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Students, lecturers and trade unionists are preparing to protest in about 100 colleges in England against the axing of the education maintenance allowance.

The government plans to scrap the scheme, which is aimed at encouraging poorer pupils to stay in education, from September next year.

Supporters of the EMA, which is worth up to £30 a week, say it stops thousands of students dropping out.

However, ministers say it is an inefficient scheme.

Chancellor George Osborne announced plans to axe the scheme in the spending review, saying it had very high “dead weight costs”.

But numerous studies show the EMA, introduced by Labour, is a key factor in increasing and maintaining the number of young people taking part in education.

Recent research suggests students on EMA miss fewer classes and are more likely to stay on in college than wealthier students, despite the fact they tend to have poorer prior attainment.

The EMA is effective because it is only paid if recipients attend all their classes. Colleges and schools withdraw the week’s money if pupils miss class without a good reason.

And many pupils depend on it to fund their transport, books and even basic living costs.

Save EMA campaign organiser James Mills said many students would drop out of education if the scheme was scrapped.

“When there were problems with the administration of the allowance a couple of years ago I remember lecturers at my college bringing in bags of shopping for pupils who did not get their money,” he said.

Seven trade unions – including the UCU, the NUT, Nasuwt and the ATL – are joining the protests, set to take place at lunchtime in about 100 colleges.

In some cities such as Birmingham and Leicester, and parts of north-west England, as many as four-fifths of students receive the allowance.

One college preparing for a peaceful demonstration is the City of Bath College.

The college’s principle Matt Atkinson said axing EMA would lead to pupils dropping out.

“Where you have got colleges that are serving rural areas, a lot of these young people are using EMAs to actually get to college,” he said.

“For young people in disadvantaged backgrounds this is a significant contribution to the household income.”

General secretary of the UCU lecturers’ union Sally Hunt said the EMA was a vital lifeline for many students.

“Withdrawing the EMA will hit some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society, as well as the colleges that are there to serve them.”

Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said if the EMA was axed it would be a disaster for social justice and for the economy.

“Education is the major factor in social mobility, ending the EMA will mean that many students from less well off backgrounds will simply not be able to countenance continuing with further education.”

General secretary of the Nasuwt teaching union Chris Keates said: “The abolition of the EMA is a direct attack on the futures of thousands of young people across the country. They have a right to be angry and to use the democratic process to influence elected representatives to oppose these changes.”

ATL general secretary, Dr Mary Bousted, said: “Cutting the EMA will hit the most disadvantaged students hard and make it impossible for some to stay in education.”

The Association of Colleges shares the concerns and its chief executive Martin Doel has written to Michael Gove asking for him to rethink the plans.

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The new Scottish transport secretary was convicted of not paying the Skye bridge toll in the mid-1990s.

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Police in Sweden say they are “98% sure” that a man who blew himself up in Stockholm on Saturday is Middle East-born Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly.

Chief Prosecutor Tomas Lindstrand said Abdaly had moved to Sweden in 1992. More recently he was living in the UK.

But he said the body had not yet been formally identified by DNA or a close family member.

Abdaly, 28, is believed to have died as he tried to set off a car bomb in a busy street. Two people were injured.

Mr Lindstrand told a press conference in Stockholm that after interviewing witnesses, investigators now had “a slightly better picture of what happened”.

When asked whether Abdaly had been correctly identified as the bomber in the media, he replied: “Yes”.

“We have identified the man who blew himself up, to 98%,” he said.

Media reports have said Abdaly was born in Iraq but this was not confirmed at the press conference.

Mr Lindstrand said the bomber had been carrying a bomb belt and had probably intended to cause an explosion in the crowd at the main railway station or a city centre department store.

“If it had all exploded at the same time it could have caused very serious damage,” he said.

Abdaly was also named as the registered owner of the car that exploded in a busy shopping street in the area of Drottninggatan at 1700 local time (1600 GMT) on Saturday.

The second blast occurred 10 to 15 minutes later on a street about 300m (985ft) away.

On Monday, British police began searching a house in Luton, in Bedfordshire, north of London, which is believed to have belonged to Abdaly.

It has emerged that Abdaly worshipped at the Luton Islamic Centre Mosque but left after other members accused him of having a “distorted view” of Islam.

A Swedish news agency has released an audio recording apparently made by Abdaly, in which he says oppression against Muslims in Europe will not be tolerated.

He refers to drawings of the prophet Muhammad and to the presence of foreign soldiers – including Swedes – in Afghanistan.

If confirmed as a suicide bombing, the attack would be the first of its kind in Sweden.

Sweden’s Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said at the weekend that the attacks were unacceptable in Sweden’s “open society”, which he said was a democracy that respected different cultures.

Abdaly was not previously known to the Swedish authorities.

The BBC’s Security Correspondent Nick Childs says investigators will be trying to determine what links he may have had with the UK.

The blast appears to have been of the same relatively unsophisticated nature as recent attempted attacks in New York, Glasgow and London, says our correspondent.

Such attacks, carried out by individuals, are especially hard for the security agencies to trace and but are an increasing cause for concern, he adds.

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Emergency workers in the US state of Indiana are rushing to rescue motorists trapped in cars after a storm brought heavy snow to much of the Midwest.

High winds and snow were complicating rescue efforts, officials said. Four people were reported killed in weather-related accidents across the country.

The roof of the Metrodome stadium in Minneapolis collapsed on Sunday after a snowfall of 17 inches (43cm).

Meanwhile, officials warned of bitter cold temperatures across the US.

In Indiana, LaPorte County sheriff’s deputy Andy Hynek told the Associated Press news agency that some motorists had been stranded as long as 12 hours on a 10-mile stretch of road.

“All the way across US 30 is at a standstill and all of those vehicles are occupied,” he said.

State highway department spokesman Jim Pinkerton was quoted as saying: “As soon as the plows go through an area, the wind is blowing fresh snow right back into the roads. It is just really difficult for us to keep up against that wind and snow.”

Dumping heavy snow

In Minneapolis, in the upper mid-western state of Minnesota, no one was hurt when the inflatable roof of the Metrodome sport stadium collapsed, but a 10-yard (nine-metre) strip of the fibreglass roof was left dangling above the playing field.

The National Football League was forced to move a game between the Minnesota Vikings and the New York Giants to Detroit on Monday night.

The storm has now moved east, dumping heavy snow on Illinois and Michigan. In Washington, a light dusting of snow fell overnight on Monday.

Officials are optimistic about the chances of repairing the roof in time for the Vikings’ next home game on 20 December.

The Vikings-Giants game had already been postponed for a day and a half because the snowstorm delayed the New York team’s flight.

The Metrodome covers an area of 20 acres (eight hectares), with a 10-acre roof made of fibreglass coated in Teflon. The roof is 195 feet (60m) high and is supported by 20 electric fans.

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A right-wing group has said plans for a controversial US pastor to speak at one of its events have been shelved.

Terry Jones, who threatened to burn copies of the Koran earlier this year, was invited to speak at an English Defence League (EDL) rally in Luton.

The home secretary was considering banning Mr Jones from entering the UK.

But a spokesman for the EDL confirmed the invitation to Mr Jones had been withdrawn because of his critical views on homosexuality and race.

Mr Jones told the BBC that he planned to come to the UK next year anyway.

“We will probably come to London sometime in February and organise something in London,” he said.

“We will probably announce our plans sometime this week.”

The EDL had said on its Facebook page that the rally in Luton on 5 February would be “our biggest to date”.

It said Mr Jones would be joining the event to “speak out against the evils of Islam”.

‘Anti-homophobic’

But speaking on BBC Radio Derby, Guraming Singh from the EDL, said Mr Jones had approached them several times wanting to speak at an event.

He said: “A few of us have been debating the question of whether we bring him or not and after doing some research and seeing what his personal opinions are on racism and homosexuality, we are not allowing him to speak at our demonstration.

“He is not the right candidate for us.

“Although the English Defence League are sincere to what he has to say about Islam, we do not agree with some of his manifesto such as some of his issues with homosexuality and some of his issues with race.

“The EDL is anti-homophobic and we are a non-racism organisation.”

Home Secretary Theresa May said she had the power to exclude an individual from coming to the UK if she considered they were not conducive to the public good or threatened national security.

Following her comments, Mr Jones told the BBC he planned to speak against “radical Islam”, not “all Islam”.

He also said any ban on him coming to the UK would be “incorrect and unfair”, and “unconstitutional” in the US.

Unite Against Fascism said it would be holding an anti-racism demonstration to coincide with the EDL rally, and the anti-extremist group Hope Not Hate is urging the home secretary to act.

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More than 17 million viewers tuned in to see Matt Cardle win this year’s X Factor, early overnight figures show.

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The country’s main supermarkets and online shops have stopped taking orders in Scotland in the run up to Christmas, because of the weather.

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EU observers monitoring Sunday’s parliamentary election in Kosovo have received “serious allegations of fraud” in two districts.

The head of the monitoring team, Doris Pack, said the election was generally well run but called for action against officials suspected of vote-rigging.

Prime Minister Hasim Thaci has claimed victory in the vote, Kosovo’s first since independence.

But he is not thought likely to win the election outright.

According to early results, Mr Thaci’s Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) gained almost 31% of the vote, a few points ahead of his main rival and ex-junior coalition partner, the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK).

The LDK has called for re-runs, arguing that voting was compromised in two of Hasim Thaci’s strongholds, where an unlikely 95% turnout was recorded.

Doris Pack, a German politician, said the turnout, at almost twice the average in Kosovo, was highly suspicious.

“I don’t think that it is possible. Yes, in Russia before, or East Germany before, or even in China. But I think not in a country like Kosovo where we tried to install democratic structures,” she said.

The US embassy added that it also had concerns about the voting. In a statement it said that Ambassador Christopher Dell had witnessed irregularities such as ballots outnumbering the number of signatures.

The Central Election Commission said on Sunday that the voting process had been a success, and technical hitches had “not hurt the process”.

Serb participation

In Brussels, senior EU officials congratulated Kosovo’s voters for the “calm and orderly manner in which the majority of the voting took place”.

Ms Pack agreed that apart from the alleged fraud in two of Kosovo’s 37 municipalities the election had passed off well.

She also praised “increased participation” of ethnic Serbs in Kosovo.

Belgrade has not recognised Kosovo’s independence and most Serbs were expected to boycott the elections, although turnout in Serb enclaves in central Kosovo was higher than in previous elections.

The ethnic Albanian majority and small Serb minority remain largely estranged in Kosovo, more than a decade after a Nato-led conflict broke Serbia’s control.

Serbs now number only about 120,000 out of Kosovo’s population of two million. Much of the Serb population is concentrated in the north, between the divided town of Mitrovica and the Serbian border.

While recognised by many Western countries, Kosovo is still not a member of the UN. Its ethnic Albanian majority are under pressure to show they can build peaceful relations with the Serb minority.

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