The first High Street bank to launch in the UK for more than 100 years has opened its first branch in Holborn in London.

The contenders for the Labour leadership have set out their personal circumstances, the reasons they went into politics and their secret vices.

David Cameron has confessed that, on the day before entering Downing Street, he told his wife Samantha he was sure he would not become prime minister.

The problems of congested roads and prisoner rehabilitation are being tackled at the same time in a project in Rome.

People in Arizona give their views on the blocking of a tougher version of the state's immigration laws days before it was to come into effect.

Amateur video captures footage of a mother bear saving her cub from a fishing net in Anchorage, Alaska.

Meet New York's improvisational film makers who have been performing scenes from cult films in public places.

A team of divers - known as Neptune's Army of Rubbish Cleaners - are stepping up efforts to keep Britain's coastline clean and litter free.

An 840-tonne section of submarine has been moved along a street in a Cumbrian town.

Amid the worst floods in China for a decade, at least 20 people are missing in Sichuan province where heavy rain triggered a landslide which buried almost 60 houses.

A partial set of false teeth made for Winston Churchill is auctioned in Norfolk.

Midges have been blighting summers in the Scottish Highlands for generations, but new research suggests that the insects aren't as indiscriminate in their choice of victims as previously thought.

General Sir Richard Dannatt has said the UK's Army had "no desire" to go to war in Iraq in 2003.

Catalonia has became the first region in mainland Spain to ban bullfighting, following a vote in parliament.

Bathers along Britain's coastline are being warned to be on the look-out for the country's most poisonous fish.