Black, Minority, Ethnic

Mourinho was seen speaking with Vinicius after he walked off the pitch following the interaction with Prestianni.

But it was Mourinho’s post-match comments that were the most shocking.

While publicly backing his player Prestianni, Mourinho suggested Vinicius had incited tensions through his celebration in front of the home support.

“You score a goal from another world, why celebrate like that?” Mourinho said.

“The same thing always happens in so many stadiums. In how many states has this happened? In how many stadiums? How many? How many?

“He’s an out of this world player, I love him. Vinicius tells me one thing and Prestianni tells me another. I want to be balanced.”

The remarks sparked widespread criticism, with many accusing Mourinho of shifting attention away from the racism allegations and placing responsibility on the victim instead.

In addition to expressing his belief that Vinicius had been disrespectful with his goal celebration, he pointed to the club’s legendary striker Eusebio as proof that Benfica are not a racist club.

Asked if he felt Vinicius incited the crowd, Mourinho said: “Yes. I believe so.

“It should be the crazy moment of the game, an amazing goal. Unfortunately [he was] not just happy to score that astonishing goal. When you score a goal like that, you celebrate in a respectful way.”

He added: “When he was arguing about racism, I told him the biggest person in the history of this club [Eusebio] was black.

“This club, the last thing that it is, is racist. They [Vinicius and Prestianni] told me different things. But I don’t believe in one or another. I want to be an independent.”

A former smuggler told us that Kardo Ranya’s network charges about €17,000 (£15,000) to transport a migrant all the way from Iraq to the UK. Although this price is often higher than that of his rivals, the network claims to offer a safer journey (and a VIP service for those who can pay). “[Kardo Ranya] charges more,” the former smuggler said, “but still the migrant goes to him.”

Mark Allen and Wu Yize played out the longest frame in Crucible history during the second session of their World Championship semi-final.

A farcical 14th frame, in which eight reds were left covering the black over the bottom right corner pocket, lasted 100 minutes and 21 seconds.

It contributed to a shortened session that ended 7-7, featuring only six of the eight frames scheduled, and it delayed the resumption of the other last-four match between John Higgins and Shaun Murphy.

The impasse that left the match without a ball being potted for 55 minutes, and eventually prompted referee Marcel Eckardt to warn the players, was ended when Allen fouled and nudged the black in.

That allowed Wu to pick up his only frame of the afternoon, albeit another 30 more minutes elapsed before he was able to do so.

“In a nutshell that frame is an embarrassment to snooker, and the referees’ and the players’ association need to try to work out a way so that never happens again,” said six-time world champion and BBC pundit Steve Davis.

Up until that point it had been a complete reversal of fortunes from Thursday, when Wu held sway with a devastating display of potting that left Allen largely confined to his chair.

The shift of momentum began immediately, Allen wrapping up the opening frame of the day after Wu completely missed the final red – which he was attempting to snick into the left corner.

On the second day of UNISON’s national health conference, the union was proud to host Baroness Doreen Lawrence (pictured above) in conversation with UNISON’s head of health, Helga Pile.

Baroness Lawrence, the mother of Stephen Lawrence, is one of the most prominent anti-racist campaigners in the UK and since 2020 has been race relations advisor to the Labour party. It was her tireless campaigning for an inquiry into the murder of her son in a racist attack in 1993 that brought about the Macpherson report.

The Macpherson report, published in 1999, concluded that the Metropolitan Police was institutionally racist and included 70 recommendations that aimed to address racism in the police and public services.

“If you look back to when we had the Macpherson inquiry, it felt like institutions were beginning to understand the impact of racism and what they needed to do to change,” Baroness Lawrence said. “But I feel like in recent years racism is beginning to rear its head again. And for more and more young people, it’s getting dangerous.”

“I think we need to go back to where we were after the inquiry came out. It helped institutions, for the first time, understand racism, and the impact that racism can cause.”

Baroness Lawrence has been a member of the House of Lords since 2013, a place in which she says racism is ‘very rarely discussed’. “If we, within in Parliament, are not discussing race, how are we going to discuss race outside?” she said.

The rise in anti-immigration rhetoric and Reform UK

Speaking about the rise in anti-immigration political discourse across the UK, the prevalence of union jack flags, and the ‘polarised’ public conversations on immigration, Baroness Lawrence said, “We need to challenge the government, and challenge our MPs a bit more, for them to start talking more and doing more around these issues.”

“So many of us here are here because of migration, whether because of our parents or grandparents,” UNISON head of health Helga Pile noted, before asking Baroness Lawrence how she thought the union could push back against Reform UK’s hostile narratives on immigration.

Baroness Lawrence advocated for the unions to step in and support workers by challenging the government and its policies. “If you think back to Windrush, and the difference that we were making in the NHS, and the racism we were facing at that time… We’ve gone back to that again,” she said.

Racism in healthcare and the impact of Covid-19 on Black workers 

Last month, the government’s third report from the Covid-19 inquiry described workers in the health service as ‘superhuman’. However, as Ms Pile noted, the report did not address the disproportionate impact that the Covid-19 pandemic had on Black communities and Black workers within the healthcare system.

Baroness Lawrence (left) and UNISON head of health Helga Pile (right)

In 2020, Baroness Lawrence published  ‘An avoidable crisis’, a report into the disproportionate impact Covid-19 had on Black communities, in which she named the healthcare issues as ‘systemic’ and rooted in housing, immigration, education and employment policy.

When Ms Pile asked Baroness Lawrence how far she thought the UK has come on these issues, she replied, “I think those things are still headlines.

“During Covid, when I was asked to look into the impact, I wanted to make sure I was speaking to ordinary people,” she said. “In the early stages, the frontliners, and the first individual to die was from the Black community.

“One of the nurses said, as we were talking, ‘I didn’t go to work to die’. And that has really impacted me.”

Moving on to discuss Baroness Lawrence’s role as chair of the race equality engagement group, Ms Pile cited the statistic that Black women are four times more likely to die in childbirth than white women and asked what other issues were prevalent in maternal health and racial disparities in healthcare.

Baroness Lawrence shared an anecdote from a roundtable she had hosted in December of last year with Roma and Traveller people, where she had met a woman who had become disabled after having twins and now uses a wheelchair.

She also shared her own experiences of childbirth and how she has been treated, which were brought back to the forefront of her mind when she hosted these focus groups. “When I was really young, they didn’t think I was married. So they wanted to treat me completely differently as a single mum. But why would I be treated any differently as a single mum?”

Decolonising education and supporting young people

Baroness Lawrence shared her thoughts on the education system and the importance of decolonising education by teaching about colonial history to fight racism through the education system.

“If you don’t do that, racism continues to exist. Because people think you come here to take other people’s jobs, but that’s not it. They need to understand what happened in the centuries before and slavery. Until children begin to understand that history we’re going to have racism,” she said.

She also spoke about the fight for Stephen Lawrence Day, which is held every year on 22 April, the anniversary of his death. Baroness Lawrence founded the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust in 1998 to promote a positive legacy in his name and support for young people’s ambitions. The day has been formalised nationally since 2018.

“For years I’d been talking about it, and everybody keeps saying to me it needs to be part of Black History Month. That’s not where it needs to be: it needs to be front and centre and for people to use his experience to help other people,” she said.

“It’s been 33 years since Stephen was killed. The impact that Stephen’s name has made has been positive,” said Baroness Lawrence, urging people not to focus on his murder but on how to build positive futures for young people. “I want young people to have ambition and to think about what they can achieve. Stephen was an academic and he would have done really well.”

Concluding her talk, Baroness Lawrence encouraged UNISON members to think about how they can support young people. “They’re our future,” she said.

Watch the full conversation on YouTube

Jonathan Peddie, executive director of investigations, enforcement and litigation at the SRA, said: “If we find evidence that anyone we regulate has acted in ways that contravene their duty to act legally and uphold the law, we will take action.”

In her small shop on Merritt Island, racks of orange, blue and black T-shirts depict hand drawn rockets, mission patches and moonscapes, ready for the crowds who arrive on regular launch days. But this launch is different, she tells us. “We’ve wanted to go back to the Moon since the ’70s. People are excited. People are beyond excited,” she said.

At UNISON’s annual Black members’ conference in Brighton this year, Windrush was top of the agenda.

Speaking to conference, Reverend Clive Foster from the Windrush Commission acknowledged the contribution that UNISON has made in holding the government to account over the Windrush scandal.

Reverend Foster talked about post-war public services being shaped by the Windrush generation, then the shock of some of them being wrongly deported and treated as if they had no part in this.

“People should not have to navigate complexity to receive what they are owed,” he said.

Hetticia McIntosh (pictured above), a former nurse, shared her experience of having her UK status revoked. “I had my children here, I married here, I was in the army. And yet in 1978, when I went to renew my British passport, I was told that I was not entitled because I am no longer British,” she said.

“Windrush survivors don’t need sympathy, we need action.”

Ms McIntosh urged delegates and conference visitors to sign a petition calling for Windrush survivors’ legal representation to be covered by the state, in the same way the state has provided for the Horizon Post Office scandal survivors and infected blood scandal survivors.

“We, the Black ones, don’t have any legal representation,” she said.

Sign the petition

The first conference motion passed was for the union to fight to close the ethnicity pay gap for Black women.

Davena Rankin from Scotland said: “It’s easy for the debate on the gender pay gap to be abstract, but for UNISON women it’s the lived reality of not getting a mortgage, a lost promotion, no career progression. It’s double jeopardy for a Black woman.”

Another motion called for stronger action on the racism that Black NHS workers face. Moving the motion on behalf of Eastern region, Conroy Trenchfield said: “Black workers particularly face hostility from the public, and often there is a lack of support from colleagues. It’s isolating and demotivating.”

Conference agreed that protests from the far right present a health and safety risk to Black workers. This includes when travelling to work on the day of a far-right demonstration, but also in workplaces in which white colleagues vocalise their support for racist policies.

Another motion called for UNISON to oppose racism and the rise in far-right misinformation, harassment and intimidation. Speakers highlighted the significance of the Together Alliance national demonstration in London on 28 March 2026.

Sandra Okwara, Andrea Egan and Kevin Imoloame. Credit: Marcus Rose

UNISON general secretary Andrea Egan opened Black members’ conference with a speech in which she committed to ‘a new chapter’ for Black union members.

She also gave two prominent UNISON activists awards.

Sandra Okwara (pictured left) won this year’s 2026 Nelson Mandela Award, which is given to those who exemplify Nelson Mandela’s values of ‘determination, a desire for unity, and strength in the face of injustice’.

Kevin Imoloame (pictured right) won the 2026 young Black members’ award UNISON activists under 27 who are dedicated to race equality and passionate about improving workplaces.

Watch Andrea’s full speech on YouTube

“For too long, Black members have carried the weight of discrimination cases that drag on for years, disciplinary processes that fall disproportionately on your shoulders, and workplaces that treat equality as an optional extra.

“I know the hurt, the frustration, the exhaustion that comes from being ignored or sidelined by employers when you raise racism. When your grievance sits unanswered,” she said. “When the trauma is compounded by delay, denial, and silence.”

Andrea explained that, when she was UNISON president in 2023, she led the Year of Black Workers. Now, in her post as general secretary for the next five years, she outlined her vision:

“A union where Black workers are protected, represented, and empowered. A union that uses its collective bargaining strength to challenge racism head on. A union that organises to win.”

A bigger, stronger UNISON

Andrea stated that the fastest-growing part of UNISON’s membership is migrant workers, particularly migrant care workers, many of whom are Black and of African origin.

“Your fight is UNISON’s fight. Your fight is my fight,” she said.

“Together we have to defend jobs. Together we have to protect pay. Together we have to campaign for £15 an hour. Together we have to fight austerity and the cost of living crisis that hits Black communities hardest. We will push for better pay and pensions across public services. And together we have hold to employers to account when they fail our members.

“Tackling racism in the workplace requires more than statements. It requires action.”

Andrea committed to turn the recommendations of the UNISON Race Discrimination Inquiry into action.

“We will support branches to take on employers who fail to protect Black workers. We will ensure equality is not an afterthought but a core industrial issue. This is about justice in the workplace. Fairness in practice, not just policy. Dignity for every member.”

Andrea welcomed the Labour government’s commitment to making ethnicity pay gap reporting mandatory in the Equality (Race and Disability) Bill, but said that UNISON will be also demanding mandatory action plans.

She also committed to working with employers across the UK to sign up to the union’s anti-racism charter.

Reform UK

Speaking to the wider political environment, Andrea said the government and Reform UK were painting a false picture that claimed migrant and trans people are a danger to women and girls.

“This transphobic and racist rhetoric does not protect women — it endangers us. It fuels the real causes of harm: misogyny, underfunding, and the privatisation of public services.”

“Right‑wing forces have disguised a class war as a culture war. And I do include Reform UK in that category, selling us a story that asylum seekers seeking refuge in this country are the cause for our broken infrastructure. When it is the rich and powerful who seek to profit from our labour.

“It is years of underfunding from successive governments who choose to fund illegal wars, who profit from arms flowing from the UK to Israel to fund a genocide in Palestine so that their land can be stolen, it is private profiteering that sucks out profit on the back of our labour to build up their stocks and shares.”

A union that organises and challenges

Andrea concluded her speech with a summary of her vision. Under her leadership, UNISON will be ‘a union that stands shoulder to shoulder with Black workers every single day, a union that turns pain into power, a union that delivers change you can see and feel in your workplaces.’

“Together, we will build a union that truly reflects the strength, resilience and leadership of Black workers. A union that fights for justice. A union that wins.”

There are 25 athletes representing Great Britain at the Winter Paralympics, alongside dozens of coaches and support staff.

But at ParalympicsGB House in the mountains of Cortina, one “very good girl” has been stealing the spotlight.

Pickle is an eight-year-old black labrador retriever guide dog.

Her human, Hester Poole, is competing in the visually impaired Para-alpine skiing events.

“She loves the mountains – she’s always really bouncy when she sees the snow,” said Poole, who has had severely limited vision since birth.

“When she comes skiing, it’s nice to get to the bottom of the piste, win or lose, and have this furry ball of love waiting for me.”