Football League clubs concerned over plan to shake up academies

The league's 72 clubs are being urged to back an overhaul of the youth development system but some in the game fear only the Premier League will benefit

Representatives of the 72 Football League clubs are to vote on Thursday morning on a proposed revolution to the player academy system that would make it easier and cheaper for Premier League clubs to recruit young talent from lesser teams.The proposed new ...

The secret of the world's oldest marathon runner

Fauja Singh, 100, who completed the Toronto race, says it's all down to avoiding stress

'Anything worth doing is going to be difficult," says Fauja Singh, the 100-year-old runner who this week became the world's oldest person to complete a full-length marathon, crossing the line at the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront event in eight hours, 25 mi ...

Phone hacking: NI lawyer says he knew its 'rogue reporter' defence was wrong

Farrer & Co partner tells MPs he was aware company had misled parliament but did not act because of client confidentiality. By James Robinson

A lawyer who acted for News International (NI) over phone-hacking claims has told MPs he knew the company had misled parliament about the affair but he had not spoken up because of client confidentiality.Julian Pike, a partner at Farrer & Co, the law f ...

Rangi Chase to start for cosmopolitan England in France warm-up

The New Zealander Rangi Chase, the Australian Chris Heighington and the Brisbane Broncos' Yorkshireman Jack Reed will make their England debuts against France

After selecting debutants from New Zealand, New South Wales and Silsden via Queensland's Bribie Island for Friday's international against France in Avignon, the England coach Steve McNamara headed for London to seek further inspiration from Florida.McNamar ...

London 2012: It's all in the detail as Sir Chris Hoy focuses on gold

Sir Chris Hoy, the Olympic sprint, keirin and team sprint champion, has put his training up a gear in bid to replicate Beijing success, he tells William Fotheringham

The issue facing Sir Chris Hoy and the managers of the British track team over the next nine months is simple: how do you replicate perfection? In winning three gold medals in the Beijing Olympic Games – in the sprint, keirin and team sprint – Hoy coul ...

IndyCar delays testing of 2012 car in wake of Dan Wheldon's death

Testing of the 2012 IndyCar model – which will now be named after Dan Wheldon – will not take place in Las Vegas this week

IndyCar has cancelled this week's test of its new car, which was to take place at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the track at which the British driver Dan Wheldon was killed on Sunday. Dallara, the Italian manufacturer of the chassis, has announced it will ...

Rugby World Cup final: France name unchanged side but tensions remain

Richard Williams: Marc Lièvremont has named an unchanged side to face New Zealand in Sunday's final but France are still far from united

Marc Lièvremont has named an unchanged France XV to face New Zealand in the final of the 2011 Rugby World Cup, but as he and some of his players faced the press they managed to give the impression of a squad increasingly divided and lacking the signs of a ...

Rugby World Cup must not shun established hosts, says Australia coach

The Australia coach, Robbie Deans, wants to see another World Cup held in his native New Zealand and is worried the IRB will ignore established rugby nations

The Australia coach, Robbie Deans, wants to see another World Cup held in his native New Zealand and has warned the tournament organisers against regularly taking it away from established rugby nations.The International Rugby Board, which has taken a ...

Egg and sperm donors to be paid more compensation

Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority approves higher payments in effort to end shortages

Compensation paid to egg and sperm donors will increase under proposals approved by the UK's fertility regulator.The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has agreed to much higher payments in an effort to tackle serious shortages of both egg ...

Whip rules: Jockeys put pressure on BHA to drop financial penalties

Tony McCoy and Frankie Dettori have told the BHA to stop saying they gave them their approval for the new whip rules

Unofficial strike action by jockeys in protest at the British Horseracing Authority's new whip rules appeared to be increasingly likely on Wednesday, when the Professional Jockeys' Association released a statement on the dispute which called for "urgent ac ...

Snap judgments in the Patrice Evra-Luis Suárez dispute help no one

Marina Hyde: All accusations of racism should be taken seriously, but all players are innocent until proven guilty – contrary to what you may have read

Is there anything less appealing than the absolute moral certainty with which some Liverpool fans automatically dismissed Patrice Evra's claim that he was racially abused, and some Manchester United fans automatically wrote off Luis Suárez as a racist, de ...

Alexander Crummell, Cambridge's first black graduate

Story of long-obscure 19th-century American student to be told at university's festival of ideas

Alexander Crummell is not a name that resonates in any list of black pioneers but his story as the son of a former slave who became almost certainly the first black student to graduate from Cambridge University will be told tonight at a lecture in the univ ...

Kenneth Clarke plans secret court hearings to avoid revealing intelligence

Vetted lawyers would see information but not share it with clients under the plans in the wake of Guantánamo cases

Intelligence gathered by MI5 and MI6, even if obtained by torture, will never be disclosed in court proceedings and more inquests would be heard in private under proposals announced by the justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke.The proposals – in a green pap ...

Egyptian mummy portraits go on display at Ashmolean museum

£5m Egypt project is allowing Oxford's Ashmolean museum to display stunning objects kept in storage for years

Three beautifully restored mummy portraits of well-off young people who were, 2,000 years ago, probably members of a mysterious group called "the 6475" are to go on display at the new home for one of the most important Egyptian collections in the world.The ...

Student killed in nightclub 'stampede'

Nabila Nanfuka, from London, died and two others were critically injured in crush at Northampton club

A young woman died and 10 people were injured in what one witness described as a stampede at a nightclub.Nabila Nanfuka, 22, from Neasden, north-west London, fell amid chaotic scenes at the Lava Ignite club in Northampton early on Wednesday , during a danc ...

Vincent Tabak misread Joanna Yeates's friendliness, court told

Dutch engineer panicked after 25-year-old screamed when he tried to kiss her following invitation into her flat, barrister tells jury

Vincent Tabak claims that he killed his next door neighbour Joanna Yeates after misreading her friendliness and trying to kiss her.Tabak says the landscape architect let out a piercing scream causing him to panic and put one hand around her throat and the ...

Angela Hartnett's chicken with lemon, and chilli broccoli recipes

A last chance to put seasonal broccoli to use before winter arrives

Chicken is my favourite meat and I would happily eat it roasted any day of the week. And it's our last chance to snap up the seasonal broccoli before winter finally sets in.The chicken can be served hot or cold, but you want the cooking juices to soak into ...

Turkish troops enter northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish rebels

Offensive against PKK fighters launched after 26 soldiers killed in attacks on military outposts

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Size shouldn't matter: tiny kitchens

Cooking in a small space has definite advantages, but you must choose your equipment carefully and change the way you work

It was the kettle that prompted the gasp of horror; isn't a kitchen without the visible promise of tea against some sort of law in Britain? But after a year of cooking in a kitchen so small that I smashed a piece of crockery every time I cooked, I nee ...

How to cook perfect tarte tatin

A glorious sticky sweet toffee-topped French treat and one of the things apples most want to be when they grow up. How caramelised do you like them, and on what sort of pastry?

This French classic turns the Puritan plain apple pie on its head. Instead of soft clouds of sweetly sour fruit tucked beneath a comforting blanket of biscuity pastry, the tatin brazenly displays its wares, stickily caramelised and decadently buttery, on t ...

Hanoi hotel's secret bunker used by Jane Fonda found after 40 years

Bomb shelter uncovered by workmen at historic Metropole revives Vietnam war stories – but its future is uncertain

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'Tunisia elections are a good thing, but we mustn't throw the revolution away'

Tunisians speak of their hopes for the future as the country holds first free elections since overthrow of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali

Along the main street of the desolate, rural town where Tunisia's revolution started, passersby watched from the pavement as a new kind of demonstration filed past.First came a slow-moving truck carrying a group of 10-year-old boys waving religious banners ...

Tunisia's elections will map out a path for the Arab spring

It was the first Arab spring country to throw off its dictator, and now Tunisia is again the focus of international attention

Even the proudest Tunisians agree that until January this year their country played only a marginal role in the Arab world. Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, its veteran president, had a reputation for being a tough and efficient autocrat. But no one elsewhere paid ...

Ohio police hunt dangerous animals after breakout from preserve

Lions, bears and wolves among exotic animals on the loose in Muskingum county after owner of private farm found dead

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GM crops promote superweeds, food insecurity and pesticides, say NGOs

Report finds genetically modified crops fail to increase yields let alone solve hunger

Genetic engineering has failed to increase the yield of any food crop but has vastly increased the use of chemicals and the growth of "superweeds", according to a report by 20 Indian, south-east Asian, African and Latin American food and conservation group ...

French woman kidnapped by Somali militants dies

Marie Dedieu, who was taken from Kenyan holiday resort to Somalia, has died, French foreign ministry says

A Frenchwoman kidnapped from her beach house on Kenya's northern coast by Somali gunmen nearly three weeks ago has died, the French government said on Wednesday.The French authorities said they heard Marie Dedieu, 66, had died via intelligence officers dis ...

Tristane Banon won't file civil suit against Dominique Strauss-Kahn

French writer says she will not pursue civil action after prosecutors dropped inquiry into her attempted rape claim

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'New Stuxnet' worm targets companies in Europe

Experts suspect Duqu worm is from same source that targeted Iran's nuclear facilities - widely said to have been US and Israel

A highly sophisticated computer worm which has many of the same characteristics of the virus used to attack Iran's nuclear programme has been discovered targeting companies in Europe.Although the virus appears to have been spying on the systems it infiltra ...

Radio review: Wake Up To Money

Among all the inevitable financial doom and gloom, there was one brighter story, says Elisabeth Mahoney

There's nothing quite like waking up to Wake Up To Money (5 Live). You do rather need to preface it with at least a coffee. "Tell us," Andy Verity (pictured) implored listeners at 5.30am, "how would you solve the eurozone crisis?"Still, some listeners were ...

Rail is Japan's newest export foothold in the UK

A consortium led by Hitachi will build the sequel to the Intercity 125 fleet – and its class 395 javelin carriages are already ferrying passengers from St Pancras to Ashford and beyond

In 1925 Seiji Miita, then general manager of the Hitachi rail factory in Kudamatsu City, travelled to Britain to study "advanced train technology" to take back to Japan. Nearly 90 years later expertise is flowing in the other direction and his successor, K ...

TV highlights 20/10/2011

Ringer | Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity | Find my Past | Mixed Britannia | Joanna Lumley's Greek Odyssey | Educating Essex

Ringer8pm, Sky LivingThis week, it's time for Bridget to try walking in her sister's shoes for a whole weekend away in the Hamptons with Gemma and Henry. It's Gemma's birthday: will that stop Henry from trying to get it on again with Siobhan (Bridget)? Mea ...

Bank of England voted 9-0 to pump £75bn more into UK economy

Bank policymakers discussed injecting as much as £100bn in new round of quantitative easing as they predicted growth would stall

Bank of England policymakers are preparing for UK growth to almost grind to a halt and have discussed pumping even more electronic money into the economy than the £75bn they agreed on this month.Minutes from this month's meeting of the monetary policy com ...

Sudoku 2,009 hard

Fill the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the numbers 1 to 9

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Bridge World Championships: a spectacular defence

Look at this remarkable play from the match between Italy and Bulgaria

One of the most spectacular defences in the World Championships in the Netherlands was found at two separate tables by two of the game's great players. East-West vulnerable, dealer East.This was the bidding in the match between Italy and Bulgaria. North l ...

'There, there Foxy, we'll return to power soon!'

Steve Bell's If...

Corrections and clarifications

Steel making in Consett | Tim Cook of Apple | Fawley Court and Aida Hersham | Matthew d'Ancona

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Labelling new properties 'Noddy boxes' is simply unfair

Response: We have to build the homes the country needs, at prices our customers can afford, says Stewart Baseley

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Weatherwatch: Britain's earliest recorded tornado

Kate Ravilious on the day, over 900 years ago, when London Bridge really did fall down

Say tornado, and many of us think of Dorothy and her dog Toto, being whirled off by a tornado in the Wizard of Oz. But "tornado alley" in the Great Plains of the US is not the only place to see a tornado: surprisingly the UK has the most tornadoes per unit ...

Vietnamese ministry bans officials from playing golf

Transport chief Dinh La Thang says his staff are not doing their work properly because of the time they spend playing game

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Private school scholarship scheme aims to mix London's ethnic groups

Inner-city children will have chance to attend City of London school, whose headteacher has warned about racial divisions

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Sarkozy would lose to François Hollande in landslide, latest poll shows

Socialist candidate for French presidency has unprecedented centrist support in run-up to next year's general election

The French Socialist party's newly elected presidential candidate, François Hollande, would score a landslide victory over Nicolas Sarkozy if the election was held tomorrow, according to an opinion poll.The survey – the first since Hollande, 57, was nom ...

Sky has the fuel to hit new heights

Dan Sabbagh: Although pay-TV is slowing, services such as broadband and telecoms should drive several more years of double-digit growth

Sky is a machine. The economy may be tough, and Sky may have felt it necessary to freeze prices. But the broadcaster doesn't have to worry when the average take per customer is a hefty £535 a year. Meanwhile, although the household growth rate is slowing ...

Philippines clashes force thousands to flee homes

Fighting between government forces and Muslim separatists leave 20 dead and thousands displaced in southern Mindanao

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Lucinda Childs Dance Company: DANCE – review

Watching this revival is to see one of the seminal collaborations of its era, and it still feels close to stage heaven, writes Judith Mackrell

Lucinda Childs's DANCE was created 32 years ago, and watching its revival now is to see it as one of the blindingly seminal collaborations of its era. Childs, commissioning her first score from Philip Glass, found an uncanny synchronicity between her lumin ...

Soyuz rocket prepares for first launch from French Guiana

Russian and European officials hope Soyuz will eventually be used to ferry humans into space from the new launch site

The French Guianan jungle will resonate to an unexpected noise on Thursday – the deep-throated blast of a Russian space rocket as it soars into the morning sky. The Soyuz launcher will be making its first flight outside the former Soviet Union, carrying ...

Dalai Lama's prayers for Tibetans 'terrorism in disguise', China says

Exiled Tibetan leader accused of glorifying cases of protesters who have set themselves alight in protest against Beijing's rule

The Chinese foreign ministry has accused the Dalai Lama of "terrorism in disguise" for supporting Tibetans who have set themselves on fire in protest against Beijing's rule.The remarks came as the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader fasted and led prayers to h ...

Swedish journalists accused of terrorism face trial in Ethiopia

Martin Schibbye and Johan Persson were arrested travelling with rebels in a case that has prompted outrage in Sweden

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German satellite hurtling towards Earth

Authorities say up to 30 fragments of Rosat satellite could survive re-entry to hit Earth's surface later this week

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Longannet carbon capture project cancelled

Last remaining project in government competition for CCS funding scrapped as partners fall out over funding

A pioneering £1bn state-funded carbon capture and storage (CCS) project at the Longannet power station in Fife has been cancelled, as the government announced that "a decision has been made not to proceed with Longannet but to pursue other projects with t ...

Chinese man took £600,000 off parents to study abroad – and stayed in Beijing

Graduate, 31, said he was heading to Oxford but spent a third of the cash on his girlfriend before falling into debt

For traditionally minded Chinese parents, keen to encourage their son's ambitions, spending 6m hard-earned yuan (£595,000) on prestigious postgraduate studies at Oxford University must have seemed a sound investment.But six years later they learned that t ...