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With the jailing on Friday of one man for burglary at the home of ex-footballer Ashley Cole - in which he and his partner were bound with cable ties - how are wealthy homeowners fighting back to defend their homes? "We're in high demand that's for sure," says John Moore, who heads up Westminster Security, a private security firm protecting homes in affluent areas like Holland Park. The area of Kensington, where white stucco-fronted villas sell for millions, has become a "real hotbed of criminal activity", said Mr Moore. "It is namely high-end burglaries, the criminal gangs are very professional and they're travelling from overseas, targeting properties and getting out of the country quickly. "Literally every other night there is an incident.....

Ivana Trump, Donald Trump's first wife, died of "blunt impact injuries" to the torso, the New York City medical examiner's office has said. It added that the death of the 73-year-old on Thursday was accidental. Reports in US media say she died after falling down stairs in her New York City apartment. Ivana Trump, who was born in what was then Czechoslovakia, married the former president in 1977. They divorced 15 years later in 1992. "She was a wonderful, beautiful, and amazing woman, who led a great and inspirational life," Mr Trump said. They had three children together - Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric Trump. Donald and Ivana Trump were notable public figures in New York in the 1980s and 1990s, and their split was the subject o...

US health officials say they do not have enough monkeypox vaccines to cope with surging demand. The US has seen more than 1,800 cases so far, though that is thought to be an undercount as testing has also lagged. There has been growing concern about the rate at which monkeypox is spreading - especially in New York City, epicentre of the US outbreak. The disease, characterised by lesions on the skin, usually clears up on its own but can be extremely painful. Most confirmed cases have been among men who have sex with men, although anyone can be infected with the virus. "We don't yet have all the vaccine that we would like in this moment," US Centers for Disease Control director Rochelle Walensky told a news briefing on Friday. ...

You don’t have to like them. You can find their views repellent. You can promise never to vote for a single one of them. But you have to admit: the fact that six of the initial 11 candidates for the Conservative party leadership, four of the eight who made it on to the first ballot, are from an ethnic minority, and the fact that the next prime minister is all but certain to be a woman or a person of colour, or both, is a big deal. It is a significant moment in the politics of this country – even if it has induced conflicted and contradictory feelings in progressives. Consider what is actually happening here. Just before the election of 2010, the Tories could point to a grand total of one black and one Asian MP. Those two represented half the number of MPs from a visible ethnic minority ...

President Biden reiterated his commitment to the elusive "two-state solution" — the long-sought vision in which an independent Palestinian state and Israel coexist — on Friday, as he spoke alongside Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank. "The United States and my administration will not give up on trying to bring the Palestinians, Israelis and both sides closer together," Biden said. He added that he believes that with Israel improving its relations with neighbors in the Middle East, that momentum could "reinvigorate the peace process between the Palestinian people and the Israelis." But for the time being, both Abbas and Biden acknowledged that the political moment is not yet right for peace talks to resume. In their joint statements, Thorogood Boot...

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as Sri Lanka's interim president Friday until Parliament elects a successor to Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who resigned after mass protests over the country's economic collapse forced him from office. The speaker of Sri Lanka's Parliament said Rajapaksa resigned as president effective Thursday and lawmakers will convene Saturday to choose a new leader. Their choice would serve out the remainder of Rajapaksa's term ending in 2024, said Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardana. He expects the process to be done in seven days. That person could potentially appoint a new prime minister, who would then have to be approved by Parliament. With Rajapaksa done, pressure on Wickremesinghe was rising. Opponents had viewed his appointment ...