It has a mix of character cottages, modern family homes and more

Cambridgeshire has no shortage of towns and villages offering commuters the opportunity to live in affordable, rural-locations while being within easy reach of major employment hubs. Doddington is an attractive option for commuters seeking the tranquility of village life while having easy access towards Ely, Peterborough, Huntingdon and Cambridge.

Around half way between Chatteris and March, the village is home to more than 2500 residents, according to the 2021 census. A third of residents leave the village each day for work.

Steve Bowles, director of estate agents Next Level Property says: “Doddington ticks every single box” with “very few” people choosing to ever leave the village once moving there.

“Unlike many villages that have become little more than commuter locations, Doddington still feels like a proper village. People know their neighbours. Local events are well supported…while sports clubs, community groups and local organisations ensure there’s always something happening,” he adds.

Alongside its community spirit, Mr Bowles also says the variety of housing is one of the village’s biggest strengths. Its character cottages, modern family homes, rural homes with generous gardens and bungalows means there is something for buyers at every stage of life.

Despite its rural setting, it doesn’t compromise on convenience. It offers a GP surgery and minor injuries unit, a primary school, a choice of pubs and restaurants, and ample green space.

The village also boasts a wealth of local history with landmarks including St Mary’s Church and its Victorian Clock tower, giving the village character and identity.

Surrounded by the Fenland landscape, residents can enjoy open skies, sunsets, peaceful country walks and wildlife, while remaining well connected to some of the region’s largest towns and cities.

According to sales data over the past 12 months provided by Next Level Property, the average house price in Doddington is £285,000.

Andrew Castle and Tim Henman commentated on the Wimbledon men’s singles final together before paying emotional tributes to each other after the match’s conclusion

Tim Henman paid a heartfelt tribute to Andrew Castle following his final Wimbledon commentary for the BBC.

Castle, who has served as the corporation’s lead television commentator at the Championships for the past 23 years, is departing after this summer’s tournament. The announcement came ahead of play getting underway at the All England Club, with Castle discussing the change in an interview with The Times before the BBC later confirmed the news with an official statement.

Before bidding farewell to his viewers, Castle received a warm send-off from his long-time colleague, Henman, in an emotional live exchange on BBC One.

The four-time Wimbledon semi-finalist said: “Andrew, I’ve got to head up to the studio now, but I want to take the opportunity to thank you so much for sharing the commentary box with you for so many years.

“You’ve been an absolute star, you’ve taught me so much, and I’ll miss you a lot, but what a great way to finish off.”

Castle responded by saying: “I knew you when you were an annoying 14-year-old, and I’ve known you that whole time. Thanks for your company, and you, Andre.”

Andre Agassi and Henman joined Castle in the commentary box for the men’s singles final, in which Jannik Sinner successfully defended his title, defeating French Open champion Alexander Zverev 6-7, 7-6, 6-3, 6-4.

Castle continued: “Tim, all the best, and take care. See you, mate. I shall never forget Tim Henman shooting up in 2013 when Andy Murray won and elbowing me right in the head on match point because he was so excited.”

He signed off by saying: “What a pleasure and a privilege it has been to watch him [Sinner] and [Carlos] Alcaraz and [Roger] Federer and [Novak] Djokovic and [Rafael] Nadal, and Andy Murray perhaps in particular, over the years. Take care and thank you.”

Earlier in the broadcast, Castle sent a parting shot to the BBC as he claimed he’d been ‘booted’ out of his role. He said: “Yes, I am a bit sad about it, of course. I have fabulous memories, even working with John (Lloyd). And John is finishing as well, we’re being put out to grass, I mean, that’s it. Booted.”

Lloyd responded warmly: “I’ve had a good run. We were talking about it earlier. I started when there was still black-and-white TV, so it’s been a while.

“You didn’t start that young, you’re much younger than me, and you were great to work with, and I loved every minute of it.”

Castle brought proceedings to a close with: “Well, I did too. My kids were eight and 10 when I did my first Wimbledon final, and they’re now married. One has children, and there’s one expecting on the way, so don’t tell me there’s nothing to do.”

Sky Sports, HBO Max, Netflix and Disney+ with Ultimate TV package

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Sky has upgraded its Ultimate TV and Sky Sports bundle to now include HBO Max, Netflix, Disney+, discovery+ and Hayu, as well as 135 channels and full Sky coverage of the Premier League and EFL.

Sky broadcasts more than 1,400 live matches across the Premier League, EFL and more with at least 215 live from the top flight alongside Formula 1, darts and golf.

In The Mixer’s World Cup special

Everything you need to know about the World Cup – England updates, the games to watch and stories you missed – in five minutes, at 1pm, every day.

The southbound carriageway was affected between junctions 4 (Walkden) and 2 (Kearsley), with all traffic temporarily held and delays reaching up to 40 minutes.

All lanes have now reopened, and police have issued an update.

Greater Manchester Police said: “The incident was a two vehicle road traffic collision.

“We were called at around 1:45pm. Three people being treated for injuries but not deemed life changing or threatening. No arrests at this time”

The incident was first reported just at around 1:45pm, and emergency services attended the scene.

Three people were treated for injuries, but nothing was considered life changing or life threatening.

Lanes two and three reopened by around 2:52pm, with delays at this point expected to be around 40 minutes above normal with three miles of congestion.

National Highways confirmed at 3:55pm that all lanes had reopened, though there were still 20 minute delays for drivers and two miles of congestion.

Luckily for those living in York, there are so many beaches that are easy to reach from the city to have a cooling dip in the sea.

If you are looking for somewhere family-friendly or want a quieter beach to relax on, there are plenty of options to suit each person’s needs.

Here are five beaches you should visit along the Yorkshire coast this summer.

These five beaches would be great for a family day trip. (Image: Tripadvisor)

What beaches can I easily reach from York?

Mappleton Beach

Mappleton Beach can be found three miles south of the popular seaside resort of Hornsea.

This means you won’t find the usual attractions in the area, so it offers a quieter alternative for dog walking and relaxing.

The Old Post Office Tea Rooms can be found a short walk away from the beach and serves savoury dishes as well as cakes and coffees for your trip.

Mappleton Beach also has a free car park.

Whitby West Cliff Beach

Whitby West Cliff Beach is mostly sandy with a few rocks and is also known as Whitby Sands Beach.

The beach is only a few minutes’ walk away from the town centre, making it easy to pop into the shops and restaurants nearby.

You can hire one of the colourful beach huts to call home for the day, as well as deckchairs and windbreaks.

There are paid car parks at the West Cliff and Pavilion Top.

Sandsend Beach

Sandsend beach is close to Whitby and is a great place for children to explore with plenty of rock pools around and fossil hunting.

The Hart Inn is the village’s local pub where you can enjoy a drink or meal in the beer garden.

Visitors of the beach on Tripadvisor have said it’s a “lovely” and “clean” beach with lots of “little cafes and kiosks for snacks and ice creams”.

You can park in the Sandsend car park that is at the north end of the beach.

Scarborough beach

Scarborough is a hugely popular seaside resort and might be the perfect option for those with children.

You can easily fill a day here in the amusement parks, walking along the Victorian promenade with an ice cream or splashing in the sea.

Reviewers on Tripadvisor have said the beach is a “beautiful oasis.”

During the busy periods, there is a park and ride service available to get into Scarborough.

Fraisthorpe Beach

Fraisthorpe Beach is another sandy area on the Yorkshire coast that is a calmer alternative to many busy seaside resorts.

At low tide, the beach goes on for miles making it perfect for beach games and long walks.

There is a privately owned car park that you can pay to use.

There is a café close to the entrance of the car park that sells refreshments and snacks, as well as toilets.

Will you be visiting any of these beaches throughout the summer? Let us know in the comments.

The MenB vaccine was added to the UK NHS childhood immunisation programme for babies born on or after 1 July 2015. All babies are now offered it.

But it means teenagers and young adults over the age of 11 have not received this jab.

Young babies are vaccinated because they are more likely to get invasive infections more often than other age groups, and their bodies are less likely to be able to fight them off.

However, research suggests the MenB vaccine doesn’t necessarily prevent transmission of the infection from person to person, doesn’t target all the different B bacteria strains and doesn’t provide long-term protection.

UK vaccine experts have therefore concluded that it isn’t cost effective to offer the MenB vaccine to all adolescents.

But they do want everyone who is eligible to come forward and get the vaccine because it can prevent serious illness.

Around 10,000 people in the Kent region will have already received jabs, as part of the response to the March outbreak.

New RSPCA figures have revealed an increase in animal cruelty reports in the county

New figures have revealed that animal cruelty is on the rise in Cambridgeshire, according to the RSPCA. Cambridgeshire saw a 17 per cent increase in the number of cruelty reports over the summer months last year.

According to the RSPCA figures, 81 reports of deliberate harm to animals were reported in the county last summer, up from 69 the previous year. This forms part of a wider trend nationally, with a 64 per cent increase in just five years.

RSPCA Superintendent Jo Hirst said: “It’s incredibly alarming that we are seeing year after year of rising reports of cruelty. The summer months are our busiest times of year and our frontline rescue teams, specialist vets, behaviourists, rehabilitation and rehoming teams, will be working tirelessly to help as many animals as possible.”

Nationally, the RSPCA received 6,322 cruelty calls to their emergency line last year which is one call every 10 minutes when the line is open in June, July and August. In comparison, the charity took 3,852 calls for the same period in 2021 – showing a “massive” 64% increase in just five years.

In one Cambridgeshire cruelty case, a kitten suffered horrific deliberate injuries which resulted in several injuries including fractures, bruising to the head and tail and the perpetrator admitted causing the injuries by inflicting trauma.

The kitten died, and a RSPCA investigation led to the prosecution of a man, resulting in a lifetime ban on keeping animals and a suspended prison sentence for the offence.

RSPCA has launched a ‘Cruelty Hurts, Love Rescues’ campaign to raise awareness in response to the “shocking” figures. It has also raised concerns about a potential further increase in cruelty during the World Cup.

Research has shown domestic abuse incidents spike during football tournaments, and reportedly, pets can also suffer from this crime, although not a direct cause.

In one case, a kitten named Chester was left “close to death” after he was subjected to a series of attacks by a man while his partner was at work.

The woman returned from work and found her three-month-old kitten hiding and terrified with a visible eye injury and in obvious pain. She rushed him to a vet and it was found Chester had a swollen jaw, neurological issues and an injured leg.

The vet became suspicious and alerted RSPCA, who took Chester away for safety reasons.

After realising her kitten had been a victim of violence, the woman reached out to her mum, police and RSPCA for help. She left the relationship and her partner later pleaded guilty to multiple animal welfare offences.

Chester was fostered by the charity where he made a full recovery and has since been reunited with his owner in a new home.

President Donald Trump rang the opening bells of the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq exchanges remotely from the Oval Office Monday morning to tout the launch of “Trump accounts,” which will use federal money and private donations to start newborns off with $1,000 in savings.

But the dynamics of that move — the country’s first billionaire president leveraging his financial experience to help the masses — could not be more at odds with the unprecedented crypto enterprise Trump and his sons have been running over the last year.

Trump, who called Bitcoin a “scam” back in 2021, made more than $1.4 billion through his family’s own cryptocurrency ventures in 2025, while hundreds of thousands of everyday investors in these companies lost their shirts. It was the president’s most profitable year ever across any business in his multi-decade career.

Fatime Elrgdawy, a 29-year-old software project engineer from California, told Reuters she lost more than $1,000 in savings on one $TRUMP coin play last year. At first she thought, “Oh my God, this is brilliant,” she told the news wire, but within five months her $2,000 investment was worth less than $120.

Still, she told Reuters, she considers herself lucky compared to other more heavily invested $TRUMP buyers into a meme coin that lost 97% of value from its January 2025 peak.

The Trump family launched its main crypto firm, World Liberty Financial, in the fall of 2024, in the final throes of Trump’s third presidential campaign. The move came after months of candidate Trump’s overtures to the industry, such as promising to fight for a national Bitcoin reserve. The crypto bosses seemed pleased, with billionaire executives backing the Trump campaign and the crypto industry emerging as the top sector donating in the 2024 elections.

Their faith in Trump and his Republican allies was soon rewarded. Bitcoin hit an all-time high in 2025, and the Trump administration drastically scaled back efforts to police the industry and stop crypto scams, while pardoning convicted fraudsters.

The Trump family, meanwhile, did even better.

Four days before Trump was inaugurated, an Abu Dhabi royal’s company secretly bought nearly half of World Liberty Financial, steering $187 million to Trump family entities, The Wall Street Journal reported. It was a striking transaction — a foreign authoritarian buying into a U.S. president’s family business — given World Liberty’s egalitarian mission to “democratize a new financial system.”

That same week, Trump unveiled a meme coin featuring an image of his triumphant fist pump after surviving the assassination attempt in Butler, Pa. The coin made him about $636 million last year.

Trump investors haven’t been so lucky.

Roughly two-thirds of those who bought Trump’s meme coin have lost money, according to crypto data firm Nansen. As of late June, their losses totaled $3.81 billion. Another Nansen analysis, drawing from a smaller pool of data, finds that 85 percent of buyers in one of World Liberty’s tokens are in the red.

Civilian investors lost billions betting on Trump; political and financial elites backing his crypto, meanwhile, have had abundant good fortune.

The UAE, one of whose rulers bought into World Liberty, got approval last year to import highly coveted, advanced American AI chips. During negotiations, an employee at one of the royal’s investment firms reportedly held a job at World Liberty at the same time, the New York Times reported.

Another of the royal’s firms, MGX, which used $2 billion in a World Liberty coin in a recent investment, is now among the owners of TikTok’s U.S. operations, after the Trump administration spent months pressuring the social media company to spin off an American subdivision.

Asked for comment, the Trump administration told The Independent there are “no conflicts of interest” regarding his business activities. The Independent has also contacted the companies mentioned in this article for comment.

Trump, meanwhile, has described himself as being in the dark over the nature of his newfound crypto fortune.

“I could know about it,” Trump told CNBC last Thursday. “I didn’t. There’s nothing illegal. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

Meanwhile, prices for Trump’s meme coin and one of his World Liberty tokens have plummeted, part of a larger “crypto winter” of drooping prices across the entire sector.

No matter though, at least for the man in the Oval Office. As the president’s financial disclosures show, no matter what part of a financial cycle is underway, in the world of Trump and crypto, it pays to be at the top.

oth children are now confirmed to be safe, and were taken to hospital to be checked over

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Two men have died after diving into the sea to help two children in difficulty. Emergency services were called to the scene at Seaton Carew, on Teesside, at around 3.45pm today, Sunday July 12.

Police were called after concerns were raised for two children who had got into difficulty in the water at Seaton Carew beach. Officers attended the scene along with RNLI, Coastguard and North East Ambulance Service colleagues.

Two men were reported to have gone into the water to assist the children. Both children are now confirmed to be safe, and were taken to hospital to be checked over, reports TeessideLive.

The men were brought out of the water by the RNLI and received immediate medical treatment, but both men were pronounced dead a short time later.

Specially trained officers are now supporting both families affected.

Superintendent Glen Ward said: “Our deepest sympathies go out to the families of both the men involved in this tragic incident today. Despite the best efforts of emergency services, sadly both men were pronounced dead a short time after being brought out of the sea.

“We are conducting enquiries into the circumstances of what happened today, although the deaths are not being treated as suspicious and a file will be prepared for the Coroner.

“I would like to remind everyone that open water comes with serious risks. We know it is inviting in the hot weather, but we would encourage people to refrain from entering any open water at all. Today we have sadly seen the true tragedy that can happen as a result. “Please take extra care and enjoy the warm weather as safely as possible.”

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Several police and ambulance crews were also in attendance, in car parks off The Front at the seaside resort. One image sent to Teesside Live by a member of the public shows paramedics in, what is known locally as, ‘The Sandy Car Park’, while the red and white Coastguard helicopter hovered over the shore in front of the dunes.

Footage sent by another reader who was enjoying the afternoon on North Gare sands further along the shoreline, shows the helicopter hovering, and a lifeboat passing.

A NEAS spokesperson said: “We received a call at 3.45pm on Sunday, July 12, to reports of an incident on Seaton Carew beach. We dispatched three ambulance crews, a clinical team leader, a duty officer, three crews from our Hazardous Area Response Team (HART), and requested support from our colleagues at the Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS) who attended by road.

“Two patients were taken to North Tees Hospital for further treatment.”

Crowds of people lined the promenade watching as the crews carried out their duties.

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Mark Stephens, solicitor for the families and part of a pro-bono legal team from Howard Kennedy and Doughty Street Chambers, said: “At the heart of the case is the question that continues to haunt the families: who authorised the flight, what did they know, and why was Chinook ZD576 allowed to take off at all?