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A shadow Liverpool side go through the motions of a final Europa League group game as they play out a dull draw against FC Utrecht.
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Nearly 1,200 workers at the Heinz Baked Beans factory in Wigan begin a 24-hour walkout over pay.
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The US is suing BP and several other companies in an effort to recover billions of dollars in damages from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
The justice department is seeking payment from BP, rig owner Transocean and others, in connection with their role in the spill.
It asks that they be held liable without limitation for all clean-up and damage costs.
The oi leak led to the worst environmental disaster in US history.
Eleven workers on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig were killed by an explosion which followed, and hundreds of miles of coast were polluted before it was stemmed in July.
“We intend to prove that these defendants are responsible for government removal costs, economic losses and environmental damages without limitation,” US Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement.
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Mr Cameron says the coalition is working well but some of his MPs are not so sure Conservative MPs are to use a meeting with David Cameron to voice concerns about the coalition and what some argue are too many policy concessions.
Ahead of a meeting of the party’s backbench 1922 committee – which the PM will address – one Tory MP said the coalition could end by 2012.
Peter Bone said there could be an election once the economic crisis ended as “nobody had voted for a coalition”.
Some Tories have said the coalition could continue after the next election.
The two parties agreed to work together until May 2015, when the next general election is due to be held.
Mr Cameron and deputy prime minister and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg have both insisted their parties will remain independent forces.
But former Prime Minister Sir John Major has been among those to suggest they should prolong their co-operation, saying last month the “temporary alliance” could turn into a “mini-realignment” of politics.
But talk of electoral pacts has angered some Conservative MPs who already believe their party has sacrificed too many of the policies it stood on in May to placate its coalition partners.
Mr Bone told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the coalition should not continue indefinitely.
“I accept we need a coalition government until the economic crisis is over and we have dealt with it but that might be done within the next two years,” he said.
“Then I see no point in the coalition government at all.”
There could be an election as early as 2012 if the economy stabilised, Mr Bone suggested.
“I would prefer people to have the opportunity to say ‘do you want a Conservative government, a Labour government or a Liberal government?’ I don’t think anyone voted for a coalition.”
“It would not be wise for anyone to take Conservative backbenchers for granted in the way that they have been”
Nadine Dorries Conservative MP
Fellow Conservative MP Nadine Dorries told the same programme that “too much has been given away” by the Conservatives on issues such as Europe, immigration, defence and law and order.
“It would not be wise for anyone to take Conservative backbenchers for granted in the way that they have been,” she said.
“We have mainstream core Conservative principles that for the good of the coalition and the country we are suppressing but it would not be wise to think that that is a position that we want to continue with in the long term.”
Concerted efforts were being made to raise the prospect of the two parties fighting the election as a coalition, she suggested, with senior figures being “strategically placed” to talk up the possibility in the media.
“We are not idiots, we know what’s happening,” she added.
Tory MPs Nick Boles and Jacob Rees-Mogg have argued for an electoral pact with the Lib Dems but no ministers have endorsed the idea and the two parties will be fielding separate candidates at the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election expected early next year.
Ministers say the two parties agreed to co-operate in the national interest, each side has had to make compromises on policy, and the coalition is continuing to function well.
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A 56-year old man, apparently angry that his wife had been fired from a school in Florida, has opened fire at a school board meeting.
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Plans for a referendum on further powers for the National Assembly for Wales have been given final approval.
Members of the Privy Council, the institution that seeks the Queen’s formal approval on certain matters, have said the referendum can go ahead on March 3 next year.
Voters in Wales are going to be asked whether they want more powers, or not, for the Welsh assembly.
Secretary of State for Wales Cheryl Gillan welcomed the approval.
“I have always been committed to giving the people of Wales the opportunity to decide in a referendum whether they want the assembly to have these powers and it was one of my top priorities when I took office in May,” she said.
“This commitment has been delivered and it is only right and proper that the people of Wales should now have their say in the referendum next March.”
On Tuesday it was announced that Roger Lewis, group chief executive of the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) would be the new chair of the campaign for a Yes vote.
It has yet to be announced who will be leading the No campaign.
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A police presence has been stepped up all over central Moscow Hundreds of people have been arrested in central Moscow in an attempt to prevent further ethnic clashes over the shooting of a football fan, police say.
The arrests came as groups of youths, many shouting nationalist slogans, gathered near a Moscow train station.
The death of a Moscow Spartak fan, allegedly in a fight with North Caucasians, has prompted riots and attacks targeting ethnic minorities.
Dozens more people were reportedly detained in other Russian cities.
Police in St Petersburg held 60 people and another 100 were arrested in Samara, according to Interfax news agency.
Estimates of the numbers arrested in Moscow ranged from 800 to 1,200.
Moscow city police spokesman Vitkor Biryukov told Interfax that most of the arrests were at the city’s Kievsky railway station.
“We have confiscated several air guns, knives, clubs and and stun guns,” he said, adding that there had been no serious incidents in the city and that the most aggressive elements among the youths had been removed from the scene.
There were also arrests in St Petersburg Reports say about 300 youths have gathered around a shopping mall near the station, forcing it to close, and others have been trying to block a nearby road.
Many have been shouting slogans such as “Russia forward” or “Russia for the Russians”.
Police patrols have been stepped up throughout central Moscow, and huge traffic jams have been reported.
A police source told Interfax the heavy police presence would continue deep into the night.
On Saturday, thousands of people clashed with police outside the Kremlin over the shooting of Mr Sviridov.
Police have promised to complete an investigation into Mr Sviridov’s death.
Aslan Cherkessov, 26, from the Kabardino-Balkaria region in the Caucasus, has been formally accused of the murder by a Moscow district court and placed in custody until 6 February.
While ethnic minorities complain of continuing discrimination in Russia, some ethnic Russians accuse the authorities of trying to play down hate crimes against Russians.
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The FSA has been criticised for not releasing its report into what went wrong at RBS Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has blocked the Financial Services Authority (FSA) from publishing its study into the bank’s near-collapse.
The regulator wants to publish a report by March, but needs the bank’s consent, FSA chair Lord Adair Turner has said.
In a letter to MP Andrew Tyrie, chair of the Treasury committee, Lord Turner described the situation as “extremely unsatisfactory”.
The FSA found RBS guilty of poor decisions, but not any actual offences.
The FSA investigation follows the near-collapse of RBS, which was saved only after the government stepped in with a rescue package that has left the taxpayer owning 84% of the bank.
According to Lord Turner, the financial services regulator is only legally able to make a unilateral decision to publish the details of its investigation if enforcement action is to be taken against the culpable party.
Otherwise, the permission of all the parties is involved, and “RBS has made it plain that it does not wish to provide consent”, he said.
“In about three months or so, something additional may be published by the City watchdog on all of this, but that something may not be desperately enlightening”
The FSA accused RBS executives of poor judgment in connection with the acquisition of Dutch bank ABN Amro, which left the UK bank severely undercapitalised going into the 2008 financial crisis.
Lord Turner made clear that he wanted to publish a “lessons learned” report, drawing on the regulator’s investigation files, that would explain the failures by the FSA and by RBS management that led to the bank’s rescue by the Treasury.
Such a report would not include the full information gathered during the regulator’s investigation, and would not be a “detailed blow-by-blow account” he said.
For this reason, Lord Turner expressed his hope that RBS would relent and give its permission to publish the report, and he called for the committee and the government to publicly support this position.
Lord Turner also said that the watchdog wants to change the rules so that reports can be made public without other parties’ consent in similar cases in the future, because of the legitimate public interest involved.
“We believe we have already publicly argued that this legal regime is inappropriate in instances where a bank has been resolved or has been rescued to prevent failure (as was the case with RBS),” he said.
He noted in his written response to the MP that “a number of other enquiries are still at various stages of progress and subject to confidentiality constraints”.
The FSA is currently conducting an investigation into HBOS.
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Northern Ireland Finance Minister Sammy Wilson outlines the draft budget
Details have emerged on which government departments have been hardest hit in the draft budget for Northern Ireland.
In the budget announced by NI Finance Minister, Sammy Wilson, education will lose £67m, regional development £63m and justice £48m.
There will be some extra money for job creation and to help social need.
The health budget will increase by £326m, but there will be cuts in social services.
Mr Wilson said there were no plans for water charges over the next four years.
He also confirmed in the draft budget that the regional rate, the portion of rates collected by Stormont, will increase by inflation in the same period.
There will be a 15p plastic bag levy while 12,000 civil servants face a two-year pay freeze.
Agriculture loses £6m
Culture and Arts loses £10m
Education loses £67m
Employment gets £15m more
Enterprise gets £6m more
Environment loses £8m
Finance loses £2m
Health gets £326m more
Justice loses £48m
Regional Development loses £63m
Social Development gets £2m more
OFMDFM loses £6m
The eight-page document sets out the Executive’s spending plans for the next four years.
The freeze on the regional rate will now be lifted to allow it to increase by the rate of inflation.
Housing associations will be asked to contribute £80m of their assets over the next four years and Belfast Harbour Commission will face a multi-million pound levy.
Among the infrastructure projects which the minister said would go ahead are:
The new police and fire training centrea radiotherapy centre at Altnagelvin HospitalSports stadia projectsUpgrades to the water and sewerage network
The draft budget was completed on Tuesday night following hours of intensive discussion between ministers.
Mr Wilson told MLAs that setting a budget was a “litmus test” for the executive which he believed it was going to pass.
The budget has been described as “very disappointing” by the main public sector union Nipsa.
“Despite how the finance minister has tried to play it up, what this means for thousands of public sector servants is the prospect of losing their job or at the very best, having their pay cut,” said Bumper Graham, the union’s assistant general-secretary.
Northern Ireland is the last devolved region to formally agree a budget. The executive has to find cumulative savings of £4bn over four years following the Chancellor’s Comprehensive Spending Review.
BBC NI business correspondent Kevin Magee said that the majority of the savings would come from cuts to government departments, other than health, which would see a marginal increase in its budget.
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Richard Caborn stood down from Parliament earlier this year Ex-Labour minister Richard Caborn has argued that the decision to remove his parliamentary pass should be reversed.
The former MP’s pass was taken away for six months after Commons authorities found he had been “careless” in telling reporters posing as lobbyists how he was able to influence ministers.
In a letter, Mr Caborn said the punishment was more “severe” than that laid down for such an offence.
He added that he had been told he could not appeal against the pass removal.
The Commons’ Standards and Privileges Committee carried out an investigation into interviews given by six former MPs – all of whom stood down at the election – to a Sunday Times journalist posing as a representative of a fictitious lobbying company and inquiring about services they would be able to provide after leaving Parliament.
Sections of the interviews were later broadcast on the Channel 4 show Dispatches, which led to complaints against the MPs concerned.
The committee found Mr Caborn – who spoke to the reporters about the ways in which he could influence ministers – had breached the rules but these infractions were “more the result of careless oversight than deliberate intention”.
It said his suggestion that he might receive a peerage after leaving the Commons “reflected poorly on him” and that he had not declared a relevant interest after sponsoring three events in Parliament on behalf of outside organisations.
In his letter, Mr Caborn, who now works as a strategic adviser to Sheffield University’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, expressed his “concern” about the withdrawal of his Commons photo pass.
He added that he found the decision to be “totally at odds “with the committee’s decision that none of the breaches was intentional and had not brought “the House or its Members arguably into disrepute”.
Mr Caborn said he had been told there was no right of appeal, arguing that he had been found guilty of “not intentionally” bringing the Commons into disrepute, the punishment for which is making an oral or written apology.
A ban from Parliament – the effect of a pass being removed – was only applicable if someone had “deliberately” done so, he said.
But, speaking for the government, deputy Commons leader David Heath said: “These debates are never easy. The House can take no pleasure in imposing sanctions on members and former members who breach the code of conduct.
“But it’s something we must do if we’re to have any hope of restoring and maintaining public faith in the House.”
Former ministers Geoff Hoon and Stephen Byers were also rebuked by the committee, which suspended Mr Byers’ pass for two years and Mr Hoon’s for five years.
However, the same committee has dismissed complaints against former MPs Patricia Hewitt, Adam Ingram and Sir John Butterfill.
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The area around the house was sealed off by police A man who murdered a housemate over a row about a woman and buried him in the garden in Hertfordshire has been jailed for life.
Richard Clare, 38, of Fern Dells, Hatfield, denied murdering Peter McConnell in March but was convicted by a jury at St Albans Crown Court.
He was told he must serve a minimum of 27 years.
The court heard Clare had cut 43-year-old Mr McConnell’s throat, wrapped his body in parcel tape and buried him.
He told his lover Charlotte Whitcombe that Mr McConnell had left and they moved into the dead man’s bedroom, the court was told.
Ms Whitcome had told the court she had a “one-off” relationship with Mr McConnell but had begun seeing Clare.
Mr McConnell punched her in the face and pulled her hair and “tried to gouge my eyes out” when she told him on 21 March this year that she loved Clare, she said.
The court heard Clare arrived, accused Mr McConnell of being a bully, and later that day cut his throat.
Miranda Moore QC, prosecuting, said Clare then went to “extreme and elaborate lengths” to clear the murder scene.
The court heard that Clare was questioned by police when, 18 days later, another housemate was arrested for shoplifting and a remark was made about “Peter’s murder”.
The housemate had been in the house at the time and had been told by Clare to keep his mouth shut, the court heard.
Clare claimed he acted in self defence because Mr McConnell had gone to attack him with an axe, Ms Moore said.
Judge Stephen Gullick told him: “You literally cut the throat, severed his voice box in two and he bled to death in minutes.”
He said that to secure his relationship with Charlotte, Clare had “had decided to eliminate Peter McConnell from the equation.”
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The Irish parliament votes in favour of the financial bail-out package negotiated with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
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The auditor general has refused to fully sign off MPs’ expenses, salaries and pensions accounts for last year.
Amyas Morse raised concerns about nearly £15m of payments made in 2009-10, the year of the expenses scandal.
He said evidence could not be obtained for £1.8m of claims, because those MPs were under police investigation.
Despite a “major exercise” evidence had not been obtained for another £0.8m and evidence provided for £11.3m was not considered sufficient by auditors.
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Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas is represented by an empty chair at a ceremony to award him the EU’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
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Cutting global greenhouse emissions might still save the polar bear, according to scientists in the United States.
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