New DWP powers to check bank accounts of Universal Credit and Pension Credit claimants will be rolled out this year as part of a major benefit fraud crackdown

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is being granted sweeping new powers to crack down on benefit fraud, including the ability to scrutinise claimants’ bank accounts.

Legislation passed last year introduced a broad range of measures, enabling investigators to request financial information from individuals receiving certain benefits. Officials will contact UK banking institutions, directing them to examine their records for accounts linked to specific benefits, flagging any that may be receiving payments to which claimants are not entitled.

The new laws also grant authorities the power to withdraw funds directly from a person’s bank account should they owe money to the DWP and refuse to repay the debt. Initially, the eligibility checks will be applied to those claiming Universal Credit, Pension Credit, and Employment and Support Allowance.

The legislation indicates that this could be extended to cover additional benefits. The DWP was approached for an update on when these bank checks will come into effect, with officials confirming that they have yet to be implemented, as certain prerequisites must first be met.

As part of the rollout, the DWP will adopt a ‘test and learn approach’ to trial the new powers, which is set to commence this year. In the meantime, the DWP is currently drafting codes of practice governing the use of these new powers, with finalised versions to be presented to Parliament “before any new powers can be used”. The direct deduction powers, which enable investigators to withdraw funds straight from an individual’s bank account, are chiefly targeted at those who have exited the benefits system but still owe outstanding debts.

Previously, the DWP was restricted to recovering money through an individual’s PAYE earnings or via deductions from their benefits, reports Chronicle Live.

Should the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) decide to utilise this authority, they will contact the individual in question, offering an opportunity to contest the matter. Officials will also need three months’ worth of bank statements to verify that adequate funds are available in the account.

The legislation also provides enhanced powers to fraud investigators when conducting enquiries. Previously, they were restricted to requesting information from a limited list of sources.

They can now contact any third party linked to the individual suspected of fraud, requiring them to supply the necessary information. When the laws were introduced in December 2025, Andrew Western, minister for Transformation, said: “It is right that as fraud against the public sector evolves, the Government has a robust and resolute response.

“The powers granted through the bill will allow us to better identify, prevent and deter fraud and error, and enable the better recovery of debt owed to the taxpayer. A benefits system people can trust is essential for claimants and taxpayers alike – through this bill that’s exactly what we’ll deliver.”

Also on Monday, the leader of Haringey Council, which manages the festival’s Finsbury Park venue, said she was “deeply disappointed by the decision to book an artist whose comments are at odds with our values in Haringey, particularly given the concerns raised within our large Jewish community”.

Mikel Arteta has confirmed Gabriel Magalhaes, Declan Rice and Leandro Trossard are all fully fit and available for Arsenal’s Champions League clash with Sporting.

Gabriel played the full 90 minutes of Arsenal’s Carabao Cup final loss to Manchester City, but was forced off with a knee problem in the side’s FA Cup quarter-final defeat to Southampton at the weekend.

The Brazil centre-back was pictured back in training earlier today, though, and caught the chartered flight to Lisbon with the rest of Arteta’s first-team squad on the eve of the quarter-final first leg.

Rice had also been a slight doubt for the contest having pulled out of England’s friendlies with Uruguay and Japan during the recent international break.

But the midfielder appears to have shaken off any concerns over his fitness, along with winger Trossard, who did not make Saturday’s trip to Southampton due to a groin issue.

‘Yes, yes and yes,’ Arteta told reporters when asked if Gabriel, Rice and Trossard were ready to feature against Sporting upon the squad’s arrival in Portugal.

Tuesday’s match comes to soon for both Jurrien Timber and Bukayo Saka, however, with the duo left out of Arsenal’s travelling party to continue their rehabilitation back home.

On Timber and Saka, Arteta explained: ‘They haven’t travelled and are not ready yet.

‘Hopefully for the weekend if everything goes well.’

Mikel Merino, the only other absentee for the Gunners, is still some way from his possible comeback after undergoing surgery on a foot injury he suffered in January.

With Arsenal’s squad still hurting after back-to-back defeats in the Carabao Cup and FA Cup, Arteta hopes his players are able to use the ‘pain’ they have experienced to drive themselves towards something positive.

‘Have some perspective about how difficult what we have done up until now has been,’ the Spaniard said.

‘Feel the pain, use it to improve.

‘We are very clear what happened, why it happened. This is football.’

Arteta added: ‘I think what you have to be is clear, understand why it happened. And when you understand that, be better, and that is what we have to do.’

More to follow.

MORE: ‘Goodnight!’ – Rio Ferdinand names team that could end Arsenal’s Premier League title charge

MORE: ‘It’s laughable’ – Ian Wright blasts ‘pathetic’ criticism of Arsenal

MORE: William Gallas tells Mikel Arteta to replace two Arsenal stars to help Viktor Gyokeres

Donald Trump has praised the US fighter pilot who was rescued from an Iranian mountain over the weekend.

The airman was on board an F-15E Strike Eagle jet that was shot down by Iran on Friday, the first US aircraft to be downed by Iranian fire since the US and Israel launched the war at the end of February.

While a second crew member was located shortly after the crash, Sky News understands he was left stranded in rural Iran, and was rescued on Sunday.

At a news conference at the White House on Easter Monday, the US president said that both pilots were “incredibly brave” and that Iran was “not so strong like they were about a month ago”.

Here’s what we know about the airman’s condition, the mission to rescue him, and what the president and Iran have said.

Iran war latest: Trump praises ‘brave’ US pilots after rescue

How did the US save the airman?

After the crash on Friday, official and semi-official Iranian news organisations reported that a regional governor had offered a bounty for the F-15E crew – around $60,000 (£45,360).

A US official told the Reuters news agency the plane was flying over Isfahan province when it was brought down, and the two airmen ejected separately.

They said that the first pilot was rescued while the second airman – the jet’s weapons specialist, and according to Mr Trump on Truth Social a colonel – remained in Iran.

Speaking to Reuters, the US source said the American officer sprained his ankle in the crash and hid in a crevice on a hilltop.

The airman later established contact with the US military and confirmed his identity.

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What Trump didn’t mention in message about dramatic airman rescue

After this, a senior Trump administration official said the CIA had run a deception campaign earlier, hoping to confuse Tehran by planting information that US forces had already located the missing airman and were moving him before the operation took place.

An official told Reuters the US military then took additional steps, jamming electronics and bombing key roads around the location to prevent people from getting close.

They said the aircraft eventually sent to extract the airman and rescue forces were smaller turboprop aircraft, capable of landing on small airfields and relatively light.

Mr Trump provided more details of the operation at a later briefing, revealing that US military personnel faced gunfire at “very close range” during the rescue, which involved 155 aircraft, he said.

Among the craft deployed were four bombers, 64 fighters, 48 refueling tankers and 13 rescue aircraft, he said.

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Iran releases footage of aircraft debris

The president told reporters the unidentified airman was ​hiding in mountains and kept climbing ​higher in order to improve ​the chances for a successful recovery.

He said, for the rescuers, it was like looking for “a needle in a haystack”.

Hundreds of US forces took part in ⁠the mission ​and helped prevent Tehran from ​finding him first, he said, adding that “hundreds of people could have been killed”.

The plan was not approved by everyone, Mr Trump said, pointing to unnamed members of the military who told him “‘You just don’t do this’”.

He said he understood that, “but I decided to do it”.

During his press conference, Trump provided intricate details of the rescue over the weekend of the second airman in Iran.

“This is a rescue that’s very historic,” he said.

Trump explained that the airman, a colonel, had landed in Iran a “significant distance away from the pilot” who had been rescued on Friday.

The second airman was “injured quite badly and stranded in an area teeming with terrorists from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – rough group – as well as besieged military, militia and local authorities.

“Despite the peril, the officer followed his training and climbed into the treacherous mountain terrain and started climbing toward a higher altitude, something they were trained to do in order to evade capture,” he said.

The serviceman was “bleeding rather profusely,” and treated his own wounds but “contacted American forces to transmit his location” using what Trump said is a “very sophisticated beeper-type apparatus” that he said “saved his life.”

“We immediately mobilised a massive operation to retrieve him from the mountain hold-out,” Mr Trump said.

“The heroic F-15 weapons system officer had evaded capture on the ground in Iran for almost 48 hours,” he said.

“In a breathtaking show of skill and precision, lethality and force, America’s military descended on the area” before they “engaged the enemy” and “rescued the stranded officer, destroyed all threats and exited Iranian territory while taking no casualties of any kind”.

Trump said that eventually there was a problem leaving Iran because of the “wet sand” and the “weight of the plane.”

“Then we also had all the men jumping back onto the planes, and they got pretty well bogged down. And we had a continued contingency plan which was unbelievable,” he said.

Trump said that “lighter, faster aircraft” flew in to take the Americans out of Iran with the airman. The U.S. destroyed the aircraft that were stuck in the sand, he said.

What happened during the rescue mission?

The initial search effort encountered fierce resistance, with two Black Hawk helicopters involved in the search reportedly hit by Iranian fire but they escaped.

In a separate incident, a pilot ejected from an A-10 Warthog fighter aircraft after it was hit over Kuwait and crashed, the officials said, though the extent of crew injuries was unclear.

The conflict has killed 13 US military service members, with more than 300 wounded, the US Central Command says. No US troops have been taken prisoner by Iran.

Two MC-130 aircraft that ferried some of the roughly 100 special operations forces into rugged terrain south of Tehran suffered a mechanical failure and could not take off.

Their commanders made a high-risk decision, ordering additional aircraft to fly into Iran to extract the group in waves.

US troops then destroyed the disabled MC-130s and four additional helicopters in Iran.

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What has Trump said?

During the operation, Mr Trump was relatively quiet online, with a local reporter checking if he was at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington DC.

After the mission was finished though, the US president said on Truth Social: “Over the past several hours, the United States Military pulled off one of the most daring Search and Rescue Operations in U.S. History”.

He added that the airman was injured, but “he will be just fine”, before saying: “This is the first time in military memory that two U.S. Pilots have been rescued, separately, deep in Enemy Territory.

“WE WILL NEVER LEAVE AN AMERICAN WARFIGHTER BEHIND!”

At an Easter event at the White House, Mr Trump said of the rescue that “normally you’re in very hostile territory, and I don’t think it gets much more hostile than (Iran) are, and they’re capable fighters”.

“You don’t mind when the enemy is weak, but that enemy is strong, not so strong like they were about a month ago, I can tell you”, he added.

“In fact, right now they’re not too strong at all in my opinion, but we’re soon going to find out, aren’t we?”

The US president also said that “what we did yesterday is we picked up not one – we picked up two” – referring to the first pilot thought to be rescued. It’s unclear whether he misspoke.

He added: “We kept the first one quiet, and we were able to keep it quiet for about a day, which made it a lot better. But those two pilots were incredibly brave, and we thank them.”

What has Iran said?

Iran’s state TV showed on Sunday a picture of black smoke from what it said was a destroyed American transport plane and two helicopters.

Iranian state media on Friday also said a second US plane – an A-10 aircraft – crashed after being hit by Iranian forces.

The US military has not commented on the status of that aircraft or its crew.

And on the US’s rescue efforts on Sunday, Iran said several aircraft were destroyed.

Samsung is discontinuing its proprietary messaging application, Samsung Messages, directing users to Google Messages instead.

The tech giant announced the end of service for its namesake app, effective July, via an end-of-service notice published on its U.S. support website.

Owners of Samsung smartphones and other devices are being advised to transition to Google Messages “to maintain a consistent messaging experience on Android.”

All Samsung Galaxy phones operate on Google’s Android operating system. To make the switch, Samsung’s website provides instructions: users should download the Google Messages app from the Play Store if it’s not already installed and then set it as their default messaging application. Some users may also receive an in-app notification to guide them through this process.

Samsung says switching to Google Messages will give users access to updates like the latest artificial intelligence features from Google’s Gemini — which includes an experimental feature called “Remix” to generate images during conversations and AI-powered reply suggestions — and the ability to share higher quality photos between Android and Apple iOS devices through RCS-enabled messages.

Users of older Android operating systems (dating back to Android 11 or older) will not be impacted by the end of Samsung Messages, the company noted. To check what Android OS you have on a Samsung device, open the settings app, click on “software information” and scroll to “Android version.”

Meanwhile, owners of Samsung’s latest Galaxy 26 lineup and other newer phones cannot download the Samsung Messages app from the Galaxy Store today.

All devices will no longer be able to download Samsung Messages after it’s officially discontinued in July, the company noted. Samsung said users can check their app for the exact date for when service will go offline.

Beyond the U.S., Samsung did not immediately respond to a request for further information about whether its guidance for Samsung Messages was the same globally.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, on Monday won a Supreme Court order that is expected to lead to the dismissal of his criminal conviction for refusing to testify to Congress.

Prodded by the Trump administration, the justices threw out an appellate ruling upholding Bannon’s conviction for defying a subpoena from the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by a mob of Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol.

The move frees a trial judge to act on the Republican administration’s pending request to dismiss Bannon’s conviction and indictment “in the interests of justice.”

The dismissal would be largely symbolic. Bannon served a four-month prison term after a jury convicted him of contempt of Congress in 2022. A federal appeals court in Washington had upheld the conviction.

The justices also issued a similar order in the case of former Cincinnati Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld, who was pardoned by Trump last year.

Sittenfeld had served 16 months in federal prison after a jury convicted him of bribery and attempted extortion in 2022. The high court order allows a lower court to consider dismissing his indictment.

The Justice Department brought the case against Bannon during Democrat Joe Biden’s presidency, but it changed course after Trump took office again last year.

Bannon had initially argued that his testimony was protected by Trump’s claim of executive privilege. But the House panel and the Justice Department contended such a claim was dubious because Trump had fired Bannon from the White House in 2017 and Bannon was thus a private citizen when he was consulting with the then-president in the run-up to the Capitol riot.

Bannon separately has pleaded guilty in a New York state court to defrauding donors to a private effort to build a wall on the U.S. southern border, as part of a plea deal that allowed him to avoid jail time. That conviction is unaffected by the Supreme Court action.

Now 23, the North Yorkshire man is urging families to open their doors to children who need the same warmth, stability and belonging he found with his foster carers.

Ashley spent 13 years in foster care from the age of eight, and says the support he received changed his life — inspiring him to help others find the same sense of family he was given.

Ashley says he is “one of the lucky ones”, thanks to the stability and love he received with his final foster parents Diane and Stuart Kelly from Harrogate.

Although Ashley lived with them for only four years, he describes the home as “like a family” and he remains in close contact with them even today.

In fact, in his spare time he helps care for their current children when they go away, acting as a connected carer.

Ashley with his final foster parents Diane and Stuart Kelly from Harrogate (Image: NORTH YORKSHIRE COUNCIL)

Ashley said: “They offered a warm and loving home where I felt belonged.

“Diane and Stuart have done a lot for me emotionally and financially too.

“They loaned me money to buy my first car which was a huge help.

“However, the most impactful thing they did was love me as their own.

“Feeling accepted and at home is what helps build trust.”

The Harrogate couple fostered Ashley for four years.

Though he lived with three families during his time in care, he credits Diane and Stuart for giving him a true sense of belonging.

He remains close to them and now helps look after their current children when they are away.

Ashley said: “Carers need to be willing to adjust to the child and the situation.

“Truly caring and treating a young person as part of the family makes all the difference.”

Now living in York, he works in business support within social care and is studying children, young people and society at university.

He hopes to become a social worker.

Janet Sanderson, North Yorkshire Council’s executive member for children and families, said: “We are incredibly proud of Ashley and everything he has achieved.

“His resilience, determination and commitment to improving the lives of others is truly inspiring.”

As of September last year, along with families of local foster carers, North Yorkshire Council provided loving homes for 438 children and there is an urgent need for more local foster families to come forward.

The scheme, Fostering North Yorkshire, is open to single people, couples, renters, and homeowners from all backgrounds.

The spin-off of the main I’m A Celebrity show serves as an all-stars version of the programme featuring previous contestants.

It first aired back in 2023, with it reportedly being made as a backup in case the main I’m A Celebrity show couldn’t film in Australia due to potential Covid restrictions.

ITV had filmed two series of I’m A Celeb in Wales to counteract this initially, but there hadn’t been a great desire to do it again.

An insider told The Mirror at the time: “This is a brilliant reserve plan in case Covid restrictions come round again in the Autumn and the cast and crew can’t get Down Under, as has happened for the past two years.

“There is no appetite to go back to Wales.

“It was great while it lasted but it’s just too dark and damp.

“Everyone’s had enough, including the viewers.”

Filming for the first South Africa series took place in July 2022, with it being broadcast in April and May of 2023.

Like the first series, the 2026 version is also pre-recorded, having been filmed in September 2025.

However, unlike last time, the finale will be live.

Rather than making the 12-hour flight back to Africa, the entire celebrity cast will instead gather in a UK studio.

From here, the public will be able to vote to crown this year’s I’m a Celebrity Legend.

What time is I’m A Celeb South Africa on TV tonight?

The first episode of I’m A Celebrity South Africa’s second series will air from 9pm on ITV1 and ITVx on Monday, April 6.

The bumper opening episode will last until 10.30pm, which will be slightly longer than most regular episodes.

A synopsis for the opening episode states: “Ant and Dec host as memorable campmates from past series of I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! compete against one another in the South African jungle.

“They survived the Australian jungle or the Welsh castle, but this is an even harder proposition that will push them to their limits and test them like never before.”

I’m A Celebrity South Africa lineup 2026

The line-up for I’m A Celebrity South Africa’s second series is:

• Former football manager Harry Redknapp
• Reality star Gemma Collins
• Soap actress Beverley Callard
• Olympian Sir Mo Farah
• Former Gogglebox star Scarlett Moffatt
• Champion boxer David Haye
• Actor Adam Thomas
• Former Pussycat Doll Ashley Roberts
• Comedian Seann Walsh
• Pop star Sinitta
• Red Dwarf star Craig Charles
• Ex-footballer Jimmy Bullard

Scarlett Moffatt and Harry Redknapp performed the best on the original show out of the contestants, winning their respective series in 2016 and 2018, respectively.

Other strong performers from the original show include Ashley Roberts, who was runner-up in 2012.

Meanwhile, Adam Thomas earned third place in 2016, which was the same placing David Haye got in 2012.

Mo Farah and Seann Walsh came in fifth place in 2020 and 2022, respectively.

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When will I’m A Celeb South Africa be on TV?

I’m A Celebrity South Africa will air on weekdays between Monday, April 6 and Friday, April 24.

In most circumstances, episodes will start at 9pm with finish times varying.

Alongside that, episodes will not be airing on weekends.

Will you be watching I’m A Celeb South Africa? Let us know in the comments.

Police asked local residents and business owners to close their windows and doors as there is a substantial amount of smoke in the air

A fire has broken out in 700 tonnes of scrap metal at an industrial estate in Derry.

Emergency services attended the scene at the Campsie Industrial Estate, Clooney Road, Derry.

A spokesperson for Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) said they received a call about the fire at a recycling site at 2.58pm on Monday.

“Six fire appliances are now in attendance from Crescent Link, Limavady, Coleraine, Ballymoney and Maghera fire stations, with water tenders from Dungiven and Pomeroy fire stations, and a command support unit from Strabane fire station,” they said.

“The fire is in approximately 700 to 800 tonnes of scrap metal.

“Fifty one firefighters are currently working to bring the fire under control and prevent escalation.”

Police asked local residents and business owners to close their windows and doors as there is a substantial amount of smoke in the air.

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