Month: September 2022

An MP who admitted she had “culpably and recklessly” put people at risk after traveling by train from London to Scotland after testing positive for Covid-19 has been ordered to undertake a 270-hour community payback order.

Margaret Ferrier, the former Scottish National party politician, who now sits as an independent MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, admitted at a hearing at Glasgow sheriff court last month that she had exposed the public “to the risk of infection, illness and death” .

Despite repeated calls for her to do so and to the frustration of many of her constituents, she has refused to stand down, but may now face further investigation by Commons authorities now the police investigation has concluded.

After the rule-breaking came to light in October 2020 she immediately referred herself to the police and to the parliamentary commissioner for standards and apologised unreservedly for her conduct

It emerged

Across the world, millions are grieving the passing of Queen Elizabeth II.

Tributes have poured in from every corner of the globe, from New Zealand to New York.

But London – the city where the monarch spent the Blitz and lived much of her life – will doubtless be the center of commemoration. As of Wednesday morning, more than 2000 people were already lining up to see the Queen lying-in-state.

With hundreds of thousands more mourners expected, the cabinet office is urging travelers to plan ahead.

“We recognize that many people will travel to Buckingham Palace and other Royal Residences as a mark of their respect,” a spokesperson said.

“We expect large crowds, which can pose risks to public safety. Those who do travel are asked to follow any instructions given to them by stewards and the police.”

If you want to visit the capital to pay your respects, here’s

Volodymyr Zelensky has called on the West to ban all Russians from entering their countries in response to Vladimir Putin’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine.

The embattled president urged world leaders to close their borders to all citizens of the invading nation in a bid to further punish the Kremlin for its savagery.

He told the Washington Post: ‘The most important sanctions are to close the borders — because the Russians are taking away someone else’s land.’

He added Russians should be forced to ‘live in their own world until they change their philosophy.’

The Ukrainian leader wants the West to close its borders for a year to Russian citizens and impose a full embargo on the purchase of Russian energy.

Throughout the war, he has

Apeppers are “always in a hurry”, wrote Alexis de Tocqueville in “Democracy in America”, his opus published in 1835. Until the covid-19 pandemic, nowhere was this more evident in recent decades than in packed trains at peak times as people commuted to work.

Almost 75% of professionals in America say the journey is what they dread most about going back to the office. Working remotely a few days a week is here to stay. Rush-hour traffic, overcrowded trains and transport strikes (like those on London’s tube in the past week) all argue for working from home. Across America and Europe rising fares eat into people’s salaries. The outcry for lower carbon emissions adds additional weight to

I have traveled south to see the Lads play Middlesbrough on no less than eight occasions and have yet to see a victory!

Before I go any further be reassured – the hex I have on my team at ‘Boro has been negated as the rescheduling of the game to a Monday night for Sky TV has undone my attendance… I shall be watching on the box.

The forthcoming game did get me thinking about previous encounters I have witnessed. Four of the eight games have ended in 2-1 defeats, close hard-fought affairs.

I witnessed a cracking 2-2 draw in 94/95 season. Craig Russell scored two well-taken goals, Don Goodman was at his pacey/bustling best as ‘Boro struggled to cope with our speed on the break. We could have easily won that game, despite having to rely on a man-of-the-match performance from Tony Norman to keep out the team that

The crowd outside is several drinks deep and starting to get restless when Fred Brophy summons his boxers to the center of the tent and hands them a bottle of port. One by one, they swig it until the wine is gone. Then they step out to meet the 300 beer-clutching cowboys, miners and cattle ranchers who are itching to see some action.

“Who wants to have a fight?” Brophy asks the cheering crowd. Seven men and two women climb onto a narrow stage for the chance to get punched in the face.

Traveling boxing troupes like Brophy’s were once common Down Under. But Australia’s transformation into a progressive, urbanized country has come at the cost of some of its unruly frontier traditions.

Today, Brophy’s troupe is the last of its kind in Australia, a relic of a bygone era before Netflix when a boozy boxing match was a

A coin-sized piece of consumer electronics proved the surprise hit of the summer with travelers.

After a spring of surging insurance claims and widespread images of piled-up baggage, many will have felt some trepidation at seeing their suitcase whisked into the maw of the airport baggage system.

International data from the US showed rates of mishandled luggage climbed as the rebound in passenger numbers was met an understaffed aviation sector, leading more nervous travelers to invest in Bluetooth tracking devices to monitor their suitcase’s journey online.

The UK regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority, does not hold such figures but delivery appears to have improved over the summer. Cuts to flight schedules and an urgent hiring spree staved off a feared “summer of lost luggage” at UK airports, although analysts believe the industry is not yet out of the woods.

The cap on passenger numbers at airports such as Heathrow and

While Japan is still not fully open to the world, the country has continued to ease its strict border restrictions. As reported by NHKthe country has confirmed ending the 72-hour pre-arrival Covid-19 test requirement for inbound travelers on Wednesday September 7. This new measure only applies to travelers who have been fully vaccinated including the booster dose.

According to a previous report by Nikkei Asia, some countries have now cut back on testing, making it difficult for people to take a pre-travel PCR test. Currently, anyone coming into Japan must show a negative test certificate taken at the most 72 hours before departure. Unlike some countries that allow people to enter with a negative antigen test, Japan only accepts certain types of test including the costly PCR method.

Meanwhile, the government is considering raising the daily cap of arrivals from the current 20,000 per day. Independent