Farage: UKIP's 'remarkable' night
By Anonymous on May 03, 2013 03:30 am 2 May 2013 Last updated at 17:01 ET 
The sun shone across most of England as voters went to the polls
Polls have closed in council elections across England and at a Parliamentary by-election in South Shields.
The contests in 27 English county councils and seven unitary authorities are a crucial mid-term test for the Lib Dem and Tory coalition partners.
Labour is under pressure to win back hundreds of seats lost in 2009 and make progress in the south of England.
The party is also defending South Shields in a contest triggered by David Miliband's resignation.
Six councils - Lincolnshire, Dorset, Somerset, Essex, Gloucestershire and Hampshire - are due to report their results overnight with the majority of counts taking place on Friday.
UKIP surge The South Shields by-election result is also expected in the early hours of Friday.
Nearly 10,000 candidates were battling for seats in councils across England - they are "top-tier" authorities in charge of schools, roads, refuse collection, fire and rescue and other local services.
Continue reading the main story How to watch the results
- There will be full live text and video coverage of the results as they come in on the BBC News website, including the BBC's Vote 2013 programme presented by Huw Edwards.
- This will also be broadcast throughout the day on the News Channel, and on BBC 2 from 12:00 BST to 13:00 BST, from 14:00 BST to 15:00 BST and from 17:00 BST to 18:00 BST.
Labour is expected to claw back ground in the Midlands and north of England lost in 2009 when it had the worst night at the polls in its history.
But party strategists are playing down expectations of major gains, stressing the elections were mainly taking place in Tory heartlands across the south of England.
The campaign was dominated by a war of words between the Conservatives and the UK Independence Party, which senior Tories fear will take a significant chunk of their votes.
UKIP is riding high in the opinion polls after its second place in last month's Eastleigh by-election and is fielding more than 1,700 candidates - three times the number that stood in 2009, when the party won just seven seats.
Opinion is divided over how many seats they could win this time but UKIP leader Nigel Farage has said he wants to establish a "bridgehead" on local councils across England.
'Difficult choices' Prime Minister David Cameron has held back from attacking UKIP by name but acknowledged voters liked to punish governing parties between general elections.
Continue reading the main story Pre-election controlling parties
- Conservative: 28
- No Overall Control: 6
- Labour: 1
"Of course it's mid-term, the government has had to make difficult decisions, we're responsible for making a series of difficult cuts and difficult choices," the Tory leader told BBC News on Wednesday.
"I think people understand that but often it's not welcome and often it can lead to people feeling frustrated."
Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has not ruled out coming fourth to UKIP in the projected national share of the vote.
"UKIP beat us in 2009; a year later we won 24% of the vote in the general election and UKIP were nowhere," the deputy prime minister told Channel 4 News.
UKIP is also hoping for a good result in Labour heartland South Shields, where some pundits believe it could overtake the Tories to come second.
Former Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who was re-elected in 2010 with a reduced 11,109 majority, quit as the town's MP to work for the International Rescue Committee in New York.
Mayoral contests Local council elections were also being held in Anglesey in Wales, which is currently classified as No Overall Control but is dominated by independents. No other elections took place in Wales.
The Conservatives and Labour were contesting most local election seats, with 2,263 and 2,168 candidates respectively.
The Lib Dems had 1,763 candidates. UKIP fielded 1,745 candidates and the Greens had 893.
Other parties standing included the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, which fought 120 seats, the BNP, with 99 candidates and the English Democrats, with 38 candidates. There were around 900 independent candidates.
Votes were also held in mayoral elections in Doncaster, where incumbent Peter Davies, who resigned from the English Democrats, is fighting for re-election as an independent, and North Tyneside.
No elections took place in London, Scotland or Northern Ireland.
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Labour wins by-election as UKIP gain
By Anonymous on May 03, 2013 02:51 am 2 May 2013 Last updated at 19:24 ET 
Labour have won the South Shields parliamentary by-election, retaining a seat they have held since 1935.
Labour saw their majority drop to just under 5,000 in Thursday's poll as The UK Independence Party finished second, with a 24% share of the vote.
The Conservatives were pushed into third while their Liberal Democrat coalition partners finished seventh.
The contest was triggered by the resignation of former Labour foreign secretary David Miliband as an MP.
Counting is under way in a series of council elections in England, where polls were also held on Thursday.
Read in browser » RBS 'ready to privatise in a year'
By Anonymous on May 03, 2013 03:28 am 3 May 2013 Last updated at 02:09 ET 
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has reported a pre-tax profit of £826m for the first three months of the year.
The results mark a return to profit for the part-state-owned bank, which lost £1.5bn in the same period a year ago, and £2.2bn in the last quarter of 2012.
The bank said losses relating to bad loans were down 26% to £1bn.
It also reported a 79% fall in non-core assets since it began its restructuring programme in the wake of its 2008 government bailout.
Read in browser » Bhutto murder prosecutor shot dead
By Anonymous on May 03, 2013 03:07 am 3 May 2013 Last updated at 00:00 ET
The special prosecutor in former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's murder case has been shot dead, police say.
Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali was seriously injured by attackers on a motorcycle in the capital Islamabad and later died from his injuries, they said.
Another two people were also reportedly killed in the shooting. A police investigation is now under way.
Ms Bhutto died in a gun and bomb attack during her 2007 election campaign.
Read in browser » Dhaka collapse death toll passes 500
By Anonymous on May 03, 2013 03:01 am 3 May 2013 Last updated at 02:08 ET
The death toll from the collapse of an eight-storey factory building near the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, has passed 500, officials say.
More bodies were pulled from the rubble of the Rana Plaza building in Savar overnight, bringing the total to 501, the army said.
The building contained five clothing factories and scores of workers are still unaccounted for.
Nine people, including the building's owner, have been arrested.
Excluding the terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, the deadliest industrial structural failure in modern times was the Sampoong department store collapse in Seoul, South Korea, in 1995, that cost the lives of 502 people.
Read in browser » Under-50s' breast cancers top 10,000
By Anonymous on May 03, 2013 01:30 am 2 May 2013 Last updated at 18:59 ET 
Kylie Minogue had breast cancer at a young age
The number of British women under 50 having breast cancer diagnosed annually has topped 10,000 for the first time, according to Cancer Research UK.
The charity says one case in five in the UK is among the under-50s, though fewer than ever in that age group are dying of the disease.
Higher alcohol intake and childbirth patterns could be factors, it believes.
In 1993-95, 38 women per 100,000 had breast cancer diagnosed, compared with 42 per 100,000 in 2008-10.
In total, more than 49,500 women of all ages had breast cancer diagnosed in 2010, compared with 37,107 in 1995.
The majority of cases occur in older women.
However, the incidence rate of breast cancer in women under 50 rose by 11% over that period.
In 2010, 10,068 women under the age of 50 in the UK were told that they had the disease - 2,300 more than the number diagnosed in 1995, Cancer Research UK said.
It says it is not clear exactly what factors are behind the rise, but that increasing alcohol intake and hormonal factors such as having fewer children and having them later in life, and increased use of the contraceptive pill may be playing a role.
Sara Hiom, the organisation's director of health information, said: "Women of all ages who notice anything different about their breasts - including changes in size, shape or feel, a lump or thickening, nipple discharge or rash, dimpling, puckering or redness of the skin - should see their GP straightaway, even if they have attended breast cancer screening.
'Better care' "It's more likely not to be cancer. But if it is, detecting it early gives the best chance of successful treatment."
Ms Hiom said the improvements in survival rates are linked to research, more awareness and better care, as well as the availability of new drugs that can be used to treat the disease.
The charity said that as breast cancer had affected younger people in the public eye, such as Kylie Minogue, that might have encouraged women to come forward sooner. But that would not explain the rise in the number of cases.
Chris Askew, chief executive of the Breakthrough Breast Cancer charity, said: "These figures show that breast cancer still affects more and more families every year in the UK and the need for research into the disease remains vital."
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