Two children were taken to hospital and a search has been launched for another child and an adult missing after an incident at a weir, West Midlands Ambulance Service said.

The head of Sky News said journalists have to consider breaking the law to "shed light" on wrongdoing as it emerged that media regulator Ofcom is launching an investigation into the hacking of private email accounts by the broadcaster.

Intrusive as it sounds, a stranger being able to hack into a private email account and root around for information may sometimes be in the public interest. And journalists urgently need a public-interest defence so they can do just that.

Channel defends illegal accessing of canoe fraudsters' messages

Sky News, the British satellite broadcaster, said today that it had hacked into email accounts belonging to members of the public on two separate occasions, but that it had done so in the public interest.

It's hardly a secret that the debate on law and order tends to be skewed to the right of the political spectrum. Sentences are too short, prisons are too soft: the discourse of more punishment, less rehabilitation, is depressingly familiar. Now the Government seems ready to cave in to demands that TV cameras should be allowed into courtrooms in England and Wales, supposedly to reassure us that justice is actually being done.

There is a difference between sitting in the public gallery and seeing clips on TV

A report looking into the causes of last year’s riots has identified “500,000 forgotten families,” where a lack of support and opportunities led to a widespread sense of hopelessness among young people.

BSkyB today insisted that a decision by its chief executive to order the removal of a story about Formula 1 from the Sky News website for 40 hours did not represent a challenge to the channel’s editorial independence.

The High Court today ruled that a paralysed man can begin legal proceedings for a doctor to end his "intolerable life".

The Queen is to use her Christmas Day broadcast to emphasise the importance of family, friends and community.

A poll was running two-to-one that Suarez was harshly treated

Labour's deputy leader, Harriet Harman, has criticised the continuing use of photographs of topless women in some newspapers. Ms Harman said yesterday she did not think it was the right thing for women in the 21st century to be seen as sex objects "posing in their knickers to be leered at by men".

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls has acknowledged that Alistair Darling's memoir of life in 11 Downing Street has handed the Conservatives an opportunity to divert attention from the economic difficulties facing the UK.