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| | Tory whip resigns, saying: 'I drank far too much' | |  | | | | | | | | | Chris Pincher, the Conservative party deputy chief whip, has resigned from the government following newspaper allegations he groped two men at a private members' club. In his resignation letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Mr Pincher said he "drank far too much". He was seen at the Carlton Club, the Conservative Party members' club, on Wednesday, with witnesses saying he was extremely drunk. A Downing Street source said there would be no further action, as things stood. Mr Pincher represents the constituency of Tamworth, Staffordshire, and has served in the whips' office since February. Whips are MPs in charge of party discipline, who try to ensure that all MPs on their side vote with the party line.
Mr Pincher previously stood down from the whips' office in 2017, when he was accused of making an unwanted pass at a Conservative activist. He was later cleared of any breach of its code of conduct. Labour's deputy leader Angela Rayner said Boris Johnson has "serious questions to answer" about why Mr Pincher was given the role of party whip and how he can remain a Conservative MP. "The Conservative party is so mired in sleaze and scandal that it is totally unable to tackle the challenges facing the British people," she said. Several Conservative MPs have stood down from their seats in recent months after complaints about their conduct. | | | | | |
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| | Student requests for crisis cash triple | | | | | | | | | The number of students asking for emergency funding nearly tripled between 2018-19 and 2020-21 at 95 UK universities, according to BBC News research. Responses to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests also suggest the amount of hardship funding given out nearly doubled last year. Some students said they could not afford rent after bar and retail work dried up during the pandemic. And one woman told the BBC she was so desperate that she stole food from a supermarket. Students can apply for hardship funding, which does not usually have to be repaid, directly from their universities or colleges, which decide how much is given out. Many introduced emergency Covid hardship funds. A Universities UK spokesman said institutions had "stepped up their efforts to support students" during the pandemic and were "targeting hardship funding where it is needed most". . | | | | | |
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| | Help find missing heart defibrillators | | | | | | | | | Chances are, if you live in the UK, there's a defibrillator device somewhere not too far from you. Now ambulance services want members of the public to help them find where the 70,000 machines are so they can map their locations. This would mean 999 operators could direct people to the nearest defibrillator in an emergency, and it could be used before an ambulance arrives. Most of the devices, which deliver an electric shock to get the heart pumping properly, are in public places like sports clubs or supermarkets. Find out how you can help. | | | | | |
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| | | | | | | | | | | Winding canals, a classic windmill and tulips in bloom. Overschild feels like any Dutch village - until you turn to look at the houses.
In street after street homes bear the scars. Eighty percent of this village needs to be completely demolished as the houses are deemed too unsafe to occupy. Gas extraction has caused over 1,000 earthquakes since Exxon Mobil and Shell began government-approved drilling there in 1963.
Coert Fossen is one of hundreds of thousands of victims. In 2012, he was at home when the chair he was sitting on began shaking. Above him, he could actually hear the wooden beams that supported the structure of his house creaking. Over a decade on, the extraction has not stopped, with residents fighting a system that they feel has worked against them for even basic compensation. | | | | | | | | | | | | Anna Holligan | | BBC Correspondent | | | | | | | | | | | |
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| | | | | | | Many of Friday's front pages lead with the story, a Sun exclusive, that the Conservative Party's deputy chief whip Chris Pincher has resigned from the government over "drunken gropes" alleged to have taken place at a private members' club. The i has an exclusive too, with former PM Theresa May urging Boris Johnson to ban conversion therapy for transgender people. She's writing in the paper for the 50th anniversary of the UK's first Pride parade. Meanwhile the Mirror, Daily Express and Metro all lead with the story of Logan Mwangi, whose killers - his mother, stepfather and stepbrother - have been given life sentences. "How could this tragic little boy be failed so badly?", asks the Express. Read the paper review in full here. | | | | | |
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| | | | | Hong Kong Xi Jinping defends China's rule at handover anniversary | | | | | | | Television Ad breaks could get longer and more frequent | | | | | | | Heatwave Intense heat sees June temperature records broken across Europe | | | | | | | Supreme Court Ketanji Brown Jackson sworn in as first black woman on US top court | | | | | | |
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| | If you watch one thing today | | | | | | | | | | |
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| | If you listen to one thing today | | | | | | | | | | |
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| | If you do one thing today | | | | | | | | | | |
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| | Need something different? | | | | | | | | | How do flower exporters keep blooms alive on long sea journeys? New technology is helping provide the answer - you put them to sleep. It takes about 30 days to transport flowers from Kenya to Europe but fixing the temperature to 0.5C means they can arrive fresh and have a vase-life of a week. Read more.
Someone else who's had a long journey is Bob, a pigeon that got somewhat lost racing from Guernsey to its Gateshead home. But instead of arriving in Tyneside, the four-year-old bird ended up Stateside and was found in Alabama. Owner Alan Todd thinks Bob took a wrong turn and landed on a ship that took him across the Atlantic. Other than being underweight, the £1,000 homing pigeon is doing well, as our story explains.
And staying with the animal kingdom, here's something for the weekend - scientists have long been confused by dinosaur sex. Specifically, how they did it. Now there's a new idea emerging, related to their most eccentric features - you can learn more here. | | | | | |
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| | | | | 1999 The Queen opens the first Scottish Parliament for nearly 300 years. Watch our report of what happened on the day. | | | | | | |
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| | | Let us know what you think of this newsletter by emailing bbcnewsdaily@bbc.co.uk. If you’d like to recommend it to a friend, forward this email. New subscribers can sign up here. | | | | | |
