RBS plans £1bn in bonuses as Darling moves to curb bank payouts
The Royal Bank of Scotland plans to pay staff £1bn in bonuses just months after it was rescued with £20bn of public money. Meanwhile, Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, is to announce curbs on bonuses paid to workers in Britain's bailed-out banks as a backlash builds among Labour MPs with senior Cabinet ministers attacking the bonus culture. Harriet Harman, who is leader of the Commons, said there was "something rotten" in the bonus schemes. (Independent on Sunday, Sunday Telegraph)
Civil unrest is a shot across the bows for the ruling classes 
Sympathy grows for outlaws, thanks to the greedy bankers
Jacqui Smith accused over expenses claims
Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, has claimed more than £116,000 in Commons expenses for a 'second home' while effectively lodging with her sister Sara in her south London house several nights a week. Sara
Smith is the sole owner of that property, yet Jacqui Smith lists it as her 'main home', allowing her to claim the maximum £24,006 a year second-home allowance on the £300,000 detached house in the west Midlands she owns with her husband. (Mail on Sunday)
Daniel Hannan: EU MPs can teach Westminster all about expenses fiddling
The Mole: expect fireworks when details of MPs expenses are made public
Baby mauled to death by dogs
A three-month-old baby boy, Jaden Mack, was killed by his grandmother's dogs, a Staffordshire bull terrier and a Jack Russell terrier. Neighbours say the baby was asleep in a basket on the ground floor of Denise Wilson's house where he had been taken by his parents, Alexandra and Christopher Mack, who went out for the night. Neighbours dragged the dogs from the baby after Wilson's screams alerted them to the tragedy. Both dogs have now been put down. (Sunday Telegraph)
Pros and Cons: licensing dogs
Government keeps travel details
Computerised records of all 250m journeys made abroad by Britons annually are to be kept in a new Government database for 10 years. An intelligence centre near Manchester will store names, addresses, telephone numbers, seat reservations, travel itineraries and credit card details as part of the fight against crime, illegal immigration and terrorism. Opposition MPs and privacy campaigners fear the database is an unhealthy step towards a "total surveillance society". (Sunday Times)
A time to reflect on lost liberties
Employment plan close to collapse
A flagship Labour employment plan is close to collapse in the wake of the global financial crisis. The radical plan to revolutionise welfare by paying private companies to find jobs for the unemployed is in trouble, with a recent meeting between the Government and the companies invited to tender for the work cancelled, officially "because of the snow". But the firms involved say there are now too many people out of work, and too few vacancies, to make the scheme viable. (Observer)
Wanted: domestic servants for the political classes
The financier charged by the Government with protecting the taxpayers' money invested to bail out Britain's struggling and collapsed banks, Glen Moreno, is a former trustee of a secretive Liechtenstein bank accused of facillitating a massive tax evasion scam. (Sunday Times)
How developing countries can save the bankrupt West
An new ICM poll for the Sunday Telegraph predicts that Labour's support has fallen to its lowest level since Gordon Brown's bank bail-out last autumn. The survey puts the Conservatives at 40 per cent, Labour at 28 per cent and the Lib Dems at 22 per cent. (Sunday Telegraph)
The Mole: the latest from our Westminster insider
Amanda Knox (left), suspected alongside two others of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher in Italy in 2007, told her flatmate she had found bloodstains in the cottage they shared but then took a shower before Kercher's body was discovered, a court has heard. (Independent on Sunday)
How Amanda Knox has captivated the global media
The doctor who started a scare over a supposed link between the MMR vaccine and autism which led many parents to refuse the vaccination fixed his original data, it is claimed. Andrew Wakefield is defending himself against misconduct allegations. (Sunday Times)
Why do we want to get rid of austic people like my son George?
Police patrols have been stepped up in Jewish neighbourhoods in the UK following the most intense period of anti-semitic incidents recorded in the UK for decades. Around seven antisemitic incidents a day have been reported so far this year. (Observer)
Anti-semitism rears its head again
Footballer Carlos Tevez, who plays for Manchester United, had his £140,000 car seized by police. Tevez was pulled over on the M60 because his tinted windows appeared to be too dark, but it emerged that the 25-year-old striker did not have a full UK licence. (Sunday Telegraph)
The recently-elected US vice-president, Joe Biden (left), has offered Iran "meaningful incentives" to drop its nuclear project. In a keenly-awaited speech in Munich, Biden said US foreign policy would change radically, and that he wanted to "press the reset button" on relations with Russia. (Independent on Sunday)
The Obama White House: Obama drafts an open letter to Iran
Alexander Cockburn: George Bush sabotaged the American empire
Italy is facing a constitutional crisis after its prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, issued an emergency degree to force doctors to keep alive a woman who has been in a coma for 17 years, against the wishes of her father. Berlusconi consulted with the Vatican on the decree. (Observer)
People: Berslusconi savaged for making light of rape
Binyamin Netanyahu has taken a firm lead in the polls ahead of Israel's next general election. The right-wing leader of the Likud party is stoking fears among voters who mistrust Palestinians, reassuring them that victory for Likud will mean no Palestinian state on their land. (Sunday Times)
The Gaza crisis: the latest news, comment and analysis
The Israeli right-winger who makes Netanyahu look like a softie
Pressure is mounting on the Government to remutualise Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley. Both companies only became stockmarket-listed banks in the 1990s and failed disastrously in the credit crunch. Labour MPs are pushing for them to return to mutual status. (Observer)
Renationalisation can cure other British failures
The owners of the 02 arena in south London, the infamous Millennium Dome, are looking for a quick sale. Meridian Delta Dome hope to attract offers of around £35m and to conclude a sale by the end of next month. They have begun approaching potential buyers. (Sunday Times)
The Treasury may call on the taxpayer to insure as much as £400bn-worth of toxic loans made by British banks in a scheme still being finalised. The original estimate of £200bn is belied by submissions from Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group. (Sunday Telegraph)
Bankrupt Britain: how it could happen
An Oxford professor, Dr Diane Purkiss, says that Hollywood movies are giving an increasingly negative view of women. Dr Purkiss argues that over the past five decades, female characters have become "dumber and dumber" and are now "anti-feminist stereotypes". (Observer)
Can Anne Hathaway swipe Oscar away from Kate Winslet?
Hollywood adopts a softer touch to attract a new audience
Film Talk: news and clips as Hollywood prepares for the Oscars
Tonight's Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, America's most prestigious popular music awards, will be a curiously British affair. Musicians from the UK have been shortlisted in every major category. Nominees include Coldplay, Robert Plant, MIA, Adele and Duffy (left). (Independent on Sunday)
The latest CDs reviewed
Film studios are vying with each other for the rights to make a film of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a parody of Jane Austen to be published in April. The book will be the first mainstream outing for "mash-up" literature, and uses 85 per cent of Austen's original text.
(Sunday Times)
Film Talk: the latest news and views from Hollywood
Turner Prize-winning artist Mark Wallinger (left) has won the competition to design a landmark sculpture at Ebbsfleet in Kent with his 164ft white horse. (Sunday Times)
Oscar-winning screenwriter Julian Fellowes has responded with bafflement to an article in the Daily Telegraph which claims he bought his title. In fact he inherited the Lordship of Tattershall from his father. (Independent on Sunday)
Controversial Government drugs expert Professor David Nutt now says taking ecstasy is no riskier than horse riding. (Sunday Times)
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has caused controversy in the Church of England by inviting a group of Catholic monks to chant compline at Lambeth Palace. (Observer)
Actor Christian Bale's sister Sharon says her brother (left) needs "help" after hearing his expletive-laden rant broadcast on the internet. (Sunday Telegraph)
People: Bale says sorry on LA radio
Prince Edward, once nicknamed 'Expenses Eddie' spent last week on an official visit to Barbados including an afternoon of golf and lunch at an exclusive hotel. (Observer)
Nine-year-old US publishing sensation Alec Greven is to have his self-help book How to Talk to Girls made into a Hollywood movie. (Independent on Sunday)
Security minister Lord West of Spithead quit Facebook after a photo of him in naval uniform prompted a flood of suggestive comments from male admirers. (Sunday Times)
The Trinidad-born former News at Ten presenter Sir Trevor McDonald is to make a series of three one-hour programmes about the West Indies. (Sunday Telegraph)
MP Anne Cryer spent £300 of public money tabling an early day motion congratulating MPs and staff on getting through the snow to work at the Commons. (Observer)
"Dawkins is one of the attack dogs of fundamentalist atheism" - Baron Harries of Pentregarth, the retired clergyman taking on The God Delusion author Richard Dawkins in a debate on religion this week. (Independent on Sunday)
"I'm getting heartily sick of the siren calls for sackings everytime some attention-grabber grabs some attention" - MP Tom Harris, whose father happens to be a one-eyed Scot, on Jeremy Clarkson. (Sunday Times)
Newsman and ballroom dancing sensation John Sergeant (left) is turning his hand to acting, and will play himself in an episode of medical soap opera Casualty. (Sunday Times)
It's rumoured that Boris Johnson's sister Rachel is the author of an anonymous short story about the Queen making love to a Palace intruder. (Observer)
Peaches Geldof, 20-year-old daughter of Sir Bob, says her marriage is over. She has left guitarist husband Max Drummey just six months after they were wed. (People)
Chloe Madeley, the 21-year-old daughter of TV presenters Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan says she is "really sorry" after pictures emerged of her smoking cannabis. (News of the World)
Jackiey Budden, the mother of reality TV star Jade Goody has revealed she has not told Jade's two children that the star has cancer. On Monday she learnt her cancer had spread. (Sunday Mirror)
A top Premiership football referee has claimed that players deliberately tackle dangerously in order to receive match bans so that they can have time off work. (News of the World)
TV chef Antony Worrall Thompson became the latest victim of the credit crunch yesterday after his chain of five restaurants in and around London went bust. (Sunday Mirror)
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