General news

• Election 2015: David Cameron's failure means he is more focused on painting a false picture of Labour than telling a real story about the country

  31-03-2015 23:56
  David Axelrod, the strategist behind Barack Obama’s campaigns for the White House, likes to describe running for President as an “MRI of your soul”.
  
  Read more

• 'Not bad ay Merse?': Andros Townsend takes to Twitter to mock Arsenal legend Paul Merson after scoring for England

  31-03-2015 23:52
  Andros Townsend wasted no time after scoring the equalising goal for England against Italy to hit back at criticism of his inclusion in the England squad.
  
  Read more

• Alps crash video 'found'

  31-03-2015 23:43
  
  A video of the last moments on the doomed Germanwings plane has been found on a mobile phone memory card at the crash site in the French Alps, according to reports.
  
  Read more

• Trials of journalists alleged to have paid money to public officials for private documents halted as CPS holds urgent review of its decision to prosecute

  31-03-2015 23:38
  The first of the eight trials involving journalists alleged to have paid money to public officials for private documents and due to take place between now and September, has been adjourned at the Old Bailey.
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• President Obama commutes prison sentences of 22 drug offenders

  31-03-2015 23:25
  
  President Barack Obama on Tuesday increased his effort to get nonviolent offenders out of US prisons by commuting the sentences of 22 people imprisoned on drug charges.
  
  Read more

• Penelope Curtis quits the Tate Britain: Director departs as critics claim her reign 'didn't quite work'

  31-03-2015 23:25
  
  With blockbuster exhibitions of Turner, Lowry and the Pre-Raphaelites under her belt, Penelope Curtis has had her successes. But after the director of the Tate Britain announced her departure, the criticism of her failures may be ringing in her ears following a reign that in critics’ eyes “didn’t quite work”.
  
  Read more

• Labour To Crack Down On Zero-Hours Contracts

  31-03-2015 23:15
  
  People on zero-hours contracts will be able to demand a regular contract after 12 weeks of working for an employer, under proposals to be announced by Ed Miliband on Wednesday. The Labour leader is toughening the party's stance, which had previously looked to give employees the same right after one year. Although, it was back in 2013 that Mr Miliband first set out the 12-week proposal at the TUC conference before back-tracking. The Coalition Government sought to prohibit exclusivity clauses
  
  Read more

• General Election 2015: The masterminds behind the scenes

  31-03-2015 23:05
  
  Conservatives: Key players
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• General Election 2015: Miliband promises an end to 'zero hours Britain'

  31-03-2015 23:01
  
  An end to “zero hours Britain” will be promised by Labour today as Ed Miliband seeks to compound David Cameron’s problems on the issue by accusing him of being out of touch with ordinary people.
  
  Read more

• Ordinary Lies, episode 3, TV review: Even the office bore is a dark horse in this tantalisingly unpredictable drama

  31-03-2015 23:00
  Writer Danny Brocklehurst has done it again this week, he lulls us into what we think is going to be a fairly predictable yarn before throwing a curveball so skilfully that it completely changes the trajectory of the episode.
  
  Read more

• Italy vs England player ratings: Did Andros Townsend's goal see him beat Harry Kane and Wayne Rooney to top marks?

  31-03-2015 22:54
  Andros Townsend was the hero for England in Turin, coming off the bench to score a stunning equaliser for the Three Lions.
  
  Read more

• Italy vs England match report: Andros Townsend has great night in Turin after cancelling out Graziano Pelle opener

  31-03-2015 22:41
  It was Andros Townsend who came to the rescue of England in the end, and there will always be a place for him in the England squads Roy Hodgson selects just as long as the Spurs man keeps coming up with goals that spare his manager a lot of awkward questions.
  
  Read more

• General Election 2015: Farage tackles immigration, as the Coastguard bars entry

  31-03-2015 22:25
  
  Genius. Where better for Nigel Farage to invoke the spirit of 1940 than at St Margaret’s Bay, where he could gaze across the Channel, framed heroically against the White Cliffs of Dover, while scanning the horizon for the invading multitudes?
  
  Read more

• Horror fans delight in zombie fest

  31-03-2015 22:25
  
  Horror fans will be running for their lives as hordes of zombies are set to invade streets across Britain once again.
  
  Read more

• Germanwings crash: Video 'emerges showing cabin in final moments before disaster', say German and French media

  31-03-2015 22:16
  
  A video taken by a passenger inside the cabin of the Germanwings plane shortly before it tragically crash last week has reportedly emerged.
  
  Read more

• Nigel Farage off to a low-tech start

  31-03-2015 22:13 via bbc.co.uk
  
  An American reporter on the trail of Nigel Farage
  
  Read more

• Facebook hails Messenger changes

  31-03-2015 22:12
  
  Facebook believes the updates it has made to its Messenger service could help spark the creation of the next generation of big companies.
  
  Read more

• Respiratory virus could be responsible for leaving children with ‘polio-like’ paralysis

  31-03-2015 22:02
  
  A new strain of a common respiratory virus could be causing polio-like paralysis in children across the US, researchers said on Monday.
  
  Read more

• Germanwings crash: Lubtiz told Lufthansa flight school about 'episode of severe depression'

  31-03-2015 22:00
  
  The German pilot who crashed a plane in the French Alps last week, killing 150 people, told officials at a Lufthansa training school in 2009 that he had gone through a period of severe depression, the airline said on Tuesday.
  
  Read more

• General Election 2015: No Queen’s Speech if no party wins majority

  31-03-2015 21:58
  
  The Monarch could absent herself from giving the traditional Queen’s Speech after the election if no party looks able to command a majority in the House of Commons, it emerged today.
  
  Read more

• It harms Labour's cause to pretend that there is no substance to the economic recovery

  31-03-2015 21:48
  
  George Osborne, more than most chancellors, is not a personality the public readily warms to. The “austerity Chancellor” has had to take tough decisions, as anyone in his position would have had to. Whatever it claims, had Labour won the last election it too would have had to cut into public spending, while the Liberal Democrats have obviously been complicit in everything that has been done by the Treasury.
  
  Read more

• Nick Clegg: The Tories waged an 'ideological fatwa' against wind farms and single mothers

  31-03-2015 21:48
  
  Nick Clegg has accused the Conservatives of trying to impose an “ideological fatwa” against wind farms as part of a “completely random” set of prejudices that also include the European Union and single mothers.
  
  Read more

• Booze buses have a role to play in combating drunkenness

  31-03-2015 21:36
  
  Ideally, every drinker would be a sensible drinker, and everybody who left a pub or restaurant late in the evening would be in a fit state to get home without incident or injury. But the world is not ideal. The reality is that towards the end of the evening, particularly at weekends, there will be people out in the streets whose chances of getting home safely have been diminished by too much drink.
  
  Read more

• The Black Book of Carmarthen: Scholars left shaken after ultraviolet light reveals ghostly faces staring at them from medieval manuscripts

  31-03-2015 21:34
  Scholars researching one of the UK’s most important medieval manuscripts were left surprised if not a little shaken last year when the use of ultraviolet light revealed two ghostly faces staring out at them from one of the pages.
  
  Read more

• Nigeria election: Opposition candidate Muhammadu Buhari wins presidential poll as Goodluck Jonathan pays price for failure to tackle Boko Haram threat

  31-03-2015 21:31
  Opposition leader Muhammadu Buhari has swept to victory in Nigeria’s presidential election, a historic moment in the country’s turbulent democracy as an incumbent leader was dispatched at the ballot box for the first time.
  
  Read more

• Pets falling ill to undeclared animal ingredients in their food

  31-03-2015 21:26
  
  First it was horsemeat getting into the human food chain. Now it seems pets are falling victim to undeclared animal ingredients such as chicken and pork in their meals, according to a study.
  
  Read more

• Old Royal High School in Edinburgh: Developers plans for building have conservationists livid

  31-03-2015 21:21
  
  The building that helped to earn Edinburgh the title “the Athens of the North” because of its neo-classical architecture may soon be more fit for Disneyland, claim protesters.
  
  Read more

• The Clove Club: The restaurant where you will pre-pay for your food

  31-03-2015 21:14
  
  It was the diner’s guilty secret and the restaurateur’s private fury. Tables would be booked, but the more polite patrons would cancel at the last minute and the rude ones would just never bother to show – leaving the establishment with empty tables and lost income.
  
  Read more

• Mobile booze buses to treat drunken revellers could be rolled out nationwide

  31-03-2015 21:06
  
  Mobile “booze buses” to treat drunken revellers could soon become a common sight in towns and cities across England, after a pilot project led to dramatic decreases in A&E admissions and saved the NHS hundreds of thousands of pounds.
  
  Read more

• EMB 20:00 Mobile booze buses to treat drunken revellers could be rolled out nationwide

  31-03-2015 21:06
  
  Mobile “booze buses” to treat drunken revellers could soon become a common sight in towns and cities across England, after a pilot project led to dramatic decreases in A&E admissions and saved the NHS hundreds of thousands of pounds.
  
  Read more

• Nigeria elections: Voters did not forget the Chibok girls taken by Boko Haram

  31-03-2015 20:48
  
  By conducting a mostly peaceful and well-organised election for 68 million voters – amid fears of Boko Haram attacks – Nigeria has managed a feat that hardly anyone, perhaps even ourselves, believed possible.
  
  Read more

• France rejects TGV extension plans - which could be bad news for Britain's proposed HS2 high-speed rail network

  31-03-2015 20:42
  
  France’s love affair with high-speed railways seems to be cooling almost as rapidly as the trains can travel.
  
  Read more

• Scales's dementia 'manageable'

  31-03-2015 20:39
  
  Actor and director Samuel West has said his mother Prunella Scales's dementia is "pretty manageable" for the family.
  
  Read more

• Iran cancels Briton's jail term

  31-03-2015 20:39
  
  An Iranian-British woman jailed for trying to attend a men's volleyball game in Iran will not have to return to prison.
  
  Read more

• Clarkson, Hammond And May To Stage Live Shows

  31-03-2015 20:33
  
  Jeremy Clarkson will appear alongside his former Top Gear colleagues Richard Hammond and James May in live shows arranged before he was sacked by the BBC for attacking one of his producers. The gigs will go ahead as planned, but without any BBC or Top Gear branding, meaning they will not be able to use any clips of the programme or feature the masked test driver The Stig. The events had originally been billed as 'Top Gear Live' before the controversy generated by Clarkson's alterc
  
  Read more

• Prince Charles ‘burns 1.3 tons of carbon’ in private helicopter after urging public to turn off lights for Earth Hour

  31-03-2015 20:33
  
  Prince Charles made an 80-mile trip by private helicopter over the weekend, just days after he encouraged the public to turn off their lights as part of a global campaign to save energy.
  
  Read more

• Climate change could eliminate aspen forests in the western US, scientists say

  31-03-2015 20:33
  
  Climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions could cause aspen forests to largely disappear by 2050, unless something is done to combat rising global temperatures.
  
  Read more

• Indiana moves to clarify new religious-freedom law following criticism that it discriminates against LGBT people

  31-03-2015 20:17
  
  Indiana Governor Mike Pence sought today to quell the growing storm of controversy over his state’s new religious-freedom law, saying legislators would add a clarification to the measure this week, to spell out that it does not permit discrimination against gay people. “We will fix this and we will move forward,” Mr Pence said at a press conference in Indianapolis, the state capital.
  
  Read more

• Lufthansa knew of pilot depression

  31-03-2015 20:14
  
  Airline Lufthansa knew six years ago that the co-pilot of the passenger plane that crashed in the French Alps last week had suffered from a "serious depressive episode", it said tonight.
  
  Read more

• Plaid Cymru Demands Greater Powers For Wales

  31-03-2015 20:05
  
  Plaid Cymru said it is time to "settle up with Wesminster" and demand greater powers for Welsh public services which had been "cut to the bone". Party leader Leanne Wood said it was time to secure the same funding powers as Scotland did in the wake of the independence referendum. Pledging 1,000 extra doctors, 50,000 more Welsh jobs and a rise in the minimum wage, Ms Wood said Plaid Cymru could play "a big part" in negotiations if the election produced another hung p
  
  Read more

• From shopping lists to love poems: Our discarded jottings say much about our lives

  31-03-2015 20:04
  
  A Freemason staggers drunkenly though a park; a child throws a toy hippo on to a roof; a devotee of the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministry composes a forlorn prayer to God; someone, somewhere, forgets to buy potatoes.
  
  Read more

• Fierce winds cause travel chaos

  31-03-2015 20:01
  
  A driver has escaped with his life after his car was crushed by a tree brought down by fierce winds which have battered Britain and brought travel chaos.
  
  Read more

• Yemen crisis: Calls for UK Government to investigate whether British-supplied jets were used in Saudi airstrike on refugee camp which left dozens dead

  31-03-2015 20:01
  The Government is facing calls to investigate whether British-supplied jets flown by Saudi Arabian forces were used in an airstrike on a Yemeni refugee camp which left dozens dead.
  
  Read more

• Clarkson, Hammond and May Live: Top Gear presenters to appear on stage in new live format

  31-03-2015 19:58
  
  Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May will appear on stage later this year in a new live format stripped of all BBC branding and content.
  
  Read more

• Machine Gun America: The amusement park where teenagers go to shoot a huge range of automatic weapons

  31-03-2015 19:52
  
  Machine Gun America (MGA) stands on a strip of shops in central Florida, close to a flea market that targets Disney World tourists – the Magic Kingdom is a mere seven miles away – and an amusement park called Old Town.
  
  Read more

• Germanwings crash: Accident investigators to urge new psychological tests for all airline pilots

  31-03-2015 19:45
  
  French air accident investigators will recommend changes to psychological examinations for all airline pilots following last week’s disaster in the Alps. To prevent a repeat of last Tuesday’s presumed suicide and mass-murder by the Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, the official investigation report will suggest ways to screen pilots for potentially calamitous character flaws.
  
  Read more

• 3D printed hand gives girl new lease of life

  31-03-2015 19:43
  
  Seven-year-old Faith Lennox never thought she needed a left hand; after all, she couldn’t remember losing hers when she was only nine months old.
  
  Read more

• Spain's pioneering Vall d'Hebron hospital rebuilds man's face and neck during complex 27 hour operation

  31-03-2015 19:34
  A hospital known for pioneering face transplant surgery has carried out its most complex operation yet, reconstructing a man’s lower face and neck in a procedure that lasted for more than 27 hours.
  
  Read more

• Marcello Dell'Utri: Jailed ex-senator thought to be Silvio Berlsuconi's link to the Mafia accused of looting old books on a huge scale

  31-03-2015 19:22
  Silvio Berlusconi’s most notorious lieutenant, the mafioso former senator Marcello Dell’Utri, who is serving a seven-year jail sentence for his links to Cosa Nostra, could find himself back in court – this time accused of cultural looting on a huge scale.
  
  Read more

• The ethics of pet food: Why are we are so selective in how we show animals our love?

  31-03-2015 19:15
  
  In every town and city in Britain, you'll see domestic cats patrolling their gardens and dogs taking their human slaves for walks. We are famously a nation of animal lovers. And yet our love for animals appears to stop at our pets' feeding bowls. Interest in free-range meats for humans is growing, but the only animal welfare that seems to count when buying pet foods is that of the beast being fed. Scan the shelves of the pet-food aisle and you'll struggle to see anything carrying an assurance o
  
  Read more

Follow @GeneralnewsUK on Twitter!