Labour’s deputy leader Harriet Harman was today fined £350 after pleading guilty to driving without due care and attention, the BBC reports.
A second charge of driving while using a mobile phone was withdrawn.
Harman, who is also Commons leader, did not attend the hearing. She was also told to pay £75 costs and had three points added to her licence, and she was told to pay £15 “victim surcharge”.
The leader of the Commons and MP for …

Churches in Malaysia were bracing themselves for further attacks by Muslim protesters today, hours after two arson attacks, apparently provoked by a controversy over the use by Christians of the word Allah, The Times reports.
Police were increasing their patrols of areas around churches and Christian communities were hiring security guards, after a Protestant church in the capital Kuala Lumpur was set on fire by a petrol bomb in the early hours of the morning. Muslim …

A policeman was seriously injured after a bomb exploded under his car in Northern Ireland, Sky News reports.
The officer had just driven off when the blast happened in County Antrim.
He was taken to hospital and army bomb disposal experts were called to the scene.
There was no immediate confirmation of the officer’s condition, but it was understood he was badly hurt.
The device exploded in Milltown Road in Randalstown.

An African immigrant carried out a knifepoint mugging in the hope he would be sent back to his war-torn African homeland because he hated life in Britain, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Kasiba Misigaro, 21, who was living off benefits, believed he would have a better life back in Burundi, one of the ten poorest countries in the world.
He asked the immigration services to send him home but they did nothing, so he pulled a knife on …

A 23-year-old British woman on holiday in Dubai told police she had been raped, only to be arrested herself for having illegal sexual intercourse, the Daily Telegraph reports.
The woman, a Muslim of Pakistani descent, was celebrating her engagement to her 44-year-old boyfriend, and was allegedly attacked when she passed out in a hotel lavatory.
Despite approaching police about the attack, she was arrested after admitting to “illegal drinking” outside licensed premises as well as having sexual …

Terrorism suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab will get his day in court Friday when he is to be arraigned on a six-count federal indictment that could bring him a life-plus prison sentence, Detroit Free Press reports.
The grand jury indictment, filed Wednesday in Detroit, charged the 23-year-old Nigerian national with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction to destroy a Netherlands-to-Detroit jetliner with a homemade bomb sewn into his underwear as it prepared to land on …

At least six Coptic Christians and a security official have been killed in a drive-by shooting outside a church in southern Egypt, the BBC reports.
The shooting came as worshippers left the church in Naj Hammadi after a midnight mass on Coptic Christmas Eve.
A car pulled up and gunfire was sprayed into the crowd.
Officials say they suspect the attack is in revenge for the rape of a 12-year-old Muslim girl by a Christian man in the …

Police in the US are searching for two teenage girls who are accused of robbing a bank in Cincinnati, USA Today reports.
The suspects, one believed to be 14 to 16 years old, the other 12 to 14, are accused of walking into 1st National Bank in this Cincinnati suburb Tuesday afternoon, giving the teller a note demanding money and leaving with a bag of cash,  Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Steve Barnett said. The girls …

Five heroin users in Scotland have already died from anthrax and six more are infected with the disease.
The 11 confirmed cases are in the Greater Glasgow, Lanarkshire and Tayside areas, test results are also awaited from another suspected case in Fife, The Times reports.
The rising toll has prompted Health Protection Scotland to issue a warning to all heroin users to stop using the drug, regardless of whether they inject it or take it by other …

A suicide terrorist blew up an explosives-laden car at a police station in Russia’s troubled region of Dagestan, killing at least six policemen and wounding 16.
The terrorist detonated the car bomb at the police staten gate in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan. The police had prevented him from driving through the gate into the compound and those killed were guards at the gate.
Police estimate that 110 to 440 pounds of TNT was packed in the …

Former Renault F1 team principal Flavio Briatore is free to return to Formula One after a French court overturned his lifetime ban from motorsport today, sportinglife.com reports.
The FIA handed the former Renault team principal the stringent suspension in September for his role in the crashgate scandal.
The 59-year-old Italian took his case to the Tribunal de Grande Instance in Paris claiming the FIA did not have legal grounds to issue him with a wholesale ban.
“The court …

An American United Airlines pilot today admitted turning up to fly out of Heathrow Airport while over the alcohol limit, the Daily Mail reports.
Erwin Washington, 51, of Lakewood, Colorado, had been due to captain a Boeing 767 bound for Chicago with 124 passengers and 11 crew members on board when a colleague smelled alcohol on his breath.
He pleaded guilty at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court to being above the alcohol limit for flying a plane.
The pilot was …

An undercover policeman in Russia shot a 23-year-old man in the head after someone had thrown snowballs at the policeman’s vehicle.
The incident took place on 1st January at 5:30am local time in Yuzhno-Sakhalinski.
The father of the victim told newsru.com news portal that his son went to New Year celebrations with his friends, and when they came back in the morning, a man jumped out of a car and started yelling profanities at the youngsters. Apparently, …

Prosecutions linked to CCTV have fallen in parts of Britain, raising questions about the true impact of the security cameras; in the Metropolitan Police area, CCTV-related prosecutions have fallen a mighty 71 per cent, the Daily Telegraph reports.
The Metropolitan Police saw the number of solved crimes linked to CCTV drop by more than half in just five years, and other forces are expected to have seen a similar effect.

Israeli police foiled a potentially gruesome terrorist attack in the heart of Jerusalem’s Old City yesterday when they arrested three Hebron Arabs with knives that were to be used to stab to death an Israeli policeman or soldier, Arutz 7 reports.
They were caught near Jaffa Gate, the most popular and crowded thoroughfare for tourists and visitors to the Old City. Police were suspicious of their vehicle and discovered their plans while questioning the terrorists.
The foiled …

A wealthy British Nazi ­sympathiser was behind the theft of the ­infamous sign above the Auschwitz death camp, the Sunday Mirror reported yesterday.
The shadowy figure was the intended buyer of the iconic 16ft-long metalwork – one of the Holocaust’s most potent symbols.
The sign, stolen two weeks ago, bears the German words “Arbeit macht Frei”. Now a Sunday ­Mirror investigation has ­revealed that the sign – recovered in three pieces by police – was destined for …