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New rules will be “much clearer that it is vital for children to have an ongoing relationship with both parents”, the Department for Education said. However ministers looked set to disappoint fathers’ rights campaigners by ruling out any legal guarantee of equal access. A review led by former mandarin David Norgrove last year rejected the [...]

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Ministers intend to rewrite the law in an attempt to ensure that fathers get improved access to their offspring after a marriage breaks down. Currently, family courts decide to leave children with their mothers in the vast majority of divorce cases. Campaigners have long complained that without a legal right to see their children, fathers [...]

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Drug users hooked on crack cocaine may have inherited their vulnerability to addictive behaviour, scientists claimed yesterday. Researchers found that drug addicts and their non-addicted siblings share certain features of the brain, meaning it may be hard-wired for addictive behaviour. Scientists who scanned the brains of 50 pairs of brothers and sisters of whom one [...]

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A father has attacked a celebrity culture which ‘glorifies and trivalises’ drug taking after his 16-year-old son died from taking ecstasy sold to him at a nightclub. Public school deputy head Tom Simons said his son, Joe, was the victim of a ‘complacent’ approach to drug use, which he said was ‘spreading like a cancer’. [...]

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Londoners were urged to check on elderly neighbours and friends today as temperatures were predicted to drop to -3C. Forecasters said there is a risk of snow in the capital today and over the next few days, as winter finally arrived. The Met Office warned the freezing conditions could increase “health risks to vulnerable patients” [...]

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A teenager has been found guilty of murdering a school friend he claimed had pestered him for sex. Craig Roy, 19, was convicted over the death of 16-year-old Jack Frew in woodland near their school in East Kilbride, South Lanarkshire, in May 2010. He stabbed the younger boy 20 times and slashed his throat with [...]

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This is the touching moment a young daughter tenderly cuts her cancer-stricken mother’s hair to prepare her for chemotherapy. In the intimate video Lola Etchells, 6, is also shown shaving the head of her mother Sarah, 44, who was diagnosed with breast cancer last September. Intimate: Lola carefully clips her mother Sarah’s hair The footage [...]

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Parents were today warned of the deadly dangers of nappy sacks, after it emerged eleven babies have suffocated after pulling the bags over their faces. Doctors said infants have an automatic reflex to grab things within reach and bring them to their mouths. Nappy bags are made from thin plastic that can cling to a [...]

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A teenager banned from 30 square miles of London has become the first person to be jailed for breaching a gang Asbo. Dylan Martin, 19, was sentenced to 15 months yesterday but his mother today claimed he was “victimised” by police and Enfield council. The civil injunction, a so-called “Gangbo”, was enforced after the authorities [...]

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Suddenly, babies are back, with a sharp rise in the birth rate. Michael Blastland tells the extraordinary statistical story of the original 20th Century baby boomers. You were born into the most dramatic population change in UK history. At every age throughout your life, you stood out for sheer numbers. But you were not born [...]

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Doctors are calling for newborn babies to be given vitamin D, to protect them from bone disease and other illnesses. The chief medical officer for England wrote to doctors, nurses, and other health professionals, advising them to consider vitamin D supplementation for certain at risk groups- including pregnant mothers. via BBC News – Doctors recommend [...]

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There is no such thing as a good divorce when children are involved, a study has concluded. The analysis of almost 1,000 families found that children suffer when their parents’ marriage ends – no matter how amicable the split. The researchers said their finding contradicts the widely-held belief that it is possible to have a [...]

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A mother eyed me curiously at my sons’ school fair, where I was manning the kitchen, baking baguettes and heating up soup. ‘You’re a real Beta Male, aren’t you?’ she said. For a moment, I thought I’d misheard her. ‘You mean a Better Male?’ I asked. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘A Beta Male, as in, not [...]

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Miss Paltrow, who won an Oscar for her role in Shakespeare in Love, said she cooks for her husband, Coldplay star Chris Martin, and bathes their children, Apple, 7, and Moses, 5. She rises at 7am and works on her website and cookery books while her children are at school, before preparing dinner for her [...]

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John Goldup, Deputy Chief Inspector at Ofsted, said in the past the quango had failed to concentrate on the most important aspects of the treatment for vulnerable children. He said inspectors were assessing adoption providers within an “inappropriate straitjacket” that ignored how quickly adoptive parents could be found, and people were right to question why [...]

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Squeezed into a four-bedroom council house in Guernsey lives a woman branded the UK’s most prolific single mother. Joanne Watson, 40, has 14 children, ranging in age from three to 22 and survives largely on state benefits after the breakdown of her marriage in 2010. Once celebrated in endless articles in the press for her [...]

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Now that he is walking Alicia Keys’s son Egypt was keen to take a stroll around Kauai airport today. The 15-month-old toddler kept his mother on his toes as they prepared to leave the Hawaiian island after a week long vacation. Under the watchful eye of the 30-year-old singer, the adorable boy tottered around, fascinated [...]

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A babysitter who wiped party drug Meow Meow on the mouth of the six-year-old girl she was looking after was today warned she could face jail. Chelsea Taylor, 17, was supposed to be looking after the girl – but instead snorted the drug, also known as bubbles or mephedrone, with friends. She then wiped her [...]

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Millions of teenagers may have to receive a booster jab to protect against the bacteria, which causes meningitis and septicaemia, the Joint Committee on Vaccine and Immunisation (JCVI) has consequently advised. At the moment children get three doses of the MenC vaccine – at three and four months with a booster at 12 months. Introduced [...]

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A teenager has become the first person charged by Scotland Yard with the offence of rioting over last summer’s disorder. Jerome Amankwah, 19, of Griffin Road, Tottenham, north London, will appear on bail at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court on February 9, police said. He is accused of rioting in Tottenham High Road on August 6 [...]

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Women who eat fish during pregnancy are more likely to have brainy and sociable children, according to new EU-funded research. Those mothers-to-be who tucked into oily fish like tuna, sardines and salmon produced infants who scored better in various tests of skill and intelligence, it found. As part of a £5 million European Commission study [...]

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These three sisters look a picture of health – but they have had to take drastic action to stay that way. Luan Moreton, Kim Jones and Jemma Dennis lost their mother to breast cancer when she was only 32, and tests revealed that they had inherited the same faulty gene. They decided to have preventive [...]

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A girl of five whose pregnant mother was mugged by two teenage thugs told a judge in a handwritten note that she  saw one of them ‘hit the baby in her tummy’. The girl added that she hoped that Nathaniel Moffett and Thaberi Francis ‘don’t hurt any more people’. The pair assaulted the youngster’s mother [...]

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Cassie McCord, the teenager killed by a driver who failed an eye test, gave away her corneas and scleras to help others see, her mother has revealed. Other organs the 16-year-old donated included a life-saving liver, pancreas and kidneys – and Jackie McCord has already received a letter from the recipient of some of the [...]

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What makes an entrepreneur? BBC Arabic’s Marwa Amer and Tom Santorelli spoke to Yasmine El-Mehairy about setting up an Egyptian website designed specifically for mothers. When Yasmine El-Mehairy looked online for pregnancy advice for her sister-in-law in 2010, she was bombarded with conflicting opinions and what she thought were old wives’ tales. She identified a [...]

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Non-identical twins Emilie Falk and Lin Backman – strangers until last year – were separated nearly 29 years ago. According to a DNA test the pair had done two months after reuniting in January last year, and which they shared with AFP, there is a 99.98 per cent chance of them being sisters. A complex [...]

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For a while now I’ve been longing to write a spoof middle-class misery memoir, a necessary corrective to the depressing tales of abuse, poverty and triumph over adversity that have dominated the bestseller charts for so long. The only obstacle, apart from laziness, has been deciding which of the many delicious potential titles is best. [...]

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They say the customer is always right. But not many can claim to being so right they forced a supermarket to change one of its products. Little Lily Robinson can, however, after the three-year-old got Sainsbury’s to rename its tiger bread after writing a letter saying it looked more like the markings of a giraffe. [...]

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Two teenagers who attacked one of their schoolmates are likely to face justice after they filmed themselves beating the other boy and posted the footage on Facebook. The horrific video received a warm welcome from the teens’ friends, however – more than 25 of them clicked the ‘Like’ button on the post. But the mother [...]

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A teen transsexual who is celebrating after getting the green light to become a woman has revealed how he was inspired by singer Lady Gaga. Cambell Kenneford, 16, dreamed of being a female model – despite being born a man. Now the student, from Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire, plans to get gender realignment surgery following [...]

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The Paris criminal court ordered Prince Sattam al-Saud from the kingdom’s founding royal family, to hand over custody of his daughter Aya to her French mother, Candice Cohen-Ahnine, and provide child support of €10,000 (£8,300) a month. For the past three-and-a-half years, the prince has kept Aya in a Riyadh palace despite efforts by the [...]

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Shamima was bundled into a car by sisters Nadiya, 25, Nazira, 29, and brother Kayum Mohammed-Abdul, 24, outside a Basingstoke restaurant when they saw her kissing work colleague Gary Pain on April 1 last year. The jury heard how an “extremely aggressive and threatening” Mohammed-Abdul grabbed Mr Pain by the neck as Miss Akhtar was [...]

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She was rarely been seen out and about during her family’s time in LA. But Mel B’s beautiful daughter Madison certainly made an impression as she left US shores yesterday. The 5-month-old looked angelic in a Harper Beckham-style headband as she, her mother and father Stephen Belafonte made their way through LAX, beginning their journey [...]

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The risk of heart damage in unborn babies is doubled if the mother-to-be is an overweight smoker, scientists are warning. A study found women with both risk factors were more than twice as likely to give birth to a child with congenital heart disease – a general term to describe a range of birth defects [...]

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Babies are being brought into classrooms to cut bullying and teach children empathy. Primary schools in Lewisham and Croydon will be the first in England to use infants to educate children as young as four about emotional literacy. Babies have been brought into lessons before to highlight the realities of teenage parenthood, but this is [...]

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Youth unemployment, over a million now, is the most painful feature of the recession; a breach of the promise one generation makes to the next. But it’s not new – unemployment among the young was rising even in the tail end of the boom years. There’s a deeper change going on here. The brutal truth [...]

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“I wanted to see policemen being attacked,” says Ryan, 19, as he sits beside his parents. “I wanted to see them being injured, I wanted to see them being treated the way they treat us. This was going to change society. Hopefully for the better.” Ryan’s parents, Kerry and Liam, are looking at the floor, [...]

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Clearly aware of the risks involved in rock-climbing, Menna Pritchard has taken the precaution of kitting herself out with a safety helmet. Incredibly, however, not only has she decided to scale the cliff with her two-year-old daughter Ffion strapped to her back – but she has also left the toddler’s head unprotected. Clinging on as [...]

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A disabled pensioner has been kicked out of his family home by his 25-year-old daughter after getting his blind lover, 22, pregnant. Retired lorry driver Edward Taylor, 65, was told to leave the bungalow he shared with his daughter, Kelly, after beginning his love affair with young girlfriend Emma Gough. The unlikely sweethearts are now [...]

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A £17million village will house dementia sufferers in a fake reality where carers are disguised as gardeners, hairdressers and shop assistants. The community – dubbed Dementiaville – is being designed along the lines of the 1950s-style houses of a neighbouring village near Bern in Switzerland. It will be the first project of its kind in [...]

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Amanda Holden was today discharged from hospital after her life-threatening childbirth ordeal. The Britain’s Got Talent judge was said to be “thrilled” to be back at her house in south-west London with new daughter Hollie. Holden, 40, was in intensive care for several days following the birth eight days ago. She is believed to have [...]

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Young-at-heart Kathleen Connell celebrated her 100th birthday and shared the secret of her long life – playing on her handheld games console. Instead of knitting or playing bingo, Kathleen – known to all as Kit – spends two hours a day tapping away on her Nintendo DS Lite. Instead of knitting or playing bingo Kathleen [...]

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The bodies of civil servants Robert Kamin, 55, and Susan Poff, 50, were found under blankets in a parked car outside their home in Oakland, California. They had been strangled. Police believe someone then tried to set light to the car which was charred. Friends and relatives said the couple had worked tirelessly for the [...]

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When his son Daniel was given just months to live without a lifesaving transplant, devoted father David made a brave decision. His son was suffering from a rare liver condition and it was unlikely that surgeons would find a donor liver in time. So he decided to step forward and risk his life to donate [...]

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A schoolgirl was listening to music on her headphones when she was killed by a train on a level crossing, police suspect. GP’s daughter Katie Littlewood, 15, was struck at high speed while using the pedestrian crossing. A pair of headphones were found near her body at Johnson’s Footpath in Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, and British [...]

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Prince Harry has said he does not believe the Queen can now carry out her public duties without the Duke of Edinburgh by her side. In an interview to mark her Diamond Jubilee, the prince pays tribute to his 85-year-old grandmother’s stoicism and sense of duty. But he makes it clear that none of her [...]

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A few years ago I found a small, cold, barefoot child on Hampstead Heath early on a Sunday morning. It was a forlorn sight, as he picked his way across the gravel path, and other dogwalkers turned to look at him because it was so unusual to see such a small child alone. I decided [...]

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Four young thugs who beheaded birds and caused nearly £10,000 worth of damage at a horticulture centre all tried to blame each other for their crimes, a court heard. Gavin Wellesby, 19, and three male youths aged 12, 16 and 17 all admitted to being at the centre but tried to cast the blame on [...]

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The death of the 13-year-old son of a US Air Force lieutenant colonel from gunshot wounds has been described as a “tragic accident” as police launched an investigation into the incident. The 13-year-old boy was shot in the head at a house in Souldern, near Bicester, Oxfordshire, on Sunday morning. He died at the John [...]

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Giving his personal reflections on his grandmother in a rare and candid interview to mark her Diamond Jubilee, the Prince raised the sensitive subject of the monarch’s advancing years and her ability to cope with her massive workload as she approaches her 86th birthday. Meanwhile his brother, The Duke of Cambridge, disclosed that the Queen, [...]

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