News

Strain on the budget of the Metropolitan Police was recognised by the London Assembly today – as Members formally supported the Met’s application to the Home Office for one-off financial support. Due to the recent unprecedented events in the capital, the Assembly agreed the Chair should write to the Home Secretary to highlight the need for the special grant. Joanne McCartney AM, who proposed the amended motion, said: “In recent months we have seen some horrific scenes in our city. Our...

The Iraq war and the fall-out afterwards has left a dark stain on Blair's time as PM. His legacy will forever be tainted by the war and the reasons for it. Now the man who led the investigation into the war has broken his silence. Sir John Chilcot has said he doesn't think Tony Blair was “straight with the nation” about his decisions in the run-up to the Iraq war. The chairman of the public inquiry into the 2003 conflict...

A lucky pilot has told of his miracle escape when he plummeted 2,300ft to earth after a wing on his microlight collapsed in mid-air. Eric Rhodes, 57, managed to radio his wife Denise, 65, as his aircraft was falling to tell her: "I love you lots, sweetheart. Goodbye, I'm going to die." Incredibly, seconds before he hit the ground, Eric managed to manoeuvre the two-seater microlight to avoid two lakes and a cluster of trees to crash land in a...

Tory Minister Guy Opperman was heckled today as the Tory party faced yet more splits - this time over robbing women in the 60s of their state pension. In a rowdy debate in Westminster Hall, MPs from all parties rounded on the government for leaving millions of women born in the 1950s without a state pension after laws to equalise the state pension age for men and women at the age of 65. This will rise to age 66 by...

A sea monster that roamed the oceans during the age of the dinosaurs kept its 23 foot neck straight as a rod as it hunted like crocodiles or snakes, a study shows. The plesiosaur was a swimming reptile that thrived for 140 million years despite having a neck that measured up to seven metres - three times longer than a giraffe's. It has remained an evolutionary marvel for hundreds of years - until British scientists shed fresh light on the...

  A new colony of Asian Hornets has been found in the Channel Islands - fuelling fears for the UK's native bee population. The invasive insect has reappeared on Jersey less than a year after they were first spotted on nearby Alderney. A colony - believed to have contained 6,000 insects - was discovered last week in a shed in Fliquet on Jersey and quickly exterminated by beekeepers. But experts now face a race against time to control the spreading...

  Campaigners protesting against a planned incinerator have staged a rally at council offices - NAKED. Residents staged a nude protest outside Shire Hall in Gloucester in an attempt to reverse a decision on the controversial plan. The small group brandished placards outside the building on Tues in the latest episode in the long-running battle with the county council over the construction. As well as putting post it notes on the windows of the building, two protesters bared all for...

Hundreds of nearly naked protesters filled the sky with "blood" to highlight the torture of bulls in Pamplona. Ahead of the Running of the Bulls at the San Fermín festival, nearly 100 PETA and Anima Naturalis supporters gathered in the centre of Pamplona today wearing little more than fake bull horns and black underwear with the words "Stop Bullfights" painted on their bodies. The chanting protesters simultaneously broke "banderillas" containing red powdered paint above their heads, covering themselves and filling...

Specialists working at Grenfell Tower have made 87 'recoveries' of human remains in the tower - but warn that could mean more than 87 separate people. More than 250 investigators are still working at the scene, and will have to comb through over 300 tonnes of debris in the burnt-out shell of the tower to find what is left of the victims. Police say 21 people have been formally identified, but it could take until the end of the year...