The News Matrix: Monday 27 June 2011

BA pilots in mobile phone investigation

Two BA pilots have been questioned by police after a mobile phone was allegedly thrown from an aircraft on to a runway. The alleged incident happened on Friday, before the London-bound flight was due to take off from Edinburgh Airport.

Senior Khmer Rouge members go on trial

In the most complex war crimes trial since Nuremburg, the four most senior members of the Khmer Rouge regime still alive will go on trial today for their roles in the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians through execution, neglect, overwork and starvation. MORE

Hain says Miliband ‘getting into his stride’

Ed Miliband is “getting into his stride” nine months into the job, shadow Welsh Secretary Peter Hain said yesterday as the party began its drive to improve its campaigning. MORE

Doctor-patient trust ‘could be shattered’

Trust between doctors and patients risks being shattered by Government plans, the British Medical Association will warn today. With doctors feeling that the NHS is facing a “crisis”, the BMA’s annual gathering promises angry and contentious debate. MORE

Thousands lose out again in tickets race

Thousands who tried to buy tickets to the 2012 Olympics during the second ballot discovered yesterday their applications had been rejected. Many were angry the online ticketing system allowed them to apply for tickets for events which were sold out. MORE

Protests over new constitution

Thousands of people took to the streets of Morocco yesterday, demonstrating both for and against Morocco’s proposed new constitution, announced by King Mohammed VI, a week before it is put to a referendum. In the capital Rabat, at least 1,000 people calling for a boycott of the referendum were blocked by police and hundreds of government supporters.

Avalanche blamed for six hikers’ deaths

Police in France are investigating the deaths of six hikers believed to have been killed in an avalanche over the weekend. A British climber found the bodies at an altitude of 2,700 metres (8,860ft) in a steep-sided ravine of the Haute-Alpes region yesterday. MORE

Hypocrisy slur on Republican hopeful

Michele Bachmann, a Republican presidential hopeful, is under pressure after it emerged her husband received $30,000in grants from the Minnesota and federal authorities, and her family’s farm $280,000 in government support. MORE

Police plan to recruit more ‘supergrasses’

Senior police officers have proposed creating a national witness protection scheme to encourage more “supergrasses” to come forward. The proposals follow concerns from former police informants who said they were left feeling “isolated and abandoned”.

Ransom money foreigners pardoned

Somalia yesterday pardoned six foreigners, including two Britons, who were earlier this month sentenced to 10 years in prison each for bringing cash intended for pirate ransom into the country. The men were carrying millions of dollars in cash. MORE

Tony Blair to vacate his five-star hotel

After four years, Tony Blair is moving out of the American Colony Hotel into a purpose-built seven-storey building now under construction in the millionaire’s row of East Jerusalem. The new building will replace the 15 rooms Mr Blair’s team rents at the Colony for more than £1m each year. MORE

RSPB in race to kill rats and save petrel

A team from the RSPB is to travel to the remote Henderson Island – an uninhabited part of the UK’s Pitcairn overseas territory – to eradicate rats, which were introduced by humans to the island. The RSPB hopes the move will help to save the endangered Henderson petrel.

Rachel Weisz weds James Bond

The James Bond star Daniel Craig has married the Oscar-winning Rachel Weisz at a small ceremony in New York. The British couple, who will play husband and wife in upcoming film Dream House, have been dating since December last year.

New York gay couple to marry, 60 years on

Having waited more than six decades, Richard Dorr, 84, and John Mace, 91, are to join the first wave of gay New Yorkers to tie the knot, after politicians voted to legalise same-sex marriage. The couple met in the 1950s, when homosexuality was illegal, and fell in love over a passion for music. MORE

Jools Holland to receive honour

Jools Holland is to be honoured for his contribution to music and broadcasting at a charity event. The musician and presenter follows Sir Tom Jones, Sir Elton John and Andrew Lloyd Webber in receiving the Music Industry Trusts Award.

The perfect burger – made from stem cells

The first burger made of mince grown from stem cells is only a year away, scientists have claimed. The team of Dutch researchers are developing a burger grown from 10,000 stem cells extracted from cattle, which multiply in the lab, producing muscle tissue.