Ahead of Valentine's Day next week, we reveal the true financial cost of being alone - and it's thousands more than living in a couple. But lovebirds haven't got off scot-free, with experts warning the single tax affects us all eventually. more

Most New Year's resolutions tend to have fizzled out by February, but deciding to move house is one aspiration people usually hold on to quite stubbornly. Research shows house hunters often are abuzz with activity in the New Year, especially when planning a fresh start in another town or city. more

British security services have demanded that Apple access encrypted data stored in the cloud by users around the world, the US daily Washington Post reported, citing its sources.more

Three wards at one of London's biggest hospitals have been closed due to an outbreak of the vomiting bug norovirus. St George’s Hospital in Tooting has decided to shut some bays or wards to admissions and transfers to protect new patients from being exposed to the virus.more

Almost eight years after the Grenfell Tower skyscraper fire that killed 72 people, the British government confirmed yesterday that the building, located in west London, will be demolished.more

One of the busiest stations in south London is to close for about six months to replace escalators that have suffered “shocking reliability” problems for at least three years, The Standard can reveal.more

The DWP has confirmed the new April 2025 State Pension rates after MPs voted through the proposals from the autumn budget. New weekly and monthly totals were agreed in parliament after a vote, with a £6.9 billion increase to spending on state pensions and benefits from April supported by MPs.more

The Bank of England has cut interest rates to 4.5%, as it halved its UK growth forecasts for this year and warned households would face renewed pressure from rising prices.more

Workers at a labelling factory say they have been told their site is to close and work moved to Poland. About 180 people work at the MCC factory on the Llantarnam Industrial Estate in Cwmbran, Torfaen, making labels for food and drink products.more

More than £71m of Ulez charges have been paid over the last six years, according to data released by Transport for London (TfL). Statistics published in response to a Freedom of Information request showed that drivers in Croydon paid more (£4.1m) than any other borough since the clean air zone’s introduction in 2019, followed by Hillingdon (£3.8m), Ealing (£3.7m) and Enfield (£3.6m).more

Homebase will close 33 more locations in February after it fell into administration in 2024. All impacted employees will receive at least two weeks' notice of their effective date of redundancy, according to the high street DIY and homeware business.more

Britons will be given a cash incentive to recycle plastic and metal bottles and cans under a new bottle-return scheme set to come into force in 2027. The scheme will mirror successful ones in 50 other countries including Germany and Sweden, where members of the public pay a deposit on drinks bottles, which is then refunded when bottles are turned in for recycling.more

Palmerston, the former resident cat at the Foreign Office, has been brought out of retirement for a new overseas diplomatic posting nearly 3,500 miles away in Bermuda. A post on Palmerston's X account, announced the black and white rescue cat - who served as the chief mouser Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) between 2016-2020 - had moved to the British Overseas Territory.more

London's travel system can be a maze for tourists, with its station names often causing confusion. Contrary to what one might think, the famous Abbey Road is not on the DLR, Clapham Junction isn't in Clapham, and Marylebone station isn't exactly in Marylebone (though it's pretty close).more

Migrants on work visas who claim benefits will be barred from settling indefinitely in the UK, under Kemi Badenoch's first major policy announcement as Tory leader.more

The latest London weather maps show the exact date we can expect snow to fall on the capital. The Met Office has warned we can expect a cooler than average February due to strong easterly winds moving across the Atlantic Ocean. Forecasters say this will "exacerbate the cold feel" between Sunday. February 9 and Tuesday, February 18 as rain and snow showers are also expected.more

Scrapping of non dom status marks the final straw for many of the wealthy people who bring London its dynamism. The reality is that London has been slowly falling out of favour for more than a decade.more

Around one in 10 young adults in the UK identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB), a proportion of the population which has doubled in the past five years, according to figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS). Just over 10% of 16- to 24-year-olds identified as LGB in 2023 – the most recent window polled – up from 4.4% in 2018, according to data from the Annual Population Survey.more

Nearly 700,000 women are to be recruited to take part in an NHS artificial intelligence (AI) breast cancer screening trial across the UK. Five different AI platforms will be tested across 30 sites from April to see if the technology can speed up diagnosis as well as free up radiologists.more

Yesterday, King Charles III of Great Britain visited the Polish Social and Cultural Centre (POSK) in London, where he met with representatives of the Polish minority, informed the institution's spokesman Wiktor Moszczyński. The monarch was accompanied by the Polish ambassador Piotr Wilczek and the centre's president Marcin Kalinowski.more

For most of us, living in a beautiful Georgian terrace in Central London is nothing more than a pipe dream. For those who fantasise about living in a house like something you'd find in Mary Poppins, you may be able to make your dreams come true for a fraction of the cost just outside the capital.more

Marzena Zukowska’s ordeal at Chicago O’Hare airport is the latest in a series of worrying episodes involving foreign nationals resident in the UK using visas after the switch to a digital system at the start of this year.more

The gap between average earnings and house prices in London makes for a pretty grim calculation, despite a year of weak growth providing marginal improvement to affordability. more

The US and British national security advisers will discuss this week the terms of a deal for London to transfer sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, where a joint US-British military base is located, to Mauritius, the Financial Times reported.more

The number of people being killed in crashes on London roads has increased by 16 per cent in a year – including a cyclist who was revealed this week to have died a fortnight after being hit by a bus. Campaigners said the capital was at “crisis” levels in terms of the number of road deaths and demanded action from the mayor, Sir Sadiq Khan, and Transport for London.more