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Sam Brownback, the U.S. Ambassador for International Religious Freedom, complained to the British ambassador in Washington D.C. about the treatment of an English right-wing activist who is in jail for disrupting a trial, according to three sources familiar with the discussion. Brownback raised the case of the activist known as Tommy Robinson in a June meeting with Sir Kim Darroch, Britain's Ambassador to the United States, according to a British official and two sources close to the organizers of a pro-Robinson demonstration planned for London on Saturday. Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, though he also uses other aliases,...

Link only due to copyright issues: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/donald-trump-visit-scotland-paraglider-protest-turnberry-security-greenpeace-a8446651.html

SNIP “On Wednesday ... a small bottle was recovered during searches of Charlie Rowley’s house in Amesbury,” police said in a statement. “Scientists have now confirmed to us that the substance contained within the bottle is Novichok.” SNIP ETC...

While President Donald Trump met with Prime Minister Theresa May Friday morning, First Lady Melania Trump set out for London to meet up with May's husband, Philip May, at London's Royal Hospital for an event with British schoolchildren and veterans. The first lady met with school children who showed her how they make poppies -- a British symbol in that stands in tribute to fallen service members -- that are sold to raise money for veterans on Armistice Day and, in an apparent nod to Mrs Trump's "Be Best" initiative that promotes children's interests, chatted with a group of kids...

FULL TITLE: TRUMP'S BREXIT BLAST I told May how to do Brexit but she wrecked it — the US trade deal is off, says Donald Trump In a world-exclusive interview with The Sun, the US President said Theresa May had ignored his advice by opting for a soft Brexit strategy DONALD Trump today accuses the PM of wrecking Brexit — and warns she may have killed off any chance of a vital US trade deal. The US President delivers his incendiary verdict on her negotiating strategy in a world exclusive interview with The Sun. In an extraordinary intervention timed to...

Former UK Ambassador to the US Sir Christopher Meyer, 74, was beaten bloody by two attackers at Victoria Station in London on Wednesday, hours after he published an essay supporting President Donald Trump’s visit to the UK Thursday.

The U.K.’s government-run healthcare system, the National Health Service, turns 70 this month. There’s not much to celebrate. The NHS is collapsing. Patients routinely face treatment delays, overcrowded hospitals, and doctor shortages. Even its most ardent defenders admit that the NHS is in crisis. Yet American progressives want to import this disastrous model. About one in three Democratic senators and more than half of Democratic representatives support single-payer health care. Why? The British experiment with socialized medicine has been a monumental failure. It would be foolish to repeat that mistake here. Single-payer is fundamentally flawed. It relieves consumers of any...

LONDON — We all have hobbies we enjoy. Rick Stanton’s just happens to be scuba diving into cold, lightless, claustrophobic, dangerous caves. Stanton and his diving partner, John Volanthen, have been identified in the British media as the two British divers who first discovered the 12 children and soccer coach trapped in a cavern in northern Thailand. In the dramatic video footage of the moment when the divers reach the group, nine days after they disappeared, a diver with a British accent is heard talking to the group. “How many of you? Thirteen? Brilliant,” he says, as a beam from...

LONDON (Reuters) - The U.S. Embassy in London issued an alert on Tuesday to Americans in the British capital, warning them to keep a low profile during President Donald Trump’s visit later this week in case protests against him turn violent. Trump arrives in Britain on Thursday after a NATO summit and thousands of protesters are expected to join demonstrations during his visit, including plans to fly a blimp over parliament portraying Trump as an orange, snarling baby. While Britain regards the United States as its closest ally, some Britons see Trump as crude, volatile and opposed to their values...

Horror novelist Stephen King is going viral again with yet another slam against President Donald Trump. Trump is visiting the United Kingdom later this week after a NATO summit in Brussels, and is expected to be greeted by protests complete with a 20-foot “Trump baby” in a diaper blimp floating overhead. The best-selling writer tweeted: (TWEET-AT-LINK) King has been a frequent Trump critic on Twitter....

LONDON — A middle-aged British woman, who somehow came into contact with the Soviet-era nerve agent known as Novichok, died Sunday evening at a hospital in south England where she was being treated for exposure to the military-grade chemical weapon. Prime Minister Theresa May said she was “appalled and shocked by the death,” and announced that it is now being investigated as a murder. Dawn Sturgess, 44, was one of five people who became seriously ill after being exposed to the nerve agent in the Salisbury area. ... Sturgess lived in a supported-living facility that helps residents struggling with alcohol...

Donald Trump is making his first presidential visit to the UK next week, and the First Lady Melania is set to be the most crucial member of his entourage, amid planned meetings with the Queen and Theresa May. Huge protests are expected in London for Trump's first full day in the capital next Friday, but Melania, 48, could well be the key to ensuring the visit is still a success regardless, thanks to her positive effect on his public image. Branding expert Claire Shiels told Femail: 'There can be no doubt that Melania balances out her husband’s brash, in-your-face personality...

LONDON -- A giant 'Trump Baby' balloon is set to be flown close to the UK Parliament during US President Donald Trump's visit to London next week after the Mayor of London gave the go-ahead. And just recently, the organizers announced the blimp is going on a world tour. The organizers wrote on its Crowdfunder page that "people have been SO generous and supportive that we now have WAY more money than we can sensibly spend just on Trump's UK visit in July!" “So - Trump Baby is going on World Tour!” the organizers wrote. “All the details are still...

Following Sadiq Khan’s approval of a balloon mocking President Trump to be flown over Parliament during his visit to the UK, a counter-campaign has surged to over £10,000 out of nowhere for a balloon depicting the London Mayor to go up. The campaign’s appeal reads: “To have a giant size Sadiq Khan, ‘Baby Khan’ balloon fly over London to demonstrate our unhappiness with him as our Mayor of London.” (snip)

Britain’s spy agencies played a crucial role in alerting their counterparts in Washington to contacts between members of Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russian intelligence operatives, the Guardian has been told. GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious “interactions” between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents, a source close to UK intelligence said. This intelligence was passed to the US as part of a routine exchange of information, they added. Over the next six months, until summer 2016, a number of western agencies shared further information on contacts between Trump’s inner circle and Russians,...

The U.K. government has reportedly told President Trump he must not meet Brexit architect and former U.K. Independence Party leader Nigel Farage when Trump visits the U.K. later this month. The U.K. Daily Telegraph, citing a source within the British government, reports that 10 Downing Street made it clear that Trump “must not meet Farage” during his working visit to the U.K. on July 13.

(Reuters) - British police declared a major incident late on Tuesday after it said a man and a woman in a critical condition may have been exposed to an unknown substance near the southern English town of Salisbury. “Wiltshire Police and partners have this evening declared a major incident after it is suspected that two people might have been exposed to an unknown substance in Amesbury,” the police said in a statement. {snip} Amesbury lies seven miles (11 kms) to the north of Salisbury, where in March Russian former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter ….

More than 95 per cent of deradicalisation programmes are ineffective, according to a study commissioned by the Home Office that raises questions about the government’s Prevent programme. *snip* BIT found that teachers in particular were afraid to bring up matters of race and religion with their students without appearing discriminatory, often causing them to refuse to talk about these topics entirely.

“Do you have a Chinese passport?” She stared at me with a cold, calm intensity, clutching my British passport. I took out my Chinese passport and handed it to her through the narrow window. She flipped through its pages. The way she handled it gave me a sudden stomach ache. I sensed something bad was coming. “You know it’s illegal to possess two passports as a Chinese citizen?” she remarked in her even-toned, slightly jarring voice. “Illegal?” I repeated. My surprise was totally genuine. It had never occurred to me that having two passports was against Chinese law. The woman...

Newcastle United’s latest signing Ki Sung-yueng may be one of the better known faces in his native South Korea – but that doesn’t make him immune from completing his national service for his country. Back in the summer of 2016, the 29-year-old had to ditch his luxury items and complete his mandatory military service which every male between the ages of 18-30 must do - and usually for 18 months. This is due to the volatile relations between South Korea and North Korea - although in April 2018, both countries signed the Panmunjom Declaration with the hope of ending the...