Briton scoops £81million EuroMillions jackpot to become sixth richest on National Lottery rich list

A Briton tonight scooped a mind-boggling £81million by landing the EuroMillions jackpot.

The mystery winner’s gargantuan haul is not the largest ever won on the lottery but puts the ticket-holder sixth on the National Lottery Rich List.

Winning £80million would make you the joint 908th richest person in the country, according to The Sunday Times Rich List 2012.

The lucky winner is just £10million short of Queen guitar legend Brian May who is worth £90m, but is four times richer than Adele at £20million.

A National Lottery spokesman said: ‘We’ve been giving the rest of Europe a chance to win big this year but Lady Luck is clearly shining back down on the UK once again.

Beautiful kingfisher swoops down to nab its prey in the blink of an eye Read more

These close-up pictures of a majestic kingfisher catching its dinner in Worcestershire show that British wildlife can be just as stunning as exotic animals anywhere in the world.

Photographer Ian Schofiled captured the orange and blue bird as it swooped down to the River Salwarpe near Droitwich Spa to hunt for fish from the branches.

It took two attempts but the bird persevered, nosediving down beak first to catch its prey unawares.

Kingfishers are characterised by their rapid, low flight over water and their ability to hunt fish by hovering in wait above the water’s surface. The feathers on their backs can appear blue or green depending on the angle at which they are viewed.

Girls again outshine boys in CBSE Class XII examination

Over 82% students on Monday cleared the 2013 Class XII CBSE examinations, with girls once again outshining the boys and the Chennai region beating others in the overall pass percentage.

The results were declared across the country on Monday, with the total pass percentage standing at 82.10%, an increase of about two per cent over the last year, said a statement issued by the CBSE.

In all, 9,44,721 students registered for the Class XII examination this year, which was also an increase of 15.81% over 2012.

Girls continued to fare better than boys with 87.98% clearing the exam as compared to 77.78% boys. Among the regions, Chennai once again put up the best performance with a pass percentage of 91.83.

Students can access their results online on CBSE’s official websites — www.results.nic.in, www.cbseresults.nic.in, and www.cbse.nic.in.

The results this year in particular assumes significance for students who aspire to make it to the IITs as weightage is given for the Class XII performance. 2012 cut-off list for DU

Accordingly, the cut off score for the top 20 percentile will be 391 for general category students this year, the statement said. For OBC, it will be 389, SC 350 and ST 338.

Rank holders in the JEE advance under the new format must be among the top 20 performers for admission to the IITs.

HUNTING IN UDAWALAWE

Udawalawe game
to taste on the sly

Centre for Environmental and Nature Studies

Illicit hunting of wild life violating environmental regulations in the Udawalawe National Park as well as the Lunugamvehera National Park has escalated by now. Hunting of deer and wild boar in these two National Parks is being carried on quite openly.

As a result, hunters in surrounding areas engaged in hunting in these National Parks supply game to restaurants on a commercial basis with the aid of village headmen and hunting of animals in the Udawalawe and Lunugamvehera National Parks has begun to increase. Hunters who get access to these Parks carry weapons and engage in hunting. It is clearly noticed that certain grama arakshaka guards and police officers give their support for such acts. Some of the people in the neighbourhood areas have mentioned that police officers in police stations around these National Parks do not take steps to put a stop to this forbidden hunting because a good quantity of hunted game is being given to them as a bribe.

It has been difficult for Wild Life officers and certain police officers to arrest these activities because they are being carried on with the support of some police officers who resort to accepting these bribes and spies of the hunters parole around these Parks to provide them with necessary information during hunting days. Negligence of police officers too have been cited by them.

According to a Clause in No.16 of the Forest Ordinance of 1907, it is an offence to gain illegal entry to a forest and to engage in hunting, the punishment for which is 01 – 05 years imprisonment. In the same way, according to the Fauna and Flora Ordinance No.2 of 1937 (amended by the Act of 1933, No.49), entering a National Park and hunting is a punishable offence. When the law clearly designates these offences, it is a serious issue as to how such offenders gain entry to these Parks without permission and according to their whims and fancies and resort to hunting game with or without the knowledge of the police and officers of the Wild Life.

The carpet of flowers for Drummer Rigby

Sea of flowers: Tributes to the soldier continue to pile up near where he was killed in Woolwich

Thousands leave floral tributes in the street where the soldier was hacked to death

Tributes to the off-duty soldier killed in a brutal attack in broad daylight on a London street have poured in since his death on Wednesday.

The street in Woolwich, south east London, where Lee Rigby, 25, was killed has been carpeted in flowers as members of the public joined his family, friends and comrades in paying tribute.

Flowers, balloons and flags have also been tied to the railings around Woolwich Barracks, just 200 yards from where the Drummer, of 2nd Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, died.

Two rockets hit Hezbollah district of Beirut

At least three people have been wounded by a rocket strike on the southern part of the Lebanese capital Beirut.

Two rockets hit a district controlled by the Hezbollah organisation, officials and residents were quoted as saying by news agencies.

Tension has been high over the conflict in neighbouring Syria.

Jim Muir in Beirut: “The attack came just hours after the Hezbollah leader… said his fighters would continue battling with regime forces in Syria” mised his supporters they would prevail in Syria, where they are backing President Bashar al-Assad.

Syria on Sunday said it had agreed “in principle” to take part in next month’s talks in Geneva aimed at negotiating an end to more than

two years of violence in the country.

‘Terrorists and vandals’

There was no immediate indication who had fired the rockets in Beirut but Lebanese Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said the projectiles, believed to be 107mm rockets with an 8-km (5-mile) range, had been fired from a position to the south-east.

One security official told Associated Press that rocket launchers had been found in woods in a predominantly Christian and Druse area, although this has not been independently confirmed.

Dozens of militants from Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim organisation, are said to have been killed in recent fighting alongside Syrian troops, who face a mainly Sunni Muslim opposition.

The fiery speech by the Hezbollah leader had raised fears that the involvement of his fighters in Syria would have repercussions in Lebanon, the BBC’s Jim Muir reports from Beirut.The leader of Lebanon’s mainly Sunni March 14th movement, former Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, said that

what Hezbollah was doing in Syria was “political and military suicide”, ourcorrespondent notes.

The missiles were Grad rockets, a Soviet-made weapon, an unnamed Lebanese security source told AFP news agency. Both landed in the al-Shayyah area.

Woolwich murder probe: suspect Michael Adebolajo held in Kenya in 2010

Footage shows Michael Adebolajo in court in Kenya in 2010

One of the suspects in the Woolwich murder case was arrested in Kenya in 2010, the Foreign Office has confirmed.It said Michael Adebolajo was

arrested there and it gave consular assistance “as normal” in the circumstances.
He was believed to have been

preparing to fight with Somali militant group al-Shabab, a Kenyan government spokesman told the BBC, and was later deported.
Meanwhile, police investigating soldier Lee Rigby’s murder have arrested a 22-year-old man in north London.
The arrest at Highbury Grove, on suspicion of conspiracy to murder, brings the total number made so far in the case to nine.
Members of Mr Rigby’s family have visited the scene of the killing, laying flowers at Woolwich Barracks where the 25-year-old drummer with the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers was based.
They hugged and comforted each other as they looked at some of the many thousands of floral tributes that have been left in his memory, before crossing the road to look at the exact spot where he was attacked.
Several hundred people gathered at the scene a few hours later, some chanting Mr Rigby’s nam

e and waving Help for Heroes flags.
The Met Police said it was a planned community event in which a group of people intended to lay a wreath.
A small group of English Defence League members also joined the crowd, prompting organisers to complain that their plans had been “hijacked”.

Related articles

• Woolwich suspect arrested in Kenya (bbc.co.uk)