General news

• Labour has one-point lead ahead of election - YouGov

  28-04-2015 23:57
  
  (Reuters) - Britain's opposition Labour Party has a one percentage point lead over Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives, according to a YouGov opinion poll for the Sun newspaper published on Tuesday. The two main parties have been neck-and-neck in most opinion polls since the start of the year, with neither establishing a sustained lead exceeding the 3-point margin of error. The poll ahead of the May 7 election showed Conservatives at 34 percent, down one point from Monday, ver
  
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• Manchester United win battle for David De Gea with offer of £200,000-per-week deal

  28-04-2015 23:39
  
  Manchester United appear increasingly confident that they have won their battle to retain goalkeeper David De Gea’s services for at least one more season, despite the lack of a contract breakthrough which has raised the threat of him moving to Real Madrid.
  
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• Robert Downey Jr brands journalist Krishnan Guru-Murthy a 'bottom-feeding muckraker' after interview walk-out

  28-04-2015 23:36
  
  Robert Downey Jr has made it abundantly clear what he thinks of British journalist Krishnan Guru-Murthy after walking out of an interview with him last week.
  
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• VIDEO: The Green Party bus fuelled by chip fat

  28-04-2015 23:28 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The Green Party has revealed its battle bus which is fuelled by chip fat.
  
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• Bernie Sanders: Socialist from Vermont set to announce campaign to be US President and challenge Hillary Clinton

  28-04-2015 23:23
  It is not yet quite official, but it seems that at least one self-declared socialist will be contesting the US presidency.
  
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• VIDEO: Huge rare bird egg up for auction

  28-04-2015 23:05 via bbc.co.uk
  
  A rare bird egg is due to be auctioned at Sotheby's in London and it is thought it might fetch up to £50,000.
  
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• Empire, E4, review: Are British viewers ready for a 'black Dynasty meets King Lear'?

  28-04-2015 23:00
  
  Splashing over the Atlantic on a frothy tsunami of hype, ratings and Cristal, Fox’s bling-tastic Empire has emerged on E4. But are British viewers ready for what its creators are calling ‘the black Dynasty’ mixed with ‘King Lear’, and what I’m calling ‘a jolly R&B music video’ mixed with ‘dialogue so ripe it could blind a horse’.
  
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• Bournemouth iDebate: Panelists discuss whether political chaos on May 8 would be a good thing for British democracy

  28-04-2015 22:48
  The i paper descended on Bournemouth to host the latest in a series of student iDebates. Students and members of the public were invited to listen to our panelists discuss the motion “Political chaos on May 8 would be a good thing for British democracy”.
  
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• AeroFarms: Work starts to build world's largest vertical urban farm in Newark

  28-04-2015 22:41
  
  Right now, the site of the former Grammer, Dempsey and Hudson steel plant in the city of Newark is a place in motion.
  
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• Indonesia executions: Amnesty International condemns 'theatre of cruelty' as deaths by firing squad go ahead

  28-04-2015 22:31
  
  Amnesty International has issued a strong statement on the executions of eight convicted drug traffickers on Nusakambangan Island, off Java, following its lengthy campaign to halt their deaths by firing squad.
  
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• Indonesia executions: Bali Nine drugs smuggling gang executed as country ignores global outcry

  28-04-2015 22:26
  
  In the darkness of a forest clearing on an island with many ghosts, Indonesia killed eight healthy men. Each of the condemned was tied to a post and given the option to stand, sit or kneel. Then 12 paramilitary police trained rifles on their chests.
  
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• General Election 2015: Can Britain learn to love its richest citizens?

  28-04-2015 22:22
  
  The mood music of the election has changed, at least as far as economic policy is concerned. We are going from a dry debate about numbers to a more nebulous one about the way we would  like to live and work.
  
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• Breastfeeding cuts cancer risk

  28-04-2015 22:00
  
  Women with breast cancer who breastfed their babies are significantly less at risk of the disease recurring or killing them, a study has found.
  
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• UK's oil services firms to cut jobs to ride out price slump

  28-04-2015 21:52
  
  Amec Foster Wheeler Plc and Petrofac Ltd on Tuesday joined a growing list of London-listed oil and gas support services companies planning to cut jobs in response to the tumble in oil prices. Benchmark Brent crude oil prices have nearly halved in the first quarter, prompting large production and exploration firms to slash their spending budgets by an average 10-15 percent and renegotiate contracts with the service providers. The company's clients include Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Exxon Mobi
  
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• Andy McSmith's Sketch: Russell Brand's interview with Ed Miliband went so well he might even vote

  28-04-2015 21:47
  
  There was a running joke on social media at Russell Brand’s expense, which went like this: you take a portentous Russell Brand quotation, and after it you cry: “Parklife!” In the one-minute trailer for the interview that Brand did with Ed Miliband, you hear him ask: “For me, what I have learnt is that because of geopolitical influences, because of global finance, it seems that it’s very difficult at a domestic level to leverage serious influence.”
  
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• Indonesia executions: Convicts' death by firing squad attracts widespread condemnation

  28-04-2015 21:44
  
  Family members, friends and lawyers of the eight men executed in Indonesia have lashed out at what they called the country's "flawed legal system" following news of their deaths.
  
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• Nigerian army claims 293 girls and women rescued from Sambisa forest

  28-04-2015 21:37
  
  The Nigerian army says it has rescued 200 girls and 93 women from Sambisa forest.
  
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• Nigerian army claims 293 girls and women rescued from Boko Haram camps in Sambisa forest

  28-04-2015 21:37
  
  The Nigerian army says it has rescued 200 girls and 93 women from Sambisa forest.
  
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• Nigerian army claims 293 girls and women rescued from Boko Haram camps

  28-04-2015 21:37
  
  The Nigerian army says it has rescued 200 girls and 93 women from Boko Haram camps in the Sambisa forest.
  
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• Baltimore Orioles baseball game will be closed to the public over safety concerns

  28-04-2015 21:35
  
  The Baltimore Orioles baseball team will play its game against the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday afternoon – a day after cancelling a game – but the stadium will be closed to the public over safety concerns in Baltimore.
  
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• Nepal earthquake: Survivor reveals her 33 hours of despair

  28-04-2015 21:32
  
  Sunita Sitaula’s husband and two sons escaped. They ran from their pink five-storey building as the earthquake struck. She was less lucky. The building collapsed, she was buried in her kitchen.
  
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• EU's Juncker sees wiggle room to keep Britain in

  28-04-2015 21:03
  
  BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker said he believed Britain could find a compromise on reforming the European Union to keep it in the bloc but ruled out big changes to the open border policy that worries many Britons.
  
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• Artificially manipulating Arctic climate by 'whitening' surface of ocean to reflect sunlight back into space will fail, say scientists

  28-04-2015 21:02
  Attempts to artificially manipulate the Arctic climate by “whitening” the surface of the ocean in order to reflect sunlight back into space and so mimic the effect of lost sea ice are almost certainly doomed to fail, scientists said.
  
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• Women breathing high levels of air pollution during last month of pregnancy more likely to give birth to babies with much lower birth weight

  28-04-2015 21:02
  Women breathing high levels of air pollution during the last month of pregnancy are more likely than unexposed women to give birth to babies with a significantly lower birth weight, according to a study of the effects the air-quality controls introduced during the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
  
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• UK Disaster Appeal To Help Earthquake Victims

  28-04-2015 21:01
  
  The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) has launched an appeal to provide emergency aid to the people affected by the deadly magnitude-7.8 earthquake in Nepal. The committee, which brings together 13 leading UK charities including the British Red Cross and Oxfam, has said 5.3 million people in the country have been affected by the quake which has left many thousands homeless. Nepal's prime minister Sushil Koirala has warned that the number of people killed in the earthquake on Saturday coul
  
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• Baltimore riots: After the violent protests and looting, the clear up and recriminations begin in a city in shock

  28-04-2015 20:59
  Faced by a line of police and National Guardsmen in riot gear, crowds of young people from Baltimore were once more at the corner of Pennsylvania and West North Avenues across from a CVS chemist’s gutted by fire. But it was not rocks most had in their hands: it was brooms and shovels.
  
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• General Election 2015: Soldier who searched for WMD in Iraq runs in Blair’s old seat

  28-04-2015 20:53
  
  Trying to find Conservative voters in Sedgefield, the sprawling Durham constituency that was Tony Blair’s political home for 22 years, might seem enough to get a man down. But this is not the most fruitless mission ever undertaken by Scott Wood, a former tank commander.
  
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• Nepal earthquake: One man's desperate escape from Everest base camp after the disaster

  28-04-2015 20:39
  
  Nick Talbot was relaxing in his tent late on the morning of 25 April, and contemplating lunch. After two weeks of acclimatisation in and around Everest base camp, he and his team of 12 were due to climb towards the summit that night. First they needed to rest.
  
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• Nepal earthquake: Humanitarian emergency looms with 1.5 million people facing food shortages

  28-04-2015 20:28
  
  The scale of the emergency facing Nepal in the aftermath of last weekend’s earthquake has finally begun to emerge as its government warned the final death toll could double to 10,000 and the United Nations said nearly 1.5 million people faced food shortages.
  
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• Cuba-US relations: House Republicans reveal legislation to continue travel restrictions to Cuba

  28-04-2015 20:25
  
  Republicans in the US House of Representatives have introduced legislation aimed at blocking recent efforts by President Barack Obama to ease travel restrictions between the US and Cuba.
  
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• British climate change sceptics who travelled to the Vatican interrupted by 'papal heavies' half-way through making their point

  28-04-2015 20:22
  Two prominent British climate change sceptics travelled to the Vatican seeking to convert the Pope to their cause – only to be interrupted by “papal heavies” half-way through making their point.
  
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• McCanns 'delighted' with libel win

  28-04-2015 20:11
  
  The parents of missing Madeleine McCann said today they were "delighted" with a court's ruling that a former detective must pay hundreds of thousands of pounds to the family following a libel case in a Portuguese court .
  
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• Goat cuisine: Kid meat is coming to Ocado

  28-04-2015 20:11
  
  At last year's Meatopia UK festival, the second annual gathering for lovers of "meat, drink, fire and music", chef Neil Rankin gathered a crowd when he built a long pit out of breezeblocks and roasted 15 kids whole. Kid goats, that is. "We cooked them very slowly over the heat, and then served the meat in tacos with green salsa," he says.
  
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• Be very careful what font you use when applying for a job, says expert

  28-04-2015 20:11
  
  The fraught business of finding a new job just got even more complex. Times New Roman, the font previously recommended by recruiters as the safe, sensible choice to use in a job application, was branded the CV equivalent of attending an interview in jogging bottoms.
  
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• Baltimore riots: It is time for America to acknowledge its desperate, forgotten neighbourhoods

  28-04-2015 20:07
  
  “Get out of our way, sister,” the teenager with a tattooed neck standing in the middle of a West Baltimore street yelled. “We’re going downtown.” I stood to the side as waves of angry youths headed past me, surging toward the neighbourhood where Freddie Gray was arrested two weeks ago. The teenagers rampaging through the streets after Gray’s funeral were angry. And confused. It was the essence of Baltimore’s mixed message.
  
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• US Supreme Court justices divided on case that could legalise same-sex marriage in all 50 states

  28-04-2015 20:03
  
  With boisterous crowds outside, and rapt attention inside, the US Supreme Court has heard arguments in a case that may lead to a historic ruling making gay marriage legal in all 50 states of the Union.
  
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• Robert Fisk in Abu Dhabi: The acceptable face of the Emirates

  28-04-2015 20:01
  
  The Abu Dhabi Louvre looks like the top of a giant, primordial eggshell pushing its way out of the sand. Its giant dome already glisters under the sun, its construction workers moving like spiders over five layers of cladding, steel and aluminium which will give this extraordinary museum a combined weight of 7,000 tons, just a little less than the Eiffel Tower. Already the concrete base of a man-made lake spreads around the construction, for architect Jean Nouvel's Louvre will be on a miniature
  
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• General Election 2015 explained: Newspapers

  28-04-2015 19:58
  
  Circulation
  
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• 'Victims' want Janner case review

  28-04-2015 19:55
  
  A number of alleged victims of Lord Janner are seeking a formal review of the decision not to prosecute the former MP over child sex abuse claims.
  
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• Juncker wants 'fair deal' for UK

  28-04-2015 19:55
  
  European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has said he wants "a fair deal" for Britain on its demands for reform of the EU, but said he is ruling out "major treaty change" on the key issue of freedom of movement.
  
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• Harold Hassall: Gifted inside-forward who held his own alongside Finney and Matthews but was forced to retire at 25

  28-04-2015 19:50
  Harold Hassall was a gifted footballer who held his own in an England attack containing Stanley Matthews and Tom Finney, only to be cut down by injury. At club level he sparkled in the top flight, first for Huddersfield Town and then for Bolton Wanderers, a prolific marksman and a clever creator.
  
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• French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen accused of holding £1.4m in undeclared Swiss bank account

  28-04-2015 19:48
  
  The veteran French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen could face a formal investigation for allegedly holding more than €2m (£1.43m) – including €1.7m in gold – in a Swiss bank account.
  
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• Russell Brand releases first extract from interview with Ed Miliband - but has the Labour leader convinced him to vote?'

  28-04-2015 19:37
  Russell Brand has released a trailer of his much-anticipated interview with Ed Miliband and hints that he may have been convinced to vote.
  
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• McCanns 'Delighted' With £433k Libel Victory

  28-04-2015 19:37
  
  A former Portuguese detective has been ordered to pay 606,000 euros (£433,000) to the parents of missing Madeleine McCann as their two-year libel trial comes to an end. Goncalo Amaral, who led the search for the little girl, was accused of making defamatory statements about Kate and Gerry McCann in a book he wrote. The two doctors said the book, which was a bestseller in Portugal, damaged the search for their daughter and added to their anguish. A civil court in Lisbon ruled against Mr Amaral,
  
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• General Election 2015: Leader of Scottish Conservatives Ruth Davidson says she has no interest in taking over from David Cameron

  28-04-2015 19:37
  Ruth Davidson has said she has no interest in taking over from David Cameron as the next leader of the Conservative Party, describing the role as “one of the loneliest jobs around”.
  
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• Glastonbury bans 'hippie crack' nitrous oxide on basis it doesn't want 'sacred space used this way'

  28-04-2015 19:27
  
  Glastonbury's organisers aren't known for taking a hard line against drug use in the King's Meadow.
  
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• Nepal earthquake: Regional powers jockey for status in aid effort

  28-04-2015 19:27
  
  Wedged between the two rising Asian superpowers of China and India, landlocked Nepal watched rescuers and offers of help pour in from both sides within hours of an earthquake that killed more than 5,000 people.
  
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• Margaret Murray: Teacher inspired by Carl Orff to become a force in musical education in Britain and around the world

  28-04-2015 19:24
  Margaret Murray was a force in musical education in Britain and around the world for more than 50 years. She was inspired by the music and ideas of Carl Orff, who she met in Germany in the early 1950s. From 1957 she collaborated with Gunild Keetman in delivering an English-language version of the composer's seminal Orff-Schulwerk. She organised recordings in London as support to the printed texts, engaging distinguished musicians like Walter Bergmann, James Blades and Alfred Deller to provide t
  
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• Beach Body Ready protest: We need to give control of the female body back to women

  28-04-2015 19:23
  
  Because, put simply, advertising is still sexist. So we should protest online or on the street, if not against Protein World's advertising apocalypse, then against the next misogynistic commercial to grace our public transport, magazines or televisions.
  
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