National / International News

Country music legend George Jones' funeral will be held at the famous Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville and will be open to fans, it is announced.

Two men are found guilty of raping and sexually assaulting a boy in a Manchester department store's toilets.

A Belfast court hears a claim that police in Northern Ireland attempted to sabotage the appeal of two men convicted of murdering one of their officers by arresting a new witness.

An extreme artist has been performing aerial acrobatics from a beam hundreds of metres above a grand canyon in central China.

European leaders have voted to ban bee harming pesticides across the continent. The move, which will restrict the use of certain types of pesticides for two years unless decisive new information becomes available, is an effort to protect the dwindling honeybee population.

The BBC's Nigel Cassidy joins Marketplace Morning Report host Jeremy Hobson from London with the details.

Iain Duncan Smith says he is "relaxed" over the question of whether well-off pensioners should pay back some of their state benefits.

Botswana President Ian Khama has received stitches after a caged cheetah hurt him in a "freak accident" at an army barracks, officials say.

Police Scotland name a 54-year-old man who was found murdered in his flat in Dumfries on Friday.

Some of Tamerlan Tsarnaev's relatives have alleged that a mysterious man may have turned him toward radical Islam. That man — known as Misha — has told a writer for The New York Review of Books that he'd had no contact with the bombing suspect for three years and that "I wasn't his teacher."

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While a bell signals the end of the day for most high schoolers, students outside Norman Thomas High School in New York City line up outside a bright blue truck to hear their cellphones ring.

“All right, basically, when we come in the morning, we come to this truck and they hold our phones until we get out of school," says Aaron Neil, a high school student who uses the truck. "And when we get out of school, we just come with a ticket that has our number, and we come and give the ticket in and then they give us our phone back.”

Ever since New York City banned electronic devices in public schools, a cottage industry has emerged: Charging kids a dollar a day to hold their phones during class. There are at least 11 storage trucks like this in the city.

“They have these trucks all around, all around New York, so they’ve got more than a thousand students going to this truck and they make mad money," says student Randy Campbell.

The trucks frequent schools with metal detectors and strict enforcement of the cellphone rule. Some complain that unfairly takes money from lower-income kids. Others call them sitting ducks for robbery.

Edison Bardowell runs the nonprofit, Legacy Youth Corp, which owns two phone trucks. He’s trying to introduce a spirit of corporate responsibility to the industry.

“We feel it’s best to take a good percentage ­-- 60 percent, 70 percent of the funds -- and reinvest it into the school.  The school needs help," says Bardowell. "The school needs extra funding for the programs, or the activities, or the training for the teachers.”

So far, Bardowell has raised $29,000 and hopes others will follow suit.

LG starts taking orders for the world's first curved OLED television and plans to begin deliveries next month.

Sheridan Smith and Broadchurch actress Olivia Colman are to play rivals for the affections of The Walking Dead star David Morrissey in a new BBC One drama.

Twenty-four hours of news photos: 29 April

Up to 40 people have been injured following a large explosion in the centre of the Czech capital Prague.

A Dutch man accused of mounting one of the biggest cyber-attacks was able to target networks from the back of a van, police say.

Santander's chief executive Alfredo Saenz steps down after a legal battle, and is replaced by Javier Marin.

At least 18 people are killed and dozens injured as five car bombs hit Shia-majority provinces in southern Iraq, officials say.

Also: Photographing the library at Guantanamo Bay; authors annotating their own work; and the best books coming out this week.

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A video of an unfortunate woman trying to parallel park her car in Belfast becomes an internet sensation.

MPs on the Public Accounts Committee question whether the government's £310bn infrastructure spending plans are 'credible'.