Prince Philip To Return To Work 'Within Days'

By Paul Harrison, Royal Correspondent

Prince Philip is recovering faster than doctors had expected and is set to return to work within days, royal aides have told Sky News.

The Duke of Edinburgh, currently resting at Sandringham after undergoing abdominal surgery in June, will return to public duties "earlier than we had imagined", one Palace aide said.

On August 12 the Duke will "ease back in" to work by presenting medals at the Royal Society Of Edinburgh (RSE).

The Queen visited Prince Philip in hospital in June

After making a "steady and good recovery" from his operation, this will be the 92-year-old's first engagement since attending a Buckingham Palace garden party the day he was admitted to hospital.

The engagement at the RSE, where the Duke is an honorary fellow, takes place en route to Balmoral where the Prince plans to join the Queen for the summer break.

The presentation of medals to Professors Sir John Cadogan, Michael Ferguson and Sir Ian Wood, will be the ninth of its kind conducted by the Prince since 2001.

Sky News understands the Duke of Edinburgh has been undertaking "light duties" in private since beginning a two-month period of convalescence.

The Duke at the Buckingham Palace Garden Party the day he was admitted

But he is yet to be seen in public since departing the London Clinic on June 17.

In what was his fourth admittance to hospital in 18 months, the Duke underwent exploratory abdominal surgery.

Prince Philip was due to have spent up to two weeks at the clinic, but was discharged after just 11 days smiling and shaking hands with staff as he walked to his car.

And Sky News understands the Duke is yet to meet his nearly two-week old great grandson, Prince George of Cambridge.

Palace aides have not ruled out a private visit to Balmoral by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge over the summer.

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Childcare Scheme To Help Working Parents

Families where both parents are in work could soon be offered taxpayer-funded help with childcare.

The Government is to announce a formal consultation on the introduction of a £1bn scheme, set to be introduced in 2015.

It is proposed that the online vouchers will be worth up to £1,200 per child, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

For every 80p families pay in, the Government will put in 20p up to an annual limit for each child of £1,200.

The support will benefit around 2.5 million households.

And even families with a combined income of up to £300,000 will be able to get the payments.

The issue of childcare has proven tricky for the coalition

However, about 1.2 million households where one parent - mostly mothers - stays at home will not be eligible for the help.

The scheme will be introduced for children under five by 2015 and extended to cover all those under 12 by 2020, under current plans.

Lower-income families where both parents work will get extra payments that will cover up to 85% of their childcare costs, compared with the current 70%.

The Treasury will invite comments on the plans on Monday.

Sharon Hodgson MP, Labour's shadow minister for children and families said: "Only David Cameron's Government could be so out of touch that they expect families to be grateful for help with childcare in 2015 when they've already seen costs spiralling and support taken away.

"This Government has hit hardworking parents. Families with two children have already lost up to £1,500 in childcare tax credit.

"This Government promised to be the most family friendly ever but hardworking parents have lost out while millionaires get a tax cut."

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Thomas Ousby: Briton Dies In Spain Hotel Fall

A British teenager has died after falling from a hotel in Spain.

Thomas Ousby, 19, died after falling from a fire escape on the ninth floor of a four-star hotel in Magaluf, Majorca, according to reports.

Mr Ousby, who was believed to be staying at another hotel, had spoken about returning to the UK days before his death on Thursday.

The aspiring model and musician from London wrote on Twitter: "Magas all good, coming home sometime this week tho."

He told friends he was promoting bars and boat trips at the party resort, tweeting in June: "Crazy times haha! It's all good selling tickets for bar crawls n boat parties."

A tribute to the teenager

Tributes flooded on to the social networking site, including a picture of his name spelled out in tea-light candles.

Lily Delphine, 18, a film student from London, wrote: "I wish we were all together again", adding, "On the balcony with everyone, having a cheeky drink and listening to toms ipod."

Danielle McCabe tweeted: "Thomas William Ousby has the most amazing energy I've ever met in a person, I truly adore him and cannot understand why he's not here."

Milena wrote: "I will treasure every fond memory. Every morning you woke us up singing and dancing. Every 'hii guyss' through the window. Every big smile."

A spokesman for the Atlantic Park hotel in Magaluf, where the incident is reported to have happened, refused to comment.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: "We were notified on August 3 of the death of a British national in Spain and are providing consular assistance to the family at this time."

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Bolton Pensioner Suffers Stroke After Attack

A pensioner suffered a stroke after he was robbed and "savagely" beaten in his own home, police have said.

The 87-year-old was subjected to the "ferocious assault" when he was woken up by a man who broke into his home on Longfield Road in Bolton, Greater Manchester, in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The intruder prised open the living room window and climbed through. He then made his way upstairs into the victim's bedroom and turned the light on.

Startled, the pensioner was confronted by the thief who demanded money and then punched the victim several times in the face.

After stealing the man's bank book, wallet and cheque book from the pensioner's bedside cabinet, the thief then fled.

The victim managed to call the police despite his injuries.

Police are now hunting the offender and are appealing to anyone with information to come forward.

Detective Inspector Denise Pye said: "This man was awoken, only to find an intruder standing over him making threats.

"Before he knew what was happening, he was savagely attacked and as a result of this ferocious assault, he sustained a stroke and has been diagnosed with a bleed to his brain.

"He is currently in a serious condition in hospital and is being treated for his injuries. Our thoughts are with him and we hope he makes a recovery.

"This was clearly a shocking crime and I'm sure people in this community will rightly be outraged at what has happened.

"That is why we are appealing to anyone living in this area who might have information about what happened to come forward.

"Whatever information you may have could be crucial to finding the offender and ensuring justice is done.

"I urge people in the strongest terms that if they do know something or have any suspicions about who may be involved that they call us."

:: Anyone with information is asked to call police on 101, 0161 856 5599 or the independent charity Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.

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Homeless: More Young People Sleeping Rough

As statistics show more young people are becoming homeless in the UK, a new play questions why more is not being done to help those forced onto the streets.

Government figures show the number of people sleeping rough in England has increased by a third since 2010.

In London alone, 6,437 people slept rough during 2012-13, a 62% rise in two years.

Campaigners say there is a risk this trend could continue, given youth unemployment, the economic downturn and the pressures on low income families, combined with changes within welfare reform, reduction of public services and the general squeezing of housing supply and affordability of accommodation.

The official figures do not account for the hidden homeless.

Three months after his 18th birthday, Leo was forced to sofa surf for nine months until he received help from Centre Point.

He told Sky News: "I feel lonely and like I don't really have a voice. I'm not really accountable for anything despite going to college. I don't feel like a real person."

Director Nadia Fall's new play opens at the National Theatre in London

Ministers insist they are taking homelessness seriously and have pledged £400m to councils to tackle the issue.

Communities Minister Don Foster said: "We have one of the strongest safety nets across the world. If you look, for example, at rough sleeping in London, out of the 6,000 people in the last 12 months only 14 of those were under 18."

After spending 18 months speaking to young people at an east London hostel, director Nadia Fall has used their words for the basis of a new play called Home, which opens at the National Theatre this week.

"There is seriously a whole generation that will not understand what it means to call your home in the way that we do -  somewhere of your own, either to have, own or to even to rent," she said.

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Walthamstow Rape: Third Teenager Arrested

Police have arrested a 17-year-old boy over the alleged rape of a 12-year-old girl in Walthamstow, northeast London.

The boy was held after attending an east London police station and remained in custody on Sunday.

Two other teenagers have been charged with rape.

The 17-year-old suspects, who cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared at Thames Magistrates' Court in Bow, east London, on Saturday.

One youth, known as teenager A, was remanded in custody and is due to reappear at Snaresbrook Crown Court on August 21.

The other boy, described as teenager B, was released on conditional bail.

Police said the victim was approached by three men and dragged to a secluded garage area at the end of Hibbert Road at around 12.15am on July 27.

They said she was "pinned down" and "brutally" attacked by two people before managing to raise the alarm by calling a friend from her mobile phone.

:: Anyone with information is asked to call the Sexual Offences, Exploitation and Child Abuse Command on 020 8217 7408 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

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RideLondon Cyclists Take Over Capital's Roads

More than 50,000 cyclists have been taking to the roads around London and Surrey as part of an event being billed as the UK's largest festival of cycling.

The Prudential RideLondon weekend is featuring four separate events designed to appeal to riders of all ages and abilities in the mass participation event.

But the event has caused anger among some motorists who feel that the event has had too much impact on London's congested road network.

Hundreds of roads were due to be closed across the capital for at least 12 hours with thousands of motorists being forced to make extensive detours or abandon their plans to travel.

London mayor Boris Johnson was among thousands taking part in a 100-mile road race which started at the Olympic Park and headed out to Forest Green in Surrey before heading back into the centre through southwest London.

There was disappointment for Olympic gold medal winning cyclist Joanna Rowsell who said she was "gutted" after breaking her collar bone during one of the races.

Rowsell, who won gold in the team pursuit during last year's Games, was competing in the women's criterium race in and around St James's Park on Saturday night when she was involved in a pile-up.

Writing on Twitter, she said: "Well this is far from ideal. In hospital with a broken collar bone. Thank you for all the messages. I will bounce back!"

She added this morning: "Absolutely gutted to be missing the @RideLondon 100 today for @actionmedres. Massive good luck to everyone riding. Will be an amazing day."

The Grand Prix event, which saw competitors race a circuit in and around the central London park, was won by Rowsell's teammate Laura Trott, who said afterwards: "This feels like my event, so I felt I had to win. I'm so glad I did."

The Grand Prix also saw a contest between the world's best junior cyclists while the capital's Paralympic legacy was celebrated with a handcycle race.

Rugby World Cup winner Matt Dawson, two-time Olympic rowing champion James Cracknell, former Olympic champion sprint hurdler Sally Gunnell and actor Gary Kemp were among the famous faces taking part.

The event will finish on The Mall shortly before 150 professional cyclists race in the inaugural Prudential RideLondon-Surrey Classic on a similar route.

Organisers hope the two-day festival will boost the number of active cyclists in the UK, attract hundreds of thousands of visitors to London and Surrey, and raise large amounts of money for charity.

The capital's motorists remained unimpressed however, with many taking to Facebook and Twitter to express their anger at the event's planning.

Although the event was billed in advance, both in local media and on display signs, many felt that not enough was done to help residents and road users avoid the problems that arose from the closures.

Hilary Irving wasa among those who wrote on the LBC Facebook page: "Two Sundays in a row the people of Wapping have been cut off and unable to drive out. Not great planning."

Silvia Denecke McGrath wrote: "Not a thought for all the people who have to work in essential services like hospitals!

"I have to commute in somehow from Bucks with most of the roads in London shut the entire weekend!

"Can't even use the Tube as I start work so early, never mind that the metropolitan have no services this weekend.

"But no, the whole of London has to come to a standstill for a bunch of cyclists who don't pay road tax."

Luke Bosdet, a spokesman for the AA, said: "You can't fault the organisers over whether there was plenty of notice given, but you are always going to get teething problems.

"It was the first event and there will be people feeding back into whether the event was too disruptive, that they will have to take on board."

During the event, a cyclist not involved in the race was involved in a collision with a steward in Roehampton. Police said the steward suffered only minor injuries but the cyclist had to be airlifted to hospital suffering from "serious injuries".

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Little Chef Bought By Kuwaiti Group 'For £15m'

The Little Chef chain of roadside restaurants has been sold to a Kuwaiti restaurant group.

The company went up for sale in April, six years after it was rescued from administration.

During that time there were several attempts to revive its position in the market as one of the main providers of snack foods for people on the move around Britain.

Celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal was among those recruited to inject new life into its traditional menu of mainly fried breakfasts and burgers.

But the chain had been struggling for some time to compete with the other fast food chains and supermarkets that were increasingly occupying motorway service stations.

Now Kuwait restaurant owner Kout Food Group Restaurants UK Limited (KFGR-UK) has bought the company for what is believed to be £15m.

It was rumoured to be on the market for 'tens of millions of pounds'.

KFGR-UK takes over a group, famous for its 'Fat Charlie' logo, that has been slimmed down from more than 400 at its peak to 83 sites beside A-roads all over Britain, all of which are believed to be profitable.

Heston Blumenthal was brought in to revive the fortunes of Little Chef

The seller, venture capital group RCapital, said it was confident that KFGR-UK  would continue to rejuvenate Little Chef's fortunes.

RCapital CEO Jamie Constable said: "Since we put Little Chef up for sale people have asked us, why sell the business?

"The answer is very simple. We are specialists in reversing the fortunes of businesses with significant financial and operational problems.

"We turn businesses around, we rebuild and fix them, that's our business.

"When we bought the chain, it needed huge changes to revive the business and bring it back to profitability.

"Having owned Little Chef for a long time it feels like we are selling part of ourselves.

"But we take comfort from the fact that the new owners will take the brand to the next stage."

KFGR-UK said it had ambitious plans for the company.

Chairperson Fadwa al Homaizi, said: "KFGR-UK has exciting plans to revitalise the Little Chef brand.

"Little Chef will benefit from a process of brand renewal in keeping with current trends, supported by traditional British values."

Kout Food Group runs several branches of Burger King, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell in its home country. 

It also operates a portfolio of Middle Eastern brands such as Ayyame, Kabab-ji, Burj Al Hamam and the ice cream parlour Scoop A Cone.

Little Chef employs 1,100 staff and has sites across Britain's A-roads.

After trialling Blumenthal's meals in 2009, his new menus were rolled out to several branches. It is not known if his menus will continue to be served.

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Twitter Bomb Threat Sent To Prof Mary Beard

Classics expert Mary Beard has revealed she was sent a bomb threat on Twitter hours after a personal apology from the site's UK boss over attacks on women by "trolls".

Ms Beard, a professor of classics at the University of Cambridge, said she had contacted police after a message on Saturday night claiming a bomb had been left outside her home.

But on Sunday she was subjected to more threats through her Twitter account.

She wrote: "Planned to be off Twitter, but I've had more threats this morning (rape and worse). It IS still going on. Tried to report to Twitter, failed."

Ms Beard was threatened on Saturday night and reported it to police

She had earlier written: "Just got one of these messages. A bomb has been placed outside your home. It will go off at exactly 10.47pm and destroy everything. Told police.

"OK all, it's 11.00pm and we are still here. So unless the trolling bombers' timekeeping is rotten ... all is well. But how stupidly nasty."

Speaking to BBC Radio Five Live, the 58-year-old added: "There's something very strangely and awkwardly insidious about it.

"It is scary and it has got to stop.

"I didn't actually intellectually feel that I was in danger but I thought I was being harassed, and I thought I was being harassed in a particularly unpleasant way."

Caroline Criado-Perez and MP Stella Creasy have received rape threats

Earlier this week, Prof Beard silenced an internet troll after naming him on Twitter.

She retweeted the "highly offensive" post from Oliver Rawlings, who swiftly apologised after another user threatened to tell his mother.

Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman, Independent columnist Grace Dent and Europe editor of Time magazine Catherine Meyer, as well as a number of other women, have previously said they have been the subject of bomb threats on the site.

Two others received threats of rape.

Tony Wang, Twitter UK general manager, posted a series of tweets on Saturday saying abuse was "simply not acceptable".

The website has introduced a new security button to report abuse

His messages came after the website clarified its rules on abusive behaviour amid a growing backlash over a series of attacks.

Mr Wang wrote: "I personally apologise to the women who have experienced abuse on Twitter and for what they have gone through.

"The abuse they've received is simply not acceptable. It's not acceptable in the real world, and it's not acceptable on Twitter.

"There is more we can and will be doing to protect our users against abuse. That is our commitment."

The company has updated its rules to make it clear that abuse will not be tolerated and has put extra staff in place to handle reports of abuse, it said.

Ms Mayer, Europe editor at Time, said she had still not heard anything from the company after reporting the incident.

She told Sky News Online: "I think the in-tweet button to report abuse is a good idea, provided Twitter really does staff up enough to respond quickly and appropriately to complaints.

"Twitter has supposedly issued a personal apology to the women who received abuse, including me presumably.

"But although I notified Twitter of the bomb threat on Wednesday, I have yet to hear anything directly from the company."

The move comes as Scotland Yard said its e-crime unit was investigating allegations by eight people of abuse on the microblogging site.

An online petition calling for Twitter to add a "report abuse" button to tweets has already attracted more than 124,000 signatures.

An "in-tweet" report button has been added so people can report abusive behaviour directly from a tweet, Twitter said.

In separate incidents, Labour MP Stella Creasy and campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez, who successfully fought for a woman's face to appear on £10 banknotes, were threatened on Twitter with rape.

Two arrests have already been made in relation to those threats.

The anonymous Twitter accounts from which the bomb threats originated were suspended, although screen grabs were widely circulated online.

Scotland Yard said an investigation into eight allegations had been launched.

The force said: "The Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU), who hold the police national cyber crime remit, is now investigating allegations made by eight people that they have been subject to harassment, malicious communication or bomb threats."

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Gibraltar: The 'Party Is Over' Warns Spain

Britain's Foreign Office says it is "concerned" over comments made by Spain's foreign minister in which he warned the "party is over" when it comes to his country's policy on Gibraltar.

Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said he was considering retaliatory measures towards the British territory, including a 50 euro border crossing fee, amid a dispute over an artificial reef being created by the Gibraltans.

He told ABC newspaper the proceeds would be used to help Spanish fisherman who have lost out because of damage to fishing grounds allegedly caused by Gibraltan authorities.

Mr Garcia-Margallo added that tax investigations into thousands of Gibraltarians who own property in Spain could also be launched.

Spain is also considering closing airspace to planes heading to Gibraltar airport, he added, as well as changing rules to increase tax revenue from online gaming companies based on 'the Rock'.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: "We are concerned by today's comments on Gibraltar, which we are looking into further.

"As we have said, we will not compromise on our sovereignty over Gibraltar, nor our commitment to its people. We continue to use all necessary measures to safeguard British sovereignty."

The comments come after "disproportionate checks" at the border have increased tensions between Britain and Spain.

Mr Garcia-Margallo says airspace could even be closed

The Spanish ambassador was summoned to the Foreign Office earlier this week to explain why people crossing the border were having to wait up to seven hours in sweltering heat.

Foreign Office Minister Hugo Swire said the delays were "as a result of wholly disproportionate checks introduced by the Spanish authorities on vehicles both leaving and entering Gibraltar".

William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, also called Mr Garcia-Margallo to express concern over the delays.

Britain has held sovereignty over Gibraltar for three centuries and its 2.6 square miles is home to 30,000 people, with an economy dominated by off-shore banking, internet gambling operations and tourism.

However, ownership of the territory has long been a point of contention between Spain and Britain.

The latest tensions began 10 days ago after Gibraltar boats began dumping blocks of concrete into the sea near the territory.

The British territory said it was creating an artificial reef that would foster fish populations but Spain said the reef would block its fishing boats and ramped up border checks.

Gibraltar has complained to the European Commission, saying the checks violate EU rules on free circulation.

Spain's previous government took a softer line on Gibraltar and did not discuss the issue of sovereignty but Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, elected in November 2011, has taken a harder line regarding his country's claim on the territory.

The UK Government has made clear that it will not negotiate over sovereignty as long as Gibraltar's people want to remain British.

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