Use of powerful medications linked to elevated risk of serious adverse outcomes including heart failure

Doctors are being urged to reduce prescribing of antipsychotic drugs to dementia patients after the largest study of its kind found they were linked to more harmful side-effects than previously thought.

The powerful medications are widely prescribed for behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia such as apathy, depression, aggression, anxiety, irritability, delirium and psychosis. Tens of thousands of dementia patients in England are prescribed them every year.

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Some say more schools may ban organised prayer after court ruling but others say judgment was based on unique circumstances

The ruling on a prayer ban at a top London school has created a “classic English policy muddle” that has divided school leaders over its implications, with some experts predicting that more schools could ban organised prayers as a result.

The warning came after a high court judge upheld the ban at Michaela community school in Brent, north-west London, dismissing a challenge by a Muslim pupil who claimed it was discriminatory and breached her right to religious freedom.

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Concerns were raised about Wethersfield site relating to radiological contamination and unexploded ordnance

Asylum seekers staying at a former RAF airfield that is used as the Home Office’s largest mass accommodation site were moved out after safety risks were identified including radiological contamination and unexploded ordnance.

Planning permission for the Home Office to use the Wethersfield airfield site in Essex for a three-year period was obtained last month with the granting of a special development order (SDO), circumventing the usual route for obtaining planning permission from a council.

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He has scored 19 goals and laid on 10 assists in the league – the best return for an Aston Villa striker in more than 40 years

By Ben McAleer for WhoScored

Some younger Aston Villa fans would be forgiven for not being aware of Peter Withe’s career. Withe was the last player to score 20 league goals in a season for the club, doing so in 1980-81, the last time Villa won the top flight. Withe’s goalscoring record has stood for more than 40 years but is likely to be broken before the season is out.

Ollie Watkins scored his 19th league goal of the season on Sunday at the Emirates, potentially putting a nail in the coffin of Arsenal’s title challenge. Arsenal are just two points behind the leaders with six games to play, but the Manchester City juggernaut is relentless . This time last season they put together a run of 12 wins to secure the title, the first stage of a treble they are keen to repeat this year. Given how City are playing – they have not lost since their defeat at Villa Park in December – Watkins’ late strike on Sunday was a huge blow for Arsenal’s hunt for silverware.

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The songbird’s dramatic decline in an ancient Cambridgeshire woodland is a story repeated across the UK as human activity drives species towards extinction

Richard Broughton has been nosing around this neighbourhood for 22 years. He gossips about inhabitants past and present, reeling off information about their relationship status, openness to visitors, brawls and neighbourly disputes. “They used to have a big punch up in spring here,” he says, pointing out where one family’s territory ends and the next begins.

Some areas are eerily quiet, with popular old haunts lying uninhabited. “I always get a bit of a pang now, walking through here and it’s empty. It’s like walking down your local high street and seeing your favourite shops are closed and the pub is boarded up.”

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£25bn of public money would have been saved between 2019 and 2023 if north had same care entry rates as south, report says

One in every 52 children in Blackpool are in care compared with one in 140 across England, leading to calls for more to be done to urgently tackle the widening north-south divide , brought on by “decades of underinvestment”.

Nine in every thousand children are in care in the north, compared with six in the rest of England, according to a report by Health Equity North.

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Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health urges ministers to follow lead of Scotland and Wales

Parents in England and Northern Ireland should be banned from smacking their children because doing so is unjust, dangerous and harmful, leading doctors have urged ministers.

It was “a scandal” that Scotland and Wales had outlawed smacking but not the other two home nations, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said on Wednesday.

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Hi-tech ‘golden triangle’ of Oxford, Cambridge and London risks deeper regional inequalities, says thinktank

Investments in new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) are “profoundly skewed” towards the “golden triangle” of Oxford, Cambridge and London, and risk deepening existing regional inequalities in England, according to research.

Ministers have promised to level up the country, narrowing the gap between the best- and worst-performing areas, but the rapid rollout of generative AI and automation could cut against that aspiration, according to the Institute for the Future of Work (IFOW).

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Spokesperson says aircraft has landed safely and all passengers and crew have disembarked

Birmingham airport has temporarily suspended operations because of a security incident on an aircraft.

A spokesperson for the airport said: “The aircraft landed safely and all passengers and crew have disembarked. All customers due to travel should make their way to the airport and check in as normal.”

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