The brain's ability to function can start to deteriorate as early as 45, suggests a study in the British Medical Journal.

The two largest teaching unions have called for further improvements in the government's plans to change the teachers' pension scheme.

JRR Tolkien was passed over for the 1961 Nobel Prize in Literature after his storytelling in The Lord of the Rings was described as second rate, papers reveal.

China's state media warn the US against "flexing its muscles" after it unveiled a defence review switching focus to the Asia-Pacific region.

A man who punched a woman outside a Tyneside pub in a row over a spilt drink leaving her paralysed, is jailed for more than three years.

West Midlands zoo keepers say they were scared their flamingos might blow away in the strong winds.

Convicted fraudster and Lib Dem donor Michael Brown has been arrested in the Dominican Republic after going on the run, police say.

JD Sports emerges as the likely buyer of struggling retailer Blacks Leisure, the 300-plus chain that employs 3,500 people.