News

A timelapse video has been released showing Chicago River being turned green in time for St Patrick's Day. The system of rivers and canals running through the US city is dyed green annually and usually lasts around five hours once it has been turned fully green. The tradition actually arose by accident when plumbers used fluorescein dye to trace sources of illegal pollution discharges. The dyeing of the river is still sponsored by the local plumbers union. Fluorescein dye was banned...

From a charging great white shark to sunlight streaming into a sinkhole these are just some of the amazing prize winning underwater pictures in a worldwide competition. More than 5,000 pictures were entered for the underwaterphotography.com contest across 17 categories - from above water, to wide angle,sharks and even underwater fashion featuring models. Pictures range from a sperm whale with its mouth open warning off a diver to a turtle reflected in another diver's mask on the Great Barrier Reef....

Education Policy Institute study claims £74,000 will be slashed off primary school budgets while secondaries stand to lose £291,000 GMB, the union for school support staff, warned today every school in the UK faces a real-terms per-pupil funding cut thanks to the Government’s brutal national funding formula. According to a new report by the Education Policy Institute, primary schools will face budget cuts of £74,000 on average by 2019/20, and secondary schools will lose £291,000. This is the equivalent of...

New figures have shown that four million children are affected by poverty. These statistics are a damning indication of the circumstances that large sections of the country find themselves in on a daily basis. The Children’s Society have slammed the figures and said the situation is “clearly getting worse.” The charity has claimed that around a third of children are now living in poverty. In a time when the economy is growing this shows that many are being left behind...

Warning: this is what it looks like when irony dies. And it's not pretty. Outlining the reasons the SNP are calling for another Scottish independence referendum now that Scotland faces the threat of being dragged out of the European single market as well as out of the EU, Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon explained: "Our precious union of nations is the most successful that the world has ever seen... We've worked together, we've prospered together, we fought wars together. And we have a bright future.... We should...

The Electoral Commission has handed a fine of £70k to the Conservative party for not reporting electoral expenses appropriately. The level of fee is tiny and will easily be covered by the party machine. Even though the party made “numerous failures” during the 2015 general election and three by-elections, it hasn’t led to criminal prosecutions. It could have swayed the outcome of the election, but a fine was seen as appropriate punishment by the EC. The Tory Party’s 2015 UK...

A famous Banksy once valued at a million pounds which "fell" off a wall appears to be for sale on Facebook. The elusive artist created 'spy booth' depicting three 'spooks' snooping on a phone box with listening devices near GCHQ in Cheltenham, Glos., in 2014. But it was reduced to a pile of rubble when builders worked on the wall above the artwork and it collapsed last summer. Building owner David Possee took the bits to the council for safekeeping,...

With about twenty minutes to go before PMQs the government announced a u-turn on raising NI for the self-employed. My guess is the aim was to throw Corbyn a curve ball and see if he could punish them from his back foot and think on his feet. It started with the most planted question since Charlie Dimmock buried one of Neil Hamilton’s under a bed of petunias in 1994 when he knew the police were onto him. Huw Merriman, Con,...

The Office for National Statistics reveals 440% increase in number of people on zero-hours contracts since 2010. People across the UK are living in totally unstable situations, where they don't know if they will be able to pay the rent at the end of the month. No guarantee of paid work is living people on a knife edge. GMB union today commented on new data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showing the number of people on zero hours...