Controversy is surrounding the COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, with critics expressing concerns that it could be based on "shaky science".

The UK prime minister said mass community testing for coronavirus in Liverpool - aided by some 2,000 army personnel - had helped drive down the infection there, and would soon be offered to the four-tenths of the country under the new tier-three restrictions.

The vaccine developed by AstraZeneca in collaboration with Oxford University demonstrated 62% efficacy - a far cry from the 90% and over shown in the trials of two US and one Russian vaccine that were presented earlier.

The Duke of York was earlier accused by US federal prosecutors of failing to cooperate with an investigation into the alleged sex crimes of late financier Jeffrey Epstein. The British Queen’s son, however, maintained through his lawyers that he had reached out to FBI agents on several occasions to shed light on his former friend’s activities.

MOSCOW, (Sputnik) - The new COVID-19 alert level tier allocations, which will come into force in the UK once the country's nationwide lockdown expires on 2 December, is the best way to prevent a spike in COVID-19, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said at a press briefing on Thursday.

The number of people referred to the United Kingdom’s Prevent counter-extremism program rose by 10 percent in the year to March 31, with over half them aged 20 or under, the Home Office’s fresh statistics showed on Thursday.

Observer writer Carole Cadwalladr had already been forced to apologise to Leave.EU co-founder Arron Banks earlier this month for falsely claiming he had broken the law, but now may have to foot a legal bill said to be up to half a million pounds.

Comedian Fin Taylor said Jeremy Corbyn's supporters were as 'dogmatic' as folk singer Bob Dylan's fans on last Friday's edition of 'Have I Got News For You?' - and joked that bombing the Glastonbury festival would get rid of both.

The UK Health Secretary has set out England's coronavirus tiers on Thursday as he addressed parliamentarians in the House of Commons, which comes ahead of the Prime Minister’s press conference later in the evening.

The imprisoned WikiLeaks prisoner is isolating in his cell in Belmarsh prison due to the high risk of him contracting the novel coronavirus and his susceptibility of developing more severe symptoms.

The funding is set to only cover partial costs to UK telecoms as London scrambles to diversify suppliers for national networks amid a contentions Washington-led trade war against China.

Abdalraouf Abdallah, 27, whose jail term is coming to an end, has been visited by the Manchester Arena suicide bomber, Salman Abedi, twice while behind bars.

There are currently 79,000 inmates in English and Welsh prisons, with another 8,000 in Scotland and around 2,000 in Northern Ireland. But these numbers are expected to rise as a result of various factors.

On Monday, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak underscored that he "cannot justify a significant, across-the-board pay increase for all public sector workers" amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Any mention of the prosecution of Julian Assange has been removed from the EU's latest report on fundamental rights, despite the best efforts of MEPs such as Ireland's Clare Daly.

On Wednesday, Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a pay freeze for millions of public sector workers and  major cuts to foreign aid amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The British economy is expected to shrink by 11.3 percent this year and the COVID-19 pandemic continues to claim lives in the UK. So bleak is the picture that an eight-year-old boy wrote to Boris Johnson and asked him if Christmas was cancelled this year.

UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak said that with private sector pay falling amid the coronavirus pandemic and unemployment set to hit 2.6 million and public debt at almost £400 billion, he could not justify an across-the-board pay rise for all state employees.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said on Wednesday that he makes "no apologies" for backing Priti Patel after a report concluded that the home secretary's behaviour had breached the ministerial code and could be described as bullying.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The European Union should "accept the reality" that the UK must be able to control access to its waters for fishing in order to make progress on a free trade deal prior to the expiry of the Brexit transition period at the end of the year, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday.