English wine doing well

You may not think about the UK as being a great wine producer, but it is. There was a 43 per cent increase in wine production last year. And the amount of land being used to grow grapes for wine (called vineyards) has doubled in the last seven years.

New figures show that last year an amazing 6.3m bottles of wine were made, of which about 4m were sparkling. Now Sussex, a county in the south of England, has applied to the European Union for its wine to get protected status. This would mean only wine produced in Sussex could use this label, and it would have to meet high standards. 

Youngest MP since 1667

After last week's election, we now have the youngest Member of Parliament (MP). Mhairi Black is a 20 year old politics student, who has only been to the Houses of Parliament once before - on holiday with her family. She was a surprise winner in the election, because the MP she was challenging had a majority of more than 16,000. She will take her seat in Parliament next week - and sits her final university exam at the end of the month.

The man who does puzzles for six hours a day

In the UK, we have special shops which raise money for organisations (charities) working with children, old people, sick people and animals. The shops usually sell things which have been given to them by ordinary people. A popular item in charity shops is jigsaw puzzles - these are pictures which have been cut into pieces. The challenge is to put them back together again.

The problem with selling old jigsaw puzzles is that pieces may be missing. So a man called Michael Barry, who lives in the city of Bath, spends his days doing the jigsaws given to his local shop. In the last two years, he has made more than 300 jigsaws. Almost half had pieces missing. 

March for end of World War II

In the UK and Europe, we have just had Victory Europe (VE) day marking the end of the war in Europe in 1945. In the UK, there was a service at Westminster Abbey in London attended by a thousand people who fought in the war, the Queen and politicians. The old soldiers then marched - or pushed their wheelchairs - to a balcony where famous wartime speeches were made, as old fighter aircraft flew by. Most of the people who fought in the war are now in their 90s so this may be the last VE day where lots of them take part.