Money-wasting hospitals named
The first league tables of hospital productivity will be published tomorrow, showing which National Health Service trusts waste the most money. The tables will compare performances across 16 categories, including how quickly patients are discharged from hospital, the number of operations carried out as day cases, the number of days that patients occupy hospital beds before surgery and the number of agency staff that are hired.

Thugs smash Moscow art gallery
A gang of young men ransacked one of Moscow’s best-known modern art galleries yesterday, ripping paintings from walls and damaging equipment. The attack on the Marat Guelman gallery came a day after photographic montages that it had displayed caricaturing the Russian and US presidents were seized at a Moscow airport.

Hunt for attacker
A hunt has begun for a man who abducted a girl and subjected her to a “horrendous” 15-hour ordeal before she was found. The 15-year-old, from Wrexham, north Wales, was snatched from a street in her home town. Police have named a man they wish to trace as Alan Grant, left, from Stockport, Greater Manchester.

Honours probe officer promoted
John Yates, the Scotland Yard deputy assistant commissioner in charge of the cash for honours inquiry, has been promoted. He is now Metropolitan police temporary assistant commissioner in charge of professional standards and fighting corruption.

Hackney named worst place to live
The borough of Hackney in east London is the worst place to live in the UK, according to research for Channel 4. The borough is ranked the most uninviting of the UK’s 434 local authorities.

Kidnappers free British oil workers
Militants in Nigeria have freed four British oil workers seized during an attack this month on an ExxonMobil compound. Three other foreigners were also released.

Iceland breaks whale hunt ban
Icelandic whalers broke a 21-year-old international ban on whaling yesterday when they harpooned the first fin whale since the moratorium was imposed in 1985.

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