Organisations tackling homelessness and working with homeless people in London stand to win a share of £25,000 through the London Councils Andy Ludlow Homeless Awards 2007. The awards are open to registered social landlords, housing and social service departments, NHS trusts and voluntary organisations in London.

Women in England are to be given a choice of where they give birth, under plans due to be unveiled by ministers. From 2009, expectant mothers will be able to choose whether they go to hospital, a midwife-led unit or stay at home to have their children delivered.

Council officials in Wokingham look set to do a u-turn on the crunch decision to increase charges for respite care in residential and nursing homes. Wokingham Borough Council is looking to axe the plans to start charging for the first four weeks of someone receiving care in a registered care home.

People who are overweight have a 50% higher risk of developing asthma, scientists have said. US researchers reviewed seven studies involving over 330,000 adult patients, the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine reported.

Unemployed Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants, desperate for work in Britain, are camping out in London’s Hyde Park. The men and women have resorted to setting up tents beneath trees and bushes because they have no money to pay for accommodation.

Drug education and prevention services for some of England’s most vulnerable children are facing “disastrous” funding cuts, a charity has claimed. Government funding, mainly for prevention work in schools and among excluded pupils, is being reduced by £6.6m or 10% in 2007-08.

Guilt-ridden working parents are splashing out over pounds 100 a month on treats for their children to compensate for a lack of quality time with them, a new report shows. One in five working parents in the UK admit to lavishing extra cash on their kids because they feel so guilty at spending so much time at work.

A catalogue of “basic failings” led to a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak that killed seven people, a report says. Another 180 people were infected in Barrow, Cumbria, in 2002 because of a faulty air conditioning system at the council-run Forum 28 arts centre.