UK News: 'Mountain of work' left ahead of Olympics

THE chairman of the London 2012 Olympics has warned "a mountain of work" is still needed as the official one-year countdown to the opening ceremony begins.

With exactly 12 months to go, Seb Coe said preparations were "where we want them to be", but made clear the importance of a final push.

MoD's 1 billion card bill

MINISTRY of Defence officials and senior military figures have spent almost 1 billion on taxpayer-funded charge cards over the last four years.

The department spent 986,041,110 on Government Procurement Cards (GPCs) but the MoD said the cards offered good value for money..

British Gas fined 2.5m over complaints failures

ENERGY giant British Gas has been fined 2.5 million by the energy watchdog for failing to deal correctly with complaints.

British Gas, which serves nearly half of the UK's households, failed to re-open cases when customers indicated their complaint had not been resolved, Ofgem found.

The regulator also said that the company failed to provide key information about the energy ombudsman to customers.

Unsold properties soar

THE stock of unsold properties on estate agents' books is at its highest level for more than two years.

A surge of new sellers pushed the average number of houses for sale at each branch to 74 in June, up from 68 in May, according to the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA). Increased confidence that they could get a sale had encouraged sellers, the NAEA said.

McQueen's dogs left 50k

FASHION designer Alexander McQueen left 50,000 of his 16 million fortune for his beloved pet dogs, his will reveals.

McQueen also bequeathed 50,000 to each of his two housekeepers, one of whom found him hanged in his Mayfair flat nearly 18 months ago.

London: Singer Amy Winehouse was the happiest she had been in a long time in the run up to her death, her father has said. The 27-year-old's funeral was held in north London yesterday where grief-stricken Mitch Winehouse said his daughter had "conquered" her drug addiction and was "trying hard to deal with her drinking".

Surrey: The UK's longest trunk road tunnel, which will relieve congestion at one of the country's worst bottlenecks, will be officially opened today. The 1.2-mile tunnel on the A3 at Hindhead is part of a four-mile, 371 million scheme four years in construction.