Blaze clues
Crime So what did happen at “massacre mansion”, as the tabloids have
dubbed the manor house in Shropshire where three people died? At a press
conference on Tuesday police painted a picture of a failed businessman who
ran amok after his company crumbled, shooting his wife and daughter before
setting fire to the estate and turning the gun on himself.
Two of the three bodies discovered amid the rubble of Osbaston house, near
Oswestry, pictured above, were identified last week as those of Christopher,
50, and Jill Foster, 49. Police believe the third corpse is that of the
couple’s daughter Kirstie, 15, who had been due to return to her
£16,000-a-year school tomorrow.
After studying footage from security cameras, Detective Superintendent Jon
Groves said: “We believe that Mr Foster killed his wife and daughter before
setting the fires which destroyed his home.” The self-made millionaire also
shot Kirstie’s horses and his dogs.
Recession forecast
Economy The assertion by Alistair Darling, the chancellor, that the
economy faced its toughest challenges in 60 years overshadowed the
government’s economic “relaunch” – a package aimed at stabilising the
housing market. The measures – a one-year stamp duty holiday on properties
up to £175,000; help for first-time buyers with deposits; spending on
affordable housing – were widely dismissed as a damp squib that would do
little to boost housing activity or slow the fall in prices.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris added to
the gloom by predicting that Britain would suffer a modest recession in the
second half of this year, the only one of the leading economies to do so.
The pound responded by dropping to its lowest level for 12 years against a
basket of currencies. Car sales and house prices were also weak. The Halifax
said house prices last month were 12.7% down on a year earlier, while the
Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said new car registrations had
fallen by 18.6%.
Fatal dish
Health Just one bite can kill, read the warnings last week. For
Nicholas Evans, author of the bestselling novel The Horse Whisperer, tucking
into a mushroom while on holiday in Scotland was indeed nearly the end.
Evans, 58, whose book was made into a film starring Robert Redford, was last
week in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary receiving dialysis, together with his wife
Charlotte, 50, her brother Sir Alastair Gordon Cumming and his wife Louisa.
The four picked the mushrooms during a walk through Gordon Cumming’s
12,000-acre estate in Moray, and cooked and ate them later.
With a reddish brown cap, Cortinarius speciosissimus looks like an edible
mushroom but is in fact highly poisonous, with toxins that attack the
kidneys, causing vomiting and convulsions. Evans’s spokesman said: “They
realise there’s going to be a long haul . . . before they can see if there
are long-term effects on their kidney function.”
Coal comeback
Energy Could King Coal reign again in Britain? When Maerdy, the last
colliery in the Rhondda valley, closed in 1989 it was hailed as the end of
an era. Now, though, British coal seems to be back in business, with the
country’s coal production set to grow for the first time since 2001 thanks
to spiralling world energy prices.
ScottishPower has signed a deal with Scottish Coal to buy 2m tons of coal a
year, which the mining group says will lead to pits being opened and 100
jobs created. Powerfuel has reopened the Hatfield colliery near Doncaster,
South Yorkshire, and Energybuild is reopening the Aberpergwm mine in West
Glamorgan. Meanwhile, the owners of Unity mine, also in West Glamorgan, are
in negotiations to sell the colliery for more than £100m.
Operation hope
Military Codenamed Operation Eagle’s Summit, it was the most dangerous
mission that British soldiers had carried out since the second world war.
The task? To deliver a £3.4m, 220-ton turbine across 115 miles of
Afghanistan through
The war-torn Helmand province. The prize? Electricity for 2m Afghans once it
was installed at the Kajaki hydroelectric dam – and a victory for allied
forces in the battle for hearts and minds.
British commanders estimated that more than 200 Taliban were killed by a force
of 4,500 British and allied troops, who defended the convoy of 100 vehicles,
pictured above, which carried the turbine. Disguised as shipping equipment,
the cargo was packed in containers covered in verses from the Koran. The
journey northwards along the road from the former Taliban stronghold of
Kandahar took six days, ending at 2.30am on Thursday. “It’s been exciting
and emotional,” said Corporal Barry Guthrie, a driver. “All the way we were
expecting to get whacked.”
Scottish tax plan
Politics It was billed as the biggest tax cut in Scottish history when
Alex Salmond declared last Wednesday that he wanted to scrap council tax.
Presenting his second legislative programme, Salmond, the Scottish first
minister, said he planned to push through a bill that would replace the
“unfair” levy with a local income tax.
“Eight out of 10 Scottish families will be better off,” he told MSPs. Salmond,
leader of the Scottish National party, needs the support of two other
parties at Holyrood to push the bill through. If he succeeds the changes
will take effect from 2011.
Training strain
Sport Want to win an Olympic gold? Britain’s golden girl of swimming,
Rebecca Adlington, pictured above, may have carried off two medals at this
year’s Games but the youngsters trailing in her wake are being subjected to
gruelling and even cruel swimming regimes, a report claimed on Thursday. The
study into the training of 17 swimming squads found that children as young
as 11 are expected to swim up to 32 miles a week and spend up to 27 hours in
the pool.
Melanie Lang, a researcher at Leeds Metropolitan University, said: “Excessive
training by young athletes . . . can inhibit bone growth, cause physical and
mental burn-out and increase the potential for injury and drop-out.” Eleanor
Hudson, now 21, who at her peak was ranked third in England for her age,
gave up the sport at 16 because of the pressures. “If you weren’t in pain
and red in the face . . . you had to do better,” she said.
Below-grade work
Property A wealthy businessman has been fined for taking an
18th-century house and turning it into “something straight out of
Footballers’ Wives”. Andrew Hazell has also been ordered to knock down the
“improvements” made to his home in Shirenewton, Monmouthshire, and return
the house to its former glory.
Hazell spent £750,000 demolishing part of the grade II-listed structure,
adding a kitchen, conservatory, six-car garage and swimming pool. It will
cost £450,000 to restore. Judge David Wynn Morgan, fining Hazell £40,000 for
breaches of planning laws, said: “Fixtures intended to improve the property
had been added without consideration or sympathy, like painting a moustache
on an old master or adding a drum and bass track to Mozart.”
Like father, like. . .
Marriage Disturbing news for wives, husbands and fathers: women often
choose husbands who look like their dads, according to research from the
University of Pecs in Hungary. Known as “sexual imprinting”, the phenomenon
shows that a woman uses her father as a template for a spouse. The trend
even extends to women who are adopted, suggesting that the imprinting is led
by environmental factors rather than simply being genetic.
Tamas Bereczkei said: “Our results support the hypothesis that children shape
a mental template of their opposite-sex parents and search for a partner who
resembles that.”
In Britain the research brought some celebrity couples into the spotlight.
Charles Saatchi, Nigella Lawson’s husband, bears a strong resemblance to her
father Nigel, while Zoë Ball’s husband Norman is a dead ringer for
television presenter Johnny Ball.
Bearskins dropped
Military The bearskins worn by guards at Buckingham Palace are to be
replaced with more humane headgear. Worn by guards regiments for almost two
centuries, they are made from Canadian black bears and have been the object
of animal rights protests for years. Now the Ministry of Defence is
considering alternatives, with Stella McCartney and Vivienne Westwood
mentioned as designers. There are believed to be about 600,000 black bears
in North America and it takes one bear to make a single hat.
