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Adolescence makes history at Bafta TV Awards

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Netflix drama Adolescence was the big winner at the Bafta Television Awards on Sunday, while The Celebrity Traitors and Last One Laughing also scooped a share of the glory.

The Celebrity Traitors and Last One Laughing won two prizes each, while Adolescence took four – breaking the record for the most wins at the Bafta TV Awards ceremony in a single year.

The hard-hitting drama, which became a national talking point when it was released in March 2025, was named best limited series, and there were acting honours for its stars Stephen Graham, Owen Cooper and Christine Tremarco.

At 16, Cooper became the youngest ever winner of the award for best supporting actor.

Cooper's Bafta can go alongside the Emmy, Golden Globe, National Television, Royal Television Society and Actor Awards he has already won for playing a boy accused of murdering a female classmate.

In his acceptance speech, the rising star paid tribute to the Beatles.

"In the words of John Lennon, you won't get anything unless you have the vision to imagine it," he said.

"So in my eyes I think you only need three things to succeed: one, you need an obsession; two, you need a dream; and, three, you need the Beatles."

Graham was named best leading actor for playing Cooper's on-screen dad, and Tremarco won best supporting actress for playing his mum.

It was Graham's first Bafta win after seven previous nominations.

In his speech, he encouraged young viewers to believe they could follow a similar path in acting.

"We're not digging holes, we're not digging ditches, we're not saving lives, but we have the opportunity to tell the human condition, and we have the obligation to tell beautiful stories and we need to keep that going," he said.

He also ending his speech with a Beatles reference, telling the ceremony: "The kid's already said it, but in the words of the Beatles, all we need is love."

Meanwhile, Narges Rashidi, who was born in Iran, won best leading actress for playing Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe in BBC One's real-life drama Prisoner 951.

Rashidi dedicated the award to the British-Iranian woman who was imprisoned in Tehran for six years, and her family, telling the ceremony: "Your resilience, your dignity, your love through impossible circumstances have moved us all.

"Your courage will stay with me for the rest of my life. This is for you."

Elsewhere, the award for best drama went to ITV's Code of Silence, which starred Rose Ayling-Ellis as a deaf woman who helps police with her lip reading skills.

The Celebrity Traitors, the most-watched programme of last year with more than 15 million viewers, won best reality programme.

Accepting the award, host Claudia Winkleman dedicated it to the show's "extraordinary cast who played with dignity, gusto and their entire hearts and we love them".

Alan Carr's victory on the programme was named the year's most memorable TV moment – the only award of the night to be voted for by the public.

In his acceptance speech, he joked: "Was I good? Was I really – or were the other celebrities just thick?!", referencing their inability to spot him as a Traitor.

Prime Video's hit Last One Laughing was named best entertainment programme, beating BBC One heavyweights The Graham Norton Show, Michael McIntyre's Big Show and Would I Lie To You.

Bob Mortimer's efforts to make his rival comedians crack a smile while he kept a straight face in Last One Laughing earned him the Bafta for best entertainment performance.

Steve Coogan won best actor in a comedy for How Are You? It's Alan (Partridge).

He said: "Doing comedy in these troubled times is so important. It's a privilege to make people laugh after all these years."

He continued: "I will keep on doing it. If anyone wants to know when Alan Partridge is going to die, it's about the same time that I am going to die."

Katherine Parkinson was named best comedy actress for her role as mum Rachel in family sitcom Here We Go.

Her competition in the category included a trio of stars from Amandaland (Lucy Punch, Philippa Dunne and Jennifer Saunders) as well as Diane Morgan and Rosie Jones.

Amandaland did have success in the category for best scripted comedy, four years after Motherland – in which the title character first appeared – won the same award.

Creator Holly Walsh said: "This is for everyone who is going through a process of reinvention, whatever that is, because it takes a lot to start again."

The current affairs prize went to Gaza: Doctors Under Attack after it was pulled by the BBC last year, which the broadcaster said was because of impartiality concerns. It was later shown by Channel 4 instead.

The documentary's reporter and producer, Ramita Navai, told the audience: "This award means so much to us," then spoke about the numbers of women, children and healthcare workers who have been killed in Gaza.

"These are the findings of our organisation that the BBC failed to show but we refused to be silenced and censored and we thank Channel 4."

Ben de Pear, the founder of Basement Films behind Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, added he had a question for the BBC: "Given you dropped our film, will you drop us from the Bafta screening later tonight?" He also thanked the journalists on the ground in Gaza.

When the BBC shelved the documentary, it said in a statement "it was determined to report all aspects of the conflict in the Middle East impartially and fairly."

De Pear's comments during the ceremony were later included in BBC One's broadcast of the awards, as part of a round-up of some of the winners.

Netflix's Grenfell: Uncovered, about the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 72 people, won best single documentary.

In other categories, EastEnders was named best soap, Scam Interceptors won best daytime show, and Go Back To Where You Came From picked up the factual entertainment prize.

Former Great British Bake Off judge Dame Mary Berry received the top lifetime achievement honour, the Bafta Fellowship, at the age of 91.

"I'm really bowled over by this accolade. I'm a cook, I'm a teacher, so I feel very honoured to be given Bafta's highest award," she said.

She finished her speech offering thanks to her three children, including her late son William, who died in a car accident in 1989 at the age of 19. She said: "William is in heaven, but I thank him."

Financial expert Martin Lewis was also given an honorary prize, the Special Award.

An emotional Lewis said he wrote the speech on Thursday, 42 years after the death of his mother when he was 11.

"For six years, barring school, I barely left the house. Now I'm picking up a Bafta," he told the audience.

"Life can be transformed, it can get better. If you had told that broken, scared boy that I'd proudly be a campaigning journalist, his jaw would have dropped.

"So I dedicate this to consumer journalism, where I found my voice."

📰 மூல செய்தி (Source): https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y76dll19po?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss

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The Papers: 'Violence in Belfast' and Trump's 'war words'

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Many of the front pages carry a freeze-frame from the graphic video of Monday night's attack in Belfast.

The Guardian leads on the disorder in the city, saying the violence erupted after what it calls "agitators", including Tommy Robinson and Elon Musk, exhorted people to take to the streets.

The Daily Telegraph says a WhatsApp message that was "forwarded many times" predicted a "mad day in Belfast" and urged men aged 18 and over to "wear dark clothing" and "be prepared to fight or be arrested". The i Paper highlights pleas from the police for calm, and says there are fears of further disorder across the UK.

Many of the papers focus on the suspect, who police have said is a Sudanese refugee.

The Daily Mail says Britain has a "gaping back door", raising "grave questions". The Mail's leader column urges the government to face up to what the paper calls "the migrant threat".

The Times believes there will be "renewed scrutiny" of the Common Travel Area, which allows for the free movement of people between the UK and Ireland after police said they believed the suspect had travelled from Dublin to Belfast by bus, before claiming asylum.

The Daily Express praises those who sought to intervene in the stabbing, calling them "the very best of humanity". The Daily Mirror reports that a fundraising campaign has begun to buy a pint for the man who arrived at the scene with a hurling stick. Matt McKiernan is quoted in the Sun saying "instinct took over" and "most people" would have done the same.

And the Daily Telegraph interprets comments by Rachel Reeves at a conference yesterday as a signal that in order to pay for higher defence spending, taxes will need to rise. The chancellor is said to have told an investors' gathering that "despite the pain of higher taxes, better to do that than get into a situation where we were before, with interest rates climbing".

The Times reports that Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is preparing to announce the extra defence funding as soon as this week, with discussions going down to the wire.

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Illegal mini-marts to shut for up to 12 months under law change prompted by BBC

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Illegal mini-marts, barbers and vape shops could be shut for up to a year under new powers announced by the government, following lengthy investigative reporting by BBC News into organised crime on British high streets.

We have exposed drug gangs, child sexual exploitation, money laundering and immigration crime linked to shops selling illegal cigarettes, vapes and drugs.

As the law stands in England and Wales, authorities can only close a shop for three months, with an option to extend closure to six months using anti-social behaviour legislation. The government's planned change will double the potential closure time.

Making the announcement, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood praised the BBC's reporting, saying that people felt high streets were being taken over by "organised crime [and] immigration criminality". The government was "not prepared to tolerate it", she said.

This type of criminality "makes people lose faith, not just in their local area but in democracy, in what our country is, and we can't let that happen", she added.

The Home Office says the extended closures will give investigators more time to gather evidence, pursue prosecutions and identify business owners, while preventing rogue operators from simply reopening and resuming illegal activity.

The news has been welcomed by Trading Standards officers, who have repeatedly told us they lack the necessary powers to tackle the problem.

"Closure orders are a key enforcement tool… for tackling 'dodgy shops'" says John Herriman, chief executive of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI).

There is "almost universal support" from his profession for the new measures, he adds.

Other Trading Standards officers told us it would become less financially viable for unscrupulous business owners to simply sit out closure orders, and it would force landlords to pay more attention to who they are renting to.

For nine months, we have repeatedly asked the home secretary for an interview to discuss what we had found.

Last week, we were invited to join Mahmood on police raids of mini-marts on Soho Road in the Handsworth area of Birmingham – a high street bordering her own constituency.

At one shop, police and Trading Standards officers found illegal cigarettes and snuff (finely ground tobacco). A shopworker was arrested after a makeshift weapon – a plank with a nail – was found under the counter.

The shopworker, who said he was a student from Afghanistan, admitted that he thought selling illegal cigarettes was wrong.

When asked why he was selling them, he replied: "Perhaps you should ask the manager, he's the owner." However, the owner was not about, he said.

Soho Road has recently been the focus of Operation Fearless, a West Midlands Police initiative to tackle street-level crime.

"In all the areas I've worked in… it's by far the worst here," one of the officers involved, PC Victoria Gaunt, told us.

She said police had found shops selling prescription drugs, cocaine, heroin and cannabis. "You name it, you can probably buy it," she told us, and added that she would not feel safe in the area if she was not wearing her uniform and stab vest.

She also said she had seen "people walking around with machetes, chasing people" and witnessed "a huge increase in prostitution and exploitation of girls".

A BBC undercover reporter also visited about a dozen businesses on Soho Road and found counterfeit packs of cigarettes on sale for as little as £3. The average cost of a genuine pack is between £16.50 and £19.50.

Shopworkers also told the reporter there was open drug dealing on the street.

The home secretary told us she understood public feeling and said she and her family were also frustrated at seeing "people who are getting away with breaking our laws, getting away with open criminality".

Over the course of 14 months, BBC News has exposed the shocking reality of organised crime taking over high streets in England and Wales.

We joined the National Crime Agency (NCA) last year as it raided barbers, mini-marts and vape shops, after reports they were being used for money laundering and illegal working.

In the following months, we were shown shops with secret underground tunnels supplying sacks of illegal cigarettes, we exposed asylum seekers buying and selling shops for cash, and exposed a Kurdish organised-crime gang operating the length of Great Britain.

In March this year, we revealed how a senior council worker had repeatedly shared with local authorities reports of children as young as 11 being sexually abused in mini-marts.

Most recently, we went undercover to report how cocaine, cannabis, laughing gas and prescription pills were being offered on a West Midlands street described as "lawless" by an anonymous law enforcement source.

The home secretary said late last year that the BBC's evidence, gathered up until then, proved "the system was broken" and announced an "urgent" investigation led by the NCA, Immigration Enforcement, HMRC and police forces from across England and Wales.

Last month, the government announced a new £30m High Street organised crime unit which it said would deliver new police and Trading Standards officers, tax raids and a crackdown on illegal working.

Asked if the government's intervention was too little, too late, Mahmood told the BBC she believed the latest measures represented a "game-changing national crackdown".

The Home Office says the new extended closure orders should become law by the end of this year, after it lays secondary legislation. The new powers will then come into force in early 2027.

The government says it will be briefing authorities in Northern Ireland and Scotland of the changes to closure orders in England and Wales, as they have different enforcement legislation in place for shutting shops.

Additional reporting: Steve Fildes and Phill Edwards

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Alleged Bondi Beach gunman charged with another 19 offences

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The man accused of killing fifteen people in an attack on a Jewish festival at Sydney's Bondi Beach in December has been charged with 19 additional offences.

Naveed Akram was already facing 59 charges after the shooting including 15 counts of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder, and one count of committing a terrorist act.

According to court records seen by the BBC, new charges were filed in April but have only now been confirmed by authorities.

The fresh charges are 10 counts of "shoot at with intent to murder", six counts of discharging a firearm with intent to resist arrest, and three counts of causing wounding or grievous bodily harm with intent to murder.

Akram, 24, has made a series of short court appearances but is yet to enter a plea to the charges. He is due back in court in August.

On Wednesday, prosecutors told the court that investigators from the Joint Counter Terrorism Team were "progressing" steadily through the evidence.

It includes 230,000 CCTV images as well as content on several devices belonging to people with alleged links to Akram which need to be translated, prosecutors said.

Outside court, Akram's lawyer Leonie Gittani told the media that the extra charges were not a surprise to her client.

"He was sort of aware of it on the last occasion, but [in] a matter of this magnitude, it's not unusual for additional charges to be laid," she said, according to the national broadcaster ABC.

"It's a process now that we've got to follow."

Asked about the CCTV images, Gittani said: "It's an unprecedented matter and so… there's a lot to come. We've got a job to do, and that's what we intend to do".

Akram's father Sajid Akram, 50 – who was also armed and shot at the crowd on Bondi Beach – was killed by police at the scene of the shooting on 14 December 2025.

The younger Akram was critically injured by police and later transferred from hospital to prison.

Court documents released in late December alleged that the two shooters "meticulously" planned the attack on Bondi Beach for months and visited the location for reconnaissance two days prior.

One video – taken on one of their mobile phones in October – was described as showing the men sitting in front of an image of an Islamic State group (IS) flag.

They could be heard making statements about their motivations for the attack and condemning "the acts of 'Zionists'", police said.

Police said separate footage from October showed the father and son "conducting firearms training in a countryside location", believed to be in New South Wales.

They were seen "firing shotguns and moving in a tactical manner", officials added.

In April, Akram lost a court bid to suppress the identity of his immediate family due to safety concerns.

The attack was Australia's worst mass shooting in almost three decades and prompted sweeping gun law reforms and a crackdown on hate speech.

It led to a royal commission into antisemitism in Australia. which began public hearings in February.

📰 மூல செய்தி (Source): https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg0l7g7n9no?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss

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