General news

• Labour ‘open to the charge of hypocrisy’ after failing to divulge hedge fund manager’s donation

  20-03-2015 23:40
  
  Labour has received a huge donation from a multimillion-pound hedge fund manager whose identity the party tried to keep secret, The Independent can reveal. Martin Taylor has given Labour nearly £600,000 since 2012, making him the party’s fourth-largest donor, and has had at least one meeting with the Labour leader, Ed Miliband.
  
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• Vince Cable draws up plans to let unions vote to strike by online ballots

  20-03-2015 23:40
  
  Trade unions would be able to hold online ballots before strikes and to elect their leaders under plans drawn up by Vince Cable, the Business Secretary. The Liberal Democrat cabinet minister, who is responsible for union laws, has repeatedly blocked Conservative proposals to prevent strikes after low turnouts in postal ballots. The Tory manifesto at the May election is expected to include a pledge to ban strikes if unions fail to win the support of 40 per cent of their members.
  
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• Boy, 14, facing kidnap charges

  20-03-2015 23:35
  
  A 14-year-old boy from south London has been charged with two counts of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and two counts of kidnap.
  
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• Prince Charles pitches sustainable communities in Kentucky

  20-03-2015 23:31
  
  By Steve Bittenbender LOUISVILLE, Ky. (Reuters) - In his last stop on a goodwill tour of the United States, Britain's Prince Charles attended an international conference on sustainable communities in Louisville, Kentucky, on Friday, and said the world faces a historic chance for change. "If we fail here, we fail humanity," the Prince told a crowd of about 1,000 at the Cathedral of the Assumption in Kentucky's largest city. "As a grandfather, I have no intention of failin
  
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• Raheem Sterling contract talks hit deadlock but Liverpool stay calm

  20-03-2015 23:30
  
  • Liverpool forward puts talks on hold until the end of the season
  • Brendan Rodgers says the player can now concentrate on football
  • Chelsea and Manchester City have been linked with England man
  • Michael Carrick signs new deal with Manchester United
  • Club relaxed over Raheem Sterling’s futureBrendan Rodgers has said he cannot predict Raheem Sterling’s future intentions having been told by the 20-year-old that contract talks are on hold with Liverpool until the end of th
  
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• Len McCluskey issues warning over higher threshold on strike ballots

  20-03-2015 23:30
  
  Leader of Unite says he would not respect Conservative law change as Vince Cable attacks Tories for ‘ideological aversion’ to trade unionsLen McCluskey, the general secretary of the Unite trade union, has warned that he would be prepared to hold unlawful strikes if the Conservatives change the law after the general election to enforce a higher threshold on strike ballots. As Vince Cable attacked the Tories for an “ideological aversion” to trade unions, McCluskey said he would not respect
  
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• Barcelona 0-3 Nike FC: is this a glimpse of football’s future?

  20-03-2015 23:30
  
  Mega brands are the real superpowers of the sporting world, so surely it’s only a matter of time before they buy into Europe’s top leaguesFor the last month some slickly edited highlights have been floating around on YouTube of an English academy team playing Barcelona’s juniors at La Masia. The Barça kids start well, romping about like handsome schoolboys, hitting the post a few times and generally caressing the ball as though it’s the last golden ostrich egg left on earth. Gradu
  
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• Manuel Pellegrini defends players and takes blame for Manchester City’s form

  20-03-2015 23:30
  
  • Manager insists full responsibility for City’s European exit lies with him
  • Pellegrini urges team to repeat last season’s late surge in league
  • Match preview: Manchester City v West Bromwich AlbionManuel Pellegrini has defended his players by insisting full responsibility for Manchester City’s season lies with him. City were knocked out of the Champions League on Wednesday by Barcelona for a second successive year at the last-16 stage. If Chelsea are not caught in the Premie
  
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• Martin Taylor: Some Hedge Fund Managers do support the Labour Party

  20-03-2015 23:26
  
  Earlier this week a journalist highlighted the fact that a certain ‘Martin Taylor’ has donated nearly £600,000 to the UK Labour Party over the past two years and that the identity of this person – my having such a common name that it defied the powers of Google – was an apparently newsworthy ‘mystery’. There is no mystery. This ‘Martin Taylor’ is me. I am a born and bred Londoner, who also happens to be a Hedge Fund manager. And I am proud to support the Labour Party.
  
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• 14-Year-Old Charged With Kidnapping Boys

  20-03-2015 23:18
  
  The youngster, from south London, will appear in custody at Camberwell Youth Court on Saturday. Two teenage boys told officers they were threatened and forced off a route 133 bus in the Elephant and Castle area on 11 February.
  
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• Derby’s Steve McClaren fumes at referee as slump continues at Wolves

  20-03-2015 23:09
  
  Steve McClaren hit out at the referee Keith Stroud after defeat at Wolverhampton Wanderers left Derby County’s automatic promotion hopes in the balance.Derby are winless in six games after this defeat at Molineux following Nouha Dicko’s strike and Lee Grant’s own goal. The keeper punched into his own net in the second half to confirm Derby’s defeat and leave them still five points off the Championship top two. Continue reading...
  
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• Otis Byrd: 30 FBI agents probing whether convicted killer found hanging from noose in Mississippi took his own life or was murdered

  20-03-2015 22:53
  Thirty agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation are trying to determine whether a convicted killer found hanging from a noose in Mississippi was the victim of a hate crime
  
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• Alex Salmond's new book labelled the 'longest exercise in literary masturbation since politics began' by Paddy Ashdown

  20-03-2015 22:50
  Alex Salmond’s new book has been labelled the “longest exercise in literary masturbation since politics began” in a blistering attack by Paddy Ashdown.
  
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• Pope: 'Death penalty represents failure' – no 'humane' way to kill a person

  20-03-2015 22:27
  
  Pope Francis outlines the Catholic church’s opposition to capital punishment in a letter to the International Commission against the Death PenaltyPope Francis says nothing can justify the use of the death penalty, and there is no “right” way to humanely kill another person. Related: Pope Francis blasts life sentences as ‘hidden death penalty’ Continue reading...
  
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• Hillary Clinton formally asked to turn over her private email server

  20-03-2015 22:08
  
  Hillary Clinton officially has been asked to turn over her private email server, which she used to send and receive emails while serving as secretary of state, for independent review.
  
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• France balks at US plan for phased lifting of Iran nuclear sanctions

  20-03-2015 22:06
  
  Negotiations are set to resume next week, only five days before deadline for agreement
  Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme will adjourn in Lausanne amid disagreements between the US and France over a common negotiating position with Tehran, according to diplomats at the talks.The US secretary of state, John Kerry, is due to meet his counterparts from the UK, France and Germany on Saturday, somewhere in Europe, to try to mend the rift – largely over the lifting of sanctions on Iran –
  
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• Landmark legislation could see São Paulo authorities fine those who prevent mothers breastfeeding

  20-03-2015 21:56
  
  A Brazilian city is on the cusp of approving legislation that would protect a mother’s right to breastfeed in public.
  
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• BFI Fellowship for comic Mel Brooks

  20-03-2015 21:48
  
  Oscar-winning comic Mel Brooks has been honoured with the British Film Institute's highest honour ahead of his debut solo show in the capital.
  
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• Indian Wells 2015: Murray - I’ve no issues with Djokovic ahead of our semi-final

  20-03-2015 21:41
  
  Andy Murray will go into his Indian Wells Masters semi-final against Novak Djokovic tonight knowing that he has lost their last five meetings. However the Scot’s coach, Amélie Mauresmo, is looking forward to the challenge.
  
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• Council tenant wins right not to be sent to Miton Keynes

  20-03-2015 21:27
  
  A mother of five who was made homeless and had her children taken away because she refused to move to Milton Keynes has won a landmark Supreme Court battle.
  
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• Council tenant wins right not to be sent to Milton Keynes

  20-03-2015 21:27
  
  A mother of five who was made homeless and had her children taken away because she refused to move to Milton Keynes has won a landmark Supreme Court battle.
  
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• Forty people trapped on Canadian ferry for days amid ice floes near Nova Scotia

  20-03-2015 21:19
  
  Ice up to 25 feet thick is ‘among the worst in 30 years’, says company spokesman, but with plenty of food, ‘everybody’s in good spirits’Forty people remain trapped after more than two full days on board a Canadian ferry locked in massive, pressurized ice floes in the ocean between Nova Scotia and the mainland. The coastguard has so far failed to break through to the vessel.
  The Canadian coastguard has been working for the past 48 hours to free the MV Blue Puttees, said Darrell Mercer
  
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• Alexander Litvinenko murder inquiry: Suspect’s evidence could radically change the final outcome

  20-03-2015 21:12
  
  After eight years of delay and eight weeks of brisk court hearings, the public part of the inquiry into the radiation death of the Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko was on track to hear closing statements before Easter. Now, the whole process has fallen into disarray with the disclosure that one of the two men wanted by Scotland Yard for murder has asked to take part.
  
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• Muhammad Ali: Prince Charles Is 'The Greatest'

  20-03-2015 21:11
  
  Boxing legend Muhammad Ali has said Prince Charles is "the greatest", as he welcomed the heir to the throne to his home city in Kentucky. The 73-year-old sporting legend's tribute came in a letter read to Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, as they visited Louisville on the last day of their US tour. He read Ali's letter: "(My wife) Lonnie and I welcome you to our hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, USA.
  
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• Hillsborough disaster: How the cross-examination of David Duckenfield was a shocking landmark in the tragic saga

  20-03-2015 21:04
  
  “I hope I will be no more than 90 minutes,” said Paul Greaney QC on Tuesday morning. There was a significance in what was about to unfold taking the span of a football match, though it was neither the time nor the place for ironies.
  
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• Clegg predicts Salmond MP failure

  20-03-2015 21:01 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg predicts that his party will "wipe the smile off" Alex Salmond's face by preventing him from returning to Westminster.
  
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• Obama appeals to Iran to release Washington Post reporter

  20-03-2015 20:59
  
  On eve of Iranian new year, US president asks for return of Jason Rezaian, who was ‘unjustly’ taken captive in efforts to undermine Iranian presidentBarack Obama has called on Iran to release Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post reporter detained in Iran for nearly eight months, and two other Americans detained there.In a statement released by the White House on Friday, Obama said Rezaian has been detained “unjustly” by Tehran and urged the government there to release the American journali
  
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• Four Sun journalists cleared of illegal payments to officials

  20-03-2015 20:58
  
  Four senior journalists at Rupert Murdoch's British tabloid The Sun were cleared on Friday of making illegal payments to public officials, the latest reporters to be exonerated after a massive police investigation. The journalists - the paper's executive editor, deputy editor, chief reporter and royal editor - were found not guilty of paying military figures for information, including details about Queen Elizabeth's grandsons, Princes William and Harry.
  
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• Advice encouraging landlords to 'stalk' potential tenants withdrawn

  20-03-2015 20:54
  
  An organisation representing private landlords has been accused of encouraging “borderline harassment” after urging members to make surprise visits on prospective tenants before they sign a tenancy.
  
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• Labour attacks 'extreme' Tory NHS spending plans

  20-03-2015 20:52
  
  Poster campaign warns the NHS cannot afford the impending ‘rollercoaster’ on public spending identified by the Office for Budget ResponsibilityLabour has launched a graphic election poster, featuring an X-ray of a broken leg with a warning that the NHS will be “cut to the bone” by the Tories, as they intensify their attack on George Osborne’s “extreme” spending plans.Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, warned that the NHS cannot afford “extreme and risky Tory cuts” after the Offic
  
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• Isis destroys historic Christian and Muslim shrines in northern Iraq

  20-03-2015 20:45
  
  Structures destroyed include fourth-century Assyrian memorialPatriarch of Syriac Catholic church tells west: ‘Condemnation is not enough’ Islamic State militants appear to have destroyed Christian and Shia Muslim shrines in northern Iraq – including a fourth-century memorial built by an Assyrian king – in the group’s latest rampage against the embattled country’s religious and cultural heritage.On Thursday, Isis’s “Nineveh province media office” released photographs showing the
  
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• Netanyahu sank into the moral gutter – and there will be consequences

  20-03-2015 20:44
  
  Israel’s prime minister won re-election with a combination of belligerence and bigotry. His opposition to a Palestinian state is a stance the world should not acceptThe result was not the worst of it. Indeed, buried in the detailed numbers of this week’s Israeli election were odd crumbs of consolation. No, what made Binyamin Netanyahu’s emphatic win so dispiriting were the depths he plumbed to secure victory.He made two moves in his desperate, and ultimately successful, effort to woo back
  
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• Tokyo sarin gas anniversary: Victims' families gather 20 years after deathcult's attack

  20-03-2015 20:42
  
  Japan commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Tokyo sarin gas subway attack by a doomsday cult which left 13 people dead and thousands more sick or injured.
  
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• Food fans are told to prepare for a flood of dangerous counterfeit olive oil

  20-03-2015 20:41
  
  British shoppers have been warned to beware of counterfeit olive oil – as criminal gangs exploit a disastrous Italian harvest by selling potentially dangerous bootleg bottles.
  
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• As a Muslim woman, I see the veil as a rejection of progressive values

  20-03-2015 20:40
  
  When even young girls are being dressed in hijabs, we need to ask what the female cover-up symbolisesIt could be a millenarian crisis or a delayed reaction to decades of bad history, but millions of Muslims seem to have turned inwards, hankering for an imagined golden age. They are contemptuous of modernity’s bendable, ductile values. Some are drawn to reactionary dogma, and preachers while a good number have thrown themselves into political Islam to resist and combat western hegemonies – or
  
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• Hawking opens geniuses exhibition

  20-03-2015 20:39
  
  Professor Stephen Hawking and Sir David Attenborough have joined forces to open an exhibition about geniuses.
  
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• The Royals: See which real-life royalty inspired the characters on E!'s latest TV drama

  20-03-2015 20:39
  
  Was it simply good fortune that E! broadcast its first episode of its new drama The Royals the same week that some actual royals – in the form of Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall – arrived in the US, or was it clever planning?
  
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• The Royals: See which of Britain's real-life royalty inspired the characters on E!'s TV drama

  20-03-2015 20:39
  
  Was it simply good fortune that E! broadcast its first episode of its new drama The Royals the same week that some actual royals – in the form of Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall – arrived in the US, or was it clever planning?
  
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• Suge Knight collapses in court after 'being treated worse than Charles Manson’

  20-03-2015 20:37
  
  Former rap mogul Suge Knight collapsed in a Los Angeles courtroom on Friday shortly after a judge ordered him to be held on $25 million bail in a murder case, the Associated Press reported.
  
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• Character is the key to poorer children securing top jobs, says study

  20-03-2015 20:36
  
  Bright children who lack “grit” and “resilience” are more likely to end up with worse jobs and lower salaries than their classmates with good social and emotional skills, according to a new study.
  
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• Dynamo Kyiv facing charge for fans’ racism during Europa League win over Everton

  20-03-2015 20:24
  
  • Uefa’s disciplinary panel to make judgment next week
  • Dynamo had to close part of stadium for Everton tie
  • Crowd trouble mars Dynamo Kyiv’s win over GuingampEuropa League quarter-finalists Dynamo Kyiv face Uefa sanctions for racist behaviour by fans during their match against Everton.Uefa says its disciplinary panel will judge the racist incident and other charges against the Ukrainian club next Thursday. Continue reading...
  
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• Five teenage girls interested in going to Syria banned from leaving UK

  20-03-2015 20:22
  
  Judge imposes ban after concerns raised by local council about the girls, two aged 15 and one 16, who now become wards of courtFive teenage girls who expressed an interest in travelling to Syria have been banned from leaving the country by a high court judge.The move came after concerns were raised by the local council about the girls, two of whom were aged 15 and three of them 16. Continue reading...
  
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• Smoothie court case leaves nasty taste in the mouth for placenta fans

  20-03-2015 20:16
  
  In one photo we see crispy, black, dehydrated placenta slices, ready to be ground into powder, made into capsules and swallowed by the happy new mum.
  
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• Alzheimer's drug trial shows promising early results

  20-03-2015 20:13
  
  Experts cautiously welcome results of trial of antibody known as aducanumab, which appears to show benefit in patients given it in very earliest stage of disease
  
  A new drug for Alzheimer’s appears to have shown some benefit in people who were given it in the very earliest stage of the disease, say scientists.Experts were cautious about the results of the trial of an antibody known as aducanumab, which involved just 166 patients. But the dearth of drugs to halt or even slow the progress of dem
  
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• Yemen suicide bombings leave over 100 dead after mosques targeted

  20-03-2015 20:12
  
  Group claiming to be Yemeni branch of Isis say they were behind the attacks on Shia worshippers in Sana’a during Friday prayersYemen’s deepening crisis took a terrible human toll on Friday when a series of coordinated suicide bombings targeting mosques in the capital Sana’a killed 137 people and injured 345 others.A group claiming to be a Yemeni branch of Islamic State said that five suicide bombers had carried out a “blessed operation” against the “dens of the Shia”. The Badr and
  
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• Tunisia makes a stand against terrorism on Independence Day

  20-03-2015 20:08
  
  Tunisians rallied together to celebrate the nation’s Independence Day – the 59th since its separation from France – with thousands gathering on the main Avenue Habib Bourguiba in the heart of the capital after an Islamist massacre threatened to throw the fledgling democracy into dissaray.
  
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• Claude Sitton: Reporter whose unflinching despatches from the US's southern states put civil rights on the front pages

  20-03-2015 20:05
  Claude Sitton’s powerful reporting for The New York Times on church bombings and other episodes of violence across the southern states of the US set a standard for other journalists and drew national attention to the civil rights struggle. In 1983 he won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary as editor of the News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, but his earlier experience as the Times’s southern correspondent helped transform the nation’s debate on civil rights.
  
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• Jim Galloway: Saxophonist who left his native Scotland to become one of the leading lights of the Canadian jazz scene

  20-03-2015 20:03
  Fifty years in Canada did nothing to blunt Jim Galloway’s Ayrshire accent, but having a West of Scotland accent in no way blunted his ability to play saxophone as if he had been born in New Orleans, like his idol Sidney Bechet.
  
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• Malcolm Fraser: Politician who became Australia's Prime Minister when the Governor-General controversially sacked Gough Whitlam

  20-03-2015 20:02
  Malcolm Fraser was catapulted to power in Australia by a constitutional crisis that left the nation bitterly divided. With his cultivated old-money accent and a stony countenance that cartoonists lampooned as an Easter Island statue, many mistook him for an archetypal creature of the right.
  
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• Driver reversed over pensioner

  20-03-2015 20:02 via bbc.co.uk
  
  A driver who knocked down and killed an 85-year-old woman while reversing out of her driveway pleads guilty to careless driving.
  
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