Cameron's £21k Of Cut-Price Fitness Sessions

David Cameron benefited from £21,000 of cut-price fitness sessions with trainer to the stars Matt Roberts in his battle to keep in shape while prime minister.

In all he had 150 discounted sessions with Mr Roberts during his time in office, according to official records.

Mr Cameron was pictured a number of times out running with the personal trainer - as was his wife, Samantha Cameron.

She received a discount of £85 per session for 10 sessions in December 2011.

The register of MPs' financial interests shows the former prime minister enjoyed a discount of £150 per session for 50 sessions from April 2013 until June 21 this year.

It  follows a similar £7,500 discount for 50 sessions in January 2013, £3,625 for 25 sessions in December 2011 and £3,250 for 25 sessions in November 2010.

Mr Cameron wrote in his most recent entry to the register: "Discount of £150 per session on 50 sessions of personal training received since April 2013; total value £7,500. I have made a personal donation to a charity of my trainer's choice."

Mr Roberts lists initial consultations on his company's website at £150. Twenty five sessions with a senior trainer are priced at £2,125.

Mr Cameron joked on the EU referendum campaign trail about his battle against the bulge, saying he needed to lose some weight before his holiday because photographers would take pictures of his stomach.

Corbyn Wins High Court Leadership Fight

Jeremy Corbyn is entitled to be on the Labour leadership ballot without the support of MPs, the High Court has ruled.

In an unprecedented case, the judge ruled Mr Corbyn did not need to find the support of 51 of his MPs or MEPs to take part in a leadership battle - unlike those who sought to challenge him.

The beleaguered leader welcomed the decision saying the case, brought by Labour donor Michael Foster, was a "waste of time and resources".

The case focused on the party rules governing a leadership challenge and the decision may by the party's ruling body, the national executive committee, earlier this month if that Mr Corbyn did not have to find the backing of MPs - unlike his challengers.

Mr Foster had claimed the rules were "misapplied" and that Mr Corbyn should not be on the leadership ballot.

The move was seen as an attempt to oust Mr Corbyn by effectively blocking him from running in the contest, leaving his challenger, Owen Smith, unopposed.

While Mr enjoys massive support among Labour members, the same is not true among MPs.

Earlier this month he lost a Parliamentary Labour Party vote of no confidence by 172 votes to 40 and he would have struggled to find the 51 members to back him.

Mr Corbyn said: "I welcome the decision by the High Court to respect the democracy of the Labour Party.

"This has been a waste of time and resources when our party should be focused on holding the Government to account.

"There should have been no question of the right of half a million Labour Party members to choose their own leader being overturned. If anything, the aim should be to expand the number of voters in this election."

Iain McNicol, General Secretary of the Labour Party, said: "We are delighted that the Court has upheld the authority and decision of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party. 

"We will continue with the leadership election as agreed by the NEC."

Antibiotic Strain Found In Nose Could Fight MRSA

A new class of antibiotics has been discovered - and it was right under our noses all along.

The discovery led to the development of a drug known as lugdunin, which could be used to treat superbug infections.

Most antibiotics were first discovered in soil bacteria, and the last new class of drugs was discovered in the 1980s.

But the latest breakthrough comes from inside the human body, and could be useful for treating superbugs such as MRSA.

Scientists found that a bug called Staphylococcus aureus invades the noses of about 30% of people.

Curious to find out why the remaining 70% were bug free, they found that many of these people have a rival bug in their nostrils called Staphylococcus lugdunensis.

This bug produces an antibiotic that protects the carrier against the rival Staphylococcus aureus bug - which can include strains of MRSA.

A team from the University of Tubingen in Germany used various strains of genetically-modified Staphylococcus lugdunensis to uncover its genetic code.

This gave them the instructions for how to build a new antibiotic.

It comes at a crucial time - several medical authorities have warned that overuse of current antibiotics is allowing deadly bacteria such as E.coli and Salmonella to mutate into drug-resistant strains.

Microbiologist Andreas Peschel said the discovery was "unexpected and exciting".

The study was published in the most recent issue of the Nature journal.

Merkel rules out migrant policy reversal after attacks

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has defended her policies on refugees in the wake of recent terror attacks.

Some of the attacks were by asylum seekers who she said had "shamed the country that welcomed them".

She said those fleeing persecution and war had a right to be protected.

Mrs Merkel proposed new measures on information sharing, deciphering web chatter, tackling arms sales on the internet and improving security responses to attacks.

Two recent attacks in Bavaria were both by asylum seekers. A suicide bomb attack in Ansbach on Sunday that injured 15 people was carried out by a Syrian who had been denied asylum but given temporary leave to stay.

An axe and knife attack on a train in Wuerzburg on 18 July was carried out by an asylum seeker from Afghanistan.

Both men had claimed allegiance to so-called Islamic State.

The deadliest attack - in Munich on 22 July which left nine dead - was carried out by a German teenager of Iranian extraction but was not jihadist-related.

What is going on in Germany?

Ansbach attacker: From asylum seeker to IS suicide bomber

What drives individuals to commit mass killings?

Mrs Merkel said Germany would "stick to our principles" in giving shelter to the deserved.

She said the attacks had shown the "taboos of civilisation" had been broken.

The attacks in Germany, along with those recently in Nice and Rouen in France, were intended to "spread fear and hatred between cultures and between religions", Mrs Merkel said.

Speaking in Berlin, Mrs Merkel said that "besides organised terrorist attacks, there will be new threats from perpetrators not known to security personnel".

To counter this, she said: "We need an early alert system so that authorities can see during the asylum request proceedings where there are problems."

Mrs Merkel added: "We will take the necessary measures and ensure security for our citizens. We will take the challenge of integration very seriously."

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Seven deadly days

A week of bloody attacks has frayed nerves in Germany, which led the way in accepting asylum seekers from Syria. To date, two of the attacks have been linked to a militant group:

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES

• 18 July: An axe-wielding teenage asylum seeker from Afghanistan is shot dead after injuring five people in an attack on a train. IS claims the attack, releasing a video recorded by the attacker before the incident

• 22 July: A German teenager of Iranian extraction goes on a shooting rampage in the Bavarian state capital, Munich, killing nine people, most of them migrants, before shooting himself. He is said to have been obsessed with school shootings

• 24 July: A Syrian asylum seeker is arrested in the town of Reutlingen, Baden-Wuerttemberg, after allegedly killing a Polish woman with a machete and injuring two other people. Police suggest it was probably a "crime of passion" 

• 24 July: A failed Syrian asylum seeker blows himself up outside a music festival in the small Bavarian town of Ansbach, injuring 15 other people.

Germans shaken by violence

German media on the attacks

Oldest Cancer Found In 1.7 Million-Year-Old Bone

Scientists have found the oldest known example of cancer in the foot bone of an early human dating back around 1.7 million years.

The study team, which included researchers from the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), also found evidence of the oldest tumour in the vertebrae of a child.

The finds challenge the established theory that cancer is a disease caused by modern life.

The discoveries were made at two sites in South Africa and are more than 1.6 million years earlier than the previous find - a tumour discovered in the rib of a Neanderthal dated to around 120,000-years-old.

Edward Odes, from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, said: "Modern medicine tends to assume that cancers and tumours in humans are diseases caused by modern lifestyles and environments.

"Our studies show the origins of these diseases occurred in our ancient relatives millions of years before modern industrial societies existed."

Dr Bernhard Zipfel, an expert on the foot and movement of human relatives, said: "Due to its preservation, we don't know whether the single cancerous foot bone belongs to an adult or child, nor whether the cancer caused the death of this individual.

"But we can tell this would have affected the individual's ability to walk or run - in short, it would have been painful."

On the child vertebrae find, lead author Dr Patrick Randolph-Quinney, from UCLan, said: "The presence of a benign tumour in Australopithecus sediba is fascinating not only because it is found in the back, an extremely rare place for such a disease to manifest in modern humans, but also because it is found in a child.

"This, in fact, is the first evidence of such a disease in a young individual in the whole of the fossil human record."

Air France Warns Of Drop In Travel After Attacks

Air France has warned its finances could suffer after the terror attacks in the country, saying some people now have a "special concern" about travelling there.

Releasing its half-year results, the company said the attacks had reduced the attractiveness of France as a travel destination - meaning there could be challenging times ahead for its business.

"The global context in 2016 remains highly uncertain regarding the geopolitical and economic environment in which we operate," the airline group said in a statement.

It reported a 5.2% drop in second-quarter sales to €6.22bn (£5.23bn) compared with last year, and about €40m euros in losses connected to staff strikes.

Air France said "a special concern about France as a destination", as well as fuel price concerns, meant an uncertain year ahead.

The results were announced as the company faced another strike, leading to it cancelling 13% of flights on a day which is one of the summer's peak travel times.

The airline's concerns were echoed by French officials earlier this month when they said the number of tourists arriving on regular flights had fallen 5.8% since January, including by 11% in Paris.

Father Jacques Hamel was killed in a church in Normandy

It blamed the fall on a sluggish global economic recovery and "most of all the effect of the terror attacks that have struck Europe in recent quarters and which resumed with the Brussels attacks at the end of March".

:: History Of Deadly Attacks In France

France has been the target of a number of attacks by Islamist terrorists, with the country remaining on high alert since the Paris attacks in November.

On 14 July, 84 people were killed in Nice after a gunman drove a 19-ton lorry into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day fireworks.

On Tuesday, a priest celebrating Mass in a town in Normandy was murdered by two men who shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest) as they ran out of the church.

Second Priest Killer Was Also Known To Police

The second assailant who slit the throat of a French priest at a church in Normandy has been identified as Abdelmalik Petitjean.

Petitjean, who is believed to be aged 20 and from France's Savoie region stormed the church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray with 19-year-old Adel Kermiche during a service on Tuesday.

Fr Jacques Hamel, three nuns and two churchgoers were taken hostage before police shot dead the two terrorists as they ran from the building shouting "Allahu Akbar".

The 19-year-old was wearing an electronic tag at the time of the attack

Petitjean was identified through an ID found at Kermiche's home, French media reported. He is believed to have been on a watch list like Kermiche.

:: Christian Community In UK Warned To Be On Alert

DNA tests are being carried out on the second attacker to confirm his identity, judicial sources told Reuters.

Security forces in France are under scrutiny after it emerged Kermiche was under house arrest and wearing a tag, having twice tried to travel to Syria.

His tag was turned off for a few hours each morning to allow him to leave home - and it was in this time that Kermiche and Petitjean slit the 86-year-old's throat.

Father Jacques Hamel was ordered to kneel before he was killed

A third person, believed to be a 17-year-old male, is in custody in connection with the attack.

Petitjean was identified as churches across France held memorial services for the priest.

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said France would bolster the operational reserve of its police force after 2,500 people asked to join up in the days after 84 people died in an IS-inspired attack on Bastille Day.

He also said more of the country's 10,000-strong Operation Sentinel anti-terror forces would be deployed to areas outside Paris following the lorry attack in Nice and the killing in Normandy.

He spoke after former president Nicolas Sarkozy accused Mr Hollande of being "out of touch" and called for detention or electronic tagging of all suspected Islamist militants - even if they have committed no offence.

But Mr Cazeneuve said: "We can't step back from the rule of law to protect the rule of law.

"If we abandon constitutional principles to protect that which we hold most dear - our liberty - we will be giving a victory to the terrorists."
The killing came just two weeks after the Bastille Day attack and is the latest of more than a dozen attacks attributed to Islamic extremists in France over the past two years.

Mr Hollande met with France's main religious leaders on Wednesday morning before attending a defence council and a cabinet meeting.

After the meeting, Paris Archbishop Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois urged Catholics not to "enter the game" of IS that "wants to set children of the same family in opposition to each other". 

:: History Of Deadly Attacks In France

French authorities are again trying to establish whether the Normandy attackers were part of a network after Islamic State claimed its "soldiers" were responsible.

The body of one of the two men who stormed the church

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said Kermiche, 19, first came to the attention of anti-terror officials when a family member alerted them that he was missing in March 2015.

German officials arrested him and found he was using his brother's identity while trying to travel to Syria.

He was released under judicial supervision, but in May fled to Turkey where he was again arrested and returned to France. He was then held in custody until March this year.

A neighbour of Kermiche in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, who gave his name only as Redwan, said he had known who was responsible as soon as he heard about the attack.

"I was told that an attack occurred and I knew it was him, I was sure," he said.

"He said to us 'Yes, I tried (to go to Syria).' Then we tried to bring him to his senses, every time we did it and every time he was bringing in a verse from the Koran, he was inventing things."

An 86-year-old worshipper remains in hospital in a serious condition after suffering knife wounds during the hour-long siege.

He had been forced to record the killing of the priest before he was slashed by the attackers.