More stories

  • in

    What to Know About the Liverpool FC Parade Car Crash

    Almost 50 people, including four children, were injured on Monday after a driver plowed into a crowd that had been celebrating Liverpool F.C.’s Premier League title.A driver plowed a car into a crowd of pedestrians in England who were celebrating Liverpool’s Premier League victory at a parade on Monday attended by hundreds of thousands of people.Here is what we know.What happened?The Merseyside Police said they were contacted about 6 p.m. on Monday local time after reports that a car had hit the crowd.Video shared on social media shows a dark-color vehicle with a broken rear window swerving into the crowd and hitting parade-goers, leaving people on the ground. The video shows people rushing to aid the victims, including some who were trapped beneath the vehicle, and surrounding the vehicle once it stopped.Video also shows witnesses attempting to stop the vehicle, with one person prying open the driver’s-side door before a man in the driver’s seat slams the door shut and accelerates into the crowd.At a news conference on Monday night, Assistant Chief Constable Jenny Sims of the Merseyside Police said: “What I can tell you is that we believe this to be an isolated incident and we are not currently looking for anyone else in connection with it. The incident is not being treated as terrorism.”Who is the suspect?The police said that a 53-year-old British man from the Liverpool area had been arrested after the car stopped at the scene. “We believe him to be the driver of the vehicle,” Ms. Sims said at the news conference.What do we know about the injured?At least 47 people were injured in the crash, including four children, the ambulance service said on Monday night. Twenty-seven of them were taken to hospitals, two of whom — including one child — had sustained serious injuries.Twenty others were treated at the scene with minor injuries. A paramedic on a cycle was also struck by the vehicle, but did not sustain any serious injuries.Four people — including a child — were temporarily trapped under the vehicle, the fire and rescue service said.Officials did not identify any of the victims.Where did it happen?The ramming happened along Water Street in the Liverpool city center, near the end of the 10-mile parade route. More

  • in

    Chris Brown Released on $6 Million Bail by London Court

    The R&B singer was charged last week with grievous bodily harm over a 2023 incident in England. His release from custody means he can proceed with a world tour.Chris Brown, the R&B singer, has been freed from custody by a London judge as he awaits a court case over accusations of an assault in a nightclub.Mr. Brown, 36, was arrested last week at a hotel in Manchester, England, and charged with grievous bodily harm.The singer is accused of attacking a music producer with a tequila bottle at Tape London, a nightclub in the Mayfair district, on Feb. 19, 2023.Lawyers representing Mr. Brown applied for him to be bailed at a hearing at Southwark Crown Court in South London on Wednesday, and London’s Metropolitan Police said the application had been granted.The judge’s decision means that Mr. Brown will be able to perform on an international tour that is scheduled to begin in Amsterdam on June 8. He is then set to visit European countries including Germany, Britain, Ireland, France and Portugal before traveling to the United States.The BBC reported that the judge, Tony Baumgartner, imposed a series of conditions on Mr. Brown, including that he must surrender his passport when not on tour and stay away from Tape London.Mr. Brown’s representatives agreed to pay into the court a security fee of five million pounds ($6.7 million), which can be forfeited if any of the conditions are breached.He has not yet been asked to enter a plea in the case, and British law bans the reporting of any details that could prejudice a jury at a future trial.Omololu Akinlolu, 38, an American rapper who performs under the name HoodyBaby, was charged with grievous bodily harm two days after Mr. Brown, in relation to the same incident.Mr. Brown and Mr. Akinlolu are scheduled to appear at a hearing at Southwark Crown Court on June 20. More

  • in

    UK Battles Wildfires Amid Drought Warnings

    A very dry start to spring has helped set off wildfires across Scotland, Wales and England, and officials have warned of a potential drought this summer.Wildfires erupted across Britain over the past week amid the driest start to spring in nearly 70 years. Fires burned through forested areas in Scotland, Wales and England, coinciding with declining river levels and warnings of drought.In Scotland, a large forest fire near the village of Fauldhouse, west of Edinburgh, broke out late Saturday morning and was still burning on Sunday. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service deployed around 50 firefighters, supported by a helicopter dropping water over the woodland area. Mainland Scotland remains under an “extreme” wildfire risk warning through Monday, with officials urging the public to take precautions.Residents in nearby areas were advised by the police to keep windows and doors closed as emergency crews worked to contain the blaze.“Human behavior can significantly lower the chance of a wildfire starting, so it is crucial that people act safely and responsibly in rural environments,” officials said. In southwest Wales, a wildfire broke out on Friday evening on the Welsh Government Woodland Estate near Maerdy. Though it was brought under control, the blaze reignited in several places on Saturday morning before being extinguished on Sunday.Last week in England a major wildfire in Dartmoor, Devon, raged across more than 1,200 acres of land before being put out. Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service said at the peak of the blazes, crews from 13 fire stations were deployed to the area, as well as wildlife support officers and a police helicopter.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • in

    A New Trend in Global Elections: The Anti-Trump Bump

    In voting in Canada and Australia, right-wing parties that borrowed from the MAGA playbook were punished. Elsewhere, President Trump is having a more complex impact.The Trump factor is shaping global politics, one election at a time — just not necessarily to the president’s taste.In major votes in Canada and Australia over the past two weeks, centrists saw their fortunes revived, while parties that had borrowed from the MAGA playbook lost out.President Trump has been back in power for only three months, but already his policies, including imposing tariffs and upending alliances, have rippled into domestic political battles around the world.While it is too soon to say that anti-Trump forces are on the rise globally, it is clear that voters have Mr. Trump somewhere on their mind as they make decisions.Political cousinsCanada and Australia share a lot in common: a political system, a major mining industry, a sovereign in King Charles. Now they also share a remarkable political story.In both countries, before Mr. Trump was inaugurated, the center-left ruling parties had been in poor shape and appeared poised to lose power. The front-runners in polls were the conservative parties, whose leaders flirted with Trumpian politics both in style and in substance.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • in

    Reform UK Surges as Conservatives Lose Seats: 4 Local Elections Takeaways

    Britain’s two main parties suffered significant losses in municipal and mayoral votes as Reform U.K., a right-wing populist party, surged ahead.While the votes in England’s local elections were still being counted on Friday, Nigel Farage’s Reform U.K. party emerged as the biggest winner of the first major polls since Labour swept into government last summer.Voters have been selecting councilors for about 1,600 municipal seats in 23 areas, as well as six regional mayors.Here are four takeaways from a night that saw Britain’s two major political parties suffer significant losses.Reform U.K. is a serious force in British politics.The right-wing populist party headed by Mr. Farage won a special election in Runcorn and Helsby, in northwestern England, giving it five lawmakers in Parliament. The party also won the mayoralty in Greater Lincolnshire, a new position, and is gaining council seats across the country.The party was initially called the Brexit Party but rebranded itself after Britain formally withdrew from the European Union.Results on Friday indicated that Reform’s efforts to shed its image as a single-issue party and appeal to a broader range of voters were bearing fruit. Brexit is now rarely discussed by its politicians, who have been focusing on a hard line on immigration.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • in

    Overlooked Clue Sheds Light on Shakespeare’s Marriage

    New research undermines the traditional view that Shakespeare was a distant, neglectful husband to his wife, Anne.Any clue about William Shakespeare’s life usually excites scholars, but one piece of evidence had been neglected for decades. Now, a new analysis of that overlooked document seems to shatter a longstanding narrative about the Bard’s bad marriage.Shakespeare was 18 in 1582 when he married Anne Hathaway, the daughter of a family friend in Stratford-upon-Avon who was in her mid-20s and pregnant. For centuries, it was thought that the writer left his wife and children behind to lead a literary life in London, seeking to avoid “the humiliation of domestic feuds,” as one influential 19th-century essayist put it.This view of Shakespeare’s wife as a “distant encumbrance” suited scholars who thought “Shakespeare was far too interesting to be a married guy,” Matthew Steggle, a literature professor at the University of Bristol in England, said in an interview. The perception was bolstered by the fact that Shakespeare had famously bequeathed her his “second best bed” in his will.But Mr. Steggle’s new research, expected to be published this week in the journal Shakespeare, suggests that the writer was not detached from his marriage after all.The hint lies in a fragment of a 17th-century letter addressing a “Mrs Shakspaire,” found in the binding of a book published in 1608. The letter’s existence was noted in 1978 by an amateur historian, but it got minimal attention, even after the book was unbound in 2016, revealing what appeared to be part of a reply from Shakespeare’s wife, Mr. Steggle said.He was working on a Shakespeare biography when he learned of the 1978 find, and was surprised it wasn’t better known. Technological advances allowed him to track down people mentioned in the long-ago correspondence, along with other evidence indicating that it included the playwright’s wife, he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • in

    UK Laws Are Not ‘Fit for Social Media Age,’ Says Report Into Summer Riots

    Outdated legislation prevented the police from rapidly correcting misinformation after a stabbing attack on a Taylor Swift-themed dance class last summer, lawmakers said.British laws restricting what the police can say about criminal cases are “not fit for the social media age,” a government committee said in a report released Monday in Britain that highlighted how unchecked misinformation stoked riots last summer.Violent disorder, fueled by the far right, affected several towns and cities for days after a teenager killed three girls on July 29 at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, England. In the hours after the stabbings, false claims that the attacker was an undocumented Muslim immigrant spread rapidly online.In a report looking into the riots, a parliamentary committee said a lack of information from the authorities after the attack “created a vacuum where misinformation was able to grow.” The report blamed decades-old British laws, aimed at preventing jury bias, that stopped the police from correcting false claims.By the time the police announced the suspect was British-born, those false claims had reached millions.The Home Affairs Committee, which brings together lawmakers from across the political spectrum, published its report after questioning police chiefs, government officials and emergency workers over four months of hearings.Axel Rudakubana, who was sentenced to life in prison for the attack, was born and raised in Britain by a Christian family from Rwanda. A judge later found there was no evidence he was driven by a single political or religious ideology, but was obsessed with violence.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • in

    Manchester Arena Bomber’s Brother Is Accused of Attack on Prison Guards

    Hashem Abedi allegedly stabbed the officers with homemade weapons inside a high-security prison.The brother of the terrorist who bombed an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, in 2017 was accused on Saturday of launching a violent attack inside a high-security jail where he was serving time for his own role in the concert bombing.The Prison Officers’ Association, a body representing prison staff across Britain, said the man, Hashem Abedi, 28, attacked three guards at Frankland Prison, a jail in County Durham in northeast England. The officers received “burns, scalds and stab wounds” during the attack, the association said.A statement from the organization said that Mr. Abedi “threw hot cooking oil over them then produced homemade weapons and proceeded to stab the officers.”A spokesperson for the country’s prison service said that, as of 4 p.m. on Saturday, one officer, a woman, had been treated for her injuries at a hospital and then had been discharged. Two male officers remained in the hospital.In 2020, Mr. Abedi was handed a life sentence with a minimum term of 55 years for his part in the 2017 attack in Manchester. The Islamic State terrorist group claimed responsibility for the bombing, which was the deadliest terror attack in Britain since a series of bombings that struck public transport across London in 2005.Mr. Abedi was convicted of murdering the 22 victims who died in the blast after prosecutors said he was “just as responsible” as his brother, Salman Abedi, who died in the attack. British law did not permit a judge to give Mr. Abedi a life sentence without parole, because he was under the age of 21 at the time of the attack.In a statement about Saturday’s attack, the prison service said: “Police are now investigating, so it would be inappropriate to comment further. Violence in prison will not be tolerated, and we will always push for the strongest punishment for attacks on our hardworking staff.”The attack is being investigated by the Durham Constabulary, which said its inquiries were ongoing.Police officers on guard in 2017, a few days after 22 people were killed and dozens more injured in a bombing at Britain’s Manchester Arena during an Ariana Grande concert.Andrew Testa for The New York Times More