It will mean that up to 1.5 million more children will be able to use eGates, therefore speeding up journeys for them and their families.

The change will help families returning from their holidays with young children.

Here is all you need to know and when the change takes effect.

eGates are used at airports across the UK and Europe for border control (Image: Getty Images)

eGate rules to change for children next week

Children aged eight and nine, who are at least 120cm (3ft 11in) tall and accompanied by an adult, will become eligible to use eGates in the UK.

Under current rules, children need to be 10 to use the eGates, and before 2023, it was 12 years old.

Height restrictions are due to children needing to be able to see and be captured by biometric screens.

The change will speed up the process for children and their families, as they typically have to see a border force officer.

Based on 2025 UK arrival figures, an estimated 1.5 million more children will be eligible to pass through eGates with their families over the next year as a result of the age change.

The expanded access is set to begin from next Wednesday (July 8).

Minister for Migration and Citizenship, Mike Tapp, said: “Travel with young children can be stressful for parents.    

“By expanding eGate access, more families can experience a swifter and smoother journey home – freeing up precious time this summer holiday season. 

“We are delivering continued improvement to the passenger experience, while keeping our borders safe and secure.”

The 13 UK airports that will have updated eGate rules

There are 13 airports that use eGates across the UK that will see the updated rules come into effect.

These are:

• London Heathrow
• London Gatwick
• London City
• London Luton
• London Stansted
• Manchester
• Birmingham
• Bristol
• East Midlands
• Newcastle
• Cardiff
• Edinburgh
• Glasgow

It will cover more than 290 eGates in the UK and accompanying ports where border checks take place in Europe.

There are also 48 EU airports that are allowing British holidaymakers to use eGates.

These include places in Spain, France, Italy and Portugal.

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The rules will also impact other travel methods such as Eurostar and the Eurotunnel.

People travelling from non-Schengen countries in Europe, along with the US, Australia and Japan, can also use the eGates.

What do you think about the new eGate change? Let us know in the comments.

The incident took place in the Donegall Quay area on Wednesday

A man has been arrested as police seized suspected drugs worth £225,000 after two police vehicles were involved in a collision as they stopped a vehicle in Belfast.

Officers from the PSNI’s Paramilitary Crime Task Force made the arrest on Wednesday, July 1, after they signalled for a vehicle to stop in the Donegall Quay area. The vehicle attempted to make off from officers and collided with two police vehicles.

Police say they then recovered a “large quantity of suspected Class A controlled drugs” from the vehicle with follow-up searches in the Newtownabbey and Mallusk areas uncovered further drugs.

Detective Inspector Maguire said: “While conducting a proactive policing operation yesterday in the Donegall Quay area in relation to the supply of Class A controlled drugs, officers signalled for a vehicle to stop. It failed to do so, attempting to make off instead, which resulted in a collision with two police vehicles.

“Thankfully, there were no reports of any injuries and a subsequent search of the vehicle uncovered a large quantity of suspected Class A controlled drugs, which were then seized.

“The driver, a man in his thirties, was arrested on suspicion of possession of a Class A controlled drug, possession of a Class A controlled drug with intent to supply, providing money or property for the purposes of terrorism, failing to stop for police and driving without due care and attention.

“He remains in police custody at this time.

“Follow-up searches conducted in the Newtownabbey and Mallusk areas resulted in further suspected drugs being seized, along with a number of vehicles, with the total estimated street value of all drugs seized as a result of the searches £225,000.

“These searches and the arrest demonstrate the PCTF’s commitment to tackling the harm caused by illegal drug use and supply in our communities.

“Our enquiries are ongoing and I would encourage anyone with information about the supply or use of illegal drugs to contact police on the 101 number.

“You can also report to police online, via www.psni.police.uk/report or contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or online at http://crimestoppers-uk.org/. ”

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

The Prime Minister was asked whether he backed the England manager’s call for children to stay up for the Mexico game

Parents should ‘make their own decision’ as to whether schoolchildren should stay up to watch England’s 1am World Cup match on Monday, Sir Keir Starmer has said.

The Prime Minister’s spokesperson was asked whether Sir Keir backed England manager Thomas Tuchel’s call for children to stay up late and watch the match. The game against Mexico kicks off at 1am on Monday morning.

“We want everyone to enjoy the game but kids should be in school on Monday,” the Prime Minister’s spokeswoman said. Sir Keir will face the ‘same dilemma’ as other England fans over whether to stay up, she said.

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“The PM has his usual packed schedule on Monday, so he’ll be facing the same dilemma as everyone else on whether to stay up. Win or lose, I think millions of England supporters will be at work on Monday, and the PM will be doing the same.”

Skills minister Baroness Jacqui Smith earlier said she planned to take a ‘disco nap’ on Sunday afternoon and then stay up late to watch the match. Schools and employers have often allowed England games in the latter stages of major tournaments to be shown during working hours, but Monday’s early-morning kick-off poses a unique obstacle.

“Write an excuse for school and let them watch football,” Tuchel pleaded after Harry Kane’s two late goals saw England squeeze through the round of 32. “Come on.

“There’s so much school to go to, but the World Cup is every four years. Let them watch. There will be a big, big match on in four days and we need the support of everyone, and especially of the children.”

What do you think? Have your say:

Cambridgeshire Police were called to the A14 eastbound between J20 and J21, near Huntingdon, just before 10am today (Thursday, July 2). The crash involved “at least three vehicles”, a police spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added that a woman was injured, but the detail of the woman’s injuries were unknown. Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue also attended the scene at around 10.30am.

National Highways reports there are around 60 minutes of delays along the road and around three miles of congestion. Traffic monitor site Inrix also reports there are “long delays” along the road.

CambridgeshireLive awaits further comment from the East of England Ambulance Service. More as we have it.

Astronomers have revealed new details about the make-up and age of a visiting comet that was born around a distant star. They conclude that the composition of 3I/Atlas is strikingly different from any object found in our solar system.

A trio of recently published studies shed light on the origins of this exotic comet. 3I/Atlas appears to have been born in a cold environment, possibly around 12 billion years ago.

The comet is an interstellar object (ISO), meaning an asteroid or comet that originated outside the solar system. It is the third such object found, after 1I/ʻOumuamua and 2I/Borisov. It was discovered almost exactly one year ago, travelling inbound on a trajectory that has taken it through the inner solar system and out the other side.

These distant origins make ISOs incredibly interesting to astronomers because they are physical pieces of other planetary systems, delivered to us on galactic tides so that they can be studied from the comfort of our own solar system.

As a comet, 3I/Atlas contained frozen ices that “sublimated” – turned directly from a solid to a gas. These escaped (outgassed) from the comet as it was heated by the Sun, creating a visually spectacular coma (bright atmosphere surrounding the object) and tail.

A comet has no internal light source of its own, instead dust in its coma reflects sunlight and its volatiles (chemicals that readily vaporise or sublimate) display fluorescence.

But this is no mere light show: each fluorescing molecule leaves a spectral fingerprint on the light reaching our telescopes. These fingerprints allow us to identify the chemicals contained within the comet.

They are revealed by splitting the light into its constituent wavelengths with a technique called spectroscopy, allowing astronomers to deduce the comet’s chemical composition.

Unique chemical cocktail

This revealed in 3I/Atlas a cocktail of water, carbon dioxide and monoxide, methane, cyanides, sulphides, and even free-floating iron and nickel atoms. These ingredients are actually quite expected, as each of them are regularly detected in our own domestic solar system comets. However, their relative abundances are different in 3I/Atlas: high levels of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and low levels of ammonia (NH₃) mark it as an outsider.

Additionally, molecules made up from atoms with different isotopes (distinct forms of the same chemical element) also have subtly different spectral signatures. With a bright comet such as 3I/Atlas, and with our largest and most sensitive telescopes, these signatures can be distinguished, allowing astronomers measure the comet’s isotope ratios.

One of the new studies, published in Nature, uses the spectral signatures of water and carbon dioxide measured with the James Webb Space Telescope to calculate 3I/Atlas’s ratio of two different isotopes of carbon, ¹²C and ¹³C, and its ratio of deuterium (a heavy form of hydrogen) to standard hydrogen – known as the D/H ratio.

These are very exciting results, because the isotope ratios present in an ISO such as 3I/Atlas should match the ratios in the protoplanetary disk in which it formed. This allows us to make detailed inferences about the conditions 3I/Atlas formed in and the star it must have formed around.

3I/Atlas’s water was found to have a D/H ratio of around 1%, significantly higher than all observed solar system comets. These high levels of deuterium are only found in very cold environments, with temperatures of less than 30 Kelvin (-243°C).

In these conditions, normal hydrogen atoms get replaced by heavier deuterium atoms in the water ice that coats tiny dust grains. Over time, these icy dust grains stick together to form comets.

Ancient traveller

3I/Atlas’ ¹²C/¹³C ratio was equally extreme, far above all solar system values. The ratio of these isotopes function like a cosmic clock. In the beginning, the first generation of stars produced carbon with a high ratio of ¹²C/¹³C, but subsequent cycles of star formation and death have lowered it. For 3I/Atlas to have formed with such a high value of ¹²C/¹³C, it must have formed in the very early history of the Milky Way, around 12 billion years ago.

Studies from shortly after its discovery suggested 3I/Atlas was likely to be at least 7 billion years old based on its velocity, meaning the ancient status of 3I/Atlas is now supported by multiple independent lines of evidence.

Though the night sky beyond the limits of our solar system can feel static and unchanging, both the universe and our galaxy do evolve on billion-year timescales.

When 3I/Atlas formed, the universe was just a fraction of its present age, and the Milky Way in which it formed was still in the process of assembling itself through violent collisions and mergers with other galaxies.

If the star that 3I/Atlas formed around was the same mass as our Sun, it is likely to have already reached the end of its life, outlived by the ISOs it released shortly after its birth.

Over the next ten years, cutting-edge discovery telescopes such as Nasa’s NEO Surveyor and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile will increase the number of known ISOs by an order of magnitude. This will provide astronomers with a fossil record of the evolution of planetary systems across galactic history.

The World Cup is not getting in the way of the summer window hitting remarkable heights as Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, Tottenham and Liverpool work on strengthening their squads with new signings. The Gunners are said to be exploring a deal for Bradley Barcola, despite Paris Saint-Germain being reluctant to sell. Morgan Rogers is a priority signing, and Bruno Guimaraes has been sounded out – and potentially had his head turned.

Fans, including a local celeb, of The Great British Sewing Bee have finally had their answer after confusion over the show’s return date prompted questions online.

The official Great British Sewing Bee Instagram account confirmed the BBC One favourite will return on Tuesday, July 14 at 8pm, after some viewers spotted reports suggesting a later launch date.

The programme’s social media team shared a post announcing: “The Bee is back” alongside details of the new series.

However, one fan quickly queried the date, commenting: “Hubby checked BBC website yesterday and it said 28th July! Please can you confirm which it is? Thanks.”

Responding directly, the official account reassured viewers that July 14 is the correct date.

The account replied: “This is the date. Was it definitely the BBC website he checked? A few outlets have been misreporting but it’s never confirmed unless it comes directly from us or the BBC.”

The response appears to have helped clear up uncertainty among fans who had seen conflicting reports about when the popular sewing competition would return to screens.

Others were quick to celebrate the news.

One viewer wrote: “Eeeeee I am sew excited.”

Former RuPaul’s Drag Race UK star Danny Beard, from Bolton, also commented: “Loveeeeeeee.”

(Image: PA)

The new series will once again see amateur sewers compete in a series of challenges as they attempt to impress the judges and be crowned Britain’s best home sewist.

With the launch date now seemingly stitched up, fans can mark Tuesday, July 14 at 8pm firmly in their calendars.

Bringing her own trademark wit and warmth, Sophie will join judges Patrick Grant and Esme Young to lead Britain’s most creative stitchers through their challenges when the new series arrives on BBC One. She made her debut on the Christmas Celebrity Special.

Communities Secretary Steve Reed has written to councils explaining what they should do with rules in place

Pubs are in a race against time to get permission to open for England’s last 16 World Cup game after the government failed to grant blanket permission. The game is at 1am on Monday – meaning that if the pub wants to open they must secure the necessary permission from their local council first.

Last night the national team got past the Democratic Republic of Congo with two late goals from Harry Kane. The pub industry has been struggling, with it put down to changes in employment tax which has made it more difficult for the hospitality industry.

However, the World Cup has proven to be a fillip, with, during the group stage alone, UK pubs pouring an estimated 6.8 million extra pints of draught beer and cider. England’s fixtures accounted for 5.5 million of those, while Scotland’s group-stage run added a further 1.3 million.

Now they are hoping to open for the Mexico game, which could well be the last of the tournament as England will face one of the host nations in their home stadium, which is also at altitude, with the players having no time to acclimate.

During the tournament, the Home Office granted a national licensing hours relaxation covering matches at more conventional kick-off times: pubs in England and Wales can open until 1am for games starting between 5pm and 9pm, and until 2am for those kicking off between 9pm and 10pm, Caterer Licensee reported.

However, this dispensation does not extend to fixtures beginning after 10pm, meaning the England v Mexico match falls outside the automatic relaxation.

As a result, individual pubs wishing to stay open must apply to their local authority for a Temporary Event Notice (TEN), potentially permitting trading until 3.30am should the match go to extra time and penalties.

Communities Secretary Steve Reed has written to councils urging them to approve such applications wherever possible. However, the final decision rests with individual licensing authorities, and operators have been warned that approval is not guaranteed.

Publicans are being urged to check the statutory notice requirements before applying, after at least one operator reportedly had a TEN application refused because it fell short of the required five working days’ notice ahead of the event – a reminder that councils have no discretion to waive the statutory timeframe, even where a request is otherwise supported.

Venues without a TEN already in place are advised to contact their local licensing team as a matter of urgency if they intend to serve alcohol beyond their standard licensed hours for the match.

Pressure is growing on the government to give England fans a bank holiday on Monday – as the Mexico crunch last 16 game at the World Cup kicks off at 10am. Fans are bombarding outgoing Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer with pleas.

It comes as only one in five employers are planning to give fans flexibile working hours to cope with the middle-of-the night fixture. Last night England came from behind to beat the Democratic Republic of Congo 2-1 after two late goals from captain Harry Kane.

Officials have currently said there are no plans for a new bank holiday – claiming ‘the current pattern of bank and public holidays is well established’. However it follows the descision in Scotland to give fans the Monday June 15 off after thwe game against Haiti in Boston with a 2am kick-off time.

Only one in five employers is planning to offer flexible working hours during the World Cup despite the timing of some of the games, new research suggests. England’s next match, against Mexico, kicks off at 1am on Monday, so fans will have had little sleep before going to work.

England manager Thomas Tuchel jokingly had a message for parents after last night’s win “Write an excuse for school and let them watch the game…”

A survey of 1,100 managers by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) found that only one in five employers plan to offer flexible working hours, such as adjusted start or finish times, to help staff watch World Cup matches.

A minority of firms are offering extended breaks, workplace screenings or additional leave options, according to the study.

Petra Wilton, director of policy at the CMI, said: “We’re not saying every England win deserves a bank holiday, but if millions of people have stayed up until 3am supporting their team, asking employers to let them start a little later the next morning is simply common sense.

“We’re saying to employers across the country: ‘let them start late’.

“The World Cup is a reminder of why flexible working matters. Great managers recognise that people have lives outside work, and when they offer sensible flexibility, whether that’s around caring responsibilities, medical appointments or even the occasional late-night sporting event, organisations benefit too through higher engagement, improved wellbeing, stronger retention and, ultimately, better performance.”

On X fans were taking to social media to demand the day off. JT said: “Got to pressure those in number 10 for a Bank Holiday Monday for that England vs Mexico game. Or as a nation we call in sick. “

David said: “Why are we not getting a Bank Holiday for the #England game? Scotland were granted one for their early morning games. Are we being made mugs of? #hcafc”

Formula said: “Surely it’s gotta be a bank holiday on Monday, England are playing in a World Cup round of 16 game against Mexico at the Estadio Azteca in a match that starts at 1am UK time, everybody should be able to watch it so let the nation have a break the next day”

PHOENIX (AP) — For decades, all that separated the U.S. from Mexico was barbed wire.

Now, after a massive infusion of cash from Congress, President Donald Trump’s administration is swiftly building what it has dubbed a “smart wall,” a combination of 30-foot-tall (9-meter-tall) steel fencing and an array of sophisticated technology like sensors, cameras and towers allowing Border Patrol to surveil the territory.

The wall is under heavy scrutiny for the billions of dollars being dedicated to it when border crossings are at their lowest in decades. Critics say the U.S. is militarizing the border as it increasingly deploys sophisticated surveillance technology to the area, impacting local communities.

“We are seeing a massive expansion of surveillance and surveillance technology across the borderlands,” said Ricky Garza, border policy counsel at the Southern Border Communities Coalition, an advocacy group. “The wall in all its forms is harmful to communities.”

Officials say the technology is complementary to the physical wall and frees up agents for other tasks.

“It’s a smart wall. It’s not just a barrier,” Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott said during recent congressional testimony. “It maximizes the use of our most valuable resource, which is our agents.”

Contracts for hundreds of miles of wall already inked

The wall has been a top priority for Trump, a Republican, since he first ran for president.

During the administration of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, the border emerged as a flashpoint, with thousands of people seeking to cross into the country each day. Those numbers started to taper off shortly before Trump returned to office last year and then slowed to a trickle, with his broader immigration crackdown serving as a deterrent for would-be migrants.

Flush with $46 billion to finish the wall after an infusion by Congress for immigration enforcement, CBP is inking tens of billions of dollars in contracts to build the wall and push along the president’s signature project.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said recently that a preliminary part of the wall will be finished by “this time next year.” Scott said his agency is putting up 6 miles (10 kilometers) of wall a week.

Hundreds of miles had already been built before Trump returned to office. As of mid-June 2026, CBP has erected another 74 miles (119 kilometers) and aims to build hundreds more. There is no wall planned for roughly 535 miles (861 kilometers) of the roughly 2,000-mile-long (3,200-kilometer-long) border, because rugged terrain already serves as a barrier. Ground sensors and towers will be used instead.

CBP is also going back to hundreds of miles of already built wall and adding more technology, lights and roads. Along the long stretches of river in Texas that mark the border with Mexico, they’re deploying 12- to 15-foot-long (3.7- to 4.5-meter-long) cylinder-shaped buoys meant to keep migrants or smugglers from crossing the border.

More technology being deployed on the border

Technology is playing a greater role in the Trump administration’s effort to make illegal crossings along the border more difficult, part of a broader transformation of CBP in the years since Sept. 11, 2001, into an intelligence operation with a mass surveillance network whose reach extends far beyond the nation’s frontiers, according to reporting by The Associated Press.

And critics say the border technology poses a threat.

The Southern Border Communities Coalition says surveillance technologies can push migrants into more dangerous routes to avoid being detected.

Garza, the group’s policy counsel, warned that surveillance technology infringes on the privacy rights of border residents and that locals have found ground sensors used to detect smuggler or migrant traffic placed on their property without their consent.

Nayda Alvarez and her relatives own land along the Rio Grande roughly 125 miles (200 kilometers) inland from the Gulf of Mexico. She has found cameras placed on her family’s land, and just last week she spotted a surveillance tower about a quarter of a mile (almost half a kilometer) down the river from her house.

“Are we expecting a war or something?” she said. “It doesn’t make me feel safer.”

Dave Maass, director of investigations for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on civil liberties related to digital technology, said the technology has made the border area “a hostile environment” for locals and would-be migrants.

The foundation has published a guide on the various types of surveillance towers in use along the southern border designed to help local residents.

These can range from fixed towers with video, infrared and radar technologies that have a range of roughly 8 miles (13 kilometers) to remote video surveillance systems that have cameras and a spotlight fixed on top. Some are mounted on the backs of trucks so agents can drive them to different parts of the border.

Increasingly, these towers are autonomous. They can scan an area, analyze what they’re seeing using artificial intelligence and alert Border Patrol agents to something suspicious. Proponents say this helps keep Border Patrol agents out in the field instead of sitting in front of computer screens watching for activity. But it also increases AI decision-making along the border when experts have warned about the technology’s potential for bias or other problems.

The big GOP tax cuts and spending bill passed by Congress last summer requires that CBP buys only the autonomous towers, and the department is deploying an additional 95.

Underground, buried fiberoptic cables can sense movement, capturing data that is also then analyzed by AI.

“We follow the contour of the land. We go through trees. We go down into the river banks. We can go absolutely everywhere,” said Magnus McEwen-King, CEO of Sintela, which has a contract with CBP to install the cables. He spoke at a recent border security expo in Phoenix, where some of the technology was on display.

CBP also uses ground sensors and trail cameras to detect smuggling routes.

Concerns over cost and future plans

The nonpartisan watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense has questioned both the huge amounts of money for the wall-building and whether taxpayers are getting their money’s worth.

In 2011, under Democratic President Barack Obama, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano pulled the plug on a project to build a “virtual wall” of integrated technology like radars, sensors and cameras across the entire border after it ran over budget, faced technological glitches and was behind schedule.

Josh Sewell, director of research and policy at Taxpayers for Common Sense, said the organization would like to see more “robust evaluation” of the technologies being used to avoid similar scenarios. And he criticized the Trump administration for lack of oversight on how the money is being spent, a charge CBP has denied, citing “oversight mechanism.”

In the Big Bend area of southern Texas, opposition to the department’s wall-building plans gathered strong bipartisan support especially in the most sensitive areas that run through a state and national park and a wildlife area.

CBP now says it is not planning to build a 30-foot-high (9-meter-high) bollard wall in those areas. Its recently announced plans include installing patrol roads and some barriers designed to stop cars and using detection technologies.

Clara Benson, who is one of the founders of the No Big Bend Wall coalition, says bright lights in the area designed to illuminate the border could pollute the skies in an area renowned for having some of the best views of the stars. Even without a 30-foot-tall (9-meter-tall) steel wall running through the land, there is concern about CBP’s plans.

“There’s still a lot of fear and dread that the plan is still going to be quite damaging,” she said.

TG Jones sites across the UK are under threat following the company’s approval of a restructuring plan by the High Court on Wednesday.

Branches in Darlington, Durham, Northallerton, Middlesbrough, the Metrocentre and more could be at risk, though the company has not yet confirmed which locations will be affected.

The closures are part of plans to prevent the business from collapsing into insolvency.

Alex Willson, chief executive of TG Jones, said: “We welcome the court’s approval of our restructuring plan.

“This decision allows us to move ahead with our turnaround strategy.

“The plan protects the substantial core of the store estate and makes TG Jones a stronger, more sustainable business.

“We are incredibly grateful to all the colleagues, partners and stakeholders who engaged constructively throughout the process, and to Modella Capital for its continued financial commitment.”

TG Jones was formerly known as WH Smith until a rebrand last year, following its acquisition by Modella.

The WH Smith brand remains in use at airport and train stations.

The retailer warned previously that a major overhaul would be required to save the business, putting stores and jobs at risk.

During the court hearing, lawyers for TG Jones told the judge the company was “highly distressed” and could face an £8 million funding shortfall without immediate approval of its restructuring plan.

The court-approved plan secures a further £15 million loan from Modella Capital, adding to the £10 million already provided in April.

The scheme will also see reduced rent payments for landlords.

Mr Justice Hildyard said: “I am persuaded that it is the jurisdiction of the court to sanction both plans and it is my decision to do so.

“I did not find this to be an easy matter.”

The retailer operates around 450 stores and employs 4,700 staff, mostly in the UK.

The company has not confirmed how many workers will be affected by the closures.

Tom Smith KC, representing TG Jones, said an estimated 150 stores could close under the new plan, depending on landlord agreements.

He said the business had suffered from “long-term sales decline” as a result of high inflation, reduced consumer spending, the rise of online shopping and increased operating costs.

Mr Smith said TG Jones had also experienced a drop in sales since rebranding from WH Smith.