You can’t always depend on the weather – but you can avoid the pitfalls of the British barbecue by preparing an elaborate outdoor feast indoors ahead of time...

Saudi Aramco, the world's biggest oil producer, has taken a 25 per cent stake in a tiny Exeter-based manufacturer of drilling products.

Canary call

The kit

Wilkommen to the 150,000 fans expected in London for Saturday’s Champion League’s final

Groups from local mosques have been patrolling the streets of Husby, pleading with youths for calm

Net migration  falls by third

A wedding comedy called The Big Wedding doesn't look likely to prize the virtues of wit or invention, though somehow it has managed to bolster its puny credentials with a top-drawer cast.

When Richard Thorp joined Emmerdale Farm in 1982 as Alan Turner, manager of NY Estates, he quickly gained an onscreen reputation as a boozer and womaniser. Off screen the actor found himself treated on a par with "nasty" JR Ewing of Dallas, taxi drivers refused to pick him up and he once managed to empty a tea room in Harrogate simply by walking in. Nine years later, the Yorkshire soap opera's baddie had mellowed and become the genial landlord of The Woolpack pub – and a bit of a buffoon. The serial itself changed, too, when its title was shortened to Emmerdale and the stories become more raunchy.

Two brown bears have been released into a special sanctuary near Kosovo’s capital, Pristina, after being rescued from a 20sq m cage where they had been held almost all their lives to amuse visitors at a restaurant.

Environment Secretary: 'common sense has prevailed'

The UK's return to growth was underlined today as revised figures confirmed the dominant services sector helped the economy expand by 0.3% in the first three months of the year.

Ukip has delivered a rare and fulsome apology over the behaviour of one of its members, who was elected this month to Worcestershire County Council.

The Conservative Party Chairman, Lord Feldman, has privately admitted speaking to journalists who reported a senior Tory figure describing local party activists as “swivel-eyed loons”, it emerged on Sunday.