Some businesses experienced power outages in Edinburgh’s Old Town on Tuesday, which SP Energy Networks said was due to an “intermittent outage”, followed by a further “power outage” in the morning at Hogmanay.

Around 30 restaurants and bars in the area have been “crippled” by a significant loss of Christmas trade due to persistent grid energy outages, according to a spokesperson for Grassmarket Hospitality Operators.

It warns that power outages risk reputational damage and “indicate systemic vulnerabilities that require an urgent and permanent solution.”

Paul Lawrence, chief executive of the City of Edinburgh Council, and Culture Secretary Angus Robertson were briefed and copied in an email from the operators group.

Louise MacLean, business development director at Signature Group, which has sites across Scotland, said: “Businesses in Grassmarket have reported repeated power losses, but the long-standing problem remains unresolved.

“Some hospitality venues also experienced power outages several times a day over the festive period, plunging the Christmas trade into the dark.

“Over the course of just one weekend in December, Grassmarket businesses lost their entire Friday evening service and their entire Saturday lunchtime service, meaning thousands of pounds in lost revenue across several hospitality venues.

“Meanwhile, business costs remain. Staff still need to be paid for power back-up, food waste and lost bookings.”

In a letter to SP Energy Networks chief executive Nicola Connelly, the hotel collective warned of its “deep concern regarding repeated power outages occurring over the Christmas periods from 2021 to 2025”.

It said: “These disruptions have had a significant impact on our operations, customer experience, visitor experience and the overall reputation of the business and the city.

“We have been informed that SPEN may have to cut supplies again tomorrow (Hogmanay).

“This compromises our business and Edinburgh’s reputation as the ultimate Hogmanay destination… These repeated failures have resulted in substantial financial loss, property damage and reputational damage during peak periods.

“It also has an impact on Edinburgh’s reputation.”

The energy company has committed to making staff available during Hogmanay in the event of further outages.

A spokesperson said: “We are experiencing intermittent issues with the power supply in the Grassmarket area of ​​Edinburgh and would like to reassure all customers and businesses that we are doing all we can to resolve the issue as quickly as possible ahead of the Hogmanay celebrations which begin later.

“Yesterday’s outages were the result of a low voltage protection fuse operating due to an intermittent fault, which caused customers to be shut down for an hour in the afternoon, between approximately 3pm and 5pm, and again from 6pm to 8pm.

“We are fully aware of the impact this will have caused at such a busy time of year, and we apologize for any inconvenience caused.”

“The power went out again mid-morning today and we are currently on site working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible.

“Our staff have been going door to door at the Grassmarket to reassure customers that we are doing everything we can to ensure there is no further disruption today.

“We will also have additional staff on standby tonight between the bells and into the early hours.

“We look forward to meeting with all relevant groups in the new year to discuss our investment plans to strengthen the network and mitigate any disruption in the future.”

The Queen was praised by the UK’s special envoy for women and girls for speaking out about her attack on a train when she was a teenager.

Camilla recalled on a radio show being “so angry” and “furious” when she was attacked, while in conversation with John Hunt and his daughter Amy, whose family were murdered at their home last year, and former prime minister Baroness Theresa May.

Speaking to Sarah Montague on BBC Radio 4’s World at One, Baroness Harman described the Queen speaking about her experience of assault as “so important”.

Louise Hunt, 25, her sister Hannah Hunt, 28, and their mother Carol Hunt, 61, were killed by Kyle Clifford, 27 – Louise’s ex-partner – in a quiet cul-de-sac in Bushey, Hertfordshire, on July 9 last year.

Camilla said in the recording, broadcast on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I remember something that had been hiding in the back of my brain for a very long time, that when I was a teenager I was attacked on a train, and I had sort of forgotten about it, but I remember at the time I was so angry. It was anger.”

She added: “Someone I didn’t know. I was reading my book, and you know, this boy, dude, attacked me, and I fought back.

“And I remember getting off the train and my mother looked at me and said, ‘Why does your hair stand up?’ and “Why is there a button missing on your coat?” “.

“But I remember the anger, and I was so furious about it, and it was sort of hidden for many years.

“And I think, you know, when the whole subject of domestic violence comes up and all of a sudden you hear a story like John and Amy’s, it’s something that’s very close to my heart.”

After hearing the Queen tell the story, Amy Hunt said: “Thank you first of all for sharing this story, Your Majesty, because it takes a lot of time to share these things, because every woman has a story.”

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s World at One, Baroness Harman said: “In the past, when a woman was killed by her husband or partner, the consensus was that she must have caused it herself and the women’s movement opposed this argument.

“We’re now seeing a new form of this argument emerging among people like Andrew Tate and on social media, a new kind of toxic masculinity that basically says that men are struggling with their identities and that the fault lies with women, because women’s progress has undermined men’s sense of self and that sometimes pushes them to resort to violence.”

She spoke of her own experiences saying: “It happened to me at work, it happened to me at university, it happened to me as a young girl traveling to London and as a young girl going to the cinema, for so long there has been a feeling that nothing can be done, no action will be taken, I will be blamed, I will be told that I caused it myself.” »

Asked if there was a difference in generational attitude, with younger women and girls being more able to express themselves than older generations, she said: “I think the attitudes of women and girls have changed enormously, but the important thing is to move from those strong attitudes to actual reality and although I think the argument has been won to a large extent, the reality has remained the same. »

On the feasibility of the government’s plan to halve violence against women and girls, she said: “There’s nothing inevitable that says it’s just one of those things and nothing can be done about it… I think it’s up to all of us not to stand back and criticize, but to play our part.”

The incident involving the Queen was first recounted in the book Power And The Palace: The Inside Story Of The Monarchy And 10 Downing Street by Valentine Low, a former royal reporter for The Times newspaper.

Camilla did “what my mother taught me” and took off her shoe to fend off the man while on her way to London’s Paddington Station in the early 1960s, aged 16 or 17, it was previously reported.

In Power And The Palace, Boris Johnson’s former communications director Guto Harri recalls Mr Johnson telling him about meeting the Queen at her official London residence, Clarence House, around 2008, the year the politician was first elected Mayor of London.

In the extract, published in the Sunday Times earlier this year, Mr Harri said of the couple: “They obviously got on like a house on fire. He (Mr Johnson) was making guttural noises about how much he admired and loved her.”

Mr Harri then spoke about a conversation between Camilla and Mr Johnson, about an assault she said happened when she was a schoolgirl.

“She was on a train going to Paddington – she was about 16, 17 – and a guy was moving his hand further and further away…”

Mr Harri said that after Mr Johnson asked her what she did next, Camilla replied: “I did what my mother taught me. I took off my shoe and kicked his nuts with my heel.

“She was confident enough when they got to Paddington to jump off the train, find a guy in uniform and say, ‘This man has just attacked me,’ and he was arrested.”

The Queen has visited sexual assault centers in the UK and abroad, held receptions for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence and spoken out on the issue, but her experience as a teenager has not been the main driver of her work, but rather the stories of women who have suffered assault.

WASHINGTON – Fewer Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, as layoffs remained low despite a weak job market.

U.S. unemployment claims for the week ending Dec. 27 fell 16,000 to 199,000 from 215,000 the previous week, the Labor Department reported Wednesday. Analysts surveyed by data firm FactSet forecast 208,000 new apps.

Claims for unemployment benefits are often skewed during shortened vacation weeks. The shorter week may cause some people who have lost their jobs to delay filing their applications.

The weekly report was released a day early due to the New Year holiday.

Applications for unemployment aid are considered a proxy for layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the labor market.

Earlier this month, the government announced that the United States gained 64,000 jobs in November, but lost 105,000 in October, as federal workers left following the Trump administration’s budget cuts. This helped push the unemployment rate to 4.6% last month, the highest since 2021.

October’s job losses were caused by a drop of 162,000 federal employees, many of whom resigned at the end of the 2025 fiscal year on September 30 under pressure from billionaire Elon Musk’s U.S. government pay purge.

The Labor Department’s revisions also cut 33,000 jobs from the August and September payrolls.

Recent government data revealed a labor market in which hiring has clearly lost momentum, hampered by uncertainty over President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the lingering effects of high interest rates the Fed has implemented in 2022 and 2023 to curb a pandemic-induced burst of inflation. Since March, job creation has fallen to an average of 35,000 per month, compared to 71,000 for the year ended in March.

Earlier this month, the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark rate by a quarter point, its third consecutive cut.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said the committee reduced borrowing costs out of concern that the labor market may be even weaker than it appears. Powell said recent employment numbers could be revised down by as much as 60,000, which would mean employers have actually cut an average of about 25,000 jobs per month since the spring.

Companies that recently announced job cuts include UPS, General Motors, Amazon and Verizon.

The Labor Department’s report released Wednesday also showed that the four-week average of claims, which smooths out some of the weekly volatility, increased by 1,750 to 218,7500.

The total number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the previous week ending Dec. 20 fell by 47,000 to 1.87 million, the government said.