Other News In Brief

Olympic Torch Handed Over To UK

The Olympic flame is due to be handed over to organisers of the London Games at a ceremony in Athens.

Since it was lit in Olympia on 10 May the flame has been carried in a weeklong relay across Greece.

After receiving the flame in the Panathenaic Stadium, a British delegation including David Beckham will fly with the torch to the UK on Friday.

Once here it will travel 8,000 miles (12,875km) carried by 8,000 bearers during a 70-day relay ending at the Olympic Park.

The relay begins at Land's End on Saturday when triple Olympic sailing champion Ben Ainslie will be the first to carry the Barber Osgerby-designed torch on British soil.

After criss-crossing every region of the UK, the flame will be used to light the cauldron in Stratford's Olympic Stadium at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on 27 July.

Oldest UK Donor Donates Kidney To Stranger

83-year-old Nicholas Crace has become the oldest living kidney donor in the UK and the oldest person in the country to give a kidney to a stranger.

Crace is the latest member of an exclusive club known as altruistic donors - someone who gives a kidney to somebody on the NHS waiting list whom they do not know.

The former charity director, from Overton, Hampshire, said: "I knew that 7,000 people are waiting for a kidney and that one person dies almost every day while waiting.

"I couldn't have lived with myself with the knowledge that I had had the chance of changing someone's life and turned it down."

Met Chief Suggests Regular Drug Tests For Middle-Class Staff

Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Bernard Hogan-Howe, has said that surgeons, teachers, nurses and other professionals should be randomly tested for cocaine.

Britain’s most senior policeman blamed affluent workers for fuelling the £1 billion market in the Class A narcotic.

He said many of these people worked in professions where drug use could put other people’s lives at risk and in such cases employers should consider introducing regular drug testing as a condition of employment.

Mr Hogan-Howe said anyone testing positive for drug use could then be offered the opportunity to change their lifestyle or get the sack.