Riot police helped a mother regain custody of her 8-year-old daughter today in a tragic case that has riveted Lithuania for three years and led to three deaths.

This moving and scrupulous history recreates a world on the edge of its extinction.

Winning sprint stages of big cycle races is child's play for Britain's Mark Cavendish.

Ramunas Navardauskas took the Giro d'Italia lead yesterday after helping his Garmin-Barracuda team win the time-trial on stage four.

In his memoir If This is a Man, the Italian writer Primo Levi recalls that the most terrifying time for him at Auschwitz was not the years of incarceration by the Nazis, when beatings, hunger, back-breaking work and the threat of murder were omnipresent. He came closest to despair during the vacuum between the flight of the guards and the arrival of the Red Army. This period, in which the prisoners were effectively left to their own devices, was characterised by a complete breakdown of all authority, however unjust, as well as the system of supply. I was reminded of these passages when reading Keith Lowe's Savage Continent: an excellent account of the two years or so between the end of hostilities in Europe with the defeat of Hitler, and the establishment of the Cold War order.

Victoria Pendleton took Britain's gold-medal tally to four in dramatic style here at the Track World Championships yesterday by claiming the women's sprint title for a record-equalling sixth time.

A tearful Victoria Pendleton today declared her sixth Track Cycling World Championships sprint title as the most important of her career as she moved into pole position for the London Olympic Games with victory in Melbourne.

Britain moved within one win of an improbable Davis Cup victory over Slovakia as Colin Fleming and Ross Hutchins put the hosts into a 2-1 lead after the second day of their Europe Africa Zone Group One tie at the Braehead Arena in Glasgow yesterday.

Heart of Midlothian were yesterday threatened with liquidation by HM Revenue & Customs, after failing to pay a tax bill.

Mark Cavendish claimed his first win for Team Sky as a trademark sprint finish earned him victory in stage three of the Tour of Qatar.

For Dwain Chambers, the key battle has yet to come in 2012. Still, as he awaits the Court of Arbitration for Sport's definitive ruling on the British Olympic Association's lifetime ban on doping offenders – due to be announced before the end of April – the world indoor 60 metres champion is up and running in London Olympic year.

A Lithuanian man charged with the brutal murder of a police officer's parents has been found dead in his prison cell.

A man has appeared at Birmingham magistrates' court charged with the murder of a couple at their home in Birmingham last week.

The finance sector suffered a fresh jobs blow today when Barclays announced plans to axe over 400 posts under "essential changes" to its technology and infrastructure division.