Ukraine: Insurgents Killed In Attack On Convoy

Twenty pro-Russian insurgents have been killed after an attack on a convoy of soldiers in eastern Ukraine, according to reports.

Ukraine's defence ministry has said in a statement up to 500 insurgents attacked the convoy outside the eastern village of Rubizhne.

It added that one soldier had been killed earlier on Friday in a separate clash in the same area.

It comes after Vladimir Putin said Russia will recognise the outcome of Ukraine's presidential election as he criticised the West for imposing economic sanctions on his country.

He also blamed the West for plunging Ukraine into "chaos and a full-scale civil war" since the country's former president was overthrown months ago.

Striking a more conciliatory note, he said he is ready to work with the new Ukrainian leadership and insisted Moscow wants peace and order restored in its neighbour.

Speaking at an investment forum in St Petersburg, the Russian president said: "We will treat the choice of the Ukrainian people with respect."

On Thursday, pro-Russian insurgents attacked a military checkpoint in the eastern town of Volnovakh, reportedly killing at least 13 troops and wounding more than 30.

Militants have been seizing government buildings in eastern Ukraine and fighting government troops for more than a month.

Mr Putin also said Russia does not want to isolate itself from the rest of the world and wants to work with Washington on many projects.

"We are not planning any self-isolation," Mr Putin said.

"We hope that common sense ... will prompt our European and US partners to work with Russia."

Twenty-one candidates are competing on Sunday to become Ukraine's next leader.

However, it will be impossible to hold the vote in some areas in the east - especially in Donetsk and Luhansk, where insurgents have declared independence and pledged to derail the vote.

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Lib Dems Sinking Fast As Tide Turns To UKIP

Voters Brand Miliband 'Weird' In Election Blow

Updated: 2:39pm UK, Friday 23 May 2014

Ed Miliband was left fighting to salvage his public image after a disappointing performance in the local elections which saw members of his own party turn on his leadership.

The Labour leader was accused of being in urgent need of an overhaul after a series of blunders ahead of Thursday's vote, which saw unflattering pictures of him eating a bacon sandwich and him giving a wild underestimate of the cost of a family shop in interview.

In a further blow a poll found nearly half of voters considered Mr Miliband to be "weird" and the most likely leader to have been bullied at school.

The party failed to make the gains it should have done, leaving it far short of the number of seats it was expected to win to put it in a good position for the 2015 General Election.

As the results emerged, Mr Miliband was attacked by members of his own party for running a lacklustre campaign.

Labour MP Graham Stringer told Sky News: "Ed's behind in the personality stakes. We can sharpen up his presentation but we are also behind on economic policy. No party in opposition has evern won when they are behind in the opinion polls on both personality of the leader and economic policy.

"The team round him  haven't been good enough, the basic organisation of the campaign has been poor both in what message has been delivered and how it has been organised."

Labour veteran Tessa Jowell said: "If you are a politician ... don't eat a bacon buttie when the world's cameras are on you, quite frankly."

She said he had been caught out on the price of the weekly shop "presumably because Justine, his wife, does the shopping".

Charles Lewington, Sir John Major's  former press secretary, said one of Mr Miliband's problem was that he "looks like Wallace from Wallace and Gromit".

A poll by YouGov for BuzzFeed found 41% of people found the Labour leader "weird", which compared with just 34% of the 1,942 people questioned feeling the same way about Nick Clegg and 27% thinking David Cameron strange. It also found 36% thought Mr Miliband would have been bullied at school.

However, when quizzed on his performance and the way Labour had conducted itself, Mr Miliband said: "I think we ran a good campaign."

He said: "I think in some parts of the country we have had discontent building up for decades about the way the country has been run and about the way our economy works and people feeling that the country just does not work for them and so what you are seeing in some parts of the country is people turning to UKIP as an expression of that discontent and that desire for change."

Sky's election analyst Michael Thrasher said the numbers were well short of the sort of surge Ed Miliband needs to sweep him into Downing Street when the General Election takes place in a year's time.

Pollsters suggested Labour should look to gain between 300 and 500 seats, with the party predicting 200, but were falling well short.

Mick Temple, professor of journalism and politics at Staffordshire University, said on these results Labour were not likely to secure a majority in 2015. He said the party's politicians had told him privately that they were frustrated with Mr Miliband's leadership.

He simply isn't a bloke most of us would want to share a pint with, he argued, while Mr Cameron and certainly Nigel Farage might be.

Labour's enjoyed more success in London where UKIP are less of a threat, taking Hammersmith from the Conservatives, however, the party cannot win an election in the capital alone.

For the latest results from around the country as they come in follow Sky's live election blog.

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'No Evidence' To Place Rolf At 'Groping' Events

By Richard Suchet, Sky News Correspondent

The barrister for Rolf Harris has told the jury at his sex assault trial there is no evidence to place him at events where he is alleged to have groped two girls.

Despite police searches of newspaper archives, no proof could be found of the entertainer's appearances at a community centre near Portsmouth in 1969 or an event in Cambridge in 1975.

One alleged victim claims Harris groped her outside a celebrity It's a Knock Out event in Cambridge when she was 14.

Another woman claims Harris touched her when she was seven or eight as she queued to get his autograph at a community centre near Portsmouth in 1969.

But Sonia Woodley QC told senior investigating officer Detective Sergeant Gary Pankhurst from Operation Yewtree - a prosecution witness - that there was no evidence "of any kind" to suggest Harris had been there.

The jury was also shown a video seized from Rolf Harris's home in 2012 of a third alleged victim.

The footage of a 1978 holiday in Australia shows the girl swimming in a pool in a bikini.

It also shows her swimming with a group of friends in a river.

The prosecution then took DS Pankhurst through some of the key pieces of evidence it had set out earlier in the trial before ending its case.

The defence will begin on Tuesday, when Rolf Harris himself is expected to give evidence.

Before dismissing the jury, the judge joked with them that bank holiday weekends usually mean bad weather and reminded them not to discuss the trial with anybody else.

Harris is accused of 12 counts of indecent assault on four alleged victims between 1968 and 1986, all of which he denies.

The trial continues.

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RBS And NatWest Hit By Mobile Banking Glitch

Mobile banking services for RBS and NatWest have been hit by an IT glitch, along with an unconnected problem that affected some Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland online users.

In a statement given to Sky News, a spokesperson for RBS Group said: "Some customers may have had trouble getting into mobile banking today between 8.40am and 2.30pm.

"All services are back up and running as normal.  We apologise for any inconvenience this caused."

A spokesman for Lloyds Banking Group said there was a temporary issue on Friday morning that affected mobile and online services for a small number of customers who were trying to set up payments at Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland.

The apology seen by NatWest smartphones users

A Lloyds spokesman said: "We are aware that a small number of customers experienced issues accessing payments this morning.

"The issue has now been rectified and we are working with those customers who were affected."

The RBS Group has been hit be a sequence of system-wide IT failures in the past, which affected RBS, NatWest and Ulster Bank.

More recently, it has suffered 'pay day problems'  in the past, when workers expect to see funds enter their accounts.

Branch and cash machines are believed to be unaffected by the latest woes.

In its last annual results, the group said it was investing heavily in computer infrastructure to modernise its systems.

A number of banks were affected in February when workers expected funds to be deposited.

According to the British Bankers' Association, the use of mobile devices for banking services has doubled in the past 12 months.

RBS saw more than 17 million log ins in one week, through its mobile app, earlier this month.

In late December the group was hit by its fourth IT failure, after a cyber attack left online users unable to access accounts.

That followed an outage in early December, on one of the year's busiest shopping days.

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Tupac's 'Final Words Revealed By Ex-Cop'

US rapper Tupac Shakur's last words before he died in a drive-by shooting were "**** you", according to a police officer who said he was at the scene.

Former Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department officer Chris Carroll made the claim 18 years after the attack in the city.

Shakur was travelling in a car along the Strip when another vehicle pulled up and a gunman inside opened fire, shooting him several times.

Mr Carroll said Shakur's swearing was in response to the officer's question "Who shot you?"

Shakur then lost consciousness, was taken to hospital where he was put on a life-support machine and then died six days later at the age of 25.

But his murder remains unsolved.

Shakur (R) and Snoop Dogg at MTV Video Music Awards in September 1996

Carroll was on the city's bike patrol squad and was reportedly the first officer on the scene on September 7, 1996.

He said as he opened the car door, a blood-covered Shakur "fell into him" and he pulled him out of the vehicle.

He recalled to Vegas Seven: "I immediately notice that the guy's got a ton of gold on-a necklace and other jewellery - and all of the gold is covered in blood. That has always left an image in my mind."

The officer claimed he had asked the rapper who shot him several times, but Tupac would not answer.

Carroll said: "I kept asking over and over, 'Who did this? Who shot you?' And he basically kept ignoring me.

"And then I saw in his face, in his movements, all of a sudden in the snap of a finger, he changed. And he went from struggling to speak, being noncooperative, to an 'I'm at peace' type of thing. Just like that."

He added: "He went from fighting to 'I can't do it.' And when he made that transition, he looked at me, and he's looking right in my eyes. And that's when I looked at him and said one more time, 'Who shot you?'

Suge Knight was driving the car in which Shakur was shot

"He looked at me and he took a breath to get the words out, and he opened his mouth, and I thought I was actually going to get some cooperation. And then the words came out: '**** you.'

"After that, he started gurgling and slipping out of consciousness. At that point, an ambulance showed up, and he went into unconsciousness."

Shakur was a front passenger in Death Row Records founder Suge Knight's BMW when several occupants pulled up in a white Cadillac and one opened fire at an intersection.

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Missing Yachtsmen: 'Still Hope' As Search Ends

The families of four British sailors missing in the Atlantic say they "still hold out much hope" their loved ones will be found despite the search being only hours from ending.

Relatives of Steve Warren, 52, Andrew Bridge, 22, James Male, 23, and Paul Goslin, 56, said they have received strong support from the public and have been told "endless stories" of people surviving for months at sea.

They spoke out after the US Coast Guard said the hunt will be called off if the seamen are not found by midnight on Friday - 5am on Saturday UK time.

Captain Anthony Popiel said he had phoned the men's families to tell them the news.

Family members of the missing men outside the Foreign Office on Thursday

He added: "It is only after deepest consideration that we suspend active search efforts."

A statement issued by the Foreign Office on behalf of the families said they "still hold out much hope that their loved ones will be found soon".

It added: "They have received so much support from the public and the yachting community, hearing endless stories of people that have survived many weeks and months in different circumstances at sea and have drawn much strength from this.

Captain Popiel says he has informed the men's families

"They were obviously saddened to hear that the US Coast Guard will be suspending the search. But, they were prepared for the fact that this would have to happen."

Debris was found in the search area on Thursday, but Captain Popiel said none of the objects located so far match the missing yacht.

The four men were on board a 40ft yacht when it ran into difficulties a week ago while returning to the UK from a regatta in Antigua.

An initial search for the stricken vessel was called off on Sunday amid bad weather in the Atlantic Ocean, but began again on Tuesday after pressure from the men's families.

More than 200,000 people signed a petition demanding the operation be resumed and the families of the four sailors have written to US President Barack Obama to thank him for his support.

The search, around 1,000 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, includes commercial vessels as well as aircraft from the US Coast Guard, the US Air Force, the Canadian military and the RAF.

More than 17,500 square miles of ocean have been covered since the search resumed three days ago.

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Local Elections: UKIP Makes Significant Gains

Nigel Farage has claimed his party is a "serious player" for 2015 after UKIP made significant gains in the local elections, leaving main party leaders admitting the public was voicing its discontent.

The Prime Minister conceded his party had to start delivering on immigration and welfare reform, and said the public had become "frustrated" with the status quo.

Mr Farage forecast his party would win double the 80 seats predicted leading to claims the elections had ushered in an era of four-party politics.

A ballot box is emptied at Trinity School in Croydon

UKIP took seats off both Labour and the Conservatives in their heartlands, which was particularly damaging to Ed Miliband, who has been accused by his own party of running an "unforgivably unprofessional" campaign.

David Cameron said: "People want us to deliver. The economy is growing, we are creating jobs, but we have got to work harder and we have got to really deliver on issues that are frustrating people and frustrating me, like welfare reform and immigration and making sure people really benefit from this recovery.

"We will be working flat out to demonstrate that we do have the answers to help hard working people."

Labour lost its grip in the north and, in a serious blow, the party lost control of Thurrock, a key marginal for the General Election in 2015, to no overall control, losing two seats to UKIP.

Mr Farage said UKIP would now be "serious players" in the General Election and said the party was expecting to win double the 80 seats that had been predicted.

He said: "The UKIP fox is in the Westminster henhouse" and added: "The idea the UKIP vote just hurts the Tories is going to be blown away by this election." 

Joey Essex may have supported Ed Miliband but Essex man voted UKIP

However, Mr Farage, who has consistently warned the local and European elections would deliver a UKIP "earthquake", admitted that the party was unlikely to be successful in London.

Ed Miliband defended the party's campaign and said people were turning to UKIP to express their discontent with the way the country is run.

He told Sky News: "I think we ran a good campaign."

He said: "I think in some parts of the country we have had discontent building up for decades about the way the country has been run and about the way our economy works and people feeling that the country just does not work for them and so what you are seeing in some parts of the country is people turning to UKIP as an expression of that discontent and that desire for change."

Mr Farage casts his vote in Cudham, Kent

Mr Miliband added that Labour would be able to provide the answer to the discontent by the 2015 vote.

UKIP made its greatest gains in Essex, where Margaret Thatcher once identified the "Essex Man", a man who moved out of London, once voted Labour but switched to the Tories.

UKIP took seats from Labour in Hartlepool, won 10 seats in Rotherham and polled more than a third of the vote in wards in big cities, such as Sunderland, Birmingham and Hull, where it previously had little or no presence.

The Camerons and the Milibands cast their votes

According to the latest Sky News projection, the results so far would give a hung parliament at the 2015 General Election, with Labour holding the largest number of MPs.

Sky's election analyst Professor Michael Thrasher said UKIP's success suggested the party would claim at least one seat in the House of Commons next year

As predicted, the Liberal Democrats suffered significant losses, particularly in Kingston-Upon-Thames where it lost control of the council after 12 years to its coaltion partners. In Portsmouth it lost control with UKIP gaining six seats.

However, the party managed to hold on in Eastleigh, where UKIP came second last year in a by-election.

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg admitted the party had had a bad night but said: "Actually I think in the areas where we have MPs where we have good organisation on the ground ... we are actually doing well."

Mr Farage celebrated by going on a tour of the areas where he had been most successful.

Sky's Siobhan Robbins, who followed from Thurrock in Essex to Basildon, said that in Thurrock he had been greeted by a large crowd.

She said: "It was like he was a pop star. People were gathered around him and there was a scrum. I saw two grown men cry. One of them was saying: 'Thank you Nigel Farage. Thank you for showing us the light'."

:: Follow all the results as they come in on Twitter with @skyelections.

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Stuart Hall Jailed For Sex Assaults On Girl

Ex-broadcaster Stuart Hall has been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail for indecently assaulting an underage girl.

The former It's A Knockout presenter had been convicted of carrying out an attack on the youngster by a jury at Preston Crown Court.

He was found guilty last week of assaulting her when she was under 16.

Hall, 84, had earlier pleaded guilty to another indecent assault on the same girl when she was 13.

That involved an incident at a dinner party where he crept into his victim's bedroom and assaulted her.

Passing sentence, Lord Justice Turner said of his offences: "It was an act of vile bravado and horrible betrayal."

The victim sat metres away and began wiping away tears with a handkerchief passed to her, as details of the offences were again mentioned in court.

Hall was sentenced to 12 months for the offence he admitted and was given an additional 18 months for the indecent assault of which he was convicted by the jury.

Last week, he was cleared of 15 counts of rape in relation to that woman and another who claimed they were sexually assaulted by him between 1976 and 1981.

The married father-of-two is currently in prison serving a 30-month term.

He had been jailed after he pleaded guilty last year to indecently assaulting 13 other young girls, aged between nine and 17, over a 20-year period.

The ex-BBC football match commentator had not been due for release from that custodial sentence until September.

Hall will not now be eligible for release until December 2015 as the latest sentence will only begin after the end of his current jail term.

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Professor's 70ft Crevasse Plunge Escape Filmed

An American professor has filmed his incredible escape after falling 70ft (21m) down a Himalayan mountain crevasse while collecting snow samples.

Dr John All was researching climate change on the 23,379ft Mount Himlung, close to Mount Everest in Nepal, when he fell into a deep crevasse hidden by snow.

His body ricocheted between the walls of the ravine as he plunged to certain death.

But incredibly, he landed on a precarious ice ridge more than 300ft from the bottom.

Dr John Hall fillmed himself after landing on the ice ridge

The 44-year-old broke an arm, ribs and suffered severe cuts and bruises in the fall.

He recorded the scene on his mobile phone as he worked out how to get out of the crevasse.

He then spent the next six hours in agony, crawling inch by inch with his ice axe, knowing one slip and he would fall to his death.

Eventually, Dr All, a geology lecturer from West Kentucky University, managed to climb out out of the crevasse, and a few hours later reached his tent.

The view from the ledge to the top of the crevasse

Rescuers arrived the next morning and airlifted him to a hospital in Kathmandu.

"My body was shattered and I was in agony," he told the Daily Telegraph.

"My face hit one wall, my back and stomach hit the back wall and I bounced between them. My face was pretty torn up. I landed on a piece of ice at a midpoint.

"I could have fallen another 100 metres and it's amazing I didn't. The entire time climbing out I knew if I slipped I would have been dead."

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Glasgow's School Of Art Badly Damaged By Fire

Fire has caused "significant" damage to a historic art school building in Glasgow city centre.

Crews were called to reports of a blaze at Glasgow School of Art's Charles Rennie Mackintosh building at about 12.30pm.

It is believed the fire started in the basement and spread to the upper floors where flames were seen leaping from windows and the roof.

The blaze is now being damped down but early assessments say most of the interior of the Category A listed building on the corner of Renfrew Street and Scott Street has been destroyed.

Flames can clearly be seen coming from the windows. Pic: @xdxxnx/Twitter

There were no reports of casualties but a number of people had to be helped from the building.

Sky's James Matthews said the blaze is believed to have broken out while final year students were preparing their end of year degree shows on the upper floors.

Many of the students whose work has been lost were in tears as they witnessed their efforts go up in smoke.

Broadcaster Muriel Gray, a former student and current chairwoman of the school, was another who burst into tears as she arrived and saw the building in flames.

The art school, designed by the famous Scottish architect and dating from 1897, is a tourist attraction and is regarded as a building of "national or international importance".

It attracts around 20,000 visitors a year, with tours given of the building.

Hugh Thornhill, a second year student, said: "I was helping one of the fourth years set up their exhibit and suddenly the alarm went off. We saw smoke coming out and realised that it was really bad.

Broadcaster and current art school Chairwoman Muriel Gray was in tears

"All that effort is gone, everyone's work on that side of the building is ruined. The degree show next month is pretty much a bust now, it's sad."

Second year student Clare Reilly said: "Four years of work is gone for all those students, the deadline was at 5pm today."

As well as renowned artists, former students include members of the bands Travis and Franz Ferdinand, Architect and TV presenter George Clarke and actors Peter Capaldi and Robbie Coltrane.

Travis lead singer Fran Healy tweeted: "Man the mac library is all wood!!!! And loads of paper!! Man!!"

George Clarke said: "Devastating to see the Glasgow School of Art in flames...I'll support its full restoration in any way."

Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Glasgow School of Art. Pic: Finlay McWalter

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) described the blaze as "an international tragedy".

Chief Fire Officer at the scene Alasdair Hay said some items had been salvaged but it was too early to say exactly what had been destroyed.

He said: "Part of our operation is to try and salvage what we can and we worked with colleagues from the school who identified objects of significance that they would like us, if possible, to save."

He said efforts were underway to save as much of the fabric of the building as possible but he could not say if any of the students work could be recovered.

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