Author: BBC

Twelve months ago, Emma Raducanu’s Wimbledon experience consisted of making hospitality appearances for her sponsors.The 21-year-old Briton missed her home Grand Slam after surgeries on both wrists and an ankle, but returns this year with a smile on her face on the back of some encouraging form.”It was really hard last year because you would walk through the player tunnel, see your peers going to practice, going to play their match,” said the 2021 US Open champion.”Being on the other side just really stung. It wasn’t nice and I didn’t really watch any of the tennis either.”For me to be…

The Unite union has called off a strike planned for 8 July so further talks can take place over the future of the UK’s largest steel works at Port Talbot in Wales, the BBC understands. Owners Tata had threatened to bring forward the planned closure of both remaining blast furnaces the day before the strike, citing safety fears due to a staff walkout.Unite’s strike action was called to the dismay of other unions who feared that it would accelerate the closure of blast furnace number four which was not due to be shut down until September.The Community and GMB Unions…

1 hour agoBy Mark Savage, Music Correspondent • Annabel Rackham, Entertainment reporterTo paraphrase the immortal words of Shania Twain, Man, I Feel Like A Sit Down.The 2024 Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts has drawn to a close, and everyone at Worthy Farm is feeling a curious mixture of deflation and elation.We saw epic sets from Dua Lipa and The Streets, danced with Peggy Gou, moshed with Kasabian and (I’m not making this up) saw Ros Atkins play drum and bass remix of the BBC News theme.But there’s so much going on that you can never catch everything. So here are some of the highlights…

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has unveiled a new coalition government, after his ruling African National Congress (ANC) party lost its parliamentary majority in May’s elections.He said “the government of national unity… is unprecedented in the history of our democracy”.The ANC will have 20 out of 32 cabinet posts, while the pro-market Democratic Alliance (DA) – until now the main opposition party – will hold six. Six other portfolios are shared amongst smaller parties.These appointments followed weeks of tense negotiations that threatened to scupper the agreement – at one point Mr Ramaphosa had accused the DA of trying to create…

10 hours agoBy Kevin Peachey, Cost of living correspondentGetty ImagesA drop in domestic gas and electricity prices has now taken effect, but costs are expected to rise again in October.Regulator Ofgem’s new price cap for England, Wales and Scotland came into force on Monday, meaning a typical household’s energy bill will fall by £122 a year.That brings down the bill for a household using a typical amount of gas and electricity to £1,568 a year, the lowest for two years.But forecasters expect it to rise again in the run-up to winter, more than reversing the latest drop.Leading consultancy Cornwall Insight predicts that…

8 minutes agoBy Dan Ayers at Glastonbury Festival, BBC News, SomersetThe clean up after Glastonbury Festival 2024 has begunVolunteer Rachel Aggitt said she finds the clean-up ‘quite therapeutic’Thousands of volunteers have begun cleaning-up the Glastonbury Festival site as the festival finishes for another year.It comes hours after US R&B star SZA closed the festival with a headlining set on the Pyramid Stage at Worthy Farm in Somerset.Thousands of revellers leaving the site on Monday have been urged to take all their belongings and tidy their campsite.People had been told the best time to leave to avoid queues was between midnight and 0700…

A rocket that accidentally launched after getting separated from its launch pad crashed in China on Sunday.Footage on social media shows the Tianlong-3 rocket falling back to Earth and exploding in a hillside in central China’s Henan province.The company responsible for the rocket, Tianbing Technology said the rocket “broke away” from the launch pad during a ground test. It has blamed structural failure for the incident. It added that there were no casualties from the incident as people in the area had been evacuated.The Tianlong-3 is Chinese designed and manufactured and intended to be a reusable rocket. Source link

High mortgage rates mean affordability is still “stretched” for many home buyers, according to the Nationwide.The building society said that while earnings had been rising faster than house prices in recent years, this had not been enough to offset the impact of more expensive mortgages.Its comments came as it said house price growth had been “broadly stable” in June, with prices up 0.2% from the previous month.The average house price is now £266,604, the lender said.Prices were up 1.5% from a year earlier, but Nationwide said activity in the housing market had been “broadly flat” over the past 12 months,…

Forget the baked potatoes and lentil curries, hundreds of people at Glastonbury Festival have been tucking into a Sunday roast. Deluxe Diner have been offering them since 2016, and they have grown in popularity over the years, selling out in just 55 minutes in 2024.Festival goers paid £36 for meat, vegetables and all of the trimmings – served on “real plates”. Video journalist: Alex Howick Source link

11 minutes agoBy Paul Kirby, BBC News in ParisREUTERS/Yves HermanFirst-round victory was sweet for Marine Le Pen and her National Rally partyFrance’s far right is in pole position after the first round of parliamentary elections that confirmed their dominance in French politics and brought them to the gates of power.Supporters of Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration National Rally (RN) cheered as she said the president’s “Macronist bloc has been all but wiped out”.RN won 33.1% of the vote, with a left-wing alliance behind on 28%, and the Macron camp behind on 20%.“I aim to be prime minister for all the French people, if…