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An acclaimed playwright has hit out at "dangerous" attempts to ban performances of one of her most celebrated works featuring a transgender Jesus. A Brazilian judge has shut down a performance of Jo Clifford's The Gospel According To Jesus, Queen Of Heaven. And a prominent Catholic bishop has been calling for the play, which depicts Jesus as a transgender woman, to be banned altogether. They argue the groundbreaking work is offensive to Christians with cast and crew of the Brazilian...

By Benjamin Jenkins At the Labour Party Conference this week John McDonnell is keen to demonstrate Labour’s economic credibility and the alternatives the opposition would offer in power. The big headlines so far have been about his vow to renationalise rail, water, Royal Mail and energy industries with "market value determined by parliament". - In opinion polls these are popular policies with the nation and would bring the UK back into line with many European countries, some of whose nationalised...

British fishermen are enjoying a 'black gold rush' as demand for cuttlefish hits all time high thanks to soaring demand from abroad - while it is virtually ignored as 'too ugly' to eat here. Fishermen from across the UK are flocking to the South West to land the inky mollusc - which is related to the squid - in record numbers. They are taking advantage of the lack of quotas with 100 tonnes being landed by just five or six...

Fish have "complex" personalities, according to new research. Scientists studied how tiny guppies behaved in various situations, and found complex differences between individual fish. The researchers tested whether differences could be measured on a "simple spectrum" of how risk-averse or risk-prone guppies were. But they found variations between individuals were too complicated to be described in this way. Dr Tom Houslay, of the Centre for Ecology and Conservation (CEC) on the University of Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall, said: "The...

The site where Europe's first lunar mission crash-landed on the Moon 11 years ago has finally been located using CSI-style techniques. A detailed "Crash Scene Investigation" have revealed the last resting place of the European Space Agency’s first lunar mission, SMART-1. The spacecraft was sent into a controlled impact with the lunar surface in 2006. Although an "impact flash" was imaged at the time by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on the dark side of the boundary between night and day on...

New analysis published today has revealed it will take 45 years to stamp out the epidemic of zero hours contracts if the current trend continues. The latest ONS figures, released this week, show a drop in the number of workers on zero hours contracts of 20,000 compared to last year – from 903,000 workers to 883,000. At that rate of change, the number of people on zero hours wouldn't disappear until 2061. Ireland looks to be the next country call...

The Conservative party descended on Berkshire late last week for the so-called "Tory Glastonbury" spearheaded by MP George Freeman as a way to bolster the Conservatives' dwindling grassroots support. Around 200 people joined the invitation-only gathering on the estate of Mark Davies, a Conservative donor who was one of the founders of Betfair, which was organised in response to Jeremy Corbyn's rapturous reception at Glastonbury Festival earlier this summer. But whereas Corbyn was greeted with his now famous 'Seven Nation Army' theme...

In this weekend’s German election, for the first time since World War II, a far right party looks likely to take seats in the German parliament. Founded in April 2013, the extreme right euro-sceptic Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has become a populist anti-immigrant nationalist party in recent years. Despite links to Austria’s far-right Freedom Party, the AfD performed well in state elections last year in Germany, and caused shockwaves when they beat Angela Merkel’s centre-right CDU in her home...

Moodys have downgraded UK debt to AA2, the lowest ever credit rating for UK citing "Brexit challenges" as the main reason for the drop. The UK lost its remaining AAA rating (S&P) four days after Brexit vote - but this is the first ever time a major credit rating agency has cut the country to third rank. Further "loss of economic strength" was cited as the main reason for the cut with growth expected to halve this year. The business also...