The Blue Peter garden is to be opened up to members of the public for the first time at the BBC’s new base in Salford, it is announced.

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Fans to visit Blue Peter garden

More civilian contractors working for American companies than American soldiers died in Afghanistan last year for the first time, and some survivors are left uncompensated.

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Afghan War Risks Are Shifting to Contractors

One of the most famous paintings by Fife artist Jack Vettriano has gone on public display for the first time in two decades.

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Vettriano’s Butler in rare show

The first time Bell junior Diana Castillo told her friends she was leaving class a little early for bowling practice, they responded with puzzled looks: What? There’s a bowling team? “People question if it’s even a sport sometimes,” Castillo said. Read full article > >

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DCIAA adds girls’ bowling to move closer to Title IX compliance

UK cinema box office takings passed the £1bn mark for the first time last year, according to the British Film Institute (BFI).

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UK box office takes £1bn in 2011

For first time in 15 years.

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Pentagon Shrinks 2013 Budget

Postage rates jumped Sunday for the first time in two-and-a-half years as the U.S. Postal Service hopes to generate more revenue amid historic losses. First-class postage stamps now cost 45 cents each, a price jump that officials anticipate will generate an additional $888 million in annual revenue. The rate increase does not affect the use of Forever stamps purchased before Sunday. Read full article > >

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Stamp prices go up as postal labor talks fail

UK PM David Cameron visits Saudi Arabia, for the first time as prime minister.

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Cameron in talks with Saudi king

The Obama administration is preparing to send an ambassador to Burma for the first time in 24 years, S ecretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday in a further sign of the thaw in relations between the two countries. Read full article > >

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Clinton, citing thaw, says U.S. will send ambassador to Burma

Nigeria’s president says for the first time he thinks sympathisers of the Islamist Boko Haram group are in his government and security agencies.

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Nigeria sect ‘has high-up ties’

League Two Swindon dump Wigan out of the FA Cup to reach the fourth round for the first time since 1996.

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Swindon 2-1 Wigan

Mike Shanahan will close his 28th season as a coach in the NFL on Sunday, when his Washington Redskins play what is essentially a meaningless game in Philadelphia . And though he has seen almost everything in pro football – he has been hired and fired, made and missed the playoffs, won and lost the Super Bowl – he has never faced the circumstances he does now. Whatever happens against the Eagles, Shanahan will have back-to-back losing campaigns for the first time in his 17 full seasons as a head coach. Read full article > >

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Mike Shanahan says Redskins are pointed in the right direction despite the results

North Korean state media for the first time describes new leader Kim Jong-un as the “supreme commander” of the country’s armed forces.

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Kim hailed NK ‘supreme commander’

Retail sales volumes grew in December for the first time since May, the CBI says, but sales are expected to fall in January.

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CBI: Little cheer on High Street

Experts say they have confirmed for the first time that some of the rocks at Stonehenge came from Pembrokeshire.

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Stonehenge Welsh link confirmed