The BBC will today apologise to an estimated 74 million people around the world for a news fixing scandal, exposed by The Independent, in which it broadcast documentaries made by a London TV company that was earning millions of pounds from PR clients which it featured in its programming.

The US Marine Corps is once again in damage control after a photograph surfaced of a sniper team in Afghanistan posing in front of a flag with a logo resembling that of the notorious Nazi SS - a special unit that murdered millions of Jews, gypsies and others.

The Corps said in a statement that using the symbol was not acceptable, but the marines in the photograph taken in September 2010 would not be disciplined because investigators determined it was a naive mistake.

Former clerk of the Senate Harry Evans says Mr Slipper should just get on with the job"You can't recreate a tradition once it's dead, and I think it was well and truly dead in Australia and has been well and truly dead for a number of years," he said.

WASHINGTON — The international hackers group known as Anonymous turned the tables on the F.B.I. by listening in on a conference call last month between the bureau, Scotland Yard and other foreign police agencies about their joint investigation of the group and its allies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/us/fbi-admits-hacker-groups-eavesdropping.html?_r=1&hp      

Just months ago, as he toyed publicly with announcing his own candidacy, Trump was bad-mouthing Romney. But that, he told reporters, was back before he had really got to know the Mormon millionaire.

Mrs Rinehart's three oldest children, John Langley Hancock, Bianca Hope Rinehart and Hope Rinehart Welker, have started legal action to remove her as the trustee of the Hope Margaret Hancock trust, set up by their late grandfather Lang Hancock, alleging ''serious misconduct''.

Dollars to doughnuts.

Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal published an opinion article by Rabbi Aryeh Spero titled “What the Bible Teaches About Capitalism,” which argued that Americans should laud Mitt Romney’s private equity career.

Anyone who had any thoughts that Abbott would "flick the switch to positive" found themselves to be much mistaken after yesterday's National Press Club speech.

Abbott read out a speech he must have given at least 50 times by now. It contained nothing new.

Nothing. Not a thing.

Here's the thing - why can't the press gallery slaughter this chump? It's not like they can use the excuse that they didn't know what he was going to talk about. Nothing he said was new. Nothing.

The same sound bites that he uses came out again and again.

If you go down to the Florida Everglades today, you're in for a big surprise: in the past 12 years, 90 per cent of the wild mammals which once roamed freely through the National Park have gone.

Snakes are to blame, say scientists. Big ones. Specifically: an exponentially-growing population of Giant Burmese Pythons, which can grow up to 16 feet long and have a huge appetite.

The creatures were first discovered in the park in 2000. They got there after being released into the wild by overwhelmed pet owners, and quickly established a breeding population.