A Colombian armed robber evidently not au fait with martial arts is recovering in hospital after ill-advisedly targetting a karate school, Reuters reports.

Kingston Communications, the UK's only remaining independent local phone company, has hit back at suggestions from an MEP that Hull's businesses and consumers are "held to ransom" by lack of competition in broadband.

The EU will abandon all pretentions to enforce its filthy metric system on Britain, thereby guaranteeing once-and-for-all an Englishman's right to sup ale in pints, buy spuds by the pound, and measure the distance between the greengrocer and the boozer in miles.

A year ago, hardly a week went by without news of a major municipal wireless project in the US, supporting free or subsidized access and a host of shiny business models. Now hardly a week goes by without news of the death of one of these plans.

A team from Nottingham University's archaeology department believes it has rediscovered the remains of an intact Viking boat under a Merseyside pub - originally unearthed in the 1930s by builders excavating the boozer's basement, but quickly reburied because they feared "an archaeological dig would disrupt their work".

The obsessive secrecy provided by the Patriot Act for certain domestic surveillance activities suffered a severe blow yesterday, as a federal judge struck down provisions of the Act that provided for expansive and secretive use of so-called "National Security Letters" (NSL) to obtain phone and email records.

NSFW Our female readers looking for an earth-moving experience are directed forthwith not to the San Andreas fault, but rather to the profoundly silly My Little Secret Talking Head mp3 vibrator - a "breakthrough in adult toys" that allows you to "download and listen to erotic audio fantasies or record your own for the ultimate in personalized pleasure".