ‘Jones raped two women with no thought for how his actions would affect them.

‘By denying the offences, he compounded the harm to the women, attempting to evade responsibility for his actions. The jury saw through his lies and found him guilty.

‘I would like to thank the victims for supporting this prosecution and I hope this case will encourage others to seek justice. It’s never too late.’

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Thousands of rats both dead and alive have ended up on beaches in a part of Australia.

Residents in Queensland have become overwhelmed by the problem which started a few months ago.

The surge of rats has been caused by breeding and a bountiful harvest as well as ideal wet weather conditions.

The rats have moved towards the coast in search of more food but many do not survive the trip.

Derek Lord, 49, a resident from the town of Normanton which has been impacted said: ‘Mate, there’s rats everywhere.’

Derek said his pet ducks have been going mad because the rats have been trying to break into the cages.

‘We have hire vehicles and they literally destroyed a car overnight, taking all of the wiring out of the engine bay,’ he added.

‘They’re really getting out of control,’ a fisherman told ABC North Queensland.

‘There’s a stench along the riverbed. Last night, with the moonlight, the river was truly alive with them.’ 

Another local said: ‘We saw them dead or alive, but exhausted, in the water and on the shoreline. [When we returned four days later], they were running on the sand’.

Other locals said the rats have turned cannibal and have started eating one another as well.

A video on social media shows heaps of dead rats piled up as flies and other insects swarm by them in the water.

Residents now worry the rats will have an adverse impact on tourism because another town affected called Karumba is a well-known fishing and birdwatching paradise.

Jemma Probert, a fishing charter owner in Karumba said: ‘We’ve heard there are still more that are coming.

‘It’s not a good thing to leave Karumba remembering.’

People fear the worst is yet to come because more wet weather is expected in Queensland.

Over the last two years parts of Queensland and New South Wales have experienced a boom in rodent numbers due to more breeding.

For example, mouse populations have reached plague conditions not seen since 2011.

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Pro-Palestinian protesters temporarily halted Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City by gluing themselves to the pavement of the route.

The protesters disrupted the 97th annual parade at Sixth Avenue and West 45th Street around 10am on Thursday.

About 30 protesters jumped over barricades and appeared to glue themselves onto Sixth Avenue, WABC reported.

A protester on a float belonging to a New England Native American tribe hoisted a Palestinian flag. The group on the ground unraveled a massive banner reading, ‘Free Palestine’.

Other demonstrators held banners that read, ‘Liberation for Palestine and planet’, and ‘Genocide then, genocide now’.

The white jumpsuit-clad protesters doused each other and the street in a red liquid representing blood.

They forced the parade to continue forward around them. Some members of the crowd booed the white jumpsuit-clad protesters, upset that they brought in the politics of the Israel-Hamas war into the popular family-friendly event.

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Protesters refused to leave until they were removed by New York Police Department officers. How many demonstrators were taken into custody was not immediately known.

The parade has been a tradition in the Big Apple since it began in 1927.

President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden called into the parade to express thanks.

‘We have to remind ourselves how blessed we are to live in the greatest nation on the face of the earth,’ said the president.

‘Today is about coming together, giving thanks for this country we call home. And thanks to all the firefighters, police officers, first responders and our troops, some of whom are stationed abroad.’

The parade was otherwise a cheerful event under sunny skies. Larger-than-life balloons of Snoopy and SpongeBob SquarePants were marched through Manhattan and Grammy Award-winning singer Cher performed.

It is not the first time the Thanksgiving parade has been subject to a protest.

In 2014, seven people protesting a court’s decision to not indict a cop in the fatal shooting of a teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. However, they did not disrupt the parade flow.

On Thursday, a large group of pro-Palestine activists also descended on the Detroit Thanksgiving Parade, chanting, ‘From Turtle Island to Palestine, genocide is a crime’, and, ‘Detroit stands with Gaza’.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

It’s that time of year again, when celebrities of varying fame subject themselves to trials of varying disgustingness, all in the name of entertainment. And money.

But while one of the highlights for viewers of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here is the sight of their least favourite names tucking into various animals’ testicles or other icky body parts, for the most part, contestants are surviving on a far less exotic diet.

Rice and beans. Or maybe beans and rice, if they’re lucky.

And for the most successful celebs, who spend a full three weeks in the Australian jungle, that’s a lot of beanie rice.

In previous seasons contestants have lost a significant amount of weight, so what exactly are the effects of the I’m A Celebrity diet?

‘A lot of us are probably guilty of looking at the contestants on I’m a Celeb and thinking we could easily survive on rice and beans for a few days,’ says Jess Suthard from Goal Plans powered by MuscleFood.

‘You might be thinking, so what, I’d eat that anyway with a bit of chicken, how bad could rice and beans really be? But the truth is you’d be surprised!

‘That added bit of protein we use at home is where all the flavour comes from and it’s usually what keeps us feeling full.’

Feeling full is something the celebrities are unlikely to experience during their time Down Under, averaging just 700 calories a day – although new entrant Frankie Dettori, a jockey, may be better practised at living on tiny meals. The recommended number is 2,000 calories for women and 2,500 for men.

‘Very-low-calorie diets, providing 800 kcal per day or less, have been used to cause rapid weight loss since the 1970s,’ says Dr Josh Gibbs, plant-based nutrition researcher at the University of Warwick.

‘However, these diets are reserved for those with BMI scores of 30 or higher, and they are carefully planned to preserve lean mass and provide all essential vitamins and minerals.

‘The diet the celebrities will follow during the show will induce significant weight loss, but due to the low protein content some of this will be muscle.’

It’s not all bad, as the reduced food intake could result in better control of their blood sugar levels and reduced inflammation.

However, that’s unlikely to be much consolation to hungry, grumpy celebs.

‘Beyond biological impacts, the celebrities will likely feel fatigued and have low mood, low libido, high irritability. And it probably goes without saying that their appetite will be through the roof!’

Perhaps they need to be extra ravenous to eat the food on offer when campmates win stars during bushtucker trials, which earns them ‘proper’ meals. 

‘The celebs have eaten some strange meats so far this year such as buffalo tail and crocodile feet,’ says Jess.

‘I wouldn’t really recommend anyone else tries to source the same but for the campmates, these strange meats will be filling meals that will provide them with more nutrients than just rice and beans!’

Likewise, Dr Josh is very clear – do not try this at home.

‘Viewers should absolutely not follow the diet. Unsupervised use of very-low-calorie diets has been associated with serious complications, including death,’ he says.

‘Anyone who wants to try a very-low-calorie diet should consult their doctor so they can receive the proper support and guidance to do it safely. A safe and effective very-low-calorie diet will be high in protein and fortified with essential vitamins and minerals – which is very different to just rice and beans!

‘However, as part of a healthy, balanced diet, rice and beans are some of the healthiest foods on the planet! They’re packed full of fibre and plant proteins which help to keep cholesterol and blood pressure levels low, reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease. 

‘But living off them exclusively could lead to complications in the long run, like vitamin and mineral deficiencies. That’s why it’s so important to eat a wide variety of foods.’

Crocodile meat optional.

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