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Escaped chimpanzee goes on the loose in Kansas City causing damage to a police car
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Construction in West Bank settlements has resumed since the freeze expired on 26 September
Jewish settlers have started building more than 600 homes in the West Bank since a building freeze expired last month, an Israeli pressure group says.
The pace of building is four times faster than before the ban was put in place, Peace Now says.
Recently re-launched Middle East peace talks could collapse over Jewish settlement building on occupied land.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has vowed to leave the talks unless Israel renews its partial construction freeze.
More details on the 600-plus new homes being built by Jewish settlers will be released in a report on Monday, Yariv Oppenheimer, a spokesman for Peace Now, told the BBC.
Another Peace Now official, Hagit Ofran, added:
“I estimate that work has started at about 600 housing units [since the end of the construction freeze], and I’m looking to complete the survey in order to know the exact number, and it is [at] different stages of construction. In some places, it is only levelling the ground that has started and in others, it’s the very foundation that is now being dug.”
A separate count by the Associated Press news agency estimated that ground had been broken on at least 544 new West Bank homes since 26 September, when Israel lifted its 10-month freeze on most new settlement building in the West Bank.
Palestinian spokesman Ghassan Khatib said the figure was “alarming and is another indicator that Israel is not serious about the peace process, which is supposed to be about ending the occupation”.
But Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said Israel wanted to “proceed to move forward in the peace process and all the difficult issues, all the core issues of the conflict are on the table, including the sensitive issue of settlements.
“In the interim, the limited construction under way will in no way impact upon the final contours of a peace agreement. Ultimately, it’s not about settlements it’s about reaching a historic peace settlement,” he added.
An organisation representing Jewish settlers told the BBC they were not counting houses and the settlements needed to grow at a natural pace.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been under pressure from the Obama administration to extend the slowdown.
Earlier this month, Mr Netanyahu offered to renew the freeze if the Palestinians recognised Israel as a Jewish state, but the Palestinian leadership dismissed the proposal as unfair and unnecessary.
Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967, settling close to 500,000 Jews in more than 100 settlements. They are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.
The Palestinians – backed by the Arab League – have pledged not to return to direct talks without a full settlement construction freeze, but have given US negotiators until early November to try to break the impasse.
The talks, which resumed in Washington in September after a break of almost 20 months, are facing imminent collapse in the bitter row over settlement building.
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Bolivia lost its access to the sea 126 years ago
Peru’s President Alan Garcia and his Bolivian counterpart, Evo Morales, have signed a deal to allow landlocked Bolivia to build its own Pacific port.
The accord expands a 1992 deal that gave a small plot of land on Peru’s coastline to Bolivia.
The accord would allow Bolivia to have greater access to global markets, Mr Morales said.
Chile defeated Peru and Bolivia in a 19th Century war, and since then Bolivia has had no access to the sea.
“It is unjust that Bolivia has no sovereign outlet to the ocean,” President Garcia during his meeting this week with President Morales in the southern Peruvian port of Ilo.
Mr Morales said the deal would “open the door for Bolivians to have an international port, to use the ocean for global trade and for Bolivian products to have better access to global markets”.
The meeting marked a distinct warming of relations between the two men who have had strained political relations.
Bolivia, which is a big exporter of metals, including silver, tin and zinc, currently exports most minerals through Chile.
The deal expands an earlier agreement that granted a small section of coast to Bolivia but prohibited Bolivia from owning property in the zone.
Under it, Bolivia will be able to use the 3.58 sq km (1.38 sq miles) build a dock and operate a free-trade zone. It will also allow Bolivia to operate an annex of its navy school, which to date has been limited to rivers and Lake Titicaca.
In the 1879-84 War of the Pacific, Chile won control of mineral-rich land once held by Peru and Bolivia, and the outcome left Bolivia landlocked.
Bolivia has regularly called on Chile to give it a corridor to the Pacific.
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Sir Alex Ferguson is meeting Manchester United chief executive David Gill as he attempts to stop the Wayne Rooney situation from becoming a “saga”.
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The car is being examined by a police forensics team
A car belonging to Newcastle striker Andy Carroll was targeted in an arson attack outside the Northumberland home of club captain Kevin Nolan.
The incident happened on Wednesday, three days after a court ordered the 21-year-old to live with Mr Nolan.
Mr Carroll had appeared before magistrates charged with assaulting his former girlfriend Laurie Henderson.
No-one was hurt in the arson attack. Newcastle United declined to comment on the incident.
Andy Carroll is living with the Newcastle captain on the exclusive Darras Hall estate in Ponteland as part of his bail conditions.
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Police said they were called after the pair spotted Carroll’s chrome-plated Range Rover on fire on the drive.
A garage door was also daubed with graffiti.
A Northumbria force spokeswoman said: “Police received a report from the fire and rescue service of a fire outside an address in Darras Hall.
“Officers attended and a Range Rover was found to be on fire.
“The fire was extinguished by the fire and rescue service and no-one was injured.
“The garage door of the property was also vandalised.
“Inquiries into the incident are ongoing and police are appealing for anyone with information to contact them.”
A spokeswoman for Newcastle United said the club would not comment as the incident was being investigated by the police.
Mr Carroll appeared before Tynedale Magistrates on Monday charged with assaulting 18-year-old Miss Henderson on 17 October.
He was bailed until a further hearing in January, and the court was told he would claim self-defence.
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Mr Farinas spent four months on hunger strike this year
The European Parliament has awarded its Sakharov human rights prize to Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas.
In July Mr Farinas, 48, ended a hunger strike after Cuba’s communist government announced it was freeing 52 political prisoners.
During his campaign for human rights he has staged more than 20 hunger strikes and spent more than 11 years in prison.
An Israeli human rights watchdog and an Ethiopian opposition activist had also been nominated for the prize.
Mr Farinas, a psychologist, journalist and former soldier, had been near death while on hunger strike this year, doctors said.
The MEPs who nominated him for the prestigious award called him “a beacon of hope for dozens of journalists and activists who are currently in prison”.
“Because he is defending dignity and democracy in his country, he is the ideal candidate for the Sakharov Prize.”
The European Union, like the US, has urged Cuba for years to free political prisoners and improve human rights.
The Sakharov Prize was named after late Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov and was first awarded in 1988. It includes a cash award of 50,000 euros.
The Russian human rights group Memorial won the award last year.
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A police watchdog has criticised Dyfed-Powys Police for being “inept” in its failure to investigate a rape claim.
A report by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) found the force did not follow up the allegation in 2005 despite the suspect being a known sex offender.
The IPCC said its response was “so inept it borders on the unbelievable”.
Deputy Chief Constable Jackie Roberts apologised to the unnamed woman for the “unacceptable” response.
The original claims were made when the young woman reported the rape to Dyfed-Powys Police in April 2005 alleging that she was raped 10 years earlier as a child.
The IPCC investigation found evidence to suggest a temporary detective constable, an acting detective sergeant, a detective sergeant and a detective inspector failed to ensure the rape investigation was progressed.
The claims only resurfaced during a trial for a different case centring on a rape allegation in 2009 when she appeared as a witness.
Statements made by the officers then led to the young woman facing hostile questioning and having her credibility questioned when she appeared in court.
All four of the officers have since attended misconduct meetings.
The report concluded they did not provide the quality of service a rape victim should expect of a police force and said it was a “tragedy” the case was not better investigated.
IPCC Commissioner for Wales Tom Davies said: “This woman came forward to report an alleged rape that had occurred when she was a child. This must have been a very difficult thing for her to have done and she was entitled to a proper investigation.
“The accumulation of individual and organisational failures described in our investigation led to a Dyfed-Powys Police response so inept that it borders on the unbelievable.
“Our response in terms of follow-up investigation was unacceptable”
DCC Jackie Roberts Dyfed Powys Police
“Put simply, at the time that this woman reported the alleged rape to the police the man was a known sex offender on the sexual offenders’ register and every effort should have been made to investigate the allegation thoroughly. It is a tragedy that it was not.”
Mr Davies said the “individual and institutional failures” were made worse when two individual officers provided statements to court which led the defence in that case to question the victim about the previous allegation of rape and her version of events.
He said the force had demonstrated to the IPCC that it has since changed its systems and given assurances that the report of such a crime such could no longer be lost in the system.
He added: “It is vitally important people can come to the police with confidence that serious matters such as these are properly investigated.
“Failures of this kind though only serve to make the experience more traumatic than it already is and potentially severely dent the public’s confidence.
“The force has assured me that the public can still have confidence that when they do report such serious crimes that they will be dealt with sensitively and thoroughly.
“I would expect Dyfed-Powys Police to now offer this young woman a full apology.”
Deputy Chief Constable Jackie Roberts said: “This was clearly a serious allegation and our response in terms of follow-up investigation was unacceptable.
“We accept the findings of the independent IPCC investigation and the principal officers involved have been subject to misconduct proceedings.
“We are confident that our crime management procedures are now far more improved and robust than was the case in 2005 which will assist in ensuring that the situation that arose in this case should not happen again.”
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The chancellor wants the UK’s leading banks to sign up to a new code of conduct on tax avoidance
Banks are due to find out later how a new Treasury levy on their balance sheets will operate.
It is expected to raise about £2.5bn a year by 2013 – less than one-tenth of 1% of the banks’ relevant liabilities.
Chancellor George Osborne said on Wednesday he wanted “to extract the maximum sustainable tax revenues from financial services”.
The banking industry has warned the move could impact on the UK’s attractiveness as a financial centre.
“We neither want to let banks off making their fair contribution, nor do we want to drive them abroad,” the chancellor said as he unveiled to MPs the results of the Spending Review, which will see £81bn cut from public spending over the next four years.
“Many hundreds of thousands of jobs across the whole United Kingdom depend on Britain being a competitive place for financial services.”
The levy is expected to be introduced in January and differs to the previous government’s tax on bank bonuses.
It will be a tax on the total size of bank balance sheets, but certain items, including retail deposits covered by insurance and bank capital, will be excluded.
According to June’s Budget documents, the levy will be set at 0.04% in the first year and will then rise to 0.07%.
It is not expected to affect smaller banks and building societies, but the UK operations of foreign banks will have to pay.
The British Bankers’ Association said its members “fully understand they have a role to play in the UK’s economic recovery”.
But it said: “We clearly need to see the detail of today’s announcements to be able to assess their impact on the UK banking sector and our attractiveness as a global financial centre.”
It added that it was pleased that the chancellor had indicated the government wanted to strike a balance between raising tax revenues and keeping the UK’s financial services sector competitive.
Mr Osborne has also made it clear that he expects the major banks to sign a new code of practice on tax avoidance.
So far only four of the 15 leading banks operating in the UK have joined up, but the chancellor says he wants all of them to do so by the end of November.
The code calls on banks to ensure that their tax and the tax obligations of their customers are observed – and that they do not go out of their way to avoid tax for themselves or clients.
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Lady Gaga has apologised to fans over the postponement
Lady Gaga has postponed her concerts in France until December, because of “logistical difficulties” caused by the ongoing strikes over pension reforms.
A statement posted on her website said the dates were being moved because there “is no certainty that the trucks” would be able to get to the venue.
Protesters are angry over plans to raise the retirement age to 62.
Gaga fans can exchange or request a refund for tickets.
The pop star had been due to perform in Paris at Bercy on 22 and 23 October.
Those dates have now been rescheduled for 19 and 20 December.
The statement added that Lady Gaga apologises to her fans for the inconvenience.
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The Takeover Panel’s review came after Cadbury’s takeover by US group Kraft Foods
UK firms should have greater ability to defend themselves from hostile takeover bids, the Takeover Panel has proposed.
Its conclusion follows a review of existing regulation in light of UK confectioner Cadbury being bought by US group Kraft Foods in February.
The Takeover Panel, the independent body that regulates takeovers, recommends new measures such as bidders having to reveal their financing plans.
It said its code needed changing to remove bidders’ “tactical advantage”.
However, it ruled out two of the most radical suggested changes put forward.
These suggestions were raising the threshold for a successful bid above the current 50% plus one of the target firm’s shareholders, and removing the voting rights of individuals or groups who bought shares in the target firm following the start of the bidding process.
The Takeover Panel said these moves had been “unanimously rejected” during its consultation, and were “impractical”.
Instead, its other proposed changes include requiring bidders to clarify their intentions within a shorter time frame, and improving the ability of workers at the target firm to make their views known.
The review was carried out by the Takeover Panel’s rule-setting Code Committee.
Lindsay Tomlinson, chair of the committee, said: “It is clear that some rebalancing of the rules is needed to check the evolution of market practice which has run in favour of the offeror.
“We will propose proportionate measures to do this, which do not require changes to law or compromise shareholders’ rights.”
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The images will be published online for free
Sixty years after a shepherd happened upon the Dead Sea Scrolls, a plan aims to bring them into the internet age.
Researchers at the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), aided by scientists at Google, plan to image the 2,000-year old documents and publish them online.
The collection of biblical texts are made up of 30,000 fragments which together comprise 900 manuscripts.
The high-resolution images will be made available for free in original form and with translations.
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“This project will enrich and preserve an important and meaningful part of world heritage by making it accessible to all on the internet,” said professor Yossi Matias, of Google-Israel.
“We shall continue with this historical effort to make all existing knowledge in archives and storages available to all.”
The scrolls, which include texts form the Hebrew Bible, are currently housed at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
Only a small portion of the larger fragments are ever displayed to minimise damage.
The fragments will be imaged using several different wavelengths
When not on show, they are kept in a dark, climate-controlled storeroom.
The new project will digitally image every Scroll fragment in various wavelengths. It is hoped that infra-red images may expose letters currently invisible to the naked eye
The images will then be uploaded to a searchable online database, allowing scholars around the world to pore over their details.
“We are establishing a milestone connection between progress and the past to preserve this unique heritage for future generations,” said Shuka Dorfman, the current head of the IAA.
“The public with a click of the mouse will be able to freely access history in its fullest glamour.”
The scrolls were discovered by a Bedouin shepherd in the Qumran caves above the Dead Sea in the mid-1940s.
They have been described as “one of the most important archaeological finds of the 20th Century”.
The parchment and papyrus scrolls contain Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic writing, and include several of the earliest-known texts from the Bible, including the oldest surviving copy of the Ten Commandments.
The first images will go online in the coming months.
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University admissions helpline workers have answered thousands of calls
Nearly 190,000 applicants to UK universities failed to get a place this year, a higher proportion than ever before, Ucas figures reveal.
After clearing, 188,697 applicants were unplaced, up from 139,520 last year.
While 22% of hopefuls missed out in 2009, this rose to 27% in 2010
The head of UCAS is warning that a “massive influx” of applicants trying to avoid an expected rise in fees in 2012 will further increase pressure on university places next year.
Tuition fees, currently limited to £3,290, are expected to roughly double if the government adopts reforms proposed by Lord Browne’s review of higher education funding, published last week.
He suggested completely removing the current cap on fees, with incentives for universities to keep them at £6,000.
The government announced a 40% cut to higher education funding in its Spending Review on Wednesday, saying it expected the income from fees to fill the gap.
Ucas chief executive Mary Curnock Cook told the Times that she expected demand to outstrip supply again next year, and called on the government to clarify when fee rises would take effect.
“As soon as there’s uncertainty you will get a massive influx of applications,” Ms Curnock Cook said.
Pam Tatlow, chief executive of the university think tank Million+, called on the government to fund “significantly more” places during the transition to increased fees.
“It is entirely predictable that there will be a big increase in applications to university next year as would-be students scramble to secure places before much higher fees are introduced,” she said.
Last time fees were raised, in 2006, “there was no cap on student numbers and there were not 190,000 applicants who had missed out on places the preceding year”, she added.
Those failing to get places include prospective students applied late and failed to secure a place in clearing – the process where remaining university places are allocated after the A-level results are published – or did not get the necessary grades.
Of a total of 688,310 applicants, 479,057 were accepted.
In addition to the 188,697 who failed to get a place in clearing, another 18,000 withdrew their applications.
Some of these will have decided against university, but others may have pulled out in the hope of a more suitable place next year than they thought they would get through clearing. This pushes the number of would-be students who were turned away even higher.
This year, 46,248 students found a place through clearing, slightly down from 47,188 last year.
The number of planned new university places for this September was halved to 10,000 because of government spending cuts, but nearly 55,000 more people applied than in 2009.
The rise in demand is partly attributed to concerns about employment prospects, with both school leavers and mature students wanting to improve their qualifications in a competitive jobs market.
There was also a rise in the numbers reapplying, suggesting disappointed 2009 applicants also boosted demand.
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Pre-nuptial agreements have a longer history than many might imagine
A court has ruled that pre-nuptial agreements apply in England and Wales. Will this bring with it some of the odd marital contracts drawn up abroad?
It may sound the antithesis of carefree romance, but the pre-nuptial agreement looks as though it will become a familiar part of the institution of marriage on these shores.
The UK Supreme Court has ruled that such contracts can have decisive or compelling weight after German paper company heiress Katrin Radmacher’s ex-husband failed in his bid to be awarded a greater chunk of her £100m fortune.
Now, the law in England and Wales falls into line with the United States and much of Europe in recognising agreements drawn up by couples prior to tying the knot.
How might this codification of the most straightforward of human partnerships change what it means to be married?
In the US, at least, some of the agreements struck by spouses-to-be have ranged from the puzzling to the downright odd.
A 2008 investigation by the Chicago Sun-Times found that some of the stranger clauses in pre-nuptial agreements included the right to conduct regular drug tests on the spouse, with financial penalties if they failed; one partner being limited to one football game on a Sunday per season; a $100,000 bonus for every time the partner was unfaithful; and an agreement to limit the wife’s weight to 120lbs, subject to a $100,000 fine if exceeded.
None of this is new. Columbia University in New York holds a pre-nuptial agreement signed by the Scots-born tycoon Andrew Carnegie and his wife, Louise Whitfield, dated 22 April 1877 – the day they married.
It is, of course, from Hollywood that the more elaborate pre-marriage arrangements have surfaced.
According to reports, the actors Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas agreed that she would be entitled to $1m for every year they spent together should they split up.
Pets
Similarly, it was widely reported that Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen had agreed a $4m penalty for infidelity to be paid by the unfaithful partner.
If anything, however, the sums involved in recent cases in English courts have been far more outlandish.
A court awarded £24m to Heather Mills from Sir Paul McCartney after four years of marriage, and Beverley Charman was handed £48m after 28 years marriage to the insurance magnate John Charman.
“You could get couples deciding in advance who would get the cats and the dogs”
Anne Kay Divorce lawyer
Legal experts say such payouts will be less likely following the Radmacher ruling as the wealthy will be those most likely to avail themselves of pre-nups in an effort to protect their fortunes.
But what form will these contracts take? Anne Kay, associate solicitor at divorce law firm Boodle Hatfield, is making no predictions about what sort of agreements will emerge, but she believes the ruling could open the door to various innovative uses of the legal process.
“It’s possible that you’re going to see people becoming more demanding and more creative,” she says.
“For instance, the courts don’t have the power to make contact or custody orders in relation to pets. You could get couples deciding in advance who would get the cats and the dogs if they split up.”
Likewise, Ayesha Verdag, who represented Ms Radmacher in earlier stages of her legal fight, believes the principle consequence of the Supreme Court’s decision will mostly serve to take lawyers out of marital breakdown by minimising the scope for squabbling during divorce proceedings.
But she does predict there is scope for new types of pent-up.
“For some companies like hedge funds, their assets are quite heavily held by individuals,” says Ms Verdag. “They might require a pre-nuptial agreement from any employees to whom they issue stock to prevent it being depleted.”
But not all pre-marital agreements are between the would-be bride and groom. Emma Carter and her partner Adrian, from Liverpool, had to sign an agreement with her father Barry. It stated that if they split up within 10 years of getting married they would pay him back the cost of the wedding – £23,000.
“He came up with the idea because he thought it was young to get married at 23,” she says. “My uncle is a solicitor and drew up the document and we all signed it. We have always laughed about it because obviously we intend to stay together.
“We have been married for five years now. Me and my husband always joke that we’ve only got another five to go and then we are free.”
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Rosneft is one of the state-owned assets to be used to raise revenues
Russia has announced further details of plans for its biggest privatisation since the 1990s – which could raise up to 1.8 trillion roubles ($60bn; £38bn).
The sale could involve the total or part-sale of stakes of up to 900 companies, including the oil giant Rosneft and Russian Railways.
The announcement was made by Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister, Igor Shuvalov.
Russia needs to raise money to cut its budget deficit.
That is estimated to be 5% of gross domestic product for this year.
Russia’s last major privatisation was in the 1990s, when huge chunks of former state assets were widely sold, only to end up creating Russia’s ultra-rich, powerful individuals, the oligarchs.
The reforms became hugely unpopular, and the Russian government’s strategy then reversed to increase state control over assets, something it funded through its booming economy.
Relatively small stakes in the most important state holdings are earmarked for sale, with 15% of Rosneft and 25% of the rail monopoly Russian Railways.
Among the details given, Mr Shuvalov said Russian airline Aeroflot may form part of the sell-off.
However, he ruled out a sale of the oil pipeline monopoly, Transneft.
Transneft shares fell nearly 5% on the news, they had risen by 65% this year as the group was expected to be part of the major sale of state assets.
Other sectors where stakes could be sold include banking, telecoms and agriculture and even, eventually, Moscow’s airports.
Mr Shuvalov said Russia was ready to privatise Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport but needed time to outline how to integrate all three Moscow airports into one hub, something, he said, that could not be achieved through privatisation.
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Chicago has largely remained loyal to Democratic candidates in the past
In a town practically owned by the Democratic Party, I find the Republicans in remarkably good cheer.
At an English bar, on Chicago’s La Salle Street, members of the Illinois Republican Party are holding a meet and greet for their newest candidate.
Unfortunately Patrick John Ryan isn’t here.
Behind the mock disappointment, no-one is expecting him to show up.
That’s because Mr Ryan is a “shill” candidate, an employee of the Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation, nominated by long-serving Illinois House Speaker, Democrat Michael Madigan, to run against him in a district so safe the real Republicans don’t even bother.
Welcome, as Pink Floyd might say, to the machine.
“That is kindergarten behaviour compared to what we see,” says Illinois Republican Party Chairman Pat Brady.
“It’s not as bad as it used to be, but the machine still exists, and that’s what we’re fighting against. And I think that’s what people are really fed up with.”
It’s the machine that produced two Mayor Daleys, disgraced former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevic, and one Barack Obama.
Mr Brady calls Illinois a one-party state.
It’s solidly Democratic and Mr Obama won here by a landslide in 2008.
Mr Obama received large support from Chicago residents in 2008
But the Republican chairman relishes the thought that Illinois could be the most symbolic victory on election night.
“We’d love to get Barack Obama’s old seat,” he says. “We’d love to get Joe Biden’s in Delaware, and I think we’re going to get Harry Reid’s seat in Nevada,” Mr Brady says.
He calls that the Republicans’ “trifecta” – a triple whammy.
With the polls putting Republican Congressman Mark Kirk in a near dead heat with Democratic state treasurer Alexi Giannoulias and the governor’s race also a toss-up, this is probably the Republicans’ best chance in a couple of decades to make inroads in the fifth most populous state in the union.
The Senate race is nasty and negative. Republicans are trying hard to suggest that Mr Giannoulias is cut from the same tainted cloth as the former governor.
One attack ad alleges the Democratic candidate is linked to the mob, citing revelations that his family’s bank made loans to organised crime figures
“He’d make Tony Soprano proud,” the ad says.
For his part, Mr Kirk has had to deal with accusations that he embellished his military record.
“In this economy and this political environment, everything a candidate needs to talk about has to relate to something that happens on the kitchen table”
Jaimey Sexton Democratic supporter
In a city where financial and personal peccadilloes are woven into the political fabric, neither offence seems particularly remarkable.
Voters may simply have to hold their noses a little more firmly as they cast their ballot.
But the continuing fallout from the corruption case against Mr Blagojevic, the man accused of trying to sell the president’s old seat, probably means the Democratic party machine has rather more than usual to answer for.
Nor is their case being helped by the White House’s failure to communicate with the electorate.
“I don’t think the administration did the greatest job of selling [its policies] as a kitchen table issue,” says Jaimey Sexton, who runs telephone campaigns for Democratic candidates.
“In this economy and this political environment, everything a candidate needs to talk about has to relate to something that happens on the kitchen table.”
One thing that could make a difference in the president’s political back yard is, of course, the president himself.
Barack and Michelle Obama have both campaigned for Mr Giannoulias.
Chicago’s metropolitan area, known as Chicagoland, is one of the largest in the world
In America’s toxic, polarised political environment, not every Democratic candidate wants to share the stage with Barack Obama.
But in Chicago, the president still has plenty of admirers.
“People here are extremely prideful when it comes to Obama,” says one local resident, sitting on a low wall outside City Hall.
But back at the English bar, Republicans are raising their glasses to their invisible candidate.
For all the fun and laughter, this is a party dead set on scoring one of November’s biggest upsets.
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