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Donald Trump has set out plans to increase defence spending by a whopping $54 billion as foreign assistance and environmental budgets are slashed. His proposed budget plan for 2018 sees a historically-high nine per cent increase in defence spending, with deep cuts elsewhere, although Social Security and Medicare were left untouched. "We're going to do more with less and make the government lean and accountable," Trump said in a meeting with governors at the White House on Monday. The budget will...

Another day another Tory belittles the poor and in need, it didn’t make much difference to the vote in Copeland, but these comments will disgust many. Policy chief George Freeman, said that benefits should only be given to the ‘really disabled’ and not to people who suffer with anxiety. He has faced a huge backlash and now he has said that he ‘hugely regrets’ his remarks. It is unknown if he would have apologised if he hadn’t faced a massive...

Honouring Sir Gerald Kaufman MP who has died aged 86, many tributes today mention the pugnacity as well as intellectual might, influence, length of career, kindness and concern for those most marginalised by society of the outspoken former frontbencher. The controversial Labour was unafraid to tell truth to power even if that occasionally meant embarrassing powerful officials who came before the committees he served in, figures in his own party, or sometimes fellow members of Britain's Jewish community with whom he...

Not great news for 16-18-year-olds hoping to get some decent A-levels, as the government has decided that ensuring this age group gets good grades had taken a back seat, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Money has recently been clawed back from schools, after the government ditched its plan to make every school an academy and decided that the funding should be returned to central government rather than used in other areas of the educational system. Now the think-tank...

British Airways has held off Apple, Microsoft and PayPal to be crowned the top business superbrand of 2017. Despite successive strikes making the headlines and unpredictable poll results disrupting the economy BA was ranked top in a survey of marketing experts and thousands of British business professionals. The airline outperformed nearly 1,500 others in the sixteenth annual poll, with Apple retaining second spot and, in its strongest performance since 2011, US tech giant Microsoft moving up to third. Fellow US tech giants, PayPal...

Unless you live under a rock you will have no doubt heard about the devastating effects of the recent storm named Doris to visit our shores on Thursday. We Brits are renowned for talking about the weather at any given opportunity, so it was no wonder that the recent storm was the topic on most people lips over the past few days. Storm Doris made her presence known up and down the country. With gusts of up to 100 mph...

A skeleton found at the bottom of a well on a Greek island has been confirmed as a missing British tourist who disappeared almost 12 years ago. Tragic Steven Cook vanished while out with friends on the first night of his holiday in Malia on Crete in September 2005. The 20-year-old was last seen in a bar asking for directions to his hotel but walked off in the wrong direction at the end of a night out. Last week Greek...

The world's oldest McDonald's based in a 12 century medieval building will serve its last Big Mac tomorrow as its closes for the last time. The restaurant branch, which opened in 1982, features wooden balconies, stained glass windows as well as exposed stone walls. The historic McDonald's, on Pride Hill, Shrewsbury, will shut for good as the fast food giant believes the ancient building "isn't suitable to meet their future plans". With parts of the structure dating back to the 1100s...

Minerals within diamonds can take billions of years to grow, suggests new research. Scientists examining diamonds from two mines in Botswana, southern Africa. found that 'inclusions' - considered by jewellers as flaws - dated back over two billion years. One diamond contained silicate material from 2.3 billion years ago in its interior and a 250 million-year-old garnet crystal towards its outer rim - the largest age range ever detected in a single specimen. Researchers also found that the carbon within...