Newcastle, winners of the inaugural Premiership title in 1998 but bottom of the heap this time round, are 50 per cent out of the mire. Bristol's 29-18 victory over Cornish Pirates in the second leg of their Championship semi-final at the Memorial Ground yesterday was not enough to avoid an aggregate defeat and, as a result, one of only two contenders capable of replacing the Tynesiders in the elite league fell by the wayside.

Bristol's hopes of promotion to the Aviva Premiership took a hit when they were beaten 45-24 by the Cornish Pirates yesterday.

Ben Anderson, 36

A busy Tube station, shut for nearly three years, finally reopened today after a spectacular rebuilding job.

It's been a long road to the top for Mouritz Botha. Laid off from his office job, he begged for a chance with Sarries. Now all the hard work has paid off. He talks to Chris Hewett

The Government has fired the starting gun on its £2bn train-franchising programme, asking operators to bid to run the Thameslink, Great Western and Essex Thameside routes for up to 15 years.

Many newly- elected members joining the Parliamentary Labour Party for the first time are struck by the fact that often the opinions of politicians who enjoy a high media profile count for little, and that the opinions of some colleagues, virtually unknown to the public, count for a great deal. So it was, I found, in the mid-1980s, with the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party. Gordon Colling was by no means a household name but his opinions soon came to matter a great deal in the deliberations of the Party during those turbulent years.

A woman who killed two men has been jailed for a minimum of 19 years after being found guilty of murder.

There were no routes, passengers or even a qualified driver yesterday as Boris Johnson steered the new London bus around a test ground near Bedford.

He's been lauded as a crusader for free speech. But he got rich by depicting women being raped in concentration camps and has been accused of molesting his daughter. Who is the real Larry Flynt?

The self-assured structures of an empire at its height were the stock-in-trade of Bedford Lemere & Co, the architectural photographers, whose archive of 20,000 glass negatives is the source for this bitter-sweet glimpse of a vanished world.

Worcester Warriors booked their place in the Championship play-off final after a 23-22 win over Bedford yesterday.