Police have dropped an investigation into two prominent Brexit campaigners accused of breaching spending rules during the referendum campaign. In 2018 the Electoral commission said that Alan Halsall, of Vote Leave, and Darren Grimes, founder of pro-Brexit youth group BeLeave, failed to declare a payment related to the campaign. The watchdog said that BeLeave "spent more than £675,000 with (Canadian data firm) Aggregate IQ under a common plan with Vote Leave". This spending took Vote Leave over its £7 million legal spending limit by almost £500,000. Vote Leave paid a £61,000 fine, but denied wrongdoing, while Mr Grimes won an appeal against his £20,000 fine in July. The Commission also referred the pair to the Metropolitan Police but on Friday it was revealed that the investigations had now been dropped. A spokesman for the Leave campaigners said: "The Metropolitan Police has written to Vote Leave board member Alan Halsall and BeLeave founder Darren Grimes to confirm that it will not be acting on allegations made against them by the Electoral Commission and various Remain campaigners. "This marks the end of a two-year ordeal for both individuals." Mr Grimes, 26, said the development called into question whether the Electoral Commission was "fit for purpose". He had insisted since the allegations were first made that he was "completely innocent" of making false declarations in relation to the £680,000 donation. In a statement, Mr Grimes, a former fashion student originally from County Durham, said: "The Metropolitan Police has found, after investigation and consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service, that there is no case to be answered. "Once again the Electoral Commission has been found to be part of the mob, a quango out of control that isn't policing elections so much as punishing Leavers who have the temerity to win them. "My ordeal at the hands of the kangaroo court that is the Electoral Commission is now over, but questions must now be asked of whether that body is fit for purpose." Mr Halsall, the responsible person for Vote Leave, said he was "delighted to have been exonerated" and thanked the police for their "professional" investigation. "I was very disappointed that my colleagues at Vote Leave and myself were never given the opportunity of making our case in person to the Electoral Commission before being fined and reported to the police," he added. "It seems a rather unusual way of conducting an inquiry into such matters that only the so-called whistleblowers who made these allegations are interviewed by the regulator." A spokesman for the Met said an investigation into the Electoral Commission's allegations against Vote Leave and BeLeave, submitted on July 17 2018, was handed over in October to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). "On Tuesday, March 3 preliminary advice was received from the CPS," said the force spokesman. "This advice has now been duly considered and no further action will be taken."

A hard Brexit is more likely due to the coronavirus crisis because Britain and the European Union have made so little progress in talks, Germany's foreign minister has said. Heiko Maas said that negotiations between Britain and the EU so far on the future trade relationship had yielded few gains with the UK disregarding the political declaration, which he said was "simply not on". Britain left the EU in January, and talks with the bloc are now focused on setting new trading terms from 2021, when London's status-quo transition period ends. However, the talks quickly hit an impasse when negotiations resumed last month, according to diplomats and officials. "It's worrying that Britain is moving further away from our jointly agreed political declaration on key issues in the negotiations," Mr Maas told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper. "It's simply not on, because the negotiations are a complete package as it's laid out in the political declaration." Mr Maas said there was currently neither common ground on how to shape a comprehensive trade deal or on whether to extend the negotiation period beyond the end of the year. "The British government is still refusing to extend the deadline," Mr Maas said. "If it stays that way, we will have to deal with Brexit in addition to the coronavirus at the turn of the year." Simon Coveney, Ireland's foreign minister, said on Friday that the coronavirus pandemic had made an already difficult timeline for a British-European Union trade deal "virtually impossible" and that it would make sense to seek more time.

The beat against Congress has always been that its members are out of touch with average Americans. The result is a wide and deep imprint on the same Congress charged with helping a traumatized nation. “Everyone by now knows someone that had it," said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., whose husband, John Bessler, recovered from a frightening coronavirus infection that sent him to the hospital.

Arriving at his retirement home, he immediately went into self-isolation with his wife of 55 years, Jean, who has shown no symptoms of the virus. Embleton, who received an MBE honor from Queen Elizabeth II in 1993 for outstanding service to the Royal Navy, thinks the lockdown rules are too strict for some elderly people.

Many people saw more than the last moments of Ahmaud Arbery's life when a video emerged this week of white men armed with guns confronting the black man, a struggle with punches thrown, three shots fired and Arbery collapsing dead. The Feb. 23 shooting in coastal Georgia is drawing comparisons to a much darker period of U.S. history — when extrajudicial killings of black people, almost exclusively at the hands of white male vigilantes, inflicted racial terror on African Americans. It frequently happened with law enforcement complicity or feigned ignorance.

Truth can be a casualty when President Donald Trump talks about deaths from the coronavirus in the United States. Pushing to get the country back to normal, Trump also suggested that children are safe from the coronavirus. Germany has done very good.

Yep, in-the-wild SQL injection exploits in 2020 are still a thing.

Auto-pay compounded Comcast error, leading to a year of $50 monthly overcharges.

There's a scramble to adapt to a world where people routinely cover their faces.

Pandemic disrupts broadband progress as cities halt construction.

Data can be retrieved even after owners perform a factory reset, researcher says.

Devices will stop working for users who don't want to pay the new monthly fee.

It will be important to one day learn the true origin story of the global pandemic to defend against similar outbreaks in the future, Health Minister Patty Hajdu acknowledged Monday.

The agreement would be the latest effort to cultivate allies around NASA’s plan to put humans and space stations on the moon within the next decade, and comes as the civilian space agency plays a growing role in implementing American foreign policy.

In one of my latest reports (Key Criteria for Evaluating Unstructured Data Management), one of the key criteria was the availability of…

Stoked by divisive politics preying on ignorance, the threat grows and victims mount. 

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Evidence points to London being a ceremonial site from the fourth millennium BC

Astronauts had to stay locked away on their own for longer than usual, with no visits from loved ones

'It seems - like humans - flamingos form social bonds for a variety of reasons,' researcher says

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More than 500 people enrol to test jab following trials in animals

'We can tell you that the Earth still looks just as stunning as always from up here, so it's difficult to believe all the changes that have taken place since both of us have been up here,' one astronaut had said before coming back home

What was thought to be a planet beyond our solar system appears to have disappeared, astronomers say.

Uncooked pet food could be source of pathogens dangerous to humans, research suggests

US say they fear long-range ballistic technology used to put satellites into orbit could also be used to launch nuclear warheads

Iranian football subjects taught to focus on present moment, accept their thoughts and feelings, and commit to goals

Stop the Wildlife Trade: From 1918 to today, the deadly diseases that have become more frequent

'Nothing like waking up to a fake article on your death,' tweets Elisa Granato

Researchers say evidence from China 'may demonstrate the huge scale of testing and contact tracing that's needed to reduce the virus spreading'

Nasa and the European Space Agency have shared new images of Comet Atlas as it flies towards Earth.

Meltwater caused a 500-metre slab of ice to cascade down an Alaskan valley — and researchers say warmer summers are making similar events more likely

And other stories from around the world

'We propose that Sars-Cov-2 may have the potential to be transmitted via aerosols,' researchers say

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The hacker had access to personal information, the ability to change passwords and two-factor authentication, and could steal valuable in-game items from some of the 'richest' players in the game

The social media site says it has removed over 4.5 million reblogs in an attempt to rid the site of hateful content on the platform.

Users will receive a prompt from the UK government with a link to accurate information

System could be 'tip of the iceberg' and many more could be waiting to be found, scientists say

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