Author: News Desk

The hearse carrying the coffin of comedian Janey Godley will travel on a two-day “final tour” of Edinburgh and Glasgow ahead of her funeral.Godley, 63, died on November 2 after receiving palliative treatment for terminal cancer.In a post on social media, her daughter Ashley Storrie said the hearse will travel through Edinburgh, her “beloved festival home”, on Friday before travelling “home to Glasgow”.The funeral will take place at St Mary’s Cathedral in the West End on Saturday.Godley, who found viral fame with her dubbed parodies of then-Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon’s coronavirus news briefings during the pandemic, revealed she had…

Transport Secretary Louise Haigh has admitted she pleaded guilty after she incorrectly told police that a work mobile phone was stolen in 2013. Sky News and the Times newspaper reported on Thursday evening that Ms Haigh admitted an offence in 2014 following the incident. She had reported to police the device was stolen when she was “mugged” in 2013. In a statement, Ms Haigh has said she discovered “some time later” that the phone had not been taken. She said the matter was a “genuine mistake” from which she “did not make any gain”, and that magistrates gave her the…

  China’s economy is still struggling to recover from the pandemic, nearly two years after Beijing dropped its draconian zero-COVID lockdowns. In the first three quarters of 2024, economic growth came at 4.8% — just shy of Beijing’s 5% target. Deflation, weak consumer demand and a huge real estate crash have hurt the country’s incredible growth trajectory, while ongoing trade tensions with the United States — likely to worsen under Donald Trump’s second term — have hurt exports, which were credited with helping China’s ascent to become the world’s second-largest economy. “China suffers from overproduction and under-consumption,” George Magnus, a research associate at the…

  Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said she is confident that a tariff war with the United States can be averted. Her statement on Thursday — the day after she held a phone call with US President-elect Donald Trump — did not make clear who had offered what. “There will be no potential tariff war,” Ms Sheinbaum said flatly when asked about the issue at her daily morning news briefing. On Wednesday, Mr Trump wrote that Ms Sheinbaum had agreed to stop unauthorised migration across the border into the United States.   She wrote on her social media accounts the same…

ONE thing can be said with a fair degree of certainty is that Davy Fitzgerald’s reign as Antrim senior hurling manager won’t be boring.Clare’s All-Ireland winning goalkeeper and manager had a couple of opportunities to shut down the discussion around whether Neil McManus will come out of inter-county retirement in 2025.Davy Fitz should want people talking about Antrim hurling. They need exposure.“There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about,” Oscar Wilde once said, “and that is not being talked about.”This column is a case in point. Had Fitzgerald shut down the debate and stated, “Neil McManus…

Every time the right opportunity arises, and the context allows it, Imperia’s chief prosecutor Alberto Lari repeats the same blessed words. He also did it two evenings ago, in Diano Marina, an area at the center of a recent first degree sentence on drug trafficking and extortion, with 22 convictions of which 17 with the aggravating circumstance of the mafia method. Mafia in Imperia, the chief prosecutor Lari: “No one reports”. Mayor Scajola: “Because he isn’t there” https://genova.repubblica.it/cronaca/2024/11/29/news/mafia_a_imperia_il_procuratore_capo_lari_nessuno_denuncia_il_sindaco_scajola_perche_non_c_e-423760080/?rss

UK retail footfall dips again as Storm Bert and later Black Friday hit sales Shopping centres worst affected but high streets and retail parks also down as total drops for second month in a row The number of shoppers out and about in the UK fell for the second month in a row in November as the later timing of the Black Friday discount spree, Storm Bert and weak consumer confidence depressed sales. Shopping centres were hit hardest, but the number of visitors to high streets and retail parks also fell with the north-east of England, Yorkshire, Wales and Scotland…

Figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Thursday put net migration at more than 900,000 in the year to June 2023, numbers Starmer blamed on the previous Conservative government. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said the government intends to overhaul the immigration system after new data showed arrivals to the country had hit a record high. Figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Thursday put net migration at more than 900,000 in the year to June 2023, numbers Starmer blamed on the previous Conservative government. “Time and again, the Conservative Party promised they would get the…

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s financial markets regulator and supervisor, has responded to the European Commission proposal to amend the Markets in crypto-assets Regulation (MiCA) Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS). ESMA acknowledges the legal limitations raised by the Commission but emphasises the importance of the policy objectives behind the initial proposal. In […] ESMA responds to the Commission rejection of certain MiCA Technical Standards

Boris Johnson has for British troops to be committed to peacekeeping duties at the Ukrainian border as part of any ceasefire deal. The former Prime Minister told the Daily Telegraph that peace-keeping responsibilities should be handled by a multinational group of Western nations. “I don’t think we should be sending in combat troops to take on the Russians,” he said.