A delicacy synonymous with Japanese cuisine, fugu (pufferfish) is highly-prized, but potentially more deadly than cyanide. Each fish has enough tetrodotoxin (one of the world’s most powerful neutrotoxins) to kill 30 adults, so it’s hardly surprising it’s banned across the EU. In Japan, only rigorously trained chefs are licensed to prepare fugu, but the fish has still killed more than 20 Japanese diners since 2000. If improperly prepared, the fish’s tetrodotoxin begins to attack the central nervous system immediately after...

Football legend John McGovern is flogging his treasured Championship winning medals at auction - to help pay for his CHRISTMAS SHOPPING. The former midfielder - who was known as Brian Clough's go-to player - is most famous for captaining the Nottingham Forest side that twice won the European Cup. But now he is selling his 1972 Division One winners medal in order to fund Christmas presents for his friends and family this year. John McGovern The medal, which McGovern won...

The UK will concede that there will be no "regulatory divergence" on the island of Ireland, according to a draft text seen by RTE News. Late last week Ireland’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister said he had been in talks with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist party on the subject, saying a Brexit deal on the Irish border question is “doable”. The government repeated its demand for an assurance from the UK that there would not be any regulatory divergence between Northern...

There has been a stark warning from Britain’s largest business group about the future of the UK economy. The CBI has said that the UK will face a sluggish period of growth at the same time the global economy will enter a strong and positive economic outlook. The Eurozone will also benefit from a good period of growth. The UK’s GDP is likely to rise 1.5 per cent in 2017 and 2018 and then slowing to 1.3 per cent in...

A company has made a virtually indestructible glove that can survive fire, crushing and CHAINSAWS. Schmitz Mittz have built the tough hand protection to repel extreme heat, pressure and cutting from sharp objects and jagged metal - and electric power saws. Invented by Randy Schmitz, a former Canadian firefighter in Calgary, they are used by fire services across North America to rescue people from burning buildings and wrecked cars. Videos on the company's website showed the gloves being inflated in...

Hundreds of thousands more children and pensioners have been plunged into poverty over the last four years. A devastating report has today revealed some 400,000 more youngsters and 300,000 more elderly people are now living in poverty compared to 2012/13. The results track the period in which the Conservative's austerity cuts were implemented, highlighting the ruinous impact they have had on British society. Joseph Rowntree Foundation chief executive Campbell Robb said: “These worrying figures suggest that we are at a turning...

The National Rifle Association is expected to score its first big legislative win of the year just two months after the deadliest mass shooting in US history. The new gun bill will force states with strict gun laws to recognise firearms permits from states with lower thresholds - even if they're from states that don’t barre convicted stalkers or people with histories of domestic violence. It has been described as the NRA's "highest legislative priority in Congress", and is expected to...

Director David Gordon Green doesn’t shy away from the stark realities that come with being a victim of a terrorist attack in this gritty true-life dramatisation of one man’s journey to recovery following the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Rather than opt for a traditionally uplifting portrayal of a resilient man overcoming such a tragedy, Green’s drama, Stronger, is more reflective and sincere. It works, because rehabilitation, in any form, is tough. And Jeff Bauman’s story, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, is...

A horrified pest control expert claims he has killed Britain's biggest ever rat - which is a whopping 20-inches long. Daren George, 48, snared the 'beast it in the garden of a suburban three-bed semi - as the UK is swamped by millions of the disease-ridden rodents. The three-year veteran of rat-catching confessed he was astonished to happen upon his mammoth foe discovered in New Alresford, Hants., on Thursday last week. But has warned the public to expect rats to...