A family, including a girl aged 16, was found guilty yesterday of plotting to murder their 89-year-old relative to get their hands on his money.

A biography of the Atlantic Ocean loosely structured around Jacques' "seven ages of man" speech, this tells the story of the ocean's birth 190 million years ago, early voyages on it by the Phoenicians, then the Vikings, then the great European navigators of the 15th and 16th centuries, then its role as the "inland sea" of a Pan-Atlantic civilisation – and anticipates its eventual destruction some 180 million years hence. There are tales of shipwrecks, battles, explorations, migrations: a treasure-trove of stories, which brings home the immensity of this great, grey, heaving "confection of water and waves and wind, of animals and birds, of ships and man".

The travel getaway is due to start today as school summer holidays begin.

Marks & Spencer has been found guilty of failing to protect customers, staff and workers from the possibility of being exposed to asbestos during refurbishment works at its store in Reading.

They are the rivers, roads, county borders and other magical location lines that make all the difference – over 20 per cent of the asking price for similar properties, in some cases.

The Shadows bassist Jet Harris has died aged 71.

A prison chaplain has been jailed for eight months after she had a sexual relationship with an inmate.

A man is to stand trial today for allegedly making a terrorists' handbook using information from an al Qaida training manual.

A George Cross-winning bomb disposal hero was killed in Afghanistan after rushing his deadly work when his stepson told him: "Daddy, time to come home".

Liberal Democrats won this week's only council by-election, comfortably defending a Winchester City Council seat.

It is bizarre but true that never in the long history of the Labour Party has there ever been a Labour MP called Tim. There have been MPs who get within a letter's breadth – a few Toms, a Tam and a Timms – but never an actual Tim, or Timothy.

A 32-year-old man arrested for the second time in connection with the murder of a pensioner in her country cottage three years ago was released on police bail today.