Sweetdreams12

A highly professional burglar with a military background is suspected of carrying out series of violent house burglaries across south-east England. The man stakes out expensive Home Counties properties, armed with a sawn-off shotgun, and knows their exact layout and location of safes by the time he strikes, Surrey Police said. He has taken jewellery, watches and heirlooms worth about £1m. Police said he may be "ex-military" and possesses "specialist skills". An appeal has now gone out from four police forces after raids across Berkshire, Kent, Surrey and Sussex between November 2014 and October 2017. Det Insp Dee Fielding, who is leading the investigation, said the man strikes approximately every six months and is not "an opportunist burglar". "This is absolutely not an amateur," she said. "He stakes out these houses over a number of days, sometimes for a couple of weeks. We can see that on CCTV he is hiding in gardens - he...

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has lauded the Trump administration's list of Russian oligarchs and politicians as a "good list." The list released late on Monday was required by a sanctions law, adopted last year against Russia for meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. Although it does not trigger any U.S. sanctions against the individuals, the very preparations for listing the Russian oligarchs has sent chills across the Russian business community and political elite in the past months. Navalny, who came to prominence thanks to his investigations into official corruption, tweeted on Tuesday that he was "glad that these (people) have been officially recognized on the international level as crooks and thieves." Navalny in his investigations has exposed what he described as close ties between government officials and some of the billionaires on the list. He questioned, however, why some Russian businessmen with no apparent ties to the government w...

A bereaved mother is calling for schools to make extra checks on pupils who do not turn up. Helen Daykin's little girls spent almost 24 hours with the body of their father after his sudden death. She says: "There's no reason why this couldn't happen again. How the children didn't hurt themselves I've no idea." The government may ask schools in England to make extra checks, including keeping an extra contact number to call when children don't turn up. Helen Daykin can only now bring herself to speak about the day her husband, Chris, died unexpectedly, just over a year ago. She often travelled away for work while he looked after their two small daughters, Pearl and Iris. Sometimes it was to the other side of the world, that week it was just to London from their home, in Halifax. When she rang in the morning she thought he was busy with the school run, then later that he might have lost his phone as there was no answer. At teatime, her ...

"On a daily basis we are kicked, spat on, hit and sworn at. I encounter violence every day, normally multiple times a day. It's incredibly rare to have a day where I haven't been physically harmed in one way or another." Emma works as a classroom assistant at a school in south-east England for children with behavioural, emotional and mental-health problems. Her job is to be an extra pair of hands in the classroom, or out in the corridors, coaxing children back into lessons. Too often, those interactions become difficult and children lash out. "I've been punched in the face, I've been head-butted in the face," Emma told BBC Radio 5 live. "Being spat at is really unpleasant. "It's hard having spit on your face and in your hair and on your clothes and staying calm about it." Many pupils at the school where Emma works have struggled in mainstream education. Some have special educational needs, others, behavioural and...

Bruno Mars and Kendrick Lamar stole the show, and most of the awards, at the 2018 Grammys. Mars provided the night's big upset, taking the album of the year trophy that most critics assumed would go to Lamar's rap tour de force, Damn. In the end, voters found Mars's crowd-pleasing R&B more palatable, while Lamar dominated the rap categories. Alessia Cara won best new artist - making her the only female artist to win a major prize. Stars like Lady Gaga, Kesha, Lorde and SZA were overlooked, with only 17 awards (out of a total of 86) going to women or female-fronted bands. The imbalance was particularly incongruous on a night that highlighted the #TimesUp and #MeToo campaigns. Most performers arrived for the show  wearing a white rose  to symbolise their support for the movements, which tackle sexual harassment and inequality. Pop star Kesha also gave a powerful, stirring performance of her single Praying, which addresses her own experience of surviving a...

The swollen River Seine in the French capital, Paris, has peaked at more than four metres above its normal level. It rose to 5.84m (19.2ft) early on Monday, and is not expected to begin receding before Tuesday. Weeks of rainfall have produced a relentless rise in the water level. Around 1,500 people have been evacuated from their homes in the greater Paris region, while a similar number of homes remain without electricity, the authorities say. In 2016, the last significant flood in Paris, the river reached a high of 6.1m. Seven stations of a main commuter line, the RER C, have now been closed until at least 5 February, and some expressways that run alongside the Seine have been closed. The city's famous Bateaux Mouches tourist boats are out of service, with only emergency services allowed to use the river. At the Louvre, a lower level housing Islamic artwork was closed to visitors. Other famous attractions like the Musée d'Orsay and the Orangerie gallery were o...

A violent sex attacker who escaped from prison has been recaptured. Gintautas Urbonas, 51, was serving a 12-year sentence at the privately run HMP Peterborough for attempted rape, battery and sexual assault and vanished at 18:00 GMT on Friday. The Lithuanian national was found at an address in Peterborough just after midnight and is in custody. Two men and three women have been arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender. On Saturday, a spokesman for prison operator Sodexo said it would not comment on how the inmate fled as it was a "live police investigation". In a statement, the company said it was "investigating" the incident. Concerns were raised by the prison watchdog last week about the women's site at HMP Peterborough. Inspectors rated the women's jail as "not sufficiently good" on safety.