Australia completed a comprehensive victory over England in the fourth Ashes Test at Headingley, Leeds, winning by an innings and 80 runs inside three days to level the series at 1-1 with just the deciding Test match at The Oval still to play. Resuming the third morning in a seemingly impossible position, trailing by 261 runs on 82 for five after Australia's first innings 445, England's daunting task became all the more difficult when they lost two wickets inside the ...

England are heading for a humiliating defeat in the fourth Ashes Test at Headingley after crumbling to 82 for five wickets in their second innings by the close of the second day. Marcus North made his second century of the Ashes series and shared a 152-run stand with vice-captain Michael Clarke as Australia took a first innings lead of 343 and then turned the screw in the final session. England openers Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook were comfortable enough in ...

Britain's most celebrated fugitive -- "the last of the gentlemen crooks," as he liked to describe himself -- was born Ronald Arthur Biggs in Lambeth, south London, on August 8, 1929. The youngest of five children, his criminal career began at the age of 15 when he was arrested for stealing pencils from a local shop. He joined the Royal Air Force in 1947, but was dishonourably discharged two years later after being convicted of breaking into a chemist's shop ...

The last British soldier to serve in World War I was buried Thursday, marking "the passing of a generation," the British veterans minister said. Harry Patch died July 25 at the age of 111, a week after fellow British World War I veteran Henry Allingham died at the age of 113. A party of pallbearers escorting his coffin was made up of two Belgian, two French, and two German infantrymen, while his coffin was carried by six soldiers from a ...

Searchers rescued at least 53 people and about 33 are missing after a ferry capsized in the Pacific Ocean overnight near Tonga's capital, Nuku'alofa, a search and rescue officer said early Friday. The surprise measure takes the total sum injected into the economy via government-backed "quantitative easing" to £175 billion ($294 billion). The sum exceeds the £150 billion ($252 billion) the bank was authorized to create when the plan was announced in March. But in an exchange of letters with ...

A pre-dawn salvo of at least eight rockets slammed into the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Tuesday, Afghan officials said. Ross Brawn, who has guided his British-based Brawn GP outfit to the top of both the drivers' and manufacturers' standings this season, is accused of reaching a speed of 100 miles per hour in his Mercedes on a road limited to 70mph on May 30. The 54-year-old was clocked by police on England's A30 road at Sourton, near Okehampton, Devon, the ...

David Beckham silenced even his most vocal critics with a trademark goal from a free-kick but his Los Angeles Galaxy team were beaten 2-1 by European champions Barcelona on Saturday night. The prestige friendly was watched by a massive 93,137 crowd at the Pasadena Rose Bowl and the 34-year-old Beckham was again subjected to catcalls and barracking from disenchanted Galaxy fans. Pedro Rodriguez put the Catalan giants ahead after fine work by Lionel Messi, but Beckham stepped up to curl ...

The more than 65,000 fans who filled the seats at Seattle's Qwest stadium on a recent Saturday made clear by their neon-green body-paint and their buzzing South African-style vuvuzela horns that this was no Seahawks game. They had come to see a different kind of football, the kind that speaks the word with a foreign accent: Chelsea, erstwhile champions of England's Premier League, vs. the Seattle Sounders, the Emerald City's new Major League Soccer franchise. There was no ...

Morne Steyn scored all South Africa's points as the world rugby champions beat New Zealand at home in the Tri-Nations for the second successive match in Durban on Saturday. The recalled fly-half broke the record for the most points scored by a Springboks player in a single match as he converted his own try and kicked eight penalties in a 31-19 victory. He also broke New Zealander Andrew Mehrtens' 1999 record of 29 for the most points scored in a ...

More than half of children taking antiviral drug Tamiflu suffer side-effects such as nausea, insomnia and nightmares, UK researchers have said. Two studies from experts at the Health Protection Agency (HPA) showed a "high proportion" of British schoolchildren reporting problems after taking the anti-viral drug. Data was collected from children at three schools in London and one in south west England who were given Tamiflu earlier this year after classmates became infected. The studies by HPA experts were carried out ...