United Kingdom

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David Cameron Owned Shares in Dad's Panama Papers Fund

But he says neither he nor his dad did anything wrong

(Newser) - Despite saying in the wake of the Panama Papers leak that he had "no shares, no offshore trusts, no offshore funds," British prime minister David Cameron now admits he held shares in his late father's offshore investment fund, the Guardian reports. Ian Cameron's fund, as detailed...

UK Bans Ad Over Too-Skinny Model

Ban came about after a single complaint

(Newser) - If anyone has doubts that the United Kingdom's Advertising Standards Authority reads its complaint mail, this should put that to rest. Per Fashionista , a lone detractor submitted a grievance to the British ad watchdog about a Gucci ad campaign, and now it's banned in the UK—because of...

Undercover Cops Tricked Terror Suspect Out of His Phone

It was used to convict him Friday

(Newser) - British police went undercover to trick a 25-year-old delivery driver into giving them his cellphone, leading to his conviction on terrorism charges Friday, CNN reports. Back in July, undercover officers posing as company managers showed up at Junead Khan's workplace and asked to see his work records. When they...

UK Guy Jailed After Asking Muslim Woman to 'Explain Brussels'

He's held 'on suspicion of inciting racial hatred'

(Newser) - A partner at a PR agency specializing in social media landed in jail after tweeting about an encounter on a London street following the Brussels attacks. "I confronted a Muslim women [sic] yesterday in croydon," Matthew Doyle wrote Wednesday in a since-deleted tweet. "I asked her to...

Teen Girl's Bleeding Eyes Are Ruining Her Life

And doctors are stumped

(Newser) - Marnie-Rae Harvey isn't a James Bond villain. She's just a typical 17-year-old British woman who happens to regularly bleed from her eyes—as well as her ears, fingernails, tongue, nose, and scalp, Cosmopolitan UK reports. But the really scary thing is no one knows why it's happening....

Woman Raises $16K for Helpful Homeless Man

He took her to a cafe when she was stranded in London

(Newser) - If a homeless man had asked her for spare change before March 3, Nicole Sedgebeer admits she would have turned the other way. Then came "the most eye-opening event in my life." The 21-year-old from Milton Keynes, England, says she missed the last train home from London after...

Filmmakers Ignore Curse, Scan Grave of Shakespeare

Findings to be revealed in Channel 4 documentary

(Newser) - Visitors to the grave of William Shakespeare can't help but notice this to-the-point inscription: "Blessed be the man that spares these stones, and cursed be he that moves my bones," it reads (with the spelling cleaned up). Curse or not, a group of documentary filmmakers has begun...

Facebook to Pay Each UK Worker $1.1M Bonus

Not for purely altruistic reasons, though—it's to save big on its tax bill overseas

(Newser) - Facebook has found a creative way to drastically bring down its tax bill in the UK: Pay each employee who works there a million bucks, NBC News reports. As first noted in the Sunday Times , the company will pay out nearly $397 million in bonuses to UK staffers, which comes...

Company to Female Workers: Take Time Off for Your Period

UK firm hopes its menstrual policy erases stigma about women's natural cycles

(Newser) - When Bex Baxter started seeing women in her office "bent over double" with pain—not from indigestion or appendicitis, but from their monthly menstrual cycles—she knew she had to act, per the Guardian . So the director of Coexist, based in Bristol, England, has decided to implement a "...

Clever Bike Thieves Using This New Trick

They're cutting racks, then hiding the gap with tape

(Newser) - London's bike thieves are getting extra crafty. On Friday, a police officer tweeted photos of a bike rack that had been sliced through and then taped back together to hide the cuts from the city's unsuspecting cyclists, per Boing Boing . Sarah King, a councilor for South Camberwell, tells...

Ex-Zookeeper Cleared of Love-Triangle Assault

A meerkat handler, monkey expert, and llama-keeper, oh my!

(Newser) - Finally, legal closure in a tumultuous zookeeper love triangle across the pond—and perhaps the best lead-in sentence you'll read all week: "A former meerkat expert at London Zoo was cleared Tuesday of assaulting a monkey handler in a love spat over a llama-keeper" is how the AP...

Cops: Girls Fatally Beat Woman, Post Snapchat Pics

Grisly trial is under way in the UK

(Newser) - At around 7:15pm on Dec. 8, 2014, prosecutors say two girls who were then 13 and 14 let themselves into the unlocked home of a woman in the UK, a woman known as an alcoholic who sometimes bought liquor and cigarettes for underage teens. At 7:30pm, the woman,...

Lost Tolkien Poems Found in School Annual

Christmas poem, love poem from 1936 'overwhelmed' UK principal who found them

(Newser) - In August, a previously unseen JRR Tolkien retelling of a 19th-century Finnish epic was published. Now the world will get to experience two other lost Tolkien gems: a pair of poems the Lord of the Rings author penned for an English student publication in 1936, the New York Times reports....

Hot Drinks May Have 3 Times the Sugar of a Coke

UK health group finds chains' hot flavored beverages are loaded with sugar

(Newser) - Have some hot beverage with your sugar. That's the roundabout finding of a UK health advocacy organization that discovered hot flavored drinks served by chains like Starbucks, McDonald's, and Dunkin' Donuts can contain a "shocking" amount of sugar—sometimes up to 25 teaspoons per serving, or more...

Mouse Found Dead in 155-Year-Old Trap

 Mouse Found Dead 
 in 155-Year-Old Trap 
in case you missed it

Mouse Found Dead in 155-Year-Old Trap

Rodent got caught in Victorian mousetrap on display in museum

(Newser) - When Colin Pullinger & Sons patented its "Perpetual Mouse Trap" in 1861, the company boasted the device would "last a lifetime"—and it wasn't kidding. One of the antiquated models on display at the University of Reading's Museum of English Rural Life ended up trapping...

Tech's 'Unluckiest Guy' Loses Big in Startup Sale

Chris Hill-Scott traded SwiftKey share for a bike in 2008

(Newser) - Somewhere out there, there's a bicycle that was traded for what turned out to be a multi-million dollar stake in a tech startup. The crazy tale involves the company SwiftKey and one of its founders, Chris Hill-Scott. Before the Swiftkey app tallied 300 million downloads and became a favorite...

UK Gives Controversial OK for Editing Human Genes

It could help fight inherited diseases—but critics say there's an ethical 'slippery slope'

(Newser) - Britain's fertility regulator has approved a scientist's request to edit the human genetic code in an effort to fight inherited diseases—but critics fear the new technique crosses too many ethical boundaries, reports the AP . The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority announced Monday it has granted a research...

Guy Makes Film Censors Watch Paint Dry for 10 Hours

 Guy Makes 
 Film Censors 
 Watch Paint Dry 
 for 10 Hours 
in case you missed it

Guy Makes Film Censors Watch Paint Dry for 10 Hours

It was the ultimate revenge for classification fees, says filmmaker

(Newser) - The British Board of Film Classification describes Charlie Lyne's Paint Drying as "a film showing paint drying on a wall. It contains no material likely to offend or harm" and "should be suitable for audiences aged 4 years and over." The cost of that classification: more...

Straight Couple Loses Court Fight for Civil Union

They think marriage is 'patriarchal,' but UK judge rejects challenge

(Newser) - A heterosexual couple in the UK has lost the first legal battle in an unusual equality fight. Rebecca Steinfeld, 34, and Charles Keidan, 39—who've been together since 2010 and have an 8-month-old baby—petitioned the High Court to grant them a civil partnership because they see marriage as...

Child's Spelling Error Leads to Police Questioning

'Terraced house' ended up 'terrorist house'

(Newser) - A 10-year-old Muslim boy made a truly unfortunate spelling error at his UK school and ended up getting interviewed by police. The boy meant to write, as part of an English lesson, that he lived in a "terraced house," but accidentally wrote instead that he lived in a...

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