It is hoped the four-legged recruit's calming presence will encourage staff to open up.

People are urged not to put batteries into general waste or recycling as they can spark a blaze.

Relive the action from the opening day of six County Championship matches.

Resident Kelly Kerr says sewage spills on to the road every time there is a downpour.

Police are treating the disappearance of Scott Fletcher in May 2011 as murder.

Five members of Middlesbrough's executive resign saying they have lost confidence in Andy Preston.

The remains of 19-year-old Rachel Wilson were found in 2012, a decade after she was last seen alive.

Footage shows the dead animals and mess all over a street in Wallsend following heavy rain.

Newcastle striker Callum Wilson will miss the final three games of the season with a hamstring injury.

Winger Ben Stevenson signs a new two-year deal with Newcastle Falcons to run until the end of 2022-23.

Rival Byker councillor Nick Kemp fails in his bid at the Labour group's AGM to take over the role.

Former striker Alan Shearer recalls how Newcastle United held an open-top bus parade despite losing the FA Cup final in 1998 and 1999

A cannabis farm has been discovered at a former church in Bishop Auckland.

Acting on a tip-off, officers raided St Peter's last night, and found 1,200 plants, along with men in the process of moving them out.

Four men have been arrested and are in police custody.

Insp Peter Lonsdale of Durham Constabulary, said: "We will always do everything we can to disrupt the chain of illegal drugs and that's exactly what we did."

The church closed for worship in December 2013.

Vandals left a trail of destruction when the broke into a nursery at Middlesbrough Environment City.

The charity had set up a project to help people with their mental health and wellbeing and volunteers had spent weeks growing seedlings which were ready to be planted.

But when workers arrived this morning they found trays of plants tossed on the floor and overturned tables.

Image source, Middlesbrough Environment City

Staff and volunteers managed to salvage about 80% of the plants but say the timing of the vandalism - at the start of Mental Health Awareness Week - is awful.

Image source, Middlesbrough Environment City

A dog owner stuck waist deep in the river bank at Maiden Castle in Durham has been rescued by firefighters.

The water rescue team from Durham fire station and crews from Spennymoor were called to the scene earlier this afternoon.

The dog's owner had gone into the river Wear to rescue their pet Sonny.

Firefighters used throw lines to rescue the owner and the dog.

Image source, CDFRS

Manufacturers based in the new economic zones could miss out on key markets, Labour says.

Richard Moss
Political editor, North East & Cumbria

From masked counting of votes to a mayoral candidate getting Covid, 2021’s local elections in the North East were unique.

But in many ways they marked a continuation of political trends that pre-date the pandemic.

Any hopes Labour had of a rapidly bouncing back from losses suffered in the 2019 General Election have been blown away. The party’s 2021 losses were often in the same areas where they struggled then.

The situation in the Teesside area looks particularly serious.

The loss of another MP to the Conservatives in Hartlepool - Jill Mortimer (pictured) is the town's first Tory MP in the current constituency's history - a landslide victory for Ben Houchen in the mayoral race, and another clear Tory win in the Cleveland Police and Crime Commissioner election bear the stamp of a long term shift in loyalties.

The area’s remaining two Labour MPs will be worried they could be next.

Image source, PA Media

Then there was Labour’s loss of Durham County Council after almost a century of control.

Defeats again often came in communities which have Conservative MPs. Places like Ferryhill, Spennymoor, and Tudhoe now have Tory councillors - something once unthinkable.

Sunderland could be next - another year of losses leaves Labour’s hold looking fragile. The party’s three MPs may be feeling edgy.

Labour’s crumbs of comfort came through retention of police commissioner posts in Northumbria and Durham, and continuing dominance in Tyneside.

The Conservative vote rose there too, but they could not break back into the council chambers of Newcastle and Gateshead.

But the scale of Tory advances elsewhere mean that is of little concern to the party. Instead any pressure on the big winners of 2021 will be about delivery.

Where once they were the insurgents, they are now the establishment. Voters may give them time to deliver on promises of investment, but eventually blaming opponents for problems in the communities they now represent will be less convincing.

Durham County Council's Labour group is expected to elect Simon Henig's replacement at the weekend.

A small town with no European pedigree, Middlesbrough produced a series of heroic comebacks to reach the Uefa Cup final 15 years ago.

Richard Moss
Political editor, North East & Cumbria

Among those affected by Sir Keir Starmer's shake-up of his team after poor election results in England is highly-experienced chief whip Nick Brown.

The Newcastle East MP is replaced by the Tynemouth MP Alan Campbell.

This may be the last shadow cabinet hurrah for a chief whip who served Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Jeremy Corbyn and Keir Starmer.

For four different leaders to make you chief whip indicates how highly his skills were valued.

A spokesman for Mr Brown (pictured) said the MP thought it was "a reasonable time for Nick to move on", adding he and Sir Keir had "parted on good terms, with mutual respect".

Image source, UK PARLIAMENT

The two other North East Shadow Cabinet members remain in post - Middlesbrough's Andy McDonald as Shadow Employment Rights Secretary and Houghton and Sunderland South MP Bridget Phillipson as Shadow Chief Secretary.