January 18, 2011, 11:08 pm
![Image]( "Jobless total soars to 2.5 million")
Unemployment has soared by 49,000 to 2.5 million, with a record number of young people out of work, new figures have shown.
One in five 16 to 24-year-olds are jobless after an increase of 32,000 in the quarter to November to 951,000, the highest figure since records began in 1992.
Employment levels have fallen, redundancies have increased and the number of people classed as economically inactive has reached 9.3 million, the figures revealed.
The only bright news from the Office for National Statistics was a 4,100 fall in the number of people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance last month to 1.46 million.
The unemployment rate is now 7.9%, but for 16 to 24-year-olds it is 20.3%. There were 157,000 redundancies in the latest quarter, up by 14,000 on the previous three months.
The inactivity rate is now 23.4% after an 89,000 increase in the number of people classed as economically inactive, including students, those looking after a sick relative and people who have given up looking for a job.
Employment fell by 69,000 to 29 million, the biggest drop since the summer of 2009. Public sector employment fell by 33,000 to six million between last June and September while the number of private sector employees remained unchanged at 23 million.
Employment Minister Chris Grayling said: "These figures serve to underline the scale of the challenge we face. We inherited the largest budget deficit in peacetime history and high levels of worklessness, which we are determined to bring down by rebalancing the economy and supporting private sector jobs growth."
Trades Union Congress (TUC) general secretary Brendan Barber said: "The grim jobless figures show that rising unemployment is more than an autumn blip and that it could get much worse in 2011. With more than a fifth of young people out of work, we face a real danger of losing another generation of young people to unemployment and wasted ambition."
Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, said: "It's no surprise that the job loss totals are creeping up. The coalition's policies are poisonous for our recovery and risk a downward spiral for our economy."
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January 19, 2011, 1:42 am
![Image]( "Local TV channel plans announced")
Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has unveiled his plan to make local television "a reality".
The minister announced an Action Plan For Local Media at the Oxford Media Convention and invited firms to register their interest in running a new channel, which will carry local news and content, by March 1. Licences for local television services will be handed out before the end of 2012.
In a speech to the convention, Mr Hunt said: "To make this vision a reality I am today inviting existing and new media providers to come forward with suggestions as to how this network channel - or local TV 'spine' - could work.
"What this will mean, for consumers, is a new channel dedicated to the provision of local news and content. One that will sit alongside other public service broadcasters, offering a new voice for local communities, with local perspectives that are directly relevant to them.
"We won't be prescriptive. We will wait for the necessary technical assessment to be completed and we will listen to the commercially viable proposals that come forward. Our goal is to be able to award the relevant licences by the end of 2012, and for local TV to be up and running soon after."
Mr Hunt added that "impartiality regulations" would apply to the television services.
A panel set up to examine the idea said local television channels might broadcast in only "10 to 12" areas to begin with.
The review chaired by investment banker Nicholas Shott said it would take "significant effort" to make the plan a success. Its report, published last year, said the channels "may initially be focused in and around 10 to 12 conurbations" and provide "at least two hours of reasonably low-cost but high quality content a day".
Mr Hunt continued: "It is easy to be patronising about hyper-local services, but take a look at the evidence of what consumers truly value. Eight out of 10 consider local news important, nearly seven out of 10 adults feel localness of stories is more important than them being professionally produced."
He added: "People in Barnham don't want to watch what is going on in Southampton. People in Chelmsford aren't interested in what's happening in Watford. That is the system we currently have at the moment, so that is what we are trying to rethink."
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January 19, 2011, 2:13 am
![Image]( "Lansley backs health service revamp")
The Government has said a patient-centred NHS is a "step closer to reality" as it published its plans for a radical overhaul of the health service.
The Health and Social Care Bill will see all 152 of England's primary care trusts (PCTs) scrapped alongside 10 strategic health authorities, leading to the predicted loss of 24,500 jobs. Almost 21,000 of these losses will be through redundancy while the rest involve people leaving the service or retiring.
GPs will be given around 80% of the NHS budget - currently topping £100 billion a year - to commission services for patients. A new NHS commissioning board will oversee this process and new "health and wellbeing" boards are being created.
But the plans have come under fierce attack from health unions and doctors' leaders worried that the reforms are "too much too soon".
The cost of implementing the changes is £1.4 billion but Health Secretary Andrew Lansley insists they will save the NHS more than £5 billion by 2014/15 and £1.7 billion every year thereafter.
Mr Lansley said: "Modernising the NHS is a necessity, not an option - in order to meet rising need in the future, we need to make changes.
"We need to take steps to improve health outcomes, bringing them up to the standards of the best international healthcare systems and to bring down the NHS money spent on drugs.
"This legislation will deliver changes that will improve outcomes for patients and save the NHS £1.7 billion every year - money that will be reinvested into services for patients."
The proposals prompted a fierce exchange in the House of Commons with Labour leader Ed Miliband accusing Prime Minister David Cameron of being "arrogant" for pressing ahead with them despite warnings from unions and health experts.
Mr Miliband said: "Patients are worried. Doctors and nurses say your reforms are extremely risky and potentially disastrous. Why are you so arrogant to think you are right and all of the people who say you are wrong are wrong?"
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January 19, 2011, 2:30 am
![Image]( "Warning over 'assisted suicide' law")
The law on assisted suicide could lead to the worst possible "botched" death and must be changed, an inquiry has heard.
Current guidelines, issued by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) last year, are "particularly bad", creating confusion and uncertainty, Baroness Warnock said.
While amateurs are allowed to help someone to die, she argued the complex procedure of mercy killing should only be carried out by qualified medical professionals.
Her remarks came as Lord Falconer's inquiry into assisted dying heard evidence on the controversial debate.
At the moment, anyone acting with compassion to help end the life of someone who has decided they cannot go on is unlikely to face criminal charges.
Some travel to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland to end their life.
After she gave evidence, Lady Warnock, 86, said: "I think that only doctors and nurses can secure a safe death."
Earlier, Dignity in Dying chief executive Sarah Wootton said the 1961 Suicide Act was "no longer fit for purpose" and guidelines brought in after the case of right-to-die campaigner Debbie Purdy needed be replaced.
The Commission on Assisted Dying, an independent inquiry being held at the central London headquarters of think-tank Demos, is considering what system, if any, should exist to allow people to be helped to die and whether changes should be introduced to the law.
Assisted suicide remains a criminal offence in England and Wales, punishable by up to 14 years in prison, but individual decisions on prosecution will be made on the circumstances of each case.
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January 19, 2011, 2:30 am
![Image]( "Goldman Sachs pays staff £9.6bn")
Wall Street banking giant Goldman Sachs has revealed that staff earned £9.6 billion in pay and bonuses last year - equivalent to around £270,000 per employee.
The total figure represents a 5% decline on the previous year's pot but the share of revenues paid out in salary and benefits for 2010 was up from 35.8% at 39.3%.
The firm, which employs around 6,000 staff in the UK who are all eligible for performance-related bonuses, posted a 38% drop in net earnings to £5.23 billion for the year to December 31.
This followed a 13% decline in revenues to £24.51 billion.
The figures are the latest in the annual results season for major US banks and will be watched closely on these shores as UK banks prepare to release their own figures next month.
Goldman Sachs took £6.2 billion from the US Treasury at the height of the financial crisis but has since paid the money back, with taxpayers earning £865 million on the investment.
The New York-based group said the drop in revenues compared with 2009 was driven by declines in the firm's underwriting business.
Chief executive Lloyd Blankfein said: "Market and economic conditions for much of 2010 were difficult but the firm's performance benefited from the strength of our global client franchise and the focus and commitment of our people."
In the UK, Goldman forked out £291 million in UK bank payroll tax - a one-off 50% tax on bonuses above £25,000.
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber calling for the UK Government to do more to tackle bonuses. He said: "Goldman Sachs has stuck two fingers up to austerity Britain by shelling out mega bonuses again. These earnings would make Gordon Gekko blush."
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January 19, 2011, 5:04 am
![Image]( "Tory: Vote Lib Dem to beat Labour")
Voters should elect the Liberal Democrats in seats where the Conservatives stand little chance of defeating Labour, a senior Tory says.
Education Secretary Michael Gove's comments came as he defended the Government's decision to scrap the Education Maintenance Allowance.
He said that despite cuts to their grants, a number of Tory and Liberal Democrat councils were funding student travel costs, which was the "statutory duty" of local authorities.
Mr Gove told MPs: "Essex razed travel costs for children in receipt of a range of benefits and in Hull, Liberal Democrat-controlled Hull, any student in receipt of Education Maintenance Allowance also gets a travel grant to cope with the full cost.
"They wouldn't if Labour took power I suspect, but if they were wise enough to vote Liberal Democrat at the next local elections in Hull, or for the Conservatives in any seat where we are well placed to defeat Labour, then they will have a council which is fulfilling its statutory duty.
"It is no surprise that there are Liberal Democrat and Conservative councils which are ensuring that all students receive the support they deserve. It's striking that this is in addition to Education Maintenance Allowance."
Mr Gove's comments will risk fuelling Tory backbench fears of an electoral pact between the parties.
In last week's Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election, the Tories were accused of "soft-pedalling" in their campaign to give the Lib Dems a greater chance of taking the seat.
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January 19, 2011, 5:04 am
![Image]( "Burnham vows to fight EMA proposals")
The "incredible" human and social progress made since the 1980s will be "thrown into reverse" by the scrapping of the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA), Andy Burnham has warned.
On a day that campaigners took part in protests against the proposals, the shadow education secretary said there was a "compelling case" to keep EMA for educational, social, economic and democratic reasons.
In an Opposition debate calling on the Government to rethink its policy, he said he was not prepared to see the ladder "kicked away" from young people.
Mr Burnham said the allowance helped 650,000 young people and sent out an "empowering message of hope", allowing many young adults to have a "realistic dream" of going to university.
He also attacked the "myths" that the weekly payment of between £10 and £30 was used to pay for luxuries.
The money, paid to 16 to 18-year-olds living in households earning under £30,800, was "overwhelmingly used to provide the basics to support education" such as travel, books, equipment and food, he told MPs.
He condemned Conservative Margot James as an example of how "hopelessly out of touch" coalition MPs were after she claimed that 90% of students said they did not need the EMA.
Mr Burnham told the Commons: "The debate on tuition fees is already changing views on university. But for the least well-off, the full impact only becomes clear when set alongside the abolition of EMA.
"To those young people it feels like we have a Government which is stacking the odds against them.
"We are not prepared to see the ladder kicked away from those young people in the way that the Government propose."
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January 19, 2011, 5:06 am
![Image]( "PM admits unemployment is a concern")
The Prime Minister has admitted that rising unemployment is a "huge concern" as new figures showed the jobless total increasing to 2.5 million, with a record number of young people out of work.
Union leaders and opposition politicians voiced anger at the revelation that one in five 16 to 24-year-olds were jobless after an increase of 32,000 in the quarter to November to 951,000, the highest figure since records began in 1992.
Employment levels have fallen, redundancies have increased and the number of people classed as economically inactive has reached 9.3 million, grim figures from the Office for National Statistics showed, although there was a 4,100 fall in the number of people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance last month to 1.46 million.
Thousands more council jobs were earmarked for the axe because of Government spending cuts, taking the total to over 125,000, according to the GMB union.
Labour leader Ed Miliband accused David Cameron at Prime Minister's Questions of "complacency" over the 49,000 increase in unemployment, saying: "The truth is you are cutting too far and too fast and it is British people who are paying the price."
Mr Cameron replied: "Every increase in unemployment is a matter for huge concern and that is why we are launching the biggest back-to-work programme that this country has ever seen in the Work Programme.
"What I would say about the figures today, of course there were some very disappointing figures, particularly on youth unemployment ... but there are some mixed pictures because the claimant count has gone down for the third month in a row, the number of vacancies is up and also the average of independent forecasters published today see growth revised upwards.
"The biggest task for this Government and frankly for this country is to get to grips with the long-term structural problem of youth unemployment that has been going up for years in our country, and that went up by 40% under Labour."
The unemployment rate is now 7.9%, but for 16 to 24-year-olds it is 20.3%. The number of people who have taken retirement before reaching 65 increased by 39,000 to 1.56 million, the highest figure since records began in 1993.
Employment fell by 69,000 to 29 million, the biggest drop since the summer of 2009.
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January 19, 2011, 5:06 am
![Image]( "£1.7m payout for mine blast trooper")
A paratrooper who lost his left leg after he stepped on a landmine in Afghanistan has been awarded £1.7 million damages.
Sergeant Stuart Pearson was awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal after the September 2006 tragedy in Helmand Province, which killed Corporal Mark Wright and injured five other comrades from the 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment.
Cpl Wright was posthumously awarded the George Cross and two other soldiers gained the George Medal in the wake of the incident at a Taliban checkpoint near Kajaki Dam.
Judge Nicholas Chambers QC, at London's High Court, was told that 35-year-old Sgt Pearson's right foot was so badly damaged that it might also need to be amputated should a planned operation with only a 70% success rate fail.
Counsel Paul Rose QC said the soldier, who lives near Edinburgh, remained active despite his injuries and still enjoyed skiing and swimming.
The Ministry of Defence agreed a provisional compensation package which includes damages for pain and suffering as well as £600,000 for prosthetics and £270,000 for future care.
Further damages may be paid out in the future if the second amputation goes ahead.
At an October 2008 inquest, Sgt Pearson, who was a corporal at the time, said his team had been trying to rescue a colleague who was on his way to observe an enemy position when he trod on a mine and had his leg blown off.
Sgt Pearson, who joined the Army in June 1993 and also served in Northern Ireland, Kosovo and Iraq, planned to clear a path to move the soldier to safety to await a rescue helicopter, but then he too stood on a mine.
He was then blasted a further two times - when a colleague giving him first aid stood on a mine and when a helicopter came in to extract the men.
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January 19, 2011, 6:41 am
![Image]( "'Arrogant' Cameron accused over NHS")
David Cameron has been accused of being "arrogant" for pushing ahead with plans for one of the biggest shake-ups in the NHS's history despite opposition from health experts and unions.
The publication of the Health and Social Care Bill prompted a fierce exchange in the House of Commons, with Labour leader Ed Miliband saying patients feared waiting times for operations would go up.
Under the plans, all 151 of England's primary care trusts (PCTs) will be abolished, along with 10 strategic health authorities (SHAs).
GPs will be given around 80% of the NHS budget - currently topping £100 billion a year - to commission services for patients.
A new NHS commissioning board will oversee this process and new "health and well-being" boards will bring together NHS, public health and social care leaders.
Some 24,500 jobs in PCTs and SHAs are expected to be lost, with the redundancy bill put at £1 billion.
However, it emerged that up to 70% of staff could find themselves employed in the new structure.
At Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Miliband said patients were worried about the changes, including waiting times.
He asked Mr Cameron: "Doctors and nurses say your reforms are extremely risky and potentially disastrous.
"Why are you so arrogant to think you are right and all of the people who say you are wrong are wrong?"
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January 19, 2011, 6:41 am
![Image]( "Government defeats bid to save EMA")
A bid by Labour to prevent the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) being scrapped has been defeated in the Commons.
The party's call for Education Secretary Michael Gove to rethink his controversial decision was defeated by 317 votes to 258, Government majority 59.
It followed a full day's debate in which Mr Gove was told he had "thrown into reverse" the social mobility that EMA had given hundreds of thousands of students from poorer backgrounds.
The debate in the Commons came as thousands of students marched in central London against the plans to scrap the payment, which is paid to around 650,000 16 to 18-year olds in England.
Shadow education secretary Andy Burnham claimed the "incredible" human and social progress made since the 1980s would be "thrown into reverse" by the axing of EMA. It had helped boost the staying-on rate in education from 47% 25 years ago to 82% now, Mr Burnham claimed.
He said there was a "compelling case" to keep EMA for educational, social, economic and democratic reasons.
The weekly payments of between £10 and £30 for young adults living in households earning under £30,800, was "overwhelmingly used to provide the basics to support education" such as travel, books, equipment and food.
He angrily condemned coalition MPs as "hopelessly out of touch" who tried to claim that 90% of students didn't need the cash to make them stay on in further education.
Mr Burnham hailed the increase in the staying-on rate since the 1980s, telling MPs: "In the last 10 years the EMA has played an important part in that progress. It has sent out an empowering message of hope that you can dare to dream, whoever you are and wherever you come from. But sustaining the progress has to be worked on. Instead it is about to be thrown into reverse."
But Mr Gove said Labour had failed to set out its position on a range of education policies and had instead focused on EMA despite the economic difficulties.
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January 19, 2011, 6:43 am
![Image]( "'300 calls' to murdered Jo police")
More than 300 people have contacted detectives investigating the murder of Joanna Yeates in the past 24 hours, police said.
The calls to the Operation Braid incident room have been made since filming started on a reconstruction of the 25-year-old's final movements.
The tragic landscape architect's last journey, which started after she left work on December 17, was retrodden by an actress and filmed for BBC's Crimewatch.
The reconstruction focused on what she did after she left her firm, BDP, in Bristol city centre.
She went first to the Bristol Ram pub on Park Street in Bristol City centre, where she had Christmas drinks with work colleagues.
She spent around two hours socialising with her friends before leaving at around 8pm to make the 30-minute walk home to the ground floor flat in Canynge Road, Clifton, that she shared with her boyfriend Greg Reardon, 27.
Seen on CCTV in a Waitrose supermarket at the Clifton Triangle, she then went to a Tesco Express in Clifton village where she bought a pizza.
Detectives said Miss Yeates had made it home to her flat because her shoes, coat, mobile phone, purse and keys were found there - although the pizza, the wrapping and its box are still missing.
During the filming of the reconstruction, the actress playing the university graduate entered the Tesco Express on Regent Street in Clifton village.
She was wearing the same cream-coloured coat that Miss Yeates was wearing on the night she disappeared and she was seen buying the pizza.
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January 19, 2011, 6:43 am
![Image]( "Mine blast trooper wins damages")
A paratrooper who lost his left leg after he stepped on a landmine in Afghanistan has won damages at the High Court.
Sergeant Stuart Pearson was awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal after the September 2006 tragedy in Helmand Province, which killed Corporal Mark Wright and injured five other comrades from the 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment.
Cpl Wright was posthumously awarded the George Cross and two other soldiers gained the George Medal in the wake of the incident near a Taliban checkpoint by Kajaki Dam.
Judge Nicholas Chambers QC, at London's High Court, was told that 35-year-old Sgt Pearson's right foot was so badly damaged that it might also need to be amputated should a planned operation with only a 70% success rate fail.
Counsel Paul Rose QC said the soldier, who lives near Edinburgh, remained active despite his injuries and still enjoyed skiing and swimming.
The Ministry of Defence agreed a provisional compensation package which includes damages for pain and suffering as well as £600,000 for prosthetics and £270,000 for future care.
Further damages may be paid out in the future if the second amputation goes ahead.
A statement issued later by Sgt Pearson's lawyers, MPH Solicitors, said: "Sergeant Pearson is currently recovering from a further operation and is still a serving soldier and proud to hold that position." The firm said the full value of Sgt Pearson's claim was £1.775 million but he would not receive that amount.
Solicitor Geraldine McCool said: "An out-of-court settlement has been negotiated with the Ministry of Defence whereby he receives a percentage of full value to reflect the MoD's argument that this incident was covered by combat immunity. I am not at liberty to disclose the sum that Sergeant Pearson will be receiving but I know that he would also like to stress that he gives up his Armed Forces Compensation Service benefit (guaranteed income payment) in return.
"Today's court hearing was about the right for Sergeant Pearson to go back to court in the future and secure a further sum to deal with future losses in the worst-case scenario which, in his case, is further amputation. This right has been approved by the court."
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January 19, 2011, 2:20 pm
![Image]( "History lessons 'go back to basics'")
History and geography lessons are set to focus on facts and figures under a new back-to-basics national curriculum planned by ministers.
Education Secretary Michael Gove is launching a review of the curriculum after previously raising concerns that key areas of knowledge are missing from the current "overly-prescriptive" system.
The review will look at how the curriculum can be slimmed down, to contain only the "essential knowledge" children should acquire, and leave teachers to decide how to teach it.
In a speech last October, Mr Gove warned that children are leaving school unable to read and write properly and ignorant of the nation's history.
He called for an urgent shake-up to prevent the UK from being left behind by other countries.
Radical secondary curriculum reforms published by the last Labour Government in 2007 saw key historical figures such as Winston Churchill cut from a list of figures recommended for teaching as part of a bid to allow teachers more flexibility over what they teach.
The then Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the body responsible at the time, argued that teachers did not need to be told to mention pivotal figures in history lessons.
But the coalition government argues that there should be a core knowledge that pupils should have to take their place as "educated members of society".
This should "embody our cultural and scientific inheritance, the best that our past and present generations have to pass on to the next".
It means that as well as learning about key historical figures in history lessons, English classes could focus on great British writers like Dickens and Austen in English classes, geography lessons on the names of continents, cities, mountains and oceans in geography and music classes on the names of composers and conductors.
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January 19, 2011, 2:29 pm
![Image]( "DNA study in bid to tackle bedbugs")
Scientists hope to turn the tables on bedbugs after unravelling their genetic make-up.
The bloodsucking insects have recently undergone a major resurgence around the world, with some experts fearing a bedbug pandemic.
In parts of the UK infestations have tripled in the last decade, according to local authority figures.
Now experts in the US hope the first detailed genetic study of bedbugs will reveal chinks in their armour and lead to new methods of pest control.
Study author Dr Omprakash Mittapalli, from Ohio State University, said: "While bedbugs are poised to become one of the major household pests across the United States in the coming years, we know very little about their genetic make-up and their mechanisms of resistance to insecticides.
"This is the first study to elucidate the genetic make-up of the insect and obtain fundamental molecular knowledge regarding potential defence pathways and genes that may be involved in metabolic resistance to commonly used pesticides."
International travel, the exchange of used furniture and a shift away from powerful but dangerous insecticides such as DDT have all contributed to the rise of the bedbug.
In addition, bedbug populations have developed strong resistance to currently used pesticides such as pyrethroids.
The scientists analysed the DNA of both laboratory-reared bedbugs susceptible to pesticides and "wild" bedbugs collected from an apartment in Columbus, Ohio.
They identified two genes that may play a role in pesticide resistance. The research is published in the online journal Public Library of Science ONE.
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January 19, 2011, 2:29 pm
![Image]( "Met chief undercover denial queried")
A senior Metropolitan Police commander will be asked to account for the false information he gave MPs when he denied that plain-clothes officers were among the 2009 G20 demonstrations in London.
Giving evidence to the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee a month after the protest, in which thousands of demonstrators clashed with police, Commander Bob Broadhurst insisted there were no plain-clothes officers among the crowd, saying it would have been too dangerous.
But committee chairman Keith Vaz wrote to the Met's Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson last week after questions arose about Mr Broadhurst's evidence in the wake of the unmasking of undercover policeman Mark Kennedy.
Mr Kennedy attended many demonstrations during seven years living as a spy among green activists.
The Metropolitan Police was forced to admit that false information had been given, issuing a statement correcting the testimony given by Mr Broadhurst on May 19 2009.
Mr Broadhurst told MPs then: "We had no plain-clothes officers deployed within the crowd. It would have been dangerous for them to put plain-clothes officers in a crowd like that.
"The only officers we deploy for intelligence purposes at public order are forward intelligence team officers who are wearing full police uniforms with a yellow jacket with blue shoulders. There were no plain clothes officers deployed at all."
But the statement conceded: "Having made thorough checks on the back of recent media reporting we have now established that covert officers were deployed during the G20 protests. Therefore the information that was given by Commander Bob Broadhurst to the Home Affairs Select Committee saying that 'We had no plain-clothes officers deployed within the crowd' was not accurate...
"The officers were covertly deployed by the MPS (Metropolitan Police Service) to G20 protests to identify individuals who may be involved in the organisation of criminal activity and to give live time intelligence/evidence as to the protesters' activity."
Mr Broadhurst has now been summoned to appear before the committee again to explain the inaccuracy of his earlier evidence. However, the Met stood by Sir Paul's assurance to the committee at the same hearing that the force did not use "agents provocateurs" - undercover officers actively fomenting unrest - at the protests around the world leaders' summit in April 2009.
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January 19, 2011, 2:29 pm
![Image]( "Child badly hurt in dog attack")
A toddler is in a serious condition in hospital after being mauled by a dog.
The two-year-old girl was attacked by the animal, a Japanese akita believed to be her family's pet, in Hailsham, East Sussex, police said.
A Sussex Police spokesman said: "The injuries are serious but not life-threatening.
"The dog will be destroyed."
The girl was savaged in either her family home or the home of relatives, police added.
Her parents were by her bedside in hospital.
A South East Coast Ambulance Service spokeswoman said staff attended the incident at 8.15pm on Wednesday.
She said: "It was understood the child was mauled by the family pet.
"The toddler was taken to hospital under blue lights, however, we don't believe the injuries are life-threatening."
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January 19, 2011, 2:29 pm
![Image]( "U-turn claims on prisoner votes")
Ministers are reportedly considering restricting votes for prisoners to those serving 12 months or less.
According to the BBC, ministers are preparing to back down on plans to give the vote to all inmates serving less than four years in the hope of heading off a backbench revolt in the House of Commons.
The Cabinet Office, which is implementing the change in response to European court rulings, declined to confirm that a climbdown was in the offing.
But in a new statement, a spokesman said ministers were determined to do "the absolute minimum" to meet their legal obligations.
Prime Minister David Cameron has said that it was only with the greatest reluctance that he decided that some prisoners must be given the vote after the European Court of Human Rights found that the 140-year-old blanket ban was unlawful.
Failure to comply could cost tens of millions of pounds in legal costs and compensation, ministers warned. Some 2,500 inmates already have cases in motion.
But the prospect of granting the vote to more than 28,000 prisoners - including 6,000 violent offenders, 1,700 convicted of sex crimes and more than 4,000 burglars - sparked fury on Conservative backbenches when the four-year cut-off was floated last month.
Angry MPs will have a chance to revolt against the proposal in a few weeks' time, after Labour's former justice secretary Jack Straw and senior Tory David Davis secured a Commons vote on the issue. Cutting the maximum sentence under which prisoners can retain the right to vote to one year may see off a potentially embarrassing rebellion.
But it is almost certain to be tested in the courts, with the Government far from certain of victory.The Government will do the absolute minimum to meet its obligations and will ensure that the most serious offenders are barred from voting."
Shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan said: "I am pleased that this government has undertaken this U-turn. "The Government should be standing up for the victims of crime but instead they are slashing police numbers and giving dangerous convicted prisoners the vote. I hope for all our sakes this is the first of many U-turns."
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January 19, 2011, 3:09 pm
![Image]( "Labour fails in bid to save EMA")
Plans to scrap the controversial Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) are set to proceed unabated despite clashes in the Commons and protests on the streets.
This comes after a bid by Labour to prevent the EMA being ditched was defeated in Parliament, following an afternoon of protest in which central London was once again thronged with the shouts of hundreds of students demonstrating in favour of keeping EMA.
The allowance is a weekly payment of between £10 and £30 given to the poorest 16 to 18-year-olds, living in households earning under £30,800 a year, to help them stay in education.
But the Government has announced the grant is to be withdrawn and it is has already been closed to new applicants.
Campaigners are warning that scrapping the grant will affect thousands of youngsters who rely on the money to help fund their studies.
Labour's call for Education Secretary Michael Gove to rethink his controversial decision was defeated by 317 votes to 258, Government majority 59.
During the debate shadow education secretary Andy Burnham warned that "incredible" human and social progress made since the 1980s would be "thrown into reverse" if the allowance was ditched.
Mr Burnham said there was a "compelling case" to keep EMA for educational, social, economic and democratic reasons.
It helped 650,000 young people and sent out an "empowering message of hope", allowing many young adults to have a "realistic dream" of going to university, he said.
But Mr Gove hit back, accusing Labour of failing to set out its position on a range of education policies and instead focusing on EMA despite the economic difficulties, saying: "You have only one policy: to spend money we don't have."
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January 19, 2011, 3:09 pm
![Image]( "Pakistani 'terror group' in UK ban")
A "prolific terrorist organisation" based in Pakistan has become the ninth outfit to be banned from operating in the UK.
Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had carried out bombings across Pakistan and was linked to last year's failed Times Square terrorist attack in New York, Home Office Minister Damian Green told the Commons.
He successfully convinced MPs that a proscription order under the Terrorism Act 2000 should be placed against the group, banning it from operating in the UK.
Mr Green said the TTP had committed a number of terrorist attacks in Pakistan, including a suicide car bomb outside a court in March 2009 which killed 14 people and a bombing at a police station in September last year.
Seventeen people died in that bomb while it has also attacked a Nato convoy and the US consulate in Peshawar. "Having carefully considered all the evidence, the Home Secretary firmly believes that the TTP is currently concerned in terrorism," Mr Green told MPs. "The TTP is a prolific terrorist organisation that has committed a large number of mass casualty attacks in Pakistan.
"They have announced various objectives and demands such as the enforcement of Sharia (law), resistence against the Pakistani army and the removal of Nato forces from Pakistan. Proscription will align the UK with the emerging international consensus against this murderous organisation.
"The proscription of the TTP will contribute to making the UK a hostile environment for terrorists and their supporters and show our condemnation of the terrorist attacks the group continues to carry out in Pakistan."
He said the order will make the job of the police in disrupting the TTP easier, adding it was not representative of Pakistani or Muslim communities in the UK. The minister also admitted many groups tried to get round the Government's orders by changing their names.
Shadow home office minister Shabana Mahmood said Labour supported the proscription order against the TTP but said she wanted to know what had become of Prime Minister David Cameron's plans to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir, a global Islamic organisation.
Mr Green said that for security reasons he could not comment on whether Hizb ut-Tahrir was being considered for proscription.
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Unemployment has soared by 49,000 to 2.5 million, with a record number of young people out of work, new figures have shown.
One in five 16 to 24-year-olds are jobless after an increase of 32,000 in the quarter to November to 951,000, the highest figure since records began in 1992.
Employment levels have fallen, redundancies have increased and the number of people classed as economically inactive has reached 9.3 million, the figures revealed.
The only bright news from the Office for National Statistics was a 4,100 fall in the number of people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance last month to 1.46 million.
The unemployment rate is now 7.9%, but for 16 to 24-year-olds it is 20.3%. There were 157,000 redundancies in the latest quarter, up by 14,000 on the previous three months.
The inactivity rate is now 23.4% after an 89,000 increase in the number of people classed as economically inactive, including students, those looking after a sick relative and people who have given up looking for a job.
Employment fell by 69,000 to 29 million, the biggest drop since the summer of 2009. Public sector employment fell by 33,000 to six million between last June and September while the number of private sector employees remained unchanged at 23 million.
Employment Minister Chris Grayling said: "These figures serve to underline the scale of the challenge we face. We inherited the largest budget deficit in peacetime history and high levels of worklessness, which we are determined to bring down by rebalancing the economy and supporting private sector jobs growth."
Trades Union Congress (TUC) general secretary Brendan Barber said: "The grim jobless figures show that rising unemployment is more than an autumn blip and that it could get much worse in 2011. With more than a fifth of young people out of work, we face a real danger of losing another generation of young people to unemployment and wasted ambition."
Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, said: "It's no surprise that the job loss totals are creeping up. The coalition's policies are poisonous for our recovery and risk a downward spiral for our economy."
Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has unveiled his plan to make local television "a reality".
The minister announced an Action Plan For Local Media at the Oxford Media Convention and invited firms to register their interest in running a new channel, which will carry local news and content, by March 1. Licences for local television services will be handed out before the end of 2012.
In a speech to the convention, Mr Hunt said: "To make this vision a reality I am today inviting existing and new media providers to come forward with suggestions as to how this network channel - or local TV 'spine' - could work.
"What this will mean, for consumers, is a new channel dedicated to the provision of local news and content. One that will sit alongside other public service broadcasters, offering a new voice for local communities, with local perspectives that are directly relevant to them.
"We won't be prescriptive. We will wait for the necessary technical assessment to be completed and we will listen to the commercially viable proposals that come forward. Our goal is to be able to award the relevant licences by the end of 2012, and for local TV to be up and running soon after."
Mr Hunt added that "impartiality regulations" would apply to the television services.
A panel set up to examine the idea said local television channels might broadcast in only "10 to 12" areas to begin with.
The review chaired by investment banker Nicholas Shott said it would take "significant effort" to make the plan a success. Its report, published last year, said the channels "may initially be focused in and around 10 to 12 conurbations" and provide "at least two hours of reasonably low-cost but high quality content a day".
Mr Hunt continued: "It is easy to be patronising about hyper-local services, but take a look at the evidence of what consumers truly value. Eight out of 10 consider local news important, nearly seven out of 10 adults feel localness of stories is more important than them being professionally produced."
He added: "People in Barnham don't want to watch what is going on in Southampton. People in Chelmsford aren't interested in what's happening in Watford. That is the system we currently have at the moment, so that is what we are trying to rethink."
The Government has said a patient-centred NHS is a "step closer to reality" as it published its plans for a radical overhaul of the health service.
The Health and Social Care Bill will see all 152 of England's primary care trusts (PCTs) scrapped alongside 10 strategic health authorities, leading to the predicted loss of 24,500 jobs. Almost 21,000 of these losses will be through redundancy while the rest involve people leaving the service or retiring.
GPs will be given around 80% of the NHS budget - currently topping £100 billion a year - to commission services for patients. A new NHS commissioning board will oversee this process and new "health and wellbeing" boards are being created.
But the plans have come under fierce attack from health unions and doctors' leaders worried that the reforms are "too much too soon".
The cost of implementing the changes is £1.4 billion but Health Secretary Andrew Lansley insists they will save the NHS more than £5 billion by 2014/15 and £1.7 billion every year thereafter.
Mr Lansley said: "Modernising the NHS is a necessity, not an option - in order to meet rising need in the future, we need to make changes.
"We need to take steps to improve health outcomes, bringing them up to the standards of the best international healthcare systems and to bring down the NHS money spent on drugs.
"This legislation will deliver changes that will improve outcomes for patients and save the NHS £1.7 billion every year - money that will be reinvested into services for patients."
The proposals prompted a fierce exchange in the House of Commons with Labour leader Ed Miliband accusing Prime Minister David Cameron of being "arrogant" for pressing ahead with them despite warnings from unions and health experts.
Mr Miliband said: "Patients are worried. Doctors and nurses say your reforms are extremely risky and potentially disastrous. Why are you so arrogant to think you are right and all of the people who say you are wrong are wrong?"
The law on assisted suicide could lead to the worst possible "botched" death and must be changed, an inquiry has heard.
Current guidelines, issued by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) last year, are "particularly bad", creating confusion and uncertainty, Baroness Warnock said.
While amateurs are allowed to help someone to die, she argued the complex procedure of mercy killing should only be carried out by qualified medical professionals.
Her remarks came as Lord Falconer's inquiry into assisted dying heard evidence on the controversial debate.
At the moment, anyone acting with compassion to help end the life of someone who has decided they cannot go on is unlikely to face criminal charges.
Some travel to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland to end their life.
After she gave evidence, Lady Warnock, 86, said: "I think that only doctors and nurses can secure a safe death."
Earlier, Dignity in Dying chief executive Sarah Wootton said the 1961 Suicide Act was "no longer fit for purpose" and guidelines brought in after the case of right-to-die campaigner Debbie Purdy needed be replaced.
The Commission on Assisted Dying, an independent inquiry being held at the central London headquarters of think-tank Demos, is considering what system, if any, should exist to allow people to be helped to die and whether changes should be introduced to the law.
Assisted suicide remains a criminal offence in England and Wales, punishable by up to 14 years in prison, but individual decisions on prosecution will be made on the circumstances of each case.
Wall Street banking giant Goldman Sachs has revealed that staff earned £9.6 billion in pay and bonuses last year - equivalent to around £270,000 per employee.
The total figure represents a 5% decline on the previous year's pot but the share of revenues paid out in salary and benefits for 2010 was up from 35.8% at 39.3%.
The firm, which employs around 6,000 staff in the UK who are all eligible for performance-related bonuses, posted a 38% drop in net earnings to £5.23 billion for the year to December 31.
This followed a 13% decline in revenues to £24.51 billion.
The figures are the latest in the annual results season for major US banks and will be watched closely on these shores as UK banks prepare to release their own figures next month.
Goldman Sachs took £6.2 billion from the US Treasury at the height of the financial crisis but has since paid the money back, with taxpayers earning £865 million on the investment.
The New York-based group said the drop in revenues compared with 2009 was driven by declines in the firm's underwriting business.
Chief executive Lloyd Blankfein said: "Market and economic conditions for much of 2010 were difficult but the firm's performance benefited from the strength of our global client franchise and the focus and commitment of our people."
In the UK, Goldman forked out £291 million in UK bank payroll tax - a one-off 50% tax on bonuses above £25,000.
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber calling for the UK Government to do more to tackle bonuses. He said: "Goldman Sachs has stuck two fingers up to austerity Britain by shelling out mega bonuses again. These earnings would make Gordon Gekko blush."
Voters should elect the Liberal Democrats in seats where the Conservatives stand little chance of defeating Labour, a senior Tory says.
Education Secretary Michael Gove's comments came as he defended the Government's decision to scrap the Education Maintenance Allowance.
He said that despite cuts to their grants, a number of Tory and Liberal Democrat councils were funding student travel costs, which was the "statutory duty" of local authorities.
Mr Gove told MPs: "Essex razed travel costs for children in receipt of a range of benefits and in Hull, Liberal Democrat-controlled Hull, any student in receipt of Education Maintenance Allowance also gets a travel grant to cope with the full cost.
"They wouldn't if Labour took power I suspect, but if they were wise enough to vote Liberal Democrat at the next local elections in Hull, or for the Conservatives in any seat where we are well placed to defeat Labour, then they will have a council which is fulfilling its statutory duty.
"It is no surprise that there are Liberal Democrat and Conservative councils which are ensuring that all students receive the support they deserve. It's striking that this is in addition to Education Maintenance Allowance."
Mr Gove's comments will risk fuelling Tory backbench fears of an electoral pact between the parties.
In last week's Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election, the Tories were accused of "soft-pedalling" in their campaign to give the Lib Dems a greater chance of taking the seat.
The "incredible" human and social progress made since the 1980s will be "thrown into reverse" by the scrapping of the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA), Andy Burnham has warned.
On a day that campaigners took part in protests against the proposals, the shadow education secretary said there was a "compelling case" to keep EMA for educational, social, economic and democratic reasons.
In an Opposition debate calling on the Government to rethink its policy, he said he was not prepared to see the ladder "kicked away" from young people.
Mr Burnham said the allowance helped 650,000 young people and sent out an "empowering message of hope", allowing many young adults to have a "realistic dream" of going to university.
He also attacked the "myths" that the weekly payment of between £10 and £30 was used to pay for luxuries.
The money, paid to 16 to 18-year-olds living in households earning under £30,800, was "overwhelmingly used to provide the basics to support education" such as travel, books, equipment and food, he told MPs.
He condemned Conservative Margot James as an example of how "hopelessly out of touch" coalition MPs were after she claimed that 90% of students said they did not need the EMA.
Mr Burnham told the Commons: "The debate on tuition fees is already changing views on university. But for the least well-off, the full impact only becomes clear when set alongside the abolition of EMA.
"To those young people it feels like we have a Government which is stacking the odds against them.
"We are not prepared to see the ladder kicked away from those young people in the way that the Government propose."
The Prime Minister has admitted that rising unemployment is a "huge concern" as new figures showed the jobless total increasing to 2.5 million, with a record number of young people out of work.
Union leaders and opposition politicians voiced anger at the revelation that one in five 16 to 24-year-olds were jobless after an increase of 32,000 in the quarter to November to 951,000, the highest figure since records began in 1992.
Employment levels have fallen, redundancies have increased and the number of people classed as economically inactive has reached 9.3 million, grim figures from the Office for National Statistics showed, although there was a 4,100 fall in the number of people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance last month to 1.46 million.
Thousands more council jobs were earmarked for the axe because of Government spending cuts, taking the total to over 125,000, according to the GMB union.
Labour leader Ed Miliband accused David Cameron at Prime Minister's Questions of "complacency" over the 49,000 increase in unemployment, saying: "The truth is you are cutting too far and too fast and it is British people who are paying the price."
Mr Cameron replied: "Every increase in unemployment is a matter for huge concern and that is why we are launching the biggest back-to-work programme that this country has ever seen in the Work Programme.
"What I would say about the figures today, of course there were some very disappointing figures, particularly on youth unemployment ... but there are some mixed pictures because the claimant count has gone down for the third month in a row, the number of vacancies is up and also the average of independent forecasters published today see growth revised upwards.
"The biggest task for this Government and frankly for this country is to get to grips with the long-term structural problem of youth unemployment that has been going up for years in our country, and that went up by 40% under Labour."
The unemployment rate is now 7.9%, but for 16 to 24-year-olds it is 20.3%. The number of people who have taken retirement before reaching 65 increased by 39,000 to 1.56 million, the highest figure since records began in 1993.
Employment fell by 69,000 to 29 million, the biggest drop since the summer of 2009.
A paratrooper who lost his left leg after he stepped on a landmine in Afghanistan has been awarded £1.7 million damages.
Sergeant Stuart Pearson was awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal after the September 2006 tragedy in Helmand Province, which killed Corporal Mark Wright and injured five other comrades from the 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment.
Cpl Wright was posthumously awarded the George Cross and two other soldiers gained the George Medal in the wake of the incident at a Taliban checkpoint near Kajaki Dam.
Judge Nicholas Chambers QC, at London's High Court, was told that 35-year-old Sgt Pearson's right foot was so badly damaged that it might also need to be amputated should a planned operation with only a 70% success rate fail.
Counsel Paul Rose QC said the soldier, who lives near Edinburgh, remained active despite his injuries and still enjoyed skiing and swimming.
The Ministry of Defence agreed a provisional compensation package which includes damages for pain and suffering as well as £600,000 for prosthetics and £270,000 for future care.
Further damages may be paid out in the future if the second amputation goes ahead.
At an October 2008 inquest, Sgt Pearson, who was a corporal at the time, said his team had been trying to rescue a colleague who was on his way to observe an enemy position when he trod on a mine and had his leg blown off.
Sgt Pearson, who joined the Army in June 1993 and also served in Northern Ireland, Kosovo and Iraq, planned to clear a path to move the soldier to safety to await a rescue helicopter, but then he too stood on a mine.
He was then blasted a further two times - when a colleague giving him first aid stood on a mine and when a helicopter came in to extract the men.
David Cameron has been accused of being "arrogant" for pushing ahead with plans for one of the biggest shake-ups in the NHS's history despite opposition from health experts and unions.
The publication of the Health and Social Care Bill prompted a fierce exchange in the House of Commons, with Labour leader Ed Miliband saying patients feared waiting times for operations would go up.
Under the plans, all 151 of England's primary care trusts (PCTs) will be abolished, along with 10 strategic health authorities (SHAs).
GPs will be given around 80% of the NHS budget - currently topping £100 billion a year - to commission services for patients.
A new NHS commissioning board will oversee this process and new "health and well-being" boards will bring together NHS, public health and social care leaders.
Some 24,500 jobs in PCTs and SHAs are expected to be lost, with the redundancy bill put at £1 billion.
However, it emerged that up to 70% of staff could find themselves employed in the new structure.
At Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Miliband said patients were worried about the changes, including waiting times.
He asked Mr Cameron: "Doctors and nurses say your reforms are extremely risky and potentially disastrous.
"Why are you so arrogant to think you are right and all of the people who say you are wrong are wrong?"
A bid by Labour to prevent the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) being scrapped has been defeated in the Commons.
The party's call for Education Secretary Michael Gove to rethink his controversial decision was defeated by 317 votes to 258, Government majority 59.
It followed a full day's debate in which Mr Gove was told he had "thrown into reverse" the social mobility that EMA had given hundreds of thousands of students from poorer backgrounds.
The debate in the Commons came as thousands of students marched in central London against the plans to scrap the payment, which is paid to around 650,000 16 to 18-year olds in England.
Shadow education secretary Andy Burnham claimed the "incredible" human and social progress made since the 1980s would be "thrown into reverse" by the axing of EMA. It had helped boost the staying-on rate in education from 47% 25 years ago to 82% now, Mr Burnham claimed.
He said there was a "compelling case" to keep EMA for educational, social, economic and democratic reasons.
The weekly payments of between £10 and £30 for young adults living in households earning under £30,800, was "overwhelmingly used to provide the basics to support education" such as travel, books, equipment and food.
He angrily condemned coalition MPs as "hopelessly out of touch" who tried to claim that 90% of students didn't need the cash to make them stay on in further education.
Mr Burnham hailed the increase in the staying-on rate since the 1980s, telling MPs: "In the last 10 years the EMA has played an important part in that progress. It has sent out an empowering message of hope that you can dare to dream, whoever you are and wherever you come from. But sustaining the progress has to be worked on. Instead it is about to be thrown into reverse."
But Mr Gove said Labour had failed to set out its position on a range of education policies and had instead focused on EMA despite the economic difficulties.
More than 300 people have contacted detectives investigating the murder of Joanna Yeates in the past 24 hours, police said.
The calls to the Operation Braid incident room have been made since filming started on a reconstruction of the 25-year-old's final movements.
The tragic landscape architect's last journey, which started after she left work on December 17, was retrodden by an actress and filmed for BBC's Crimewatch.
The reconstruction focused on what she did after she left her firm, BDP, in Bristol city centre.
She went first to the Bristol Ram pub on Park Street in Bristol City centre, where she had Christmas drinks with work colleagues.
She spent around two hours socialising with her friends before leaving at around 8pm to make the 30-minute walk home to the ground floor flat in Canynge Road, Clifton, that she shared with her boyfriend Greg Reardon, 27.
Seen on CCTV in a Waitrose supermarket at the Clifton Triangle, she then went to a Tesco Express in Clifton village where she bought a pizza.
Detectives said Miss Yeates had made it home to her flat because her shoes, coat, mobile phone, purse and keys were found there - although the pizza, the wrapping and its box are still missing.
During the filming of the reconstruction, the actress playing the university graduate entered the Tesco Express on Regent Street in Clifton village.
She was wearing the same cream-coloured coat that Miss Yeates was wearing on the night she disappeared and she was seen buying the pizza.
History and geography lessons are set to focus on facts and figures under a new back-to-basics national curriculum planned by ministers.
Education Secretary Michael Gove is launching a review of the curriculum after previously raising concerns that key areas of knowledge are missing from the current "overly-prescriptive" system.
The review will look at how the curriculum can be slimmed down, to contain only the "essential knowledge" children should acquire, and leave teachers to decide how to teach it.
In a speech last October, Mr Gove warned that children are leaving school unable to read and write properly and ignorant of the nation's history.
He called for an urgent shake-up to prevent the UK from being left behind by other countries.
Radical secondary curriculum reforms published by the last Labour Government in 2007 saw key historical figures such as Winston Churchill cut from a list of figures recommended for teaching as part of a bid to allow teachers more flexibility over what they teach.
The then Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the body responsible at the time, argued that teachers did not need to be told to mention pivotal figures in history lessons.
But the coalition government argues that there should be a core knowledge that pupils should have to take their place as "educated members of society".
This should "embody our cultural and scientific inheritance, the best that our past and present generations have to pass on to the next".
It means that as well as learning about key historical figures in history lessons, English classes could focus on great British writers like Dickens and Austen in English classes, geography lessons on the names of continents, cities, mountains and oceans in geography and music classes on the names of composers and conductors.
Scientists hope to turn the tables on bedbugs after unravelling their genetic make-up.
The bloodsucking insects have recently undergone a major resurgence around the world, with some experts fearing a bedbug pandemic.
In parts of the UK infestations have tripled in the last decade, according to local authority figures.
Now experts in the US hope the first detailed genetic study of bedbugs will reveal chinks in their armour and lead to new methods of pest control.
Study author Dr Omprakash Mittapalli, from Ohio State University, said: "While bedbugs are poised to become one of the major household pests across the United States in the coming years, we know very little about their genetic make-up and their mechanisms of resistance to insecticides.
"This is the first study to elucidate the genetic make-up of the insect and obtain fundamental molecular knowledge regarding potential defence pathways and genes that may be involved in metabolic resistance to commonly used pesticides."
International travel, the exchange of used furniture and a shift away from powerful but dangerous insecticides such as DDT have all contributed to the rise of the bedbug.
In addition, bedbug populations have developed strong resistance to currently used pesticides such as pyrethroids.
The scientists analysed the DNA of both laboratory-reared bedbugs susceptible to pesticides and "wild" bedbugs collected from an apartment in Columbus, Ohio.
They identified two genes that may play a role in pesticide resistance. The research is published in the online journal Public Library of Science ONE.
A senior Metropolitan Police commander will be asked to account for the false information he gave MPs when he denied that plain-clothes officers were among the 2009 G20 demonstrations in London.
Giving evidence to the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee a month after the protest, in which thousands of demonstrators clashed with police, Commander Bob Broadhurst insisted there were no plain-clothes officers among the crowd, saying it would have been too dangerous.
But committee chairman Keith Vaz wrote to the Met's Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson last week after questions arose about Mr Broadhurst's evidence in the wake of the unmasking of undercover policeman Mark Kennedy.
Mr Kennedy attended many demonstrations during seven years living as a spy among green activists.
The Metropolitan Police was forced to admit that false information had been given, issuing a statement correcting the testimony given by Mr Broadhurst on May 19 2009.
Mr Broadhurst told MPs then: "We had no plain-clothes officers deployed within the crowd. It would have been dangerous for them to put plain-clothes officers in a crowd like that.
"The only officers we deploy for intelligence purposes at public order are forward intelligence team officers who are wearing full police uniforms with a yellow jacket with blue shoulders. There were no plain clothes officers deployed at all."
But the statement conceded: "Having made thorough checks on the back of recent media reporting we have now established that covert officers were deployed during the G20 protests. Therefore the information that was given by Commander Bob Broadhurst to the Home Affairs Select Committee saying that 'We had no plain-clothes officers deployed within the crowd' was not accurate...
"The officers were covertly deployed by the MPS (Metropolitan Police Service) to G20 protests to identify individuals who may be involved in the organisation of criminal activity and to give live time intelligence/evidence as to the protesters' activity."
Mr Broadhurst has now been summoned to appear before the committee again to explain the inaccuracy of his earlier evidence. However, the Met stood by Sir Paul's assurance to the committee at the same hearing that the force did not use "agents provocateurs" - undercover officers actively fomenting unrest - at the protests around the world leaders' summit in April 2009.
A toddler is in a serious condition in hospital after being mauled by a dog.
The two-year-old girl was attacked by the animal, a Japanese akita believed to be her family's pet, in Hailsham, East Sussex, police said.
A Sussex Police spokesman said: "The injuries are serious but not life-threatening.
"The dog will be destroyed."
The girl was savaged in either her family home or the home of relatives, police added.
Her parents were by her bedside in hospital.
A South East Coast Ambulance Service spokeswoman said staff attended the incident at 8.15pm on Wednesday.
She said: "It was understood the child was mauled by the family pet.
"The toddler was taken to hospital under blue lights, however, we don't believe the injuries are life-threatening."
Ministers are reportedly considering restricting votes for prisoners to those serving 12 months or less.
According to the BBC, ministers are preparing to back down on plans to give the vote to all inmates serving less than four years in the hope of heading off a backbench revolt in the House of Commons.
The Cabinet Office, which is implementing the change in response to European court rulings, declined to confirm that a climbdown was in the offing.
But in a new statement, a spokesman said ministers were determined to do "the absolute minimum" to meet their legal obligations.
Prime Minister David Cameron has said that it was only with the greatest reluctance that he decided that some prisoners must be given the vote after the European Court of Human Rights found that the 140-year-old blanket ban was unlawful.
Failure to comply could cost tens of millions of pounds in legal costs and compensation, ministers warned. Some 2,500 inmates already have cases in motion.
But the prospect of granting the vote to more than 28,000 prisoners - including 6,000 violent offenders, 1,700 convicted of sex crimes and more than 4,000 burglars - sparked fury on Conservative backbenches when the four-year cut-off was floated last month.
Angry MPs will have a chance to revolt against the proposal in a few weeks' time, after Labour's former justice secretary Jack Straw and senior Tory David Davis secured a Commons vote on the issue. Cutting the maximum sentence under which prisoners can retain the right to vote to one year may see off a potentially embarrassing rebellion.
But it is almost certain to be tested in the courts, with the Government far from certain of victory.The Government will do the absolute minimum to meet its obligations and will ensure that the most serious offenders are barred from voting."
Shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan said: "I am pleased that this government has undertaken this U-turn. "The Government should be standing up for the victims of crime but instead they are slashing police numbers and giving dangerous convicted prisoners the vote. I hope for all our sakes this is the first of many U-turns."
Plans to scrap the controversial Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) are set to proceed unabated despite clashes in the Commons and protests on the streets.
This comes after a bid by Labour to prevent the EMA being ditched was defeated in Parliament, following an afternoon of protest in which central London was once again thronged with the shouts of hundreds of students demonstrating in favour of keeping EMA.
The allowance is a weekly payment of between £10 and £30 given to the poorest 16 to 18-year-olds, living in households earning under £30,800 a year, to help them stay in education.
But the Government has announced the grant is to be withdrawn and it is has already been closed to new applicants.
Campaigners are warning that scrapping the grant will affect thousands of youngsters who rely on the money to help fund their studies.
Labour's call for Education Secretary Michael Gove to rethink his controversial decision was defeated by 317 votes to 258, Government majority 59.
During the debate shadow education secretary Andy Burnham warned that "incredible" human and social progress made since the 1980s would be "thrown into reverse" if the allowance was ditched.
Mr Burnham said there was a "compelling case" to keep EMA for educational, social, economic and democratic reasons.
It helped 650,000 young people and sent out an "empowering message of hope", allowing many young adults to have a "realistic dream" of going to university, he said.
But Mr Gove hit back, accusing Labour of failing to set out its position on a range of education policies and instead focusing on EMA despite the economic difficulties, saying: "You have only one policy: to spend money we don't have."
A "prolific terrorist organisation" based in Pakistan has become the ninth outfit to be banned from operating in the UK.
Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had carried out bombings across Pakistan and was linked to last year's failed Times Square terrorist attack in New York, Home Office Minister Damian Green told the Commons.
He successfully convinced MPs that a proscription order under the Terrorism Act 2000 should be placed against the group, banning it from operating in the UK.
Mr Green said the TTP had committed a number of terrorist attacks in Pakistan, including a suicide car bomb outside a court in March 2009 which killed 14 people and a bombing at a police station in September last year.
Seventeen people died in that bomb while it has also attacked a Nato convoy and the US consulate in Peshawar. "Having carefully considered all the evidence, the Home Secretary firmly believes that the TTP is currently concerned in terrorism," Mr Green told MPs. "The TTP is a prolific terrorist organisation that has committed a large number of mass casualty attacks in Pakistan.
"They have announced various objectives and demands such as the enforcement of Sharia (law), resistence against the Pakistani army and the removal of Nato forces from Pakistan. Proscription will align the UK with the emerging international consensus against this murderous organisation.
"The proscription of the TTP will contribute to making the UK a hostile environment for terrorists and their supporters and show our condemnation of the terrorist attacks the group continues to carry out in Pakistan."
He said the order will make the job of the police in disrupting the TTP easier, adding it was not representative of Pakistani or Muslim communities in the UK. The minister also admitted many groups tried to get round the Government's orders by changing their names.
Shadow home office minister Shabana Mahmood said Labour supported the proscription order against the TTP but said she wanted to know what had become of Prime Minister David Cameron's plans to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir, a global Islamic organisation.
Mr Green said that for security reasons he could not comment on whether Hizb ut-Tahrir was being considered for proscription.
