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Princess of Wales lays wreath at The Cenotaph to mark Anzac Day
The Princess of Wales has laid a wreath at The Cenotaph to mark Anzac Day, which commemorates all Australians and New Zealanders who died in conflict.

As part of UK events on Saturday, Kate is also attending a service of commemoration and thanksgiving at Westminster Abbey.

Earlier, a dawn service took place in London, attended by the Princess Royal.

Princess Anne laid a wreath at Wellington Arch, Hyde Park Corner, at 5am, at the event which included a reading of the John McCrae poem In Flanders Fields.

In Australia, several services were disrupted by booing from small groups during so-called Welcome to Country ceremonies, during which indigenous leaders welcome visitors to their traditional lands.

The outbursts in Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney - where one man was arrested - were also met with applause and cheering from large groups of those gathered to pay their respects, according to local media.

The Royal Family's official account on X paid tribute with a picture of troops from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC).

The image shows soldiers travelling to the First World War conflict zone Gallipoli, with the caption "Lest we forget".

Anzac Day is held every year on 25 April and was initially established to commemorate ANZAC troops landing on the beaches of Gallipoli in northwest Turkey in 1915. The attack on the Turkish defences began at dawn.

Ceremonies, which are marked across the world, also took place in Gallipoli and Villers-Bretonneux, a French village which Australian units helped defend during WWI.

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Booing at ceremonies

Australia's defence minister Richard Marles criticised the disruption at ceremonies, which in previous years has been perpetrated by anti-indigenous rights protesters.

"To boo in that way goes completely against that. It is deeply disgraceful," he told ABC News Breakfast.

In Sydney, police confirmed a 24-year-old man was arrested for "an alleged act of nuisance", and several others were moved on.

They represented "a small handful of people" compared to about 11,000 at the event, according to a statement from police.


Two young children die in Wolverhampton house fire
Two young children have died in a house fire in Wolverhampton.

Police and firefighters were called to Mason Street, south of the city centre, at about 8.30pm on Friday.

Firefighters entered the property wearing breathing equipment and rescued two young children.

Despite giving advanced life support to both children, they were pronounced dead at the scene, West Midlands Police said.

Two other children and a woman had already left the property before emergency services attended.

They were checked over by paramedics but did not require hospital treatment.

Police have erected a cordon around the scene while work is done to establish a cause for the fire. It is expected to remain in place for some time.

The house was extensively damaged in the blaze.

West Midlands Police said in a statement: "Our thoughts are with the children's loved ones and all those impacted by this heartbreaking incident."

Anyone with information has been asked to contact police.

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Seven killed in Ukraine after major Russia drone attack, as RAF deploys Typhoon jets over Romania
Russia has launched a major drone attack overnight on Ukraine, killing seven people and injuring more ‌than 30 others, as RAF Typhoon fighter jets were deployed over Romania.

Russia fired 619 ​drones and 47 missiles, Ukraine's air force said ⁠in a statement on Telegram, adding that it shot down 580 drones and 30 missiles.

Five people died in attacks on the city of Dnipro, according to Ukraine's state emergency service while another two were killed in the Chernihiv region.

Meanwhile two British fighter jets were also scrambled from a base in Romania overnight after radar systems tracked drones near their airspace, according to the Romanian defence ministry.

"Two British Air Force Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft conducting Enhanced Air Policing mission scrambled at 02:00 from the 86th Air Base in Fetesti [Borcea Air Base]... The pilots were authorized to engage the drones," it said in a statement.

The Typhoons established radar contact with targets as they were 1.5km from the Ukrainian city of Reni, the Romanians added.

At around 2.30am, an object was reported as falling in the Bariera Traian area of Romania, near the city of Galati, and drone fragments were later recovered.

Read more: Ukraine war latest

Sky News understands RAF jets did not shoot them down or enter Ukrainian airspace.

"Practically all night, ‌the Russians bombed Dnipro and our other cities and communities," Ukrainian ​President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on social media, adding that most of the targets were infrastructure.

He said there were also attacks in the Chernihiv, Odessa and Kharkiv regions.

Two bodies ​were recovered from a building in ⁠the southeastern city of Dnipro, regional governor Oleksandr Hanzha said, adding that five other people could ‌still be trapped in the rubble and another 21 people in the city were wounded.

In the ‌northern region of Chernihiv, missile and drone attacks killed two people and wounded seven others, while a further two people were wounded in the Odessa region, the respective local governors said.

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Anzac services held at dawn

Russia has been launching ⁠smaller barrages of dozens of drones ​every night at Ukraine, interspersing them with occasional ​large-scale attacks that use hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles.

In Russia, a woman was killed and a man was seriously wounded by a drone strike in the border region of Belgorod, local officials said.

The attacks followed a prisoner swap Friday, in which Russia and Ukraine exchanged 193 service members.

Russian drones in Romania

Some damage was reported to an outbuilding and an electricity pole in Romania, but there were no injuries.

Drone fragments have routinely ​fallen on Romania, which has a 400-mile (650km) land border with Ukraine, as Russia repeatedly breaches its airspace.

"The defence ministry firmly condemns the ⁠irresponsible actions of the Russian Federation and emphasises that these represent a new challenge to regional security and stability in the ‌Black Sea area," the Romanian defence ministry's statement said.

Ukraine-Azerbaijan talks

Mr Zelenskyy is ​in ‌Azerbaijan ​on Saturday ​for ⁠a meeting ⁠with ‌his counterpart Ilham Aliyev, ‌a spokesman for ⁠the ​Ukrainian ​leader told ​reporters.

According to the Kyiv Post, a key focus of the high-level talks will be defence cooperation "particularly in the field of drone technology".


'Shame on them': Post Office seeks delay in second Capture case at Court of Appeal
The Post Office is seeking to delay the second Capture scandal case at the Court of Appeal, Sky News has learned.

Steve Marston was convicted in 1998 of stealing from his branch after using the faulty accounting software called Capture.

Capture predated the infamous Horizon IT system, which saw hundreds wrongfully convicted of theft in one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British legal history.

Mr Marston's conviction was referred by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) to the Court of Appeal on the grounds that his prosecution amounted to an "abuse of process".

The Post Office is now requesting a two-month extension before it delivers its formal response to the case.

Last year, a Sky News investigation unearthed a long-lost document which proved that the Capture system was capable of producing "absurd gibberish".

That document is being used in Mr Marston's appeal, as well as being part of the first Capture case to be referred to the Court of Appeal - Pat Owen, who died a few years after her conviction in 1998.

Ms Owen's case was also delayed by the Post Office before Christmas last year when they applied for an extension.

Speaking to Sky News, Steve Marston said that he believed the Post Office is "determined to protect their brand at all costs despite the overwhelming proof" over faulty Capture software.

He continued: "They appear to be looking for straws in a haystack to try and discredit innocent victims rather than doing the right thing by not contesting… and accept their part in this scandal rather than trying to find a technicality to try and continue blaming postmasters."

"Shame on them," he added.

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Post Office 'regrets distress'

The government has already accepted that the Capture system was faulty, and has started paying redress to victims who were not convicted.

A Post Office spokesperson said they "acknowledge" that Mr Marston "feels frustrated" by the application and "regret the distress" caused.

They emphasised that the Post Office "wants all unsafe convictions to be overturned" and added that they will "continue to do everything we can to ensure that appeals are considered in accordance with the law and our duties to the courts."

The spokesperson also told Sky News that they need "to conduct further searches, informed by the additional information that has now been provided by the Appellant and the CCRC".

"It was acknowledged by the CCRC in their Statement of Reasons, that the referral to the Court of Appeal has been made without the benefit of access to the full case papers and evidence.

"We are working to file our Respondents Notice by the proposed new deadline."


Man extradited from the UAE appears in London court charged with woman's murder
A man has been charged with the murder of a 27-year-old woman in London two years ago after being extradited from the United Arab Emirates.

Enzo Bettamio, 18, was put on a flight from Dubai to the UK on Friday and then formally charged with the murder of Kamonnan Thiamphanit, who was also known as Angela.

He appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Saturday.

Ms Thiamphanit was found dead at her home in Stanhope Place near Hyde Park on the morning of 8 April 2024 after police forced entry to the property. She had suffered multiple stab wounds.

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Post Office seeks delay in second Capture case

Metropolitan Police Detective Chief Inspector Alison Foxwell, who is leading the investigation, said: "I would also like to express my sincere thanks to Angela's family and friends for their patience and unwavering support to the investigation, throughout what has been an incredibly difficult and distressing time for them."

The Met had referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct following the murder, after officers were contacted twice by friends of Ms Thiamphanit the day before her body was discovered.

The case was graded as a medium-risk missing person inquiry before officers forced entry and discovered the 27-year-old, who had Chinese, Hong Kong and Thai nationality.


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