Today's top stories:

Two Army bomb disposal experts have been awarded the George Cross for their gallantry in Afghanistan.

Five-year-old Sahil Saeed returns to the family home in Oldham, as three people are charged with his kidnapping in Pakistan.

A newborn baby boy dies after being abandoned at the back of a shop in Cwmcarn, Gwent Police say.

A man is convicted of murdering a 16-year-old boy who was mauled by dogs in a park before being stabbed six times.

A former Irish soldier who killed three colleagues in the Lebanon in 1982 is released prison in County Antrim.

Ex-Coronation Street actor Bruce Jones grabbed the wheel of his wife's car and said he would kill them both, a court hears.

Facebook says it will not install a "panic button" on its main pages for users to report suspected paedophiles, but will develop its existing reporting system.

Talks between British Airways and the Unite union aimed at averting strike action have continued into the night.

A woman died from poisoning after eating fatal death cap mushrooms she had mistaken for field mushrooms, an inquest hears.

Duncan Bannatyne accuses fellow dragon and non-dom James Caan of having an "unfair" advantage in business.

A scout group say they were turned away from the Harrods store after refusing to removes their neckerchiefs and woggles.

Fulham produce a stunning second-leg comeback against nine-man Juventus to make the Europa League quarter-finals.

Fernando Torres scores twice to help Liverpool keep their season alive with victory over Lille and reach the Europa League quarter-finals.

Former England rugby league star Chris Ashton is set to make his debut for the rugby union side just six months after almost quitting the sport.

Hot favourite Big Buck's wins his second successive World Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival.

How genetic profiling of animals caught a boy's killer

A first look at Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor

How Pakistan saw the kidnapping of Sahil Saeed

The soldiers who aren't appearing on British stamps

Why are there suddenly so many legal highs?

How Britain's last independent bank rode out the storm

A haulage company investigates after footage emerges showing a lorry apparently pushing a car at high speed along a motorway.

The UK government announces measures to improve safety after a report into a factory blast which killed nine people in 2004.

UK borrowing could be less than forecast this financial year after better-than-expected February figures and revised January data.

Crystal Palace's administrator says he would "welcome" a bid by rap star P-Diddy, who is said to be interested in the club.

Three quarters of England's universities are facing real-term budget cuts - for the first time since Labour came to power.

The Lord Ashcroft row reopens despite documents confirming he did not have to have to be a full UK taxpayer to become a peer.

A former Metropolitan Police detective is jailed for 22 years for his part in a

30 job titles guaranteed to leave you stumped

Are we now really too lazy to chop one of these?

Do we still want to fly under the red, white and blue?

Gordon Brown's admission to MPs that defence spending has not risen in real terms every year under Labour is dissected in the papers.

A body found in Italy is thought to be that of a 16-year-old girl whose 1993 disappearance may be linked to the murder of a Dorset mother of two.

Chelsea's owner accepts libel damages and an apology from La Repubblica newspaper over false claims of a gambling problem.

Cardinal Sean Brady confirms a priest in NI paid compensation to a woman who had made allegations of sexual abuse.

The USPCA calls for a change in the law to make hunts more liable for the actions of their hounds after a pet dog is torn to pieces.

A man whose body was recovered from docks in Fife, after a stolen truck plunged into the water, is named.

A row breaks out over an inquiry by the Electoral Commission into the the SNP's financial affairs in Angus.

An estate agent is sentenced to two years for his part in a gang who preyed on a dying widow stealing her life savings.

A five-year-old boy crashed after grit got into his mini-motorbike engine jamming the throttle, an inquest hears.

Svippy writes "As revealed last summer, Futurama will be returning this year, and while there were conflicts about the cast of the show in the late summer of 2009, a deal was eventually secured. Last week, Comedy Central confirmed the airing of the first episode, 'Rebirth,' will be 24 June 2010. Several other details related to plot and production have surfaced over the months, and for those interested, a full article is available on the subject."

www.sorehands.com writes "In the first case brought by a spam recipient to actually go to trial in California, the Superior Court of California held that people who receive false and deceptive spam emails are entitled to liquidated damages of $1,000 per email under California Business

Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that American companies like Applied Materials are moving their research facilities and engineers to China as the country develops a high-tech economy that increasingly competes directly with the United States. Applied Materials set up its latest solar research labs in China after estimating that China would be producing two-thirds of the world's solar panels by the end of this year and their chief technology officer, Mark R. Pinto, is the first CTO of a major American tech company to move to China. 'We're obviously not giving up on the US,' says Pinto. 'China needs more electricity. It's as simple as that.' Western companies are also attracted to China's huge reservoirs of cheap, highly skilled engineers and the subsidies offered by many Chinese cities and regions, particularly for green energy companies. Applied Materials decided to build their new $250 million research facility in Xi'an after the city government sold them a 75-year land lease at a deep discount and is reimbursing the company for roughly a quarter of the lab complex's operating costs for five years."

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Reuters: "Google, Inc. accused Viacom, Inc. of secretly uploading its videos to YouTube even as the media conglomerate publicly denounced the online video site for copyright infringement, according to court documents made public on Thursday."

An anonymous reader writes "Banks will be offering a new service at the end of the year that will let customers take a photo of a paper check and have it be deposited in their bank accounts, making the smartphone one step closer to an ATM."

1sockchuck writes "Are data center operators ready to abandon hot and cold aisles and submerge their servers? An Austin startup says its liquid cooling enclosure can cool high-density server installations for a fraction of the cost of air cooling in traditional data centers. Submersion cooling using mineral oil isn't new, dating back to the use of Fluorinert in the Cray 2. The new startup, Green Revolution Cooling, says its first installation will be at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (also home to the Ranger supercomputer). The company launched at SC09 along with a competing liquid cooling play, the Iceotope cooling bags."

bonch writes "Agencies under the Obama administration cite security provisions to withhold information more often than they did under the Bush administration. For example, the 'deliberative process' exemption of the Freedom of Information Act was used 70,779 times in 2009, up from the 47,395 of 2008. Amusingly, the Associated Press has been waiting three months for the government to deliver records on its own Open Government Directive."

lee1 writes "It turns out that the U.K. has a DNA database

Techman83 writes "After years of changing between AVG Free + Avast, it's coming time to find a new free alternative for friends/relatives who run Windows. AVG and Avast have been quite good, but are starting to bloat out in size, and also becoming very misleading. Avast recently auto updated from 4.8 to 5 and now requires you to register (even for the free version) and both are making it harder to actually find the free version. Is this end of reasonable free antivirus, or is there another product I can entrust to keep the 'my computer's doing weird things' calls to a minimum?"

An anonymous reader writes "D-Shape, an innovative new 3-D printer, builds solid structures like sculptures, furniture, even buildings from the ground up. The device relies on sand and magnesium glue to actually build structures layer by layer from solid stone. The designer, Enrico Dini, is even talking with various organizations about making the printer compatible with moon dust, paying the way for an instant moonbase!"

mikesd81 writes "In the first federal appeals court opinion dealing with 'sexting,' a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled Wednesday that parents could block the prosecution of their children on child pornography charges for appearing in photographs found on some classmates' cellphones. Miller vs. Mitchell (PDF) began in 2008 when school officials in Tunkhannock, Pa., discovered seminude and nude photographs of some female students on other student's phones. George Skumanick Jr., the DA at the time, said the students and their parents could be prosecuted if they did not participate in an after-school 'education program.'

SpuriousLogic writes "A team of researchers have created a 'quantum state' in an object billions of times larger than ever before. From the article: 'Such states, in which an object is effectively in two places at once, have until now only been accomplished with single particles, atoms and molecules. In this experiment, published in the journal Nature, scientists produced a quantum state in an object billions of times larger than previous tests. The team says the result could have significant implications in quantum computing.'"

eldavojohn writes "Two months ago, Tim Berners-Lee unveiled a UK Government data project with the goal to make government data more useful for everyone. Today he is calling on the rest of the world governments to become more transparent with their nonsensitive data. After only a few months, his project boasts around forty applications for using government data (screen shot example here). The BBC article notes the interesting uses of public data in India and Brazil that are disappointingly lacking in other countries

Garrett Fox writes "University of Cincinnati researchers describe a method of getting photosynthesis from a high-surface-area foam containing enzymes that produce sugar using light and CO2 (abstract). Oddly, the foam itself is derived from a species of frog. More interesting is that the technique doesn't use whole cells or apparently even chloroplasts. The researchers claim 'chemical conversion efficiencies approaching 96%,' as well as tolerance for deliberately high-CO2 environments."

krou writes "Sir Ian McKellen has revealed that filming for The Hobbit and its sequel is scheduled to begin in July, and will take approximately a year to complete. Casting is now 'taking place in LA, London and New York,' and [director Guillermo] Del Torro is already 'living in Wellington, close to the Jacksons' and the studio in Miramar.' Apparently the script is still being worked on, and 'the first draft is crammed with old and new friends, again on a quest in Middle-earth.' The planned sequel to The Hobbit is to be an original story not written by Tolkien, covering the 60 years between The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings."

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