National / International News

European politicians and markets react anxiously after Italy's general election produces a stalemate between the centre-right and centre-left.

Longer waiting times in emergency but only seven people missing out on treatment within a new 12-week NHS guarantee are highlighted by new government figures.

A number of paramedics tell the BBC the ambulance service in Belfast is "in chaos" after they had to wait for hours for patients to be admitted to hospital.

People on Australia's north-west coast are bracing themselves for the arrival of tropical Cyclone Rusty, with forecasters predicting winds of more than 170 km (106 miles) an hour

Former UK PM Tony Blair says life in Iraq is not what he hoped it would be by now when he decided to invade 10 years ago, but insists it was the right decision.

More than 50 unpublished poems by Rudyard Kipling are to be seen in print for the first time after being discovered by a US scholar.

The flamboyant former NBA star, now 51, has gone to the communist country for some basketball diplomacy and to take part in a film being made for HBO.

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Teenage pregnancy rates in Wales fall by around 25% in the last 10 years, official figures show.

A man convicted of supplying a gun to Mark Duggan on the day he was shot dead by police is jailed for 11 years.

An email from South Yorkshire's chief constable about the Hillsborough families' campaign is strongly criticised by the police watchdog.

When it comes to protecting the environment and issues like worker well-being and women's rights, 10 of the world's biggest food producers get failing grades from Oxfam, an activist group for the poor.

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When it comes to protecting the environment and issues like worker well-being and women's rights, 10 of the world's biggest food producers get failing grades from Oxfam, an activist group for the poor.

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News photos over 24 hours: 26 February

Remember a time not long ago when analysts and pundits predicted the break up of the euro? The European debt crisis has calmed down a lot in the past few months, but elections in Italy have ended in deadlock and uncertainty is back.

Poll results today show power is split between a number of parties, including one led by former Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi.

Carsten Brzeski, an economist at ING in Brussels, says a political stalemate means Italy is unlikely to get its financial house in order anytime soon.

"These elections are really another painful reminder that the crisis is far from being over," says Brzeski.

The uncertainty has already driven up Italy’s cost of borrowing. The fear now is that doubt will spread to other euro countries like Spain. Spain continues to grapple with an unemployment rate of 26 percent as it implements deep budget cuts.

"There’s a real problem for Spain, which is that people really don’t have any trust in the government and the reform process," says Luis Garicano of the London School of Economics.

Garicano says the elections in Italy are testing the stability of the euro, and posing an important question: Does the continent really want the currency at all?

The BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones reports on some of the apps and gadgets using wireless technology that could be enhancing our lives in the near future, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

An 18-month-old child from southern Scotland diagnosed with swine flu is expected to be released from hospital.

Social media users are increasingly falling foul of the law, so what are the rules on what you can and can't say?

Three teenage boys are convicted of murdering a Liverpool man who was sleeping rough.

More than 2,000 tenants took up the government's Right to Buy discount scheme for social housing in England during the last three months of 2012.

Sri Lankan security forces committed sex crimes against Tamils held in custody during and after the civil war, a Human Rights Watch report says.