Manchester Arena bombing: thousands gather for vigil in city centre – live news | UK news
- Police say 22 died in Monday's suicide attack at Manchester Arena
- Children are among the dead, and 12 under-16s are among the 59 injured
- Police name the suspect as Salman Abedi, 22
- He is believed to have been born in Manchester and his family is of Libyan origin
The UK's terror threat level has been raised to critical - meaning an attack is expected imminently - after 22 people were killed by a suicide bomber in Manchester.
Prime Minister Theresa May made the announcement after a meeting of Cobra, the government's crisis response committee, on Tuesday evening.
The terror threat level had been severe - meaning an attack was highly likely - since 2014.
Greater Manchester Police has confirmed they believe 22-year-old Salman Abedi, who was born in Manchester, detonated a suicide bomb at the Manchester Arena on Monday evening after an Ariana Grande concert at the 21,000-seater venue.
The youngest known fatality is eight years old, and 59 people remain injured
Phil and Kim Dick were caught up in the blast when they went to pick up their daughter and granddaughter from the concert. Their relatives were found safe and well but they described caring for one little girl who had been hurt, as well as the horrendous scenes inside the arena.
Speaking to Channel 4 News on Tuesday, Phil also had a message for people who might seek to exploit the atrocity.
It’s an absolutely terrible thing and I just pray to God that none of these extremists try and make political capital out of it because the last thing that anybody needs now is any more divisiveness.
That’s what terrorists want. What they want to do is they want to divide, they want to try and affect our way of life and, unfortunately, there are people on all parts of the political spectrum [who] want to use these kinds of incidents for their own political ends. And, if they do, they’re not much better than the bombers, I don’t think.
You can watch the full interview here. Note: the programme has warned its viewers that the Dicks’ full testimony was graphic and that some people might find it upsetting.
Updated at 3.54pm EDT
Poet Tony Walsh. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA
The author of a poem that stirred the emotions of mourners at a vigil in Manchester says it was a “privilege” to read it.
Poet Tony Walsh, 51, delivered a version of his poem This Is The Place - an ode to the city of Manchester and its people - to a packed Albert Square.
“As a proud Mancunian, I was worried that I’d find that emotional, particularly when I mentioned my mum, who passed away a while ago,” he says. “It meant a lot to me. I wanted to do it for Manchester. I didn’t want to crack, because Manchester won’t crack. I felt quite calm actually, when it came to do it. It was a privilege.”
The poet, originally from Tameside, said the poem was previously commissioned by a charity called Forever Manchester. “There was flashes of humour in there because that’s Manchester all the time, and it’s Manchester even in its darkest hours.
“And it’s important to me that the poem is true to Manchester and its people, and we fight through these things with humour, as hard as it is sometimes. That’s the Mancunian way,” he said.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has issued a video statement after attending the vigil in Albert Square.
Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn)The British people are standing together, determined that terrorism will not divide our communities, as its perpetrators clearly intend. pic.twitter.com/QaqtDpV7Sb
May 23, 2017
A Labour spokesman said the party’s general election campaign remained suspended until further notice: “Events planned for tomorrow have been cancelled.”
Updated at 3.26pm EDT
Guardian reporter Steven Morris tweets:
steven morris (@stevenmorris20)
Police are doing the rounds of the mosques in Manchester to check they are not being targeted. pic.twitter.com/mPJyvk19KE
May 23, 2017
The prime minister, Theresa May, is now chairing a second meeting of the government’s emergency Cobra committee in Whitehall.
It is understood that campaigning for the general election will remain suspended on Wednesday.
Updated at 2.50pm EDT
Updated at 2.47pm EDT
A vigil in Birmingham for the Manchester Arena victims has been interrupted after a man apparently armed with a large knife and a baseball bat was detained nearby, Press Association reports.
Vikram Dodd
Police are understood to have recovered CCTV video of the bomber walking into Manchester Arena where he detonated a bomb. It shows the explosion was deliberate and caused by a device that it is believed was contained in a bag, a source said.
The device is described as homemade and crude. It was stable enough to be transported and exploded with devastating effect. It is believed to have been constructed in Britain.
The attacker had an identity document on him, sources said. The man named by police – Salman Abedi – was born to parents from Libya who came to Britain to flee the regime of Muammar Gaddafi.
One senior security source described the attack involving the acquisition and construction of a bomb as “a gamechanger” that has “rocked us backwards” because a successful bomb plot has not occurred in the UK since 2005.
There is uncertainty among investigators about whether Abedi built the bomb himself, or had help. GMP’s chief constable, Ian Hopkins, said: “The priority remains to establish whether he was acting alone or as part of a network.”
Updated at 2.25pm EDT
Severin Carrell
Family friends of Laura MacIntyre, 15, the schoolgirl from Barra who went missing last night with her close friend Eilidh MacLeod, say she is in hospital with very serious burns. “We’re just getting confirmation of that ourselves,” said Donald Manford, a local councillor and great uncle of Eilidh. “She is very seriously injured and ill.”
Manford said he had yet to hear any word about Eilidh, 14. “She’s a very vibrant young person, who’s very involved in the community. When we have ceilidhs, she’s a dancer and a piper,” he said earlier. “It’s a very anxious time.”
Updated at 2.17pm EDT
Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA
Addressing the crowd at the vigil, GMP’s Ian Hopkins said: “As your chief constable of Greater Manchester and as a father I cannot begin to imagine how anyone can carry out such an unthinkable act – murdering 22 people and injuring 59 – and my thoughts and those of my colleague are very much with their families at this incredibly difficult time.”
He continued: “Last night, in the most atrocious circumstances, the people of Greater Manchester showed the world how much we care. How much we care about each other and how much we were prepared to help those in need. And I’ve heard some tremendous stories of doctors coming in to support and police officers, ambulance workers giving up their days off turning up to help those in need.”
Senior figures who attended the Manchester event included the home secretary Amber Rudd, the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, the Commons Speaker, John Bercow, and the Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham.
Updated at 2.00pm EDT
Updated at 1.58pm EDT
The alert over a suspicious package found at Salford University has turned out to be a false alarm.
Salford University (@SalfordUni)Police have confirmed we can now reopen buildings with immediate effect and the @createatsalford Fashion Show will go ahead as planned.(1/2)
May 23, 2017
Updated at 1.41pm EDT
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
Ariana Grande sings the title track from Beauty and the Beast, and that's an apt headline for the miserable news of a suicide bombing that killed at least 22 people who were attending Grande's concert in Manchester. The beauty of young people gathering to enjoy music and community was squelched by the all-too familiar, beastly sound of an explosion. ISIS claimed responsibility and the bomber, a British man, has been named. Here's the latest from BBC and more from The Guardian. + "Like the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, it's something so horrific in intent and execution that it boggles the mind." From The Atlantic: The Horror of an Attack Targeting Young Women. + Manchester, United: From Buzzfeed: People of Manchester are responding to the concert attack with acts of kindness. + Some people complained about the security at the venue, but the bomber exploited a common vulnerability. + From President Trump: "I won't call them monsters because they would like that term. They would think that's a great name. I will call them from now on losers because that's what they are. They're losers. And we'll have more of them. But they're losers—just remember that." + According to Variety, Ariana Grande hasn't decided whether or not to cancel her tour. Here's my message to Ariana: Don't cancel the rest of the tour. Pick up your mic and keep singing, louder than ever. Beastly acts must be met with more beauty, more community, and more music; not less.
LIBERTY FROM STATUE
Earlier this week in New Orleans, Mayor Mitch Landrieu gave a speech to address his city's much-debated decision to take down several statues that were seen by many as Confederate monuments. The speech itself is a monument to unity and diversity. "These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, and the terror that it actually stood for ... Can you look into that young girl's eyes and convince her that Robert E. Lee is there to encourage her? Do you think she will feel inspired and hopeful by that story? Do these monuments help her see a future with limitless potential? Have you ever thought that if her potential is limited, yours and mine are too?"
CHINA GROVE
People in China are starting to eat more like Americans. And there are a lot of them. That means China is in a race to avoid a food crisis. And the country's "efforts to buy or lease agricultural land in developing nations show that building farms and ranches abroad won't be enough. Ballooning populations in Asia, Africa and South America will add another 2 billion people within a generation and they too will need more food."
CACHE REGISTER
Advertisers target you online. Later, you make a related purchase at a terrestrial store. Connecting those two things has long been "described as the 'holy grail' of digital advertising." Now, with the help of some powerful algorithms and the data from billions of credit card transactions, Google is trying to successfully make the link. "Google executives say they are using complex, patent-pending mathematical formulas to protect the privacy of consumers when they match a Google user with a shopper who makes a purchase in a brick-and-mortar store. The mathematical formulas convert people's names and other personal information into anonymous strings of numbers." (And besides, when has a giant tech company ever infringed on your privacy?) From WaPo: Google now knows when its users go to the store and buy stuff.
COLLUDE CONDUCT
Another day, and another damaging story about President Trump's interactions with intelligence agencies. On Monday, WaPo broke the news that "Trump made separate appeals to the director of national intelligence, Daniel Coats, and to Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, urging them to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election." + Former CIA Director John Brennan testifying before the House Intelligence Committee: "I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and U.S. persons involved in the Trump campaign that I was concerned about because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals. And it raised questions in my mind again whether or not the Russians were able to gain the cooperation of those individuals." + WaPo on the White House budget proposal: Trump proposes dramatic changes to federal government, slashing safety net programs that affect up to a fifth of Americans.
BEAR CALLS BULL
"The environmental ministers of Canada and Mexico went to San Francisco last month to sign a global pact -- drafted largely by California -- to lower planet-warming greenhouse pollution. Gov. Jerry Brown flies to China next month to meet with climate leaders there on a campaign to curb global warming." As the Trump administration looks to dismantle the Obama environmental record, California has emerged as a key counterbalance, with Gov Jerry Brown maintaining a environmentally-focused course for state: "Erasing climate change may take place in Donald Trump's mind, but nowhere else." From the NYT: California Engages World, and Fights Washington, on Climate Change.
HAPPEN STANCE
"Still, she couldn't shake the gap between what she had been told her entire life, and what she felt -- that perhaps the story wasn't true. She and Matt weren't especially close, but he seemed like the only person she could ask. When Katie was twelve and Matt sixteen, she cornered him. 'It's so weird,' she said to her brother. 'I don't remember any of the things they say he did to us.' 'You don't remember,' Matt said, 'because it didn't happen.'" From Maurice Chammah at The Marshall Project: The Accusation.
WHAT THE STRUCK
"My whole body was just stopped -- I couldn't move any more. The pain was… I can't explain the pain except to say if you've ever put your finger in a light socket as a kid, multiply that feeling by a gazillion throughout your entire body. And I saw a white light surrounding my body –- it was like I was in a bubble. Everything was slow motion. I felt like I was in a bubble for ever." From Mosaic: This is what it's like to be struck by lightning. (These days, it's also what it feels like to open a bunch of news tabs.)
KNOWLEDGE FONT
"Typography can silently influence: It can signify dangerous ideas, normalize dictatorships, and sever broken nations. In some cases it may be a matter of life and death. And it can do this as powerfully as the words it depicts." Ben Hersch on how fonts are fueling the culture wars.
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS
"The brainchild of CEO Jeff Bezos, there are now two stands on its corporate campus staffed with 'banistas' led by 'bananagers' who give out bananas to anyone and everyone nearby, whether that's one banana for breakfast or a dozen." Amazon has disrupted a lot of industries and markets. And it turns out, that includes bananas. + Butter has been making a comeback. And now it's getting hip. The Atlantic explores "the science behind butter's subtle variations, as well as its long history as a vehicle for both ritual worship and female entrepreneurship around the world." + President Trump briefly visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum during his visit to Israel. And he left behind a note that is so, well, Trump. + Spread the word about NextDraft.
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