A teenager from Lancashire has been missing on the Spanish island of Tenerife since Monday morning.
Jay Slater’s mother, a team of mountain rescuers, and the local civil guard are searching for the 19-year-old after he disappeared while holidaying with friends.
The last person to speak to him says he told her he was lost and nearly out of phone battery at around 8.15am local time on Monday.
The last person to speak to him was his friend Lucy, who claims he called her on Monday morning to say he had got lost, was in need of water, and only had 1% charge on his phone.
She told the Manchester Evening News that someone Mr Slater had met on his night out had driven him back to their apartment in a hire car without him realising how far away it was.
“He’s ended up out in the middle of nowhere. Jay was obviously thinking he would be able to get home from there,” she told the newspaper.
Lucy says that during the short phone call, he claimed he had missed a bus trying to get back to his holiday accommodation so was attempting to walk instead – a journey that would take 11 hours.
His phone then cut out, with his last live location showing as the Rural de Teno park – a mountainous area popular with hikers.
Mr Slater’s stepfather Andy Watson told The Sun his stepson is “no mug” and “very streetwise”, but that he may have lost his bearings while it was dark.
What are the authorities saying?
Local police say they have employed a specialist mountain rescue team, including a police helicopter, to look for Mr Slater.
A spokesperson for the Civil Guard said it was “focusing on the area around the village of Masca”.
The Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said in a statement: “We are supporting the family of a British man who has been reported missing in Spain and are in contact with the local authorities.”
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Mr Slater’s family has set up a Facebook group to help review aerial images, CCTV, and social media footage to help find him.
A missing person’s poster says Mr Slater was last seen wearing a white t-shirt, shorts, trainers, and carrying a black bag.
What’s the link to Coronation Street?
Coronation Street star Vicky Entwistle, best known for her role as Janice Battersby on the soap, is the goddaughter of Mr Slater’s grandmother.
She posted on X on Tuesday: “My God Mother’s Grandson has gone missing. His mother has flown out 7pm. To join the police search. Hope to God they find him. Please [pray] for him.”
Mr Slater’s mother Debbie Duncan flew out to the island on Tuesday.
She said: “It’s just traumatic and it doesn’t feel real. It’s just awful, it’s horrendous.
“I think he’s been taken against his will with what’s been said, but it’s in the hands of the police.”
She said of her son: “He’s just a great person who everyone wanted to be with. He’s good looking, he’s a popular boy.”
She added that the police leading the search had been “very good”.
Specialist search teams, police dogs and divers have been dispatched to find two sisters who vanished in Aberdeen three days ago.
Eliza and Henrietta Huszti, both 32, were last seen on CCTV in the city’s Market Street at Victoria Bridge at about 2.12am on Tuesday.
The siblings were captured crossing the bridge and turning right onto a footpath next to the River Dee in the direction of Aberdeen Boat Club.
Police Scotland has launched a major search and said it is carrying out “extensive inquires” in an effort to find the women.
Chief Inspector Darren Bruce said: “Local officers, led by specialist search advisors, are being assisted by resources including police dogs and our marine unit.”
Aberdeenshire Drone Services told Sky News it has offered to help in the search and is waiting to hear back from Police Scotland.
The sisters, from Aberdeen city centre, are described as slim with long brown hair.
Police said the Torry side of Victoria Bridge where the sisters were last seen contains many commercial and industrial units, with searches taking place in the vicinity.
The force urged businesses in and around the South Esplanade and Menzies Road area to review CCTV footage recorded in the early hours of Tuesday in case it captured anything of significance.
Drivers with relevant dashcam footage are also urged to come forward.
CI Bruce added: “We are continuing to speak to people who know Eliza and Henrietta and we urge anyone who has seen them or who has any information regarding their whereabouts to please contact 101.”
Britain’s gas storage levels are “concerningly low” with less than a week of demand in store, the operator of the country’s largest gas storage site said on Friday.
Plunging temperatures and high demand for gas-fired power stations are the main factors behind the low levels, Centrica said.
The UK is heavily reliant on gas for its home heating and also uses a significant amount for electricity generation.
As of the 9th of January 2025, UK storage sites are 26% lower than last year’s inventory at the same time, leaving them around half full,” Centrica said.
“This means the UK has less than a week of gas demand in store.”
The firm’s Rough gas storage site, a depleted field off England’s east coast, makes up around half of the country’s gas storage capacity.
Glasgow has been a city crying out for solutions to a devastating drugs epidemic that is ravaging people hooked on deadly narcotics.
We have spent time with vulnerable addicts in recent months and witnessed first-hand the dirty, dangerous street corners and back alleys where they would inject their £10 heroin hit, not knowing – or, in many cases, not caring – whether that would be the moment they die.
“Dying would be better than this life,” one man told me.
It was a grim insight into the daily reality of life in the capital of Europe’s drug death crisis.
Scotland has a stubborn addiction to substances spanning generations. Politicians of all persuasions have failed to properly get a grip of the emergency.
But there is a new concept in town.
From Monday, a taxpayer-funded unit is allowing addicts to bring their own heroin and cocaine and inject it while NHS medical teams supervise.
It may be a UK-first but it is a regular feature in some other major European cities that have claimed high success rates in saving lives.
Glasgow has looked on with envy at these other models.
One supermarket car park less than a hundred metres from this new facility is a perfect illustration of the problem. An area littered with dirty needles and paraphernalia. A minefield where one wrong step risks contracting a nasty disease.
It is estimated hundreds of users inject heroin in public places in Glasgow every week. HIV has been rife.
The new building, which will be open from 9am until 9pm 365 days a year, includes bays where clean needles are provided as part of a persuasive tactic to lure addicts indoors in a controlled environment.
There is a welcome area where people will check in before being invited into one of eight bays. The room is clinical, covered in mirrors, with a row of small medical bins.
We were shown the aftercare area where users will relax after their hit in the company of housing and social workers.
The idea is controversial and not cheap – £2.3m has been ring-fenced every year.
Authorities in the city first floated a ‘safer drug consumption room’ in 2016. It failed to get off the ground as the UK Home Office under the Conservatives said they would not allow people to break the law to feed habits.
The usual wrangle between Edinburgh and London continued for years with Downing Street suggesting Scotland could, if it wanted, use its discretion to allow these injecting rooms to go ahead.
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The stalemate ended when Scotland’s most senior prosecutor issued a landmark decision that it would not be in the public interest to arrest those using such a facility.
One expert has told me this new concept is unlikely to lead to an overall reduction in deaths across Scotland. Another described it as an expensive vanity project. Supporters clearly disagree.
The question is what does success look like?
The big test will be if there is a spike in crime around the building and how it will work alongside law enforcement given drug dealers know exactly where to find their clients now.
It is not disputed this is a radical approach – and other cities across Britain will be watching closely.