Father fined after son’s fatal fall from Cyprus hotel

A British man has been handed a 3,000-euro (£2,500) fine after his two-year-old son fell nearly 40 feet to his death from the fourth-floor window of a hotel in Cyprus.

Joshua Foster thought the window of their holiday apartment was closed when he placed the boy on a sill to show him the view of a waterpark and “lost control” of him, the court previously heard.

The boy fell from the fourth floor of the five-star on 12 July, the first day of the family’s holiday.

• Foster’s lawyer told the court the boy noticed a waterpark outside as the family waited for an elevator.
• The lawyer said Foster pushed the lift button, placed the child on the windowsill and the “inconceivable” unfolded before he could react.
• Foster thought there was protective glass and did not realise that section of the 2.85 metre (9.3ft) wide, 1.2 metre (3.9ft) high window was open, it was said.
• The boy was taken to hospital but despite efforts to resuscitate him, he was pronounced dead.

The 37-year-old auditor, whose lawyer said he has no previous convictions and showed “clear” remorse, was held in custody for eight days immediately after the incident.

Foster appeared at Paphos District Court on Friday for sentencing having pleaded guilty to a charge of causing death through a reckless, rash or dangerous act.

After holding back tears as his sentence was read out at the 25-minute hearing, Foster hugged his lawyer and parents.

Why heat pump prices are set to fall

Boiler manufacturers could face having their targets for selling heat pumps more than doubled by 2030-31 – even as ministers consider cutting the grants that help households pay for them.

It was reported on Monday that Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh has been asked to identify savings at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), with hundreds of millions of pounds potentially coming from the .

The scheme offers towards eligible heat-pump installations – which can cost up to £15,000 – off the gas grid that replace oil or LPG heating.

80,000

Since 2022, the scheme has supported nearly 80,000 heat pump installations.

Heat pumps can involve higher upfront costs than conventional gas boilers.

What now?

The potential cuts could make heat pumps harder for some households to afford.

That’s because it comes as manufacturers face stronger incentives to obtain credits for qualifying installations.

• Ministers have proposed raising the target for heat pump installations in proportion to boiler sales – with payments required for falling short.
• The proposed changes would raise the target from 8 per cent of relevant boiler sales in 2026-27 to 18 per cent by 2030-31.
• Part of the Clean Heat Market Mechanism, the plans are subject to consultation and not yet final.

However, industry insiders said that increased targets could actually lead to lower prices as manufacturers compete.

This happened with the electric vehicle mandate as makers offered bigger discounts if they were failing to reach their targets.

Part of wider plans

The Government says the targets were set on the basis that they could be met through supported installations in existing buildings, with eligible new-build installations providing an additional route to compliance.

The DESNZ estimates the proposed 18 per cent target would equate to up to 236,000 heat pumps in 2030-31. The Government’s wider ambition is to install over 450,000 heat pumps a year by 2030, including about 250,000 in existing homes.

The numbers that show where Trump has really damaged his own party

Donald Trump’s popularity has plummeted this year, as the repercussions of his war with Iran drag on, hitting his Republican Party’s chances of holding on to power in next month’s crucial midterm elections.

In ruby red Texas, Trump has dropped 27 per cent from a net positive approval rating to a net negative of 21 per cent.

• 55 per cent of voters in Ohio opted
  for Trump in 2024. Now polling shows
  55 per cent disapprove of his performance. Other states like Kentucky, Wyoming and Oklahoma have also seen sharp drops for the President.

A knock-on effect for Republican candidates

Trump’s popularity has taken a hit in every US state, but the most dramatic declines have been in parts of the country that backed him in 2024, leaving Republican strategists scrambling to manage the fallout.

In every key battleground state, his abysmal approval ratings seem to be harming Republican candidates, while boosting their Democrat rivals.

Thirty-five of 100 seats in the Senate are being contested this year, with Democrats needing to make a net gain of four to take control of the upper chamber.

All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for grabs, with
the Democrats likely to win a majority. Trump’s Republican Party currently holds
a majority in both chambers.

Meet the youngest generation of Trump voters now turning their backs on Maga

For the young people whose first ever presidential vote was in 2024, the past few years have proved a brutal lesson in the realities of national politics.

Why everyone seems to be sick right now

In the past few weeks, more and more people have reported coming down with a bug – complaining of a streaming nose, cough, or temperature. I wasn’t imagining it: the flu season has started earlier this year.

• Rates of flu infections in the UK are still relatively low, but they are rising, the UK Health Security Agency said – even though it is only October.

It means GPs – on top of the usual surge
in coughs and colds that happens when children go back to school – have seen
a broader rise in consultations for
respiratory viruses.

Scientists still debate why respiratory viruses peak every winter. There are several possible reasons:

• Viruses survive for longer in colder air
• Human nasal cells may function less well in the cold
• Our tendency to mix socially indoors rather than outdoors
• Drier winter air may cause virus-laden moisture droplets to evaporate, shrink into tiny particles and float further

Peak flu season is usually in December or January, but what’s going on in other parts
of the world can change that. Temperate countries in the Southern Hemisphere experience the same cycle in reverse,
with a flu peak in their winter – June, July
and August.

This is important because the circulating flu viruses accumulate small mutations all the time, called . The mix that predominates in the Southern Hemisphere’s winter predicts to some extent the mix that arrives in the UK a few months later.

• 1One reason for flu starting early this year could be that there has been a , one of the three main circulating flu strains, said Dr Jamie Lopez Bernal, a UKHSA epidemiologist.
• 2Another explanation could be that Southern Hemisphere countries had a relatively late flu season in 2026, resulting in more people carrying the flu into the UK.

Keep an eye on it

An early start doesn’t mean the UK is necessarily headed for a worse flu season overall. The same happened last winter, yet the country ended up with a lower number of flu deaths than average.

What to know as four dead in Oregon school shooting

A teacher and three children were killed in a shooting at a primary school in Bend, Oregon, on Thursday.

What happened?

Here’s what we know so far about the incident outside Bend’s Silver Rail Elementary School in central Oregon.

• The shooting took place at around 1pm, local time (9pm BST) on Thursday.
• Authorities initially responded to reports at 12.59pm of multiple gunshots fired at
  a car.
• They later received calls the shooter had entered the school grounds.
• Police subsequently directed the school to go into lockdown at 1.01pm.
• The suspected shooter reportedly forced his way into the school by shooting through locked doors.
• Upon arriving, officers found five people who “had succumbed to their injuries”, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said.

This included a teacher and three children aged five, eight and 11. A and a 54-year-old teacher were for treatment in . The police did not initially identify any of the victims and did not provide an age for the teacher who was killed.

Around 400 children are enrolled in Silver Rail, from kindergarten through fifth grade. About 40 people work at the school.

• The suspected shooter, a 16-year-old boy from Bend, was found dead inside the school when police arrived.
• Authorities believe he was shot by “a community member” who saw him enter “and ”.
• It is not yet clear whether the suspect, who has not been named, knew anyone at the school.
• The armed bystander, also yet to be identified, was called a hero by Oregon Governor Tina Kotek.

Police response

Authorities cordoned off the school and have begun investigating the shooting, with an update expected on Friday. FBI Director Kash Patel said his agency would “make every resource they need available” in support of the investigation.

A vigil was held by local leaders on Thursday evening with other “opportunities to gather” planned for the coming days.

‘We will stay with you’

We are horrified. This is the kind of things you hear about in other places and pray that it never happens here. To the families that have had loss tonight, we are with you and we will stay with you.

Steven cook, administrator of the local school district