Brown unveils the British ‘New Deal’ to save the economy
The Prime Minister has unveiled plans to create 100,000 jobs with a modern version of the 1930s American 'New Deal' with investment in eco-friendly industry at their heart. A programme of public works including new rail links, school repairs and hospital projects will be used to create jobs during the coming recession. Gordon Brown even claims his plans are bigger than US President-elect Barack Obama's 'Green New Deal', relative to the size of the two countries' economies. (Observer)
American Transition: the latest news, gossip and analysis 
Why not bail out the writers as well as the bankers?
Israeli troops invade Gaza
Israeli ground troops have invaded Gaza. Columns of tanks and ground troops crossed the border under cover of darkness last night in the first wave of a full-scale land invasion, supported by helicopter gunships and artillery fire from howitzers. The three-pronged incursion exchanged heavy fire with armed Palestinians. Hamas claimed to have killed some Israeli soldiers, while the Israelis said "dozens" of Hamas fighters had died. Gaza city residents reported heavy bombing. (Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph)
Gaza invasion: Israel will not tolerate casualties
In pictures: Gaza in flames
Opposition attacks bail-out option
Oppositon MPs have dubbed a second state bail-out of struggling UK banks the "worst option" available to the Government, which is considering fresh intervention. Chancellor Alistair Darling has been weighing up a range of options to get credit flowing to home owners and businesses, including more cash injections and offering banks state guarantees to raise money privately. However, in an interview yesterday, Gordon Brown appeared to rule out an early second recapitalisation. (Sunday Telegraph, Observer)
Slash rates, save car plants - the arguments against
Bankruptcy beckons for not-so-great Britain
Ecstasy ‘less dangerous than drink’
The independent committee which advises the Government on drug classification, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, is to call for ecstasy to be downgraded from class A to class B. Committee chair Professor David Nutt has previously suggested the drug is less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco. The recommendation will bring the council into direct conflict with Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, who is expected to veto any attempt to downgrade ecstasy. (Independent on Sunday)
British organs go to foreigners
Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show that 50 foreign patients have received organs donated by Britons in private transplant operations carried out in the UK in the past two years, despite severe shortages which mean many British patients die while waiting for a transplant. The overseas patients, mostly from Greece and Cyprus but also from Libya, the UAE, China and Israel, paid around £75,000 each for the transplant operations. (Sunday Times)
As many as 12,000 people demonstrated against the Israeli assault on Gaza in London yesterday, some throwing shoes through the gates of Downing Street in a Muslim symbol of disgust. Among the marchers were Bianca Jagger and singer Annie Lennox. (Sunday Telegraph)
Gaza debate: Qassam attacks had to be answered
Top civil servants and nuclear officials colluded to stop MPs from challenging a huge sweetener to a private business taking over the running of nuclear plant Sellafield, newly-released documents show. Labour MP Paul Flynn is to call for a parliamentary inquiry. (Independent on Sunday)
In pictures: nuclear protests return
David Cameron (left) has come under fresh pressure from senior members of the Conservative party to publicly denounce Labour's planned increase in the rate of tax paid by the UK's top earners, which shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve said would stifle the economy. (Sunday Telegraph)
The Mole: opposition to taxes explains Brown's sneaky sell-off
Thousands of teachers and pupils are expected to call in sick this week as widespread outbreaks of norovirus and flu threaten to disrupt the start of the new term at schools across the UK. It has been predicted this winter could be the worst flu season for nine years. (Observer)
Malthusian snobs pray for a cure to overpopulation
Transport minister Lord Adonis has indicated an international rail terminal might be built at Heathrow airport as a 'sweetener' to win public support for the construction of a third runway there. The £4.5bn Heathrow Hub could cut more than two hours from journeys to Europe. (Sunday Times)
Pros and cons: Heathrow's third runway
Scientists seem to have recorded evidence of 'true love'. Brain scans of one in 10 couples who had been together for 20 years showed a similar dopamine 'rush' of pleasure to that of new lovers in tests when they were shown a photograph of their partner. (Sunday Times)
Three EU states have reported falling gas supplies after Russia cut off gas to Ukraine, despite assurances that Europe would not be affected. Poland, Hungary and Romania, which rely on Russian gas transported via the Ukraine, said pressure fell by much as 40 per cent. (Sunday Times)
A delicate dance with the Russian bear
US president-elect Barack Obama (left), who moves into temporary accomodation in Washington today after leaving his Chicago home with his wife and daughters, has signalled that the Gaza crisis will not distract him from his top priority of jump-starting the floundering economy. (Sunday Telegraph)
Alexander Cockburn: what will Obama do about Israel and Gaza?
The Chinese government has launched a harsh crackdown on Charter 08, a network of political activists, writers and lawyers calling for the end of one-party rule. At least 70 of the original public signatories to the movement have been summoned or interrogated by police. (Observer)
Peregrine Worsthorne: the unasked question about China
The purchase for the nation of a masterpiece by Titian which had been on loan to Britain's national galleries since 1945 is to go ahead in the next few days. A campaign successfully raised £50m to pay the Duke of Sutherland, one of Britain's wealthiest men. (Independent on Sunday)
People: why is the Duke selling his Titians?
The 1970s publishing and TV sensation The Thorn Birds (left), a romance set in the outback dubbed "the best bad book ever" by critic Germaine Greer, is to be staged as a musical. The orginal TV miniseries remains the US's second-most watched TV drama, after Roots. (Observer)
A new BBC adaptation of Anne Frank's diary, the first to be allowed to use Anne's own words and to draw on passages of the diary previously censored by her family, will portray her as a stroppy teenager undergoing sexual awakening. (Sunday Times)
Business group the British Chamber of Commerce has called on the Bank of England to cut interest rates again to the lowest for 300 years. The BCC said only a one per cent interest rate could help alleviate the "devastating consequences of a serious recession". (Sunday Times)
How the financial crisis is passing some lucky people by
Nakheel, the company which owns some of Dubai's best-known landmarks including the world's biggest artificial island, is considering a stock market listing to raise as much as £10.3bn to reinforce its finances in the wake of the credit crunch. (Sunday Telegraph)
In pictures: Dubai's islands
Marks & Spencer is to report its worst Christmas sales figures since Sir Stuart Rose (left) became chief executive. Experts think sales at M&S will be among the worst affected on the high street, with a like-on-like fall of at least 5.5 per cent for the last quarter of 2008. (Observer)
People: M&S model Lily Cole appears in Playboy
"I myself believe that in your great musical, Jesus Christ Superstar, one can easily trace some melodies which resemble Prokofiev" - Vladimir Putin (left) meets Andrew Lloyd Webber. (Sunday Times)
Tory justice spokesman Nick Herbert yesterday became the second member of the shadow cabinet to 'marry' his boyfriend. (Sunday Telegraph)
BNP leader Nick Griffin says he has "no time for anti-semites" and says "four million jews would be preferable to four million Pakistanis". (Independent on Sunday)
Former BBC boss Jenny Abramsky was made a dame by a new civil service sub-committee specially created to award honours to those who serve on committees which award honours. (Sunday Times)
British singer-songwriter Elvis Costello (left) is to lead US president-elect Barack Obama's inauguration celebrations later this month. (Observer)
Blackadder star Tony Robinson, 62, is to marry his 27-year-old girlfriend Louise Hobbs. Robinson's new mother-in-law will be two years his junior. (Sunday Telegraph)
Tory MP Ed Vaizey has called for the famously anti-establishment Harold Pinter to be commemorated in Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner. (Independent on Sunday)
"Girls look better in that size" - Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld on the size zero controversy. (Observer)
Party Animals star Matt Smith (left) will become the youngest actor to play the Doctor in Doctor Who when he takes over in 2010. (Sunday Times)
"Things have been piling up since this whole Ross business" - Actor Andrew Sachs says his career has been boosted by the Brand-Ross row. (Sunday Telegraph)
Ex-leader of the Labour Party Michael Foot, now 95, was at the Emirates Stadium to see his team Plymouth lose to Arsenal yesterday. (Independent on Sunday)
"Production can point [contestants] towards [helpful and accurate resource tools]" - BBC statement after claims that competitors on Celebrity Mastermind are offered crib sheets. (Sunday Times)
Actress Katie Holmes (left) is to take the lead role, played on film by Kate Winslet, in the stage musical adaptation of Finding Neverland. (Sunday Telegraph)
Actor Will Smith has been voted the top money-making star of 2008 in the annual Quigley poll. He is the first black man to top the poll since Sidney Poitier in 1968. (Independent on Sunday)
A friend of actor John Travolta's brother claims the star's son Jett, who died on Friday, was suffering from autism, a condition not recognised by scientologists. (Sunday Mirror)
Channel 4 has dodged another race row after deciding not to broadcast Celebrity Big Brother contestant Coolio (left) using the 'n-word' just hours after the show began. (News of the World)
Singer Michael Jackson, allegedly convinced he is dying, is to end a feud with Sir Paul McCartney by leaving his share of the Beatles back catalogue to McCartney in his will. (Sunday Mirror)
Sheryl Gascoigne has spoken of the pain she felt when she turned her back for good on her tortured ex-husband Paul. The two were re-united briefly last summer. (News of the World)
Chelsea football player Didier Drogba decided against a traditional turkey meal at Christmas, and instead took his family to high-class Japanese restaurant Nobu. (People)
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