General news

• George Osborne pledges to tackle housing crisis by streamlining planning laws in effort to build more houses

  09-07-2015 23:30
  
  George Osborne will pledge to tackle Britain’s housing crisis by taking on “Nimbyism” and streamlining the planning laws so that more homes can be built.
  
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• Planning bid to speed new homes

  09-07-2015 23:29
  
  Developers will automatically be given permission to build on suitable disused industrial land under major reforms to boost housebuilding, George Osborne has announced.
  
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• UK to overhaul planning rules in bid to boost home-building

  09-07-2015 23:27
  
  LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will announce on Friday an overhaul of rules on how and where new houses can be built as it tries to address a chronic shortage of homes and put its economy on a sounder footing.
  
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• Ashes 2015: Steven Smith's soft-shoe shuffling may give England reasons to hope

  09-07-2015 23:16
  
  Steven Smith was faffing and fidgeting, fiddling with his thigh pad, drawing out lines in his crease at various points perpendicular to his leg stump, and because it was the first appearance with a bat this summer there were some muffled boos, as if to suggest this was gamesmanship.
  
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• Jamie Murray reaches doubles final

  09-07-2015 22:55
  
  Jamie Murray upstaged his famous brother today as he became the first Briton to make it into a Wimbledon final at this year's championships.
  
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• Tube strike: How will the walkout affect my journey on Friday?

  09-07-2015 22:54
  
  Millions of commuters have faced chaotic journeys across the capital as Underground workers staged a 24-hour strike across all lines.
  
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• Greek debt crisis: France’s 'hands-on' help denied by Paris

  09-07-2015 22:13
  France has been at the forefront of efforts in recent days to try to keep a deal with Greece on track. This was apparently on full display with media reports that French officials were on hand in Athens to help finalise proposals to Greece’s creditors.
  
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• Thank God George Osborne is finally making young people pay for the crash - they caused it after all

  09-07-2015 22:06
  
  With measures such as the cancellation of housing benefit for under-21s, and the abolition of tax credits for more than two children, at last this Budget is taking money back from the group who caused the financial crash, people who were children when it happened.
  
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• Greek debt crisis: Country set for weeks of impasse, and burden of debt may be increasing

  09-07-2015 21:58
  
  Greece’s government is preparing to submit detailed reform proposals to its European creditors in a final bid to secure bailout funding and avoid crashing out of the single currency.
  
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• Greek debt crisis: Alexis Tsipras tells creditors what he is prepared to do to stay in the euro

  09-07-2015 21:58
  
  Greece’s government has submitted its reform proposals to its European creditors in a final bid to secure bailout funding and avoid crashing out of the single currency.
  
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• Today programme: Nick Robinson to take over from James Naughtie

  09-07-2015 21:58
  
  Nick Robinson, the BBC’s political editor, is joining Radio 4’s flagship news show the Today programme.
  
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• Bonfire of the Nimbys: Building houses is now a crucial task - the Chancellor is brave to take on those, often Tories, who stand in the way

  09-07-2015 21:54
  As if taxing dividends, clamping down on  non-doms, removing tax breaks from landlords and introducing a national living wage was not enough to make George Osborne look and feel more like a Labour chancellor than a traditional Conservative, now he is taking on those who live in the Tory shires.
  
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• Former trader Hayes denies trades were bribes for brokers, Libor trial hears

  09-07-2015 21:48
  
  By Estelle Shirbon LONDON (Reuters) - Tom Hayes, the former trader on trial over rate-rigging charges, denied on Thursday that fake trades he had performed to generate commissions for brokers amounted to bribes for their help in manipulating benchmark interest rates. Hayes, the first person to stand trial over alleged rigging of the London interbank offered rate (Libor), has pleaded not guilty to eight counts of conspiracy to defraud between 2006 and 2010. Hayes, who was a yen derivatives trader
  
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• PICTURES: Touching moment young gorilla makes friends with ducks

  09-07-2015 21:45 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  SOMETIMES it’s tough being an ugly ducking – just ask Indigo.
  
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• Budget 2015: Poorest families will be £800 worse off by 2019, say Institute for Fiscal Studies

  09-07-2015 21:37
  
  George Osborne’s “one nation” Budget was left in tatters after it was revealed that his fiscal package will leave the poorest households in Britain “unequivocally” worse off.
  
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• New Mayor of Venice Luigi Brugnaro bans books about homosexuality from city schools

  09-07-2015 21:35
  
  Venice's new mayor has been heavily criticised for his decision to ban books dealing with homosexuality from the city's schools.
  
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• Challenges Ahead For Child Abuse Inquiry Boss

  09-07-2015 21:31
  
  Trust is at the heart of the big abuse inquiry which is now under way. She did not use the words "trust me", but Justice Lowell Goddard hoped that the detail and determination she outlined in London would begin to win the trust of the many survivors of sexual abuse. Her inquiry though does, on the surface, mean business.
  
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• Brits Told To Leave Tunisia Amid Terror Warning

  09-07-2015 21:29
  
  Britons in Tunisia have been told to leave the country as the Foreign Office warns more terror attacks are "highly likely" after last month's beach shootings. Extra flights are being put on to bring tourists home and two holiday companies, Thomson and First Choice, are returning their staff to the UK. An estimated 3,000 Britons are currently on holiday in Tunisia and about 300 others are travelling independently.
  
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• Donald Macintyre's Sketch: Fist pumps all round as Iain Duncan Smith heralds Arcadia

  09-07-2015 21:27
  
  “Basking” is the word that sprang to mind about Iain Duncan Smith – basking in his new social media stardom as fist-pumper of the year, thanks to his ecstatic display during the Budget speech.
  
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• Tunisia Terror Warning: What You Need To Know

  09-07-2015 21:16
  
  Between 2,500-3,000 British tourists are thought to be in Tunisia on holiday, along with some 300 independent travellers. After the Foreign Office updated its advice to warn against all but essential travel amid fears of a further terrorist attack, holiday companies, airlines and travel agents have been issuing guidance for tourists. On balance, we do not believe the mitigation measures in place provide adequate protection for British tourists in Tunisia at the present time and we have therefore
  
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• Tube strike: The charts that reveal the cushy life of tube drivers - £49k salary, 43 days off a year and a 36-hour week

  09-07-2015 21:16
  The tube strike has caused many heated arguments on social media over the course of the 24-hour transport black-out in London. 
  
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• Judge compares children to Charles Manson, jails them after they refused to have lunch with father

  09-07-2015 21:15
  
  A Detroit judge has sentenced three children to a juvenile detention center after they refused to have a lunch with their father.
  
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• Sergei Pugachev: 'Putin’s banker' in £655m fraud case flees London for France

  09-07-2015 21:09
  
  The London-based former tycoon once known as “Putin’s banker” has gone on the run in the middle of a major High Court action accusing him of stealing more than £655m.
  
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• Think tank whose work George Osborne based new living wage on accuse him of pushing low income families further into poverty

  09-07-2015 21:03
  The think tank on whose work George Osborne based his new national living wage has accused him of creating a “two-tier welfare  system” in which the low income families of the future will be much worse off than today’s.
  
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• Nick Robinson leaves BBC political editor role after 10 years to be new host of Today show

  09-07-2015 20:51 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  NICK ROBINSON is set to end his 10-year stint as the BBC's political editor to become the new presenter of Radio 4's Today programme.
  
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• Ofsted school inspector jailed after he groomed a boy online

  09-07-2015 20:50 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  AN Ofsted school inspector who downloaded child porn and groomed a boy online has been jailed for two years.
  
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• Tube strike: Video appears to show police 'removing' passenger from 'packed' London bus as Underground walkout causes chaos

  09-07-2015 20:48
  As commuters attempt to navigate London without the Underground amid strike action, footage has emerged appearing to show police removing a passenger from a bus in the centre of the capital.
  
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• Britain warns against travel to Tunisia as tourists head home

  09-07-2015 20:48
  
  LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Foreign Office (FCO) advised against all but essential travel to Tunisia on Thursday, telling Britons to leave the North African country and warning that further terrorist attacks were "highly likely" there.
  
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• Wimbledon 2015: Nick Bollettieri - Wow! What a match Roger Federer and Andy Murray are set to serve up... it's too close to call

  09-07-2015 20:44
  Boy! What a match this should be. The Fed, the man who has won seven Wimbledon titles, who owned Centre Court and is refusing to leave the stage, against the Brit on his home turf.
  
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• Spitfire soars to £3m sale record

  09-07-2015 20:44
  
  The last Spitfire of its kind has sold for a record price at auction - with the multi-million-pound profits donated to charity.
  
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• Spitfire Restored After 40 Years Under Dunkirk Beach Sells For Record £3.1m At Auction

  09-07-2015 20:44
  
  The restored Vickers Supermarine mark 1 sold for £3,106,500 at Christie's in London - the highest ever paid for a Spitfire
  
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• Andy McSmith's Diary: By George, Galloway's free with his insults

  09-07-2015 20:43
  
  One of the many ways that George Galloway attacked his Labour opponent, Naz Shah, in Bradford West during the general election was to suggest that she was pro-Israel, a damaging allegation to make in a constituency with such a large Muslim electorate. He even tweeted a picture of jubilant, flag-waving Israelis with the caption: “Thank you for voting for Naz Shah.”
  
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• Lady Rozelle Raynes: The wartime mariner who helped disadvantaged teenagers

  09-07-2015 20:39
  
  Lady Rozelle Raynes, who came from a moneyed family studded with dukes and earls, realised as a child that the world of high society and aristocracy was not for her. She wrote in one of her many books that toiling as an oil-smeared stoker in the Channel at the time of D-Day was her “ultimate peak of happiness.”
  
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• Loyalist Chief Killed With Own Samurai Sword

  09-07-2015 20:39
  
  A loyalist paramilitary chief was killed with his own samurai sword in a brutal attack at his Belfast home, investigators have revealed. Father-of-two Colin "Bap" Lindsay, 47, a leading figure in the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), was pronounced dead at the scene. Another 52-year-old man, Stanley Wightman, found along with Mr Lindsay, underwent emergency surgery for "significant injuries" to his neck and arms, and remains in a critical condition in hospital.
  
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• Tortoises' reproductive behaviour makes them the rabbits of the reptile world

  09-07-2015 20:36
  
  A day spent going deep into the reproductive behaviour of tortoises is in turns fascinating, perplexing and straight-up traumatic. There are things that will stay with you, such as the clip of one randy reptile attempting to bone a small, stuffed toy on a patio. His neck strains, his jaw is slack and he breathes like a 40-a-day smoker on a treadmill. Downstairs, a horrific, huge, purple penis flops about in vain like some mutant mollusc stripped of its shell.
  
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• Japan is turning abandoned golf courses into solar farms to solve its energy problems

  09-07-2015 20:32
  
  In an effort to boost renewable energy production and diversify its energy sources in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in 2011, Japan is covering its many abandoned old courses in solar panels.
  
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• Tunisia: 3,000 British tourists airlifted out of country after Foreign Office declares it too dangerous

  09-07-2015 20:30
  
  Before Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, announced that Tunisia was considered too dangerous for British holidaymakers, plans for the emergency evacuation of UK tourists were already in place.
  
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• Travel firms pull out of Tunisia

  09-07-2015 20:29
  
  Travel firms are pulling out of Tunisia as a holiday destination after the British government warned against all but essential travel there amid fears of a fresh terror attack.
  
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• France gets tough with sexual harassment and sexist adverts on its public transport networks

  09-07-2015 20:24
  
  The French government has unveiled a series of measures to combat sexual harassment on public transport, while saying it will “fight” against sexist adverts on the network.
  
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• Muhammed Abdul Mannan: Grandfather who left Britain to join Isis was 'tricked', says son

  09-07-2015 20:24
  
  A 75-year-old man was “tricked” into going to Isis-controlled territory in Syria along with his cancer-suffering wife and 10 of their relatives, the couple’s son has claimed.
  
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• Macedonia's uniformed border thugs await war-weary Arab migrants arriving at Europe's doorstep

  09-07-2015 20:14
  
  I came to Greece to cover Europe’s shame – the possible departure of an EU member from the great post-war unification of the continent. But I found Europe’s shame on the border between Greece and the old Yugoslav republic of Macedonia when a group of young men from Aleppo showed me the weals and cuts and bruises they had sustained at the hands of Macedonia’s border thugs.
  
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• Taser use by police rises by 50 per cent in five years, according to Home Office

  09-07-2015 20:14
  
  The impact of the massive flow of current unleashed by a Taser has been described as “like being shocked by a cattle fence, but 50,000 times stronger”.
  
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• Free school put in special measures

  09-07-2015 20:10
  
  A flagship free school opened by the Prime Minister has been placed in special measures after Ofsted branded its teaching "dull".
  
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• Websites can create outrageous lies just for clicks, but why and how is this legal?

  09-07-2015 20:07
  
  On the face of it, it seemed no weirder than other statements we’ve heard from hardline US Republicans. “Chris Christie: Women’s Viagra Pill Will Only Increase Lesbianism,” ran the headline, and the story quickly began spreading across social media. Christie, now a contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, was claimed to have become agitated when asked about flibanserin, the experimental drug intended to boost the female sex drive.
  
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• Impact of rising oceans 'enormous'

  09-07-2015 20:00
  
  A global warming increase of less than 2C could be enough to raise sea levels by 20 feet, new research has shown.
  
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• Global warming threatens bumblebees

  09-07-2015 20:00
  
  Global warming could silence the summer buzz of the bumblebee forever unless urgent action is taken to save the insects, scientists have warned.
  
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• Cool pandas can bear meagre diet

  09-07-2015 20:00
  
  Pandas are really cool - burning up exceptionally few calories in order to survive on their meagre bamboo diet, scientists have learned.
  
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• Ashes 2015 day two report: England take the advantage in Cardiff with five Australian wickets

  09-07-2015 19:52
  
  Abundant evidence was supplied on Thursday to indicate how well England must play this summer if they are to regain the Ashes. Out of their skins would seem to be the minimum requirement.
  
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• German tourists continue flocking to Greece amid crisis as other nationalities steer clear

  09-07-2015 19:51
  
  They say opposites attract. But the attraction appears a one-way process where Germany and Greece, Europe’s financial powerhouse and its economic minnow, are concerned. In the wake of the No vote and with just days left for their leaders to convince creditors not to expel Greece from the euro, many, if not most Greeks remain contemptuous of what they see as German-inspired austerity.
  
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• Analysis - UK's minimum wage boost will not bring riches for all

  09-07-2015 19:50
  
  By David Milliken LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Conservative politicians cheered and pumped their fists on Wednesday when finance minister George Osborne announced a bumper increase in the minimum wage, but the economic gains from the change are likely to be much more muted. The plan to raise the minimum wage by 40 percent by 2020 was the surprise of Osborne's first budget since the Conservative Party won an unexpected outright victory at May's election. By tweaking a policy of the
  
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