General news

• The Queen causes a stir on social media with mention of the phrase 'psychoactive drugs'

  27-05-2015 23:57
  
  It may not be known as a source of much amusement, but the Queen's Speech managed to cause something of a stir online today when Her Majesty mentioned the phrase “psychoactive drugs”.
  
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• Queen's Speech causes a stir online with mention of the phrase 'psychoactive drugs'

  27-05-2015 23:57
  
  It may not be known as a source of much amusement, but the Queen's Speech managed to cause something of a stir online today when Her Majesty mentioned the phrase “psychoactive drugs”.
  
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• Germany orders mass evacuation after unexploded WW2 bomb is discovered in Cologne

  27-05-2015 23:34
  
  Authorities in Germany ordered one of the biggest evacuations since the Second World War after a 200kg bomb dropped by US forces during the conflict was discovered in Cologne.
  
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• The rise of Lego Clubs: How toys are helping children struggling with social interaction to build better relationships

  27-05-2015 23:20
  It is a busy Friday morning at Harston and Newton Primary school, in a village just south of Cambridge, and three excited five and six‑year‑olds are playing with Lego. But this is no Lego-bucket free-for-all, this is a carefully choreographed attempt to build a lorry.
  
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• People are criticising Fifa World Cup sponsors with corrupt corporate logos

  27-05-2015 23:19
  
  Activists are creating "anti-logos" to shame corporate sponsors of the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar
  
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• Nebraska is the first conservative state to repeal the death penalty in 40 years

  27-05-2015 23:14
  
  Capital punishment in the state of Nebraska has been put to death after lawmakers voted to override the governor's veto and repeal the death penalty.
  
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• Warning over high caffeine intake

  27-05-2015 23:04
  
  Consuming more than five espressos worth of caffeine a day could be damaging to your health, according to European food safety experts.
  
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• Camilla visits Plaisterer's guild

  27-05-2015 22:45
  
  The Duchess of Cornwall has joked that she was unable to get a good view of the Queen's Speech today.
  
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• Boy, 15, locked up over death crash

  27-05-2015 22:45
  
  A 15-year-old boy has been given a 12-month detention order after admitting causing death by careless driving.
  
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• Horace Mann School: Dozens of students sexually abused across three decades at elite New York school

  27-05-2015 22:38
  
  As many as 64 students were sexually abused at one of New York City’s most elite private schools between the 1960s and 1990s at the hands of 24 members of staff, according to a report released today.
  
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• Fifa arrests: Is it the final whistle for corruption in world football?

  27-05-2015 22:31
  
  There can be few people, except the seven raised so peremptorily from their beds at the Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich, who did not feel at very least a frisson of vindication. Here were the super-smart Swiss police mounting a dawn raid on a five-star hotel at the request of the US Justice Department, and hauling away some of the most powerful individuals in global sport.
  
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• The ZX Spectrum has been crowd-funded back into play - with some 21st-century tweaks

  27-05-2015 22:30
  
  Beep. Squeal. Beeeeeep. Squeak. Eeeeep. Blib blib blib blib. Words can't do justice to the scraping, grating, piercing racket that would accompany the loading of a cassette game on the ZX Spectrum console. But for the millions of people who played it in its heyday, those whistles, pauses and beeps are as much the sound of the 1980s as Duran Duran, A-ha and Michael Jackson (never had the pleasure? Listen here).
  
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• Donald Macintyre's Sketch: Watching the Queen's Speech, I was convinced Lord Winston’s moustache came from a theatrical costumier

  27-05-2015 22:14
  The setting, the parliamentary equivalent of Royal Ascot, didn’t seem right for an allegedly “one nation” Queen’s speech. Do those 40-odd sparkling peers’ wives sprinkled along the red benches actually own their tiaras? Either way, once the Queen had sat down after entering with her modest entourage of pages and about a dozen blokes dressed in ludicrously garish armorial finery, called things like Fitzalan Pursuivant Extraordinary and Richmond Herald (Not a local newspaper but an, er,
  
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• Megan Rice: Meet the 85-year-old Catholic nun who breaks into high-security bases to protest US's nuclear weapons programme

  27-05-2015 22:04
  For Megan Rice, the 85-year-old nun and peace activist released from jail earlier this month, the most pressing thing about her two years of incarceration was her conviction that most her fellow prisoners should not have been there.
  
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• Long author-lists on research papers are threatening the academic work system

  27-05-2015 22:00
  
  This month, a scientific paper by teams working at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN set the record for the number of authors on a paper: more than 5,000 contributors. In the same week, a genomics paper had more than 1,000 authors. The trend of increasingly long author-lists on research papers is clearly getting out of hand. But in addition to being impractical, it is also threatening the entire system by which academic work is rewarded.
  
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• Bernie Sanders officially joins Hillary Clinton as her only Democratic competition

  27-05-2015 21:53
  
  Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders organised a rally in Burlington, Vermont on Tuesday to kickoff his political campaign to roughly 5,000 supporters.
  
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• Fifa corruption arrests: Who are the 17 officials and executives accused of misconduct?

  27-05-2015 21:47
  
  The officials and executives facing charges
  
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• New York judge hears arguments on whether chimps deserve ‘personhood’

  27-05-2015 21:44
  
  Attorneys representing two chimpanzees began their arguments on Wednesday in a New York court on whether the chimps deserve full “personhood” and the rights that accompany that distinction.
  
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• Fifa corruption arrests: How Chuck Blazer rinsed money from the beautiful game

  27-05-2015 21:41
  
  He was known as football’s Mr 10 per cent. Chuck Blazer’s reputation for serving his own needs alongside of those of his football paymasters was legendary.
  
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• VIDEO: UKIP MP confronted by protesters

  27-05-2015 21:40 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The UKIP MP Douglas Carswell has been confronted in the street by anti-austerity protesters near Westminster.
  
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• Fifa vote delay urged after arrests

  27-05-2015 21:37
  
  Uefa has called for Friday's election of a new president for football's world governing body Fifa to be postponed after nine of its officials were accused of breeding decades of "rampant, systemic and deep-rooted" corruption.
  
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• Blundering Tony Blair quits as Middle East peace envoy – only Israel will miss him

  27-05-2015 21:31
  
  Tony Blair’s time as Middle East envoy representing the US, Russia, the UN and the EU has finally come to an end. Eight years after he took up the role, Blair tendered his resignation and left one question: how come a war criminal ever became a “peace envoy” in the first place?
  
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• The best work perks: From free travel cards to making dreams come true (really)

  27-05-2015 21:30
  
  We should blame it on Google. Before we heard tales of joyful staff playing ping-pong between meetings, we were happily oblivious to any office perk more extreme than the free tea bag. In 2015 though, things have changed. Commuters cycle to the office on half-price bikes thanks to their company discount scheme and the arrival of the office fruit bowl is now as common a sight on desks as a half-eaten Pret sandwich.
  
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• Is bridge the latest twee pastime to get hip?

  27-05-2015 21:30
  
  Are young people starting to swap nightclubs for bridge clubs? The English Bridge Union has excitedly reported this week that the number of under-25s playing has more than tripled over the past three years. Can it be that granny's favourite card game is suddenly becoming cool?
  
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• European Commission offer to pay EU states for each refugee taken as part to plan to accept 40,000 asylum seekers

  27-05-2015 21:26
  The European Commission said it would pay EU member states up to €6,000 (£4,250) for each refugee taken in as part of a plan to accept 40,000 asylum seekers from Syria and Eritrea over the next two years.
  
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• Burma protesters march in capital Rangoon angry at country being blamed for Rohingya crisis

  27-05-2015 21:18
  
  Nearly eight years ago, hundreds of thousands of Burmese monks defied the military regime and marched in barefoot protest through the streets of Rangoon. The press called it the Saffron Revolution. The spectacle, repeated across the country, was the indelible image of a country in the grip of dramatic change.
  
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• Ukip MP Douglas Carswell says he was 'left in a state of shock' after 'attempted lynching' by anti-austerity protesters

  27-05-2015 21:07
  
  Ukip MP Douglas Carswell said he was left “in a state of shock” after he was surrounded by anti-austerity protesters as he left Westminster after the Queen's speech.
  
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• Anti-austerity protest: Douglas Carswell says he was 'left in a state of shock' after 'attempted lynching'

  27-05-2015 21:07
  
  Ukip MP Douglas Carswell said he was left “in a state of shock” after he was surrounded by anti-austerity protesters as he left Westminster after the Queen's speech.
  
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• Tom Hayes Libor trial: Trader accused of rigging lending rates ‘tried to enlist help of stepbrother’

  27-05-2015 21:05
  
  A former City trader accused of conspiring to rig bank interest rates tried to enlist his stepbrother into the alleged scheme, a court has heard.
  
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• Anti-austerity protest: Ukip MP Douglas Carswell mobbed by demonstrators in London

  27-05-2015 20:55
  
  The Ukip MP Douglas Carswell was mobbed by anti-austerity protesters and doused with water yesterday before being bundled to safety by police.
  
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• 'Brelfies': Taking photos breastfeeding in public making bottlefeeding mothers feel persecuted

  27-05-2015 20:50
  
  Will you have a natural birth or go numb from the waist down? What about carrying your baby in a sling or using a traditional pram? For pregnant women and new mothers, endless such choices are fraught with social stigma. But the most divisive is whether to breastfeed or not. Whatever women decide, they report feeling criticised by others.
  
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• Anti-austerity protest: Demonstrators against Government cuts gather in London after the Queen's speech

  27-05-2015 20:41
  
  Angry protesters waving placards and flags have gathered to protest against the Government's austerity measures.
  
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• Fifa corruption arrests: An interruption to the party, but not the end of President Sepp Blatter

  27-05-2015 20:38
  
  The Swiss police officers were wearing jeans and trainers when they wandered up to the reception of the Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich at dawn and politely dropped the biggest bomb ever to land on Fifa.
  
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• Bono in tribute to tour manager

  27-05-2015 20:38
  
  U2 frontman Bono has described the band's long-standing tour manager as a "legend" who is "irreplaceable" following his death.
  
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• How I survived Cambodia's Killing Fields: Acclaimed surgeon SreyRam Kuy celebrates her mother's determination to escape to the US

  27-05-2015 20:30
  It was 1978, in Talien, Cambodia, when the Khmer Rouge soldier came for my mother. An acquaintance had betrayed her, informing the Khmer Rouge leadership about her past as a teacher. Under Pol Pot's savage regime, all educated citizens – teachers, doctors, musicians, artists and intellectuals – were to be interrogated, tortured and killed, and until her name was given up, she had been able to hide her profession during questioning.
  
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• How I survived Cambodia's Killing Fields: Acclaimed surgeon SreyRam Kuy celebrates her mother's determination to escape the US

  27-05-2015 20:30
  It was 1978, in Talien, Cambodia, when the Khmer Rouge soldier came for my mother. An acquaintance had betrayed her, informing the Khmer Rouge leadership about her past as a teacher. Under Pol Pot's savage regime, all educated citizens – teachers, doctors, musicians, artists and intellectuals – were to be interrogated, tortured and killed, and until her name was given up, she had been able to hide her profession during questioning.
  
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• Fifa corruption arrests: Two separate investigations sparks biggest crisis in history of the sport

  27-05-2015 20:20
  
  Generations of top-ranking Fifa officials have engaged in “rampant, systemic, and deep-rooted” corruption which has poisoned world football for decades, it was claimed, as two separate criminal investigations sparked the biggest crisis in the history of the sport.
  
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• Eight-year-old boy dies after being hit by a falling gravestone in Glasgow cemetery

  27-05-2015 20:15
  
  An eight-year-old boy has died after he was hit by a falling gravestone in a Glasgow cemetery.
  
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• Queen's Speech 2015: Plan for British Bill of Rights put on the back burner

  27-05-2015 20:01
  
  Two weeks before the election David Cameron’s aides briefed journalists on what a Conservative-only government would do during its first 100 days – however unlikely that prospect seemed at the time. And the Prime Minister has pretty much kept to his word – with one notable exception.
  
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• Victim of a 430,000-year-old murder

  27-05-2015 20:00
  
  It is the ultimate cold case file - a death 430,000 years ago that may be the first confirmed murder in human history.
  
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• Ohio police officer reportedly fired over racist tweets regarding Baltimore protests

  27-05-2015 19:59
  
  An Ohio police officer has reportedly been fired after allegedly posting racist tweets to his Twitter account.
  
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• Ohio police officer reportedly fired over racist tweets

  27-05-2015 19:59
  
  An Ohio police officer was reportedly fired after allegedly posting racist tweets to his Twitter account on Wednesday afternoon.
  
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• Travel boss gives shares to charity

  27-05-2015 19:54
  
  The former chief executive of tour company Thomas Cook - who has been described as "greedy" and "shameless" - is to donate to charity a third of the multimillion-pound shares she is entitled to.
  
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• Andy McSmith's Diary: In a league of his own - Sepp Blatter scores an early own goal

  27-05-2015 19:48
  
  Something stirs in the memory from a grim day in April 1989 when MPs debated the Hillsborough disaster. It was not one of Parliament’s finest shows. There was too much blaming the victims of that appalling event, but at least the former Sports Minister Denis Howell, spoke up in defence of the Liverpool fans, deploring the way certain officials of Fifa had jumped in to condemn them, including one who asked: “Will the fans never learn?” Who was this numbskull? Howell named him. It was Sepp B
  
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• Right to die: Scottish Parliament rejects attempt to legalise assisted suicide

  27-05-2015 19:46
  
  The Scottish Parliament rejected an attempt to legalise assisted suicide following a vote in Holyrood.
  
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• Fake degrees: Software tycoon arrested as police investigate credentials from ‘Barkley’and 'Columbiana'

  27-05-2015 19:44
  
  The chief executive of one of Pakistan’s best known software and media companies, Axact, was arrested and remanded in custody amid charges of peddling degrees from fictitious universities with names meant to evoke some of America’s top academic institutions, like “Columbiana” and “Barkley”.
  
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• Fake degrees: Software tycoon arrested as police investigate credentials from 'Barkley' and 'Columbiana'

  27-05-2015 19:44
  
  The chief executive of one of Pakistan’s best known software and media companies, Axact, was arrested and remanded in custody amid charges of peddling degrees from fictitious universities with names meant to evoke some of America’s top academic institutions, like “Columbiana” and “Barkley”.
  
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• Dunkirk 75th anniversary: The real reason Hitler let the British troops go

  27-05-2015 19:39
  
  On 20 May 1940 Hitler's tanks reached the Channel coast near Noyelles-sur-Mer. The war of Nazi Germany against its neighbours in Western Europe had reached its climax. The most important one was Dunkirk.
  
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• MSPs reject Assisted Suicide Bill

  27-05-2015 19:36 via bbc.co.uk
  
  MSPs reject the Assisted Suicide Scotland Bill by 82 votes to 36 following a debate at Holyrood.
  
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• Menstrual Hygiene Day: The strange ideas people used to believe about periods

  27-05-2015 19:35
  
  It wasn’t that long ago that it was believed that regular periods were essential for women’s health and in their absence, a loss of blood through another orifice was a fair substitute.
  
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