Emergency alert test happens today – here’s everything you need to know

Published

2 years ago

April 23, 2023

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Tens of millions of phones will receive an emergency alert today as the government tests the system nationwide for the first time.

At 3pm, a distinct sound and vibration will be accompanied by a message telling people a new service has launched that will “warn you if there’s a life-threatening emergency nearby”.

It will last about 10 seconds, and Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden has assured people they can simply “swipe away” the notification.

“Keep calm and carry on – that is the British way, and it is exactly what the country will do when they receive this test alert at 3pm today,” he said.

Ministers hope it will get the public used to what the alerts look and sound like, in case they need to be sent out in future during crises such as extreme weather, flooding, and fires.

Mr Dowden said “it really is the sound that could save your life”.

But critics have said the alerts themselves could put people’s safety at risk, including drivers who may become distracted and domestic violence victims who keep a secret phone.

Meanwhile, sports stadiums, theatres, and cinemas are among those planning how to guard against disruption to large events when Sunday’s test goes off.

The company behind the UK’s alert system has worked on the same technology for other governments, and has insisted it will be a “game changer” for public safety.

Everbridge has already deployed it in the likes of Germany, Spain, New Zealand, and Singapore.

Valerie Risk, vice president of public safety systems, told Sky News: “We’ve had church bells, fires, smoke signals; humans have been alerting populations for centuries in many ways and this is the next generation.”

How does the technology work?

The emergency alerts are broadcast via mobile phone masts and work on all 4G and 5G phone networks.

That’s different to how the government sent out lockdown orders during the pandemic, when SMS messages were sent directly to phone numbers.

It means whoever sends an alert does not need your number, so it’s not something you need to reply to, nor will you receive a voicemail if you miss it.

No location or other data will be collected, either.

Anyone in the range of a mast will receive an alert, and they can be tuned based on geography – for example, Manchester residents would not need an alert about life-threatening flooding in Cornwall.

Manuel Cornelisse, Everbridge’s senior director for public warnings, told Sky News the tech had proved its worth in other countries, including his homeland of the Netherlands.

“It’s a very well proven technology with very strong, quality reach,” he said.

“And because it’s part of the very highest priority of signalling, the service will always remain available, even if a network gets congested when there is massive usage (such as at a sports ground).”

Could it go wrong?

There have been instances of emergency alerts not going to plan.

In 2020, an emergency alert warning millions of people of an “incident” at a nuclear power plant near Toronto in Canada was pushed out in error.

Two years prior, Hawaiian authorities accidentally warned people of an incoming ballistic missile strike.

And Florida residents had a rude awakening this week, when a test alert mistakenly blared out at 4.45am.

The state has contracted Everbridge for its emergency alert system since 2016, and Governor Ron DeSantis has demanded “swift accountability” for the mistake.

Lorenzo Marchetti, the firm’s public affairs manager, said Florida’s system uses different tech than the UK’s, but acknowledged it is not immune to human error.

“We are investigating, it appears to be an unfortunate procedural error in the dispatching of the message,” he said.

“Sometimes these kinds of things might be out of the control of the technology itself.”

Ms Risk said the sending of messages is “very closely managed and regulated”, and mistakes were “very rare”.

Sending alerts requires high-level security access, and there is a confirmation prompt before any are sent.

‘Please don’t turn it off’

Incidents like those in Florida may give sceptics more reason to want to switch the alerts off.

Mr Dowden has urged people not to ahead of Sunday afternoon’s test, which will be sent from a national situation centre inside the Cabinet Office.

Roger Hargreaves, director of the government’s emergency COBRA committee, warned that would be like taking batteries out of your smoke alarm.

He added: “The message that people get through this system is one that contains information that is useful to them, helps protect life and limb, sets out specific action we would like them to take.”

HOW TO TURN THE ALERT OFF

Despite the government’s pleas, domestic violence charities are concerned the alert could give away secret phones people experiencing abuse are keeping hidden.

If you’re concerned, it’s easy to switch them off.

On iOS and Android devices, search settings for “emergency alerts” and turn off “severe alerts” and “emergency alerts”.

On Huawei devices running EMUI 11 or older, search settings for “emergency alerts” and turn off “extreme threats”, “severe threats”, and “show amber alerts”.

The other option is switching off the device entirely or putting it in aeroplane mode before 3pm.

Will alerts be used often?

Ministers have insisted alerts will only be sent in “life-threatening” situations.

But those behind the system have seen increased adoption by governments in recent years, with the pandemic and climate-related emergencies increasing the need for direct communication with the public.

The EU has introduced a directive requiring member states to have a phone-based public warning system.

Ms Risk said the tech will keep improving, with satellite the potential next frontier after being rolled out on some smartphones to help people get emergency help without any mobile masts nearby.

UK

Diogo Jota: Liverpool players join mourners as Premier League star and his brother Andre Silva buried in Portugal

Published

5 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Diogo Jota: Liverpool players join mourners as Premier League star and his brother Andre Silva buried in Portugal

Liverpool players past and present have joined the family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva for their funeral in Portugal.

A service was held in the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in their hometown of Gondomar near Porto in northern Portugal on Saturday morning.

Mourners lined the streets and some in the crowd clapped as the brothers’ coffins were carried into the church.

The funeral – in pictures

Jota, 28, leaves behind his wife of only 11 days, Rute Cardoso, and three young children.

His younger brother, 25, was an attacking midfielder for Penafiel in the second tier of Portuguese football.

Liverpool manager Arne Slot, captain Virgil Van Dijk and teammates including Andy Robertson, Conor Bradley, Ryan Gravenberch, Cody Gakpo, Curtis Jones, Darwin Nunez and Joe Gomez were seen at the service.

Former teammates Jordan Henderson, James Milner and Fabinho were also there.

Van Dijk carried a red wreath with Jota’s number 20, while Robertson had a wreath featuring number 30, Silva’s number at Penafiel.

Some of Jota’s teammates in the Portuguese national side also attended, including Bruno Fernandes, of Manchester United, Ruben Dias and Bernardo Silva, of Manchester City, Joao Felix and Renato Veiga, of Chelsea, Nelson Semedo, from Wolves, Joao Moutinho and Rui Patricio.

Ruben Neves was one of the pallbearers after flying in from Florida where he played for Al Hilal in the Club World Cup quarter-final on Friday night.

‘More than a friend’

In a post published on Instagram before the service, he told Jota he had been “more than a friend, we’re family, and we won’t stop being that way just because you’ve decided to sign a contract a little further away from us!”

Jota’s fellow Liverpool midfielder, Alexis Mac Allister, said on Instagram: “I can’t believe it. I’ll always remember your smiles, your anger, your intelligence, your camaraderie, and everything that made you a person. It hurts so much; we’ll miss you. Rest in peace, dear Diogo.”

Porto FC president Andre Villas-Boas and Portugal national team manager Roberto Martinez were also in attendance.

‘With us forever’

Speaking after the ceremony, Martinez said the period since their deaths had been “really, really sad days, as you can imagine, but today we showed we are a large, close family.

“Their spirit will be with us forever.”

The service was private, but the words spoken by the Bishop of Porto, Manuel Linda, were broadcast to those standing outside the church.

He told Jota’s children, who were not at the service, that he was praying for them specifically, as well as their mother and grandparents.

“There are no words, but there are feelings,” he said, adding: “We also suffer a lot and we are with you emotionally.”

The brothers died after a Lamborghini they were travelling in burst into flames following a suspected tyre blowout in the early hours of Thursday morning.

No other vehicles are said to have been involved in the incident.

Liverpool have delayed the return of their players for pre-season following Jota’s death and players past and present paid tribute to him and his brother on social media.

Flowers have been left outside Anfield, where flags have been lowered to half-mast and all club shops, museums and tours have been closed until Monday.

UK

Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Published

8 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.

MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.

Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.

In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.

“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.

“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.

“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”

Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.

The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.

It comes after Ms Reeves said she was “totally” up to continuing as chancellor after appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions.

Criticising Sir Keir for the U-turns on benefit reform during PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the chancellor looked “absolutely miserable”, and questioned whether she would remain in post until the next election.

Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”

In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.

“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”

Sir Keir also told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on Thursday that he “didn’t appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying in the Commons.

“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.

“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”

UK

Diogo Jota and Andre Silva’s funeral in pictures

Published

9 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Diogo Jota and Andre Silva's funeral in pictures

The family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva have been joined by Liverpool stars past and present and other Portuguese players at the pair’s funeral near Porto.

The Liverpool forward, 28, and his brother died in a car crash in Spain on Thursday.

Pictures below show the funeral at the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in the town of Gondomar near Porto. Click here for our liveblog coverage of the day’s events.