Author: News Desk

Ouch.

Two Texas cheerleaders shot after one gets into wrong car Two high school cheerleaders were shot in a car park near Austin, Texas, after apparently approaching the wrong vehicle. Payton Washington remains in critical condition in hospital, while the other victim was treated at the scene. The suspect, Pedro Tello Rodriguez Jr, has been charged with “deadly conduct”. The shooting happened outside a supermarket in Elgin, about 25 miles from Austin. Members of Ms Washington’s cheerleading squad held a prayer vigil on Tuesday night. The team is preparing to compete at the Cheerleading Worlds in Orlando, Florida, over the weekend…

UK to ignore ECHR rulings on small boats ‘after Sunak caves in to Tory right’ The Guardian says Rishi Sunak has caved in to demands from hard-right MPs to allow the UK to ignore rulings from the European court of human rights on small boat crossings, government sources have said. Backbench rebels have been pushing the prime minister to harden the illegal migration bill so ministers to can ignore interim rulings. One of the Strasbourg court’s rule 39 injunctions blocked the government’s first attempt to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda last year. These so-called interim measures are typically used to suspend…

Suella Braverman lawyers to declare small boats ‘emergency’ in bid to push through asylum accommodation The Independent says The Home Office will argue that Channel small boat crossings are a national “emergency” in a bid to overcome resistance to using a former RAF base as asylum accommodation. The High Court is to hear Braintree District Council’s application for an injunction preventing the transformation of Wethersfield airfield on Wednesday. “We remain of the view that Wethersfield Airfield is an unsuitable site to house asylum seekers, given the lack of capacity in local services, its isolated location and the fact that the…

Britain expects up to 56,000 immigrants to arrive in small boats this year Reuters says Britain is anticipating that 56,000 migrants will cross the Channel in small boats to its shores this year, court documents show, meaning it would be need to house as many as 140,000 asylum seekers. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made stopping boat arrivals one of his five priorities after the number of migrants arriving on the south coast of England soared to a record level in 2022 of more than 45,000, up 500% in the last two years. Already this year, more than 5,000 more…

Small boats crisis: Just 13% of migrant asylum claims dealt with in five years The Times says The Home Office has decided only 13 per cent of asylum claims lodged by migrants who arrived in small boats since the beginning of 2018, government figures have revealed. Between January 1, 2018 and December 31, 2022, there were 83,236 migrants who crossed the Channel in small boats, of whom 76,134 applied for asylum. Yet only 10,188 applications have been processed, which is about 2,000 asylum decisions a year or 170 a month. The Home Office has completed a total of 89,385 asylum…

Can they do it?

Today’s news summary – Paper Talk Several of Thursday’s front pages report on the rate of inflation after figures revealed it stuck above 10% in March. There are a couple of UK political stories and news about the upcoming coronation.  The Mirror describes the impact of the increasing cost of living on struggling families as a “living nightmare”. The i reports on concerns at The Treasury about the failure to drive down inflation more quickly, with fears that domestically-generated inflation is higher than anticipated and global pressures, such as gas prices, are beginning to ease. The Daily Telegraph reports on…

The women’s World Cup is less than 100 days away.

Susanna’s the spit of her dad!