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      Boot Found at Everest Could Be From Sandy Irvine, Who Vanished 100 Years Ago

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      When Sandy Irvine went on a pioneering expedition to Mount Everest’s summit in 1924, he and his partner vanished. The recent discovery may shed light on the ill-fated adventure.A well-preserved boot found by a group of climbers on Mount Everest could be a clue to solving one of the most enduring adventure mysteries in the history of exploration of the world’s highest peak.The climbers who made the discovery in late September have reason to believe that it could contain some of the remains of Andrew Comyn Irvine, 22, whose ascent with an expert climber in an attempt to be the first to reach the summit in 1924 led to their disappearance.The recent explorers, from a National Geographic film crew, were on a glacier below the north face of Everest when they spotted a brown leather boot sticking out of the ice.Looking closer, they noticed a sock with a patch sewed to it that spelled “A.C. Irvine” in stitched red letters.“We just kind of walked around, like for a few minutes, being like, ‘Are you kidding me?’” Jimmy Chin, a mountaineer and filmmaker, said of the find. “We just stumbled upon one of the great discoveries of our time.”In April 1924, Mr. Irvine, a talented engineer but inexperienced climber from Birkenhead, England, who was better known as Sandy, joined George Mallory, a British mountaineer renowned for having reached 27,000 feet above sea level on Mount Everest in 1922.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

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      Who Will Be U.K. Conservative Leader? The Contest Narrows to an Unexpected Choice.

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      After an epic election defeat in July, opposition lawmakers have presented their party’s paying members with an unexpected choice of two candidates from the right.The race to lead Britain’s vanquished Conservative Party narrowed to two finalists on Wednesday, as the party’s lawmakers in a surprise twist set up a clash between two right-wing candidates.After four knockout rounds of voting, the lawmakers left two finalists standing: Kemi Badenoch, a favorite of the right who has said the party needs to fight against “nasty identity politics,” and Robert Jenrick, a rival hard-liner who has appealed to the right by promising to slash annual immigration numbers.The choice of two right-wing candidates was completely unexpected, provoking gasps in the room when the vote totals were announced on Wednesday.James Cleverly, a centrist who was buoyed by a well-received performance at the party’s recent conference, had surged to the front of the pack in the most recent vote by the party’s lawmakers. But he was unexpectedly eliminated on Wednesday.Whoever wins will face a prolonged, painful job of rebuilding a party that suffered the worst electoral defeat of its modern history in July — losing voters not just to the victorious Labour Party but also to a hard-right anti-immigrant party, Reform U.K., and the more centrist Liberal Democrats.The new leader will be selected in the next few weeks by the party’s dues-paying members, who number fewer than 170,000 and are generally older, wealthier and less ethnically diverse than the broader British population. The result of the vote is set to be announced on Nov. 2.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

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      In London, a Pro-Palestinian Protest Disrupts the Launch of an American Mural

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      The U.S. ambassador Jane Hartley was en route to the dedication of a climate-themed mural in London by Shepard Fairey, who created the iconic Obama ‘Hope’ poster. But then a protest began.It’s the kind of cultural exchange any diplomat would savor: A prominent American street artist paints a mural, dedicated to the cause of climate activism, on an apartment building in one of London’s hippest neighborhoods.Jane D. Hartley, the United States ambassador to Britain, who proposed the idea to the artist Shepard Fairey, has a track record in these projects. When she was ambassador to Paris from 2014 to 2017, she asked another well-known American artist, Jeff Koons, to create a sculpture to honor victims of terrorist attacks there.But when Ms. Hartley was on her way to the dedication ceremony for this latest project on Monday morning, she got word that a small band of pro-Palestinian demonstrators had gathered in the Shoreditch neighborhood, beneath the red-and-blue mural, which rises four floors above the street.They began chanting anti-American slogans and unfurling banners calling for justice for the Palestinians in Gaza — a message that seemed even more fraught than usual, given the timing on the first anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel.It was another example of how the Israel-Gaza conflict has reverberated around the world, fueling protests, large and small, on college campuses, city squares,and in this case, in a normally tranquil neighborhood.Ms. Hartley’s security team diverted her car, while Mr. Fairey, who was on hand to greet her, hurriedly relocated with embassy staff members to a nearby café. He seemed bemused by the disruption, noting that much of his work has a protest element, even if his patron on this project was a government official.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

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      U.K. Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff, Sue Gray, Resigns

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      Ms. Gray said intense media scrutiny of her role meant she “risked becoming a distraction” to the new Labour government. Sue Gray, the chief of staff to Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, resigned abruptly on Sunday after weeks of speculation about turf wars in Downing Street, a media storm over her pay and questions over responsibility for a series of political errors.Ms. Gray, a career civil servant with decades of experience at the heart of government, said in a statement that it had “become clear to me that intense commentary around my position risked becoming a distraction to the government’s vital work of change.”Mr. Starmer thanked Ms. Gray in a statement for “all the support she has given me, both in opposition and government, and her work to prepare us for government and get us started on our program of change.”Ms. Gray has been appointed as the prime minister’s envoy for regions and nations, while the role of chief of staff will be taken by Morgan McSweeney, who masterminded the successful election campaign this summer for the Labour Party, and had served as Mr. Starmer’s chief adviser.The changes bring to an end a turbulent period of several months in which the presence of both Ms. Gray and Mr. McSweeney in Downing Street created two centers of power, prompting rumors of a fierce rivalry between them, although both denied any hostility.Ms. Gray’s departure also heralded a wider shake-up. The political director at Downing Street, Vidhya Alakeson, and the director of government relations, Jill Cuthbertson, have been promoted to deputy chiefs of staff. James Lyons, a former journalist who worked in communications for the National Health Service, and more recently at TikTok, will head a new strategic communications team.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

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      Britain Shuts Down Last Coal Plant, ‘Turning Its Back on Coal Forever’

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      The Ratcliffe-on-Soar plant was the last surviving coal-burning power station in a country that birthed the Industrial Revolution and fed it with coal.Britain, the nation that launched a global addiction to coal 150 years ago, is shutting down its last coal-burning power station on Monday.That makes Britain first among the world’s major, industrialized economies to wean itself off coal — all the more symbolic because it was also the first to burn tremendous amounts of it to fuel the Industrial Revolution, inspiring the rest of the world to follow suit.“The birthplace of coal power is turning its back on coal forever,” said Matt Webb, an associate director at the London-based research and advocacy group, E3G.On Monday, in the middle of England, the end of Britain’s coal era will be marked by the closure of the 2,000-megawatt Ratcliffe-on-Soar facility. Uniper, the power company that operated the plant, said the 750-acre site would be converted to a “low-carbon energy hub.”The closure comes 142 years after the world’s first coal-burning power plant began producing electricity at the Holborn Viaduct in London in 1882 and, in turn, accelerating Britain’s rise as a major industrial and imperial power.Coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel. When burned, it produces greenhouse gases that have heated the Earth’s atmosphere and supersized heat waves and storms. While it was long the cheapest and most abundant source of power in many countries, including Britain, it has been replaced in recent decades by gas, nuclear power and most recently, renewables, like wind and solar.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

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      Commuters See ‘Islamophobic’ Message in Cyber Attack on Public Wi-Fi, Authorities Say

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      The British authorities are investigating after commuters at 19 train stations saw an Islamophobic message when they tried to log on to a public Wi-Fi system.The British authorities are investigating a cyberattack on Wednesday that they said displayed an anti-Muslim message on a public Wi-Fi system serving more than a dozen train stations around the country.Commuters who connected to a Wi-Fi service at stations for Network Rail, Britain’s national rail operator, were met with “Islamophobic messaging,” according to the British Transport Police, who oversee law enforcement on British rail networks. The police said they had received reports of the cyberattack just after 5 p.m. local time, and that they were leading an investigation into the incident. The service was quickly taken down, Network Rail said, and would remain down until security checks were completed.The issue emerged at 19 stations across Britain, including major transportation hubs in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Bristol and other cities, a spokesman for Network Rail said in a statement.Commuters attempting to log onto Wi-Fi at the stations were met with a webpage that said “We love you, Europe,” along with information related to terror attacks in Europe, The Manchester Evening News reported.The Wi-Fi was a “click-and-connect” service that did not collect any personal data and was operated by a third-party company, Telent, Network Rail’s statement said.Telent, a technology and communications company, on Thursday pointed to Global Reach, a provider that ran the Wi-Fi service’s landing page. Telent said in a statement that it had found that an “unauthorized change was made to the Network Rail landing page from a legitimate Global Reach administrator account.”British Transport Police were investigating the matter as a criminal case, Telent said, and no personal data was affected by the incident. But, as a precaution, it said, it had temporarily suspended all use of Global Reach services to confirm that none of its other customers had been impacted.Global Reach did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday.Britain’s crime and cybersecurity agencies were also helping with the investigation, the Transport Police said on Thursday.The disruption follows another “cybersecurity incident” on Sept. 1 that targeted Transport for London, the agency that runs the city’s public transit network, in which hackers accessed the contact details of the agency’s customers, and potentially could view bank account details for some commuters. The cyberattack also affected the broadcasting of live train schedules online and payment systems.A 17-year-old was arrested in Walsall, a town in the West Midlands county of England, as part of the investigation into that attack, cybercrime authorities said this month. More

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      Harrods Will Be Sued by Mohamed al-Fayed’s Alleged Victims, Lawyers Say

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      Attorneys for 37 women said they would sue Harrods, the luxury department store, over the rape and sexual assault they say its former owner committed.Lawyers representing dozens of women who have detailed harrowing allegations of sexual assault by Mohamed al-Fayed, the former owner of Harrods, said on Friday that they would launch a civil case against the luxury British department store for allegedly enabling his abuse.At a news conference on Friday, a day after a bombshell BBC documentary and podcast laid out a pattern of sexual violence and rape of female employees during the time that Mr. al-Fayed owned the store, lawyers for at least 37 women said Harrods had “acquiesced to” an unsafe environment that had failed the alleged victims. About 20 of those women looked on from the audience.Mr. al-Fayed, who died last year at 94, was a billionaire tycoon who owned the iconic store from 1985 to 2010.“We will say it plainly, Mohamed al-Fayed was a monster,” said Dean Armstrong, one of the lawyers, adding, “But he was a monster enabled by a system, a system that pervaded Harrods.”Mr. al-Fayed was “enabled by unsafe systems of work which Harrods established, maintained, certainly acquiesced to, and, we say, facilitated during his chairmanship,” Mr. Armstrong said.Harrods, which is now owned by the state of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, issued a statement shortly after the documentary was released on Thursday, saying it was “utterly appalled by the allegations of abuse perpetrated by Mohamed al-Fayed.”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

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      Nigel Farage’s Anti-Immigration Party Has Big Plans. Can It See Them Through?

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      Nigel Farage, a Trump ally and Brexit champion, thinks his Reform U.K. party can become a major political force. At a conference on Friday, he will explain how.A week ago, he was the keynote speaker at a glitzy Chicago dinner for the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank with a history of denying climate science, where the top tables went for $50,000.On Friday, it was back to the day job for Nigel Farage, the veteran political disrupter, ally of Donald J. Trump and hard right, anti-immigrant activist whose ascent has alarmed both of Britain’s main political parties.In a cavernous exhibition center in Birmingham, in England’s West Midlands, Mr. Farage is set to address supporters of his upstart party, Reform U.K., at its first annual conference since its success in Britain’s July general election. He is expected to lay out a plan to professionalize the party and build support ahead of local elections next year.His ambitions are clear. But the jet-setting lifestyle of Mr. Farage, 60, whose visit to Chicago was his third recent trip to the United States, underscores the question hanging over Reform U.K.: Does its leader have the ability and appetite to build the fledgling party into a credible political force?Mr. Farage, a polarizing, pugnacious figure, is one of Britain’s most effective communicators and had an outsized impact on its politics for two decades before finally being elected to Britain’s Parliament in July. A ferocious critic of the European Union, he championed Brexit and helped pressure Prime Minister David Cameron to hold the 2016 referendum.“A fairly strong case can be made that Nigel Farage has been the most important political figure in all the elections of the last decade,” said Robert Ford, a professor of political science at the University of Manchester.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