Parent Pages new website

But they will be £3,000 a year worse off than before credit crunch

Glimmer of hope as food prices fell by 0.5% in October. Cash-strapped families struggling to survive Britain’s economic crisis will finally see their disposable income rise next year – but only by £5 a week, a study reveals today.

And they will still be more than £3,000 a year worse off than they were before the credit crunch struck in 2007, it warns.

The glimmer of economic hope came as a separate report claimed food prices fell by 0.5per cent in October compared to September – the biggest reduction in two years.

The study of disposable incomes, from the consultancy, the Centre for Economics and Business Research, predicts the average weekly figure for middle class families will rise by 0.5 per cent next year.

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The soaring cost of gas and electricity is forcing more households to turn off heating. Research from uSwitch suggests 89 per cent of families will ration their energy use this winter to save on bills.

Taking the blame is the 21 per cent hike in energy prices in the past 12 months which has left the average household having to find an extra £224 for heating. “As the cost of our energy bills escalates people are being forced into making potentially dangerous choices,” warns Ann Robinson, director of consumer policy at uSwitch.

“Whether they sacrifice something else to keep the heating on or turn the heating off to pay for something else, there is a modern-day Russian roulette going on in homes up and down the country.”

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It is right to try to keep families together, but we must be quicker to recognise when that’s not possible

Every year half a million children and adults whose families have broken down need to use the family justice system. How well they are helped matters hugely to them and to all of us. Yet where the state intervenes in family life to protect children from harm, in child protection cases, it takes on average over a year for an outcome – an age in the life of a child. The backlog of cases in the public law system means today around 20,000 children are waiting for their futures to be decided.

And, unless they are tackled, these delays are likely to rise. When people need to make arrangements following separation, using private law, too many people go to court. Adults and children are often confused about what to do, and their cases take too long.

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Disposable income sees another record fall as rising energy and fuel costs put pressure on household budgets.

British families are £15 a week worse off in September 2011, the third consecutive month of record breaking decline, according to the latest Asda Income Tracker.
The squeeze on family finances has left the average household with £163 of weekly disposable income – down by 8.4pc from this time last year. Annual inflation on the consumer price index grew again to 5.2pc in September, up by 0.7 percentage points from August, placing significant pressure on household spending power.
Family budgets are squeezed further by the rising costs of basics. The rising cost of energy pushes the overall rate of inflation even further above the Bank of England’s target rate of 2pc. In September, gas prices were 22.3pc higher than a year ago while electricity prices were up by 12.9pc.

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A music charity that works with vulnerable children has warned that it will be forced to cut projects, unless the makers of The X Factor settle a legal battle over one of the show’s groups.

Rhythmix is suing Simon Cowell after his Simco company lodged a trademark application to use the same name for a girl band competing in this year’s series.

The Brighton-based charity, which works with youth offending teams to create music programmes for vulnerable children and those with learning difficulties, said The X Factor namesake was causing confusion and disrupting sessions. Mark Davyd, the charity’s director, said Simco was “fully aware” that the charity, which has been established for 12 years, was already using the name, yet had pursued the trademark “without considering any moral implication or negative impact on the charity”.

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Lessons on how to bring up children will simply make us more paranoid.

The news that Clarissa Farr, headmistress of top girl’s school St Paul’s, is offering parenting classes for high-flying professionals might for some seem inspired. And I don’t want to knock anything that helps time-poor adults rub along better with their offspring or juggle homework, piano practice and plain old conversation a bit more effectively.
But the very suggestion puts me into a spin. First, wouldn’t it be better to get along home, step over the just-dropped bags, bung a chop under the grill and engage with the Latin vocab or thrills of Year 6 reproduction? Surely that’s better than spending more money and time on another course away from home while someone else keeps an eye on the offspring. Apart from the fact that the combined parental ambition in that school hall is likely, in my book, to be devouring its oxygen.

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A heartless son stole his mother’s wedding rings from her finger as she slept and then pawned them to make money.

Former alcoholic David Collins, 28, was jailed for two years and five months by a judge who told him his actions were ‘very, very mean’.

The same judge had previously praised the young man for trying to turn around his life after becoming addicted to alcohol.

It also emerged that on a separate occasion Collins had spat in his mother’s face and called her a ‘slut’, and had also beaten a man with a chair leg.

A court heard that he broke into his parents’ house in Cheltenham on June 24 this year and prised the three rings from his mother’s wedding ring finger while she slept.

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A hi-tech baby buggy which sells for more than £400 and is loved by celebrities and style-conscious mothers is at the centre of a safety alert.

Owners of the Bugaboo Bee have been advised that the front wheels could lock without warning, causing it to tip over.

Many parents are unhappy that they have been kept in the dark about the problem and large numbers have taken to online parenting websites to vent their frustration. The fault is all the more surprising given the high price tag of the Bugaboo Bee stroller and other buggies in the company’s award-winning range.

The Bee can run from around £400 to more than £700 depending on the accessories bought with the basic frame.

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Steve Jobs’s father boasted that he met the Apple chief executive at his restaurant, describing him as a “great tipper” without realising he was talking about his son, Mr Jobs disclosed before his death.

Mr Jobs, who was adopted, was long thought to have never met his real father, Abdulfattah “John” Jandali, a Syrian restaurateur and casino owner who lived near Apple’s headquarters in California.
Last week it emerged that in fact, after finding Joanne Schieble, his mother, and the novelist Mona Simpson, his sister, in the 1980s, Mr Jobs also discovered he had already met Mr Jandali at his restaurant.
Mr Jobs was heard discussing the subject for the first time in recordings of interviews he gave the author of his authorised biography, ‘Steve Jobs’, which were broadcast on CBS on Sunday evening.

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Kids dressed as witches, skeletons and vampires will pocket more treats cash on Halloween than those in Freddie Krueger or Scream outfits, it emerged yesterday (Sun).

Researchers discovered householders are more likely to hand over tasty goody bags to non-scary visitors than those who will send a shiver down their spine.
The study of 2,000 adults by George at Asda also found the majority of Brits (67 per cent) admit their generosity will be heavily influenced by the quality of costumes who turn up at their door.
Two thirds (65 per cent) of Brits said they have a preference for more traditional costumes over modern creations such as Freddie Kruger or Ghostface from Scream.
The most popular Halloween costumes amongst Brits planning to hand out treats are witches (with a 71 per cent approval rating), skeletons (57 per cent) and vampires (54 per cent).

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Patchwork jumpers and cardigans inspired by a chance find plus the way to make seven-year-old boys love shoe shopping.

Grandmother’s footsteps When the sisters Rafaela van der Heyden and Sarah Roper-Curzon discovered box upon box of tissue-wrapped clothing from their childhood (much of it hand-made by their grandmother, and all lovingly stored away by their Spanish mother) they were inspired to create Elfie (elfielondon.com), their own nostalgic range of children’s clothing. Here you will find patchwork jumpers (ages 1-5, £48) and cardigans, each with a hand-crocheted frog or mouse attached (1-5, £48). Dungarees, dresses and tweed coats will follow.
Golden Oldie Anyone who thinks that all grannies do is wear mauve, play Scrabble and smell of cabbage will laugh out loud at David Walliams’s new book, Gangsta Granny (£12.99, harpercollins.co.uk), published in hardback on Thursday. Ben, the long-suffering 11-year-old hero, is sent to stay with his granny again, so that his parents can go ballroom dancing, again, only to discover that she was once an international jewel thief and is hatching a plot to steal the Crown Jewels.

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A first-born daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will be able to accede to the throne, under an agreement to be struck between Commonwealth leaders next week

A first-born daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will be able to accede to the throne, under an agreement to be struck between Commonwealth leaders next week.
The Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Perth, Australia, next week will agree changes to the Act of Settlement and other ancient laws dictating the succession, ministers said yesterday.
Under the rules of primogeniture, any male child takes precedence in the succession, meaning that any son born to the Duke would become King even if he had an older sister.
David Cameron has said those rules should be changed, but since the British monarch remains head of state in 16 other Commonwealth countries, they all would have to agree any change. The Prime Minister wrote this month to fellow Commonwealth leaders describing the succession rules as “an anomaly” that should be ended.

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BBC investigators filmed tiny Romanian girl scavenging for food in the street

‘This is modern-day slavery. How does a four-year-old child consent to be exploited?’
Panorama team watched ‘minders’ take cash from children after pleading with tourists
TV team tracked down gang and found luxury BMW parked on the drive. Child beggars as young as four earn up to £100,000 each for gypsy gangs, a shocking investigation has revealed.

The children work in teams on London’s streets, wheedling money out of tourists in snow and rain.

Some of the children make £500 a day – and hand it all over to their Romany ‘minders’, the BBC’s Panorama programme found.

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For the third time in just three months, a fashion retailer has caused offence by apparently glamorising a sexist view of girls being less gifted at math than boys.

A ‘Tetris box tee with pocket’ by designer The Addison Story is currently on sale at fashion site Life:Curated with a misjudged description attached.

Next to a photo of the $112 top is a marketing tagline by the online retailer: ‘Just because you failed 11th grade math class doesn’t mean you can’t bring some geometry into your life with this Tetris print blouse.’ Reactions to the shirt include that of Styleite.com, whose fashion commentator writes: ‘Did you know girls are, like, really bad at math? Because they totally are! And it’s soooo funny LOLOL, but it’s okay because they can buy clothes instead! Ugh.’

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After 72 years of marriage they had only an hour’s separation between them in their passing, yet their locked hands never let go.

The family of the Iowa couple say their life together was a real-life love story, never separated, even after their tragic car accident which sent them both to the hospital.

‘They believed in marriage,’ Dennis Yeager, the youngest son of Gordon Yeager, 94, and wife Norma, 90, told MailOnline. ‘They chose each other and once they had committed, that was it.’ The couple were both born in Iowa before Gordon Yeager moved to a farm a Minnesota with his family. After it was badly hit by the Depression, 16-year-old Gordon returned to work at the Chevrolet Garage in State Center, Iowa – a business which he would eventually go on to own.

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Egg donation is not like getting gum balls out of a slot machine. Reasonable compensation could be 10 times the £750 on offer

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority on Wednesday voted to triple the amount it gives to women who donate their eggs: it is now £750, a flat fee that Professor Lisa Jardine said was purely intended as compensation for women. “What we’re trying to avoid,” she told the Today programme yesterday, “is the clinic having to collect bus tickets and train tickets.”

Dr David King, of Human Genetic Alert, argued that this amounted to paying women. “I do not believe there is any such thing as ‘I’m an altruistic donor but yes I’d like some cash please’.” King’s line – that £750 is too much to reasonably constitute expenses – we’ll come to shortly. There is a legitimate question underneath it: in countries where egg donors and surrogates are paid, this often started as an expenses agreement, sliding by degrees into a commercial one. So it is fair to ask whether this is the first step on the path towards monetising the mechanics of assisted reproduction – and what would be so wrong with that.

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Barbie gets inked for fashion makeover – but what message does this send to her young fans?

She’s been everything from a ballerina to a doctor. Now, for her latest incarnation, Barbie has had a serious fashion makeover.

Thanks to Italian-based, Japanese-inspired brand Tokidoki, the doll has been given a bang-on-trend pink bob, heels that would make Carrie Bradshaw jealous… and tattoos.

The $50 Barbie, which is a limited edition, has floral and Manga cartoon-style motifs across her left arm, neck and chest.

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Parents are stereotyped as either “feckless” or “pushy” in a society that puts huge pressures on families, experts say.

The Family and Parenting Institute says intense scrutiny of parents has led to claims they are responsible for a deterioration in adolescent behaviour.

But its chief executive Dr Katherine Rake says there is no evidence of a decline in parenting standards.

If anything, parents are becoming more “professional”, she says.

In an article to mark the start of Parenting Week, Dr Rake says parenting has become “one of the most charged political and cultural subjects of our age”.

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A champion of women in the boardroom, Helena Morrissey faces equal challenges at home, as a mother of nine children.

The problem with interviewing Helena Morrissey is that her private life is so intriguing that it’s hard to stick to the subject under discussion. It’s not that the Thirty Per Cent Club, which she founded in order to get that proportion of women into Britain’s boardrooms by 2015, is a dull topic. Far from it. The current figures would make a visitor from outer space wonder what century we are living in.
Only 12.5 per cent of the board members of the FTSE 100 companies are women – and how many of them, I wonder, are in human resources? Even more shocking is the fact that 52.4 per cent of our 250 largest public companies have no – repeat no – women on the board. You don’t have to be politically correct to think that those companies won’t reflect the diversity of their customers, let alone different ways of viewing the world.

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Whitehall memos reveal the Michelin-starred chef held talks with the government over a rival scheme to improve our children’s eating habits

As Jamie Oliver prepares to launch his second manifesto for better British food, his longstanding critic, the Michelin-starred chef Marco Pierre White, has developed a rival plan to persuade government to improve the nation’s school dinners, invading political territory staked out by Oliver since 2004.

At a private meeting with education secretary Michael Gove last year, White outlined a scheme that would see professional cooks working with schools and the catering giants who supply them. But White’s plan has been put on the backburner by the coalition.

The 49-year-old chef was invited to meet Gove in Whitehall to discuss his plan last October. Officials at the department for education believed he was planning to involve big food businesses, such as Compass, to work with schools. Compass was forced to stop serving Bernard Matthews’s Turkey Twizzlers in schools in 2005 following an Oliver campaign. White, who now advertises Matthews’s products, has suggested his rival was unfair to label Turkey Twizzlers as unhealthy.

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Writer and poet Michael Rosen, a lover of museums since childhood, introduces our pick of the best places to intrigue and delight little imaginations.

I can’t think of a time in my life I haven’t visited museums. I suppose that’s because my parents were both great museum lovers and took my brother and me to anything that looked like one. I can remember standing in Kensington Palace staring at a great model of London that flickered with artificial flames while we listened to a recording of Samuel Pepys’s voice.
This was, of course, the old London Museum before it moved to its present site near the Barbican, and where you can now enter a darkened room to be scared rigid as contemporary pictures of suppurating, naked bodies play all over the walls and voices tell you of the Black Death.

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Parents can improve family life by switching off TVs and computers to communicate better, experts said today.

Technological advances combined with hectic schedules have led to parents and children spending less quality time with each other, according to human development researchers.

Their findings also show people who devote more time to digital technology are more likely to eat unhealthily, exercise less and do worse in exams. Professor Kelly Warzinik from the University of Missouri in the U.S. said: ‘Powering down digital devices is a vital step in maintaining family relationships.

‘Instead of watching TV or talking on a mobile phone parents can take advantage of daily opportunities to interact with their children at meal times or in the car.

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With the likes of Suri, Sparrow and Sunday tossing sand at each other in Hollywood playgrounds, one doesn’t need to look far to know that parents are constantly striving for the original when it comes to baby names.

But for almost one in ten, it seems that an ill-chosen moniker is causing baby name remorse.

A new study, by yourbabydomainname.com, revealed that eight per cent of mothers and fathers regretted the name they had given their child. Over half of those admitting to baby name remorse said that they had been swayed by fashion trends that were no longer relevant.

A third explained that the name had been original at the time of birth, but ended up being more widely used than they expected.

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The Princess Royal’s son Peter Phillips and his wife are expecting their second child, Buckingham Palace has confirmed.

Canadian Autumn Phillips is due to have her baby in March. The couple already have a daughter, Savannah, who is 12th in line to the throne.

A spokesman for Buckingham Palace said: “The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, as well as Autumn’s family, have been informed and are delighted with the news.”

Mr and Mrs Phillips attracted media attention when they sold their wedding photos to Hello! magazine in 2008.

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The letter you always wanted to write

There was never a time our family lived in this house that you weren’t there. You were made just before I was born. Made by Dad to fit perfectly into the kitchen in the new house we had moved into. I was a bump in Mum’s tummy, but my two older sisters were there when you were manoeuvred into place. Dad is a perfectionist and makes things to last, but who would have thought you’d still be there all these years later?

You are part of our family. You have hosted 35 Christmas dinners, six christening lunches, three wedding banquets and four wakes. I can’t count the hundreds of candles that have been blown out with the family sitting around you, but every birthday cake I’ve ever had has been eaten sitting around you. Babies have had their first bath in a plastic tub on you, dens have been made under you, generations of children have squealed and shrieked as they chase and skid around you.

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Friends keep promise and meet again at 40 to compare how their lives turned out

The cellar was so firmly out of bounds none of us had dared venture there before. But one night, a group of us teenage girls crept from our boarding school dorms and sneaked down there for a midnight feast.

Huddled in the pitch black, our whispered conversation soon turned to lofty plans for the future. Victoria Caine was going to become a famous actress; Vicky Walshe would marry a rich man; Vanessa Maddox dreamed of working in television; Louise Reynell would travel the globe; Lara Trew, the Irish beauty, wanted to be her own boss.

That left me, the geeky clown who came bottom of every class save English, who wanted to be an award-winning novelist.

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Average family loses 11sq ft of space in just three years

Millions of families are being squashed into homes that are too small, with one in eight children now enduring overcrowding.

In the past three years the average family has lost 11 sq ft of living space, an alarming study shows.

Many families are trapped in homes that are too small because they cannot afford to buy or rent a larger property.

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Jaime King reveals alarming attitude to weight sparked by time as teen model

As one of the lead roles in CW series Hart of Dixie, Jaime King has never looked better.

But in a new interview the actress, 32, has revealed how her time as a teen model inspired a worrying attitude towards weight that she still struggles with to this day.

She admitted that she developed an obsession with having a 20-inch waist in the early Nineties, when the super-skinny heroin-chic look was in vogue (indeed, she did more then just look the part – for a time she even became addicted to the drug).

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God, I love baby Mabel. I love the way her laugh starts at her feet and wriggles its way up her chubby body, exploding in a throaty gurgle that even the neighbours can hear.

I love her smell, her folds of fat, her ginger comb-over and matching eyelashes, her sumo-sized knees . . . . I could go on but you get my drift: ‘Ain’t no mountain high enough,’ etc.

But no matter how much I love this amazing little person I’ve nurtured for five months this week, I’ve decided it’s time to stop breastfeeding. Hang on, you cry, if you love her so much, why would you do that? Haven’t you read the surveys, woman? Don’t you know the rule of martial (I mean maternal) law? If you stop now, baby Mabel is doomed. Uh oh! I can hear the sirens going off at Breastapo HQ.

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Last night, my husband Martin went off to play in his weekly lads football match. OK, so the game is hardly a melting pot of Premier League talent.

Rather, just a bunch of forty-something lawyers and accountants trying to be Wayne Rooney (though playing more like Coleen).

But as Martin came into the kitchen to say goodbye he looked soooo cute, his hair all fluffed with static after slipping on a faded Manchester United shirt with his name on the back.

And so, with unbridled enthusiasm, I launched myself into his arms and feathered his face with a dusting of affectionate kisses . . . just as my 16 year-old son happened to walk in. ‘Get a room!’ he sniffed in disgust, mumbling something about finding a sick bag as he slunk away.

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Women at home with kids now prefer to be called ‘stay-at-home mums’ rather than ‘housewives’. But is there another alternative?

My goodness but the Modern Woman does like to complicate things. A survey this week by Mothercare has revealed that she has turned against the title “housewife” with two-thirds of those questioned saying they prefer to be known as “stay-at-home mums”.

If it were a straight choice between the two, I would concur. “Housewife” recalls too strongly the wasp-waisted 1950s figure outwardly thrilling to the latest advances in domestic technology while necking tranquillisers to dull the pain of frustrated ambition. “Stay-at-home mum” at least limits the suggestion of servitude to your offspring.

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Her favourite meal is a big plate of bangers and mash.

But Stella Langdon’s enjoyment is fleeting as she is allergic to food and can’t eat without being sick up to nine times a day.

Since the age of two, the 11-year-old has had to vomit a staggering 30,000 times.

Yet finally, thanks to new medication that suppresses the damaging reflexes, the nightmare might be over – Stella has been able to hold down a meal for the first time in her life.

Her allergy has left more than one doctor scratching their head. Stella was even accused of making the whole thing up – much to anger of her despairing mum.

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She’s a supermodel, actress, TV presenter and producer. Now Tyra Banks can add the title ‘bestselling author’ to her impressive list of careers.

The America’s Next Top Model judge’s debut novel, Modelland, topped the Barnes and Noble charts this week. It also ranks second in the New York Times Children’s Chapter Books chart.

Now, adding fuel to rumours for a movie adaptation, the star, 37, has admitted that she is already looking for girls who could play the characters in the book.

She claims she was approached by a major Hollywood producer shortly after announcing plans to publish the book.

She said: ‘I would love to open up the Modelland casting to the world.

‘I’m looking for an every-girl to possibly play one of the characters in the story.’

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Internet providers in the UK are to change practices to make it easier for parents to block their children from accessing porn on the web, it was announced today.

Customers signing up with four of Britain’s biggest internet companies – BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media – will be offered an “active choice” over whether they want to impose parental controls on web access in their home.

The move is one of a number of measures being announced today to tackle the problem of sexualisation of childhood, also including a new website which parents can use to report concerns and seek advice.

The ParentPort website will allow parents to raise complaints about internet content, TV programmes, adverts, videos, computer games and sexualised products such as clothes being marketed to children.

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A high court judge’s ruling reveals the importance of deciding on parental roles before embarking on artificial insemination

P is an unhappy 10-year-old girl. At school, she cries in the toilets and has to be comforted by her friend. She has “suffered significant emotional harm as a result of the conflicts which have raged around her for at least the last three years,” according to a high court judge.

P’s problem is not that she has two mothers. P knows that her mother RWB and her mother’s civil partner SWB are her family and she is happy with that.

What makes P so miserable is she and her six-year-old sister L also have two fathers. P says she likes seeing ML and his long-term partner AR. But, according to a grownup who was looking after the 10-year-old a few months ago, “she cannot just pretend that ML is her father in order to make him happy”.

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These moments show a father pulling wheelies on his motorbike – whilst his three-year-old son is sat perched on the petrol tank.

Show off Ryan Ward, 23, rode not only without a care in the world but also without a helmet and without a driving licence as he sped along roads pavements and footpaths – with the bewildered toddler sat in front of him holding onto the handlebars
The unnamed boy who was also not wearing a helmet or protective clothing looked on ahead as his father put his foot down and hit up to 40mph as the blue off road motorbike tore round the Harpurhey area of Manchester.
Initally the father and son were spotted waiting at traffic lights on the machine but a police helicopter kept its spy camera trained on Ward as he rode away.

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Today’s young ‘will end up 25% worse off than their boomer parents’

A generation of young people will be 25 per cent less well off than their parents were when they reach the age of 65, research reveals.

They are the ‘baby bust’ generation who face a long list of crippling financial problems from sky-high house prices to poor pensions, it claims.
In fact, they face a far bleaker future on every front than the ‘baby boomer’ generation before them, according to the report.

On average, a young professional will have accumulated £400,000 less in wealth than their parents, born at the end of the ‘baby boom’, by the time they turn 65.

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The number of children living in poverty in Britain will rise by 600,000 to 2.8 million by 2012-13, according to the Institute of Fiscal Studies.

The think-tank says that the overall effect of the Coalition’s welfare reforms is likely to be an increase in child poverty in Britain by the end of the decade.

The introduction of Iain Duncan Smith’s universal credit will lift 450,000 children out of poverty but, the IFS says, other benefit changes – such as linking payment increases to consumer prices – will offset this. It projects that by the end of the decade, 23 per cent of children will be in absolute poverty and 24 per cent in relative poverty.

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Parents of growth disorder girl, 6, plead for end to taunts that make her cry

When Jessica Ward was born, doctors told her parents she wouldn’t live past the age of one. The parents of a six-year-old girl with a growth disorder have pleaded with people to stop teasing their dwarf daughter – who at just 88cm is smaller than her two year old brother.

Jessica Ward rarely goes anywhere unnoticed and is often reduced to tears by commenting strangers.

The primary school pupil has achondroplasia, a bone growth disorder and a form of dwarfism, but her family say she is just like any other young child and have pledged to raise awareness about her condition.

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New law means Kate and William’s first-born will inherit the Duchy of Cornwall even if it’s a girl

If William and Kate have a daughter, she will be the first girl to be allowed to inherit one of Britain’s wealthiest estates.

A change in the law will give female heirs equal rights to their male counterparts giving a first-born child the rights to inherit the £700million Duchy of Cornwall.

Modernising the law would also permit a first-born girl to succeed the throne where the first-born boy in a family previously took precedence, even if he had an elder sister

The Sovreign Grant Bill, which will revolutionise the way the Royal Family is funded was passed by the House of Lords last week.

Clause nine states that an any revenue from the Duchy of Cornwall would go to any heir to the throne who is not the Duke of Cornwall.

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Increasing numbers of women are turning to internet sperm donors to become mothers after failing to find the man of their dreams.

Scores of women in their early twenties are logging on to websites such as babydonor.com and co-parent-search.com to find fathers for their children.

Many women, some of whom are as young as 18 or 19, say they are frustrated with relationships and have decided to face the challenge of parenthood alone. According to The Sunday Times, women under 25 make up a quarter of women registering on some sites, where they post pictures or themselves, as well as private information allowing potential donors to get in touch.

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Michael Jackson’s children took to the stage to address 50,000 fans at a controversial tribute concert celebrating their father’s legacy.

Prince, 14, Paris, 13 and Blanket, 9, appeared briefly at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff to introduce a video performance by Beyonce.
“We’re very happy to be here on this special night to honour our father,” said Paris, dressed in a red leather jacket similar to the one worn by Jackson in the groundbreaking Thriller music video.
The Beat It star, one of the most successful artists of the pop era, died in 2009 aged 50 while rehearsing for a series of comeback concerts.
The Michael Forever tribute concert coincides with the involuntary manslaughter trial of the singer’s doctor, Conrad Murray, currently taking place in Los Angeles.

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The number of unemployed young people has passed the million mark, according to statistics to be published this week

More than a million young people are now unemployed, the highest number since the Conservatives were last in power, government figures to be published this week are expected to reveal.

The figures have been swollen by the number of graduates and school-leavers who have failed to find work after joining the jobs market this summer. Unemployment rose by 80,000 to reach 2.51 million in the three months to July, 77,000 of whom were 18- to-24-year-olds, lifting the youth joblessness total to 973,000.

But new figures taking into account the last three months are expected to be the worst since comparable statistics were first recorded in the early 1990s.

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Houseboat owners on the Thames fear their way of life will be threatened if huge rent increases are imposed on them.

About 280 boats moored will be affected, with many facing rises of more than £1,000.

The Port of London Authority, which manages 95 miles of the river, says an overhaul is overdue and an independent consultation into the changes is under way. River works licences will be calculated according to the size and location of the vessel.

But residents of the Thames marinas and riverside moorings have accused the PLA of cashing in on the increasing popularity of living on the water.

They fear the rise in mooring fees – by an average of about a third – will drive out traditional river dwellers, leaving only a “playground for the rich”.

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‘A guy pointed out a smuggler and I asked him if he could get me to the UK for £100′

I left Iraq in 2007, when I was 16. I was being threatened by the paramilitary army Jaish al-Mahdi because I’m a Sunni and they are Shia. They would come to my house and intimidate me, or harass me on the street. The Jaish al-Mahdi were lawless – they kidnapped people and sometimes, if the family didn’t pay the ransom, they would leave the hostages dead on the street.

My brother, who was 20 at the time, organised our escape. Using fake IDs, we went to Turkey in a car, then to France in the back of a truck, via Greece and Italy. In each country, while we waited for our next lift, we’d have to stay in run-down places the smugglers had organised. I didn’t have a say on where we went, or how we got there. When you’re a girl, travelling in this way, you just keep your mouth shut and do what you’re told. I was always so scared of getting caught.

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Its the kitsch Japanese brand that adorns stationery, Beanie Babies and keyrings. Now Hello Kitty has turned its force to fashion, but can cute conquer the catwalk?

It’s nothing new. Flashbulbs fill the room, a funky dance soundtrack blasts out of the speaker system, tall models with gravity-defying hair strut on the catwalk. This could be any show at Milan fashion week. But on this occasion, the cute little cat adorning the clothes looks familiar, if not a little out of place.

This is the launch of the high-end luxury clothing line, Pynkiss. But the brand features the unmistakeable insignia of Hello Kitty in an assortment of themes on its clothing – a first for the trademark. Lead designer for Pynkiss, Monica Ricci says: “Our clothes are unique because we don’t have to follow the Hello Kitty style guide. We create the drawings, and our clothes are made to that design. You won’t find that on anyone else’s Hello Kitty lines’.

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A father had £108,000 forcibly taken from his bank in a record child support payment seizure.

The man, who has not been identified, had failed to pay any maintenance for his daughter for more than 16 years.
When the Child Support Agency investigated, officials found that his account held enough money to pay everything he owed.
A similar lump sum deduction order, which compels banks to open their books to investigators, was granted in the case of a father who had failed to pay towards his child’s upkeep in London for eight years.

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Why is it that the last thing you want to hear is often the first thing people say? And why are we women particular target practice for some of the most annoying remarks in the English language?

We round up some of the worst offenders . . . YOU LOOK TIRED

While there’s something faintly sexy about saying this to a man — it connotes crumpled shirts, hand-raked hair and a world-weariness beloved of cinematic heroes — in women it just spells, ‘you look pasty and old’. End of.

YOU LOOK WELL

A slightly smug variant of the above. What does ‘well’ mean? That you don’t look ill? That you look as rosy, hearty and sexless as a chubby milkmaid on an advert for rice pudding? Yes, because it actually means ‘you look like you’ve put on a few pounds’. Or podgy. Enough to make you ill.

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To her colleagues at Ringland Primary School, Victoria Jones was a dedicated and caring member of staff who was devoted to the pupils in her charge.

Certainly, no one would have guessed that, away from the classroom, the seemingly sweet-natured teacher had embarked on a deception as sinister as it was bizarre.

The victim? Her ex-boyfriend, Daniel Barberini. The scam? To convince the man who had dumped her that not only had he made her pregnant, but that she was expecting twins. Later, she added another cruel twist: one of the twins had died and she was bringing up their surviving daughter on the other side of the world.

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Xiu Fang Zhang says children could be taken from her as China has a one-child policy

Wins right to appeal Home Office decision to deport her. A failed Chinese asylum seeker who has given birth to four children since coming to Britain claims her home country’s one-child policy means sending her home would violate her family’s human rights.

Xiu Fang Zhang, 34, claims her children could be taken from her if she returns to her homeland as the communist government only allows one-child families in urban areas.

Parents in some rural areas are permitted to have two children.

Mrs Zhang first came to Britain in 2003, and was refused asylum shortly after her arrival. Despite this ruling, she has remained in the country, giving birth to four children in her eight years in Britain.

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