Elite British special forces were operating on the ground in Ukraine weeks after Russia invaded last year. That is the allegation contained in a new book, Poland at War, by Polish journalist Zbigniew Parafianowicz.

Lawyers instructed by the Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR) have today written to UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron requesting that he apply Magnitsky sanctions against Israel’s Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, and Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir. The letters state that the Israeli ministers should be designated as “involved persons” under the UK’s Global Human Rights Sanctions, or Magnitsky sanctions regime for involvement in serious violations of basic human rights.

 Cornwall is set to switch off more than half of its street lights - around 35,000 - within the next few months as part of a cost cutting exercise, leaving swathes of the county in darkness.

The campaign group Workers for a Free Palestine said it had targeted sites in Bournemouth, Glasgow , Brighton and Lancashire, some of which are operated by defence giant BAE Systems. The company's shipyard in Glasgow was targeted in the early morning protests, which the campaign group said demonstrated it was escalating its action after previous blockades. The demonstrators are urging BAE and other companies to end their ties with Israel and cease all weapons, defence and supplies trading with them.

Nobody gets fined for refusing to buy the Guardian newspaper, and a good thing too.

The Guardian is an estimable product, but plenty of us do not agree with its opinions or with its priorities. So we can choose not to buy it, or to buy something else.

Why then are we threatened with being dragged to court if we do not pay for the BBC, which is more or less the exact broadcast equivalent of the Guardian? And now the BBC wants us to pay even more to be hosed down with its incessant propaganda and unacknowledged bias.

Cash was used in 19% of transactions last year, according to retailers, up from 15% the previous year. Until 2015, notes and coins were used in more than half of transactions and, while card use now dominated, cash still had its benefits.

The consortium said consumers were budgeting carefully to try to cope with cost of living pressures, and there was also a "natural return" for cash after it slumped during the pandemic.

The fashion of these decades in European and European-influenced countries is characterized by women's fashion with excessively full skirts relying on crinolines and hoops and the emergence of "alternative fashion" under the influence of the artistic dress movement.

Sellafield, regarded as the most hazardous nuclear site in Europe, has developed a leak in a massive radioactive waste silo that has prompted concerns about the facility’s safety measures, as well as potential dangers to the public and the environment, The Guardian has reported.

The two-square-mile (6km sq) plant, located in Cumbria in England’s northwest, is responsible for the storage and decommissioning of waste from nuclear weapons programs and power generation. It was previously used to generate nuclear power from 1956 to 2003.