Paul Edmondson

An eccentric American showman wanted to buy the 16th Century Stratford-upon-Avon house where famous British playwright William Shakespeare was born and have it shipped, brick by brick, to New York in the 1800s.

The first trial from the phone-hacking scandal that sank Rupert Murdoch's News of the World opened today with his key aide Rebekah Brooks and the prime minister's former media chief Andy Coulson in the dock.

An eccentric American showman wanted to buy the 16th Century Stratford-upon-Avon house where famous British playwright William Shakespeare was born and have it shipped, brick by brick, to New York in the 1800s.

The first trial from the phone-hacking scandal that sank Rupert Murdoch's News of the World opened today with his key aide Rebekah Brooks and the prime minister's former media chief Andy Coulson in the dock.