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Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.Read moreYvette Cooper has supported critics who say a former Labour MP who was jailed for punching a constituent should be stripped of his pay while behind bars.The home secretary agreed it is “unacceptable” that under parliamentary rules, Runcorn and Helsby MP Mike Amesbury will continue to receive his full £91,000 salary during his 10-week imprisonment for assault.Asked by the BBC’s Emma Barnett: “Can you believe he is on full pay?” Ms Cooper replied: “Everything that has happened is unacceptable here. It is why the Labour Party took action immediately to stop him being a Labour MP and stop him being in the Labour Party.”Ms Cooper again commented on Amesbury’s pay when pressed about the issue on the Today programme. Ms Barnett said: “He’s an MP, and I know you just said that is unacceptable.” Ms Cooper replied: “Yes, the exchange follows the disclosure that Commons rules mean an MP who is jailed does not automatically lose their pay.”“I think the Runcorn constituents deserve better and we want to see a new MP in place as swiftly as possible,” she added.On Monday he was sentenced to 10 weeks in jail, which will trigger a recall petition and pave the way for a by-election, pending any appeals by Amesbury. It has since emerged that Amesbury will continue being paid his salary until he ceases to be an MP, which would follow the six-week recall petition period and could see him paid as much as £10,500, as well as his pay accrued during the appeals process. Critics have rounded on the MP after the sentence, urging him to “do the honourable thing” and step down immediately so a by-election can be held. MP Mike Amesbury speaks to media outside Chester Ellesmere Port and Neston Magistrates’ Court at an earlier hearing More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.Read moreA new crackdown on government credit card abuse has been announced as chancellor Rachel Reeves tries to tighten spending controls ahead of a difficult spring budget.In a letter to Whitehall departments, Cat Little, Civil Service chief operating officer and Cabinet Office permanent secretary, warned that disciplinary action would be taken where abuse of credit cards is discovered.It comes after thousands of pounds were said to have been spent on luxury crystal glasses, cases of sparkling wine and thousands of pounds at private members’ clubs, Mail Online reports. The crackdown was announced less than a fortnight after questions were raised about Ms Reeves own use of a company credit card when she worked for Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS).Chancellor Rachel Reeves will deliver the Spring statement in late March (Jordan Pettitt/PA) More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.Read moreGoogle has been accused of helping to monetise a website which spread misinformation about the identity of the Southport attacker and sparked the summer riots last year.MPs on the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee said they had seen an unpublished report which said the tech giant’s advertising network had helped monetise a site where misinformation about the attack appeared.In the days following the murder of three girls in Southport last summer, violence erupted across England, in part fuelled by false information circulating online about the attacker’s identity and background, including false claims that he was an asylum seeker who had arrived in the UK the previous year.Committee chair Chi Onwurah MP, during an evidence session on misinformation, said MPs had seen a report from digital advertising watchdog Check My Ads, which said it had evidence that a website claimed “to be monetised” by two firms, including Google, “at the time that it published that misinformation”.In response, Google’s managing director for trust and safety in Europe, Amanda Storey, said that if true, such an incident would violate the tech giant’s rules and it would investigate “what had gone wrong”.“I would completely agree that monetising any form of low quality information, particularly associated with an atrocious real world attack, is absolutely not acceptable,” she said.“I haven’t seen that report yet – very happy to take a look at the report once it comes out, and to respond in writing – but very much agree that would violate our policies.“It’s something that we would look into and understand what had gone wrong.“These fast-moving, real-world situations are very challenging – there is viral spread of misinformation on social media, and we have to deal with the echo of that across sites that we operate with.”Elsewhere in the session, Ms Storey said she believed that had the Online Safety Act been in effect last summer when the riots took place, it would have “made a difference” to how easily misinformation was able to spread.New codes of practice that will require platforms to remove illegal content and protect children from harmful material are due to take effect this year, with fines running into billions of pounds for the largest firms who breach the new rules.Ms Storey added that she believed Google’s position as a search engine, rather than a social media platform, meant it was in a different position with regards to social media platforms when it came to misinformation.“I think the illegal harm codes would have probably made a difference to overall ecosystem safety,” she said.“I think that our policies and our approaches meant that we were not particularly implicated in what happened in the Southport situation, but obviously it’s an atrocious attack, and our thoughts and sympathies are with the families.”But in response, committee member Emily Darlington MP said she was “concerned” that Google appeared to be trying to distance itself from links to misinformation around the Southport attack.“You’ve been presented evidence here where you helped to monetise the creation of misinformation – a key piece of misinformation – that was used to incentivise the riots,” she said.Asked by Ms Darlington if Google had done any “reflection” since the riots on how its “advertising and monetisation of content may have contributed”, Ms Storey said: “Absolutely. Any time an incident plays out in the real world, any real world harm situation, we have our strategic command teams do a root cause and corrective action assessment.“We post-mortem. If anything did go wrong, what can we learn from that? And we roll those learnings into our policies and our enforcement processes on a real-time basis.”She added that she would report back and look to share more details of that process with the committee. More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.Read moreAfter a parliamentary researcher claimed her drink had been spiked in a House of Commons bar, questions were raised about whether the historic watering hole should be closed for good.Now though, Commons authorities are considering a different approach – building a new, larger pub inside parliament.The suggestion has been described as “beyond parody”, while a Labour MP has said the proposal shows the focus “is in the wrong place” when it comes to tackling this type of incident.The Strangers’ bar in the House of Commons was closed earlier this year after it emerged police were investigating reports a woman’s drink was tampered with. It reopened on Monday after MPs agreed to new measures including CCTV in the popular haunt, which is small and narrow and often packed with MPs, researchers and journalists. But senior Commons sources would eventually like to build a new bar to avoid some of the problems with the current venue, The Independent can reveal. On the wish list is a bigger space, to avoid overcrowding. They would also like a pub with a circular bar in the middle, allowing better views, and for it to be able to serve food. Parliament’s Strangers’ Bar, a favoured haunt of MPs and parliamentary staff, has reopened following an allegation of drink spiking in January More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.Read moreFormer prime minister Boris Johnson has called on the government to increase its defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP as European leaders face growing pressure to devote greater resources to regional security.Mr Johnson was on Monday in Kyiv for the third anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, where he told The Telegraph an increase to 2.5 per cent of national income was “not enough” ahead of Keir Starmer’s meeting with US president Donald Trump this week.“We should get to 3 per cent by 2030,” Mr Johnson he told the masthead.The former Tory leader earlier told The Independent Ukraine is just “days away” from signing a deal to cede control of its rare earth minerals to the US as part of a process to end the war with Russia.His comments add to a growing domestic and international debate over the level of spending European allies should commit to continental security to fend off future Russian aggression, as the US brokers a peace deal to end the Ukraine war.On Sunday, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson sought to manage expectations ahead of Sir Keir’s visit to the US as Washington demands European allies shoulder the overwhelming share of the burden of security on the continent.Asked whether the Prime Minister would promise Donald Trump that Britain will spend “much more” when he meets the US President next week, Ms Phillipson told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: “Let’s be clear, 2.5 per cent is ambitious.“We will get there, but it is ambitious, and this is also in the context of the public finances which, let’s be honest were left in a devastating state by the Conservatives – a £22 billion black hole, no credible plan for this nonsense that they claim around how they were going to reach 2.5 per cent.” More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.Read moreWatch live as foreign secretary David Lammy announces new sanctions against Russia on the third anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on Monday, 24 February.In a statement, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said a “milestone package” of 107 new sanctions will be implemented to “target funds going into Putin’s war chest and propping up Russia’s kleptocratic system.”Targets of the sanctions include producers and suppliers of machine tools, electronics and dual-use goods for Russia’s military that are based in a range of third countries including Central Asian states, Turkey, Thailand, India and China.Other targets include North Korean Defence Minister No Kwang Chol and other North Korean generals and senior officials the government says are complicit in deploying over 11,000 DPRK forces to Russia.“For the first time, we are also using new powers to target foreign financial institutions supporting Russia’s war machine. We are sanctioning the Kyrgyzstan-based OJSC Keremet Bank, disrupting Russia’s use of the international financial system to support its war efforts,” the statement added.Thirteen Russian targets, such as LLC Grant-Trade, its owner Marat Mustafaev and his sister Dinara Mustafaeva, have been included. The government says they have used the company to funnel advanced European technology into Russia to support its illegal war. The sanctions come ahead of a meeting between Sir Keir Starmer and Donald Trump in Washington next week, with the US president accusing Britain and France of having “done nothing” to end the war in Ukraine. On Sunday Sir Keir spoke to French president Emmanuel Macron to mark the anniversary, with the pair promising to “work together to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position at this crucial moment for global security”.Mr Trump has also been condemned for claiming that Kyiv started the war and describing Mr Zelensky as a “dictator”. He has also sidelined Ukraine from negotiations on ending the conflict with Russia, defying European calls for Mr Zelensky to have a role in peace talks. More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.Read moreMinisters have heard warnings that “inventive” teenagers could circumvent a social media ban.Labour MP Naushabah Khan said on Monday that some parents fear their children have “no pause” from risks beyond their control, even at home.She made her comments as MPs debated a petition calling for a minimum age on social media, set at 16, which has gathered more than 128,300 signatures.Caroline Voaden, the Liberal Democrat MP for South Devon, suggested that the definition of harmful material should extend beyond “hardcore” content into “the long hours that children are spending on screens”, while data protection minister Sir Chris Bryant said users consume “large amounts of utter misinformation”.The minister hinted the Government could bring forward fresh legislation to tackle harmful social media use in the next two or three years.Ms Khan, the MP for Gillingham and Rainham, said she had spoken to some parents in her Kent constituency concerned about the risks to their children “beyond the sanctuary of their own home – they see no pause, no protection and no escape”.She told MPs that teenagers “are extremely capable of being inventive and circumventing the rules – this is what teenagers have done since immemorial”.Ms Khan continued: “The fundamental problem is that these platforms were never designed with the safety of children in mind.“We will be doing our children a disservice to raise a legal barrier and simply hope that the risk then disappears, because that’s not what’s going to happen.“Children do deserve more – they deserve more responsibility from social media companies, more urgency from regulators, and perhaps more action from us as elected to this House.”Tony Vaughan, the Labour MP for Folkestone and Hythe who introduced the debate in Westminster Hall, spoke to an argument against banning younger teenagers from social media, when he warned poorly thought-out rules could “push children into unregulated and more dangerous online spaces”.He said: “This can’t be about shutting down avenues for young people to socialise with each other.“And so, whatever action is taken to make it harder for young people to access social media, we have to make sure that other things are going on in society, so they don’t feel that this is the only place they can go to socialise.”Mr Vaughan had earlier said: “Social media can of course be a wonderful tool, but it’s currently a wild west where there is too much harmful content… being pushed onto young people, and social media companies are simply not doing enough to tackle it.“The sad fact of the matter is that social media is pushing content that radicalises, catalyses mental health crises, and is highly addictive.”Ms Voaden turned to social media watchdog Ofcom’s proposed code of practice for user-to-user services.She warned the document did not address issues around the “myths of the perfect body”, adding: “That’s not hardcore content like online pornography or suicidation videos, it’s the subtle stuff of social media, it’s the addictiveness of it that is really dangerous, and my concern is about the long hours that children are spending on screens, the time spent indoors instead of playing with friends and making real, human connection.”The MP later continued: “Older children are not experiencing boredom.“I mean, we all remember standing at bus stops, right?“You didn’t have a mobile phone, you got bored, you looked at the sky, you looked around you, you watched other people, it’s part of the development of a human brain.”Sir Chris, on behalf of the Government, also pointed to new duties which social media companies must meet next month to protect their users from illegal content, including terrorism.He said: “Is it better to make that happen now and bed that in, or is it better to say, ‘right, we’re going to have another piece of legislation now’?“Now, I would be amazed – I’m not allowed to make commitments on behalf of the Government, but – I would be absolutely amazed if there isn’t further legislation in this field in the next few years brought forward by the Government.”The minister later added that “nothing is off the table” and said: “I do not doubt for a single instant that this will be the end of the story, that the Online Safety Act will be the end of the story.“I will be amazed if there weren’t further legislation in this field in some shape or other in the next two or three years.”He also said social media users consume “large amounts of utter misinformation” by both “state actors” and “pernicious actors in their own right”. 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