International
Britain shuts down for the Queen’s funeral: Bin collections, driving tests and hospital appointments cancelled
• Major supermarkets will close on September 19 for the Queen’s funeral
• Services to be delayed include hospital appointments and bin collections
Bin collections, driving tests, hospital appointments, cinemas and major supermarkets are among the businesses and services which will be halted as the country marks the Queen‘s funeral on Monday.
Costa Coffee is one of the latest chains to announce its closure, following confirmation from supermarket giants Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose, Aldi, Morrisons, Iceland, Lidl, Poundland, and M&S that they will shut.
All driving tests in England, Scotland and Wales have been cancelled on the day of the Queen’s state funeral, the DVSA has confirmed.
Candidates who are booked in for practical tests on September 19 will have them postponed and be given the next available date.
The Royal Borough of Greenwich were one of the local councils who confirmed bin collections next week will be delayed following the funeral of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II.
Local councils have begun announcing delays to bin collections on Monday as the country grinds to a halt for the Queen’s funeral (stock image)
‘This is due to the bank holiday, and to allow staff, like the rest of us, to pay their respects to our late monarch,’ they said.
There will also be no North East Derbyshire District Council bin collections on Monday. Collections would resume on Tuesday, Councillor Ross Shipman confirmed.
Thousands of patients have had hospital appointments cancelled because of the national bank holiday, according to openDemocracy.
Major cinema chains including Cineworld, Odeon and Showcase will shut their sites on September 19 in a mark of respect.
English Heritage, which cares for historic monuments and buildings including Stonehenge, Dover Castle, Eltham Palace and the Roman forts on Hadrian’s Wall, said all of its sites would be closed.
And Center Parcs will shut for 24 hours from 10am on Monday, ordering devastated holidymakers to leave their sites.
Mass cancellations compounded with backlogs caused by the pandemic could mean long waiting times for the next available driving tests.
A DVSA spokesperson said: ‘Our thoughts are with His Majesty King Charles III and the Royal Family at this sad time.
‘In line with National Mourning guidance our services will continue during the mourning period.
‘We are suspending all but our most essential our services on 19 September due to the Bank Holiday and State Funeral, allowing individuals, businesses and other organisations to pay their respects to Her Majesty.
‘We are contacting all our customers affected.’
By the end of May, some 530,387 learners were waiting for an available test slot, according to AA Driving School.
The driving test backlog has increased by 34,263 at the end of May 2022 compared to a year earlier, data provided by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency following a freedom of information request showed.
Lily Paterson-Neil, 19, from London, had her practical driving test booked for September 19 before heading off to start university later this month, but this has now been cancelled.
She has not been given a new date but fears it could take ‘months and months’ until a new test becomes available.
She said: ‘Because of the backlog it was hard to book a test originally.
‘I’m not hopeful I’ll get a new date any time soon, because everything is so majorly booked up, months and months in advance.
‘I don’t see how they are going to find a slot to fit us in. I’m thinking it will take at least a couple of months, maybe even Christmas time.’
DVSA’s chief executive, Loveday Ryder continued: ‘We’re working hard to provide more tests, and we’re starting to see that work pay off with more tests available to book.
‘But also we’re asking learners and instructors to do their part to help in making sure everyone who is heading for a driving test appointment is fully prepared, has got the right car, the right documents and knows the time, date and location of their test.
‘By working together, we’ll see the right people coming for their test, the pass rate increase and waiting times drop.’
The DVSA said it was trying to bring average wait times down to less than 10 weeks by the end of the year.
Non-urgent procedures and appointments at some NHS trusts will be postponed, according to reports.
One pregnant woman told openDemocracy that her appointment at a London hospital trust had been cancelled.
‘I’m really disappointed,’ she said. ‘Yes, it’s a routine scan, but that’s another week or two until I’m seen and wondering whether my baby is healthy – which means quite a lot of anxiety, sitting and waiting.’
She reportedly received a text message from the NHS which said: ‘We regret that due to unforeseen circumstances, your appointment to see a member of the team in the Fetal Medicine Centre on Monday 19th September has been cancelled. A new appointment date will be rescheduled shortly.’
Many Twitter users have been claiming their hospital appointments have been cancelled.
One twitter user named Corry wrote: ‘My breast cancer appointment on Monday was also cancelled today. LUCKILY my consultant is going to call me tomorrow instead.
‘My heart breaks for those left waiting. The wait is agonising enough without it being delayed because of someone else’s funeral.’ (Daily Mail)
There are grave fears for the passengers of a private plane that suddenly vanished mid-flight, sparking a major search off the coast of the US.
US authorities say the Gulfstream G100 lost contact with air traffic control about 2am local time on Saturday (4pm Saturday AET) while flying from L.F. Wade International Airport in Bermuda to Boston Logan International Airport.
The US Coast Guard said the Federal Aviation Administration alerted it after contact was lost with the aircraft – which plummeted from 23,500 feet to 11,000 feet in just three minutes, according to FlightAware data.
“We are praying for a safe outcome,” a spokesperson for Latitude Air Ambulance, which operates the missing plane, told City News.
A search is now under way off Nantucket in the air and on water as crews work to locate the missing jet, the Coast Guard said. Data from FlightRadar24 showed a number of aircraft searching south of the island.
Six people are missing after a private jet vanished, sparking a major search off the coast of Nantucket in the US.
The plane was en route from Bermuda to Boston when it vanished.
“Air & surface crews have launched in search of the aircraft. Updates will be provided here as info becomes available,” the Coast Guard Northeast District said on X.
The plane was carrying out a medical evacuation in Bermuda – a British overseas territory in the north Atlantic Ocean, according to Clarence Togeretz, Director of Flight Operations at Latitude Air Ambulance.
“We always get rather concerned when our crew doesn’t report to us in a timely manner,” he told NBC News.
“But I will say that again, optimistically and positively, that doesn’t mean that the worst has happened.”
Seventeen people were killed when eight gunmen stormed a bar close to Johannesburg on Saturday evening, with 15 more injured.
In a separate shooting in the early hours of Sunday morning, 10 people were killed outside an entertainment venue in a township near Cape Town and a further 11 were injured.
South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world and has struggled to contain gang-related gun violence in recent years. Police have not indicated a motive for either of the latest attacks.
In Johannesburg, gunmen opened fire on customers outside the bar before continuing the attack inside and torching two vehicles before fleeing.
Police said thirteen men and four women were killed.
Deputy provincial police commissioner Maj Gen Fred Kekana said the attack may have been a retaliation for an incident last month, in which one person was killed and another wounded, according to AFP news agency.
Speaking at the scene, he said police had clear pictures and in some cases names for the suspects.
In Cape Town, five victims died at the scene and a further five people died in hospital.
No arrests had been made in either case on Sunday morning.
The two mass shootings came days after 11 people were killed in the city of Duban when gunmen stormed a house in the KwaMakhutha township.
Illegal weapons are prevalent in South Africa and gun violence has been a persistent problem for decades, with about 60 murders recorded every day in the country of 62 million.
But a recent spate of mass shootings has raised fears that the problem is deepening, with violence often linked to turf wars between gangs engaged in drug trafficking and illegal mining.
In February, President Cyril Ramaphosa called organised crime “the most immediate threat to our democracy, our society and our economic development”.
Earlier this year the military was deployed alongside police in areas with the highest murder rates in an effort to reduce armed violence.
On Saturday a tenth woman’s body was found in Ekurhuleni, to the east of Johannesburg, with local police saying they were unable to rule out a serial killer operating in the area with similarities between the deaths. (BBC)
The United States has deported more than 25,000 people under secretive agreements with 35 countries to take migrants with no ties to those nations, according to an investigation published Monday.
Since US President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, Washington has been signing deals with developing countries to take migrants who cannot legally be sent home.
The investigation by Forbidden Stories found the administration has earmarked $410 million to be paid directly to the receiving countries, or to UN agencies to facilitate the returns.
At least 25,447 people had already been deported to third countries by August 31, 2026, according to data compiled by Forbidden Stories with a consortium of international journalists.
The vast majority — around 20,000 — were sent to Mexico, but the rest were dispersed to 27 other countries across Latin America, Africa, and the Pacific, and agreements have been finalised with seven more.
The deals vary, including over which nationalities can be deported and whether people with criminal records can be accepted.
An AFP investigation earlier this year found Washington is using visa bans and restrictions on African countries to strongarm them into accepting deportees.
Lawyers told AFP that deportees were being thrown into a “legal black hole”, held without charge in countries where they have no ties and few if any rights.
Forbidden Stories said 49 of Africa’s 54 countries had been approached about accepting third-country deportees.
A little-known State Department division called the Office of Remigration, created in May 2025, has handled most of the negotiations and payments, according to Forbidden Stories.
The office is headed by Christian Jove Ehrhardt, a 41-year-old diplomat who previously worked as a security officer.
The report details his visits to Cameroon, which signed a memorandum of understanding with the US in December on accepting deportees. A week later, it also signed a five-year health assistance programme worth nearly $400 million.
The following month, the State Department said it would provide a further $30 million to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Cameroon to “facilitate the voluntary return of refugees and combat illegal immigration.”
The first plane carrying deportees arrived in Cameroon on January 14.
– Payments –
Other agreements have involved direct payments to governments.
Palau, a small Pacific island nation with a population of under 18,000, signed an agreement in December 2025 to accept up to 75 third-country nationals in return for $7.5 million.
However, only three people have so far been sent under the agreement.
In Eswatini, 32 people have arrived since July 2025 out of a possible 160 under an agreement worth more than $5 million. It has accepted deportees with criminal records, the investigation found.
Of the $410 million planned for the agreements, internal State Department records showed that $81 million was earmarked for signatory governments.
The rest was intended for aid organisations, including more than $178 million for the UN’s International Organisation for Migration, and $123 million for UNHCR.
The agencies have faced criticism over their involvement, although UNHCR told Forbidden Stories that it was not party to the bilateral agreements and that US funding was being used in line with its mandate to strengthen asylum systems.
An IOM spokesperson told Forbidden Stories that the agency’s decisions to accept funding rested “on a single question: whether our engagement will improve the lives of the migrants affected. In these instances, we believe strongly it does.”
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