Daily roundup 5 April: Signs, free school meals, and stabbing death

Councils have been urged to tear down "no ball games" signs to encourage children to do more exercise. The Scotsman reports that plea to remove the signs has been made by SNP MSP Ruth Maguire. Maguire said she believes the signs are "anti-fun" and argues that getting rid of them will encourage children to play more ball sports and thereby improve their physical and mental health.


Up to 100,000 children from low-income families will lose out on free school meals because of the government's method for setting the threshold at which pupils qualify, a new study has found, prompting accusations the Conservatives are "consciously" targeting poor children. The Independent reports that the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said the decision to discount inflation when freezing the threshold for the next four years means thousands of children miss out.


Two teenagers have been arrested after an 18-year-old man was stabbed to death in an east London street. The BBC reports that police officers found the wounded man in Link Street, Hackney, just before 8pm on Wednesday after they were flagged down by a passing car driver. The injured man, initially thought to be in his 20s, died at the scene.


Humberside Police is still failing in some areas of child protection, investigators have found. The BBC reports that a post-inspection review by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary found issues with the protection of children involved in domestic abuse cases. In one case, a man who reported his partner for assaulting him with a child present had been investigated five years earlier for child grooming, but no risk assessment was carried out until months later.