Bolton Council’s adult and children’s services department has been rewarded for helping young people to get a step on the career ladder. The team has won this year’s National Council for Work Experience (NCWE) award for its trainee social work programme.

Religious extremists could be given Anti-Social Behaviour Orders under a new crackdown on those suspected of radicalising others. Police and prosecutors could use Asbos against suspects they can not charge with criminal offences under new guidance to tackle “radicalisers” announced by Attorney General Lord Goldsmith.

{mosimage}Police are also calling on members of the public to use a hotline to tip them off about anyone they suspect of preaching hatred.

Lord Goldsmith said that he had been concerned for some time that not enough was being done to tackle the threat from extremist radicalisers and said it was time for a national strategy to deal with the problem.

“There is a small number of people that we are talking about but I don’t think you can underestimate the influence that those people can have.”

Both police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have set up new national teams to concentrate on the problem and work together more effectively. As national co-ordinator, Detective Superintendent Mark Holmes of Scotland Yard’s Counter terrorism Command will have 30 officers under him, as well as in new counter terrorism units in Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds.

A £250,000 grant from NHS Northwest will help ensure that a full range of health and emotional wellbeing services are available in children’s centres and other community settings in West Cumbria.

A top London hospital has reopened after closing its accident and emergency department when staff were sent home ill after noticing an “unusual smell”. Eight members of staff received medical treatment and parts of the lower floors of the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, north London, were evacuated.

A Worcestershire history teacher has been sacked after he showed pupils a home recorded natural history programme which featured pornography at the end. Michael Collins had recorded the programme onto a personal video tape before transferring it onto a DVD.

Scientists and lawmakers urged the government on Thursday to scrap a proposed ban on creating hybrid animal-human embryos for research into illnesses such as Parkinson’s, stroke and Alzheimer’s.