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The Guardian
38 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Manchester United rival Newcastle with Sesko bid and believe he prefers Old Trafford
Manchester United are battling with Newcastle to sign the RB Leipzig striker Benjamin Sesko. Newcastle had appeared to be within touching distance of a deal for the 22-year-old but Manchester United made a rival bid on Tuesday and believe the player would prefer a move to Old Trafford. Newcastle submitted a second offer for Sesko of £69.7m, which with add-ons could rise to almost £75m, after receiving encouragement that he was potentially open to a transfer to Tyneside. But cautious optimism at St James' Park regarding an agreement was caveated by Manchester United's interest. Manchester United's bid is of a guaranteed £65.2m, rising to a possible £73.8m. They have been pursuing a striker all summer and missed out on targets including Viktor Gyökeres, Hugo Ekitiké and Liam Delap. Manchester United have spent more than £130m on Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha this summer and previous indications have been that they would need to sell at least one of Jadon Sancho, Alejandro Garnacho and Tyrell Malacia if they were to spend big again. Newcastle were also keen on Ekitiké and Delap, and it would be another significant transfer blow for them if Sesko were to end up at Old Trafford. With Eddie Howe's first‑choice centre-forward Alexander Isak having made plain his desire to leave, ideally for Liverpool, Newcastle are in the market for two forwards. Negotiations with Brentford are ongoing regarding Yoane Wissa, and Howe is also a longstanding admirer of Aston Villa's Ollie Watkins. Newcastle's negotiations with Leipzig have been led by the director and minority owner Jamie Reuben, who has stepped in to assist Howe's nephew Andy Howe with recruitment in the absence of a sporting director. Isak is scheduled for talks with Howe this week but chances of a real rapprochement look slender. After the Swede missed Newcastle's tour of Singapore and South Korea citing a minor thigh problem apparently undetectable on scans, and took the unilateral decision to train alone at his former club Real Sociedad, it is hard to envisage Isak playing for the club again. Liverpool's £110m bid for him was rejected last week. Howe said before leaving Seoul that he had known nothing of Isak's trip to Spain and warned that players exhibiting 'poor behaviour' would not be permitted to train with his first team. The Newcastle manager described the situation as 'far from ideal'. A series of potential signings, also including João Pedro and James Trafford, have turned down Newcastle but Howe, who is preparing for a Champions League campaign, has signed the Sweden winger Anthony Elanga from Nottingham Forest for £55m and the goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale on loan from Southampton. Ramsdale's arrival appears to have opened the door for Martin Dubravka to depart, with the Slovakia goalkeeper in advanced talks over a move to Burnley. Howe is also in the market for a right-sided centre-half and, should funds be released by Isak departing, Newcastle could revive a longstanding interest in Crystal Palace's Marc Guéhi. With Newcastle not thought to be Guéhi's first-choice destination a deal could be difficult and Marseille's Argentinian centre-half Leonardo Balerdi remains high on Howe's shortlist. Newcastle have made repeated attempts to recruit the defender Giorgio Scalvini from Atalanta but have been persistently rebuffed. Guéhi is understood to be willing to stay at Selhurst Park and see out his contract, which expires next summer. Liverpool are believed to be his preferred option, although they are reluctant to pay Palace's £40m valuation. Palace rejected an offer worth up to £70m from Tottenham in January and are facing the possibility of the England international leaving on a free transfer.
BBC News
2 hours ago
- BBC News
Call to vet YouTube ads like regular TV to stop scams
Ads on YouTube should be vetted like those on traditional TV to protect users from content such as scams, promotion of diet pills and fake celebrity endorsements, the Lib Dems have said. The party wants more YouTube ads to be screened for potentially harmful content before they appear on the platform and for media regulator Ofcom to issue fines. Last week, Ofcom's annual report found that YouTube had overtaken ITV to become the UK's second most-watched media service behind the BBC. Google, which owns YouTube, has said it strives to support an "advertising ecosystem that's trustworthy and transparent for users". Currently, most ads broadcast on TV and Radio are pre-approved by industry bodies Clearcast and Radio Central before being aired, which is not the case for those that appear on YouTube. The Liberal Democrats argue this means "online, irresponsible advertising can too often proliferate before any intervention to review it or take it down".Max Wilkinson MP, a culture spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats said: "It's clearly not right that a platform now more watched than almost any traditional broadcaster is still operating under a 'lighter touch' advertising regime. "Regulations need to catch up with the reality of how people are watching content and unscrupulous advertisers must not be allowed to use loopholes to exploit people.""We cannot allow a two-tier system where traditional broadcasters face robust scrutiny, while a digital giant like YouTube is allowed to mark its own homework."It's time for the regulator to treat YouTube adverts much more like TV and radio adverts, to protect UK consumers from misleading or harmful content. The government needs to act now."The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) monitors TV, radio and online adverts and handles complaints after they have been ASA spokesman said: "The scam ads that the Liberal Democrats are highlighting are fraudulent and tackling them falls to Ofcom under the Online Safety Act, which is designed to hold platforms to account for tackling and deterring fraud on their services. "We readily support Ofcom's efforts to carry out this work and will continue to and play a disruptor role by reporting them and working with platforms to have them removed."Earlier this year, the ASA said that in 2024 it received 1,691 reports of potential scam ads online, 177 of which were flagged to online platforms. It said the biggest scam trends included using AI to create deepfake videos of celebrities, politicians or members of the Royal Family endorsing their products. One scam ad sent to the ASA depicted King Charles recommending a cryptocurrency investment. Users of YouTube can report ads they believe violate Google's ad policies. The policies include banning promotion of counterfeit goods, dangerous products such as recreational drugs and hacking allows some advertising of cryptocurrency services, but says the promoter must comply with local laws for the country where the ad is being targeted. According to Google, it removed 411.7 million UK ads in 2024 and suspended 1.1 million ad accounts. Under the Online Safety Act, online services are required to assess the risk of users being harmed by illegal content - including looking at the risks of fraud. The law also gives Ofcom powers to oversee how services are protecting users from tackling fraudulent watchdog has said it is consulting on a fraudulent advertising code of practice, which will become enforceable once approved by Parliament.
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
What a Hiroshima-sized blast would have done to LONDON: Unseen government diagrams imagine carnage if nuke was used on UK in 1945
Imagine a very different end to the Second World War. Instead of the US dropping the world's first atomic bombs on Japan, it was the Japanese hammering London with the devastating new weapon. In 1945, that is more or less what was considered by the British government, which was freshly in the hands of Labour's Clement Attlee after his triumph over Winston Churchill at that year's election. Official diagrams envisaged the impact of atomic bomb blasts in London, with the force described as being equivalent to what was unleashed on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and August 9, 1945. One of the two maps - recently seen by the Mail at the National Archives in Kew, West London - imagines the impact of a bomb detonated over Trafalgar Square. It said everything within 1,000 yards of the epicentre - so all of Whitehall, Covent Garden and St James' Palace - would be totally wiped out. Then, there would have been damage 'beyond repair' to areas within a distance of one mile - including the rest of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, the BBC 's headquarters and the British Museum. The likes of St Paul's Cathedral, Smithfield Market, Victoria Station and Marble Arch were within the third ring up to 1.5 miles away, described as 'uninhabitable without major repairs'. The final ring - up to 2.5 miles away - includes King's Cross Station, the Bank of England, Tower Bridge, Battersea Power Station and Regent's Park. Everything in this area would have been 'uninhabitable without first aid repairs', the report's authors said. The two maps feature as part of a file that also includes a report titled, 'An Investigation of the Effects of the Atomic Bombs Dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki', which was compiled after an official visit to the ruined cities by British officials. The other map gives a wider view, showing the impact of five blasts over London. Again the explosions are 'as at Hiroshima and Nagasaki'. As well as the bomb over Trafalgar Square, four others are depicted detonating over Poplar in East London; in Primrose Hill above Regent's Park; in Hammersmith in West London and in Tooting in South London. Collectively, they would have rendered nearly all of Central London a flattened wasteland. Areas such as Lambeth in the south of the capital would have been unscathed, but the borough's inhabitants would have faced having to grapple with a likely total breakdown in law and order and a collapse of the emergency services. Although the official report - which was compiled by the British Mission to Japan - is dated December 1945, the maps themselves were made the following year, as an Ordnance Survey label on them shows. The key on the map detailing how everything up to a distance of 1,000 yards from the epicentre of the blast would have been 'demolished' The foreword to the report optimistically concluded: 'His Majesty's Government consider that a full understanding of the consequences of the new form of attack may assist the United Nations Organisation in its task of securing the control of atomic energy for the common good and in abolishing the use of weapons of mass destruction.' The British mission included scientists and senior officials in the Home Office, War Office and Air Ministry. It laid out in horrifying detail the devastation wrought by 'Little Boy' and 'Fat Man' - the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by US forces. In Hiroshima, the blast - at 8.15am on August 6, 1945 - obliterated everything within the surrounding square mile, killing around 80,000 people in the blink of an eye. At least 30,000 more died from their devastating injuries in the 48 hours that followed. A total of five square miles of the city were consumed by fire storms, and the blast obliterated 90 per cent of Hiroshima's structures. The police, fire and ambulance services were all virtually wiped out, with survivors left to fend for themselves before help arrived from further afield. The attack on Nagasaki came on August 9, after Japan refused to surrender despite the carnage in Hiroshima. The key for the second map, explaining the colours detailing the respective levels of destruction The device - Fat Man - was carried by the B-29 bomber named Bockscar. It claimed at least 50,000 more lives and wiped out a third of the city. Japan finally agreed to the Allies' terms of surrender on August 14. The British Mission's report estimated that, for several reasons, the impact of a blast like the ones that hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be less devastating in London. Because of factors such as population density, the presence of well-built houses offering more protection and better rescue services than in Japan, the death toll from a single blast is estimated at 50,000. But the report chillingly added: 'The comparable figure for the German V2 rocket was about 15 dead'. The authors continued: 'The figure of 50,000 dead from one atomic bomb in average British urban conditions is probably the most important which this report contains. 'It shows that much of the most serious effect of the atomic bomb is in producing casualties. 'The problem of providing against and of treating gamma ray casualties is exceptionally grave and difficult.' The explosion of a bomb of the power of those used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have wiped out around 30,000 houses in a British city. Between 50,000 and 100,000 more properties would be rendered temporarily uninhabitable. The report went on: 'Thus a total of roughly 400,000 people might be rendered temporarily homeless'. It was not until the 1970s - when the risk of conflict with the Soviet Union was high - that the Government's public information campaign advising what to do in the event of a nuclear attack was released. The 'Protect and Survive' series told Britons to prepare a 'fall-out room' in which they would need to store enough food and water for two weeks. They were also advised to bring the likes of kitchen utensils, a portable radio, toilet paper, a bucket and a first aid kit. Shortly after the leaflet was released, expert critics said the advice would not be helpful. One said the protective measures were 'illusory' because people would immediately 'panic' in the event of a nuclear attack. The Protect and Survive campaign also included newspaper adverts, radio broadcasts and public information films. Whilst the campaign had been intended for use only in an emergency, it came to public attention in a series of newspaper articles. The Government then decided to publish the leaflet in May 1980 and the public information films were leaked to the BBC and anti-nuclear group CND. The 1984 BBC drama Threads depicted the horrifying consequences of a nuclear attack on Britain. Threads was watched by seven million people on BBC Two and won four Baftas, but it also left many viewers traumatised. The gruesome details - the shocking burns, the radiation sickness, the obliteration of buildings following the imagined attack on the city of Sheffield - were a constant presence in the drama. Dozens of those who watched were so shaken that they called the charity Samaritans for support.
