This week's UK news: 4 July 2014
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4 July 2014


Glastonbury Festival dominates TV and newspapers

Glastonbury, one of the world's oldest music festivals, was held last weekend and got lots of coverage with live broadcasts on public service TV. Almost 100,000 people attend the festival over several days, which is held on a farm in the South West of England.

This year was the 24th where it rained heavily, turning the ground into mud. However, people going to Glastonbury expect rain and mud. One of the top acts, Dolly Parton, even wrote a new song about mud. Other big acts at the festival included Metallica, Arcade Fire and Kasabian.

 

UK disappointed by Wimbledon

It is the last week of the Wimbledon tennis championships, and it is not going well for UK fans. Andy Murray, the defending men's champion, had a brilliant first week and did not lose any sets in four matches.

Then this week he met Grigor Dimitrov, a Bulgarian player, and lost in just three sets. Murray, who was the first UK man to win the men's singles in 77 years, now drops to Number 10 in the men's rankings.

 

Journalist and children's entertainer both sent to prison

There have been two major court cases over the past few weeks which have had lots of publicity. In one case, journalists on a national newspaper were accused of trying to get stories by listening to voicemails on mobile telephones. After a very long trial, one man was found guilty – and since he had also worked for the Prime Minister, this was big news. He was sent to prison.

In another case, a children's entertainer and artist called Rolf Harris was found guilty of sexual contact with young girls. Harris was a very well-known TV personality, and had painted a portrait of the Queen. He is now 80, and was sentenced to serve more than five years in prison.

Several older men have recently been accused of sexually assaulting women and girls years ago. This has all happened since a TV personality called Jimmy Savile died. There were lots of rumours about Savile while he was alive, but after he was dead lots of men and women told the authorities that he had sexually abused them, often when they were children.

Now investigations have shown that he assaulted hundreds of people, often in hospitals. They did not say anything before because Jimmy Savile was very popular and they did not think they would be believed.

Now people who were sexually abused by other well-known people years ago have told police about it, and some of these cases are now being tried in court. Rolf Harris is one of several who has been found guilty.

 

London most expensive place to buy house in UK

It costs GBP 11,000 to buy each square metre of a home in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea, a new report says. It is the most expensive place to buy a house or flat in the UK.

It costs 13 times more per square metre than the cheapest area which is in the North East of the country. There, it costs just GBP 818 for each square metre.

A report found that the top 20 most expensive areas in the UK were all in London. Almost all of the top 50 were in London and around it. Other expensive areas were in Edinburgh, Altrincham near Manchester (which is popular with Premier League footballers) Leamington Spa in Warwickshire and Aberdeen in Scotland.

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