Vulnerable young people should no longer be sent across England to Rochdale's privately-run children's homes because their safety cannot be guaranteed, the leader of the council said last night.

Markets get ahead of events. It's what investors are programmed to do. If you think there is a risk of losing money tomorrow you sell today, rather than waiting for it to happen.

The Hammersmith Apollo, which hosted David Bowie's last performance as Ziggy Stardust, has been sold by owner HMV to an American-German joint venture.

Edgar "Buddy" Freitag, who died on 30 May of a brain tumour at the age of 80, helped back some of Broadway's most talked about shows, including the musical 1920s pastiche The Drowsy Chaperone, Memphis and Edward Albee's The Goat, Or Who is Sylvia? He died less than two weeks before the Tony Awards, with several of his shows, including the hit revival of Porgy and Bess, Nice Work If You Can Get It and End of the Rainbow - vying for honours.

The planned “charity tax” was scrapped today as George Osborne completed his third embarrassing Budget U-turn in four days.

Three men have been found guilty of conning a Christian philanthropist out of £12 million.

As if they weren't already well-connected enough, the world's two greatest dynasties joined forces yesterday as Europe's Rothschild banking clan bought a stake in the Rockefeller group's wealth and asset management business to gain a foothold in the US.

Beleaguered Spain was handed a lifeline by the European Commission (EC) yesterday as the nation was given an extra year to slash its deficit.

He signed the Sex Pistols, invented megastores, founded an airline, introduced tilting trains and is planning to send fare-paying passengers into space. Now, Richard Branson, lizard king of the shape-shifting Virgin brand, has revealed his latest product... a £300 tap.

Nurseries fear they will not receive the necessary funding to cope with a flagship Government plan to extend free childcare to two-year-olds.

Police charge ex-NOTW editor over claims relating to Scottish Socialist's own perjury case

Magnus Peterson, the head of the collapsed hedge fund business Weavering, has been found in the High Court to have defrauded investors and ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

Royal Bank of Scotland's chairman, Sir Philip Hampton, warned investors that he did not think "shareholders' wealth is likely to be restored in my lifetime" yesterday, but said that returning to the dividend list was the bank's "top priority".

Severn Trent announced a one-off, £150m special dividend for shareholders yesterday, as the water company cut leaks by 7 per cent to a record low last year.