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LONDON — British police have arrested a 75-year-old man on suspicion of causing an explosion after a homemade bomb went off near a mosque. West Midlands Police said the man was arrested by counterterrorism officers Thursday at his home in Walsall, near the central England city of Birmingham.

Dozens of birdwatchers who travelled to a Scottish island to see an extremely rare swift have been left distraught after it was killed by a wind turbine. Around 40 people were watching the White-throated Needletail, the world's fastest flying bird, on the Isles of Harris when the tragedy happened. Sightings of the bird have only been recorded eight times in the UK in nearly 170 years, most recently in 1991, prompting around 80 ornithologists to visit the island in the hope of catching a glimpse. David Campbell, from Surrey, told BBC Scotland the incident took place late on Wednesday afternoon....

Oxford gang members: Akhtar Dogar, Anjum Dogar, Kamar Jamil, Assad Hussain, Mohammed Karrar, Bassam Karrar and Zeeshan Ahmed who were found guilty of child sexual exploitation Photograph: PA Seven men who were part of a brutal paedophile ring that raped, tortured and abused vulnerable girls as young as 11 in Oxford have been jailed. Five were sentenced to life and will serve a minimum of between 12 and 20 years after one of the biggest child sexual exploitation trials in recent years. The severity of the jail terms, which are longer than those in other high-profile grooming cases such...

It may be possible to reverse type 1 diabetes by training a patient's own immune system to stop attacking their body, an early trial suggests. Their immune system destroys the cells that make insulin, the hormone needed to control blood sugar levels. A study in 80 patients, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, showed a vaccine could retrain their immune system. Experts described the results as a "significant step". Normally a vaccine teaches the immune system to attack bacteria or viruses that cause disease, such as the polio virus. Researchers at the Stanford University Medical Centre used a vaccine...

As part of its drive to retain congregation numbers, the Church of England is training its clergy to create a "pagan church" where Christianity will be "very much in the center," a British newspaper reports. The mother church of the worldwide Anglican Communion is seeking to create new forms of Anglicanism with which people of alternative beliefs should feel comfortable, according to The Telegraph. "I would be looking to formulate an exploration of the Christian faith that would be at home in their culture," the daily quotes the Rev. Steve Hollinghurst, who is advising the denomination in its new endeavor,...

New guidelines for the UK National Health Service (NHS) suggest that women at high risk of breast cancer should be offered a five-year course of tamoxifen or raloxifene to prevent the disease developing.The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence says taking either drug on a daily basis for five years can reduce breast cancer risks by 40% for up to 10 years. It recommends the drugs are offered to healthy women aged over 35 who have a family history of breast cancer or carry a high risk gene such as BRCA1 or BRCA2. Around half a million women...

British universities are breeding-grounds of the most appalling hatred against America, the UK, Israel, free-thinkers, "apostates," and religious and sexual minorities What is worse, is that organizations who lie and lie and lie again can get away with it. Four years ago, on Christmas Day, a young Muslim who had recently finished his studies at a British university tried to blow up a plane over Detroit. Had Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab's plan succeeded, he would have killed all the people on the trans-continental plane he was on, and many more on the ground below. Fortunately Abdulmutallab's bomb failed to go off...

Two prominent US bloggers have been banned from entering the UK, the Home Office has said. Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer co-founded anti-Muslim group Stop Islamization of America. They were due to speak at an English Defence League march in Woolwich, where Drummer Lee Rigby was killed. A government spokesman said individuals whose presence "is not conducive to the public good" could be excluded by the home secretary. He added: "We condemn all those whose behaviours and views run counter to our shared values and will not stand for extremism in any form."

On Wednesday, Great Britain’s Girl Guides (their equivalent of U.S. Girl Scouts) and Brownies removed God from their 103-year-old oath. Instead of the passage where they used to promise to “love God,” they will now vow to be true to "myself" and develop "my beliefs." The organization said the move is intended to attract girls from secular families. Andrea Minichiello Williams, CEO of Christian Concern, condemned the move, saying, "These values have their roots in a Christian outlook. Taking ‘God’ out of the promise denies the history and foundations of the movement without offering anything in its place, with the...

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Curators at the U.K.’s Manchester Museum were a bit perturbed when they noticed an ancient Egyptian statue changing position over time without any employees claiming to have moved it. So, they set up a camera to capture what might be happening. What they saw was just as unnerving. When viewing the footage taken over a week in time-lapse, they saw the statue of Neb-Sanu, which is only 11 inches tall, turning around on its own.

White goods such as electric ovens would be affected by the proposals to fit all new appliances with sensors that could shut them down when the UK's generators struggle to meet demand for power. The measures proposed by the UK’s National Grid, along with its counterparts in 34 European countries, to install the controversial devices are backed by one of the European Union's most influential energy bodies. They are pushing for the move because green energy sources such as wind farms are less predictable than traditional power stations, increasing the risk of blackouts The proposals are outlined in documents drawn...

The psychiatrists in Britain's basket-case National Health Service certainly have the words; but the construction comes from real estate: Denial, Denial, Denial. Do you have the words to convey your horror at the sheer contempt for patients expressed today by the Chairman of the British Medical Association, effectively the state sector doctors' union in the UK? Speaking at a conference, and as reported by ITV, Dr Mark Porter said: "We all want urgent care at weekends and evenings to be of the same high standards as patients can expect on weekdays. "But the calls we sometimes hear for a Tesco...

Another English Town Tries to Claim the Mayflower, and Tourism, From Plymouth HARWICH, England—A disagreement between two sleepy English seaside towns could make a splash across the Atlantic: by forcing a rewrite of American history. For 393 years, the southwest England town of Plymouth has been celebrated as the last port of call of the Mayflower before the ship carried the first Pilgrim settlers to what was to become the United States of America. But that is only part of the story. Plymouth's fame has come at the expense of this tiny town to the northeast of London. The reason:...

Far from protecting British troops, this week’s novel ruling by the Supreme Court—stretching the Human Rights Act (HRA) to allow soldiers to sue the Government over decisions on equipment, training and operations—will endanger our forces and undermine democratic accountability. The claims followed casualties in Iraq after a “friendly fire” incident between two Challenger tanks, and when a Snatch Land Rover patrol hit roadside bombs. The Ministry of Defense was accused of negligence in equipping the tanks and jeeps, training the servicemen and operational decision-making. In an unprecedented judgment, the court abandoned the bar to negligence claims against the MoD in...

We already knew that the U.S. spy agencies collect all kinds on Americans, thanks to leaked documents from NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Now, in a fresh leak, we're learning that Brits are snooping on us, too -- tapping the world's telephone and Internet traffic, and sharing that info with the United States. Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Britain's version of the NSA, is allowed to tap more than 200 fiber-optic data cables running through British territory, giving the organization access massive amounts of telephone and Internet data, according to the Guardian, who revealed today that Snowden provided it with a document...

Prison officers' association boss reveals "there is clear ­evidence of radicalisation of young men... some ­individuals are bullied into conversion" Faith: Inmates Faith: Inmates Prison officers have warned of Islamic “gang culture” in jails after ­figures showed the number of Muslim inmates has rocketed compared with other faiths. Stats obtained by the Sunday People reveal convicts in England and Wales who say their religion is Islam have passed the 11,000 mark for the first time. The total for Christians is 43,235, ­according to data given out under ­freedom of information laws. Prison officers’ association ­general secretary Steve Gillan said: “The...

Velvet Underground legend Lou Reed holds a rare press conference at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, where he voices his concern about the NSA's surveillance methods as revealed by the Guardian. He also discusses the financial challenges for musicians in an era of free downloads and streaming services

A couple of weeks ago, the British government found itself under considerable fire at home for their connection to the NSA’s PRISM program. A number of MPs demanded answers from David Cameron’s Tory government about whether British intelligence was bypassing UK law in order to spy on its subjects by having the NSA collect the data from their Internet for them. At the time, I wondered whether the Brits were doing the same for the NSA on their own, comparing it to the Hitchcock thriller Strangers on a Train, with its famous “criss cross” murder plot (or the more humorous...

Paul Weston is a British politician and leader of the Liberty GB Party in the U.K who dearly loves his country and wants the culture to remain as it has been for a long time. But he sees that changing now and because of his outspoken passion on this, he’s been labeled a ‘racist’ by everyone, he says.