Department of Health retracts claim sunbeds are as dangerous as smoking

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has had to retract a misleading claim that sunbeds are as dangerous a cancer risk as smoking.In January, health officials announced stricter rules for sunbeds, incorrectly claiming they were “as dangerous as smoking”. The comparison was repeated in social media posts shared by the health secretary and NHS England and was reported by a number of media outlets.But the factchecking organisation Full Fact said the claim was wrong, concluding “misleading information about the risk of cancer … risks making smoking seem less harmful than it is”.While both smoking and sunbeds cause cancer, the risks are not equal

More British teenagers stranded abroad as result of new rules on dual nationals

Two more British teenagers have found themselves unable to return to the UK because of new Home Office border rules on British dual nationals.Their cases emerged just hours after reports a 16-year-old British schoolgirl was blocked from boarding a flight in Denmark home to the UK because she was a dual national and did not have a British passport. She has missed two weeks of school so far.A 19-year-old student, Anna*, from Oxfordshire is stuck in Madrid after a university-organised trip to the Spanish capital.She is part French and had not yet obtained a British passport to comply with the new rules, which require British dual nationals to present a passport, new or expired, or certificate of entitlement to airlines before boarding flights to the UK

Is it time for the UK to acknowledge the ‘rhetoric to reality gap’ on its military power?

It will have been more than three weeks since the US and Israel first attacked Iran when the first British warship finally arrives off the coast of Cyprus, a belated defensive deployment that has highlighted the lack of military capacity available to the UK.Nominally, HMS Dragon was one of three destroyers available out of six. In reality the warship has had to be hauled out of dry dock, prepared and then, after launch, tested for several days in the Channel. Its arrival date is still unconfirmed.“It’s clear one of the military’s big problems is giving the government contingency options,” said Matthew Savill, of the Royal United Services Institute, reflecting years of spending constraints

Claimants drop lawsuit against Gerry Adams over IRA bombings

Three victims of IRA bombings who sued Gerry Adams alleging he was a member of the paramilitary group and culpable for the attacks have withdrawn their lawsuit on the last day of the civil trial.John Clark, Jonathan Ganesh and Barry Laycock, who were injured respectively in the 1973 Old Bailey bombing and the 1996 London Docklands and Manchester bombings, were seeking symbolic “vindicatory” damages of £1 each.They alleged that the former Sinn Féin leader, who is credited with helping to bring about the Northern Ireland peace process that ended the Troubles, was a member of the IRA and had sat on its army council. Adams denied being a member of the IRA or being involved in bombings.On Friday, the ninth and final day of the trial, the claimants’ lawyer, Anne Studd KC, was expected to finish her closing submissions, but she told the high court that the claim would be discontinued after “proceedings developed overnight”

Labour dismisses Reform UK MSP candidates as ‘hopeless Tory rejects and oddballs’ as one is suspended – as it happened

Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.Commenting on Reform UK’s decision to suspend one of its MSP candidate (see 1.13pm), and revelations coming out about the extremist views of others (see 10.12am), Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, said:double quotation markNigel Farage promised that Reform’s candidates in Scotland would be ‘fit and proper people’ – and yet, just like every promise made by Farage, it has fallen apart immediately on impact with reality.Within 24 hours of the party’s candidates being announced, one has already been suspended, while several more are embroiled in scandal

‘We need to think much bigger’: trade minister calls for greater ambition in UK-EU reset

It was all smiles and warm handshakes when the two men in charge of renegotiating the UK’s relationship with the EU met in Brussels this week.Maroš Šefčovič and the UK minister for EU relations, Nick Thomas-Symonds, sharing a stage on the third floor of the vast European parliament building, were at pains to show the cross-Channel relationship was in a good place after years of rancour.The deep frustration about the lack of progress in the “resetting” of the relationship between the UK and the EU was evident on stage and behind the scenes.Šefčovič, the European commissioner for trade, told MPs and MEPs gathered at the EU-UK parliamentary partnership assembly (PPA) of the need for a reboot but also hinted at the need for more ambition in the next round of talks, reminding the British in the room that an over-arching Swiss-style deal, as offered to the former prime minister Boris Johnson, was still very much on the table.The following day, the trade minister, Chris Bryant, on a charm offensive in Paris, expressed his own frustration at the “piecemeal” approach he inherited when he was appointed in September