Government scales back child worker vetting scheme

Plans to vet millions of people working with children and vulnerable adults are to be scaled back to ?common sense? levels, the Government announced today

Live: Bloody Sunday families shown Saville report

9.40 BST On a January morning 38 years ago, 13 protesters died at the hands of British paratroopers and 14 were injured, one so seriously he died four months later. For many of their relatives, the years since have been dominated by the search for truth about what happened during 25 chaotic minutes in central Londonderry.

Bloody Sunday fees hit £100m, with 14 lawyers earning more than £1m

A total of £100 million, more than half the costs of the Bloody Sunday inquiry, established in 1998, has gone on legal fees.

Freedom of Information Act gives protection to royal secrets

The Royal Family and the Royal Household were exempted from direct requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The Royal Household was not included in the Act?s definition of a public authority, so members of the public are unable to access information held in the Royal Archives. Public bodies can be asked to release information that may include details about the Royal Family, but protection also covers communications between public bodies, such as government departments, and the Royal Family or Royal Household.

BNP leader invited to meet Queen at Buckingham Palace garden party

Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party, has been invited to attend a Buckingham Palace garden party hosted by the Queen, The Times has learnt.

England sees again how fragile optimism can be on and off the field

We have Harold Wilson to blame for the search for connections between the World Cup and the fortunes of the nation.

US pension funds sue BP directors over the falling share price

Fifteen directors of BP, including Tony Hayward, the chief executive, and Carl-Henric Svanberg, the chairman, are being sued personally by two US pension funds for their role in the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster.

Economy may never recover from banking crisis, warns OBR

The economy, more damaged by the banking crisis than previously admitted, will grow more weakly and may never fully recover, the new Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said yesterday.

Same economists who work out Budget figures are producing OBR data

Two men had the job of signing off Alistair Darling?s growth and borrowing forecasts, which have now been revised by the independent Office for Budgetary Responsibility: Sir Nick Macpherson, Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, and Dave Ramsden, Chief Economic Adviser.

Blundering goalkeepers ?think their hands are wider?

As the ball skimmed his glove and rolled into the back of the net, it was a moment of head-in-hands calamity for the England goalkeeper Robert Green. For scientists, the USA?s equaliser on Saturday evening may simply have confirmed the discovery that our mental representation of our hands is about two thirds wider than they really are.

Why everything in the garden is lovely again at Chiswick House

Behind a thundering dual carriageway on the A4 out of London is an unlikely site to have inspired the rolling parkland of the English country garden.

Melancholy swansong of a queen gets upbeat vote from opera lovers

The suicidal subject matter is far from uplifting and it is unlikely to become a World Cup theme tune any time soon.