| British News |
| Five-minute fine’ prompts private car parks review |
 |
|
Private parking firms have pledged to update their to rules to ensure motorists are not penalised if they do not pay to park within five minutes. It comes after motorist Rosey Hudson was taken to court last year after accumulating £1,906 in fines for taking more than five minutes to pay for parking in Derby. Ms Hudson was given 10 Parking Charge Notices in the space of several days after walking away from her car in order to find phone reception so she could use an app to pay for a space. Now two industry bodies say they will revise their code of conduct to “protect genuine motorists” and “reflect technological advancements”. |
|
|
|
Advert |
 |
|
|
| Pound to drop by up to 8%, |
 |
|
Sterling faced another tough day on Monday as a sell-off sparked by fears around the UK’s fiscal woes continued to hit. Against the dollar, the pound fell by 0.58% to US$1.2138 on Monday to hit its lowest level since early November 2023. Demand for options-trades that would pay out if the pound fell as low as US$1.12 had also topped that seen during the mini-Budget turmoil of 2022, according to Bloomberg. Last week saw the pound sink 1.8% as borrowing costs surged, with 30-year gilt yields hitting their highest level since 1998. Fears had built that chancellor Rachel Reeves would be forced to scale back on spending pledges with cuts or tax raises as a result. Expectations for Bank of England rate cuts have also dropped recently over concerns around stubborn inflation, with markets pricing in 44 basis points of reductions for 2025 on Monday, against 50 basis points last Friday. Candriam fund manager Jamie Niven noted “the path of least resistance” was for the pound to fall further. “On one side, you have very limited pricing in of Bank of England cuts, while the fiscal concerns are also sterling negative,” he said. “This is a sign that bond market weakness is seeping into the FX market, which is another red flag for traders,” XTB analyst Kathleen Brooks added. “The pound is not alone, the dollar is the top performer in the G10 foreign exchange space, and it is expected to stay there while this period of risk aversion grips financial markets. |
|
|
| World News |
| At least 23 people still unaccounted for in LA fires as more than 30 arrests made |
 |
|
A total of 21 deaths have been reported in the Los Angeles County area, the news conference is told. Sixteen of these were in the area of the Eaton fire and five in the Palisades area, LA county sheriff Robert Luna says. The number of deaths is expected to go up, he adds. Some 23 people have been reported missing, including 17 in the Eaton fire area and six in Malibu, he says. All of those missing are adults. A total of 34 arrests have now been made, he adds. “Not all of them are for burglary or looting or curfew violations,” he adds. “We have arrested some with guns.” |
|
|
|
Advert |
 |
|
|
| Israel News |
| Five soldiers killed, 10 wounded in explosion in northern Gaza, IDF says |
 |
|
Five Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed and 10 were wounded in an explosion in northern Gaza on Monday, the military said, raising Israel’s toll in over 15 months of fighting in the Strip to 407. The announcement and reports in Gaza of scores killed in Israeli airstrikes underlined the fierce fighting still taking place in the enclave, even as negotiators in Qatar were said to be nearing a deal that could end the war and free hostages held there since October 7, 2023. The slain troops were all serving with the Nahal Brigade’s Reconnaissance Unit. They were named as Cpt. Yair Yakov Shushan, 23, from Ma’alot-Tarshiha; Staff Sgt. Yahav Hadar, 20, from Kfar Tavor; Staff Sgt. Guy Karmiel, 20, from Gedera; Staff Sgt. Yoav Feffer, 19, from Herzliya; and Staff Sgt. Aviel Wiseman, 20, from Poria. On Monday evening, the IDF said it had presented the families of the five soldiers with an initial probe of the deadly incident, which found that the team of troops from the Nahal Brigade’s Reconnaissance Unit had set out on Monday morning for a mission in the Beit Hanoun area. They were inside a building and preparing to use explosives for engineering activity when the explosives detonated. As a result of the blast, the building the troops were in collapsed, killing the five soldiers. The military said the cause of the explosion was still under investigation. Much of the heaviest fighting over the past several months has been in northern Gaza, where the IDF launched a fresh offensive in October to keep Hamas terrorists from regrouping. |
|
|
| Israeli officials: Deal will see 33 hostages freed in 1st stage, most of them alive |
|
Israeli diplomatic officials said on Monday evening that Israel was in the “advanced stages of the negotiations” with Hamas for a ceasefire deal that would see the terror group release some of the hostages it has been holding in Gaza since October 7, 2023, and ending more than 15 months of war. Briefing military and diplomatic reporters, the officials said there had been progress in the talks in Doha, which are being coordinated by mediator countries Qatar and Egypt and the outgoing and incoming US administrations, but stressed that “the deal is not finalized.” According to the Israeli officials, the progress in the negotiations came as a result of the fall of the Iranian-led Axis in the Middle East, with the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria and the defeat of Hezbollah in Lebanon, which led to more pressure on Hamas. The officials also said that pressure and threats from incoming US President-elect Donald Trump had helped bring Hamas to the table, and they stressed that Israel was working with both teams, including Biden envoy Brett McGurk and Trump official Steve Witkoff, and that the administrations were also coordinating with each other. The officials said that the first stage of the potential deal would see Hamas release 33 “humanitarian” hostages — children, women, female soldiers, the elderly and the sick. Israel believes most of the 33 are alive but that some are dead, the officials said. They noted that Jerusalem has not yet received any confirmation of their status. If the first stage is carried out, then on the 16th day of the deal coming into effect, Israel will begin negotiations on a second stage to free the remaining captives — male soldiers and men of military age — and the bodies of slain hostages, the officials said. They denied a report from earlier on Monday that claimed that the first Israeli hostages would only be released a week into the ceasefire taking effect. It is believed that 94 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
To advertise click here or [email protected]:
|
|
The email was sent to [email protected] |
