Jewish Free School (JFS) in North London, Britain’s top Jewish state school and indeed one of Britain’s largest schools overall, was yesterday charged with breaking anti-discrimination laws and ordered to remove a section of its admissions criteria that gives preference to ethnically Jewish children over religious Jewish children. The decision comes in light of a series of controversies in which the off-spring of Jewish converts have been rejected from a place at JFS on the......

Anyone looking at this case for the first time would be dumbfounded. Were the Metropolitan Police Force in breach of health and safety laws when they shot an innocent man seven times in the head? Health and safety laws? Isn't that like prosecuting Genghis Khan for illegal immigration? Terminology aside, the Met were yesterday found guilty of endangering the public when, on 22 July 2005, they misidentified Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes as a......

In the early hours of this morning a burst water main on Maida Vale caused chaos as roads, homes and businesses were flooded with rushing brown floods. 40 firefighters were called to the scene to evacuate people, divert and pump out the water. Evacuees were taken to the safety of a local pub. Whether the landlord flouted licensing laws to warm everyone up with a snifter has not been reported. Thames Water engineers stopped......

Happy first weekend of September - and happy Labor Day weekend, too, for our American cities! Let's take a look at what's been happening around the Ist-a-verse. The deaths of two firefighters shook Bostonist this week. Boston's firefighters bent over backwards all week long - first, they fought flames pouring from the Boston Tea Party museum, and then a restaurant fire killed two and injured many more. Their efforts make everything else - like Tom......

Londonist has been chortling all day at the latest antics of Westminster Council.It would seem that they are so desperate to rid Soho of its last few bastions of (real) sin (as opposed to fake sin) and close down the remaining three clip joints that they have resorted to texting all who stray within 30 metres of one of these establishments – in the hope we guess of starving them out. They have after all......

An occasional column on the forces behind the capital’s economy. Potemkin, a Russian-themed vodka bar on Clerkenwell Road, has unveiled an intriguing set of five cocktails whose recipes will be tied to stock prices. It’s not an entirely new idea. We (barely) remember a night at the Dax bar in Hannover, and there’s the near-famous Dow Jones in Barcelona. The twist this time around is that Potemkin will adjust the alcohol content of its drinks......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 30th July 1966: England defeat West Germany in the FIFA World Cup Final at Wembley Stadium, claiming the Jules Rimet Trophy (and, of course, the status of Football World Champions for the next four years). Tuesday – 31st July 1962: Violence erupts at a rally of the Union Movement (formerly known as the British Union of Fascists) in Dalston, East London. Sir Oswald Mosely, leader of the......

The one-man protest that is Brian Haw, the only demonstrator allowed to air his views inside Parliament Square, may find himself surrounded soon. Instead of police circling him, however, it may well be other placard-waving peaceniks. Newly-minted PM Gordon Brown has called for a change in laws squelching the public’s right to protest within the grounds immediately surrounding Parliament. Currently, demonstrating in this area without prior police permission is prohibited by the Serious Organised......

Londonist was much struck by the documentary Taking Liberties and got in touch with director Chris Atkins to find out more. Is it really just motivated by a personal hatred of New Labour? Why do they want to ASBO John Reid? And what's this about rolling full-tilt into a group of rozzers while stuffed inside a bin?! Read on to find out more ... What prompted you to make Taking Liberties? I woke up......

No clever headline needed. That series of words will make a certain subset of Londoners very excited. Some will even salivate. Peter Ackroyd, author of ‘London the Biography’ and much else, is on the Beeb tonight presenting his ‘unique perspective’ of London’s changing face. He will argue that London’s planning laws should be relaxed, allowing the city’s skyline to evolve according to the whim and fancy of developers. He believes London really could be......

It’s that time of year again. No, not summer (have you looked outside today? Blech), but the annual We Live In A Damned Expensive City survey that makes us all feel like flinging the two pennies we have to rub together out the window of our high-rise shoebox flats. This is otherwise known as the Mercer Human Resource Consulting’s 2007 Cost of Living study. The bad news is that London has risen from the......

So ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's Milan, deducted eight league points for their involvement in the Calciopoli scandal, provide Europe's club champions, sitting alongside the Italian nation's triumph at last summer's world cup. (Incidentally, anyone who still disbelieves Filippo Inzaghi that Milan practice free kicks such as the one they scored from should have a look at this.) Former Milan CEO Adriano Galliani, banned for five months for his part in Calciopoli, was prominent amongst......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 28th May 1908: Ian Fleming, creator of the character of James Bond and author of more than a dozen novels featuring the British agent, is born in Mayfair. He also wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Tuesday – 29th May 1886: The current Putney Bridge is opened by the Prince and Princess of Wales, replacing an earlier bridge that was built in 1729. Wednesday – 30th May 1972:......

This week – rage causes a lot of trouble in 28 Weeks Later and the memoirs of Nelson Mandela’s prison guard are opened in Goodbye Bafana. In 28 Days Later the Rage virus spread throughout Britain leaving it full of dead people and those that had killed them. Now, in 28 Weeks Later, the US Army has come to restore order, repopulate the city of London and, during the same process, also reunite families. Among......

The fight for London Mayor is seriously beginning to kick off. Our Ken, Greg Dyke, John Major, that the guy from the Big Issue - all have been fingered for the job. Now the latest candidate being touted is none other than Brian Paddick. Paddick is the Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. In Lambeth he famously focused his efforts on class A drug dealers and took a 'relaxed' approach to cannabis use.......

There's so much going on across the Ist-a-Verse that it's almost impossible to keep track these days. Fortunately, we do it so you don't have to! Londonist took a walk through Oliver Twist's London, thanks to a gorgeous map layer for Google Earth. They also caught up with modern-day fictional London, with the Fantastic Four and 28 Weeks Later. It was a week of insanity over at DCist. They started the week off with......

This weekend the police raided FIRE, London's biggest gay club - and closed it under the Misue of Drugs Act. The threat of kicking off a Stonewall Riot in the Vauxhall area seemed to have been averted by police tactics of, er, handing out small leaflets and treating all the presumably wide-eyed clubbers rather gently - and with perhaps a wry smile on their faces. This was also perhaps helped by cramming Vauxhall with......

The kind of record-breaking attempt where you balance an egg on your head while performing La Traviata backwards in a vat of custard - Londonist thinks those are pretty lame, on the whole. The kind of record-breaking attempt where you stand up for free speech in the UK while pointing out the ridiculousness of the paranoid laws introduced by the government which curb the right to protest, however - those are the kind of......

You'd think a burly contingent of live in Beef Eaters would be enough to defend The Tower of London from attack, but it seems no one took into account the overwhelming destructive power unleashed by property developers. Plans to stop developers putting up ugly buildings near Britain's heritage sites have been unveiled. Britain's 27 World Heritage Sites, including the Tower of London, are not formally protected by planning laws. But the government is now......

Congratulations to James Derbyshire and Julia Boggio on their wedding and the fact that their video is all over the Interwebs. No, not that kind of video. The 'dirty' kind: From the comments the video is getting, depending on your own sappy git to heartless bastard ratio, that was either Just beautiful or This is some embarresing shit right here. Absolutely Cringeworthy [sic]. We doubt the happy couple care too much, as Julia (a wedding......

Two men have been arrested on suspicion of attempted rape after attacking a woman involved in a car accident: She was driving in Enfield, north London, on Wednesday night, when she collided with a traffic island. Two men offered to help but took her to Theobolds Park Road where officers say she was indecently assaulted. Police were called by members of the public who saw the semi-naked woman... A 19 year old has been......

Richmond council are hitting 4x4 drivers hard. Seamus Heaney has won the 2006 TS Eliot Prize with his District and Circle collection. A London poker club owner has been convicted of violating gambling laws. Michael Mann and Johnny Depp are having a beef over a film version of Alexander Litvinenko's demise. And this ridiculously written article tells the story of a woman chucked off a bus for being too tall. Photo taken from pfig's......

Ken's in the sights of The Standard again - this time for hanging out with terrorists: The Mayor met the wives of the so-called “Miami Five”, who have been found guilty by a US court of conspiracy to spy on American military bases. Details only emerged after he was forced to publish his full itinerary under freedom of information laws, having previously said the publicly funded trip was to build Olympics links and visit......

We have a healthy respect for Jaws, but the likelihood of a Great White swimming down the Thames is about as likely as spotting a whale in that muck. Alligator though... there's a concept we can get in a panic about. We have toilets and sewers in London. With all this radiation knocking about Christ knows what will happen the next time we try to flush an animal down the loo... This kind of......

More than 20,000 people rallied in London at the weekend to protest about ManBearPig climate chaos. Ken's in Cuba and having a go at Bush. The BBC has a nice collection of London to Brighton car run pics. A weightlifter had no problem lifting this year's Scrabble crown. How much of a tax bill will the Olympics land? and while we're on the subject... Are Handgun laws to be relaxed for the Olympics?......

A Napster-style music sharing service for the London Underground is reported to be in development, aiming to increase social interaction down below by encouraging commuters to swap music files on their way around the city. The cleverly named Undersound project is accompanied by a very tech-philosophy heavy website - visit here - but has some interesting ideas. 3 million people each day travel through London by means of the Underground, the oldest subway system in......

The massive, melting head of Tony Blair is on display in Trafalgar Square. It's just like the glory days, when London's landmarks would be decorated with the noggins of notorious traitors. Only this isn't his real head. And Tony Blair isn't a notorious traitor. No. This is a 4 ft ice sculpture of the PM's private think tank, unveiled today by these green activists. According to the BBC: Their message to Mr Blair is......

Event of the Week Confronting the Goldilocks enigma: why is the Universe so uncannily fit for life?, Imperial College tomorrow As topics go, they don't really come much bigger than this: The latest advances in cosmology have allowed scientists to piece together the story of our universe in unprecedented detail. One of the striking features to emerge is how the universe is exquisitely bio-friendly. Even slight changes in the laws of physics or the......

The case against the Metropolitan Police over the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes reopens in court today. The first hearing, which was scheduled for last month, had to be adjourned until today after the Met's lawyers requested extra time to consider their plea. Incredible really when you consider that they're being prosecuted under health and safety laws (as a result of the Crown Prosecution Service deciding that there was no evidence to charge......

If you read this from anywhere inside the UK you may be a tad curious: The New York Times has blocked British readers from accessing an article published in the US about the alleged London bomb plot for fear of breaching the UK's contempt of court laws. Published in the US yesterday under the headline "Details emerge in British terror case", the article claims to reveal new information about the alleged terror bomb plot......