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Vicki and Octavia, our mother and daughter agony aunts, answer your questions

I’m just about to have my second baby. My son is three and a half and I’m worried that he’s going to be very jealous of the time I have to devote to the newborn and that it will harm our incredibly close relationship. How can I make sure he feels he’s still special?
VICKI My generation was told that a three-to-four-year age gap was perfect timing, sibling-jealousywise, so there’s a comfort. Here’s another: you will be, I promise, pleased by how practised you are at feeding/bathing/changing a newborn (none of the panic that comes with one’s first). So it’ll be easy to involve your little boy in such important tasks as passing a babywipe. Equally easy to put the little bundle down while you do big-boy things with him. An instinctive mothering trick is to note when baby’s eyes are locked on your son and point it out: ‘Look how s/he loves you!’

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Teletubbies creator Anne Wood has criticised firms that profit from parents’ “anxieties” about how to bring up their children.

The 73-year-old, who worked as a teacher before getting into children’s television, also told BBC Radio 4′s Desert Island Discs about the horrified reactions she faced from some people when Teletubbies was first shown.

Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po appeared on BBC TV for the first time in 1997 and became a worldwide hit – screened in more than 100 countries, translated into 45 languages – and even notched up a number one single with their debut release, Teletubbies Say Eh-Oh.

But the show also had its critics – most notably when American preacher Jerry Falwell claimed Tinky Winky could be a gay role model.

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As a child, Giles Milton knew that his mother was still deeply traumatised by the war. Then he brought home his German fiancée

When I was very young, there was, I remember, a long-standing rivalry – only half in jest – between my mother and father. The issue at stake was this: who had suffered more during the war?
My mother had lived in Sydenham – an area of south-east London severely damaged by Hitler’s V1 and V2 rockets. Bombs had exploded around her childhood home. Many a long and terrifying night had been spent in the air-raid shelter.
My father had lived in leafy north-west London, in an area of Harrow that was scarcely touched by the war. He told us about accompanying Dad’s Army patrols through suburban streets and made it all sound rather jolly.

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Londoner Daniel Roche plays Ben, 11, a tornado of manic energy whose surreal imagination and outrageous lies are the bane of his parents’ lives

‘Ben is the me I have to hide to show my maturity,’ says Daniel Roche, staring at something a foot above my head. I look up, but there’s nothing there. ‘There’ve been moments when I’ve brought up random things like Ben does and wanted to know more about them, and it’s not very helpful.’

We’re just a few minutes into the interview but already I’m stumbling about in the weird and wonderful world of the 11-year-old boy who is probably TV’s most hilarious child star. OK, slow down Daniel. Explain. What sort of ‘random things’?

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How finger painting shows hunter-gatherer children went to ‘prehistoric pre-school’

Experts can identify the age and gender of those behind the drawings, with one of the most prolific artists being a prehistoric girl aged five
‘Some of the children’s flutings are high up on the walls and on the ceilings, so they must have been held up to make them or have been sitting on someone’s shoulders’
Images found deep inside the Rouffignac caves, France, are likely to be at least 13,000 years old. Archaeologists have uncovered cave art providing evidence that hunter-gatherer children may have attended a form of prehistoric pre-school.

Researchers have revealed that 13,000 years ago, prehistoric children created art in caves with the help of their parents.

A conference on the Archaeology of Childhood at Cambridge University, starting today, will reveal the latest research into art made by children as young as three in one of the most famous prehistoric decorated caves in France.

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Mozart wrote one of his most popular piano concertos for the daughter of a tax collector, it was revealed today.

The composer created Piano Concerto No23 for Barbara Ployer, an acclaimed pianist and the daughter of a merchant and tax collector living in Vienna, according to new research.

Documents taken to Poland during the Second World War indicate the piece was written for his former pupil after one of the manuscripts was found to contain embellishments in her handwriting.

The piece will be performed with Ms Ployer’s changes at the Southbank next week for the first time in 200 years. Robert Levin, a pianist and musicologist, looked at manuscripts stored in Paris, Krakow and Berlin. He found that Mozart had started sketching the manuscript of Concerto No23 onto another containing cadenzas for Concerto No12 and discovered similarities between both concertos. Usually Mozart wrote cadenzas – passages where the soloist could show their prowess – after the original concertos. Mr Levin claims the composer wrote the cadenzas for Concerto No23 at the same time as the piece, proving he was writing it for someone rather than himself.

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A teacher who ‘played truant’ by forging sick notes to excuse himself from class has avoided being sent to prison.

Kulvinder Billan, 31, forged half a dozen sick notes and a letter from a leading doctor so he could get out of teaching at Weston Favell School, Northampton.

A court heard he was paid £33,000 a year but could not face returning to teaching after being off work with stress.

As head of business studies, he submitted forged doctor’s notes over two academic years and then forged a letter from a professor as back up.

Michael Waterfield, prosecuting at Northampton Crown Court on Wednesday, said: ‘He had a substantial amount of time off sick during his first academic year of 2009/10 which appears to be genuine and it was apparent he found it difficult for him to go back to school in the academic year 2010/11.’

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Parents say it’s better for Thomas to have sex change before she is adult

The lesbian parents of an 11-year-old boy who is undergoing the process of becoming a girl last night defended the decision, claiming it was better for a child to have a sex change when young.

Thomas Lobel, who now calls himself Tammy, is undergoing controversial hormone blocking treatment in Berkeley, California to stop him going through puberty as a boy.

But Pauline Moreno and Debra Lobel warn children with gender identity disorder forced to postpone transitioning could face a higher risk of suicide.

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The number of children adopted and given new homes has fallen again, partly because of the delays, caution and prejudices built into the system.

The headline figure is arresting. Of the 3,660 babies under the age of one in the care system last year, only 60 were placed with adoptive parents, down from 150 in 2007 and 4,000 back in the mid-1970s. Yet there is, it appears from both anecdotal and official statistics, no shortage of people coming forward wanting to adopt. So why is the system seizing up?
Plenty of answers have immediately been offered – from an “institutional bias” within the social work profession against white middle-class adopters, to children’s courts taking far too long to reach decisions, or a crucial lack of public money oiling the wheels. But before attempting a diagnosis, it is best to identify what is genuinely a symptom.

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Post your advice below. The best responses will be published in G2 next Friday

My nephew and his fiancee have a baby son and I have been invited to attend the christening. But as a staunch atheist I find the whole idea of welcoming a baby into a religion repugnant; I would feel a hypocrite attending a ceremony that I disapprove of so strongly. On the other hand I really do not want to hurt the feelings of the parents. To add to the dilemma, I would be the only representative of my nephew’s side of the family apart from his mother so I feel I “should” be there. If I overcome my principles and go, there will then follow other invitations to other christenings – so wouldn’t it be easier to make my feelings known once and for all? Or should I climb down off my principled perch and stop being so pompous? I just can’t decide!

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Suri Cruise was pounding the pavement in a pair of sparkling heels, complete with lipstick and handbag, aged just three.

Now research suggests that her passion for heels could be inherited from her 32-year-old mother Katie.

According to Debenhams, balance, poise and choice of shoe is hereditary. Following a study into consumer trends the department store discovered striking links between a mother and daughter’s fashion tastes and their ability to walk in heels.

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He stood just 5ft 1in, weighing only 95 pounds and when police led George Junius Stinney to the death chamber in 1944 he was, at the age of 14, the youngest person to be executed in the U.S.

He was so small that large books had to be placed on the seat so his head could reach the electrodes.

Stinney, of Alcolu, South Carolina, was convicted of murdering two white girls after police said he confessed to the murders. But now a lawyer is determined to prove Stinney was innocent and is calling Claredon County district attorney in South Carolina to reopen the case.

The two girls who died were eleven year-old Betty June Binnicker and 8-year-old Mary Emma Thames.

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An innocent public schoolboy was murdered by “staggeringly incompetent” contract killers who got the wrong address after being recruited by a Dubai-born criminal to murder another man, a court heard yesterday.

Ben Hope, 38, and Jason Richards, 37, stabbed Aamir Siddiqi, 17, to death in the hallway of his family home after the A-level student opened the door expecting his Koran teacher, a jury was told.
His parents tried to fight off the masked men and also suffered stab wounds.
Cardiff Crown Court heard that the two men were hired to carry out a revenge attack on a man who lived in a street less than 100 yards away. The alleged killers mixed up the addresses because they had taken so many drugs.

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New book claims 95 per cent of parents have favourites

It is the kind of knowledge, one imagines, would leave a child requiring years of therapy. So a new book’s claim that 95 per cent of parents have a favourite is a controversial one.

Writer Jeffrey Kluger, who dedicates a chapter of The Sibling Effect to favouritism, believes those who don’t admit to loving one child more are lying.

He writes: ‘It is my belief that 95 percent of the parents in the world have a favorite child, and the other five percent are lying.’

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Dragon’s Den star Duncan Bannatyne has sparked criticism after his spas offer waxing to girls as young as 13.

Furious parents slammed the Clydebank entrepreneur for encouraging youngsters to ‘waste time and money removing their perfectly normal body hair.’

The tycoon’s 33 Bannatyne Spas offer Wax Attack plans such as underarm treatment for £6 and £8 for a half-leg, even though target clients are just entering puberty.

Mumsnet co-founder Justine Roberts denounced the star, who is currently undergoing a bitter divorce from his second wife Joanne McCue.

Roberts said: ‘You’d hope there would be a longer period of grace for girls to be girls and not obsess about being hairless.’

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They are a picture of cute that would make anyone say ‘aah’.

But these Giant Panda cubs, napping peacefully in their nursery, have a far more important role to play.

They have been born and raised in the research base of the Giant Panda Breeding Centre in Chengdu, China, which is attempting to preserve the notoriously sex-shy species. Their successful upbringing comes as China launches its once-a-decade census to determine how many of the endangered bears live in the wild.

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Asterix creator Albert Uderzo is handing over the reins to a younger artist after 52 years drawing the famous comic book hero.

The Italian-born illustrator invented the warrior Gaul with his scriptwriter friend, Rene Goscinny, in 1959.

Uderzo, 84, took over the writing for the comic book after the death of Goscinny in 1977, although many fans felt his scripts were lacking.

Publishers Hachette recently celebrated the sale of 350 million Asterix books.

“I’ve decided there should be some continuity, and I want it to carry on for generations and generations,” Uderzo told RTL radio.

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Raising your offspring in a rural idyll will put them at a disadvantage.

The other day, an environmentalist friend, overwrought by the problems besetting the world due to the booming population, berated me for having children. “What do you expect me to do?” I asked him. “Murder them?”
To do him justice, he didn’t endorse that proposal, but his point of view illustrates one of which, as a parent, I become increasingly conscious. You can never get it right. Every survey that comes out seems to deepen the sense of guilt. It’s bad enough that you’ve had children; the choices you have made for them are likely to be even worse.

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A two-year-old boy has died after falling from a third-floor balcony in Devon.

Devon and Cornwall Police said the child was taken to hospital by ambulance after falling from a building in Torquay on Friday evening.

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Honestly, I’m sure that Jamie Oliver is a devoted dad who adores his family, but some of the things he says about his priorities make me shudder.

Busily promoting his new book and TV series Jamie’s Great Britain (featuring pictures of his gorgeous kids), he’s been rather indiscreet about the state of his marriage.

Bluntly, Jamie feels his long-suffering wife Jools doesn’t understand when it comes to his work-life balance — ‘I take sufficient weekends (most) and holidays (seven weeks) a year for any British woman, but that doesn’t mean I get thanked. I get asked to take more . . . I get a bollocking all the time.’

Jamie’s wealth has soared from £40 million a couple of years ago to an estimated £106  million now. You don’t achieve that kind of mega-income without putting in the hours, and Jamie’s time is totally managed for him by his handlers to ensure maximum return.

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Chloe Green steps into the world’s biggest fashion store with surprising trepidation.

She visits Topshop’s flagship Oxford Circus branch twice a week to rifle through the racks and check out the window displays, but today she pads around more gingerly.

All legs in a pair of leopard-print Wolford tights and towering Alaia boots teamed with an old season Topshop fringed cape and vintage Karl Lagerfeld necklace, the 20-year-old daughter of billionaire retailer Sir Philip Green – who, of course, owns the chain – is nervous.

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UN children’s fund challenges pledges by IMF and World Bank to safeguard poor people from the worst of the global downturn

Pledges by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to safeguard poor people from the worst of the global downturn are being challenged by the United Nations, which is warning of the “extraordinary price” being paid by children and other vulnerable groups as mass austerity programmes sweep across the developing world.

A study by the UN children’s fund, Unicef, said there would be “irreversible impacts” of wage cuts, tax increases, benefit reductions and reductions in subsidies that bore most heavily on the most vulnerable in low-income nations.

It found that between 2010 and 2012 a quarter of developing nations were engaged in what it called excessive belt-tightening, reducing spending to below the levels before the financial crisis began in 2007.

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British schoolgirl, 8, becomes one of the world’s youngest dragster drivers

Belle Wheeler cruised through drag racing driving test after just an hour’s tuition
Has qualified for UK National Finals against youngsters twice her age
Car is adapted so her legs can reach the pedals
She has a reaction time of 0.02 seconds and ‘loves going really fast’
Dad says watching is ‘nerve-wracking’.

A British schoolgirl has become one of the youngest drag racers in the world – just a day after turning eight.

Petite Belle Wheeler, whose favourite colours are pink and purple, qualified for today’s UK National Finals less than 24 hours after taking her drag racing driving test.

She will be competing against youngsters more than twice her age.

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Israel will pay £280,000 to the Palestinian peace activist Bassem Aramim for the death of his 10-year-old daughter Abir four years ago, during a Border Police operation in the village of Anata.

The family argued that Abir, whose case The Independent highlighted, was shot with a rubber bullet as she walked home from school. The family brought a civil case after police closed an internal investigation without charges.

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The picturesque Devonshire village of Winkleigh has been named in a new report as the best place to raise children in England and Wales.

The report compared figures from 60 data sets – including Ofsted educational attainment figures, crime statistics and property prices – for each of the 2,400 postcodes in England and Wales, to rank localities according to their “family friendliness”.

Once the seat of the Saxon Earls of Gloucester, the rural settlement of about 1,400 people topped the Family Friendly Hotspots Report, compiled by financial services company Family Investments.

Other variables taken into account included school inspection outcomes, quality and quantity of early years care, prevalence of young families in the area and proximity to parks, leisure centres, zoos, museums and other attractions.

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The notion that women would make a better fist of running the world than men is risible

For the first time in years, I found the Liberal Democrat conference rather riveting. It wasn’t the policies that drew me in, or the tub-thumping jeering at their Tory coalition partners. Nor was I particularly fascinated by the image of a delegate almost entirely covered in tattoos, which was reprinted ad nauseam in various newspapers as evidence of just how weird Lib Dem supporters are these days (he’s got tattoos! On his face! Get him to a freak show immediately with some eight-year-old cage-fighters!).

No, the reason I found it more entertaining than usual was because of the women. There was Miriam Clegg, resplendent in a canary-yellow Topshop dress and blow-dried hair so bouncy it could singlehandedly prevent a double dip recession. There was Vicky Pryce, spurned ex-wife of the energy secretary, Chris Huhne, walking perilously close to Carina Trimingham, the scarily tall Other Woman. And there, was Lynne Featherstone, equalities minister, spouting some ridiculous claptrap apparently picked up from a Beyoncé song about how girls should rule the world.

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‘Some people seemed to take the view that the last thing we wanted was company, as though life did not go on, that we did not need friendship or emotional support’

People adopted some strange attitudes after our daughter died, suddenly and unexpectedly, earlier this year, in her early 20s. Certain friends were wonderful, rushed round with flowers and sympathy; others brought biscuits and cakes in case we had too many visitors; some even brought entire meals. But others seemed to take the view that the last thing we wanted was company, as though life did not go on, that we did not need friendship or emotional support. A hobby group to which I belong was due to meet at our house but cancelled without even speaking to me about it.

Some people deliberately avoided mentioning our daughter, or anything she was associated with, presumably in a mistaken attempt to spare our feelings. This hurt more than if they had talked about her; it made us feel that they were behaving as if she had never existed.

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As a child actor, Thomas Brodie-Sangster broke hearts in romcom Love Actually before taking the role of a motherless boy again alongside Emma Thompson as Nanny McPhee.

But while he finally has a laugh in his next big-budget project, he doesn’t even make it onto the screen.

The south Londoner, now 21, is the voice of Ferb Fletcher in the animated children’s comedy series Phineas And Ferb, about two stepbrothers and their grand holiday projects.

The TV series – with spin-off shows featuring star guests including Jamie Oliver and David Beckham – won millions of fans. Now a new full-length Disney film, Phineas And Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension, is being premiered in Britain on the Disney Channel next Friday, having won 7.6 million viewers when shown in America.

Brodie-Sangster started working on Phineas And Ferb four years ago, but has not met the rest of the cast, who include Everybody Hates Chris star Vincent Martella as Phineas, and Richard O’Brien, who voices Ferb’s father. They record their lines in the US, while Brodie-Sangster records his in London

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Dione’s mum has no qualms – and spends thousands on her daughter’s dance outfits. Misguided… or just devoted?

Blue eyes heavily made up with glitter shadow and fringed with false eye-lashes stare confidently into the camera. The lips are ultra glossy and her skin has the unnaturally golden-brown hue of fake tan.
Big hair, teased and backcombed into an elaborate ‘do’ is set off by a sparkly head-dress, while her £900 costume in a lurid eye-catching neon colour is studded with hundreds of Swarovski crystals which glitter and catch the light.

The pose and appearance is that of a young adult, dolled up like a Las Vegas showgirl, but the girl in the picture is just ten years old. And Dione Blackwell has been dressing like this since she was six.

These are the pictures Dione’s parents, Kim Priestman, 33, and Lee Blackwell, also 33, have on the walls of their home in Hull, instead of the kind of snaps most parents have on display of their kids; casually dressed, unadorned, the way nature intended.

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A van driver accused of murdering a nine-year-old girl was linked to the area where she was killed by petrol receipts dating back 30 years, a court heard yesterday.

Robert Black, 64, denies killing Jennifer Cardy near Ballinderry in Northern Ireland in August 1981.
But petrol purchase receipts, dispatch orders and proof of a bonus payment provided conclusive evidence that Black, who was based in London, was in the region the day when the schoolgirl was murdered, Armagh Crown Court was told.
Toby Hedworth QC, prosecuting, said Black was working at the time as a delivery driver for a London-based poster company.
He is accused of stopping Jennifer before she reached a friend’s house, abducting her, sexually assaulting her and killing her before dumping her body at a spot known as McKee’s Dam, near Hillsborough.

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The modern Malthusians’ lament at overpopulation is a mask for misanthropy. It’s sustainable if the rich world consumes less

On one day – one minute – in the next month, the world’s 7 billionth human resident will be born. The United Nations is marking the occasion on the last day of October with what it describes it as an “opportunity” to promote “7 billion actions” for environmental sustainability and women’s education, estimating that the world’s population will top out at 9 or 10 billion mid-century before declining as economic development matures in countries with higher birth rates.

They appear to be right. Worldwide, fertility rates in countries such as Mexico and Bangladesh have fallen vastly in a single generation – thanks, in large part, to what the economist Amartya Sen terms “development as freedom”. Yet Thomas Malthus, who at the turn of the 19th century predicted that population growth would inevitably lead to famine, still has his fans among those inclined to believe that humans mean little but bad news.

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Patients in Britain with an eye disease that leads to blindness will take part in Europe’s first human embryonic stem cell trial

British surgeons are to take part in the first trial in patients of a human embryonic stem cell therapy to gain approval from regulators in Europe.

Surgeons at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London will inject cells into the eyes of 12 patients with an incurable eye disease called Stargardt’s macular dystrophy, one of the main causes of blindness in young people.

The clinical trial, designed to investigate the safety and tolerance of the groundbreaking therapy, is due to begin in December having received approval from the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency on Thursday. It is the first trial in people of a stem cell therapy to receive the go ahead from regulators in any European country.

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Horrifying ordeal of Warren Jeffs’ child bride ‘forced to marry her cousin’

Elissa’s mother held her hand during underage marriage ceremony
Parents so brainwashed they were ‘unable to protect’ their children.

A woman who was forced into marriage at the age of 14 while under the control of paedophile Mormon polygamist Warren Jeffs’s cult has recounted her harrowing ordeal.

The woman, Elissa Wall, revealed how her own mother resorted to holding her daughter’s hand at the altar in a bid to calm her down as she was forced to marry her 19-year-old cousin, whom she despised.

In a CNN interview, which is to be aired tonight, Elissa describes how she cried so much during the ceremony that her wedding dress was soaked with her own tears.

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A teacher duped her ex-boyfriend into believing they had a child together after she stole baby photographs from Facebook, a disciplinary hearing was told.

Victoria Jones weaved “a web of deceit” for revenge, the General Teaching Council for Wales heard.

Ms Jones, 23, who worked in Newport, denies unacceptable professional conduct.

Her union told the ongoing hearing her actions took place in her private life.

The teacher, who worked at Ringland Primary School’s nursery, pretended for two years that she and her former partner, Daniel Barberini, 26, had a daughter.

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Would you rather an indifferent or a passionately wrong child in the science classroom? Let’s not simply sneer at Darwin deniers

Yes yes, we’re all agreed that evolution is true, and that the biblical (or Qur’anic) accounts of creation are literally false and should not be taught any other way in science classes. This has been the case for at least the last 50 years. Yet studies show that the number of creationists, or at least those who deny or fail to understand the fact of evolution, is very large among the adult population. Last year’s Theos study, for example, showed something like 40% of the UK’s adult population unclear on the concept. There are also stupefying numbers for the proportion of the British population who think, or who at least will assent to the proposition, that the Earth is around 10,000 years old.

This is quite clearly not a problem caused by religious belief. Even if we assume that all Muslims are creationists, and all Baptists, they would only be one in 10 of the self-reported creationists or young Earthers.

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An Italian couple have resorted to legal action to get their 41-year-old son to pack up his bags and leave home.

The elderly parents, who have not been named, have hired a lawyer after claiming that they are ‘too tired’ to carry on cooking, cleaning and ironing for their son – who has a well paid job of his own.

He has now been served with a letter ordering him to leave the family home ‘within ten days’ or face a court hearing to ensure that he finally flies the nest.

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Each week we ask high-profile technology decision-makers three questions.

This week it is Toby Moore, chief technology officer (CTO) of Mind Candy.

Mind Candy is the online games developer and media company behind the 50m-strong online global kids community Moshi Monsters. The company has about 100 employees based in the heart of London’s Silicon Roundabout and has projected upwards of $100m in total gross retail sales of all Moshi Monsters-related products in 2011.

What’s your biggest technology problem right now?

At the moment it’s around scaling the development teams, and all of the development processes, while trying to remain lean and agile and responsive as a company.

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Magical foster child healed my broken heart after husband walked out

Bestselling author CATHY GLASS had been a foster carer for 20 years and was reeling from the breakdown of her marriage when troubled eight-year-old Michael came to live with her and her two children. Here, she describes the emotional journey that ensued – and the surprising bond she developed with his terminally ill father…

Sometimes, it seems, providence steps in to guide us through the darkest episodes in our lives. That’s what happened when Michael came into my life.

During my two decades as a foster carer, I’ve looked after 100 or so children, yet I’ve never known a child more weighed down by sorrow than this little boy.

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Millions of households are over-burdened with debt while banks and insurers continue to rip us off. Yet how much of this could be different if as children we were taught how to better manage our finances?

Red ink would blot a report on the state of financial education in our schools.

Children are ill-prepared for the financial realities of the world we live in. And few parents have the financial know-how to help them get to grips with it. Many themselves could be far richer had they not suffered at the hands of banks and insurers.

Red ink would blot a report on the state of financial education in our schools.

Children are ill-prepared for the financial realities of the world we live in. And few parents have the financial know-how to help them get to grips with it. Many themselves could be far richer had they not suffered at the hands of banks and insurers. Some are likely to have been caught up in a string of mis-selling scandals stretching back to the Eighties — from personal pensions to payment protection insurance (PPI) — which have cost savers and investors billions in lost income and forced banks and insurers to pay vast sums in compensation.

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Rescuers work to free a father and his son left hanging upside down 50 feet above the ground on a broken down rollercoaster in China.

Mr Zhang and his son were the only two riders when the rollercoaster suddenly came to halt just as it was about to plunge from its highest point, leaving them dangling precariously.
The situation at the amusement park in Shandong became increasingly desperate when local firefighters’ attempts to rescue the pair were hampered by recent rainfall. Neither a bulldozer or cherry picker brought in to free the stranded thrillseekers could be deployed due to the sodden ground.

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The rioters who looted and caused mayhem throughout England last month were young people with “nothing to lose” and whose future held “little value”, Nick Clegg will say today.

In his leader’s speech at the Liberal Democrat conference, the Deputy Prime Minister will blame the disorder on a lack of hope among youngsters who have “slipped through the cracks” of society.
In contrast to the tough rhetoric used by David Cameron against the rioters, Mr Clegg will say that “the odds are stacked against too many of our children”.
A Lib Dem minister has also disclosed that the party is “fighting” to block tougher sentences for rioters and other criminals.

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Campaigners in Stratford today accused council chiefs of “betraying a whole generation” with its plans to reduce children’s library services.

Newham council is to close Stratford Library for six months on October 1 as part of a £2.2 million refurbishment that will move the children’s area to a smaller space. The council service centre is to move into the same building. Campaigners say the library will be less safe for children as it will no longer be self-contained.

About 300 people signed a petition against the changes. Claire Perez, 37, a mother-of-two and medical student, takes her two-year-old daughter Miriam to the library, which has a soft play area.

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The parents of landscape architect Joanna Yeates have gone face-to-face with her daughter’s killer in court for the first time.

David and Teresa Yeates were at Bristol Crown Court for a pre-trial hearing for Vincent Tabak, who arrived earlier in a prison van.
The couple had not seen Tabak in person in court before as the defendant appeared by videolink from prison at previous hearings they attended.
They arrived at the court hand-in-hand, accompanied by two police officers.
Tabak, a Dutch engineer, has admitted the manslaughter of Miss Yeates, a 25-year-old graduate, but denies her murder.

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A British family starting a new life in Australia had a narrow escape when a drunk driver smashed his car into their home.

Ian Keep remarkably survived despite being flung out of the kitchen, onto the patio and becoming trapped under a pile of rubble when the vehicle ploughed through three rooms.

His wife Victoria had just gone upstairs to put their two-year-old son Blain to bed when a suspected drunk driver destroyed their new home in Perth.

She said: “As I kissed my son goodnight and walked out of the bedroom an almighty explosion happened. I thought it was a gas explosion, I couldn’t see, there was so much smoke.

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A 12-year-old dancer from Billy Elliot The Musical ran to her death under a bus when her mother’s car became stuck in traffic.

Charlotte Leatherbarrow, who played a ballerina in the West End musical, jumped out of the car and dashed into the road to get to a class at South London Dance Studios in Herne Hill but was crushed by a number 68 bus in front of her mother and brothers.

Dr Beatrice Tucker, who saw the accident in March, told Southwark coroner’s court: “It struck me immediately how [Charlotte] moved beautifully, like a gazelle. She was so athletic, so quick.”

The bus had been travelling at 16 or 17mph. Pc Stephen Cash told the court: “The driver had no time to react. She was very distressed.

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The family of a five-year-old boy who died in a playground accident are demanding to know who was meant to be supervising the school break.

Samuel Orola died at Tolworth Infant School in Surbiton after apparently falling from a climbing frame and banging his head.

As his parents grieved at their nearby home today, Samuel’s uncle Femi Akinlabi said: “We still don’t know how it happened. We’ve heard so many conflicting stories. According to the police he fell off the climbing frame, but the school is saying something different.

“We can’t understand how a child could die just like that, just from a fall. Wasn’t anyone looking after him?

“You send a child to school and you expect them to be looked after, you expect them to be safe, you expect the school to take responsibility.

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Toll doubles to more than 50 as government snipers fire on children in protest to oust Yemen president

Soldiers defecting to the ranks of the protesters also targeted.
President Ali Adbullah Saleh refuses to step down.

A Yemeni doctor rushes to a makeshift field hospital operating theatre in Sana’a, Yemen. His face is contorted in grief and concern, as if his own life depends on his quick thinking and fast actions.

In his arms is the bloodied body of a child, struck in the head by a sniper’s bullet.

According to witness reports, at least 24 people were killed today following assaults against protesters by army and security forces loyal to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

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A 90-year-old retired farm worker in Brazil has fathered an astonishing 50 children.

The prolific output is the result of two marriages and affairs with his second wife’s sister AND mother, he told his local newspaper.

‘The best thing God made in the world was women,’ Luiz Costa de Oliveria told the Diario de Natal in the north-eastern tip of the country. Some of his children sadly died during their poverty-stricken childhood.

But he can now boast more than 100 grandchildren and 30 great-grandchildren.

Many still live in three houses near to Luiz’s.

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The parents of conjoined twins who have been successfully separated today described the surgery as a ‘miracle’.

Rital and Ritag Gaboura, who are 11 months old, survived at odds of one in 10 million after undergoing four complex operations to separate their heads at London’s Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital.

The sisters, who were born in Khartoum, Sudan, were brought to Britain for the procedure by their parents Abdelmajeed Gaboura, 31, and, Enas, 27.

Today, they told of their fears during the operation as well as their joy at its success. In a statement, they said: “We were worried about the possibility of losing one or both of our daughters during surgery – the possibilities were endless.”

The family arrived here in April after approaching children’s charity Facing the World, which funded and arranged their separation. By the time they arrived, Ritag’s heart was already failing.

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Frank Skinner is in good company with his attack on the atheist establishment.

Have you heard the one about the comic who took on the establishment that loves him? Frank Skinner, the comedian, has accused atheists of threatening humanity. Interviewed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Skinner, a practising Catholic, urged fellow believers to stand together against secularists who undermine religion.
Even if it had been Dr Rowan Williams issuing this call to arms, the audience at Canterbury Cathedral would have stopped fanning themselves with their programmes, sat up and taken notice: turning the tables on, rather than turning the other cheek to, atheist bullies represents a sensational departure from the script British Christians have recited for generations.

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