The News

That was the leading UK stock market index’s 12th fresh closing peak in a month, equalling a record dating back to 1984.

While investors will be cheered by a 9.3 per cent return by mid-May, some FTSE 100 shares have grown by much more – with the top three rising 49 per cent, 42 per cent and 39 per cent, respectively.

We reveal the ten biggest risers in the FTSE 100 this year and look at why these big blue-chip companies have led the way on the UK stock market.

A survey of five million distant solar systems, aided by ‘neural network’ algorithms, has discovered 60 stars that appear to be surrounded by giant alien power plants.

Seven of the stars — so-called M-dwarf stars that range between 60 percent and 8 percent the size of our sun — were recorded giving off unexpectedly high infrared ‘heat signatures,’ according to the astronomers.

Natural, and better understood, outer space ‘phenomena,’ as they report in their new study, ‘cannot easily account for the observed infrared excess emission.’

Ever since theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson first proposed the idea at Princeton in 1960, astrophysicists have speculated that advanced extraterrestrials might have constructed massive solar energy collectors around one star or more.

While powering their spacefaring ET civilizations, these hypothetical ‘Dyson spheres,’ would reveal themselves by radiating more heat than usual, the physicist argued.

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Up to five million tonnes of nuclear waste could be buried in a shallow pit beneath the English countryside, according to a new government strategy. 

New plans show that a ‘near-surface’ facility dug less than 650ft (200m) below the surface could be used to hold some of the UK’s less dangerous nuclear waste.

The location for the pit has not yet been revealed, but the Government says a facility could built in England or Wales within the next 10 years. 

The plans are aimed at easing pressure on the UK’s 17 nuclear waste disposal plants which are currently struggling to handle seven decades of accumulated waste. 

However, a solution for the UK’s most dangerous nuclear waste won’t be ready for at least another 25 years. 

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My girlfriend and I are looking to buy a home for £250,000. We are a couple in our late 20s and have a joint income of about £80,000, although we both have chunky student loan debts to pay off. 

We have very little in savings so thought that ruled us out of buying a home for the moment.

But we have recently seen something about 99 per cent mortgages which look interesting. 

What lenders offer these deals and what are the hoops we’d have to jump through to get one? Are they much more expensive than other mortgages? 

SCROLL DOWN TO FIND OUT HOW TO ASK DAVID YOUR MORTGAGE QUESTION  

Mortgage help: Our weekly Navigate the Mortgage Maze column sees broker David Hollingworth answering your questions

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