A man who used a bottle to carry out an unprovoked attack on a nightclub reveller has been jailed for six-and-a-half years.

A van driver who was killed when a huge beech tree crushed his parked van in high winds was named by police today.

Britain can look forward to a “brief respite” today from winds that battered the UK, but forecasters expect gusts of up to 75mph tonight.

An Iraq war veteran, an 84-year-old marathon "walker" and a star teenage gymnast with cystic fibrosis were confirmed today as among the 8,000 people to carry the Olympic Flame next summer.

Following work as a stage manager in the theatre and a senior manager role at the new ITV companies Tyne Tees and Southern, Roger Hancock became an agent who guided the careers of many writers and performers, with a roster that was the envy of his rivals. Highly respected and known for his warmth, congeniality and sense of humour – a "peopleaholic", as Barry Cryer called him – he was also a perfectionist and astute businessman who had great foresight and could be abrasive when he felt it was called for.

The catastrophic floods of autumn 2000, which saw river levels reach 400-year highs and left 10,000 homes underwater across England and Wales, were most likely the result of global warming.

British skiing has been in the deep freeze for some years now. Not that it was ever really hot stuff, most of the nation's wintry successes coming via the ice age of daredevil bobbers, sequinned skaters or the inimitable dancing feet of T and D. So it is heartening to learn that there is a teenage skier whose burgeoning talent is warming the cockles for the future.

Two members of a gang jailed for their roles in stealing £53 million in Britain's biggest cash heist failed in bids to overturn their convictions today.

As a Pakistani I am no less touched by the catastrophe of the floods than the persuasive Ayesha Siddiqa ("My country needs help, not disapproval", 15 August).

Prosecutors have offered no evidence against the last man accused of links to the record-breaking Securitas robbery, it emerged today.

A charity swimmer has inadvertently set a new record for the slowest crossing of the English Channel.

The war of words between MPs and the new expenses regulator escalated today, with the watchdog branded a "nightmare" and accused of being responsible for major security lapses.

A Briton arrested in Thailand after being filmed inciting people to burn down a shopping centre appeared in court today, the Foreign Office said.