The News Matrix: Tuesday 28 April 2015

British firms’ sales booming overseas

Almost 60 per cent of British firms recorded an increase in sales last year and one third had to expand production capacity to cope with international demand, according to a study by the British Chambers of Commerce which called for more efforts to enter foreign markets.

‘Good Samaritan’ robs tourist aged 100

A 100-year-old US tourist was robbed after he had fallen by a man who pretended to be a Good Samaritan. The victim had been getting off a bus in Gloucestershire with his son when he lost his balance and a passer-by helped him up. The victim realised that a large cash sum was missing from his bag the following day.

Boston Marathon bomber ‘a good kid’

A lawyer for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev urged a jury yesterday to spare the young man’s life, portraying him as “a good kid” who was led astray by his radicalised older brother. Tsarnaev, 21, was convicted of the twin bombings that killed three spectators on 15 April, 2013.

Authors turn on each other over ‘Hebdo’

Author Salman Rushdie has criticised writers including Booker Prizewinner Peter Carey and Michael Ondaatje who have opposed an award to be given to magazine Charlie Hebdo at the PEN American Centre gala in New York next week and pulled out of attending the event.

Israel killed 44 in UN building attacks

A UN inquiry has found that at least 44 Palestinians were killed and at least 227 injured by “Israeli actions” while sheltering at UN locations during last year’s Gaza war. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calls UN locations “inviolable”. Weaponry was found at three empty UN schools in Gaza.

Areas of conflict are a ‘disaster zone’

Yemen’s exiled government declared three areas in the country engulfed in fighting between Houthi rebels, their allies and pro-government forces as “disaster” zones yesterday, including the southern port city of Aden, and said that the month of violence has claimed 1,000 civilian lives.

£38m teaching ‘pods’ not working

Bexhill High Academy is being rebuilt again with a £6m fund from the Department of Education to enable traditional teaching methods after it underwent a £38m construction to replace classrooms with “education pods”, containing 90 students and a team of teachers. Principal Heidi Brown said that the pods had not worked.

Sounds that can put your cat in a trance

High-pitched sounds such as chinking of glass or jangling of coins can cause cats to display involuntary jerky movements or lose consciousness in a new syndrome called feline audiogenic reflex seizures or Fars. Researcher Mark Lowrie said “the consistency of agreement between owners’ responses has identified a degenerative syndrome of Fars in older cats”.

Father is seeing red over Pink

A judge in the US has ruled that a mother who took her daughter to a Pink concert was not guilty of “bad parenting”. The unnamed girl’s father tried to argue that his ex-wife exposed their daughter to inappropriate lyrics and “sexually suggestive” dancing by taking her to the concert in 2013.

Time for walkies: dog eats 3 watches

A dog living in Boston escaped injury after eating three wristwatches. Five-year-old Mocha received surgery soon after his owners arrived home to find he had broken into their jewellery drawer and eaten the three watches and other leather jewellery. “She looked mechanical inside,” her owner said.

Lord Sugar hires a new wingman

Claude Littner will replace Nick Hewer as one of Lord Sugar’s aides in the new series of The Apprentice. Littner has appeared in previous seasons of the TV programme. “I will be reporting to Lord Sugar to play my part in ensuring that his personal investment of £250,000 goes to the best candidate,” said Littner.

Sole female polar bear could be a mate

Hopes are high for a future cub as the UK’s only female polar bear, Victoria, will today join the Highland Wildlife Park in Kingussie, Scotland, as a potential mate for male polar bear Arktos. To replicate the mating situation in the wild where bears only come together to mate, Victoria, who arrived from Denmark in March, has a separate enclosure.