Police in Guatemala raided five regional offices of British aid agency Save the Children on Monday as part of an investigation into alleged child abuse.

Prosecutors requested information from US authorities in April about the alleged involvement of the organisation in smuggling children across the border, according to local media.

Save the Children said it was “aware of the activity” at their offices, and denied the prosecutors’ allegations.

The prosecutor in charge of the case, Rafael Curruchiche, and the country’s attorney general, Consuelo Porras, have previously been sanctioned by the United States and the European Union for attacks on democracy.

Curruchiche said the searches were being carried out in different regions of the country as part of a “transnational investigation of great importance”, in a video statement on X.

The prosecutor did not name the organisation in his statement – but a spokesman for his office confirmed to AFP news agency that the offices searched were those of Save the Children.

In a statement to the BBC, Save the Children said it was collaborating with authorities but that it has “never facilitated any transfer of children or adolescents out of Guatemala”.

“Following previous allegations against our organisation this year, no evidence of wrongdoing was found”, the organisation added.

Earlier this year, the aid group said it was “shocked and puzzled” after its main office was raided as part of the same case.

This came just days after the secretary general of Guatemala’s public ministry, Ángel Pineda, wrote a letter to Texan authorities asking for support in investigating allegations that aid groups, including Save the Children, “could be participating in child trafficking operations”.

It is unclear whether Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton responded to the request.

Both Pineda and Curruchiche have previously been sanctioned by the US and the European Union, accused of trying to undermine the country’s democracy. The prosecutors office denied the allegations, local media reported.

The prosecutor’s office is also said to have tried to prevent President Bernardo Arévalo, who ran on an anti-corruption message and is critical of the country’s judiciary, from taking office earlier this year.

Guatemala’s attorney general, Consuelo Porras, was barred from entering the US in 2022 after the state department said she had “repeatedly obstructed and undermined anti-corruption investigations in Guatemala”. Porras denied the claim.

Save the Children has operated in Guatemala since 1976, after an earthquake devastated the country.

It added that it “will continue working to uphold children’s rights, as we have always done, maintaining the highest standards of child protection and safeguarding in all our programs”.

China has imposed duties on imports of European brandy in a move that France has said is retaliation for recent big tariffs the EU announced on Chinese electric vehicles.

The European Commission said it would challenge China’s tax at the World Trade Organization (WTO), calling it an “abuse” of trade defence measures.

French brandy producers said the duties would be “catastrophic” for the industry.

The Chinese move will hit big brands including Hennessy and Remy Martin.

Shares in brandy companies dropped after the announcement.

China announced new restrictions on European brandy just days after EU countries approved steep tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles.

China’s commerce ministry said the brandy imports threaten “substantial damage” to its own producers.

It also said it was considering a hike in tariffs on imports of large-engine vehicles, which would hit German producers hardest, and pork and dairy products.

French Trade Minister Sophie Primas said the brandy move “seems to be a retaliatory measure” after the European Union decision to raise tariffs on Chinese electric cars.

She said that kind of retaliation would be “unacceptable”, and a “total contradiction” of international trade rules, adding that France would work with the European Union to take action at the WTO.

France accounts for 99% of brandy exported to China, and French cognac lobby group BNIC said the move would be “catastrophic” for the industry.

“The French authorities cannot abandon us and leave us alone to deal with Chinese retaliation that has nothing to do with us,” BNIC said, adding that the taxes “must be suspended before it’s too late”.

Shares in companies that sell spirits took a battering after the Chinese announcement.

Luxury firm LVMH, which produces Hennessy, fell more than 3%, while Remy Cointreau, which makes Remy Martin, fell more than 8%.

Analysts at Jefferies estimate that the tariffs could translate into a 20% price increase for consumers, which would probably lead to volumes and supplier sales falling by a fifth.

Shares in German carmakers, which could also be hit by retaliatory moves from China, also slid.

Volkswagen, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz and BMW were all down after the announcement.

THE Wetherspoons 12-day beer festival will be back with a bang tomorrow with some ales selling for less than £2 a pint.

The famous pub chain will be selling a range of 30 different real ales including five from overseas brewers from October 9 to October 20.

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The festival will offer punters the chance to sample beers from Canada, New Zealand, Japan and the USA.

The event will take place across 809 UK Wetherspoons pubs.

Pints will be available for £2.29 on average, and as cheap as £1.79.

Spoon fans can try three beers for the price of one, with the chance to buy 3 third-of-a-pint tasters for the cost of a single pint.

The menu includes a range of unusual flavoured ales such as mango, chocolate and banoffee pie.

And the festival range is extended to include vegan and vegetarian options, as well as gluten-free options which can be found using the allergen information screen in pubs or via the app or website.

The deal includes beers which have never been available in Wetherspoons before so you are guaranteed to try something new.

Marketing manager Jen Swindells said: “The festival is a great celebration of real ale.

“It will allow us to showcase a selection of superb beers, including those from brewers as far afield as Japan and New Zealand, as well as those closer to home, over a 12-day period.

“All of the beers will be available at great value-for-money prices.”

While the pints could be selling for as cheap as £1.79 in some pubs, keep in mind that menu prices vary based on location.

Below is a full list of real ales which will be available at the festival:

• Siren Mesmerist (Siren Craft Brew) 3.4% ABV
• Conwy Born to be Mild (Conwy Brewery) 3.8% ABV
• Hogs Back Notorious P.I.G (Hogs Back Brewery) 3.8% ABV
• Adnams T Drop (Adnams Brewery) 4.0% ABV
• Red Racer Session (Central City Brewery, British Colombia, Canada) 4.0% ABV
• Windsor and Eton Canberra (Windsor and Eton Brewery) 4.0% ABV
• Batemans Salem Session IPA (Batemans Brewery) 4.1% ABV
• Hook Norton Tower Ale (Hook Norton Brewery) 4.2% ABV
• Townshend Dinner Ale (Townshend Brewery, Tasman, New Zealand) 4.2% ABV
• Ishii Orihime Pale Ale (Ishii Brewing, Tochigi, Japan) 4.3% ABV
• Evan Evans Wild Coast (Evan Evans Brewery) 4.4% ABV
• Fyne Ales Sun Lounger (Fyne Ales) 4.4% ABV
• Greene King Blood Hound (Greene King Brewery) 4.4% ABV
• Loch Lomond The Gloaming (Loch Lomond Brewery) 4.4% ABV
• Brewster’s Sailing By (Brewster’s Brewery) 4.5% ABV
• Rudgate Mango in the Night (Rudgate Brewery) 4.5% ABV
• Maxim Banoffee Pie Golden Ale (Maxim Brewery) 4.6% ABV
• Titanic Sapphire Spoon (Titanic Brewery) 4.7% ABV
• Lancaster Hop Storm (Lancaster Brewery) 4.8% ABV
• St Austell Fresh Pot (St Austell Brewery) 4.8% ABV
• Elgood’s North Brink Porter (Elgood’s Brewery) 5.0% ABV
• Exmoor Phoenix (Exmoor Ales) 5.0% ABV
• Shepherd Neame Cold Snap (Shepherd Neame Brewery) 5.0% ABV
• Thornbridge Coltrane (Thornbridge Brewery) 5.0% ABV
• Urban South Who Dat (Urban South Brewery, Louisiana, USA) 5.0% ABV
• Salopian Disintegration (Salopian Brewery) 5.1% ABV
• Oakham Sunset (Oakham Ales) 5.3% ABV
• Yazoo All Dog Alert (Yazoo Brewing, Tennessee, USA) 5.5% ABV
• Burning Sky Aurora (Burning Sky Brewery) 5.6% ABV
• Innis and Gunn Caribbean Rum Cask (Innis and Gunn Brewery) 6.8% ABV

Order your pint of choosing either at the bar or via the mobile app, which is available to download via the App Store.

We recommend you browse the festival magazine before your arrival via the app or website to check your local prices.

The magazine also details the origins of the beers and their flavour profiles.

For example, the Japanese Ishii “Orihime” Pale Ale is from Tochigi, and has a “citrusy, fruity hop character”.

And the Canadian Central City “Red Racer” Amber Ale is from British Colombia and has “a good balance of bitterness and malt flavours”.

While the mysterious Maxim “Banoffee Pie” Golden Ale is from Durham, and is described as “dessert in a glass”.

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IF you think the only place to find a pink castle is inside a Disney theme park, you’d be wrong.

Craigievar Castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland was thought to be the inspiration for Cinderella’s Castle in Florida’s Walt Disney World, and anyone can visit for a picture-perfect princess moment.

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The 17^th century structure is located near the town of Alford and is less than an hour away from Aberdeen.  

Although the pink shade seems modern, the castle has been that colour since 1826 after a makeover matching the colour of the granite moldings, resulted in the famous ‘Craigievar pink’.  

The castle has recently reopened after the ‘Pink Again Project’ that brought the colour back to life and visitors are flocking to get that perfect shot.

Even Britney Spears is a fan as she posted a photo of the castle to her millions of Instagram followers earlier this month.

Being Disney – and Britney – buffs, my daughter and I had to check this one out, dressing up in tulle skirts for the occasion.

Of course, Sabrina wore a Cinderella style dress, and we had fun letting her run across the grounds and got some fantastic snaps of her in front of the striking castle.

Visiting the grounds to get your iconic Instagram snap is free but you might have to wait to avoid the other guests with the same idea.

Visiting early can ensure you get the best spots or the early evening when you get the magical evening glow.

If you want to venture inside, you can also pay for a guided tour.

The iconic tower house is really fun to explore and is among the best preserved and the most loved in Scotland.

It was a family home up until the 1960s so the rooms have a cosy feel to them.

The guided tours take you into all the rooms in the castle’s five floors so you can imagine you’re a real-life Princess locked in a tower.

However, like most castles and fairy tales, it has its darker moments and visitors have reported hearing ghostly moments from some bedrooms so it’s maybe not a bad thing that the tours are guided.

There is also an on-site shop to check out and a woodland trail around the grounds where you might even spot some incredible wildlife.

The castle is owned by the National Trust for Scotland and members go free.  

It’s not the only Disney-like castle in the UK.

Strawberry Hill House, in Twickenham, has been compared to a castle from the Disney films by tourists.

The Sun’s Richard Moriarty, recently visited Balmoral Castle and nearly bumped into royalty.

And our Travel Reporter Hope Brotherton went to the UK’s ‘best’ castle – here’s what she thought.

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Coleen Rooney has disputed “misleading” claims made in the High Court by Rebekah Vardy, who is challenging the “sheer magnitude” of costs she has to pay the former as a result of 2022’s Wagatha libel trial.

Mrs Vardy lost that case after a judge ruled it was “substantially true” she had leaked Mrs Rooney’s private information to the press, and was ordered to pay 90% of Mrs Rooney’s costs, which has reached more than £1.8m.

On Tuesday, Robin Dunne, representing Mrs Rooney in the costs dispute, said claims made in court on Monday about hotel costs incurred by a lawyer representing her in 2022 were “factually incorrect”.

Mrs Vardy’s KC Jamie Carpenter had said Mrs Rooney’s total included costs for a lawyer staying “at the Nobu Hotel, incurring substantial dinner and drinks charges as well as mini bar charges”.

But Mr Dunne, noting the charges been widely reported in the media as “evidence of the defendant wildly spending”, said they were “potentially defamatory” and steps would be taken.

He added that a “modest” hotel had been booked for the lawyer, but on the first night there had been no wi-fi or working shower, so he transferred to the Nobu after Mrs Rooney’s agent said she could get reduced rates.

A room at Nobu ordinarily costs £650 but was charged at £295, which he said was the same price as a room at a Premier Inn.

Addressing the claim that £225 had been spent on a food and minibar tab, Mr Dunne said the minibar bill had actually come to £7 for two bottles of water, and that the lawyer had not eaten at the Nobu restaurant during his stay.

Senior Costs Judge Andrew Gordon-Saker rejected one of Mrs Vardy’s claims that it was “unreasonable” for Mrs Rooney to use Stewarts, a London-based law firm, and that she should have sought one near to where she lived in the north west of England.

Mr Gordon-Saker said: “This was always going to be a high-profile case and it attracted significant press coverage both here and elsewhere.

“Defamation is still a specialist area and most of the firms who specialise in defamation are based in central London.”

Regarding the size of the claim and the importance of the matter to the “reputations at stake”, he said “instructing a solicitor in central London was a reasonable choice”.

The judge also rejected Mrs Vardy’s claim that it had been unreasonable for Mrs Rooney to consult her barrister, David Sherborne, on 30 occasions, at a cost of nearly £500,000.

Mr Gordon-Saker added that the conduct of Mrs Vardy – in particular destroying evidence – “adds to the complexity” and “clearly justifies rates in excess of the guidelines” for the most experienced lawyers.

But he did say less experienced lawyers should have been charged at a lower hourly rate.

Mrs Rooney, the wife of former England captain Wayne Rooney, was nicknamed Wagatha Christie in 2019 after saying she had conducted a sting operation to find out who had leaked stories about her from her private Instagram to the Sun newspaper. She concluded: “It’s…. Rebekah Vardy’s account.”

That post led Mrs Vardy, the wife of Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy, to sue her for libel, and the trial attracted huge interest when it reached court two years ago.

Mrs Justice Steyn ruled that Mrs Rooney’s accusation was “substantially true”, saying it was likely Mrs Vardy “knew of, condoned and was actively engaged” in the process of leaking stories about Mrs Rooney to the Sun in collaboration with Mrs Vardy’s agent, Caroline Watt.

Mrs Rooney branded the trial “horrible” in an interview with British Vogue last year.

She suggested she could not forgive Mrs Vardy for her libel claim, but said “the relief was everything” to win.

Mrs Vardy went on to trademark the phrase “Wagatha Christie” after losing.

The case also inspired the Olivier Award-nominated play, Vardy V Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial.

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Vistry shares plunged more than 30 per cent on Tuesday morning after the housebuilder warned its full-year profits would be almost a fifth lower than expected because of underestimated building costs.

The FTSE 100 group, one of the UK’s largest housebuilders, said the error would reduce its 2024 adjusted pre-tax profit by £80mn to £350mn, and cost a further £35mn over the next two years.

It said the issue with understated costs stemmed from nine developments in its southern division, out of 300 sites in total. 

“We believe the issues are confined to the South Division and changes to the management team in the division are under way,” Vistry said. 

Shares were down 31 per cent to 896.5p early on Tuesday morning in London. Although some of the losses were pared back by lunchtime, they were still 22 per cent lower at 988.5p.

The profit warning marks a setback for one of the UK’s most buoyant housebuilders, which operates the Bovis Homes brand, following its takeover of Countryside in late 2022.  

Vistry builds the majority of its homes for “partners” such as rental or social housing providers, making it less reliant on open-market sales than other large housebuilders. Rivals have been hit hard by the downturn in the housing market over the past two years. 

Unlike other large developers, which have slashed their output as sales declined, Vistry increased completions by 9 per cent to 7,792 in the first six months of 2024. It struck two huge deals to build homes for US private equity group Blackstone’s UK housing businesses in the past year, totalling £1.4bn. 

On Tuesday, Vistry said it still expected to complete at least 18,000 homes by the end of the year. 

The hit to profits and the possibility of further bad news surfacing at the group will rattle investors, although the company said it was confident the problem was isolated in one of its six divisions. 

It could also raise questions over the pace of growth being pursued at Vistry under chief executive Greg Fitzgerald, who recently also became executive chair. He has set a “medium-term target” of roughly doubling adjusted profits to £800mn. 

“The key issue is whether these are isolated and ‘one-off’ in nature, with the worry being that they are more systemic, and reflective of inherent risk within the group’s partnership model that could recur in the future,” said Investec analyst Aynsley Lammin.

Vistry said the “total full-life cost projections” for the cost of nine of the 46 developments in the southern region, which covers Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and the Thames Valley west of London, had been underestimated by 10 per cent, including for some “large-scale schemes”. 

“We are commencing an independent review to fully ascertain the causes,” Vistry said. 

The group added that it “continues to target a net cash position” at the end of the year, and will maintain a £130mn share buyback announced in September.