IT WAS built to ferry passengers to the Titanic, saw action during the First World War and served some of history's greatest ocean liners before being put out to grass as a floating restaurant beside the Eiffel Tower.

TONY Blair was back at work yesterday, dispatching ministers to Asia but maintaining the curiously low profile he has adopted throughout the tsunami crisis.

MICHAEL Howard yesterday let slip that the Conservatives may not win the next general election, committing a major political faux pas on the same day as the party launched its manifesto for 2005.

THE Save the Scottish Regiments campaign yesterday promised to continue its protest at least until the general election, when it hopes to play its part in unseating a number of Labour MPs.

A SENIOR minister yesterday gave the strongest hint yet that the Scottish Executive intends to scrap the right of council house tenants to buy their homes.

UNDER-fire television presenter Kirsty Wark yesterday came out fighting in the row over her friendship with Jack McConnell, the First Minister.

NEARLY two million British workers would be penniless days after losing their jobs.

A WOMAN not seen since Hogmanay sent a text message to a friend pleading for help on the night she disappeared.

TONY Blair has appointed a new No 10 security co-ordinator to replace Sir David Omand, who retires at Easter.

CHILDREN forced to become passive smokers by their parents' cigarette habits could not only face health dangers, but see their intelligence suffer, new research has concluded.

THE Foreign Office yesterday confirmed that three Britons died in a bomb attack in Baghdad.

THE brains of men and women behave differently when confronted with unpleasant words concerning body image, research has revealed.

ABU Hamza al-Masri, the radical Muslim cleric accused of stirring up racial hatred, soliciting murder and a terrorist offence, failed to appear in court yesterday, complaining his toenails were too long and he could not wear shoes.

THE trial began yesterday of a British businessman arrested in August 2003 in an FBI sting operation for trying to sell missiles to militants intent on downing airliners in the United States.

FLAGS across Britain and the rest of Europe will be lowered to half-mast, stock exchanges will stop trading, and workers, shoppers and businesses across the continent will join a silent tribute today for victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami

A PAEDOPHILE used his two daughters "as bait" to abuse a string of young girls, a court heard yesterday.

THERE are a number of ways to donate money to help those affected by the disaster.

JILL Craigie, the wife of the former Labour leader Michael Foot, was far from impressed when her daughter took Sean Connery home for dinner.

A BRITISH diver has died after he became trapped underwater during an operation to salvage a sunken ship in Bulgaria.

JACK Straw, the Foreign Secretary, acknowledged last night that the toll of Britons believed to have perished in the Boxing Day tsunami was likely to rise above 200.