News

The US ambassador to South Korea has said he is "doing well and in great spirits" after being slashed in the face during an event in Seoul.

Mark Lippert was pictured bleeding heavily following the attack by 'pro-North Korea' activist Kim Ki-Jong, who was arrested immediately afterwards.

But Lippert later tweeted:

Alastair Campbell has called the Prime Minister's stance on the TV leaders' debates "morally cowardly and democratically wrong".

Labour's former director of communications wrote on his blog: "How well I remember David Cameron proclaiming how marvellous the TV leaders' debates were and, more importantly, how vital they were to the democratic process in the modern media age.

"And how pathetic it is, five years on, to watch his wriggling and weaselling to avoid them.

"If Ed Miliband is as hopeless as Cameron and his press poodles say he is, why is the Tory leader so scared of going head-to-head over an extended period live on TV?"

A band of persistent rain will sit across the northwest today with gale force winds to coasts here too.

Ahead of this rain the cloud will thicken through the day, with some light and patchy rain to northern England.

The brightest skies will be to the south and southeast, and temperatures will reach highs of 12C (54 F) in Aberdeenshire.

More than half of police officers that are subjected to a misconduct investigation resign or retire before they can be sanctioned, new figures show.

A total of 444 police officers were placed on a new national disapproved register to stop them re-entering the service after leaving the force while subject to the probe - whether they were dismissed, resigned or retired.

Of those:

Among those who resigned or retired while subject to a gross misconduct investigation were 24 officers accused of having a relationship with a vulnerable person, and 21 officers faced with claims of domestic abuse.

Two men arrested as part of an investigation into large-scale fraud linked to UK extremists have been released on bail.

The men, aged 29 and 23, were arrested at two addresses in London yesterday.

A 37-year-old man remains in custody after being arrested yesterday evening, Scotland Yard said.

The arrests are related to reports of elderly and vulnerable people being "cold called" by a suspect impersonating a police officer, who tells them their bank account has been compromised.

Victims were then tricked into switching money to an account under the control of the suspect, police said.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has defended its decision not to charge Abid Naseer, a Pakistani man who was convicted of terror offences in the United States yesterday.

Naseer, 28, was found guilty of plotting to bomb a shopping centre in Manchester and the subway in New York City.

He was arrested in Manchester in 2009, and though police submitted a file to the CPS, it was deemed that there was not enough evidence to prosecute him.

"The evidence in our possession in relation to Abid Naseer which would have been admissible in a criminal court was very limited," a spokeswoman said.

"Crucially, there was no evidence of training, research or the purchasing of explosives.

"We had no evidence of an agreement between Abid Naseer and others which would have supported a charge of conspiracy in this country."

A former Royal Marine that died fighting against Islamic State in Syria had travelled there to "help other people and to make a difference", his ex-girlfriend has said.

Speaking to the Telegraph, Jemma Weston described her former partner Konstandinos Erik Scurfield as "amazing" for "doing an unselfish act" in joining Kurdish forces' efforts against the militant group.

Scurfield was reportedly shot dead on Monday during a battle in the frontline village of Tel Khuzela.

Weston said that while they had ended their relationship, Scurfield had told her he wanted to return home to her, and said she was heartbroken at the news of his death.

Scurfield was an expert in battlefield medicine, and Weston said he believed going to help against IS was something he had to do.

Hillary Clinton says she has asked for the public release of emails during her time as US Secretary of State, after controversy about her use of a personal email address while in office.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Clinton - seen as a potential Democratic candidate for the next Presidency - used the email address exclusively during her four years in the role, claiming that she may have violated federal rules by doing so.

Since then, a congressional committee investigating the deadly 2012 attack on a US consulate in Libya has issued subpoenas ordering the release of emails relating to the incident.

Some Republican politicians have argued that Clinton did not do enough to ensure the safety of Americans in the country at the time of the Benghazi raid.

Clinton tweeted today that she has requested the release of the emails.