WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report of the end of a very embarrassing incident.
A migrant who was mistakenly released from prison and then re-arrested will be deported "this week", David Lammy has said. Hadush Kebatu was arrested in the Finsbury Park area of north London at 08:30 GMT on Sunday, bringing an end to a 48-hour manhunt that began after he was let go in error from HMP Chelmsford. Kebatu, who was sentenced last month for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman in Epping while living in an asylum hotel, was due to be deported when he was mistakenly set free by prison staff. Justice Secretary Lammy said he would outline the terms of reference for a full independent inquiry into the release in Parliament on Monday. Earlier, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said an investigation was already under way, adding: "We must make sure this doesn't happen again."
Perhaps a good start would be to properly staff and fund the Prison Service..... Perhaps, (God forbid) take it back into government control instead of farming it out to the lowest bidding contractor.

[PanBiker]

I'm fairly sure that I heard a report last week that said that about 1,000 inmates per year are wrongly released each year. So this is not an isolated incident but a product of underfunding of the service, not enough officers to do all the checks and balances.

[Stanley]

I think I heard the same report Ian and wasn't there a crop of mistaken releases when the government was trying to free up spaces in prisons due to overcrowding?

[Whyperion]

Perhaps all incoming prisoners should have a barcode put on them to trace through the system and agreed next locations for them.
What the release , in error or otherwise shows is that every prisoner out needs to have a proper community support agreed Before scheduled, or early , release, IF this pathway were in place then the jails would have a fail safe on a correct discharge

[Julie in Norfolk]

Unexpected item in basket area!

[Tizer]

Breaking news from BBC...
`Israel PM Netanyahu orders military to immediately strike Gaza' LINK
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed the military to immediately carry out "powerful" strikes on Gaza, his office says. It comes as Israel says a coffin handed over by Hamas on Monday did not contain the body of another deceased hostage.

[Tripps]

Meanwhile worse is happening in Sudan. It is quite possible that thousands of women and children have been massacred.

El Fasher Sudan yesterday

[Stanley]

That's a timely and telling interjection David. I fear we have taken our eye of the ball In Sudan and Yvette Cooper does well to call our attention back there.

[Whyperion]

Mysterious Spanish road signs to be removed Tarelton , West Lancs

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attractio ... gland.html and why not , 5 things to see in the villiage

Sometimes people do something helpful , only for the letter of the law to be applied and create a perverse result.

Similar line of thinking

[Stanley]

This morning's report from Margaret in Bali..... Both she and Mick are fully recovered and hopefully can now enjoy what remains of their holiday!

[PanBiker]

I contacted Doc on Facebook yesterday to see how he and Carole went on with Hurricane Melissa. Where they are moored they had 8" of rain in short order. Both are OK and cracking on.

[Big Kev]

Good to hear on both counts

[Stanley]

Thanks for that Ian.
Margaret reminded me from Bali this morning that it is 24 years since they left Clitheroe and moved to Perth. Time flies doesn't it....

[Stanley]

Mick and Margaret fly back from Bali to Perth today. The sooner I hear they are back safe the better!

[Stanley]

THIS live report about a stabbing on a train in Cambridgeshire.
Ten people are in hospital, with nine believed to have life-threatening injuries, after a stabbing attack on a train travelling in Cambridgeshire. Two people have been arrested, Cambridgeshire Police say - pictures show officers responding to the scene at Huntingdon station. Police declare a "major incident" and confirm that counter-terrorism officers will support the investigation. Passengers were travelling on the 18:25 service from Doncaster to London King's Cross when the attack happened. An eyewitness tells the BBC they saw a man bolting down the carriage with a bloody arm, saying "they've got a knife, run", and a man collapsed on the floor
Details still coming in.....

[Big Kev]

My two great granddaughters' photoshoot

FB_IMG_1762114063546.jpg

[Cathy]

Aaaw, lovely Angels in pink clouds.

[Stanley]

That will, raise a smile when they are 21! Nice....

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report on changes in the Antarctic......
When an Antarctic glacier was sparked into rapid retreat three years ago, it left scientists scratching their heads as to what might have caused it. Hektoria Glacier retreated by more than 8km (5 miles) in just two months in late 2022 - and now a new study claims to have the answer. The authors believe that Hektoria could be the first modern example of a process where the front of a glacier resting on the seabed rapidly destabilises. That could lead to much faster sea-level rise if it happened elsewhere in Antarctica, they say. But other scientists argue that this part of the glacier was actually floating in the ocean – so while the changes are impressive, they are not so unusual. Floating tongues of glaciers extending into the sea – called ice shelves – are much more prone to breaking up than glacier fronts resting on the seabed. That's because they can be more easily eaten away by warm water underneath.

[Cathy]

For those interested
The 2025 Lexus MELBOURNE CUP results are
1st Place - Half Yours ( female jockey Jamie Melham)
2nd Place - Goodie Two Shoes
3rd Place - Middle Earth

[Stanley]

Morning Cathy! My claim to fame connected with the Cup is that I predicted the winner of the race won as I flew out of Perth after Janet's wedding.....

[Stanley]

Have a look at THIS BBC 'In Depth' article....
Dick Cheney, the former vice-president who died on Tuesday, dramatically expanded the powers of the US presidency in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks. More than two decades later, Donald Trump is wielding the political levers Cheney constructed as a potent tool to advance his national priorities - even as the two men had nasty personal clashes over the direction of the Republican Party. Cheney's experience in US government stretched back to Richard Nixon's White House, and he honed his theories of presidential powers over decades of experience in the corridors of power in Congress and during multiple Republican administrations. As vice-president during the George W Bush administration, he used the Al-Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon – the most consequential moment of American national unity and clarity of purpose since the Japanese Pearl Harbor attack of World War Two – to restructure the foundations of executive authority. "Cheney freed Bush to fight the 'war on terror' as he saw fit, driven by a shared belief that the government had to shake off old habits of self-restraint," former Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman writes in Angler, his 2008 book on Cheney's time as vice-president.

[Stanley]

Later.... it was the election of a Democratic Socialist to be Mayor of NY. I listened to his acceptance speech this morning and what struck me is that he is an orator! Contrast his delivery with Starmer.....

[PanBiker]

He could run rings round Trump who has difficulty completing a sentence better than a four year old!

[Stanley]

You're right Ian, he could!
See THIS for what got my attention today......
Police are searching for two prisoners separately released in error from a London prison in the past week. Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, an Algerian man, who is a sex offender, was let out of Wandsworth Prison by mistake on 29 October. Convicted fraudster William Smith was released in error days later on 3 November. This comes just weeks after migrant sex offender Hadush Kebatu, who arrived in the UK on a small boat, was mistakenly released from HMP Chelmsford in Essex. It leaves Justice Secretary David Lammy under fire, after he had promised to put in place extra checks to prevent similar cases after Kebatu's release. During Prime Minister's Questions, Lammy, who was standing in for Sir Keir Starmer, was repeatedly asked whether any asylum-seeking offender had been accidentally let out of prison since Kebatu was released but he refused to answer. As PMQs was ending, the Met Police released a statement revealing a foreign prisoner had been released by mistake last Wednesday, with the force informed on Tuesday. The police later confirmed the man was 24-year-old Kaddour-Cherif and they believed he had links to Tower Hamlets and Westminster in London. The Met police said in a statement about the manhunt that he was convicted in November 2024 of indecent exposure relating to an incident in March that year. He was sentenced to an 18 month community order and placed on the sex offenders' register for five years. The BBC has been told he is not an asylum seeker and that Lammy was informed overnight about the accidental release.
To paraphrase Admiral David Beatty..... ""There seems to be something wrong with our bloody prisons today".