A spokesperson for Heathrow Airport said: “Earlier our teams responded to a small grass fire adjacent to the Southern Runway. The fire has been extinguished, both runways are operational and flights continue to arrive and depart from the airport.

“We apologise for any disruption caused as a result or while emergency services completed their safety checks, but this was essential to ensure the safety of our passengers and colleagues, which is paramount.”

Accell UK and Ireland, part of the Netherlands-based Accell Group, filed a notice of intention to appoint administrators as the wider group kick-started insolvency proceedings.

The company bought Raleigh in 2012 for around 100 million US dollars (£74 million), adding to its roster of bike brands throughout Europe including Haibike, Winora and Ghost.

The 139-year-old British bikemaker was founded in Nottingham in 1887 and became well-known for its Chopper model, which featured extended handlebars and is now part of its “retro” range.

Raleigh was bought by the Netherlands-based Accell Group in 2012. (Image: PA)

Chief executive of Accell Group, Jonas Nilsson, said: “This is a deeply sad and frustrating situation given all the hard work and everything we have achieved, with the support of shareholders and lenders, to restructure Accell’s operations and finances.

“It is an especially difficult moment for our employees, creditors, customers, suppliers, and partners.”

Although Raleigh no longer manufactures bicycles in Nottingham, its head office is now based in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire.

Under Accell’s ownership, the brand shifted focus to electric bikes.

Raleigh owner Accell Group files for administration

Earlier this year, Accell restructured, secured additional funding, and reduced debt.

But the group said it had now “explored every possible avenue” for the business’s future, including discussions with potential buyers.

Having failed to secure a viable solution, the company has now begun insolvency proceedings in the Netherlands.

Mr Nilsson said: “Every realistic option for the future of the business has been tirelessly explored, and none have resulted in a solution to continue the Group in its current form.

“Our immediate focus is to support an orderly process, provide clarity wherever possible, and work with the relevant court-appointed administrators to preserve viable activities and employment where circumstances allow.”

Other major UK companies that have closed or entered administration/liquidation in 2026

It has been a tough year for the UK high street, with several other retailers entering administration or liquidation and others announcing widespread store closures.

Major high street brands LK Bennett, Claire’s, and Quiz have been forced to close all their remaining stores after falling into administration.

UK fashion retailer Leading Labels is also set to close its remaining 15 stores after falling into liquidation.

Whitbread recently confirmed it will be closing all its UK restaurants in September:

• Brewers Fayre (89 locations) – September 7
• Beefeater (106) – September 10
• Bar + Block – September 3
• Table Table – September 3
• Cookhouse + Pub – September 3

TG Jones and the British Heart Foundation will also both be closing around 150 stores across the UK.

Other retailers have been forced to close stores this year, including:

Several UK travel companies have also ceased trading or entered administration in 2026:

Meanwhile, four UK airlines have fallen into administration or liquidation:

UK delivery company Yodel is set to be phased out after being acquired by InPost.

It’s also been reported that Morrisons is looking to sell some of its in-store pharmacies as it continues to cut costs.

It hasn’t all been bad news for the UK high street, with several major brands announcing new store openings for 2026, including Aldi, M&S, and Superdrug.

Meanwhile, brands including Evans and Bodycare have returned to the UK high street this year after previously closing all their stores.

Have you ever owned a Raleigh bike? Let us know in the poll above or in the comments below.

Members of the council’s strategic planning committee deferred the outline application for land at Weeland Road in May, describing the proposal for ten per cent affordable housing as “absolutely abysmal”.

However, councillors are again being recommended to approve the scheme —despite no increase in the affordable housing provision.

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The Banks Group, which is behind the plans, has maintained that the proposed level of affordable housing is the maximum the scheme can support while remaining financially viable.

A report prepared for the meeting on Tuesday said: “Members expressed concern that the proposed provision of ten per cent affordable housing was not commensurate with the scale of development and queried whether a higher percentage should be secured.

“In response to the committee’s resolution, the applicant has submitted further information. These documents reiterate the applicant’s position that the proposed ten per cent affordable housing provision remains policy-compliant and supported by the most recent viability evidence.”

A revised viability assessment has been independently reviewed on behalf of North Yorkshire Council and officers continue to conclude that requiring additional affordable homes would make the development unviable.

The application seeks outline permission for a major mixed-use development comprising up to 1,500 homes, together with a primary school, local centre, employment land, public open space, sports pitches and associated infrastructure.

The committee report states that the independent review supports the developer’s position and that the proposed Section 106 agreement would continue to secure the ten per cent affordable housing provision alongside contributions towards education, highways, healthcare, open space and other local infrastructure.

If approved, the development would become one of the largest housing schemes in North Yorkshire and would be built over a number of phases.

Council officers continue to recommend that the application is approved

Holidaymakers have said that the Mediterranean Sea is so hot they can’t even go for a dip to cool off. 

Tourists visiting Mallorca have reported that the sea is offering little respite from the heat that is enveloping Europe. 

One German tourist told Mallorca Magazin: ‘The sea is so incredibly warm! This isn’t normal!

‘I even swam out further, but the water just didn’t get any cooler.’

Temperatures in the seas around Mallorca in August sit, on average, around 26C. 

But AEMET, Spain‘s national meteorological agency, said this morning that the sea surface temperatures just off the coast of Mallorca reached a sweltering 33.02C on Wednesday. 

If confirmed, this would beat the previous temperature record set in the Mediterranean, 31.96C, which was set in 2024 off the coast of the Egyptian city of El-Arish. 

The record before that was set in 2023, when the mercury hit 28.71C in July of that year.

Tourists apply sunscreen at Palma’s Beach in Palma de Mallorca in 2025

Tourists gather on Palma’s Beach in Palma de Mallorca last year

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It comes as a blistering heatwave engulfed Europe, fuelling wildfires and disrupting life across the continent.  

The extreme weather has pushed temperatures above 40C in several countries, prompting health warnings for millions of people.

Across Europe, authorities are grappling with the consequences of extreme heat: health alerts for millions in Italy, record temperatures in Austria, drought-related disruptions to energy and shipping in Central Europe, and wildfires stretching from France to the Balkans.

Scientists and officials warn that such events are becoming more frequent and intense as the climate warms.

From the Mediterranean to Central Europe, prolonged heat, drought and wildfire conditions are increasingly becoming defining features of summer. 

The current heatwave has exposed vulnerabilities in public health systems, power generation, transportation networks and tourism infrastructure, forcing governments and businesses to adapt to more frequent periods of extreme weather.

Italy’s Health Ministry placed all 27 cities monitored under its national heat surveillance system on red alert on Thursday. 

The alerts stretch from Trieste in the northeast to Palermo in Sicily and signal a health risk for the entire population, not only vulnerable groups such as older adults and people with chronic illnesses.

Authorities urged residents and tourists to avoid direct sunlight during the hottest hours of the day, remain indoors where possible and drink plenty of water as temperatures in some areas approached 40C. 

AEMET said on Thursday that the sea surface temperatures just off the coast of Mallorca reached a sweltering 33.02C on Wednesday

A tourist cools down using a misting fan at the Colosseum in Rome on August 3, 2026 

A dog cools off in the fountain of Piazza De Ferrari in the city centre of Genoa, Italy, August 6 2026

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Tourists at the Rome Colosseum are sprayed with cooling mist on August 6, 2026 

The heat has also forced adjustments at major tourist attractions. The ministries of tourism and culture extended evening opening hours at landmarks including Rome’s Colosseum and Pantheon.

Cooling mist fans have been installed at the Colosseum’s entrances and additional medical stations have been made available.

The most intense temperatures were recorded in Austria, where the mercury reached 41.2C on Wednesday in the village of Bad Deutsch-Altenburg near the Slovak border. It was the highest temperature ever recorded in the country.

Austria is also facing severe drought. Rainfall from January 1 through June 30 was 27 per cent below the long-term average nationwide, while some eastern regions received only half their normal precipitation.

Climatologist Alexander Orlik said some parts of the country had not experienced such dry conditions since 1885.

In Hungary, prolonged drought and record-low water levels on the Danube River have severely affected the country’s only nuclear power plant, which relies on river water to cool its reactors.

Plant operators have reduced output to about 10 per cent of normal production, prompting the government to introduce emergency conservation measures as a record-breaking heatwave grips the country.

The heatwave has shattered temperature records across the country. On Wednesday night, Budapest recorded its warmest overnight low temperature on record, with temperatures falling only to 28C, underscoring the persistence of the extreme heat.

A so-called ‘Hungerstein’ (hunger stone), a hydrological landmark, from 1857, is visible in the Rhine River during low water levels in Worms, Germany, August 6 2026

A passenger ship passes the Castle Pfalzgrafenstein on the Rhine River in Kaub, Germany, August 6, 2026

Tourists wait to fill up their water bottles at a drinking fountain in Rome in the scorching heat on August 6, 2026 

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Germany faced growing concerns over the impact of drought on transportation and industry as water levels on the Rhine and other rivers continued to fall.

Transport Minister Steffen Bilger met affected organisations Thursday and warned that low water levels posed major challenges for inland waterway shipping, industry and the broader logistics chain.

Environmental group BUND urged authorities to focus not only on the economic impacts but also on making rivers more resilient to climate change by retaining more water in landscapes and reducing withdrawals during periods of drought.

In south-eastern France, firefighters maintained a large presence in the Var region after authorities said a major wildfire there was no longer spreading but remained capable of reigniting.

The blaze, which began on July 20, has burned more than 23 square miles, making it the largest recorded in the region in recent decades.

Authorities warned that strong winds and extremely dry conditions left south-eastern France at very high risk for additional wildfires.

The heatwave reached its peak across the Balkans on Thursday as temperatures neared 40C and authorities battled drought and wildfires.

In Serbia, firefighters struggled to contain several blazes after days of dry weather. One major fire burned through pine forests west of Belgrade, while another spread near the central town of Kraljevo, where difficult terrain complicated firefighting efforts.

This is lower than the corresponding figure for each year from 2018 to 2024 and is the first time the total has dropped below 50% since the survey began

Less than half of adults agree that asylum seekers should be allowed to stay in Northern Ireland, a new survey has suggested.

The results of the research from Stormont’s Executive Office suggest a hardening of attitudes towards asylum seekers and refugees in the region.

The report analyses data from the Northern Ireland Life and Times (NILT) survey, examining public attitudes to refugees and asylum seekers.

It found that in 2025, 49% of respondents agreed that asylum seekers should be allowed to stay in Northern Ireland.

This is lower than the corresponding figure for each year from 2018 to 2024 and is the first time the total has dropped below 50% since the survey began.

The research also found that just over one quarter (27%) of respondents in 2025 agreed Northern Ireland is a society that welcomes refugees escaping persecution in their home country, again a decrease from previous years.

In 2025, 57% of respondents agreed that it is “our duty to provide protection to refugees who are escaping persecution in their home country”.

It also found that just over two fifths (41%) of respondents in 2025 agreed that “refugees contribute to our society”.

The same question received support of 53% in 2023 and 50% in 2024.

In 2025, 37% of respondents agreed that they would like more opportunities to get to know asylum seekers or refugees. The total was 44% in 2023 and 47% in 2024.

There was no change in the proportion who agreed that people’s perceptions of refugees and asylum seekers were negatively affected by the media between 2024 and 2025 – 69% in both years.

Data for the 2025 NILT survey was collected between September 26 and December 14 2025 from 1,000 adults, weighted to reflect Northern Ireland’s population.

Racially motivated riots have broken out in Northern Ireland on three occasions in recent years.

In the most recent unrest there was violence in Belfast and some other areas in June after a refugee was charged with the attempted murder of a man in the city.

The survey also reveals variations in attitudes to asylum seekers based on geographical location and religious background.

For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our daily newsletter here.

Minnie Driver has been left with a sprained neck after colliding with another car in a ‘really bad’ crash during a trip to Paris.

The 56-year-old Emily in Paris star shared a video on Instagram in which she wore a neck brace and lay in bed while detailing the crash on a French country road.

Speaking from her London home, she said the collision had happened a few days ago while driving with a friend and they ‘somehow walked out of it’

Driver said: ‘Well, we didn’t walk out of it; we crawled out of it, but we did get out of it alive. To be very clear, it was not our fault.

‘We were driving on a country road in the middle of France and a car didn’t stop at an intersection and was going at speed, and we just T-boned it.

‘I’m fine. I’ve got a sprained neck, and I’m really in shock and cry all the time. But I’m going to heal and the reason that I’m not dead, honestly, is the car that we were driving.’

The Good Will Hunting star went on to describe how the 360-degree airbags in her Kia car ‘saved their lives’.

Noting she has never been in a crash before, Driver continued: ‘The fact the entire car didn’t just concertina and crush us is down to the design of that car – which is frankly astonishing.’

Joking that she was not doing an advertisement for the Kia car, she went on to sing its praises, emotionally adding: ‘We’ve got families and people who love us and I am so grateful to be alive.’

The video also included an image of the car wreckage and a photograph of Driver and her friend Ben walking out of the French hospital, having been treated.

In the caption, Driver offered a shoutout to ‘the van driver who stopped and helped us before the ambulances arrived’, but also mentioned ‘the car who slowed down, took in the scene and drove off without stopping’.

She added: ‘My brain keeps replaying the crash, which is very hard but seems to be a necessary part of processing. Weeping, too, feels good and helpful.

‘Thank you to my friends, my family, all the people at work and especially my friend Ben and his family. I love you.’

When your mum is global supermodel and era-defining sex symbol, Cindy Crawford, it can be hard to avoid comparisons.

That’s exactly what Kaia Gerber has been dealing with – and trying to avoid – in Ryan Murphy’s latest controversial TV drama The Shards, she told Metro.

The nine-part coming-of-age thriller series, an adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s semi-autobiographical novel, follows Bret (Igby Rigney) as he navigates senior year at an elite prep school in Los Angeles in the 80s.

Bret’s trying to suss out the mysterious new student Robert Mallory (Homer Gere, son of Pretty Woman’s Richard Gere), who’s hiding secrets up his sleeve.

Kaia plays Susan Reynolds, the ‘it-girl’ of her year who seems to have it all. But she’s more complex under the surface, keeping her insecurities hidden behind lock and key.

Alongside jock Thom Wright (Graham Campbell), their group of hedonistic students find themselves alarmingly close to a serial killer who’s preying on their peers.

Kaia, the daughter of Cindy and American businessman Rande Gerber, revealed to Metro how she found photos of her famous mum in the 80s sporting a hairstyle exactly like her character in The Shards.

‘My mum was a freshman in 1981, so there are images that I’ve seen of her with that exact hairdo in high school’, she said.

But despite their striking resemblance, Kaia originally wasn’t keen to embrace their similarities.

‘I didn’t wear my hair in a side part for so long because I didn’t want to get compared to my mum,’ she admitted.

‘And then I was like: “The only person that this hurts is myself.”‘

It’s not just their resemblance that’s striking – both Kaia and her mum started their careers as models, with Kaia booking her first gig with Versace aged 10.

Cindy, on the other hand, began her career at 16 after being featured by a local photographer in Illinois, where she grew up.

She went on to become a world-famous supermodel, working with top brands including Chanel to Balmain.

Like her daughter, she also enjoyed an acting career, starring in 1995’s Fair Game and making cameos in shows like Frasier and Cougar Town.

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While Kaia might boast Cindy’s striking genetics, she isn’t the only member of The Shards cast with a famous doppelgänger.

Graham, who rocks luscious blonde curls in The Shards, has drawn parallels with American Horror Story star Evan Peters, a frequent Ryan Murphy collaborator.

‘I should be so lucky! Those are big shoes to step into, Mr Evan Peters,’ Graham said about the actor who’s appeared in nine seasons of American Horror Story and won the Golden Globe for playing the lead in Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.

‘I guess I see it now, and I really appreciate it because I really admire that guy quite a bit,’ he added.

Evan is apparently not Graham’s only celebrity lookalike. He was told that he looked like Shawn Mendes when his hair was short and brunette, and was even mistaken for Timothée Chalamet at an SNL party when the Marty Supreme star hosted the show.

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The Shards is available to stream on Disney Plus.

MORE: American Horror Story fans threaten to boycott show after ‘Ariana Grande drops out last minute’

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The Berlin Pride terrorist attack was a wake-up call. Although the LGBT+ community has made great progress in overturning homophobic laws in many countries, this attack shows that our safety is precarious. There are still people who want to kill us, even in Europe. We cannot take our wellbeing for granted. What happened in Berlin is a reminder that the price of LGBT+ freedom is eternal vigilance.

In the shadow of this attack and with heightened security, World Pride takes place this week in Amsterdam. As well as remembering the Berlin victims, the participants will be mindful that 66 countries still criminalise members of the LGBT community, six Commonwealth nations have life imprisonment, 12 states stipulate the death penalty and over 40 territories penalise trans and gender non-conforming people. In about 30 countries, LGBT people are suffering escalating repression.

The terror attack in Berlin reminds us why Pride events matter: they are acts of joy and defiance against those who want to banish us from public visibility – and worse. Violence reinforces the need for Pride to be more than just a celebration and a party. Fifty-four years ago, in London in 1972, I helped organise the UK’s first Pride. About 700 brave souls marched from Trafalgar Square to Hyde Park. Today, there are more than 180 Pride events across the UK with a combined attendance of over a million people.

In less than six decades, what began in a handful of western cities has become an unprecedented international phenomenon, of which World Pride is the symbol. That is why it is so exciting that London’s World Pride 2032 bid will be launching on 6 August in Amsterdam.

Today, the Pride movement is the most ubiquitous and universal worldwide movement of all time – and the most successful. It exists in more than 160 countries, sometimes covertly, with a common goal of LGBT+ liberation; uniting the global LGBT+ family across all borders, classes, ideologies, cultures and ethnicities. It is a movement of love, passion and hope. Why can’t the whole world be more like the Pride spirit?

But Pride has its enemies. Our community is also menaced by the rise of far-right movements in the US, Europe and the UK. They mostly do not espouse physical violence, but they seek to undermine our human rights and public presence.

Even in many Western nations, there is homophobic and transphobic backlash, mostly spearheaded by Christian fundamentalists and right-wing political parties. They are joined by some anti-trans activists who have now expanded their campaigns to undermine the whole LGBT+ community because we refuse to abandon support for our trans siblings.

The Berlin terrorist represents a different threat. The 21-year-old suspect, Abdul Ballout, a German citizen with Islamist connections, was shot dead in a confrontation with police the following day. Hardly any LGBT+ organisations at World Pride – or anywhere else – mentioned that the killer was inspired to murder by an anti-LGBT+ Islamist ideology, a political-religious ideology that seeks to impose a form of clerical fascism. It must be confronted wherever it appears, while at the same time rejecting prejudice, discrimination and violence against Muslim people.

The main victims of Islamist repression are, in fact, not white Westerners but Muslims, including LGBT+ Muslims. In large parts of the Muslim world LGBTs live in fear of imprisonment, torture, execution and so-called honour killing by families, mobs and Islamic authorities. Yet we rarely hear any LGBT+ organisation condemn or campaign against Islamism. My Peter Tatchell Foundation is almost a lone voice.

The answer to the Berlin attack is not scapegoating, division and repression. Democracies must defend the rights of all minorities, including the right of LGBTs to hold Pride parades, without fear or violence. Simultaneously, our society must ensure that the tiny minority who seek to destroy our freedoms, whether Islamist or far right, are prosecuted with the full force of law.

Local councils run by Reform UK have banned Pride flags from their buildings, defunded Pride festivals and ordered the removal of LGBT+ exhibitions from libraries.

Nigel Farage has pledged to repeal the Equality Act and the Human Rights Act, as well as withdrawing the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights. This would remove protections against discrimination for LGBTs – and everyone else. It would leave us all with fewer safeguards and redresses against the abuse of state power by institutions such as the government, police and the security services.

Reform UK has also vowed to deport at least 600,000 people. Statistically, about 30,000 to 60,000 of them are likely to be LGBT, probably including many LGBTs who have fled persecution on the grounds of their sexuality or gender identity in Africa, Russia, South Asia and the Middle East.

Reform UK is a serious threat to the LGBT+ community, which is why when I mentioned Reform during my speech from the main stage at Brighton Pride last Saturday, the 20,000-strong crowd broke into a spontaneous and prolonged chant of “Block Reform!” We see you, Nigel!

Despite the threat from Islamists and the far-right, and anti-LGBT+ backlash, I’m optimistic. Overall, LGBTs are still making progress worldwide. The message from World Pride is: Queer freedom is an unstoppable global trend!

The Independent’s Pride List 2026 was published last month and celebrates the work and achievements of British individuals within the LGBTQ+ community . Read it in full here

South Wales Fire and Rescue Service said crews from 10 areas remain at the scene as well as Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service.

In an update at 4.15pm SWFRS said: “Crews, appliances and specialist equipment including an aerial hydraulic platform and water bowsers from Rhymney, Aberdare, Abercynon, Brynmawr, Ferndale, Treorchy, Gilfach Goch and Aberbargoed, Merthyr Tydfil and Cardiff Central are in attendance along with support from Mid and West Fire and Rescue Service.

“We are advising local residents to keep windows and doors closed due to smoke in the area.

“The incident remains ongoing and our crews are working to bring it to a safe close.”