1 Giant ventilation fans will be installed in ticket halls and concourses at busy tube stations this summer, London Underground has announced. From 2010, air-conditioned trains will run on the District, Metropolitan, and Hammersmith and City lines.

2 Civil servants will have to be regularly trained in data handling and protection, Gus O'Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, has proposed after four separate reports detailed failures to protect data across Whitehall.

3 Britain's most senior Muslim officer is to sue the Metropolitan Police force for racial discrimination and victimisation. The National Black Police Association is fully supporting the action by Tarique Ghaffur, an Assistant Commissioner, and the Met's number three in command.

4 A Government ban on anonymous donation of sperm and eggs from 2005 has provoked a crisis in fertility treatment, according to official figures seen by The Times.

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5 One in ten children in England is obese by the time of starting primary school, according to the Department of Health.

6 Thousands of schools could be forced to close this month after more than 600,000 council workers voted to strike over pay. The walkout, scheduled for July 16 and 17, may also hit rubbish collections, libraries, social work and other frontline services.

7 Councils have been urged to stop using controversial surveillance powers for “trivial” offences such as littering and dog fouling. Sir Simon Milton, chairman of the Local Government Association, told town hall leaders they risked alienating the public.

8 Britain's Armed Forces are stretched beyond their capabilities and cannot continue fighting two simultaneous wars, according to Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the Chief of the Defence Staff.

9 Private sector companies are to be encouraged to make bids for contracts to run multibillion-pound welfare services, said James Purnell, the Work and Pensions Secretary.

10 The Government's proposed eco-towns could become the “eco-slums” of the future, according to the Local Government Association. It added that the plans were “significantly flawed”.

11 Private companies should be allowed to run state schools at a profit and be free to dismiss teachers who are not up to the job, said Sir Simon Milton, chairman of the Local Government Association.

12 Children who sit down to dinner with their parents every night get better grades at school than those who never eat meals as a family, according to a report by the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

13 Children as young as five will be identified as being at risk of becoming criminals or troublemakers under government plans to tackle offending and disorder on the streets, said Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary.

14 Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, and Yvette Cooper, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, are under formal investigation over their expenses. John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards said he was investigating the husband and wife Cabinet team over the location of their second home.

15 Britain's chief constables have drawn up proposals for a border police force of 3,000 officers to combat terrorism and serious crime, the Government has said.

16 Britain's flood defences are inadequate to deal with inundations on the scale seen last year, according to a review by Sir Michael Pitt.

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