A BIKE in use for three quarters of a century finds a place to rest in London's transport museum.

THE timing of this revelation could not be worse. And its effects will be dire, writes Gethin Chamberlain.

PHOTOGRAPHS of British troops abusing Iraqi looters at their base in Iraq were shown at the soldiers' court martial in Germany yesterday.

TESCO continued its march towards outright dominance of British shopping habits yesterday as it announced record Christmas sales and confirmed plans for stores selling only non-grocery items, such as clothes, books, DVDs and electrical goods.

IT WAS the kind of cash demand that would have had senior bank executives spluttering in to their morning coffee.

TATTOOISTS and body piercers yesterday became the latest group of workers to join the GMB general union.

THE gang behind the £26.5 million Northern Bank robbery threatened to kill all their hostages, a victim revealed yesterday.

BRITISH men prefer to try their luck at hitting the lottery jackpot than save for the future, according to a new survey, while women are increasingly taking control of household budgets.

THE cost of the Trident nuclear submarine programme - based at Faslane - was put at nearly £10 billion yesterday by Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary.

CIVIL servants have admitted there is no way of knowing whether Jack McConnell's flagship Fresh Talent campaign has made any impact in reversing Scotland's "brain drain".

MORE than 1,000 prisoners are lining up to take the Scottish Executive to court following last year's ruling that found that the practice of slopping out in Scottish prisons was "degrading", it emerged last night.

ANALYSISFOR Tony Blair, the events revealed in Osnabruck yesterday could hardly be worse.

JACK McConnell announced his determination yesterday to limit the number of loyalist and republican marches in Scotland.

A MULTI-million-pound IT system for booking medical appointments has been used only 63 times - at a cost of £52,000 each - it has emerged, damaging Labour's flagship policy of modernising the NHS in England.

MSPs last night agreed to hold a Parliamentary hearing on the future of Scottish rugby amidst a power struggle at the top of the game.

SCOTLAND has been handed control of the rail network north of the Border in a £326 million deal that is the largest gain in powers for the Scottish Executive since devolution.

ROBIN Cook ended his decades-long feud with Gordon Brown yesterday, endorsing the Chancellor's ambition to succeed Tony Blair as Prime Minister.

MINISTERS were accused yesterday of failing to deliver improvements in Scotland's schools despite increased public investment, after new statistics revealed education spending had reached record levels north of the Border.