A knifeman who stabbed to death a promising teenage footballer as he tried to help his friends was jailed for life today with a minimum term of 19 years.

A man was found guilty today of planning with a corrupt police constable to kidnap a bank manager.

Britain faces a "new wave" of home-grown terrorist attacks led by up to 800 Muslim ex-prisoners who have been radicalised by jihadists while serving their sentences, a think-tank has warned.

A man strangled his wife and rang 999 to say where her body was - but said to "be careful" as the children were asleep, a court heard today.

What's worse for a rapper keen to keep his cool in middle-age: an arrest for a serious crime, like carrying a loaded weapon, or one for a minor misdemeanour, like not wearing a seat belt? Ice-T, the 52-year-old "original gangster" (who now plays a policeman on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) was arrested in New York on Tuesday. According to T's tweets, "Some punk bitch rookie cop named Fisher #10026 Made the arrest of his bullshit career today. Arresting the Notorious Ice T for no seatbelt... He said 'I know who you are and I don't [care]!'" Unconcerned by any potential accusations of having gone soft, T later tweeted, "I'm really only thinking 'bout my dog. I'm glad he's ok." T's six-month-old bulldog, Spartacus, needed surgery after getting his knee stuck in a shopping trolley (so says Spartacus in his own Twitter feed, @CuteSpartacus). T was released soon after his arrest, but the story nonetheless made national news, which, he tweets on, "raises the question... How petty is our news today? What about the War and the Gulf?" What indeed?

A rail manager who fielded a call from a worried passenger the night before a train crash sent workmen to check the wrong line after "assuming" that the man raising the alarm had been heading south not north, an inquest heard today.

A rail worker warned of a potential problem with points 16 hours before a train derailed - but the warning "slipped the mind" of a ticket seller in a station office, an inquest heard today.

Last Christmas, nearly two decades after they started out in California, Rage Against the Machine found themselves at No. 1 in the charts as a result of a Facebook campaign to keep Simon Cowell's X-Factor contestants away from the top slot.

A crazed knifeman who stabbed a Polish teenager to death as he tried to defend his girlfriend was at the centre of a police manhunt today.