6:24 am, October 29, 2023
Friends star Matthew Perry found dead after apparent drowning
Friends star Matthew Perry has been found dead at his Los Angeles home.
The 54-year-old, who played Chandler Bing in the hit comedy series, died after apparently drowning, said the Los Angeles Times and celebrity website TMZ. Police were called to his home yesterday about 4pm (midnight Saturday in the UK), where they found him unresponsive in a hot tub.
During his time on the show, Perry struggled with addiction and anxiety, which he described in his memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, which was published in 2022.
Ministers review extremism label as police arrest protesters for ‘hate crimes’
Ministers are reviewing the definition of extremism in a move that could reportedly allow councils and police forces to cut off funding to charities and religious groups found to have aired hateful views.
Communities secretary Michael Gove is understood to have ordered officials to draw up a new official definition of extremism in a move designed to counter hate, including antisemitism.
It comes after nine people were arrested in London yesterday during a mainly peaceful pro-Palestine demonstration. The Met confirmed it was reviewing a potential ‘hate crime incident’ in Trafalgar Square following chanting referring to a massacre of Jews in AD 628 by Islamic forces. A pamphlet praising Hamas was also reportedly being sold along the route.
Minister pictured campaigning with suspended former Tory MP Peter Bone
A minister has been photographed campaigning with a former Conservative MP who was suspended from the Commons for six weeks after a probe found he had engaged in bullying and sexual misconduct.
Corby MP Tom Pursglove, a minister in the Department for Work and Pensions, was photographed by The Sunday Mirror canvassing with Peter Bone ahead of a local council by-election.
Bone denies the allegations but a recall petition, due to open next month, will trigger a by-election if signed by 10% of voters in his Wellingborough constituency.
Policing minister urges forces to double use of facial recognition software
Police are being encouraged to double their use of retrospective facial recognition software to track down offenders over the next six months.
Policing minister Chris Philp has written to force chiefs suggesting the target of exceeding 200,000 searches of still images against the Police National Database by May using facial recognition technology.
He is also encouraging police to use live facial recognition cameras more widely.
Former SNP leadership candidate defects to Alba party
Former SNP leadership candidate Ash Regan has quit the party to join the Alba party – becoming its first MSP.
Regan, who secured just over 11% of the votes when she stood in the race to succeed Nicola Sturgeon earlier this year, said she was defecting from the SNP because it had ‘lost its focus on independence’.
The former Scottish government minister said: ‘I could not, in good conscience, continue to be part of a party that has drifted from its path and its commitment to achieving independence as a matter of urgency.’
Police seize £10m of cocaine from ship in Kent
Some £10m-worth of cocaine has been seized following a raid on a container ship at a port in Kent.
The National Crime Agency said yesterday that the drugs were discovered on October 14 at Sheerness on a Panamanian-registered ship transporting bananas to the Netherlands.
The cocaine, which weighed 137kg (302lb), was hidden in four large holdalls behind bolted-up grilles below the water line inside the sea chest – an intake area used for seawater to maintain stability.
Yesterday’s headlines on Car Dealer you might have missed
- Exclusive: Used electric vehicles fly off forecourts in September and October
- Bring back plug-in car grant to boost EV sales again, says SMMT boss
- Big Mike: Our secret used car dealer on the BX engine that kept on giving
Weather outlook
Today will be windy and cloudy in Scotland with rain, mainly in the east. Northern Ireland will have a wet start, but it’ll get drier and brighter later. Elsewhere will have sunny spells, with showers in southern England and Wales.
North-east Scotland will continue to be cloudy with patchy rain on Monday. The rest of the UK will have variable cloud with scattered showers, more frequent in the west and the south.
