General news

• Barcelona 3 Bayern Munich 0 player ratings: Lionel Messi scores twice - but does he score highest in our ratings?

  06-05-2015 23:51
  Cometh the hour cometh the man and Barcelona's Lionel Messi stepped up to the mark in sensational fashion on Wednesday night.
  
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• General Election 2015: 'We want to say to our children - our generation did the right thing,' says David Cameron

  06-05-2015 23:42
  He must be exhausted. But no one could say that David Cameron wasn’t fired up at his final rally in Carlisle. In less than 20 minutes, and to euphoric applause from his Tory audience, he pulled out almost every item in his playbook including the crumpled note – it was a joke but Cameron will never let him forget it – that Labour’s Liam Byrne left at the Treasury saying there was no money.
  
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• General Election 2015: The 10 best quotes

  06-05-2015 23:32
  
  The election campaign has been dull, but that doesn't mean there hasn't been some spicy quotes. Here are 10 of the best.
  
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• Conservatives have narrow lead ahead of elections - ComRes poll

  06-05-2015 23:23
  
  (Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative Party has a one-percentage-point lead over the opposition Labour Party ahead of Thursday's national election, according to an opinion poll by ComRes. The poll showed Conservatives at 35 percent, unchanged from Tuesday, versus the Labour party at 34 percent, up two percentage points from a day earlier. The poll, conducted for ITV News and The Daily Mail newspaper, put the Liberal Democrats, the junior members of the coalition gover
  
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• Crisp sales are in decline - but this tasty trivia might tempt back the turncoats

  06-05-2015 23:20
  
  Lunchbox staple; train journey time-waster; pint of Stella companion; hangover breakfast. Crisps might lend themselves to pretty much any activity (except the cinema; there is a special place in Hell for people who nestle down in the Odeon with a family-sized packet of Kettle Chips), but apparently Britons are turning their back on Walkers, McCoys et al in favour of healthier snacks.
  
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• Conservatives, Labour tied on 33 percent on eve of election - Survation poll

  06-05-2015 23:14
  
  LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's governing Conservatives and the opposition Labour Party were tied on 33 percent in a survey published by pollsters Survation on the eve of Thursday's parliamentary election. The poll was consistent with many others that have shown the election too close to call, with no party set to command an outright majority in parliament. (Reporting by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Frances Kerry)
  
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• Khan eyes September Mayweather bout

  06-05-2015 23:01 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Amir Khan says a September fight with Floyd Mayweather could happen despite previously stating Ramadan might disrupt his training.
  
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• The Pan Am Experience is a 'flight' back to the 1970s that never takes off - at least, not literally

  06-05-2015 23:00
  
  The flight is on time, the seats are capacious, the drinks are free and plentiful. The stewardesses are beautiful and beautifully dressed. The in-flight meal is a perfectly pink-centred chateaubriand. This probably doesn't sound like any commercial flight you've ever been on – or, at least, not in the past 35 years. That's because the Pan Am Experience is a first-class trip to the 1970s.
  
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• Raif Badawi: The West is not doing enough to support a hero of liberalism

  06-05-2015 22:52
  
  Few rulers can match the House of Saud’s strategy for quelling discontent. They simply lack the funds for it. When King Salman came to the throne in January, he initiated a public giveaway that will ultimately total more than £21bn. Public sector workers received two months’ salary as a bonus; literary and sports clubs were blessed with plentiful grants. The last time Saudi citizens were shown such largesse coincided with the 2011 Arab uprisings, and its effect this time seems likely to be
  
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• Lionel Messi dumps Jerome Boateng: The moment two-goal hero made Bayern Munich defender look like a 'baby in a playpen'

  06-05-2015 22:52
  
  Lionel Messi was the undisputed star as Barcelona beat Bayern Munich 3-0 at the Nou Camp.
  
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• Rivals still tied in last hours of election campaign

  06-05-2015 22:41
  
  By Andrew Osborn and Mark Trevelyan LONDON (Reuters) - A late burst of opinion polls suggested on Wednesday that Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron and Labour challenger Ed Miliband had fought each other to a standstill on the eve of Britain's most unpredictable election in a generation. The stakes are high because of a rare confluence of factors which mean Britain's future in the European Union, as well as its national cohesion, could hinge on the result. Both the main party le
  
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• General Election 2015: The Independent's guide to get you through polling day

  06-05-2015 22:32
  
  How we vote in the UK has not changed very much over the years, but new technology and social trends, such as Twitter, selfies and 24-hour rolling TV coverage has triggered many challenges to our archaic system.
  
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• Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 'strikes coalition deal'

  06-05-2015 22:26
  
  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to form a new coalition government with a far-right ultranationalist party.
  
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• Humans aren't alone in indulging in politics - it's everywhere in the animal world

  06-05-2015 22:25
  
  Lots of people find elections dull, but there's nothing boring about the political manoeuvres that take place in the animal kingdom. In the natural world, jockeying for advantage, whether this is conscious or merely mechanical, can be a matter of life or death.
  
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• UK general election: A guide for Americans

  06-05-2015 22:16
  
  While the pool of presidential candidates in the US is beefing up for an election that’s 18 months away, people in the United Kingdom will hit the polls on Thursday for the first general election in five years and will elect a new government.
  
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• Leaders in final pitches to voters

  06-05-2015 22:09
  
  Party leaders closed a frenetic eve-of-election campaign push with desperate appeals for support as final opinion polls showed the UK remaining on course for another hung parliament.
  
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• General Election 2015: Local results may be delayed

  06-05-2015 21:59
  
  The results of local council elections being run alongside the general election may not be known until Saturday.
  
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• Deflategate report finds New England Patriots ‘likely guilty’ of deflating footballs

  06-05-2015 21:56
  
  A report released Wednesday by investigator Ted Wells says that the New England Patriots are most likely guilty of illegally deflating air from footballs.
  
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• Ronald McDonald the muse? Why Banksy, Ron English and Keith Coventry are lovin' Maccy D's

  06-05-2015 21:45
  
  Next time you chow down on a burger, take a moment to consider the aesthetics of what it is wrapped in. Keith Coventry, an artist propelled to success as one of the Young British Artists, has just unveiled nine new artworks and his muse of choice is the burger brand, McDonald's. The American fast-food chain caught his attention nearly 15 years ago when Coventry noticed that most of the rubbish being trodden into the pavement across the road from his Camberwell studio was emblazoned with those u
  
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• Panelbase poll on election eve puts Labour 2 points ahead

  06-05-2015 21:39
  
  Britain's opposition Labour Party held a 2 percentage point lead over Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives in a Panelbase opinion poll published a day before Thursday's national election. The survey put Labour on 33 percent and the Conservatives on 31 percent. The anti-European Union UK Independence Party was on 16 percent and the centrist Liberal Democrats on 8 percent. Two other polls published on the eve of the tightly fought contest put the Conservatives in the lead by
  
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• General Election 2015: Union bosses tell Ed Miliband to offer Lib Dems electoral reform to shut out Tories

  06-05-2015 21:38
  Union bosses have told Ed Miliband to offer the Liberal Democrats electoral reform in return for power, it has emerged.
  
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• General Election 2015: Tory candidate hits out at vandals who flooded parents' garden with oil

  06-05-2015 21:19
  
  A Tory candidate has hit out at vandals who flooded her parents’ garden with more than 1,000 litres of oil, describing them as acting “like the spoiled children of a careless millionaire”.
  
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• Sylvia Driskell: Nebraska woman files lawsuit against every gay person in the world

  06-05-2015 21:16
  
  The town of Auburn, Nebraska, population 3,385, is poised to become a footnote to US legal history after one of its residents filed a lawsuit against all the world’s gay people and asked a federal judge to rule that homosexuality is a sin.
  
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• Nick Griffin faces legal threat for using photo of kilted black men to mock SNP

  06-05-2015 21:15
  
  Nick Griffin is facing possible legal action from an award-winning Italian photographer angered at the former British National Party leader’s use of one of his images in a tweet.
  
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• They came in with William Caxton's printing press, but typefaces still matter in the digital age

  06-05-2015 21:15
  It's one of the most successful type designs in history and yet Times New Roman could be on its way to becoming the next Comic Sans – something of a laughing stock.
  
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• General Election 2015: Farage in final push for Thanet South as campaign ends with more scandals about members' views

  06-05-2015 21:11
  Ukip insisted it would defy expectations today and win more seats and votes than the polls suggest as its election campaign ended with further embarrassing headlines about its candidates’ views.
  
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• Martin Guptill: Explosive New Zealand batsman who sets the range for Kiwis' big guns

  06-05-2015 21:03
  
  If the West Indies tour was supposed to be a springboard for England ahead of a summer of positive cricket against two of the best sides in the world game, then New Zealand have arrived on these shores intent on ensuring that their nose-dive in fortunes continues.
  
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• General Election 2015: ‘We will not sit down with Nicola Sturgeon’, says Ed Balls

  06-05-2015 21:01
  
  Ed Balls accused the Scottish National Party of wanting a Conservative government and not being a “progressive” party as he appealed to voters to focus on the “real choice” in today’s general election.
  
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• General Election 2015: Meet the crop of first-time candidates hoping to claim seats in Westminster

  06-05-2015 20:52
  
  Stephen Kinnock (Lab)
  
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• Only one in 10 actors comes from working-class background, says research

  06-05-2015 20:50
  Just one actor in 10 comes from a working-class background according to new research which appears to back up claims by stars such as Julie Walters, David Morrissey, Samuel West and Judi Dench that their profession is becoming increasingly closed to the less affluent.
  
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• VE Day 70th anniversary: How ordinary Britons celebrated the end of war in Europe

  06-05-2015 20:45
  
  Eleven o'clock in the morning on Tuesday, 8 May 1945, overheard by a Mass Observation investigator at a newsagent's in central London:
  
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• Man kept as slave for 24 years contacted social services but was turned away, a jury hears

  06-05-2015 20:44
  
  A young man who was “owned” by a doctor and his wife as a slave for 24 years tried to contact police and social services about his condition – but was turned away, a jury heard.
  
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• General Election 2015: Thousands left without polling cards despite being registered

  06-05-2015 20:33
  
  Thousands of Britons have been left without polling cards despite registering to vote – with councils and the Electoral Commission urging people to turn up at polling stations anyway.
  
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• General Election 2015: Greens ‘still talking about the environment’, says Caroline Lucas

  06-05-2015 20:28
  
  Caroline Lucas, the Green Party’s sole MP of the last five years, was confident of retaining her seat as she canvassed in her Brighton Pavilion constituency on the eve of what she says is a crucial election for her party and environmental politics across the UK.
  
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• Discovery of 'missing link' between the two main life-forms on earth could explain evolution of animals, say scientists

  06-05-2015 20:20
  
  Scientists have discovered a “missing link” between the two main life-forms on earth which could help to explain the evolution of organisms with complex cells like those found in all animals including humans.
  
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• Chicago to pay $5.5m in compensation to victims tortured by city's police

  06-05-2015 20:14
  
  Chicago will pay up to $5.5m in compensation to dozens of people who were tortured by the city’s police force during the 1970s and 1980s.
  
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• General Election 2015: Final poll shows Labour and Tories deadlocked

  06-05-2015 20:11
  
  The Conservatives and Labour are gearing up for a bitter constitutional row on the morning after the election, as The Independent’s final “poll of polls” shows the two main parties deadlocked.
  
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• Graham Taylor told by FA not to pick 'too many black players' during time as England manager

  06-05-2015 20:04
  
  Graham Taylor was told by officials at the Football Association not to pick 'too many' black players during his time as England manager, according to claims in a new book about racism in football.
  
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• General Election 2015: 40 key moments of the campaign

  06-05-2015 20:04
  
  It has been one of the longest General Election campaigns in history.
  
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• Interpreter's beheading film plea

  06-05-2015 20:00
  
  High Court judges have been urged to watch a video showing multiple beheadings "carried out by the Taliban".
  
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• US-Cuba relations: Cuban refugees amazed at plans to restart ferry services between the two nations

  06-05-2015 19:46
  
  When Alex Dias opened his paper over coffee at Versailles, a favourite spot for Cuban-Americans in Little Havana, he devoured the top story. Ferry services to and from Cuba will to resume after more than 50 years, it read.
  
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• General Election 2015: Tories now 'an English party chasing UK votes in southern England', Clegg says

  06-05-2015 19:44
  David Cameron has “given up pretending” to seek a mandate as the Prime Minister for the whole of the United Kingdom and has “morphed” the Conservatives into “an English party chasing UK votes in southern England”, Nick Clegg claimed as his campaign came to a close.
  
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• Former 1D bandmates in Twitter spat

  06-05-2015 19:40
  
  A Twitter argument has broken out between One Direction's Louis Tomlinson, his former band mate Zayn Malik and producer Naughty Boy.
  
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• Colchester Hospital Trust has most 'never events' in England

  06-05-2015 19:40
  
  A hospital trust in Essex breached more serious patient safety rules than any other institution in England over the past year, NHS figures have shown.
  
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• General Election 2015: Time to ditch ‘tatty mythology’ of polling system, say retail experts

  06-05-2015 19:37
  
  The millions of voters who deliver their verdict at polling stations today will be following a ritual which has remained virtually unchanged for decades.
  
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• VIDEO: Eavis celebrates farming award

  06-05-2015 19:37 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Glastonbury Festival founder Michael Eavis has picked up a national farming award for being Britain's top dairy farm.
  
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• Floyd Mayweather sued for $20 million by mother of three of his children

  06-05-2015 19:33
  
  Josie Harris is suing Floyd Mayweather Jr, her former boyfriend, for $20 million dollars after his comments during an interview with Yahoo News’ Katie Couric in April.
  
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• Rolex unhappy after Italian PM Matteo Renzi makes 'Daddy's boys' jibe about rioters trying to disrupt the opening of the Expo 2015 World Fair

  06-05-2015 19:32
  Any publicity is good publicity, public relations gurus claim. Not so for Rolex, the Swiss watchmaker which has found itself at loggerheads with Matteo Renzi, Italy’s reforming and ruthless Prime Minister.
  
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• General Election 2015: Politics is the messy art of compromise, unpopular as it may be

  06-05-2015 19:29
  
  There is no truer word than the saying that just as you learn to do the job well, the opportunity to do it disappears. Politics is like that. You learn as you mature, you mature to a point, and then the next generation understandably believe it is their turn.
  
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• General Election 2015: We're about to make history at Westminster, Nicola Sturgeon says

  06-05-2015 19:23
  
  The SNP is within “touching distance” of making history at Westminster, Nicola Sturgeon said, as she predicted a “watershed” general election result which will see her party replace Labour as the dominant political force in Scotland.
  
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