A Muslim teaching assistant who was suspended and later sacked for refusing to remove her veil in the classroom yesterday appealed against a tribunal decision which supported her school’s action.

Research by Welsh scientists has for the first time linked autism to genes associated with timing and biological clocks. The disability is recognised as having hereditary origins, but the study by the University of Wales, Bangor, identifies two new genes not previously thought to have been associated with the condition.

A man whose 85-year-old mother died after spending 29 hours on a hospital trolley his described the treatment she received as “totally unacceptable”. Betty Morgan died in December last year after being admitted to the trauma unit at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff suffering from severe arthritic pains.

Welsh health minister Brian Gibbons yesterday called for zero tolerance in the battle against hospital superbugs.

A judge has been criticised for varying the bail conditions of a sex offender, allowing him to spend his wedding night in a hotel. Kelvin Wagstaff, 36, from Bridgend, admitted two sex offences involving children at Cardiff Crown Court.

The performance of the Welsh Ambulance Trust has been branded “appalling” and “unacceptable” in a report by an all-party committee of AMs. The Assembly Audit Committee said the trust has failed to deliver acceptable standards of emergency response times.

A Swansea woman has described to a Crown Court jury how she was raped in a flat while she slept.She admitted she had slept with the accused’s cousin, but said she had not given consent for Robert O’Brien, from Port Talbot, to have sex with her.

The Assembly Government has been urged to tighten up its recruitment procedures after a senior health official convicted of drink-driving was found a new £70,000-a-year post without having to go through formal selection procedures.

A Cardiff-based organisation set up to help the city’s large Somali community has been hailed a success by the UK government. The Somali Integration Society (SIS) was set up in 2002 as a community support service providing advice.

A lottery millionaire has been found guilty of serious sex offences against two schoolgirls. David Dyas, 52, of Newbridge, south Wales, was found guilty of one charge of rape and three indecent assaults. He was cleared of one charge of rape.