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Speakeasy app for the Games; horses given Eurotunnel preference; is USA Yoga stretching it with its Olympic idea?

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USA Yoga is pushing for the sport to be an Olympic event. Photograph: Patrick Byrd/Alamy

Language app for visitors

A US professor has attempted to bridge the language gap at this summer's Games by creating a mobile phone app loaded with common British terms. The purpose-built Olympic translator can be set to over 20 languages to process 5,000 phrases that volunteers and emergency professionals are most likely to use. Giovanni Tata's design will enable users to speak into their device rather than type, something he believes will be quick and efficient. He told Deseret News: "[It's] similar to Google Translate but with that most of the time the translation is OK but not quite perfect."

Police watchdog launches review of Met racism complaints

Scotland Yard was branded institutionally racist by the Macpherson inquiry 13 years ago. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

The police watchdog has announced a review into mounting complaints about racism in the Metropolitan police, warning that they probably suggest a "much wider disaffection and dissatisfaction" with the force.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission also launched two new investigations into alleged racist abuse by Met officers and said it would "increase its level of scrutiny" of how Scotland Yard handles complaints about discrimination.

Senior officials at the IPCC are known to be concerned that the Met may have failed to shake its problem with racism 13 years after it was branded institutionally racist by the Macpherson inquiry set up following the death of Stephen Lawrence.

The IPCC said it now has five ongoing investigations into alleged racism at the Met. Six others are being dealt with by the force internally, mainly because the investigations are almost complete.

Phone hacking: Bobby Davro sues News of the World publisher

Phone hacking: Bobby Davro is suing the former publisher of the News of the World. Photograph: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

Bobby Davro and his former wife Trudi have become the latest public figures to sue the former publisher of the News of the World over alleged phone hacking.

The comedian filed a civil action under his real name, Robert Nankeville, at the high court in London last week against News Group Newspapers, the News International subsidiary that published the now-closed News of the World and Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who used to work for the paper.

Davro and his ex-wife Trudi, a former model, were the subject of intense tabloid interest in the early 2000s. The pair eventually divorced in 2004.