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Thousands of families face the awful choice between cutting their working hours or losing their school dinners GMB, the union for school catering staff, has criticised the Government’s new free school meals cap for forcing hard up families off a financial cliff edge. Under the new rules, which come into force next week, children will only be eligible for a free dinner if their parents earn less than £7,400. There are no plans to raise the cap with inflation. This...

Professor Stephen Hawking CH CBE FRS FRSA has sadly passed away at the age of 76. He died peacefully at his home in Cambridge in the early hours of this morning. Hawking was born on 8th January 1942 in Oxford, England, the eldest of four children, Mary, Philippa and Edward, of Dr Frank Hawking and Eileen Isobel Hawking née Walker. His parents' home was in north London, but because of the bombing of London during the Second World War, his...

Brits believe they deserve more than £5k on top of their current salary, according to research. A study of 2,000 fulltime UK employees revealed the average worker believes they deserve £5,321 on top of their existing salary. The majority put this down to working extremely hard and deserving recognition for it. Others justified a pay rise because they work weekends, have a lot of qualifications or get a lot of praise from colleagues. Three in ten simply put it down...

A commuter has sued a rail firm after regular delays left him repeatedly late for work. Ecologist Seph Pochin, 45, took legal action against Greater Anglia after being held up 183 times in a year. He has made the 32-mile journey around 550 times in the last year - travelling 32 miles from his home in Halesworth, Suffolk, to his office in Ipswich five days a week. But Greater Anglia has failed to pay the £350 awarded to the passenger...

A Russian exile who was an ally of fierce Putin critic Boris Berezovsky has been found dead in his London home, according to friends. Nikolai Glushkov was discovered by his family and friends late last night, aged 68. The cause of death is not yet clear. Glushkov's close friend Berezovsky was found dead at his ex-wife's home in March 2013 in an apparent suicide, although the coroner recorded an open verdict. Speaking to the Guardian at the time Glushkov said he was extremely...

A senior councillor punched his neighbour after someone wrote "Die" on his front door, a court heard. Tony Cox, 38, arrived home to find the letters 'I' and 'E' had been scrawled after his flat number, D. He assumed next-door resident Jamie Waterfield was responsible and laid into him as he opened his door to say goodbye to his girlfriend. Mr Waterfield suffered a split lip and reddening to his left cheek as a result of the outburst on May...

Handwriting experts are analysing the writing, usually in cute animal cards, in the hope of tracking down the creep

 A council polluted their own canal with gallons of deadly oil and then had to wait a week to clean it up - because the water was 'too dirty.' Eight swans were rescued from the filthy canal, because it could have killed them, but the clean-up crew had to wait a week - because the 'bio-degradable' hydraulic oil did not biodegrade. Shepway Council in Kent admitted 40 litres of fluid burst from its barge into the 28-mile Hythe Military Canal...

Philip Hammond's Spring Statement was characterised by dangerous complacency and offers no light at the end of the tunnel for families across the country, according to Positive Money Executive Director Fran Boait.  The Chancellor attempted to deliver a more upbeat statement amidst the uncertainty that surrounds the UK economy, pointing to signals for stronger growth and falling inflation. But his sentiment hasn't been as warmly received as he might have hoped. John McDonnell accused Philip Hammond of 'complacency', saying he "hasn’t he...