by siteadmin | Nov 13, 2025 | National
The head of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland has stepped down after “serious and significant failings” in safeguarding.
The Rev Trevor Gribben said “people have been placed at risk” due to the failings.
It is believed to be the first time in the long history of the church that the leader, known as moderator, has stepped aside while in office. He will leave the position at the end of this month.
In a statement, he said the safeguarding failings took place between 2009 and 2022. During part of that period, he had a senior role in the church as general secretary.
Rev Gribben said: “Following an internal investigation and report, it has become clear that there have been serious and significant failings in the central safeguarding functions of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.
“As a result of this, people have been placed at risk. We are aware of a number of people who have been harmed, and we believe there may well be others as yet unknown to us. We apologise unreservedly for this.”
He added: “The Church’s first and greatest concern about this is for those people who have suffered harm, and those who have been put at risk.
“The Presbyterian Church in Ireland profoundly regrets this, is deeply grieved, and will offer all possible support to those affected.”
by siteadmin | Nov 13, 2025 | National
A Post Office in Dungannon will be one of the first in the UK to receive a batch of the first 5p coins bearing King Charles III’s portrait.
The Oaks Post Office in the County Tyrone town, which is in the Oaks Shopping Centre on the Oaks Road, has been chosen because the 5p coins feature an oak leaf design on the other side.
It is one of eight branches to be chosen – along with five in England, one in Wales and one in Scotland.
The new coins were minted and dated in October 2023 but are only being released now due to increased demand for 5p pieces.
There will be 23.2 million entering circulation.
Postmaster Sean Ferry, an avid coin collector who runs the branch with his wife Olga and son Joe, said he was excited to get his hands on the new coins.
Rebecca Morgan, director of commemorative coins at the Royal Mint, said it was the first time the design of the 5p coin had changed since 2008.
She said it “represents the deep connection between our monarchy and the natural world” and reflects the King’s “lifelong dedication to environmental conservation”.
The eight post office branches have been chosen because they either have “oak” in their name or are close to famous oak trees.
The 5p featuring the King is the third denomination to enter circulation, after the 50p and £1 coins bearing his likeness.
Only about 0.2% of the 24.6 billion coins in circulation in the UK bear his portrait, with the rest featuring his mother Elizabeth II.
by siteadmin | Nov 13, 2025 | National
The Philadelphia Mint will strike its last batch of one-cent coins on Wednesday, after more than 230 years of production.
The coins will remain in circulation but the phase-out has already prompted businesses to start adjusting prices, as they say pennies are becoming harder to find.
The government says the move will save money, or as President Donald Trump put it in February when he first announced the plans: “Rip the waste out of our great nation’s budget, even if it’s a penny at a time”.
Pennies, which honour Civil War president Abraham Lincoln and are made of copper-plated zinc, today cost nearly four cents each to make — more than twice the cost of a decade ago, according to the Treasury Department. It estimates the decision to end production will save about $56m a year.
Officials have argued that the rise of electronic transactions is making the penny, which first went into production in 1793, increasingly moot.
The Treasury Department estimates that about 300 billion of the coins will remain in circulation, “far exceeding the amount needed for commerce”.
Many pennies end up falling out of use. About 60% of all coins in circulation in the US – or about $60-$90 for the typical household – sits stashed at home in piggy banks, deemed not worth trading in, according to a 2022 government analysis.
But penny-pinchers beware: as businesses start rounding up prices, the move is expected to raise costs for shoppers. One study by Other countries have also phased out their lowest value coins. Canada, for example, made its last batch of one cent coins in 2012.
Australia and New Zealand retired one and two cent coins in the 1990s, and New Zealand stopped production of five cent coins in 2006.
The UK floated a plan to scrap 1p coins in 2018, though the proposal was later withdrawn.
But the rise of electronic transactions did prompt the UK to halt production of coins in 2024, after officials decided there were sufficient 1p and 2p coins in circulation.
In the US attention has now turned to the nickel, which has a face value of five cents but costs nearly 14 cents to produce.
Retiring that coin would have a far bigger impact on shoppers, costing consumers some $55m per year, according to the Richmond Fed study.
by Divi Flow | Nov 13, 2025 | National
Yes, it really is only 496 days since Sir Keir Starmer won a colossal general election landslide.
That felt like a different era this morning: a morning on which health secretary Wes Streeting, the government’s designated interviewee on the early media round, variously accused those at the top of government of a “toxic culture”, of sexism, and called for unnamed officials in Downing Street to be sacked.
He was responding to briefings from allies of Sir Keir that the prime minister would fight any challenge to his leadership, with Streeting’s name mentioned as a potential challenger.
There’s a longer-term cause and an immediate cause.
The longer-term cause is that this government is very unpopular. That is the reality displayed by poll after poll. According to some, Sir Keir is the most unpopular prime minister in British history.
Labour MPs look at those very same polls and supplement them with their own grim experience of campaigning in their constituencies week-in-week-out.
And then they worry for their own jobs, even if the next general election is a long way away.
That dynamic means that for some months now it has been typical in conversations with Labour figures in Westminster for them to muse upon whether a change of leader would improve their political predicament.
The general assumption among Labour MPs had been that the critical juncture would be in May after elections in Scotland, Wales and parts of England.
But increasingly in recent weeks, with the polling picture remorselessly bleak and anxiety in Labour ranks about what may well prove a controversial Budget, there have been mutterings that Starmer might be challenged sooner rather than later.
One Labour MP told me earlier this month: “It’s all very well to say wait for the locals, but that’s my activist base I’m sending into the gunfire. I can’t lose all my councillors.”
It’s this sense that things may come to a head faster than appreciated which appears to have sparked an extraordinary briefing operation from allies of the prime minister to us at the BBC, as well as various other outlets.
Letting it be known that the prime minister would fight any challenge to his leadership rather than going quietly may well have been designed to shore up Sir Keir’s position, by reminding Labour MPs of the costs – political and economic – of opening up that can of worms.
That was high-risk enough – it’s not generally the done thing in politics to advertise your own weakness – but the decision to identify Streeting as someone coveting the top job was especially incendiary.
It’s worth noting that some around Sir Keir are also concerned about the ambitions of Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, Ed Miliband, the energy secretary and former leader, and Lucy Powell, Labour’s new deputy leader – who was essentially elected in defiance of Sir Keir.