A schoolboy has proved he can 'live a life like anybody else' after featuring in one of Britain's first major advertising campaigns to use a model with Down's Syndrome. Joseph Hale, 11, is set to change the world of advertising after being selected as the poster boy for the huge River Island Kids A\W clothing online campaign. The smiley youngster didn't even need to audition for the role before bagging his first ever modelling job with the top high-street clothing...

A school commemoration service held in a church was given a POLICE GUARD - to stop protesters disrupting the service to honour slave trader Edward Colston. As many as five police officers and PCSOs stood across the porch entrance to the historic church full of schoolchildren as the service got underway. But despite the heavy guard, only two protesters from the Countering Colston campaign group turned up to the commemoration service on Wednesday. And both agreed to stay outside the...

This touching cuddle between a six-year-old girl and her army hero dad will break hearts in a new charity calendar celebrating British service personnel and their children. Adorable Lucy Smith, now nine, can been seen on the airfield at Royal Air Force Akrotiri smiling proudly at her dad Staff Sgt Martin Smith, 40, after months apart. The emotional reunion after his stint in Iraq is just one of 15 photos chosen from hundreds submitted to charity Little Troopers for their...

It is fair to say that Brawl in Cell Block 99 delivers on its title. It’s the kind of film that makes you feel like a bad person for liking it. Set in the Sothern states of the USA, the film opens with Bradley Thomas (Vince Vaughn) losing his job as a tow truck driver. He goes home to find that his wife Lauren (Jennifer Carpenter) has been having an affair. After deciding to forgive her, he promises her a...

Lee Tamahori’s Once Were Warriors, adapted by Riwia Brown from Alan Duff’s novel of the same name was, at the time of its release in 1994, the highest grossing film at the New Zealand box office. A position it held for nearly a decade, until the release of Whale Rider. Centring on the Heke family, Tamahori’s film provides an uncompromising insight into the Maori experience of inner city living, alcoholism, and domestic abuse. Jake the Mus (Temuera Morrison), on account...

Pollution is killing over 50,000 Britons and nine million across the globe each year. Pollution has been blamed on killing 50,235 or 8.30 per cent of all UK deaths in 2015. Overall the rate of death attributable to pollution in the UK was 78.68 per 100,000 deaths. Most of these deaths are due to non-communicable diseases caused by pollution such as heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Yet the toll is greatest in poor and...

Two mums who exposed a cover up of a drug associated with baby defects for 40% of mums-to-be prescribed it finally had their day in Parliament. A late Thursday night House of Commons debate heard the horrendous story of how the dangers of epilepsy drug valproate to pregnant women had been covered up for 40 years. And how decades on it is still being prescribed to pregnant women without adequate warnings. Labour MP Cat Smith called it a "national scandal"...

After London, Venice has quickly become my favourite European city. Compact, charming and boundlessly beautiful – with its picturesque vistas, compendium of canals and Italo-Byzantine architecture. Ignore the American tourist complaints of “this damn curb ain’t wide enough” or “what’s with all these goddamn tourists?”; avoid being fleeced for €80 to ride a gondola around the canals – and it’s almost impossible to avoid swooning over the city’s serene pulchritude. And so, it’s hardly surprising that restaurateur Russell Norman is...

In celebration of their 21st anniversary, The Porterhouse Brewing Company began to supply their range of craft beers throughout the United Kingdom earlier this year. Initially opening Ireland’s first brewpub, The Porterhouse Brewing Company was launched by cousins Liam LeHart and Oliver Hughes, spotting an opportunity to compete against the bland beers being produced by mass-producing breweries at the time. Since then, the brewery has developed a four-strong core range, while The Porterhouse in Temple Bar still serves just the brewery’s draft craft beer brewed...