An eviction is under way to move Occupy London protesters from their seven-month occupation of a square in the capital.
The clear out of Finsbury Square in north London was organised by Islington Council after successful court action by the authority to move the group.
The camp, which is made up of around 135 tents and a wooden structure, was set up on the public land of the square in October, as an extension of the Occupy movement's protest in St Paul's Churchyard - which ended in eviction in February.
Two weeks ago a judge heard the protest had caused £20,000 damage to the land, cost the council £26,000 on security, and lost it £12,000 in rent plus income from the square's restaurant which had to close.
There had been an adverse impact on local business and complaints about anti-social behaviour from the camp, which increasingly became a focus for the homeless, and which had no running water or sufficient toilet facilities.
Councillor Paul Convery, Islington Council's executive member for community safety, said: "Finsbury Square is public space for the people of Islington, one of Britain's most deprived boroughs.
"We're returning the square to community use, and it is being cleaned and will soon be reopened to the public for the summer.
"Today's enforcement action was peaceful and low-key, and I'd like to thank the police, our street outreach team, and other partner organisations for their help.
"A number of vulnerable and homeless people have been living in the square. We have been speaking to them and offering advice and support to those who need assistance."
Source: www.huffingtonpost.co.uk
Harriers in fine form (From Watford Observer) - Watford Observer
Watford Harriers post impressive results in Walthamstow and Braintree
11:57am Thursday 14th June 2012 in Sport
There was another impressive collection of performances from Watford Harriers as they took part in the Southern Athletics League in Walthamstow on Saturday.
In the 800m, Under-17 duo Harvey O’Brart and Corey Keane were in fine form as they took first and second place respectively to secure a Harriers one-two.
Ben Rochford also ran away with the 1500m to cross the line first while Matthew Hall produced a season’s best to finish second in the 400m hurdles.
The triple jump saw Jack Noone fall just 2cm short of his personal best as he claimed victory while Ray McKenna produced his best form of the season to finish as runner up in the discus.
Sisters Angela Halford and Alison Putko both enjoyed success in their respective races, with Halford taking the 1500m steeplechase crown while Putko was first home in the 100m hurdles.
Natalie Wickings continued her fine form to take second place in the 1500m while Chloe Dearman knocked over eight seconds off her previous best in the 3000m.
The Juniors ranks were in action on Sunday as they took in the Eastern Young Athletes meet in Braintree.
Under-15 competitor Fiona McQuire shone as she equalled her personal best to win the pole vault as well as throwing a season’s best and English Schools qualifying distance of 27.75m to win the discus.
If that wasn’t enough, she then went on to set a new personal best in the long jump to secure the runners up position.
On form Chloe Rixon took the top spot in the Under-17 long jump competition while Paige Smith jumped a new personal best to win the B long jump.
O’Brart and Keane made it a double success as they won their respective 800m races in improved times.
Rochford was again victorious in the 1500m as he ran a full seven seconds faster than his previous effort to narrowly miss out on a personal best while Tom Verbana likewise just missed out on a personal record as he won his 1500m race.
Matthew Hall was first home in the 80m hurdles while Matt Lally continued his winning run in the high jump by clearing 1.80m
Source: www.watfordobserver.co.uk
London 2012 Olympics: Double Olympic champion Haile Gebrselassie will carry the Olympic Torch - Daily Telegraph
The flame will arrive in Newcastle on Friday night where adventurer Bear Grylls will zip slide off the Tyne Bridge with the torch over the river and on to the Quayside.
To coincide with the arrival of the torch the city has decorated the Tyne Bridge with the Olympic Rings. The aluminium rings are about 25m (80ft) wide and 12m (40ft) high, which makes them the largest set of metal Olympic rings in the UK.
After the torch leads Newcastle it will travel to Sunderland via the Angel of the North before arriving in Gateshead at midday. In the afternoon the torch will then head on towards Hexham, Northumberland, before finishing the day with a celebration in Durham, where BBC presenter Matt Baker will carry the flame.
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
London 2012: How Zara Phillips reached the Olympics - again - BBC News
In the latest part of our weekly #olympicthursday series on leading British hopes, BBC Olympic sports reporter Ollie Williams profiles eventer Zara Phillips.
"It's not even a conversation that will take place. Zara's on the team, the team are staying in the village, end of story."
Zara Phillips is in line for her Olympic debut at long last, representing Great Britain from a room in the Olympic village - not representing the Royal Family from exclusive lodgings.
"Zara is absolutely a team player," continues Will Connell, performance director for British equestrian sport.
"She doesn't seek the limelight - it's never Zara stirring up the media frenzy, she lets her results do the talking. There's no denying who her mother and grandmother are but she is, first and foremost, an elite equestrian athlete."
Phillips, now 31, has spent a decade proving her talent. A former world champion, she has twice been in contention for the Olympic Games and twice missed out through injury to her horse, Toytown.
This week, she earned nomination to the British Olympic Association as one of five riders in the eventing team for London 2012.
Her third Olympic nomination in succession caps a resurgent 12 months. For a time, it had looked as though carrying the Olympic torch at Cheltenham racecourse was as close to the Games as she might get.
Phillips spent her twenties enjoying remarkable success with Toytown, winning eventing's world title in 2006 and the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award later that year.
But after missing Beijing 2008, Toytown's age began to show. A horse can only go on at the top level for so long and Phillips, tears in her eyes, gave Toytown a public retirement at Gatcombe last year.
"In our sport you're very lucky to find a horse of a lifetime and I found mine relatively early," she told the Daily Telegraph in 2010. "[Toytown] has done everything for me and I owe him the world. Even talking about that horse makes me well up."
With Toytown out of the picture, Phillips had to prove she was no one-horse wonder by finding another challenger and getting them to the top level in time for Olympic selection.
She managed it, in the nick of time, with a horse named High Kingdom - taking him from the most basic of introductory events in Wiltshire five years ago to third place at last week's Bramham horse trials, her last chance to prove the pair had what it takes for the Olympic Games.
"She's been with High Kingdom a long time," says Connell. "She's always been diligent in working hard when it isn't necessarily going right with a horse - she perseveres. She plugged away with him and has done a fantastic job to bring him all the way up through the grades.
"Together, they finished 10th at Burghley last autumn and perhaps that's when he really burst onto the scene. Burghley was probably the result that, to the wider audience, said Zara has a horse that could go to London.
"This is an up-and-coming horse, a horse whose star is in the ascendancy, and [in terms of Olympic selection] that's probably what tipped it over the edge."
After Bramham, Phillips told BBC Sport: "Last year was a big year. He improved massively and came up with the goods [at Burghley]. He's still improving this year and he's a great, fun horse."
Phillips still faces the formality of having the British Olympic Association rubber-stamp her selection to Team GB but, once that happens, she can expect unique challenges as an Olympic team member.
Alongside all the usual pressures athletes place on themselves, the phenomenon of a British Royal competing at a London Olympic Games will inevitably draw intense scrutiny from the media at home and abroad.
"Zara attracts a massive amount of media attention and the challenge will come around that," says Connell.
"The media could impact on Zara's medal-winning chances. It really wouldn't be fair if every time Zara trained, there were a hundred cameramen, and when [German eventing star] Michael Jung's training, there aren't. But that's something Zara's had to cope with throughout her career.
"Part of what makes her successful is her ability to ignore all that. When she won the individual world title, she had to go into an arena with over 50,000 spectators and jump after the Germans had clinched team gold. The pressure and noise were incredible, but she's very cool under pressure. She has a proven championship record."
Asked if her Royal status was a help or hindrance, Phillips once told ITV: "It's a hindrance. People think it was all given to me on a plate and it definitely wasn't.
"But everyone in the sport is good to me. Everyone gets on with it."
Phillips' parents, both Olympic eventers themselves, must know how their daughter feels. The Princess Royal competed at Montreal 1976 and Captain Mark Phillips won team gold at Munich 1972 before returning to win team silver 16 years later in Seoul.
"They very much support me," said Phillips in the same interview. "They've never pushed me but when I started they very much backed me up.
"They're both very knowledgeable, unfortunately. They give me lots of advice - and criticism. But our sport is very different now to when they were competing, which I keep telling them."
There is now an anxious wait to see if Phillips can finally follow in the family footsteps. Will injury strike a third time?
"This is a great challenge we face in equestrian sport," explains Connell. "If a human athlete wakes up one morning and say they're feeling tight in a tendon or whatever, you can tweak the training programme.
"The horse doesn't know the most important competition of its life is coming up, and that introduces a different dynamic. It can't tell you the same things.
"But if they are to win medals in London, the horses have to be very fit and competition-aware. They can't just be put away in a stable now and pulled out at the Games. They will all compete again and that brings the inevitable risk of a slight injury."
As Phillips said ahead of Beijing 2008, before Toytown's second injury nightmare: "To go with all the other sports would be a great dream, but you still have to get there. One step at a time."
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
LLandudno man tells how he worked his way up to be manager of the resort’s Asda superstore - northwalesweeklynews.co.uk
Source: www.northwalesweeklynews.co.uk
Cheap smartphones and Zappar augmented reality T-shirts on sale at Asda - Pocket-lint.com
Buy the Motorola RAZR smartphone from high street retailer Asda and you could save yourself 100.
The retailer is selling the handset for 319, making it around 100 cheaper than the likes of Currys and Argos. It’s not the only credit-crunching deal that’s been brought to our attention either.
Asda is also selling the Samsung Galaxy Note in white for 369 – the cheapest we’ve been able to find it – while the Motorola Defy Mini can be purchased for 79.
And it’s not just phones that are making Asda a technical hub. The retailer has also begun selling Augmented Reality Zappar T-shirts.
Download the free Zappar app from Google Play or the Apple App Store, point your smartphone or tablet at one of the seven different design T-shirts and watch as the logo comes to life.
Okay, so AR T-shirts, and smartphones that came out last year might not stop you from shopping at more dedicated technology outfits, but there’s certainly more to Asda than cheap socks and pasta sauces.
Have you bought a phone from Asda? We want to know.
Source: www.pocket-lint.com
London 2012 set to be delivered under budget - sportbusiness.com
The figures were released as the government published its final quarterly economic report before the Games commence next month. The anticipated final cost of the Olympic Delivery Authority’s (ODA) construction and transport programme is £6.761 billion – a decrease of £16 million on the previous quarter. Savings made by the ODA up to May 31 this year have now topped the billion pound mark in total, reaching £1.004 billion.
The £9.298 billion budget, which included a £2 billion contingency, was set in 2007 and was almost four times the estimated cost at the time London won the right to stage the Games in 2005. The remaining contingency money is expected to be ploughed back into the UK Treasury’s coffers. Secretary of State for Culture Olympics Media and Sport, Jeremy Hunt, said: “With only 44 days to go before the Olympics it is fantastic news that there is still £476 million of contingency funds left. Britain has proved that not only can we put on a great show for the world to watch like we did with the Jubilee but that we can also deliver big construction projects on time and on budget.”
The Olympic Park and Village were transferred from the ODA to the organising committee (LOCOG) in January, to allow them to prepare the venues for staging the Games. The government said funding made available to LOCOG has increased by £29 million in the quarter, as a result of these transfers from the ODA, and for additional infrastructure works. Additional funding of £19 million has also been made available to improve crowd management and public information in central London and the ‘last mile’ – the distance between transport hubs and Games venues. This will include additional stewards and crowd flow measures.
The remaining balance of contingency within the public sector funding package now stands at £388 million, with an additional £88 million available to the ODA in programme contingency to cover assessed risks - both ahead of the Games and for post-Games work. Minister for Sport and the Olympics, Hugh Robertson, added: “With a matter of weeks to go until London 2012 we are in a strong place. The transformation of the previously contaminated land into the Olympic Park on time and under budget is a great success story for UK plc. I would like to thank all those who have worked so hard to deliver this project in such an exemplary manner. We can now look forward to a summer of sport built upon the firm foundations set down by the ODA, LOCOG and everyone else involved in the project.”
Source: www.sportbusiness.com
Asda Queensferry trials new baby carrier trolleys - flintshirechronicle.co.uk
Source: www.flintshirechronicle.co.uk
London’s Olympians at work - Financial Times
June 14, 2012 7:20 pm
Source: www.ft.com
Wycombe in first round of Capital One Cup (From This Is Local London) - This is london Calling
Wycombe Wanderers will travel to Watford in the first round of the Capital One Cup
10:05am Thursday 14th June 2012 in Latest Sport
Watford will play Wycombe Wanderers at Vicarage Road in the first round of the Capital One Cup.
The match will be the Hornets' first game of the 2012/13 season as their Championship campaign does not begin until the following Saturday.
The date of the match with Wycombe is currently unconfirmed as the Hornets had hoped to play their first round tie on the Saturday instead of midweek.
However, clubs around London might be unable to play on the weekend of August 11 due to the problems with policing during the Olympics.
It is also unclear whether the pre-season friendly between the two sides, which was scheduled for July 31, will now be scrapped.
The first round of the Capital One Cup was regionalised and seeded, which ensured Championship sides would not face each other.
Full draw below:
South Section:
Cheltenham Town v Milton Keynes Dons
Ipswich Town v Bristol Rovers
Stevenage v AFC Wimbledon
Exeter City v Crystal Palace
Yeovil Town v Colchester United
Birmingham City v Barnet
Bristol City v Gillingham
Northampton Town v Cardiff City
Plymouth Argyle v Portsmouth
Wolverhampton Wanderers v Aldershot Town
Walsall v Brentford
Millwall v Crawley Town
Torquay United v Leicester City
Dagenham & Redbridge v Coventry City
Peterborough United v Southend United
Swindon Town v Brighton & Hove Albion
Watford v Wycombe Wanderers
Charlton Athletic v Leyton Orient
Oxford United v AFC Bournemouth
North Section:
Derby County v Scunthorpe United
Rochdale v Barnsley
Port Vale v Burnley
Notts County v Bradford City
Hull City v Rotherham United
Fleetwood Town v Nottingham Forest
Carlisle United v Accrington Stanley
Doncaster Rovers v York City
Crewe Alexandra v Hartlepool United
Bury v Middlesbrough
Chesterfield v Tranmere Rovers
Sheffield United v Burton Albion
Blackpool v Morecambe
Leeds United v Shrewsbury Town
Preston North End v Huddersfield Town
Oldham Athletic v Sheffield Wednesday
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Source: www.thisislocallondon.co.uk
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