Two good Samaritans who came to the assistance of a man having an epileptic fit rowed afterwards about how they had cared for the victim and it escalated to the point where one of them stabbed the other in the throat.

Amid all the recent calls for a constitutional referendum on children’s rights and talk of the need for measures to protect children from paedophile abuse, the overturning yesterday of the life sentence imposed on a 45-year-old paedophile for the rape of two young boys is being met with a degree of stunned incredulity.

Animal-rights activism is colliding head-on with rural tradition in Oklahoma, where voters will decide on November 5 whether to ban cockfighting in one of the last three US states to allow it.