Free Republic

Anti-Iraq war MP George Galloway and entertainer Michael Barrymore are among the 11 contestants who have entered the Celebrity Big Brother house. Faria Alam, who had an affair with England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson, US basketball star Dennis Rodman and model Jodie Marsh are among the housemates. Before entering the house, teetotal Galloway, who is MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, said the show would be a "chance to show a large and different audience what I'm really like". "Tony Blair will be in a dilemma. One part of him will want me to be evicted early so I don't score...

Police are examining a possible link between those involved in Thursday's attacks and a whitewater rafting trip. Two of the 7 July bombers rode the rapids at Canolfan Tryweryn, the National Whitewater Centre, in Bala, north Wales weeks before the attack. Officers believe several people with links to addresses being investigated in relation to the 21 July attack may have also been on a trip at the centre.

Tony Blair has apologised to two families who suffered one of the UK's biggest miscarriages of justice. The prime minister was commenting on the wrongful jailing of 11 people for IRA bomb attacks on pubs in Guildford and Woolwich in 1974. Mr Blair said: "I am very sorry that they were subject to such an ordeal and injustice." ..... In October 1989 the Court of Appeal quashed the sentences of the Guildford Four, and in June 1991 it overturned the sentences on the Maguire Seven. Mr Conlon's case was highlighted in the Oscar-nominated film In The Name Of The Father,...

Lawyers for author JK Rowling are investigating a US army magazine cartoon whose characters bear an uncanny resemblance to Harry Potter. Preventive Maintenance Monthly, which has a circulation of 100,000, teaches soldiers how to care for their kit. Its cartoon strip includes a boy wizard called Topper and a professor of Mogmart's School called Rumbledore ... teachers called Snappy and McDonagal ... one of the young female wizards is called Miss Ranger. A spokesman for Rowling said she has always taken protection of her copyright "very seriously". But the magazine's editor, Ken Crunk, denied there had been any copyright infringement.

Iraqis have clashed with demonstrators against the election outside a polling station in Manchester. About 200 demonstrators were chased by another group who burned their flags, while other Iraqis clashed with police. The demonstrators were from Hizb-ut-Tahrir - an Islamic group which is against the elections in Iraq. David Kahrmann, from the Iraq Election Team, said the protesters "were not even Iraqis".

A bureaucratic blunder has left Wales off a map of Europe on the cover of a prestigious EU reference book. The Eurostat Statistical Compendium has all the facts and figures on Europe. All EU member states, and the rest of Britain, are accurately represented on the cover - but Wales has disappeared and been replaced by the Irish Sea. Tory leader Michael Howard said: "I was born and grew up in south Wales ... I know I've had my differences with Brussels, but I really do think that is going too far."