An RAF squadron leader was banned from buying wine at a supermarket – because his 17-year-old son was with him, the Daily Mail reports.
Father-of-three Mark Giles, 42, popped to Sainsbury’s buy food for dinner and took son Ian to help carry the bags.
Along with his other groceries, he picked up three bottles of red wine which were on offer, but was stunned when the cashier asked if Ian had any proof of age.
Even though Giles …

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 38% of Americans strongly disapprove President Barack Obama, and altogether 51% disapprove his performance.
30% of the nation’s voters strongly approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President, 38% strongly disapprove, giving Obama a presidential approval index rating of -8, Rasmussen says.
Only 25% believe that the economic stimulus package has helped the economy.
Overall, 49% of voters say they at least …

A passenger plane belonging to Aria Air crash-landed in northeast Iran on Friday evening, dozens of people were reported dead, BNONews reports.
The crash happened in the northeastern city of Mashhad as the plane was attempting an emergency landing due to undisclosed difficulties. The plane, a Soviet-made Ilyushin II-62M, took off from Tehran and was en-route to an airport in Mashhad.
Initial reports say at least 30 people were killed while another 20 people were injured in …

Britain’s busiest holiday airport was closed to all flights for more than an hour and a half today after a plane was forced to make an emergency landing, The Times reports.
A Cardiff-bound Dash 8 aircraft, with 46 passengers on board, had to put down at Gatwick Airport.
All the passengers and crew were able to disembark safely from the aircraft, which was flying in from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.
The plane remained parked just off …

Tory leader David Cameron has hailed his party’s victory in the formerly Labour held seat of Norwich North as “historic”, the BBC reports.
Cameron said the victory – only the Tories’ second by-election win in a Labour seat for 27 years – showed people “want change in our country”.
He praised the result and congratulated Smith on fighting a “positive” campaign. Cameron also accused Labour of running an “utterly despicable” campaign, full of allegations about policies which …

Something has definitely gone wrong – compared to the season so far – as McLaren had actually got their mojo back: Lewis Hamilton was the quickest in today’s second free practice in Hungary’s Hungaroring, and Heikki Kovalainen did the top time in the first free practice.
Hamilton’s lap time at the second practice was 1:22.079, Kovalainen’s time at first practice 1:22.278, but he improved it to 1:22.126 in second session.
Championship leader, Brawn’s Jenson Button wasn’t very …

Labour’s crushing Norwich North by-election defeat was “clearly a disappointing result”, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been forced to admit, the Telegraph reports.
“This is clearly a disappointing result,” he said. “But I think that when people look at this constituency and what was happening, the voters were clearly torn between their anger and dismay at what has been happening over MPs’ expenses, something that we are trying to clean up, and at the same time …

US health officials say swine flu could strike up to 40 percent of Americans over the next two years and as many as several hundred thousand could die if a vaccine campaign and other measures aren’t successful, the AP reports.
Those estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention mean about twice the number of people who usually get sick in a normal flu season would be struck by swine flu. Officials said those projections …

A Muslim woman is accusing a Sydney busdriver of racism after he told her to take off her headscarf because it was against the law to wear it on board, the Telegraph reports.
Khadijah Ouararhni-Grech was wearing a pink, floral niqab, which covers her hair and lower face, when she tried to board a bus in Greystanes. ”As I was stepping onto the bus the driver said, “You can’t get on the bus wearing your mask”,” she …

Postal workers will launch a fresh wave of strikes from Saturday in the latest sign of growing unrest across the Royal Mail over jobs, pay and services, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Members of the Communication Workers Union in London will walk out on Saturday and again on Monday and Tuesday, with deliveries expected to be hit for several days.
Around 12,000 workers will be involved in the action but the union has warned that its branches across …

The Conservatives have won the by-election in Norwich North by over 7,000 votes.
According to The Guardian, the Tories got 13,591 votes in yesterday’s by-election. Labour got 6,243 and Liberal Democrats 4,803 votes.
UK Independence Party beat the Green and were only around 700 votes behind the LibDems.
The winning candidate Chloe Smith, 27, will become the House of Commons’ youngest MP when she takes her seat after the summer recess.
Smith said after the result was announced that …

A Japanese toy company has invented a device it claims will be able to detect your pooch’s emotion from its bark and then translate this into human words, the Daily Mail reports.
Called Bowlingual Voice, the talking gadget can detect six senses: sadness, joy, alertness to danger, neediness, happiness and frustration.
It also has a recorded repertoire of spoken phrases such as “play with me”, “leave me alone”, and “I feel sad”.
The device costs £129.
It will hit …

An Israeli firm launched the world’s smallest mobile phone that measures 7.2 centimeters (2.83 inches) by 3.76 cm(1.47 inches) by .78 cm (less than a third of an inch), Arutz 7 reports.
It has a memory of 2 GB.
The company called Modu, whose chief executive officer Dov Moran also came up with the Disk On Key, said they will market the phone through Israeli mobile company Cellcom and later in Europe, South American and Southeast Asia.

DJ Steve Miller claims to be allergic to wireless internet or WiFi – it makes him sick, dizzy and confused – according to The Sun he’s among two per cent of the population with Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity.
“I feel like an exile on my own planet. It’s almost impossible to find somewhere without WiFi nowadays,” he told the newspaper. ”If I fancy a pint I have to travel three miles to the only pub in my area that …

Three city mayors, two state politicians and five rabbis were among 44 people arrested across New Jersey yesterday when federal agents cracked an alleged Sopranos-style crime ring accused of bribery, money laundering and trafficking body parts and counterfeit handbags, The Times reports.
Officers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) raided synagogues, government offices and a Jewish school early yesterday before busing suspects to the FBI headquarters in Newark.
Among the arrested …

The National Pandemic Flu Service hotline opened yesterday, where callers were asked to describe their symptoms by call centre workers with no medical training, among other questions the callers were asked whether they were unconscious or unresponsive, the Daily Mail reports.
Concerns were raised by doctors and campaign groups as patients were asked a series of bizarre questions including whether they were ‘unconscious’ or ‘unresponsive’.
Launched at 3pm, the helpline and website were intended to dispense antivirals …