The News Matrix: Wednesday 6 November 2013

Fresh firefighters’ strike to be staged

Firefighters in England and Wales are to stage a fresh strike in their bitter row with the Government over pensions. Members of the Fire Brigades Union will walk out for four hours from 10am on November 13 – their fourth round of strikes in recent weeks. The union also announced that it will ballot its members for other forms of industrial action in an escalation of the dispute.

Police ‘heard Milly Dowler’s messages’

Surrey Police was played voicemails taken from the phone of Milly Dowler by the News of the World during the 2002 hunt for the murdered schoolgirl, the Old Bailey heard. The newspaper told officers it had specific information on the Dowler case and held voicemails. MORE

India launches mission to Mars

India launched a mission to Mars yesterday, hoping to become the fourth space programme to reach the Red Planet after Russia, the US and Europe. The orbiter will perform scientific experiments over a four-month period when it reaches orbit around the planet. MORE

Payday loan bosses given a grilling

Senior bosses at payday firms were grilled by MPs yesterday about alleged extortionate charges and irresponsible lending. Ed Miliband attacked Britain’s “Wonga economy” which he said was responsible for “a quiet crisis of thousands of families trapped in unpayable debt”. MORE

Palestinian homes to be demolished

Authorities in Israel have announced plans to demolish hundreds of Palestinian apartments in East Jerusalem. The orders, announced in posters put up on building sites last week, amount to the largest single demolition since Israel annexed the area in 1967. MORE

UK soldier killed by suicide blast

A British soldier has been killed in a suicide blast while on patrol in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence announced last night. The “hugely experienced” soldier from the 3rd Battalion The Mercian Regiment (Staffords) died from an explosion during a vehicle-borne suicide attack.

‘I smoked crack,’ says Toronto Mayor

The Mayor of Toronto admitted to smoking crack yesterday, stating that the did so “probably a year ago” when he was “in a drunken stupor”. Rob Ford had been was caught on video smoking the drug. MORE

Police establish who mystery girl is

Police have established the identity of a girl who was found wandering the streets of Dublin almost a month ago. After pursuing more than 115 lines of inquiry without managing to confirm who she was, the circulation of a photo of her yesterday helped to solve the mystery.

Kasparov attempts citizenship gambit

Garry Kasparov, the former chess champion and critic of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, has sent a request to the Latvian Government requesting citizenship. Kasparov wrote that Latvian citizenship would allow him to work “across the world where civil rights are denied”.

Amazon founder’s wife no fan of book

The wife of the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has left a furious one-star review of a book about her husband on the site. Mackenzie Bezos complained that Brad Stone’s The Everything Store, about the history of the firm, was “unbalanced” and contained “numerous factual inaccuracies”. MORE

Cake to the face for right-wing figure

A protester threw a cake in the face of a far-right Swedish politician during a book-signing event in Stockholm, yesterday. Jimmie Akesson, the leader of the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, was hit by the cake thrown by a woman who police detained, leaving her facing a possible harassment charge.

The war stories we regret not recording

Nearly two-thirds of Britons regret not recording wartime stories told to them by parents or grandparents, according to a poll conducted by OnePoll for autobiography service LifeBook UK. It reveals that 64 per cent of people have been told war anecdotes by their elders – but only 8 per cent have recorded them.

Gore blimey... new dinosaur is named

A 2.5-ton relative of Tyrannosaurus rex with knife-like teeth has been given the title “King of Gore”. The 7.3m-long carnivore that lived 80 million years ago has been named Lythronax argestes, which can be translated as “King of Gore of the south west”, a reference to its appearance and its location in Utah.

Katy Perry album declared a hazard

Katy Perry’s latest album Prism has been declared a biohazard in Australia. The deluxe version of the album, currently No 1 in the Aussie charts, contains a small packet of seeds that the US singer encourages fans to plant. But the officials warned they were a “bio-security concern” and ordered all copies searched.