Category: news

England flanker James Haskell agrees to rejoin Wasps in 2012, after completing a spell in Japan.

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Two ponies are found shot dead in a Derbyshire village, prompting the arrest of a 52-year-old man.

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A man is missing after falling from a boat off the Antrim coast.

The coastguard was contacted at about 1645 BST on Saturday after a ferry spotted a rib-type boat off the coast, at Ballycastle.

An air and sea search is currently underway in the area.

It is believed the man fell overboard while travelling from Rathlin to Ballycastle.

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A 40-year-old man has died after coming off his motorbike on the A912, near Falkland, Fife Constabulary confirm.

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Absent parents should make their child maintenance payments directly from their salaries or bank accounts, a committee of MPs has recommended.

They found the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission cost 50p for every £1 it collected and had failed to collect £3.8bn in payments due.

The Work and Pensions Committee called on the government to make the child support system more efficient.

The commission replaced the much-criticised Child Support Agency.

The committee found that many separated parents did not receive regular maintenance for their children and in some cases did not get payments at all.

Officials can take money directly from those who fall behind but the committee said direct payments from bank accounts or salaries should be required in all cases.

The government has said it wants to encourage separated parents to come to their own voluntary arrangements.

But its plans to charge a fee and call in officials to collect the payments of couples who cannot reach such an agreement were criticised by the MPs.

They also said the new agency still had operational weaknesses.

Committee chairman Anne Begg said the current system could easily be improved.

She told the BBC: “There are many non-resident parents who already set up a mechanism, usually direct debit, to make sure their children get the money that they’re entitled to.

“What we want to see is this widened so that everyone has an obligation to make sure there is some payment in process which is regular.”

A Department for Work and Pensions spokeswoman acknowledged the agency was not working well enough for children and said the government would give its full response in due course.

Last month, Prime Minister David Cameron said absent fathers should be “stigmatised” by society in the same way as drink-drivers.

However, he was criticised by charity Gingerbread which said government proposals to charge people in need of state help to obtain child maintenance payments would make life harder for single parents.

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A scheme to help rural communities tackle broadband “notspots” in Wales is to be extended.

The Welsh Government’s broadband improvement project offers up to £1,000 for people who only have a dial-up-speed connection to buy an alternative.

The £2m scheme will now be rolled out to areas where connectivity is better but still less than 2Mbps, BBC Wales’ Eye on Wales has learnt.

The lack of fast internet access in rural areas has been criticised.

The Welsh Government has pledged to bring ‘next-generation’ fibre optic broadband connections to every business in Wales by 2016, and to every home by 2020.

The Broadband Support Scheme currently allows those in areas where broadband connection speeds are less than 512Kbps, to access funding for satellite or wireless alternatives.

Until June, the scheme had approved 800 applications, unlocking £600,000 in grants from the original £2m.

Eye on Wales understands that an announcement on Monday will extend the scheme to areas where connectivity is less than 2Mbps.

It will be welcomed by people like John Snowden from Cilgerran in north Pembrokeshire.

He found the limit of 512Kbps hit his efforts to sign up enough people to make the favoured wireless solution viable.

“There are some in the village that will be marginally over the top of 512Kbps and may not qualify for the money, which is a real handicap because we need a reasonable number of people to come on to the scheme to make it worth while,” he said.

“But as it stands at the moment if they get more than 512Kbps then they will not qualify for the grant money for the installation, so they’ll have to spend up to £1,000 themselves for the installation. That’s a real drawback.”

Monday’s announcement will open the door for Cilgerran and other communities to follow the example of Treleddyd Fawr on the St David’s peninsula in Pembrokeshire.

In January it pooled its grants to buy in wireless broadband from Neyland-based firm, TFL, delivering download speeds up to 10Mbps for £20 a month.

TFL’s clients around Treleddyd Fawr now include the RNLI lifeboat station at nearby St Justinians, Shalom House hospice in St David’s, and artist Jackie Morris.

‘Time was wasted’

She said: “It was affecting my business. I struggled along as best I could on a dial-up connection but I can do so much more now.”

“As an artist you have to blog, you have to have Facebook, you have to get your work out to as many people as possible.”

“I was finding that more and more of my time was spent trying to up-load photos. You’d get half-way through then the dial-up connection dropped.”

“So much time was wasted trying to work on the internet, less time at the drawing board, which is where I like to be most.”

Eye on Wales is broadcast at 1300 BST on Sunday 3 July on BBC Radio Wales.

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England pace bowler Stuart Broad is fined 50% of his match fee after showing ‘serious dissent’ to umpire Billy Bowden in Friday’s one-day international against Sri Lanka.

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Some 500,000 children in England may be at risk of developing life-threatening liver disease because they are overweight, a health adviser has said.

Professor Martin Lombard, England’s National Clinical Director for Liver Disease, says the four to 14-year-olds could develop “fatty liver disease”.

Too much fat in liver cells stops the liver from working properly, increasing the risk of heart attack and stroke.

It can also lead to diabetes and cirrhosis of the liver later in life.

Cirrhosis – scarring of the liver – is commonly associated with alcohol abuse, but it can also be caused by obesity.

Professor Lombard bases his projections on figures from the National Child Measurement Programme.

He warns that up to 60,000 10 year olds “could be at risk” of having excessive fat in the liver while they are children, leading to serious health problems when they get older.

When looking at a broader age range, children aged four to 14, the figures are even more stark, with Professor Lombard estimating that 500,000 are potentially at risk.

While the rate of increase in childhood obesity seems to be flattening out, the total number of overweight children is still very high.

Government figures for child obesity in England in the school year 2009/10 showed that nearly a fifth of children in reception class (aged four) were obese or overweight.

Among Year 6 children (10 to 11-year-olds) the figure was one in three.

Professor Lombard warns that “non-alcoholic fatty liver disease” could be a silent killer among this generation of children.

“The unfortunate problem with liver disease is you don’t get any symptoms at all until it’s at an advanced stage. So you get cirrhosis and then you have complications that arise from that cirrhosis which can be very serious.

“So it’s not until that late stage that you get any symptoms at all.

“Parents should be concerned about children who are overweight as they will be at risk of developing fatty liver.

“If they don’t become more active and lose the weight as they go on, then they become overweight adults and have a range of other risk factors as well.”

Sarah Matthews, spokesperson of the British Liver Trust, said: “Children’s livers are being cultivated for disease by a poor diet and lack of exercise.

“Even though alcohol is regarded as the key cause of liver disease in the UK, weight-related liver damage is set to become a huge public health problem where, if the projections hold true, obesity could overtake alcohol as the biggest single driver of cirrhosis in the future.

“Too much alcohol and fatty foods, coupled with a lack of symptoms, means that liver disease is becoming difficult to ignore and is already costing the NHS millions each year.

“The number of people affected by liver disease and the health costs are set to soar, particularly with the growing number of young people who are overweight and obese.”

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The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are on board a Canadian naval ship, travelling from Montreal to Quebec City, on the latest leg of their first overseas tour as a married couple.

Overnight they sailed up the St Lawrence river to the city on the frigate HMCS Montreal.

Their agenda for Sunday involves morning prayers with the crew on the helicopter deck of frigate.

They will then visit a youth project and attend a military ceremony.

The ceremony honours the Royal 22nd Regiment of Canada in the city, as well as a Freedom of the City Ceremony, at Quebec City Hall.

They will also attend a community event, including barbecues and stalls, before a short flight to Prince Edward Island.

Prince Edward Island is the most easterly point of the tour, and is known as the home of Anne of Green Gables – a fictional character said to be a favourite of the duchess.

The official welcome to Prince Edward Island is on Monday, and the Canadian government expects their visit may be a focal point for many well-wishers from across the Maritimes provinces, Clarence House said earlier.

On Monday, still on Prince Edward Island, Prince William will take part in a Sea King helicopter training session.

A dragon boat race is scheduled for later, with the husband and wife steering opposing teams.

Their first overseas tour has involved a tree-planting ceremony in the grounds of Government House, in Ottawa; a Montreal children’s hospital visit; and a citizenship ceremony for 25 new Canadians who had come from 12 different countries.

They were also guests of honour for celebrations for Canada Day, when about 100,000 people joined events on Parliament Hill as part of a national holiday to mark the country’s 144th birthday.

In Montreal there was a protest outside the hospital the couple visited, with about 60 protesters shouting “down with the monarchy” and “We will never bend, Willy go home!”

They also chanted “French Quebec!” and “Parasite go home!”

The couple are visiting seven Canadian cities in eight days in their first official overseas tour.

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West Ham United are taking legal action against Tottenham Hotspur and The Sunday Times over allegations about the Olympic Stadium bidding process.

West Ham said they were treating the claims “with the utmost seriousness”.

It comes after an Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC) employee was suspended when it emerged she worked for West Ham during their bid to use the stadium in London after the 2012 Games.

West Ham said they were “certain of the robustness” of their successful bid.

A West Ham spokesman said: “West Ham United can confirm the club are taking legal action in relation to allegations made in today’s Sunday Times.

“We are certain of the robustness of our successful bid for the Olympic Stadium.”

On Friday it was revealed that an OPLC director had been suspended on full pay after it emerged she had been undertaking paid consultancy work for West Ham.

The director, later named by West Ham as Dionne Knight, had declared “a personal relationship” with a Hammers employee when she started at the OPLC, but on Thursday she told the legacy company of her work at the club.

The OPLC said she was being suspended while any possible conflict of interest was investigated.

The OPLC board voted 14-0 in February to back the Hammers as first choice to move into the £486m stadium after the Games. The OPLC and West Ham said Ms Knight had no involvement in that decision.

West Ham said they had already carried out an investigation into the woman’s role with the club.

West Ham plan to retain the running track after moving into the stadium and create a 60,000-capacity arena for football, athletics, concerts and community use.

Last month, attempts by Tottenham and Leyton Orient to get a judicial review of the OPLC’s decision in favour of West Ham were rejected.

Spurs’ plan had involved knocking down most of the structure and rebuilding it without the running track, instead rebuilding the National Sports Centre at Crystal Palace.

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An ExxonMobil pipeline in the US state of Montana has ruptured, leaking hundreds of barrels of crude oil into the Yellowstone River, officials say.

The company said the pipe had been shut down and the segment where the leak happened had been isolated.

Nearby residents were evacuated, but later allowed to return to their homes.

The accident happened downstream from the famed Yellowstone national park, a major tourist attraction in the US.

Clean-up crews have been deployed to tackle the spill, which was detected early on Saturday.

ExxonMobil spokeswoman Pam Malek told AP news agency an estimated 750 to 1,000 barrels of oil had leaked from the pipe for about a half-hour before it was shut down.

“We recognise the seriousness of this incident and are working hard to address it,” the company said in a statement.

“Our principal focus is on protecting the safety and health of the public and our employees,” it added.

It is unclear how far the slick will travel, but Duane Winslow, the county’s director of disaster and emergency services, said it was dissipating as it moved downstream.

“We’re just kind of waiting for it to move on down while Exxon is trying to figure out how to corral this monster,” Mr Winslow said.

There are fears that fish will suffer because of the accident.

“If fish get oil on them, if they break the surface and get oil on them, it tends to plug up their gills and it often is fatal,” said Bob Gobson, of the Billings Fish, Wildlife and Parks Program.

Exxon promised a full investigation into the spill, which occurred in a 12-inch pipeline, running from Silvertip to Billings, downstream from Yellowstone National Park.

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A 20-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of the murder of an 18-year-old man who was attacked in a flat in Llanidloes in Powys.

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Latest images of Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in Canada

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The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are set to continue their official tour of Canada, with a visit to Quebec.

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Starvation has returned to the Horn of Africa, according to a special report by the Independent on Sunday.

Drought combined with war in Somalia and soaring food prices is threatening a famine that could affect eight to 10 million people, the paper says.

According to the Observer, long-awaited legislation on how supermarkets treat their suppliers looks likely to be derailed or rendered toothless.

This is by what is described as “heavy artillery lobbying” by big retailers.

The Prince of Wales has apparently summoned seven cabinet ministers in 10 months for talks on issues ranging from global warming to architecture.

Documents were obtained by the Mail on Sunday under Freedom of Information.

According to the Sunday Express, the Duchess of Cambridge has spoken of her concern for Prince William on his helicopter rescue missions.

She is said to have told a military wife in Canada: “I always worry – but my job is to support my husband.”

The Observer takes a look at what it describes as the “simmering antagonism” between the prime minister and Commons Speaker John Bercow.

Mr Bercow twice interrupted David Cameron during Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday.

The Observer wonders whether a “bitter class divide” might be to blame.

The Mail on Sunday’s Peter Hitchens says history tells us that when there is a battle between the Speaker and the State, the Speaker is the one to back.

According to the News of the World, “Mickey Mouse” degrees in “wacky subjects” such as surfing and puppetry are being axed.

This is because, it says, students faced with paying up to £9,000 a year for courses are no longer applying.

UK military bandsmen are “brassed off”, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

The paper says cash payments of about £80 to £150 they received for playing at events will now go to the Ministry of Defence in a money-saving move.

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