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A train crossing the King Edward VII Bridge over the River Tyne in Newcastle, with the Redheugh Bridge behind

Drug poisoning deaths fall for the first time since 2012, as cocaine overtakes heroin

Registrations of drug poisoning deaths in England and Wales totalled 5,519 in 2025, and cocaine overtook heroin or morphine as the substance mentioned most often, a first since the series began in 1993.

British Journal · 5 Nov

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  1. Drug poisoning deaths fall for the first time since 2012, as cocaine overtakes heroin
  2. Largest businesses to face mandatory human rights checks on their supply chains
  3. Parliament faces managed decline or worse without a restoration decision, MPs warn
  4. Supreme Court rules that ScottishPower's £28 million of redress payments cannot be deducted for tax
  5. Borrowing hits £24.5 billion in September as public debt passes £3 trillion for the first time
  6. TechFirst opens to every secondary school, with 10,000 tech placements backed by major employers
  7. Planning permission dropped for cross-pavement home chargers, in a saving put at up to £300
  8. Medicines regulator takes its AI and MedTech agenda to the United States as a Washington liaison role opens
  9. Stronger safeguards for wheelchair users as airports act on damaged mobility aids and staff training
  10. Share the carriage, not the noise: £100 bus fines and a national campaign against loudcasting on trains
  11. Profit warnings reach 65, the highest since 2024, as policy uncertainty weighs on listed companies
  12. Ninety Labour MPs press Healey for a higher Machine Games Duty rate on Category B machines
  13. Cooper warns of a more challenging NHS winter as £140 million goes into urgent care in England
  14. Britain backs a £60 million mission to remove two defunct satellites from orbit by 2032
  15. Possessing pornography depicting strangulation or incest becomes an offence in England and Wales from 6 November
  16. Kingman named first chair of Great British Railways as Derby headquarters plan advances
  17. Real Living Wage rises to £14.10 an hour, and £15.45 in London, for almost half a million workers
  18. Car crashes into M&S foodhall at Silverlink at about 2.25pm on Tuesday 13 October, seriously injuring two pedestrians
  19. MPs to debate petition calling on Britain to apply to rejoin the EU
  20. Northern lights reach England’s south coast as skies light up over Devon, Hampshire and Kent
  21. Flood and drought taskforce to meet for the first time as winter flood risk rises
  22. Man dies after tiger attack at Yorkshire Wildlife Park on Saturday 10 October
  23. Burnham pledges law to stop non-compete clauses “trapping” workers and blocking start-ups
  24. Burnham uses Berlin visit to prepare ground for November EU summit
  25. Royal Mail to cut up to 2,500 head office jobs by end of 2027
  26. Labour hits two-year poll high as Opinium puts Burnham’s party on 30 per cent
  27. UK growth revised up as Britain seals fastest G7 pace in first half of 2026
  28. France pulls the plug on the ‘one in, one out’ migration deal
  29. Diesel hits record 199.18p a litre as Healey opens talks with US over export ban threat
  30. HMS Portland fires new ship-busting missile in Atlantic Thunder climax
  31. A newcomer's guide to Britain
  32. How Westminster works
  33. Devolution across the nations
  34. The British press and its regulators
  35. What the earnings figures mean for the state pension triple lock
  36. Turner Prize exhibition opens in Middlesbrough as four artists go on show
  37. Two former winners head a Booker shortlist spanning four countries
  38. Chancellor names two new faces to the Bank of England’s Court
  39. Inflation climbs to 3.1% as fuel and transport costs bite
  40. Unemployment holds at 4.9% but vacancies slide as the labour market cools
  41. A Dolly Parton tribute and a piano star: the Last Night of the Proms in review
  42. NHS waiting list climbs to nine-month high after the busiest summer on record
  43. House prices tell two stories as Lloyds and Nationwide diverge

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British Journal · 29 Sep

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