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The Queen asked ministers for a poverty handout to help heat her palaces but was rebuffed because they feared it would be a public relations disaster, documents disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act reveal.

Royal aides were told that the £60m worth of energy-saving grants were aimed at families on low incomes and if the money was given to Buckingham Palace instead of housing associations or hospitals it could lead to “adverse publicity” for the Queen and the Government.

Aides complained to ministers in 2004 that the Queen’s gas and electricity bills, which had increased by 50 per cent that year, stood at more than £1m a year and had become “untenable”. rest

Many people who have children who have been sifted through the Florida school system recognize that it is, in some instances, abysmal at best. So, imagine the surprise of some of those parents when the Florida Board of Education actually did something admirable in regard to science education.

It seems a marine science textbook that was being considered for high schools across the state was rejected because it contained pro-creationism material. That material included. according to the Orlando Sentinel, citations of “the work of a man who testified, during an Arkansas trial, for the teaching of creationism in schools.” rest