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The Only Way Is Essex stars Joey Essex and James Argent have been forced to hitchhike after becoming stranded in Dubai floods sparked by record rainfall.

Essex, 33, said the pair had “decided to hitchhike after hours of trying to get back home” in an Instagram story posted on Tuesday evening.

In uploaded videos, the reality TV stars are seen standing and walking barefoot in ankle-deep water after what the state-run WAM news agency called a “historic weather event” in which more rain fell than in any other weather event since records began in 1949.

Pic: Instagram/Joey Essex
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Joey Essex. Pic: Instagram/Joey Essex

Pic: Instagram/Joey Essex
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James Argent. Pic: Instagram/Joey Essex

Argent, 36, – also known as Arg – is seen standing next to a flooded road with his hand stuck out in front of him, as Essex said: “Hitchhiking, we have no choice.”

Essex also uploaded a clip of him walking along the street pavement, part of which had seemingly collapsed, as a car tried to make its way across a flooded road.

The caption said: “After hours of looking for a taxi and hitchhiking on the streets of Dubai. We have now decided to take the next step… operation survival.”

In the next video Essex was seen holding his shoes as he walked along the streets barefoot, with the water around his ankles.

Footage of him crossing a flooded street was posted with a fitting song – Love Is All Around by Wet Wet Wet.

Pic: Instagram/Joey Essex
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Pic: Instagram/Joey Essex

The pair were among UK passengers planning to travel via Dubai International Airport, whose flights were disrupted by standing water on taxiways at the world’s busiest hub for international travel.

Emirates cancelled seven flights between the UAE and the UK, with British Airways diverting or axing four and passengers advised to stay away.

Many flights were delayed by several hours on Tuesday, including an Emirates flight which landed at Heathrow more than five hours late.

Heavy rainstorms hit the city late on Monday, dropping nearly 2.5cm (1in) of rain, according to meteorological data collected at the airport.

Conditions intensified from around 9am local time on Tuesday and by the end of the day more than 15cm (6ins) of rainfall had soaked Dubai over the course of 24 hours.

Cloud seeding

Many roads in the UAE lack drainage given the lack of regular rainfall, which is unusual in the UAE, an arid, Arabian Peninsula nation, but occurs periodically during the cooler winter months.

Earlier media reports linked the extreme weather to “cloud seeding”, in which small planes flown by the government go through clouds burning special salt flares, which can increase precipitation.

The UAE, which relies heavily on energy-hungry desalination plants to provide water, carries out cloud seeding in part to increase its dwindling, limited groundwater.

But Professor Maarten Ambaum, a meteorologist at the University of Reading, said there was “no technology in existence that can create or even severely modify this kind of rainfall event”.

“These storms appear to be the result of a mesoscale convective system – a series of medium-sized thunderstorms caused by massive thunderclouds, formed as heat draws moisture up into the atmosphere,” he said.

“These can create large amounts of rain, and when they occur over a wide area and one after another, can lead to seriously heavy downpours. They can rapidly lead to surface water floods, as we have seen in places such as Dubai airport.”

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Cat rescued in Dubai flooding

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He said “intense rainfall events” could be made more “more extreme due to climate change”, with a warmer atmosphere able to hold more water vapour.

Professor Ambaum added: “The UAE does have an operational cloud seeding programme to enhance the rainfall in this arid part of the world, however, there is no technology in existence that can create or even severely modify this kind of rainfall event.

“Furthermore, no cloud seeding operations have taken place in this area recently.”

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Schools across the UAE, which largely shut ahead of the storm, remained closed on Wednesday and the government ordered staff to continue working from home.

Rain also fell in Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia and separate heavy flooding has taken place in Oman in recent days.

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Fourteen children arrested on suspicion of manslaughter after industrial fire in Gateshead

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Fourteen children arrested on suspicion of manslaughter after industrial fire in Gateshead

Fourteen children aged between 11 and 14 years old have been arrested after a boy died in a fire at an industrial site.

Northumbria Police said the group – 11 boys and three girls – were arrested on suspicion of manslaughter after the incident in Gateshead on Friday. They remain in police custody.

Officers were called to reports of a fire near Fairfield industrial park in the Bill Quay area shortly after 8pm.

Emergency services attended, and the fire was extinguished a short time later.

Police then issued an appeal for a missing boy, Layton Carr, who was believed to be in the area at the time of the fire.

In a statement, the force said that “sadly, following searches, a body believed to be that of 14-year-old Layton Carr was located deceased inside the building”.

Layton’s next of kin have been informed and are being supported by specialist officers, police added.

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Detective Chief Inspector Louise Jenkins, of Northumbria Police, also said: “This is an extremely tragic incident where a boy has sadly lost his life.”

She added that the force’s “thoughts are with Layton’s family as they begin to attempt to process the loss of their loved one”, and asked that their privacy be respected.

A cordon remains in place at the site of the incident.

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The political earthquake Farage has long promised is now shaking our political system

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The political earthquake Farage has long promised is now shaking our political system

It’s quite simply a political earthquake. Across England, Reform proved it can translate positive polling into real power, picking up another parliamentary seat, a mayoralty, Staffordshire and Lincolnshire councils and dozens of seats by lunchtime. The popularity surge for this anti-establishment party is real. 

Look at the votes: Reform doubling its vote share in Runcorn against the general election to 38%, clocking up 42% of the vote in the Lincolnshire mayoral race and 32% in the Doncaster mayoral race, running Labour very close. By lunchtime, Reform had taken the long-held Staffordshire council from the Tories, wiping out their five-strong majority.

The significance of these wins, added in with the big gains for the Lib Dems and Greens, cannot be overstated. It speaks in a serious way to a new era of politics in the UK, in which the decades-long duopoly of Labour versus Conservative is crumbling with the rise of the other parties.

Politics latest: PM told to ‘change course’ as Reform surge to election wins

The trend was evident in the 2024 general election, when the two main parties got their lowest ever vote share. Labour’s clever targeting of seats ensured that it won a massive majority on just 34% of the popular vote. The Lib Dems won a record 70 seats, while Reform picked up five MPs and came second in 98 constituencies.

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Farage: ‘This is Reform-quake’

If that was a loveless landslide, this is the break-up, as voters, who backed Labour’s change message, seem to be pressing the change button again and turning out for a leader who is tapping into voters’ disillusionment with his slogan that “Britain is broken and needs Reform”.

For the government to lose a by-election just 10 months after winning a massive landslide is a terrible moment for Labour. It won this seat with 53% of the vote in July, against Reform polling at 18%. To end up losing it – albeit by just six votes – is a dreadful verdict from voters here on their early performance.

Those around the PM admit it is deeply frustrating but say they expected a kicking from an angry electorate impatient for change. They are taking crumbs of comfort in, just about, holding the mayoralties of Doncaster, North Tyneside and West of England.

But in early council results, the drop in the Labour vote is big, and that raises questions as to whether Starmer’s party will struggle to hold constituencies it gained in the July election, such as Hexham in Northumberland.

The approach from No 10 is to “keep calm and carry on” with its government agenda – the immigration white paper, defence review, infrastructure strategy – to deliver for the public and win back the support they had in the last general election in time for the next.

Read more:
Full local and mayoral election results
Reform has put the two traditional parties on notice

Nigel Farage holds up six fingers to indicate the six votes his party's candidate won by in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election.
Pic: Reuters
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Nigel Farage holds up six fingers to indicate the six votes his party’s candidate won by in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election. Pic: Reuters

For the Conservatives, it’s been – to quote one political rival – a “story of Tory councillors getting machine gunned”. In Staffordshire, where Farage did his final rally, Reform have taken a council where the Tories had a 50-strong majority.

The party has been absolutely hammered by Reform in the Tory heartlands of Lincolnshire, where Dame Andrea Jenkyns won the Greater Lincolnshire mayoralty by 40,000 votes. In the general election, the Conservatives held six of the eight parliamentary seats in this county, on Friday Jenkyns beat the Tories in eight out of the nine areas.

Those around Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch are trying to steady nerves, arguing that these results are disappointing but not surprising in the context of the party’s worst-ever election defeat in 2024, with the party “under new leadership” and “still in the early stages of a long-term plan to renew”.

Others are panicked and angry. “This is what political extinction looks like,” one senior Tory source told me, in a sign that questions over Badenoch’s leadership are only going to build.

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How significant are Reform’s wins?

There are many results still to come in, but what these elections are pointing to is the rise of multi-party politics with voting spread across three or four parties in many of the races and the two main parties rapidly losing ground.

It ties into the longer run trends in our voting, leaning towards more parties and less tribalism amongst voters, as the electorate shift loyalties, and frustration with Labour and the Tories fuels support for the alternatives.

Reform’s success in Runcorn and Durham, as well as Staffordshire and Lincolnshire, shows that Farage poses a significant threat to the two main parties. Add in the Lib Dems, challenging the Tories in their blue wall shires on the centre right, and what we see emerging is a party system where the two governing parties are no longer dominant.

These elections then, while relatively small, are profoundly consequential for our political system. Where we go next is hugely unclear. Much will rest on whether Labour can deliver on its promises and dull Farage’s drumbeat of change.

The shadow of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is cast onto a branded board during a press conference at the Best Western Premier Mount Pleasant Hotel, Great North Road, Doncaster, in the run up to May's local and mayoral elections. Picture date: Monday April 7, 2025. PA Photo. See PA story POLITICS Reform. Photo credit should read: Danny Lawson/PA Wire
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Reform promised to fix ‘broken’ councils. Pic: PA

Reform’s challenge will be to prove that it can govern and sustain the additional scrutiny that being in office entails.

The Conservatives are in the most desperate place of all, squeezed by Reform on the right flank and the Lib Dems on the left. But what is clearer after today is that the political earthquake Farage has long promised is now shaking our political system in a perhaps epochal way.

The Reform leader has long been saying he is this country’s next prime minister. Looking at the way he and his party have translated poll leads into real power means that prospect is no longer a pipe dream.

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Sycamore Gap: Man says friend wanted to cut down world’s ‘most famous tree’

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Sycamore Gap: Man says friend wanted to cut down world's 'most famous tree'

One of two men on trial for cutting down the Sycamore Gap tree told a court his co-defendant had wanted to cut down the “most famous tree in the world”.

Daniel Graham, 39, said Adam Carruthers, 32, rang him the morning after to claim responsibility for felling the tree beside Hadrian’s Wall.

He said Carruthers had asked him to take the blame “because he had mental health issues”, believing he would be treated more leniently.

The prosecution allege that Graham and Carruthers drove from Carlisle to the Northumberland landmark in September 2023 during Storm Agnes.

Both men deny two counts of criminal damage to the sycamore and to the Roman Wall.

Adam Carruthers and Daniel Graham. Pic: CPS/PA
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Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers. Pic: CPS/PA

On the fourth day of the trial, Graham was asked about a call Carruthers made to him on the morning of 28 September 2023.

“It was Adam claiming he had cut down the Sycamore Gap tree, claiming that it was him that cut it down,” he said.

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“I told him he was talking shite, I didn’t believe it.”

While Graham said his former friend had spoken of wanting to cut down the tree in the past, he “didn’t take it seriously”.

“At the time I didn’t know of the tree … He told me it was the most famous tree in the world.”

He told Newcastle Crown Court that he remembered Carruthers ordering a chainsaw and saying it was big enough to cover the Sycamore Gap’s circumference.

Adam Carruthers. Pic: CPS/PA
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Adam Carruthers. Pic: CPS/PA

Defence barrister Chris Knox said two people had been involved on the night in question, one feling the tree and the other filming.

But while Graham said that Carruthers felled the tree, he “[didn’t] know 100% who the other person was”.

Speaking from the witness box, Graham said he was not the one using his Range Rover or mobile phone on the night the tree was cut down, which were both traced to the tree’s location.

At the time, the pair were the “best of pals”, according to Graham.

When questioned by Mr Knox on whether Carruthers had asked to borrow his Range Rover, he added: “Adam wouldn’t need to ask to borrow anything of mine. He was welcome to it.”

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Jurors have been told that an anonymous call was made to the emergency services on 23 August last year, by a man believed to be Graham, in which Carruthers was named as being responsible for felling the Sycamore Gap.

The trial continues.

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