6:04 am, January 7, 2023
PM’s emergency talks aim to ease winter care crisis
The Prime Minister will hold emergency talks with NHS and care leaders in an attempt to reverse Britain’s winter healthcare crisis.
In a sign of the scale of the problems facing the NHS, Rishi Sunak will spend today focusing on how to ease the pressure on frontline services.
Senior doctors say the NHS is on a knife edge, with many A&E units struggling to keep up with demand and trusts and ambulance services declaring critical incidents.
Six-year-old ‘shoots teacher in classroom’ in US
A six-year-old pupil shot and wounded a teacher during an altercation inside a classroom in Virginia, US police and school officials have said.
No students were injured in the shooting at Richneck Elementary School in the city of Newport News, police said yesterday.
The teacher, a woman in her 30s, suffered life-threatening injuries.
Fresh talks to be held in Royal Mail dispute
Fresh talks are to be held in a bid to resolve the long-running Royal Mail dispute.
Members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) staged a series of strikes last year in a bitter row over jobs, pay and conditions.
A Royal Mail spokesperson said: ‘We welcome the CWU’s agreement to recommence facilitated talks through Acas. The talks will commence on Monday.’
Bet365 boss takes home more than £200m
Bet365 boss Denise Coates comfortably managed to make more than £200m last year despite taking a pay cut of more than £36m.
The company’s financial accounts show that the best-paid director at the gambling company – believed to be majority owner Coates – took home more than £213m in pay last year, not including her dividends.
The figure makes her one of the best-paid employees in the world, and means that she pockets about a third of the total that the business pays to all its nearly 6,100 employees.
UK ministers urged to support paid leave for miscarriage
UK ministers have been urged to back calls to introduce paid leave for miscarriage.
SNP MP Angela Crawley said her proposals will allow parents to grieve. Her private member’s Bill seeks to grant three days of statutory paid leave to parents who experience a miscarriage before 24 weeks of pregnancy.
The Bill unanimously passed its first Westminster reading in July, but Crawley said it was ‘talked out’ for the second time by Conservative MPs before its second reading. She urged the government to back it.
Shell faces £1.7bn earnings hit
Shell has revealed it will face a hit of around two billion dollars (£1.7bn) to its latest quarterly earnings due to UK and EU windfall taxes.
It comes after bosses at the London-listed oil giant said in October they had not paid any UK windfall taxes amid heavy investment in the North Sea.
The firm told investors yesterday that it will face a hit to earnings for the final quarter of 2022 due to the increased UK energy profits levy and additional EU taxes.
Andrew Tate: Four more luxury cars seized
Romanian authorities have seized four more luxury cars as part of an investigation into social media influencer Andrew Tate ahead of a court appearance next week.
The former professional kickboxer turned controversial online personality, 36, and his brother Tristan, who grew up in Luton, Bedfordshire, were detained in the country last week as part of a human trafficking and rape investigation.
On Friday, an official said prosecutors investigating the case had seized another four vehicles on Thursday, after 11 cars were taken in raids.
Car Dealer’s Friday headlines
- Land Rover makes most unreliable cars, claims Honest John
- Marubeni Auto Investments announces much-improved £17m profit
- Cinch posts whopping £149m loss
- Constellation turns pre-tax loss into profit but still finishes year in the red
- Motorway makes Matt Sleeman its vice-president of engineering
- Lookers and Waylands to open new Polestar Spaces
- Koenigsegg showroom to be demolished and replaced by ‘landmark’ dealership
Haulage boss to pay £180,000 to families of 39 container death victims
A haulage boss jailed over the deaths of 39 men, women and children as they were smuggled into the UK has been ordered to pay their families more than £180,000.
Ronan Hughes, 43, of Armagh, Northern Ireland, is serving a 20-year sentence for the manslaughter of the Vietnamese nationals, who were aged between 15 and 44.
On Friday at the Old Bailey, Judge Mark Lucraft KC confiscated Hughes’s ill-gotten gains from his leading role in the long-running people-smuggling operation. It will now be used to pay the compensation.
Average UK house price dropped for fourth month in a row
The average UK house price fell for the fourth month in a row in December, according to an index.
Property values decreased by 1.5 per cent in December, following a 2.4 per cent drop in November, a 0.4 per cent decrease in October and a 0.1 per cent dip in September, according to Halifax.
Some housing market experts said that an annual fall in house prices could soon take place.
FTSE hits highest level for more than two years
London’s top stock index pushed to its highest point in more than two years on Friday, as it capped off a strong opening week to the year with a solid performance.
The FTSE 100 ended the day at 7,699.49, a rise of 66 points. The 0.9 per cent rise helped push the FTSE to its highest single point since the start of August 2019.
In Germany the Dax index closed up by 1.2 per cent while France’s Cac 40 gained 1.5 per cent.
Ram 1500 Revolution concept previews electric version of iconic truck
American pick-up brand Ram has revealed a new concept previewing its first EV due on sale in 2024.
Making its debut at the CES technology show in Las Vegas, the Ram 1500 Revolution BEV concept is the brand’s plan to ‘redefine the pickup truck segment’.
Demonstrating a more streamlined shape than the current Ram models, the concept gets a bold new lighting signature, including an illuminated ‘RAM’ badge on the front end.
Weather outlook
The BBS reports that today will start cloudy and wet for many as spells of rain move eastwards. Rain will gradually clear in the afternoon to leave some sunshine, but some sharp showers will follow behind.
Tonight will be very windy with some sharp showers to start, but these will become most frequent in western areas overnight.
Tomorrow will be an unsettled and breezy day, with cloud and showery outbreaks of rain across England, Wales and western Scotland.
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