Новости за 10.04.2015

It is a curious and little-known fact that Richie Benaud owed virtually all the success of his career – in which he never lost a series as captain of Australia, became the first man to take 200 wickets and score 2,000 runs in Tests, and over five decades emerged as both the conscience of cricket and the finest voice in sporting history – to his good fortune in contracting dengue fever in India in the winter of 1956.

Hillary Clinton, it seems, will finally announce tomorrow that she is running for the White House in 2016.

Like the elderly Buicks, Chevrolets and Plymouths still prowling the streets of Havana, America’s relations with Cuba have grown absurdly archaic.

They're the old kids' savings schemes that Labour set up, aren't they?

Takeovers in the drinks industry have provided some celebratory toasts for the No Pain, No Gain portfolio. It reaped rich rewards from such deals as the swallowing of Allied Domecq and Scottish & Newcastle, as well as smaller fry – Burtonwood, Capital Pub Co, Merrydown and the soon-to-disappear Spirit Pub Co.

It has not been a particularly good few days for Tesco. The other day the mighty brontosaurus of beans, bread and bog roll was forced to cough up almost £9m after it about-faced on opening a new store in Somerset.

With the summer holiday season fast approaching now's a good time to start thinking about the best value plastic to take with you abroad.

Q. I booked flights to the Isle of Man and back with Flybe in June last year for work, but the job was cancelled so there was no point in going. The ticket said no refunds, but I am sure I read somewhere that it is possible to get a refund on the tax element of the ticket. Is this true? And if so, how would I go about doing it?

With numerous stock markets reaching new highs, many financial commentators share a common belief: global economies are on the road to recovery. Against this backdrop they expect that interest rates will soon begin to normalise.

When Comparethemarket.com launched its Meerkat Movies earlier this month – offering a year's cheap films – it pointed out that you could spend as little as £25 and still get the deal. Now users at the money-saving website HotUKdeals.com have worked out that a spend of just a couple of quid can secure access to the offer.

Regular readers will recall the tale of woe of Michael Williams, who was advised to take out a pension mortgage in 1988 and has regretted it ever since. He has just been forced to put his family home in Maidstone, Kent, on the market after being let down by a series of advisers and regulators.

This week marks the first few days of the pensions revolution that has, in theory, allowed people aged 55 and older to do what they like with their retirement savings. The big pension firms have reported high demand from customers following the launch of pension freedoms on Monday. Standard Life, for instance, said: "We have received an unprecedented level of customer contact."

Private sector employees who are still members of final salary or other "defined benefit" pension schemes might count themselves lucky to be in such attractive retirement arrangements – but they could well find that the terms they receive are downgraded in a year's time.

The Revenue has introduced new rules to make it easier to reclaim overpaid tax on pension withdrawals. Under pension tax rules, where someone does not hold a P45, their first pension withdrawal is taxed under an emergency month 1 code.

Despite Memphis the Musical and Beautiful: Carole King the Musical leading the nominations, it was Ray Davies' Sunny Afternoon that won the most Oliviers of any production.

Give yourself a professional-looking manicure at home with an easy-to-use DIY set

'This time round I've experienced more'

'This time round I've experienced more'

Steve Johnston looks like a comedian – lumberjack shirt, stubble, hangdog expression. He sounds like a comedian, with his sweary observational diatribes on politicians, wives and gym etiquette. And from next week he will take to the main stage at one of London’s foremost comedy venues, Soho Theatre.

A lost play once claimed to be by Shakespeare but subsequently poo-pooed as a forgery, is now “strongly” believed to be genuine according to new research.

In China, which is reckoned to be one of the big markets for the gold watch, it's already sold out