Security guards may get the power to fine

Private security staff, council wardens and football stewards may be given the power to issue on-the-spot fines for public disorder (Richard Ford writes). The plan, which chief constables are considering, taps into the Home Office belief that people doing these jobs can develop better relations with local communities than police officers. It suggests three-tier policing: the police, police community support officers and approved community safety and security organisations. The plan is likely to be resisted by the Police Federation, which believes that the Government is trying to get policing on the cheap.

Sight drug approved

Patients suffering from the most common cause of progressive blindness in the elderly should soon get an expensive drug on the NHS. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has given clearance to use Lucentis for wet age-related macular degeneration. It costs about £10,700 per patient.

Murder case reopens

Police in Norfolk have reopened a case involving the discovery of a headless woman near a main road in Swaffham in August 1974. Despite a major inquiry, police were unable to identify the victim. Now, 34 years on, the body has been exhumed in the hope that the latest DNA techniques may hold the answer.

£2m gift for Minster

York Minster will receive multi- million-pound lottery funding after Hamish Ogston, founder of one of the city’s biggest employers, donated £2 million to allow it to qualify. Funding will allow restoration of stonework on the Great East Window, one of the largest areas of medieval stained glass in the world.

Unsafe ingredients in drugs bought on net

Traditional Indian remedies sold on the internet often contain levels of lead, mercury and arsenic exceeding acceptable standards, a study has found (Nigel Hawkes writes).

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine in Massachusetts analysed 193 randomly selected Ayurvedic medicine products. Several could result in people consuming lead and mercury between 100 and 10,000 times the acceptable limits, the team said in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The highest levels were in medicines made by the practice of rasa shastra, which combines herbs with metals.

Boy shoots girl in eye

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