Rita Ora has paid an emotional tribute to Liam Payne as she hosted this year’s MTV Europe Music Awards (EMAs) in Manchester, almost a month after the One Direction star’s death.
Ora collaborated with Payne on their 2018 hit single For You, and her voice cracked as she remembered him, calling him “one of the kindest people that I knew”.
She delivered the tribute dressed in a dark suit in a poignant moment that was in contrast to the upbeat tone of the rest of the ceremony.
Guernsey’s Lee Merrien is in the form of this life as he prepares to try and qualify for the Olympics in Sunday’s London Marathon.
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Ice collapsing into the water at Perito Moreno Glacier in Los Glaciares National Park, Argentina
R.M. Nunes/Alamy
Even a few years’ delay in reaching net-zero emissions will have repercussions for hundreds or even thousands of years, leading to warmer oceans, more extensive ice loss in Antarctica and higher temperatures around the world.
Nations around the world have collectively promised to prevent more than 2°C of global warming, a goal that can only be achieved by reaching net-zero emissions – effectively ending almost all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions – before the end of the century. But once that hugely challenging goal…
The Kremlin has denied media reports that US President-elect Donald Trump held a call with Vladimir Putin, in which he is said to have warned the Russian president against escalating the war in Ukraine.
The call, which was first reported by the Washington Post on Sunday, is said to have happened on Thursday.
Trump is also reported to have mentioned America’s extensive military presence in Europe to Putin.
A Kremlin spokesperson said the reports were “pure fiction”, while Trump’s team told the BBC that it would not comment on the president-elect’s “private calls”.
Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung told the BBC: “We do not comment on private calls between President Trump and other world leaders.”
But he said leaders had begun the process of contacting the president-elect.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied a conversation had taken place.
“This is completely untrue, it is pure fiction. That is, this is simply false information. There was no conversation,” Peskov said.
Trump has promised to end the nearly three-year long war in Ukraine, but has yet to outline how he intends to do so.
A former adviser to the Trump campaign, Bryan Lanza, on Saturday told the BBC the incoming administration would focus on achieving peace in Ukraine rather than enabling the country to gain back occupied territory.
A spokesperson for Trump distanced the incoming president from the remarks, saying Mr Lanza “does not speak for him”.
Zelensky has previously warned against conceding land to Russia and has said that without US aid, Ukraine would lose the war.
While Peskov on Sunday spoke to Russian state media of “positive” signals from the incoming US administration, others say they trust the future president will not abandon Ukraine.
They include John Healey, the British defence secretary, who said he expected the US “to remain alongside allies like the UK, standing with Ukraine for as long as it takes to prevail over Putin’s invasion”.
On Sunday, during a visit to Ukraine, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned that any end to the war needed to be sustainable.
“This is a warning for the ones who say, this war has to end, so let’s finish it as soon as possible no matter how. How matters,” he said.
In Washington, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said outgoing president Joe Biden would make the case to Trump that walking away from Ukraine would mean greater instability in Europe.
On Monday, Germany’s Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, warned that Putin could take advantage of the US post-election transition period to press Moscow’s advantage in Ukraine.
Urging Berlin and fellow European Union member states to increase aid to Kyiv, she said: “We don’t have time to wait until spring. Now is the transition phase that Putin has been waiting for and aiming for.”
Last week, Russia and Ukraine launched their largest drone attacks since the start of the war.
Russia’s defence ministry said it intercepted 84 Ukrainian drones over six regions, including some approaching Moscow, which forced flights to be diverted from three of the capital’s major airports.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 145 drones towards every part of the country on Saturday night, with most shot down.
On Monday, at least six people were killed and 21 others injured in Ukraine following the latest series of air strikes by Russia.
Russia, meanwhile, said it had destroyed 13 Ukrainian drones near the western regions of Kursk and Belgorod. It reported no deaths.
“Every day, every night, Russia unleashes the same terror,” Zelensky wrote on Twitter following Monday’s strike.
“More and more civilian sites are being targeted. Russia only wants to continue the war, and each of its strikes negates any claims of diplomacy from Russia.”
Zelensky asked for “stronger global support” and more weapons to stop Russian aggression.
Meanwhile, reports of Russian advances in Ukraine continue. Moscow’s defence ministry said on Monday that its forces had captured the village of Kolisnykivka in the Kharkiv region.
Russian territorial gains in October were the largest since March 2022, according to analysis of Institute for the Study of War data by the AFP news agency.
Getty ImagesTop pub and restaurant bosses have warned the chancellor that tax rises in last month’s Budget will “unquestionably” cause closures and job losses.
In a letter, more than 200 signatories have said the hospitality industry is disproportionately impacted by an “unsustainable” hike in the amount employers pay in National Insurance contributions (NICs).
It adds that businesses have “no capacity to pass the costs onto customers”, which would instead lead to job cuts and closures of smaller firms.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said that her National Insurance changes for businesses will generate £25bn, which would aid funding of public services, such as the NHS.
From April, the rate employers pay in National Insurance will rise from 13.8% to 15%, and the threshold at which they start paying the tax on each employee’s salary will be reduced from £9,100 per year to £5,000.
Darren Jones, chief secretary to the Treasury, told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme that the changes had been designed in a way “that tried to limit the extra cost on small business”.
Signatories of the letter include Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UKHospitality, the bosses of pub firms Fuller’s and Stonegate Group, and Premier Inn’s owner, Whitbread.
They are supported by a further 209 businesses, together employing tens of thousands of people across the UK.
According to the letter, the cost increases will cause jobs to be “drastically” cut and hours to be reduced for workers.
Ms Nicholls told the BBC that firms in the industry facing these “tough decisions” may also reconsider investing.
“We understand that the government has a tough job to do,” she said, but urged politicians to “have a rethink”.
Jones said that the government would not reassess the plan, and that many employers would pay the same in NI contributions as they do now, or less.
“I think the public would recognise that bigger businesses are able to burden some of the contributions that we need to make to the state.
“Getting the NHS back on its feet so workers who are off sick can get back to work is probably something that we’d say we’d all benefit from,” he added.
The letter from industry bosses suggests that changes in the NICs threshold are “regressive in their impact on lower earners and will impact flexible working practices which many older workers and parents rely upon”.
The signatories are calling for the government to consider one of two measures to “protect businesses who employ low earners” to mitigate the impact.
Suggested measures are a new employer NICs band which would apply between £5,000 and £9,100 at a lower rate of 5%, or implementing an exemption for taxpayers working fewer than 20 hours per week.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has calculated that three quarters of the impact of the NI changes will be felt by employees as bosses hold back on pay rises and hiring in the face of higher wage bills.
During a select committee hearing on Tuesday, the OBR’s Prof David Miles said it was “very plausible” this would disproportionately affect lower-paid workers.
The changes set out in the Budget are, however, predicted to raise some £25bn a year, making it one of the biggest single tax-raising measures in history.
The chancellor has previously said that she was not immune to “criticism” over the move, but has argued that it will put public finances on a “firm footing”.
The hospitality industry’s letter follows on from big British supermarkets such as M&S and Sainsbury’s hinting that they may put up prices in a bid to offset higher wage bills.
Sainsbury’s chief executive Simon Roberts said on Thursday that the NI changes would cost the business around £140m – a sum which does not include the increases to minimum wage.
The boss of Wetherspoons also said earlier this week that following the Budget, taxes and business costs were “expected to increase by approximately £60m”.
Its chairman said that he believed many food and drink businesses planned to pass costs on to customers.
Amid criticism from the hospitality sector, Rachel Reeves is expected to unveil pension reforms this week which are intended to channel money into private businesses and infrastructure.
At her first Mansion House speech in the City of London, Reeves will pitch “growth brought by unlocking private sector investment, including in our financial services industry, and growth brought about by reform – both of our economy and of our public services”.
