Eighteen sailors on a Royal Navy warship have tested positive for a class A drug, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said today.

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Tropical storm Gustav continued its destructive sweep across the Caribbean today, this time heading for Jamaica and the wealthy banking enclave of the Cayman Isles.

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Some 70 African migrants are feared missing in the central Mediterranean after a large rubber dinghy taking them to Europe capsized, the Malta representative of the UN refugee agency said yesterday.

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Russia was today facing condemnation from Britain and the world's leading nations over its recognition of the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

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Thousands of anti-government protesters defied a court order to leave Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej's official compound today as the group's leaders vowed to stay until his administration fell.

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Former London mayor Ken Livingstone has agreed to help Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez improve urban planning.

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House prices are falling at their fastest rate for nearly 18 years as potential buyers stay away from the market, figures showed today.

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To shouts of "Yes we can," Democrats nominated Barack Obama yesterday as their presidential candidate in a historic first for a black American, backed by his ex-rivals Bill and Hillary Clinton.

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The message from Hillary Clinton to supporters in Denver was as neon as the tangerine pantsuit she wore to the ball. All that she stood for during her historic quest to be American's first woman president - equal rights for women, universal health care and economic equality - Barack Obama stands for too.

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They're both in Wales, they're both predominantly hilly areas, and in fact they're next door to each other; but in terms of human happiness, they could not be more different.

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Filling your wallet with all those grown-up-looking plastic cards is one of the joys of starting university. Matriculation card, bank card, drinking society card: you name it, there's a card for it. But students could be carrying significantly lighter wallets when the Boomerang card swings into action this September.

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Sir Michael Bichard, who has had a long and illustrious career in the public sector as permanent secretary of first the Employment Department and then the Department for Education and Employment as was, has retired from the top job at the University of the Arts London. But he isn't striding off to spend the rest of his life on the golf course. Oh, no. Next month he takes over as director of a new outfit called the Institute of Government. Funded by the Sainsbury family, it will work with senior civil servants and all three major political parties to help politicians be even more effective than they are now. There will be research, workshops, seminars, you name it, to help budding prime ministers and chancellors prepare for power. As a mandarin who worked with Conservative and Labour ministers, including big beasts like David Blunkett, Sir Michael is well placed to give future leaders a piece of his razor-sharp mind. Lucky David Cameron.

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There are some clear messages from this year's examination results. First, a regional breakdown of the increase in grade-A passes at A-level revealed a glaring gap between the performance in London and the South-east, and the North-east. Indeed, it seems that the further north you go, the lower the rise in A-grade passes.

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The international league table for 2008 produced by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China show British universities continuing to perform well in global rankings, and better, for example, than other European countries such as Germany, which invest more money in higher education than the UK. Cambridge comes top in Europe after Harvard, Stanford and Berkeley, and the big news is that UCL has overtaken Imperial to come in third position in the UK (22nd in the table).

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You recently ran a positive article about small schools ("A school where less is more", EDUCATION & CAREERS, 17 July). US evidence reported to the National Education Trust, and confirmed in Australia, shows that as schools get larger, the gap between rich and poor widens.

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A bitter fight has broken out in Cambridge over the decision by one of the two remaining women's colleges to change its name. New Hall announced at the end of last term that it was to become Murray Edwards College after receiving a £30m endowment from a former graduate, Ros Smith, and her husband Steve Edwards, both software entrepreneurs. But angry alumnae, who include the Hollywood actress Tilda Swinton, are vowing to reverse the decision.

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People often say, "It's not the money, it's the principle", without really meaning it. In fact, they generally mean the opposite. But the further education college where I teach has recently put me in the unusual position of being able to make this claim with absolute sincerity.

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Michael Rosen, the children's laureate, can't help but feel a tinge of glee at the recent SATs fiasco. "There is a bit of schadenfreude, if you like," he says, "a bit of celebration at their misfortune" – meaning the misfortune of the Government; or the Department for Children, Schools and Families; or ETS; or head teachers; or advocates of testing. Take your pick, Rosen has multiple gripes with multiple people when it comes our education system.

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So far, I have tended to regard a day of maths as about the worst that can happen, but today it's music. It's a popular subject, as it tends to involve practical work, but with a supply teacher this is not possible, and results in a lot of grumbling.

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