World
British PM criticized for blocking bill banning first-cousin marriage amid mounting health concerns
A former British Conservative minister and current MP renewed his push in Parliament last week for legislation that bans first-cousin marriage, prompting opposition from the ruling Labour party, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and a British-Muslim MP.
The Conservative MP Richard Holden said during a parliamentary debate, “A marriage between first cousins carries significant health issues, many of which aren’t even knowable until post-birth.” He added, “When practiced generation after generation, there is a significant multiplier effect.”
Adverse health effects on the children of first cousin marriages have been established in medical research. Holden added that “the real impacts on the openness of our society and women’s rights in our country are significant. After all, there are significant dynamics in sharing the same set of grandparents.”
Holden urged Starmer to “think again” about blocking his legislation from moving forward. Starmer responded to Holden, stating “We’ve taken our position on that Bill, thank you.”
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Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer holds a press conference after hosting a summit of European leaders in central London on March 2, 2025. (Julian Simmonds/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
The Daily Mail reported that nearly 46% of females from the Pakistani community in Bradford, England had a “common ancestor,” according to a 2024 study. A government study showed that the number was at 62% 10 years earlier.
While the prime minister’s office did not say why they are against the bill’s codification into law, a spokesman for Starmer told Fox News Digital, “Expert advice risks on first-cousin marriages are clear. In terms of legislation and what the government set up in the King’s Speech after the election, so of course we do not want people to enter in cousin marriages.”
He continued, “We are focused on making sure every part of the govt is focused on delivering on issues that matter to the British public. We set out our legislative priorities in the King’s Speech.”
Given the large influx of migrants from the Middle East and North Africa to Scandinavian countries, the BBC reported that Norway has banned cousin marriage while a ban is expected to come into effect in Sweden next year.
The Houses of Parliament are seen in London on June 12, 2024. (Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images)
The failure to codify a ban on interfamily marriage among first cousins has outraged many prominent conservative voices in the United Kingdom.
Ben Habib, chairman of the Great British Political Action Committee, told Fox News Digital, “Liberalism in the U.K. is out of control. In the pursuit of allowing people to do whatever they like, sanity is being set aside. It matters not whether that which you wish to do is deeply damaging. If you’re a minority, you have a protective blanket put around you and encouraged to continue.”
BRACE FOR A ‘POLITICAL REVOLUTION’ IN EUROPE, UK’S NIGEL FARAGE SAYS AFTER VANCE’S SPEECH IN MUNICH
Women walk by a store in Bradford, England. A recent UK study said the number of Pakistani women in Bradford involved in cousin marriage had dropped to 46%. Ten years earlier, that number was at 62%, according to a government-funded study. (Daniel Harvey Gonzalez/In Pictures via Getty Images)
Habib added that “marrying cousins was a practice which exited Western culture over a hundred years ago. It’s now back with a vengeance. Why? Because we’ve had mass immigration from cultures which haven’t kept pace with ours. Instead of requiring them to adopt our approach, the British government allows them to continue this debilitating practice. Liberalism is reversing cultural advancement. And our government is in on the act. This insanity must stop.”
During one of the parliamentary debates on the bill, Independent MP Iqbal Mohamed, who rejects a legislative prohibition on first-cousin marriage, admitted “there are documented health risks with first-cousin marriage.” He said this is an issue that “needs greater awareness.” He, however, said the way to address this “is not to empower the state to ban adults from marrying each other.” He does not think a ban would be “effective or enforceable.”
According to medical experts, the children of first-cousin marriages are highly vulnerable to contracting an autosomal recessive genetic disorder,
Mohamed said, “The matter needs to be approached as a health awareness issue and a cultural issue where women are being forced against their will to undergo marriage.”
According to Mohamed, an estimated 35% to 50% of all sub-Saharan populations prefer or accept first-cousin marriage, and it is common in the Middle East and South Asia. In July 2024, British voters pulled the plug on the Conservative Party’s 14-year reign and voted in Starmer’s leftist Labour Party.
World
Stocks fall and oil prices gain after Trump warns the Iran ‘clock is ticking’
HONG KONG (AP) — Asian stocks mostly retreated and oil prices jumped on Monday after U.S. President Donald Trump warned Tehran that the “clock is ticking” as U.S.-Iran negotiations over a permanent end to the war stall.
U.S. futures fell and markets in Japan and South Korea pulled further back from their records. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 1% to 60,815.95, a decline led by technology-related stocks. It reached all-time intraday high levels last week above 63,000.
The yield on the 10-year Japanese government bond surged to as high as 2.8%, its highest level since the late 1990s, part of a shift toward higher yields as the Bank of Japan gradually raises interest rates and higher energy costs raise expectations of rising inflation. That’s up from around 2.55% just one week ago.
Seoul’s Kospi climbed 0.3% to 7,516.04 after trading lower earlier in the day. It crossed the 8,000 mark for the first time on Friday, supported by buying of technology shares driven by the boom in artificial intelligence, but later declined partly on profit-taking by investors.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 1.4% to 25,596.68. The Shanghai Composite index edged 0.1% lower to 4,131.53, after China reported weaker-than-expected retail data for April.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 declined 1.5% to 8,505.30.
Taiwan’s Taiex dropped 0.7%, while India’s Sensex fell 0.1%.
Oil prices rose after Trump warned Iran in a social media post that “the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them” following a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump has set deadlines for Iran and then backed off, so investors have remained cautious about the situation in the Strait of Hormuz and how it is impacting global energy flows, including oil and gas. The strait is still mostly closed, and the U.S. has also imposed its own sea blockade on Iranian ports since last month.
A drone strike over the weekend on a United Arab Emirates’ nuclear power plant added to worries over a potential escalation in the conflict.
Brent crude, the international standard, gained 0.7% to $110.02 per barrel. It was trading at roughly $70 a barrel in late February before the start of the Iran war. Benchmark U.S. crude was trading 0.8% higher to $106.31 per barrel.
“Re-escalation risks are increasing,” ING commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote in a research note. While there has also been a pick up on shipping activities over the past week around the strait, they said, “this can change quickly.”
The pair also noted that the oil market was reacting to the lack of tangible results on the Iran war after last week’s widely-watched summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, even as the White House said both the U.S. and China had agreed that the Strait of Hormuz must remain open.
U.S. officials had hoped that Beijing could use its influence, given its economic ties with Iran, to help broker a peace agreement and reopen the strait. Trump said last week in an interview that Xi told him China “would like to be of help” in negotiating an end to the war. So far it’s been unclear how Beijing might do that.
The yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury was at around 4.60%, up from 4.47% last Thursday and sharply higher than the nearly 4% level it was holding at before the Iran war.
On Friday, the benchmark S&P 500 dropped 1.2% from the record it set the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.1% and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite lost 1.5%.
In other dealings early Monday, the U.S. dollar rose to 158.86 Japanese yen from 158.62 yen. The euro was trading at $1.1635, up from $1.1622.
World
Canada confirms hantavirus case linked to cruise ship outbreak that has killed three passengers
Hantavirus outbreak on cruise ship sparks concern as passengers return to US
Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel discusses the Hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship, where three deaths occurred. Siegel explains that while human-to-human spread is rare, it’s not impossible. The segment highlights the return of passengers to the U.S. from locations like Tenerife and Praia, raising new public health concerns and emphasizing the need for containment.
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Canadian health officials on Sunday confirmed that one of four Canadians who returned from the MV Hondius cruise ship, the subject of an international Andes hantavirus outbreak, tested positive for hantavirus. Three people connected to the outbreak have died.
The Public Health Agency of Canada confirmed the positive test after British Columbia’s top public health officer previously described the case as a “presumptive positive.”
“One individual’s sample was confirmed positive for hantavirus,” the agency said in a statement.
Officials said additional testing will be conducted at a national laboratory. It was not immediately clear whether that testing was for confirmation, strain characterization or another purpose.
CRUISE SHIP PASSENGER DESCRIBES UNCERTAINTY AFTER 3 DEATHS AMID HANTAVIRUS PROBE
Experts say cruise outbreaks get more attention due to public reporting rules, but many travelers still plan to sail as booked. (Myloupe/Universal Images Group)
The development comes as global health officials continue monitoring the rare hantavirus outbreak tied to the MV Hondius, which has sickened multiple passengers.
As of May 13, the World Health Organization said 11 cases had been identified in connection with the cruise outbreak, including eight confirmed cases, two probable cases and one inconclusive case. Those figures included three deaths. The Associated Press later reported that the Canadian confirmation brought the number of people from the ship who had tested positive to 10.
Canadian health officials said four Canadians returned home from the MV Hondius, though only one has tested positive for the virus.
RARE HANTAVIRUS HUMAN-TO-HUMAN TRANSMISSION SUSPECTED ON LUXURY CRUISE SHIP WHERE 3 HAVE DIED
The rare Andes virus, which was linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship outbreak, is the only known hantavirus strain that has the capability to spread from person to person, usually through prolonged close contact. (Andres Gutierrez/Anadolu)
The confirmed patient and a traveling companion — identified as a Yukon couple in their 70s — returned from the cruise together. The companion later tested negative, officials said.
A third person in their 70s from Vancouver Island remains in isolation, along with a British Columbia resident in their 50s.
So far, no confirmed U.S. cases tied to the cruise ship have been reported, though WHO said as of May 13 that one U.S.-repatriated passenger had inconclusive laboratory results and was undergoing retesting.
HANTAVIRUS DEATHS ON CRUISE SHIP HIGHLIGHT DANGERS OF RODENT-BORNE DISEASE
Pictured is the MV Hondius, the cruise ship tied to a hantavirus outbreak after a stop in Argentina that left three passengers dead. (Europa Press Canarias via Getty Images)
Last week, however, health officials in Ontario County, New York, announced they were investigating a suspected locally acquired hantavirus case unrelated to the cruise ship.
The Ontario County Public Health Department said there was no risk to the general public. Officials also said the strain typically seen in the United States is not known to spread from person to person.
The outbreak linked to the MV Hondius began after the Dutch cruise ship, carrying 147 passengers and crew members, departed Argentina on April 1 for a South Atlantic voyage.
TRAPPED CRUISE SHIP PASSENGER SHARES UPDATE ON CLEANLINESS OF SHIP AMID DEADLY HANTAVIRUS OUTBREAK
The outbreak has prompted heightened precautions internationally, including in the Netherlands, where Radboud University Medical Center quarantined 12 staff members after officials said a hantavirus patient’s blood and urine were not handled under the strictest protocols recommended for the virus strain.
The outbreak has also sparked comparisons to the coronavirus pandemic. However, Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel previously told Fox News Digital there is “no comparison.”
He noted hantavirus is difficult to spread.
Passengers evacuated from the hantavirus-stricken Hondius cruise ship walk with their belongings after disembarking at Eindhoven Air Base, Netherlands, on May 12. (Piroschka van de Wouw)
“It’s not airborne … in terms of respiratory droplets hanging in the air,” he said. “It’s very difficult to transmit.”
While coronavirus “moved in the direction of humans in a significant way,” hantavirus has not, except for “very rare” cases of human-to-human transmission, he added.
The World Health Organization has assessed the risk to the global population as low, while noting that current evidence suggests subsequent human-to-human transmission may have occurred on board. Andes virus is the only hantavirus known to have documented person-to-person transmission, though such spread is considered rare.
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Siegel also noted hantavirus cases have been reported in the United States for decades, though they remain “very rare.”
Fox News Digital’s Brittany Miller and Angelica Stabile, along with The Associated Press, contributed to this report.
World
Moment of collision between two Navy jets at Idaho air show
Two US Navy jets collided during an air show at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho, sending both aircraft crashing to the ground in front of spectators. All four crew members ejected safely before impact.
Published On 18 May 2026
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