Smartly dressed in a suit with his hair smoothed back as he addressed the Lord's Public Services Committee, Simon Hunter said he was 'hugely proud' of the 'modernisation journey' on which he was taking the Child Maintenance Service (CMS).

The director of the government agency told the peers sitting in front of him that the high-tech improvements he had introduced were making it 'slick and more usable' and 'incredibly accessible through the digital channels'.

His upbeat assessment last year prompted utter disbelief from parents who had suffered huge financial hardships after a string of failings by the CMS so severe that some have branded it the 'new Post Office scandal'.

As our damning exposé last month revealed, suspected computer glitches and staffing problems at the government agency have led to parents – the majority of them fathers – being financially crippled, losing homes, suffering mental breakdowns and even being driven to suicide.

Some have been plunged into poverty and forced to survive off food banks after long-running problems with the service led to tens of thousands of parents being overcharged – some by vast amounts.

The CMS was launched in 2012 after widespread problems with its predecessor,

Animal lovers have condemned the decision to shoot dead a stag after it injured a man having a picnic while 'looking for food'. 

The animal approached the man's group in London's Richmond Park at around 6pm on Saturday afternoon. 

The man, in his 60s, was taken to hospital with chest injuries described as 'not life-threatening' after emergency services were called to the scene. 

The Royal Parks said the stag's 'behaviour' meant it had to be 'put down' after it was 'deemed to be a danger to visitors'.

The incident came after visitors were warned against approaching the park's resident wild deer and feeding them due to a 'real risk of serious injury'.

Dozens of people have now come to the stag's defence, arguing an animal should never be put down because humans cannot follow simple rules. 

'That was wrong. The stag learned to do that because of people feeding it. Not the animal's fault,' one wrote on social media. 

'Sad but I think inevitable,' another said. 'We walked the whole way around Richmond Park yesterday and saw several family groups - including kids no older than three or four - walking right

No longer do mountain lairs exclusively belong to the cat-stroking and eyepatch-wearing villains of spy novels. 

Now, you too can buy an ultra-high security vault that lies more than 330ft beneath a Swiss mountain range – as long as you have nearly half a million pounds spare. 

Swiss security firm Brünig Mega Safe is working to dig out up to 25 caverns from the limestone that makes up the Brünig massif. 

It is selling access to these vaults – which are intended to store valuable artwork, cars, wine, safety deposit boxes and other valuable assets – with the promise of near total security. 

The firm claims it is breaking ground in Brünig in January and it claims its vaults will be 'comparable to that of the Swiss National Bank'.

Thomas Gasser, chairman of Brünig Mega Safe, said: 'You'll first have to drive through a special checkpoint and get out of your vehicle: there will be several security checks, which obviously won't be disclosed to the public.'

Thanks to the depth of the vaults, they will have a natural temperature of 13C, which is ideal for storing wine and art. 

But in a world that has seen increased instability

Conservative activist Robby Starbuck has said that allowing 'lifelong welfare users to vote is garbage' and even floated a prospective ban on repeat recipients.

Call me a radical but if we want America to be exceptional, then taxpayers who fund all the welfare should have more of a say in our elections than lifelong welfare users. Call me whatever you want but I think it’s nuts to give these two groups the same voting power. One group…

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) August 17, 2026

Letting lifelong welfare users have an equal vote to the people who work hard and fund everything with their taxes is like running a home by giving your kids equal say in the financial decisions you and your spouse make. It’s dumb and if you do it, you can’t blame your kids for…

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) August 17, 2026

'The inevitable result is always more debt, more taxes, more division, more resentment, more anger, more spending, more fraud and a less functional country,' Starbuck said.     

'Call me a radical but if we want America to be exceptional, then taxpayers who fund all the welfare should have more

Andy Burnham was left red-faced yesterday after he was fooled by an imposter posing as Donald Trump's chief of staff.

An international hunt is under way for the hoaxer who targeted the Prime Minister as he took office last month.

Mr Burnham thought he was swapping phone messages with Susie Wiles, the US President's no-nonsense 'enforcer', in the days before and after entering Downing Street.

But in an embarrassing debacle, which has left the PM 'looking like a chump', according to US officials, the British embassy in Washington was forced to flag to the White House that Mr Burnham had been duped.

No 10 refused to answer any questions yesterday amid concern at the ease with which security protocols were breached.

Security experts said the tactic could have been copied from Tehran's playbook, but Whitehall sources suggested it was orchestrated in the US.

Downing Street officials were asked why the Prime Minister was not more circumspect about the contact given that Ms Wiles' devices had previously been targeted by Iran. A spokesman would say only: 'We do

Labour has been accused of watering down standards for traveller sites and making it easier for new camps to be set up.

In a major update to national planning laws, Angela Rayner's department removed a series of earlier proposals to limit the impact of the encampments.

Concerns about 'long-distance travelling' and the 'potential environmental damage caused by unauthorised encampment' were deleted from the final version of the blueprint published on Monday.

The new National Planning Policy Framework also omitted references in last year's draft version to 'minimising adverse impacts from local environmental factors (such as noise and air quality) on the health and wellbeing of travellers that may locate there'.

Another sentence about making sure travellers and their sites are not 'isolated from the rest of the community' was also removed.

The updated document also included a new suggestion that 'locations not well-related to existing settlements may be appropriate'.

An accompanying report explaining changes to the framework following a public consultation stated: 'References to health and wellbeing impacts have been removed to ensure that traveller site proposals are considered consistently with other forms of development under the wider Framework, including in relation

A disabled passenger has described the humiliation of being 'kicked off' a packed Virgin Australia flight because of his wheelchair.

Shane Hryhorec, who was paralysed in a swimming accident in 2007, and his service dog Whitney boarded a flight between Adelaide and Sydney on Monday.

As usual, the frequent flyer had a detachable SmartDrive battery with him that he uses to power his wheelchair. He said he has flown more than 300 times and usually stores it in the overhead locker.

However, the airline has implemented new rules that ban lithium batteries from going in overhead lockers due to the fire risk. They must be kept under the seat in front where passengers can watch them in case they overheat.

The 41-year-old said he was in the centre seat and his service dog had to ride on the floor of the window seat next to him, and that he couldn't put the heavy 6kg device on the floor because of the danger it could injure the dog in turbulence.

The problem sparked a heated argument with cabin crew, which held up the flight for half an hour before

A wind farm tycoon was caught with indecent images of children after he asked a computer repair shop to wipe his hard drives.

Alexander Hensher, 48, the company director of a renewables business, told the member of staff at the shop in Bournemouth, Dorset, that he was being investigated by police.

But the employee he approached was in fact a police special constable, who contacted his superiors so Hensher's hard drives could be seized and analysed.

They were found to contain one Category A image, one Category B image and two Category C images.

Hensher, a father of three who lives in a £2million townhouse in Chelsea, appeared at Weymouth Magistrates' Court after pleading guilty to three counts of making indecent images of a child.

The court heard he went into Bites in Bournemouth in October 2024 to seek help with wiping his three hard drives.

Susan Fellows, prosecuting, said: 'Mr Hensher attended a computer shop in Bournemouth on October 10, 2024 and he produced three hard drives and a phone to the member of staff and paid for them to be wiped.

'During the exchange with that member of staff, he mentioned he

Jeremy Clarkson has described how he keeps the grass at his Cotswolds pub green despite facing a hosepipe ban amid the country's crippling drought.

Mr Clarkson, whose Diddly Squat farm was made famous by his Amazon Prime series, shared a tactic he used at his Farmer's Dog pub to access water.

Aerial images from above the pub on Monday showed much of the grass remaining lush green while some patches and the neighbouring fields were parched brown.

The former Top Gear host, who has been filming for the sixth series of Clarkson's Farm in recent months, revealed the trick while speculating on the health of Sir Rod Stewart's lawn in Essex.

Sir Rod, 81, has managed to keep the sprawling gardens at his Grade II-listed Essex mansion in rude health despite being covered by Affinity Water's hosepipe ban.

There is no evidence the singer has breached the ban at the ten-bedroom property he bought for £4.65million in 2013 and moved into with wife Penny Lancaster three years

A beauty spot in the Dolomites has been swamped by tourists searching for a local delicacy as the mountain range comes under increasing pressure from crowds of visitors.

The Alpine region is known as one of the most scenic spots in Italy with its cable cars, mountain views and hiking trails luring millions of holidaymakers a year.

This summer is no different. Videos show tourists waiting hours at an altitude of 2,300m in 'crazy' winding queues for a cabin's famed cream-filled doughnuts.

Visitors wake up in the early hours of the morning to get their hands on the sweet treat before they sell out at the Rifugio Friedrich August hut on the Langkofel mountain near the border with South Tyrol. 

Some have even reported camping out just to guarantee themselves a doughnut. 

Furious locals have become fed up with holidaymakers more concerned with social media photos than appreciating the region's natural beauty, while unimpressed TikTok users called the viral spot a 'tourist trap'.

One wrote under a video of queues: 'Pretty much all if the huts/refugios in the Alps have great traditional high quality locally/home-made food. 99%

Outgoing Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace hit back at the media firestorm caused by her newly posted bikini photos that revealed no fewer than nine new tattoos.

The 48-year-old South Carolinian bared her tattooed arms in a bikini during a high-octane introduction for Get Maced, featuring her surfing and firing an automatic weapon.

Her posts caused a stir on the internet, with Fox News commentator Raymond Arroyo calling it 'a cry for help.'

However, Mace addressed the controversy and seemed baffled by all the concern over her physical appearance in a post on social media.  

'Thoughts and prayers to all those affected by my sleeves. Made the mistake of opening my social media this afternoon. Some of y'all are OUT OF CONTROL,' Mace wrote. 

'My biceps should NOT be a news story. We have more important things to worry about. Goodness. And God Bless America.'

Arroyo joined the chorus of commentators on Laura Ingraham's show Monday suggesting that Mace's actions could even have a negative effect on other women.

'My heart goes out to her and it sounds like there was some

Hayden Panettiere's heartbroken father was only beginning to recover from his son's untimely death when the actress was found dead on Sunday, neighbors revealed.

The former child star, who was known for her roles on the hit NBC series Heroes and musical drama Nashville, died at an Airbnb in Greenville, South Carolina from an apparent overdose.

Her death at the age of 36 comes just three years after her brother, Jansen, passed away in February 2023 from complications with his 'enlarged' heart. He was 28.

Their father, Alan 'Skip' Panettiere, 'retreated' from his close-knit community of Piermont, New York in the aftermath, a neighbor told the New York Post.

Another claimed he finally 'seemed like he was starting to come back from it' when he learned that his daughter was dead. She had just visited him the month before, the neighbors said.

A friend of the late actress said she had also planned to take a trip to visit her 11-year-old daughter, Kaya, in Ukraine, where she lives with her father, former heavyweight boxer