man killed in shooting at east London flat

Crime reporter(wp/es):
A 20-year-old man was killed in a shooting at a block of flats in east London.
Armed police and paramedics rushed to the building in Bethnal Green after reports of gunfire on Monday night.
The victim was found with injuries and pronounced dead at the scene of the shooting shortly afterwards, sparking a murder investigation.
Officers arrested two men, aged 21 and 29, in connection with the incident.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan police said: “Police were called by the London Ambulance Service at around 8:40pm on October 3 to reports of a shooting at a block of flats in Florida Street, E2.
“Whilst officers believe they know who the deceased is, they await formal identification.
"A post-mortem examination will be scheduled in due course.”

A son is hit and killed by car

 
Pic: Aaron Matharu
Staff reporter(wp/es):
A father watched helplessly from his bedroom window as his “angelic” son was hit and killed by a car as he crossed the road outside his home.
Aaron Matharu, 11, was thrown several metres into the air on a pedestrian crossing in Hounslow after he was struck by a black Volkswagen Polo as he walked home.
His father Kuli Matharu, 41, said he rushed outside after seeing the crash from an upstairs window overlooking the busy junction.
He said: “I ran out screaming, ‘That’s my son’. When I got there two people were trying to resuscitate him. My son was just going on an innocent trip to the shops and he was killed.”
Aaron, who had started at Cranford Community College three weeks ago, had just stepped off a traffic island in Bath Road, Cranford, when he was struck at 5.45pm on Friday.
 Passers-by fought to save his life using CPR before an ambulance crew arrived but he died later in hospital.

Mr Matharu, a delivery driver, said: “The whole community knows he was a lovely boy, he’s going to be missed. Every day when I wake up in my bedroom and open the curtains I’m going to see where my son died. Every time I go to work I have to drive past the spot where my son was killed.
“He had just started big school three weeks ago, he was so excited. Aaron was everyone’s friend, all the shopkeepers knew him, he was a popular kid. He was never naughty, he never did silly things, he was so sensible.”
Mr Matharu said he had complained to police several times about the junction, where there are two or three accidents a month, and had been told its layout was being reviewed.
He said: “It’s too late for me, my son has gone. I have a younger son who is staying at my sister-in-law’s. I’m trying to work out a way to tell him his brother is dead. How am I going to tell him? He’s not even five years old.”
Navjoyt Sehmi, Aaron’s aunt, said her nephew was “loved by everyone”, as she laid flowers at the spot where he was killed.
She said: “Aaron gave so much love and in such a short space of time he has given us the best memories ever.
"He was a kind and gentle soul. He was never naughty, we never had to tell him off ever. He was so loving and warm he was an absolute angel. He was too pure and too innocent for this world.”
In a Facebook tribute, Hina Malike, Aaron’s teacher, said: “My thoughts and prayers are with his mum and the family at this difficult times and pray for them to have the strength to cope with this irreplaceable loss.
“As a teacher I will always remember you as a caring, loving student who was keen to help others. Aaron, you will be missed by all of us. May your angelic soul RIP.”
After the accident, the driver was taken to hospital suffering from trauma. He has not been arrested.

Tories hope to free the City from EU

Political reporter(wp/es):
Ministers are moving towards a clear break from EU rules for the City, to protect it from damaging diktats from Brussels, the Standard reveals today.
They are increasingly wary of the dangers of the impact on the Square Mile of Britain being “law takers rather than law makers”.
This situation could leave the UK’s dominant financial sector at the mercy of backroom deals struck in Brussels — without Britain having a say — and secretly aimed at forcing banks to shift more of their business from London to Paris and Frankfurt.
Immediately after the June 23 vote, many City figures stressed how vital it was to achieve a “soft Brexit”.

They believed that preserving single market “passporting” rights was key to ensuring that financial firms would continue to be able to trade in the EU without barriers after Britain leaves the union.
However, a growing number in the Square Mile have more recently spoken out in favour of a “hard Brexit”, with a more drastic severing of ties with the European Union in order to ensure that Britain can decide its own financial rules and regulations.
Ministers believe it is too simplistic to boil down the decision to a “hard” or “soft” Brexit.
A senior source said that for different industrial sectors in Britain there was likely to be a different optimal outcome in the negotiations which will start after Theresa May triggers Article 50 next spring.

However, there is a growing belief in the Government that the risks for the City in giving up “control” over regulations outweigh the benefits of the “access” that would be guaranteed from doing so.
Instead of making concessions to cling on to single market “passporting”, a system based on a type of “equivalence” is gaining traction in senior government circles as a way of putting Britain in charge of laws governing the Square Mile while maintaining good access to EU markets.

“Unless exemptions can be agreed, the problem with single market passporting is that the UK would not have sovereign power over its financial regulation law, and part of a single market deal involves accepting the free movement of people,” said Lord Flight, a City veteran and former shadow Treasury minister.
He argued that a deal could see the UK ensuring “adequate equivalence”, which could mean abiding by overall agreed high standards rather than implementing every EU regulation.
Remaining in the EU customs union is also seen as difficult, given how it would hamper Britain’s bid to strike new trade deals around the globe after Brexit.
Mayor Sadiq Khan will meet Theresa May this week to urge her to press on with her plans for Brexit.

He also demanded today that she reconsider her decision to rule out London having a seat at the negotiating table. “Failure to have London round the table would put our world-leading financial service, tech and creative sectors at serious risk,” he said.
Different approaches during the Brexit talks could be taken for other sectors of the economy. Seeking to maintain very close ties to the EU could be in the best interests of car manufacturers, such as Nissan, which has a giant plant in Sunderland.
However, France and other EU car manufacturing nations will inevitably seek to lure more production across the Channel.
EU leaders may be reluctant to agree to a “pick-and-mix” Brexit pact. If one is not achieved, Britain could fall back on World Trade Organisation rules, but this is not being seen as a positive outcome in many corners of Whitehall.

Elephant and Castle Tube passengers stuck in a lift for 90 minutes

Staff reporter(wp/es):
More than 20 people were trapped in a packed Tube station lift for an hour and a half on Sunday night after the emergency door failed to open.
Marusca Cirulli, who was one of the passengers locked in, has described her terror and called the lift “a mortal trap and tragedy waiting to happen”.
One of the passengers, a little girl, had to urinate in a plastic bag while another woman suffered a panic attack, she said.
The lift, at Elephant and Castle Tube station, cut out just before it reached the ground on the Tube level on Sunday evening.

“There was some kind of bump,” Ms Cirulli, from Eltham, told the Standard as she described the moment the lift broke at around 6pm.
Staff arrived and tried to open the emergency door on the side of the lift – but it was completely jammed.
“Their emergency door did not open as it was faulty and stuck,” she said.

“The lift was about two metres by two metres, it was quite packed in there and everybody was standing.
“It was stressful, one girl started to cry and had a panic attack. There was a doctor in the lift with us and they tried to calm her down. The rest of us, we got agitated.”
London Fire Brigade were called and at around 7.30pm the lift was fixed, freeing the anxious Tube passengers and allowing them to continue their journey.
But 41-year-old Ms Cirulli said she is worried about the condition of the lifts because of the emergency exit’s failure to open.

“It is obvious that they do not regularly care of maintaining the emergency exit,” she said.
“That lift is a mortal trap and a tragedy waiting to happen.
“If there would have been a fire or any other issue on the outside, we would have died like rats as nobody was able to free us.”
Another woman who was one of the 21 trapped, Emma Parker, said on Twitter: “It took an hour and 20 minutes and the ‘emergency door’ wouldn’t open. Bloody useless.” 

The London Ambulance Service’s HART team said: “Tonight we attended a faulty lift full of people at Elephant and Castle.”
 They said all passengers were safe and well.

Doctors make 'remarkable progress' in finding full cure for HIV

Health reporter(wp/es):
Doctors have made “remarkable” progress in finding a full cure for HIV after treating a British man.
Scientists treating the 44-year-old patient are now hopeful of a breakthrough in what has been described as "one of the first serious attempts at a full cure for HIV".
The man, who has remained anonymous, is the first of 50 people to complete a trial using the two-stage attack on the deadly virus.
The research is being carried out by a collaboration of five of Britain's top universities organised by the NHS.

Mark Samuels, managing director of the National Institute for Health Research Office for Clinical Research Infrastructure, told the Sunday Times: "This is one of the first serious attempts at a full cure for HIV. We are exploring the real possibility of curing HIV.
"This is a huge challenge and it's still early days but the progress has been remarkable."
The trial patient told the newspaper that recent blood tests showed no detectable HIV virus was present, although it was too early to confirm that the treatment had worked.
The new therapy aims to overcome a major barrier to clearing the virus from a sufferer's body that has challenged researchers for decades.

Current methods using antiretroviral therapies (Art) fall short of ridding patients of HIV, as the virus can hide out of the drugs' reach in the immune system's T-cells.
By sheltering in dormant T-cells the virus can later take over its host and use it to produce thousands of copies of itself, should Art no longer work.
The research by Oxford and Cambridge universities, Imperial College London, University College London, and King's College London, is testing a "kick and kill" technique to first expose then destroy the virus.
First a vaccine helps the body find infected T-cells. This is then followed by a course of the drug Vorinostat that awakens the dormant T-cells, which then begin producing HIV proteins that act as a homing beacon to the immune system.
Imperial College London consultant physician Professor Sarah Fidler said the treatment worked in the laboratory and there was "good evidence" it will work in patients. However she added: "We must stress we are still a long way from any actual therapy."

a woman rap in south London.

Crime reporter(wp/es):
Police are hunting a sex attacker who threatened a woman at knifepoint before raping her in a horrifying attack in south London.
The suspect approached a woman in her 30s outside an address in Northbrook Road before he brandished a knife and forced her into a home where she was raped.
The victim suffered cuts to her arms during the attack but did not require hospital treatment.
She was taken to a Haven and is being supported by specialist officers.

The suspect is described as a black man, aged between 25 and 30, around 6ft tall and of slim build.
He has short, black shaved hair, brown eyes, a flat nose and stubble and was wearing a black hooded top, dark blue jeans, black trainers and black gloves.
Officers from the Sexual Offences, Exploitation and Child Abuse Command are investigating and there have been no arrests.
At this stage, the attack is not being linked to any others although enquiries continue.

car collides with night bus then smashes into shop

Staff reporter(wp/es):
Oxford Street was shut today after three people were injured in a crash when a car collided with a night bus before ploughing into a shop.
The busy shopping street has been taped off between Wardour Street and Great Portland Street since just before 5am following the collision.
Police confirmed the car involved in the crash was driven off after allegedly failing to stop for officers in a marked car.
The car collided with a N55 route bus at the junction with Wells Street.
Oxford Street was reopened just after noon.
Two men who were in the car have been taken to a central London hospital, one with non-life threatening injuries while the condition of the other man remains unknown.

A Met Police spokesman said: "Shortly before the collision, the car was seen at the location by officers in a marked police car.
"The car did not stop and made off and a short time later, it was involved in the collision."
A female passenger on the bus was also taken to hospital with minor injuries.
Another man who was in the car at the time of the collision was uninjured.
All three men who were in the car are currently under arrest.
The Met Police spokesman added that the car was not being pursued at the time.