UK Yahoo News

• Japan plots delay to balancing budget without spooking markets, G20 partners

By Leika Kihara and Stanley White TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese premier Shinzo Abe is looking to quietly ditch a pledge to balance the budget by fiscal 2020 in favour of a looser debt-to-GDP ratio target, a move that gives him a free hand to delay again an unpopular sales tax hike, government sources say. Any fiscal slippage would mean Japan keeping its money printing presses running longer, and would break a commitment to G20 countries.

• British Social Attitudes Survey 2017: Britain Shifts, Slightly, To The Left Amid Rejection Of Austerity

British attitudes towards tax and spend policies have shifted to the left amid a broader rejection of austerity, an influential new study has found.

• Social care cuts to continue in spite of £1bn boost, English councils say

The Conservatives have announced a £2bn package for social care over three years. Cuts to social care will continue this year despite ministers putting in an extra £1bn to halt the deterioration in services, senior council officials have said. Local authorities in England plan to make £824m of savings in their social care budgets in 2017-18, according to research by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (Adass).

• UK support is rising for higher taxes to fund NHS, schools and police

Public tolerance of austerity is collapsing as support for higher taxes to enable more spending on health, education and policing increases, according to the latest British social attitudes survey. Eight in 10 people surveyed for the annual barometer of public attitudes said they wanted more cash pumped into the NHS, while seven in 10 supported more investment in schools, and 60% wanted higher spending on the police. “People’s tolerance for austerity is drying up, even if that means higher taxes,” said Roger Harding, head of public attitudes at the National Centre for Social Research, which carried out the survey.

• Social mobility: radical reform urged to repair divided Britain

Alan Milburn, commission chair, said it was ‘striking how divided we have become’. Social mobility policies have failed to significantly reduce inequality between rich and poor despite two decades of interventions by successive governments, according to a highly critical new report. The study by the government’s Social Mobility Commission warns that without radical and urgent reform, the social and economic divisions in British society will widen even further, threatening community cohesion and economic prosperity.

• Making Ivanka Trump shoes: Long hours, low pay and abuse

A worker with blood dripping from his head marked a low point in the tense, grinding life at a southeastern China factory used by Ivanka Trump and other fashion brands. An angry manager had hit him with ...

• Corbyn urges pay rises for first responders

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has called for a pay rise for first responders after the Grenfell Tower fire.

• Boy with 'awful injuries' dies at Daventry rail depot

An 11-year-old boy has died after he suffered 'awful' electrical burns at a rail freight depot, police have said. The youngster was found with severe injuries at the scene near Daventry, Northamptonshire, and pronounced dead. Emergency services were called to the town's International Rail Freight Depot at around 5.20pm.

• Corbyn to tempt Tories with emergency service pay amendment

Jeremy Corbyn will challenge the Conservatives to show they are committed to ending "austerity" in the police and fire services by backing a Labour amendment to the Queen's Speech. The Labour leader said the first Commons vote of the new Parliament will be a test case for MPs' approach to austerity, amid signs from senior Tories that the Government will boost public spending. The amendment calls for an end to cuts to police and fire services, commends their response to recent terror attacks and the Grenfell Tower disaster, backs more recruitment and calls for the public sector pay cap to be lifted.

• Lone minors remain as refugee cap announced

Campaigners are taking the Government to court over their abandoned plans to bring more child refugees to the UK. Sky's Mark Stone reports from Calais.

• Woman spared jail after helping refugee lover get to the UK

A former Front National supporter has been spared punishment after helping her lover, an Iranian refugee, cross into Britain. Beatrice Huret, 44, helped Mokhtar and two other men cross the English Channel in a boat she had purchased for €1,000 (£885). Ms Huret, who met the 34-year-old when she was volunteering at the Jungle camp in Calais, told the court she took "full responsibility" for her actions, and that she had been inspired by love.

• MP accused of Grenfell fire 'conspiracy' over death count

A London MP has been accused of "fuelling conspiracy theories" after he said he had "sympathy" with the suggestion the authorities were covering up the true number of dead within Grenfell Tower in order to prevent civil unrest. David Lammy, the MP for Tottenham, admitted he had "no idea" if the number was being covered up but said there was a "gap" between what local people had said to him they had seen and what the official figures had shown. Kevin Hurley, a former senior investigator with City of London police, said the MP had got it wrong and was fuelling conspiracy theories.

• 'Nobody is hiding' number of dead at Grenfell

Sir Michael Fallon has told Sky News that nobody is concealing the true number of people who died in the Grenfell Tower fire.

• Sturgeon postpones second independence vote until after Brexit

By Elisabeth O'Leary EDINBURGH (Reuters) - Scotland's secessionist leader on Tuesday postponed plans for a second independence referendum until the terms of Britain's exit from the European Union are clear. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she was putting on hold plans to introduce legislation that would have demanded a second referendum. Sturgeon, whose Scottish National Party wants to break Scotland's 300-year-old union with England, had been seeking a referendum in late 2018 or early 2019, ahead of Britain's EU exit which is due in March 2019.

• UK says 95 buildings fail safety checks after London tower block fire

Prime Minister Theresa May said on Tuesday Britain must hold a national investigation into exterior cladding used on high-rise buildings after all those checked after the deadly London tower block blaze this month failed safety tests. At least 79 people died when a fire that started in a fridge freezer engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block on June 14, trapping many inside their apartments as they slept. The devastating inferno has raised concerns about the cladding used on the facades of buildings, mainly for insulation or to improve their appearance, prompting urgent safety tests to be carried out on similar tower blocks around the country.

• New fire panel chair Sir Ken Knight advised against retrofitting sprinklers

The panel appointed to "make all public and private buildings safe as quickly as possible" following the Grenfell Tower fire is to be chaired by a former chief fire and rescue officer who advised against retrospective fitting of sprinklers. The lack of sprinklers at Grenfell Tower is expected to be addressed by the forthcoming public inquiry.

• Philip Hammond at odds with David Davis over Brexit transition

Boris Johnson, Philip Hammond and David Davis listen to Theresa May launch the Conservative party election manifesto. There is fresh evidence of tensions between the cabinet colleagues. Philip Hammond has taken a swipe at Boris Johnson and appeared at odds with David Davis over a post-Brexit transitional deal, in fresh evidence of tensions between cabinet colleagues.

• 'Clearly very wrong' - May on cladding tests

Theresa May says the failed safety tests on high-rise cladding show something is "clearly very wrong".

• Safe standing area could be tested at League One club Shrewsbury Town

Shrewsbury Town are aiming to become the first English football club with an all-seater stadium to bring in safe standing. This would allow fans of the League One club to stand between rows. Standing was banned in England's top two divisions - the Premier League and Championship - following the Taylor Inquiry into the 1989 Hillsborough disaster.