Six teenagers accused of setting a fire that closed the M1 motorway did not start the blaze, a jury has ruled.

Four innocent friends held at gunpoint in a bungled police swoop have won payouts from Scotland Yard.

Jermyn Street Theatre, which has just deservedly won The Stage's  Fringe Theatre of the Year Award, kicked off 2011 with Less Than Kind, a fascinating, hitherto unperformed draft of an early play by Terence Rattigan.

Whether in the cut-throat field of politics or the fashion industry's corridors of power, this year they left our planet a better place. Celebrate 10 of the best, nominated by Independent writers

More than 100 firefighters from three counties tackled a large blaze on an industrial estate early today.

No fuss, no frills. Such is the approach of Gillian Welch and her long-term partner, David Rawlings, who arrive carrying their instruments on to an empty stage. Many players of their stature might employ the services of choirs, orchestras and dancers, but not these two. Sometimes two guitars and a banjo is all you need.

Two hardy sub-genres of cricket literature are the adventures (usually disastrous) of a bunch of mixed-ability misfits who form a team to play friendly – and not so friendly – matches, and one-man odysseys around the country to take the temperature of the game in its myriad forms and locations.

The good news is that Welch has given up playing the drums.

On this, Gillian Welch's fifth album, the familiar blending of traditional sounds and moods with modern sensibilities is effortlessly sustained through songs like the mordant "The Way It Goes" ("Betsy Johnson bought the farm, stuck a needle in her arm, that's the way that it goes").

On the publicity trail for their new film The Beaver (as in the semi-aquatic rodent), Jodie Foster continues her spirited defence of co-star and chum Mel Gibson against those unfortunate accusations of racism, anti-semitism and domestic abuse. "I just adored him from the second I met him," she gushes admirably to the Radio Times. "He reads books about crazy historical events and retains every detail [The crucifixion, for example?]... I can talk to him on the phone for, like, three and a half hours..." Yes, I hear he can go on a bit when you get him on the blower.

Tories won this week's only council by-election, defending a safe seat in north London's Harrow Borough.

Parents with a joint income above £26,000 will be barred from sending their children to a state sixth-form college planned for the East End of London. The college will be one of the Government's flagship "free" schools, offering places to bright inner-city children to help them to get into elite universities.

Five teenagers have been arrested in connection with the blaze that closed the M1 in both directions for six days.

Every day, when I finish this missive, I ask one or two of my senior colleagues to read it through. They say that it’s just an expression of my need for external validation (thanks very much, boys, but I pay a shrink good money to tell me things like that).