General news

• Balls counts the cost as receipt claim is shredded - The Times (subscription)

  16-02-2015 23:56 via thetimes.co.uk
  
  The Times (subscription)
  Balls counts the cost as receipt claim is shredded
  The Times (subscription)
  Ed Balls' claim that families should follow his example and seek receipts for every low-cost job was unravelling last night as Labour admitted that he had not always done so. Even Ed Miliband declined to back Mr Balls as a senior aide confirmed that there ...
  Chuka dodges donor question...FIVE times: Shadow Business Secretary refuses ...Daily Mail
  Ed Miliband mocked over plan for anothe
  
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• George Osborne advises viewer on how to avoid inheritance tax on The Daily Politics show

  16-02-2015 23:47
  
  Footage from an episode of The Daily Politics in which a fresh-faced George Osborne advises a caller on how to avoid inheritance tax has re-emerged, amid an ongoing political row over the HSBC tax scandal. 
  
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• George Osborne advised viewer on how to avoid inheritance tax on The Daily Politics show

  16-02-2015 23:47
  
  Footage from an episode of The Daily Politics in which a fresh-faced George Osborne advises a caller on how to avoid inheritance tax has re-emerged, amid an ongoing political row over the HSBC tax scandal. 
  
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• The Walking Dead, Season 5, Them review: Time runs out as the search for water leads to a shocking encounter

  16-02-2015 23:22
  There are moments in this week’s tale where you cannot much tell the difference between the human survivors and the zombies. Such is the pace of ‘Them’, which features some fine moments but ultimately lacks the energy and excitement of last week’s story.
  
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• PM: Young NEETs must do unpaid work

  16-02-2015 23:10
  
  Young people who have been out of work, education or training for six months will have to take on unpaid community work if they want to claim benefits under Tory plans announced by David Cameron.
  
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• Broadchurch review: The stakes are finally high but can we forgive the implausible plotlines?

  16-02-2015 23:00
  
  Seven weeks in and finally the stakes are high just in time for next week’s finale.
  
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• Preston North End vs Manchester United FA Cup: Marouane Fellaini keeps a cool head as United stumble to victory

  16-02-2015 22:47
  
  When he arrived to manage Manchester United, Louis van Gaal was described in a host of tabloid headlines as a “Dutch Master”.
  
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• Maggie Lieu makes Mars One shortlist: The astrophysics student with a chance to live – and die – on the red planet

  16-02-2015 22:14
  From 202,586 hopefuls, to the 100 would-be astronauts. A 24-year-old astrophysics students at Birmingham University was today named on the shortlist of candidates selected to set up the first human colony on Mars – on a one-way mission that, if successful, would represent one of the most audacious achievements in human history.
  
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• CIA bought chemical weapons from a secret seller in Iraq

  16-02-2015 22:07
  
  The US Central Intelligence Agency between 2005 and 2006 bought hundreds of nerve-agent rockets from a secret seller in Iraq as part of an effort to keep chemical weapons out of the hands of terrorists, according to a New York Times investigation.
  
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• Penn and Theron on soggy red carpet

  16-02-2015 22:03
  
  Hollywood couple Sean Penn and Charlize Theron braved London's wet and windy weather tonight as they graced a soggy red carpet together for his new film, The Gunman.
  
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• Fracking 'boosts hummingbirds'

  16-02-2015 21:57
  
  Fracking is controversial but likely to have at least one real fan - the black-chinned hummingbird.
  
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• Warning over 'deaf generation'

  16-02-2015 21:51
  
  A "deaf generation" exposed to constant noise may be losing the ability to hear as nature intended, a sound expert has claimed.
  
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• Leslie Gore dead: 'It's My Party' singer dies aged 68

  16-02-2015 21:45
  
  Singer-songwriter and actress Leslie Gore, who topped the charts in the Sixties with It's My Party, has died of cancer. She was 68.
  
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• Lesley Gore dead: 'It's My Party' singer dies of cancer aged 68

  16-02-2015 21:45
  
  Singer-songwriter and actress Lesley Gore, who topped the charts in the Sixties with It's My Party, has died of cancer. She was 68.
  
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• American Sniper Chris Kyle murder trial: Jurors hear 'bizarre' voicemail message left for Navy SEAL by alleged killer

  16-02-2015 21:25
  Jurors in Texas have been played voice mail messages left for 'American Sniper' Chris Kyle by the man charged with his murder.
  
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• VIDEO: Walking again with help of oxygen

  16-02-2015 21:24 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Afghanistan veteran Ben Parkinson is learning to walk again after a pioneering course of treatment using pure oxygen to repair damaged tissue.
  
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• Patient undergoing tests for Ebola

  16-02-2015 21:14
  
  A patient in Edinburgh is being tested for Ebola after becoming unwell on returning from west Africa.
  
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• Measles outbreak controversy exposes vaccines not required for most US teachers

  16-02-2015 21:10
  
  All US states require children to be vaccinated before they can attend public school – even if the requirement is fairly easy to circumvent – but the majority of school teachers and staff have no vaccination requirements before starting work.
  
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• NME shows Whole Lotta Love for Page

  16-02-2015 21:05
  
  There will be a Whole Lotta Love for Jimmy Page when the legendary guitarist goes on stage at the NME Awards to pick up a unique gong.
  
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• Isis: Egypt joins attacks with air strikes avenging massacre

  16-02-2015 20:57
  
  Egypt opened a new front in the war against Isis when its bombers pounded targets inside Libya, as Cairo responded to the murder on Sunday of 21 Egyptian Christians at the hands of the Islamist group.
  
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• H&M rings up sales growth thanks to aggressive store opening programme

  16-02-2015 20:57
  
  The global fashion chain H&M has continued its impressive run of growth, with sales rising for the 22nd month in a row thanks to opening more than one store a day across the world.
  
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• Copenhagen shootings: Cartoonist Lars Vilks goes into hiding

  16-02-2015 20:53
  
  Controversial cartoonist Lars Vilks has said he has gone into hiding, after a gunman stormed a free speech debate he was hosting at a cultural centre in Copenhagen on Saturday.
  
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• Isis has provoked an Arab alliance to bomb the West’s enemies

  16-02-2015 20:49
  
  Just when Washington and Nato feared they were going to be bombing Isis on their own, the self-styled “Islamic State” has single-handedly created a new Arab military alliance to bomb the West’s enemies.
  
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• Hammerson’s pre-tax profits more than double as shoppers return

  16-02-2015 20:46
  
  A consumer spending revival and rising property values more than doubled profits at the shopping centre owner and developer Hammerson.
  
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• Critics scent the whiff of corruption on the Netanyahus ahead of Israel general election

  16-02-2015 20:43
  
  For years, Israeli voters have been accustomed to hearing about the lavish household spending of Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, with thousands of shekels spent on scented candles, flower arrangements and ice-cream.
  
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• Paprika dishes under investigation as nuts-for-spices scandal grows

  16-02-2015 20:42
  
  An investigation into the potentially deadly substitution of nuts for cumin in Britain’s food chain has been widened after experts discovered some paprika dishes may also be tainted with almond or peanut.
  
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• Chapel Hill shooting: Grand jury formally charges Craig Hicks over murder of three Muslim students

  16-02-2015 20:35
  
  A grand jury in North Carolina has formally charged a man on three counts of murder over last week’s shooting of three young Muslim students.
  
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• Italy warned Libyan jihadists are ‘just south of Rome’

  16-02-2015 20:33
  
  Fears in Italy of an imminent Islamic terror attack mounted after Libya-based Isis affiliates warned the jihadist group was now “just south of Rome”.
  
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• Lance Armstrong must pay record $10m damages after losing case brought by promotions company

  16-02-2015 20:31
  
  Lance Armstrong has been handed a bill for $10m (£6.51m), after losing a long-running legal battle against the promotions company SCA. The Dallas-based firm, which announced the Texas court ruling today, paid Armstrong an estimated $12m in bonuses during his cycling career, when he won seven consecutive Tour de France titles from 1999 to 2005, after overcoming testicular cancer.
  
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• Police charge man with attempting to obtain chemical weapon

  16-02-2015 20:29
  
  A man has been charged with attempting to obtain a chemical weapon, according to Greater Manchester Police (GMP).
  
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• Giles Coren’s anger at Amazon Prime membership is shared

  16-02-2015 20:25
  
  Amazon has been accused of “tricking” people into paying £79 for its Amazon Prime service – by customers who signed up for a free trial.
  
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• Man Charged With Trying To Get Chemical Weapon

  16-02-2015 20:24
  
  A man has been charged with attempting to obtain a chemical weapon following an investigation by anti-terror police. Mohammed Ammer Ali, of Liverpool, is due to appear at Westminster magistrates' court on Tuesday. The 31-year-old suspect is accused of attempting to have a chemical weapon in his possession between 10 January and 12 February. The charge comes after an investigation by the North West Counter Terrorism Unit and Merseyside Police.
  
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• Dominique Strauss-Kahn trial: Five of six plaintiffs in pimping trial drop accusations against former IMF chief

  16-02-2015 20:20
  
  A high-profile case against disgraced former International Monetary Fund boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn appeared to be weakened today when five of the six plaintiffs in a French prostitution trial dropped their accusations against him.
  
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• Iraq prepares to ‘kick out’ Isis from Mosul

  16-02-2015 20:20
  
  A major offensive is being prepared to oust Isis from one of its strongholds in Iraq, the country’s prime minister has said.
  
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• Transgender activists target Peter Tatchell and Mary Beard after free speech letter

  16-02-2015 20:11
  
  The gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has been “unable to sleep” and the Cambridge Classics professor Mary Beard was left “wanting to cry” after a letter they co-wrote supporting freedom of speech unleashed a torrent of abuse from supporters of transgender rights.
  
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• Man faces chemical weapon charge

  16-02-2015 20:10
  
  A man has been charged with attempting to obtain a chemical weapon, police said tonight.
  
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• Sex trafficking kingpin jailed

  16-02-2015 20:03
  
  The head of a family-run sex trafficking operation has been jailed for five years and 10 months.
  
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• Absconders jailed for knife robbery

  16-02-2015 20:03
  
  Two men have been jailed for committing a string of offences, including robbing a woman at knifepoint, while on the run from prison.
  
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• Five teenagers questioned by police after desecration of hundreds of Jewish graves in French cemetery

  16-02-2015 19:58
  
  The timing could hardly have been worse. As French and other European leaders angrily rejected Israel’s call for European Jews to “come home”, news emerged of the desecration of a Jewish cemetery in eastern France.
  
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• Binky Felstead: Reality star says she will repay charity’s fee for Instagram posts

  16-02-2015 19:54
  
  A reality TV star has agreed to repay a charity thousands of pounds after she suffered a public backlash for taking payment to promote their shops on her social media account.
  
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• Diners associate fine restaurants with sexual pleasure, say scientists

  16-02-2015 19:52
  
  People associate the luxury of an expensive restaurant with sexual pleasure, while eating tasty food in a cheap diner is more likely to be compared with drug addiction and physical trauma, scientists found.
  
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• Selfridges accused of installing ‘inhumane’ anti-homeless spikes

  16-02-2015 19:50
  
  A petition against metal spikes placed in front of a flagship department store in Manchester city centre has attracted more than 3,000 signatures, in the latest backlash against so-called "hostile" urban architecture.
  
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• Greece bailout talks break down after Athens rejects 'irrational and unacceptable' demand from eurozone partners

  16-02-2015 19:40
  A meeting of eurozone finance ministers to discuss Greece's financial bailout has broken down amid signs that the discussions ended in discord.
  
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• Only when Ed Miliband is shaking things up is he at ease with leadership

  16-02-2015 19:38
  
  If we did not know it already we do now. Ed Miliband’s authentic public voice is that of the insurgent leader. He becomes energised as a national figure when challenging orthodoxies and taking on powerful interests. When speaking out against tax avoidance and evasion Miliband has sprung into life, as he did when taking on the media establishment, the energy companies and the banks. Sometimes his onslaughts lack focus and detail, but they have verve and can reframe familiar debates.
  
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• Mantra of impartiality ‘blocks talent’ at top of Civil Service

  16-02-2015 19:37
  
  The body charged with appointing Britain’s most senior civil servants has been warned not to let impartiality “become a religion” when it selects candidates for Whitehall’s top jobs.
  
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• Anne Naysmith: Concert pianist who later lived her life on the streets and became a cherished figure in Chiswick, West London

  16-02-2015 19:35
  Anne Naysmith, who has died after being hit by a lorry in Chiswick High Road, west London, has no Alan Bennett to write about her, as he did for Miss Shepherd, who camped on Bennett's front drive and is immortalised in his play The Lady in the Van. But her story is just as fascinating, not least because she began as a very promising concert pianist in the 1960s – after studying at the Royal Academy of Music with Harold Craxton and Liza Fuchsova – before misfortune blighted her career and sh
  
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• Stonewall to campaign for transgender equality

  16-02-2015 19:34
  
  Stonewall, the lesbian, gay and bisexual equality charity, is to start campaigning for transgender rights.
  
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• Northern commuters may ride decades-old Tube trains

  16-02-2015 19:33
  
  Manchester commuters have been warned they may have to travel in decades-old London Underground trains after a company announced it could use them to replace creaking Pacer trains.
  
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• Video shows Alabama police officer slamming innocent Indian grandfather to the floor

  16-02-2015 19:32
  
  An Alabama police officer has been charged with assault after the release of video footage showed him slamming to the floor an Indian man who was visiting his son. Police have recommended the officer be fired.
  
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• Louis Jourdan: Suave star of 'Gigi' who became uneasy with his status as Hollywood's go-to French sex symbol

  16-02-2015 19:32
  
  Good looks can be a mixed blessing for an actor. In the case of Louis Jourdan, the romantic star who died on Saint Valentine's Day aged 93, they guaranteed him a career both in his native France and in Hollywood, but rarely in roles that moved him out of an audience's comfort zone. A handsome devil to say the least, he was the absolute epitome of the suave, debonair, seductive Frenchman. The camera adored him, a creature of immaculate appearance and masculine finesse.
  
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