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Age UK has urged older people not to cut back on heating this winter, warning that cold homes can pose a serious risk to health.

The charity says heating is often the single biggest annual bill for pensioners, leaving many tempted to turn it down or switch it off altogether despite freezing conditions in recent weeks.

Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, warned that millions of older people are already living in poverty, with 1.9 million affected and numbers expected to rise further.

Speaking to GB News, Ms Abrahams said: "Of course, in winter you have to run your heating and that’s an enormous cost. It’s probably the biggest bill most older people face each year.

Britain is withdrawing some personnel from an airbase in Qatar, following the lead from the US.

Military personnel are being withdrawn from the al-Udeid airbase, where the RAF is stationed alongside American forces, reports The i.

According to reports, an RAF tanker departed the Akrotiri airbase in Cyprus headed to al-Udeid airbase, although flight data appeared to show it then headed back toward Europe.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman told GB News: "We do not comment on details of basing and deployments due to operational security.

"The UK always puts precautionary measures in place to ensure the security and safety of our personnel, including where necessary withdrawing personnel."

Al Udeid is the Middle East's largest US base, housing around 10,000 troops.

One diplomat told reporters: "It's a posture change and not an ordered evacuation", adding he was not aware that a specific reason had been given for the posture change.

Another diplomat added: "All the signals are that a US attack is imminent, but that is also how this administration behaves to keep everyone on their toes. Unpredictability is part of the strategy.

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene hit back against an Axios report that the White House told the Secret Service she may have tipped off Code Pink protesters about Trump's unscheduled visit to a DC restaurant she recommended, leading to an activist ambush that went viral on social media.

"Only the WH set up President Trump’s reservation at Joe’s, NOT ME!! I had ZERO knowledge of when his reservation was! The only people who could have tipped off Code Pink was the restaurant or the WH!" MTG wrote on X following the report, calling it " an ABSOLUTE LIE, A DANGEROUS LIE," and insisting "I would NEVER do that."

According to Axios, Greene had recommended "Joe's Seafood", a restaurant in Washington D.C., to the commander-in-chief as a last minute dinner location for his team.

The White House claims that after recommending the president go to Joe’s, Greene repeatedly called Trump staffers the day of the dinner to confirm he was going. After Trump heard about Greene’s outreach, he called her shortly before leaving the White House and confirmed his planned visit, the sources said. Greene, who was a regular at the restaurant, didn’t show up at the location when Trump and other officials were there, which struck some Trump aides as odd.

So, someone's lying...

The incident with Code Pink took place just one day before the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. With two separate attempts on Trump's life previous to his re-election, which the Secret Service notably botched both times - not to mention an endless array of violent actions on the part of progressive protesters in recent months, left-wing activists coming within proximity to Trump has become a national security concern.

White House aides pointed out that Greene has publicly touted her friendship with Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin in the past, writing on X Dec. 10:

“I have enjoyed a friendship with Medea for a few years now even though politics says that’s not allowed.”

“Marjorie is closer with the hosts of ‘The View’ than the president,” a former senior administration official said of Greene.

Much less winter snow is falling on the Himalayas, leaving the mountains bare and rocky in many parts of the region in a season when they should be snow-clad, meteorologists have said.

They say most winters in the last five years have seen a drop compared to average snowfall between 1980 and 2020.

Rising temperature also means what little snow falls melts very quickly and some lower-elevation areas are also seeing more rain and less snow, which is at least in part due to global warming, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other scientific reports.

Studies have also shown there is now what is known as "snow drought" during winter in many parts of the Himalayan region.

Accelerated melting of glaciers in the wake of global warming has long been a major crisis facing India's Himalayan states and other countries in the region. This dwindling snowfall during winter is making matters worse, experts have told the BBC.

They say that the reduction in ice and snow will not only change how the Himalayas look, it will also impact the lives of hundreds of millions of people and many ecosystems in the region.

As temperatures rise in spring, snow accumulated during winter melts and the runoff feeds river systems. This snowmelt is a crucial source for the region's rivers and streams, supplying water for drinking, irrigation and hydropower.

Apart from impacting the water supply, less winter precipitation - rainfall in the lowlands and snowfall on the mountains - also means the region risks being gutted by forest fires due to dry conditions, experts said.

They add that vanishing glaciers and declining snowfall destabilise mountains as they lose the ice and snow that act as cement to keep them intact. Disasters like rockfalls, landslides, glacial lakes bursting out and devastating debris flows are already becoming more common.

...

A study Hunt co-authored and published in 2025 has included four different datasets between 1980 and 2021, and they all show a decrease in precipitation in the western and part of the central Himalayas.

Using datasets from ERA-5 (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis), Hemant Singh, a research fellow with the Indian Institute of Technology in Jammu, says snowfall in the north western Himalayas has decreased by 25% in the past five years compared to 40-year long-term average (1980-2020).

Poor oral health may significantly reduce life expectancy, according to a new Japanese study that calls for better dental maintenance among older adults.

Frail oral health, defined as having fewer remaining teeth, dry mouth, trouble speaking, and difficulty chewing and swallowing, can reflect poor general health in ageing people.

Someone may have most of their natural teeth but still be considered “orally frail” if they suffer chewing problems as mouth health also involves muscle strength, saliva, and swallowing ability.

Such oral frailty, Japanese researchers found, was strongly tied to lower chances of healthy ageing.

“Dental visits may mitigate this outcome in older adults,” they noted in the latest study, published in the journal Geriatrics & Gerontology International.

The researchers assessed the oral health of 11,080 adults in Japan aged 65 or above.

The study participants were asked whether they had visited a dentist in the previous six months and were followed for an average of six years, using the national disability and mortality records, to see if they stayed healthy, developed disabilities, or passed away.

Having had a recent dental visit was treated as a sign that the participant maintained their oral health.

The researchers also estimated each participant’s healthy life expectancy, a measure of how many years one could live without disability or serious health decline.

Of the 11,080 adults assessed, 12 per cent had oral frailty at the start of the study and about 50 per cent had visited a dentist in the past six months. Those with oral frailty were 23 per cent more likely to move from healthy to disability during the follow-up period compared to those without. And the orally frail participants were 34 per cent more likely to die during follow-up.

The Heritage Foundation's internal upheaval is accelerating, with two fresh resignations from its board of trustees adding to a growing sense of instability at the once-respected conservative institution.

The two most recent departures from Heritage's board are Darryle Owens and Price Harding, bringing the total number of trustee resignations to five amid mounting controversy, donor unease, and staff defections, National Review reported.

Harding is chairman of one of the nation's leading executive search firms, and Owens is a former healthcare executive who has been active in conservative philanthropy.

The departure of two prominent businessmen further erodes confidence in Heritage as it reels from other recent departures.

Asked for comment about his resignation, Owens declined to comment. Harding has not responded to requests for comment.

Late last year Heritage found itself embroiled in controversy after its president, Kevin Roberts, refused to condemn and criticize commentator Tucker Carlson for platforming white supremacist Nick Fuentes.

Roberts also refused to criticize Carlson for his antisemitic tirades.

Three trustees quit last year in the wake of the scandal, including prominent conservative thinker Robert P. George, philanthropist Abby Moffat, and businessman Shane McCullar.

Top scholars have also defected from Heritage, including economist Stephen Moore and legal scholar Chris DeMuth.

Asked about the most recent departures of Owens and Harding, a Heritage spokesperson said the changes were part of a broader institutional overhaul.

"For some time, Heritage has been in the process of realigning the people within the institution to better orient ourselves to our mission and increase our impact," the spokesperson told National Review. "Changes in positions, from the board to staff, are a necessary part of this process."

Roberts' support for his friend Carlson has led to a meltdown within the organization, as the current trustees appear to be placing Heritage on an orientation away from Reagan conservatism and toward a more conspiratorial right led by podcasters such as Carlson and Candace Owens.

Zionist Organization of America President Morton Klein has criticized the organization and has urged donors to boycott Heritage until Roberts resigns.

Klein had served on Heritage's National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, or NTFCA, but quit the group in the wake of the Roberts scandal.

After a dozen Jewish and Christian leaders associated with the group also resigned, NTFCA decided to sever ties with Heritage altogether.

Vice President JD Vance stood before the podium in the White House briefing room on Thursday and delivered a master class in humiliating the left-wing activists within the disgraced White House Press Corps who cower behind a pretense of objectivity.

Our first clip is Vance obliterating CNN, the basement-rated, far-left propaganda outlet that spreads conspiracy theories and encourages political violence.

Using his phone, Vance read a CNNLOL headline about Wednesday’s incident involving an ICE agent shooting a left-wing activist. Although it was a legitimate shooting in a blatantly obvious act of self-defense, CNN’s headline still reads “Outrage After ICE Officer Kills U.S. Citizen.”

Vance was having none of it.

“What that headline leaves out is that that woman was there to interfere with a legitimate law enforcement operation in the United States of America,” Vance said. “What that headline leaves out is that that woman is part of a broader left-wing network to attack, to dox, to assault, and to make it impossible for our ICE officers to do their job.”

“If the media wants to tell the truth,” he added, “they ought to tell the truth that a group of left-wing radicals have been working tirelessly, sometimes using domestic terror techniques, to try to make it impossible for the President of the United States to do what the American people elected him to do, which is enforce our immigration laws.”

A sixth person has died at Disney World in less than three months. The body was found just one day after New Year’s Day, with the discovery coming after a series of deaths that have rocked the “Most Magical Place on Earth.”

Police say the body was found around 9:00 p.m. on Friday night in Disney Springs, a shopping center on the Walt Disney World property in Florida, according to a report by WKMG.

“Deputies responded to the Disney Springs Orange Garage on East Buena Vista Drive and discovered a man who was deceased,” the Orange County Sheriff’s Office told the outlet on Saturday.

“This incident is being investigated as a possible suicide,” the sheriff’s office added. “We have no additional information to release and will have no further updates this weekend.”

While Friday’s Disney World dead body discovery was the first of 2026, it is the sixth death to have happened at the amusement park since October.

On October 14, a 31-year-old Illinois resident, Summer Equitz, was found dead from an apparent suicide at Disney World’s Contemporary Resort.

Then, on October 21, a man in his 60s suffered a “medical episode” at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground, with authorities saying he was transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Two days later, on October 23, aspiring football referee, 28-year-old Matthew Alec Cohn, reportedly committed suicide when he leapt from the 12th floor of a Disney hotel at the Contemporary Resort.

This was followed by the death of woman in her 40s on November 2. She was found unresponsive at Disney’s Pop Century Resort before later being pronounced dead.

The hip hop star has been on a new career path in recent years, working as a cryptocurrency entrepreneur.

And it seems the venture is paying well, with Iggy flaunting her luxurious lifestyle on Instagram in August.

While a lot has been said about her controversial 'memecoin' $Mother, few people outside of the crypto community know that Iggy now runs her own online casino.

Titled Motherland, the crypto-powered gambling destination features scantily-clad streamers hosting games like blackjack and poker.

Punters can gamble using Iggy's memecoin, and the star herself occasionally hosts streams to drive engagement to the platform.

Iggy was once the biggest name in hip-hop.