The Week In Two Minutes
A fire in Weymouth caused £15,000 worth of damage to deckchairs. Michael Barrymore filed for bankruptcy.
Network Rail staff voted to strike. MPs were evacuated, and security at the House of Commons reviewed, after members of the pressure group Fathers 4 Justice threw condoms filled with purple flour into the chamber. One of them hit Tony Blair on the back.
A baby was born in Manchester from sperm frozen a world-record 21 years ago. Three Leicester city players were acquitted of allegations that they sexually assaulted women in Spain. A meat trader, who was caught with a warehouse packed with 30 tonnes of rotting produce, also escaped prosecution.
An Oxfordshire schoolboy died, after his school bus collided with a tractor. More school trips were recommended by a think tank as a way to bring timid children out of their shell. Gordon Brown urged OPEC to lower the cost of oil.
In Malawi, violence erupted as Bingu wa Mutharika was due to be sworn in as president. The roof of Terminal 2E at Charles de Gaulle airport collapsed, killing six people. Over 40 people died in storms in the Dominican Republic.
Robert Mugabe described South African Bishop and Nobel Peace Laureate Desmond Tutu as "an angry, evil and embittered little bishop", in his first interview with British media for several years. Two British civilians died in a rocket attack in Baghdad.
South African police, meanwhile, fined a man R2100 ($312) for driving a donkey cart when drunk. In his defence, Hans du Toit justified his decision to continue driving, despite having been flagged down and reprimanded by the police, on the basis that: "the animals knew the way home."
27th May 2004