Today's top stories:

Three MPs and a peer tell a court they are not guilty of charges of false accounting in relation to their expenses claims.

Plans for a new high-speed rail line between London and Birmingham are announced by Transport Secretary Lord Adonis.

The Chancellor Alistair Darling warns not to expect a "giveaway" when the Budget is announced later this month.

Relatives of kidnapped five-year-old Sahil Saeed speak of their anguish as reports of his release turn out to be false.

A report into parents who cheat to get their child into a school calls for whistleblowing hotlines to be set up.

Justice Secretary Jack Straw meets the mother of murdered toddler James Bulger to discuss the return to prison of one of her son's killers.

Britain should apologise to ex-Bosnian president for "mistreating" him in prison, says chairman of the joint presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The mechanism by which thalidomide causes malformed limbs is revealed by scientists.

Police arrest an 18-year-old on suspicion of manslaughter after a man collapsed and died outside his home in Greater Manchester.

Blue Peter dog Mabel, one of the show's longest-serving pets, is to retire after 14 years, it is announced.

Liverpool face an uphill task to progress from the last 16 of the Europa League after Eden Hazard's goal gave a lively Lille side a first-leg lead.

Three first-half goals see Juventus take command of their Europa League last-16 tie with Fulham but Dickson Etuhu's goal gives the Cottagers' hope.

England will make a last-minute call on the fitness of Stuart Broad for the first Test against Bangladesh in Chittagong.

Thousands of pupils swap classrooms for newsrooms

Can neuroscience help us solve conflicts?

Are we really ready to let go of the education balloons?

One family's experience of anti-social behaviour

Keeping up with the theatrical Joneses

New skirmishes in war of Daily Mail v the internet

UK forces are to hand security powers in the Afghan district of Musa Qala to US troops, the defence secretary says.

A female pornographic film director is selected as the Lib Dem prospective parliamentary candidate for Gravesham, Kent.

A businessman is jailed for masterminding a scam which saw tens of millions of battery hen eggs sold as free-range or organic.

A retired stockbroker from Surrey is jailed after being convicted of insider dealing.

A British Airways computer expert has appeared in court charged with planning suicide bombings.

Hamas releases a British journalist it had held for a month in Gaza, saying at a news conference that it suspects him of being a spy.

London Underground is to axe up to 800 jobs under plans to make savings of

Police forces in England and Wales are being criticised for failing to deal adequately with anti-social behaviour.

The bodies of five British servicemen killed in Afghanistan last week are flown back to RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire.

A woman convicted of trying to kill her husband in what she said was a failed "mercy killing" dies in an assisted suicide in Switzerland.

It's a big task, so how do you recycle a plane?

Can a fatwa to counter a fatwa really work?

Test yourself, now Royal Mail will no longer limit the stuff

Failings by police and social services over two sisters raped by their father over many years is widely reported in Thursday's papers.

Musician Pete Doherty is banned from driving after admitting allowing his manager to use his car without insurance.

One of Britain's most iconic steam trains will return to the rails with the help of Greater Manchester heritage railway enthusiasts.

Two men are found guilty of murdering a County Tyrone supermarket manager because he was gay almost two years ago.

A man who was on the run for four years over the kidnap and attack on a dissident republican is remanded in custody.

The UK government's proposals for a high-speed rail link must include Scotland, the Scottish government says.

A Dundee teacher convicted of assaulting two pupils is given an absolute discharge after an appeal.

A man is jailed for murdering his ex-girlfriend but his barrister says she would be alive if a 999 call had been handled differently.

The number of patients waiting more than 26 weeks for referral to a hospital in Wales rose during January.

j00bhaka writes "I am a US citizen attending university in Nova Scotia, Canada. I currently have the Verizon America and Canada plan (also known as the North American plan). My bill is currently around $80-$100 per month. I chose this for a couple reasons. One, I have had my number for about 7 years. Two, I do not permanently live in Canada. I live in Canada for 8 months out of the year at school, then travel home for the summer months. Either way, I would be dealing with international roaming without having both countries in my plan. Currently, I obviously don't have a smartphone. Through Verizon, I could purchase one, and add their international unlimited data plan on top of my (already) hefty phone bill. I have looked into Telus and Rogers here in Canada and cannot find anything better. As a student, my budget is obviously limited. Is there any way to reasonably have (and utilize) a smartphone while I am living in both countries? If so, what do you suggest I do?"

An anonymous reader writes "Pennsylvania's chief information security officer Robert Maley has been fired for publicly talking about a security incident involving the Commonwealth's online driving exam scheduling system. He apparently did not get the required approval for talking about the incident from appropriate authorities."

Kanan excerpts from a BBC report out of Scotland: "A study of sexually scrambled chickens suggests that sex in birds is determined in a radically different way from that in mammals. Researchers studied three chickens that appeared to be literally half-male and half-female, and found that nearly every cell in their bodies

adeelarshad82 writes "T-Mobile announced that the webConnect Rocket USB Laptop Stick, the first HSPA+ device for the US, will be available beginning on Sunday, March 14. The device was originally announced at MWC in February. HSPA+ is interesting because it could enable 4G LTE-like speeds using existing 3G infrastructure and according to a hands-on, it smokes Wi-Max. Right now, it's still just for Philadelphia, although we should see several major cities light up with HSPA+ on both coasts well before the end of 2010."

smooth wombat writes "Before the advent of iTunes and MP3s, EMI and Pink Floyd entered into a contract which stated that EMI could not unbundle individual songs from their original album settings. This was insisted upon by the members of Pink Floyd, who wanted to retain artistic control of their works, which they considered 'seamless' pieces of music. However, with the advent of digital downloads, EMI has been selling individual songs through its online store. Pink Floyd sued, claiming EMI was violating the contract, whereas EMI said the contract only applied to physical albums, not Internet sales. Judge Andrew Morritt backed the band, saying the contract protected 'the artistic integrity of the albums.' Judge Morritt also ruled EMI is 'not entitled to exploit recordings by online distribution or by any other means other than the complete original album without Pink Floyd's consent.'"

lord_rotorooter writes "Felix Ortiz, D-Brooklyn, introduced a bill that would ruin restaurant food and baked goods as we know them. The measure (if passed) would ban the use of all forms of salt in the preparation and cooking of food for all restaurants or bakeries. While the use of too much salt can contribute to health problems, the complete banning of salt would have negative impacts on food chemistry. Not only does salt enhance flavor, it controls bacteria, slows yeast activity and strengthens dough by tightening gluten. Salt also inhibits the growth of microbes that spoil cheese."

Lanxon writes "It's true: 'Effects of cocaine on honeybee dance behavior,' 'Fellatio by fruit bats prolongs copulation time,' and 'Are full or empty beer bottles sturdier and does their fracture-threshold suffice to break the human skull?' are all genuine scientific research papers, and all were genuinely published in journals or similar publications. Wired's presentation of a collection of the most bizarrely-named research papers contains seven other gems, including one about naval fluff and another published in The Journal of Sex Research."

The latest word on the iPhone is that the 4.0 OS will finally have

Kolargol00 writes "Heise online reports the availability of an exploit (Google translation) for the yet-unpatched MSA-981374 affecting Internet Explorer 6 and 7. It has already been spotted in the wild by McAfee and integrated into the Metasploit Framework."

Barence writes "Speaking exclusively to PC Pro, Eugene Kaspersky has claimed Apple has repeatedly refused to deliver the software development kit necessary to design security software for the phone. 'We have been in contact for two years with Apple to develop our anti-theft software, [but] still we do not have permission,' said Kaspersky. Although he admits the risk of viruses infecting the iPhone is 'almost zero,' he claims that securing the data on the handset is critical, especially as iPhones are increasingly being used for business purposes. 'I don't want to say Apple's is the wrong way of behaving, or the right way,' Kaspersky added. 'It's just a corporate culture

abartels writes "It seems like there's been nothing but bad news and resignations coming from Oracle since it finally managed to close the deal on Sun. Finally, there's good news in that Drizzle seems to have a bright future ahead. It just isn't with Oracle, but with the Rackspace Cloud."

tbcpp writes "The Khronos Group has announced the release of the OpenGL 4.0 specification. Among the new features: two new shader stages that enable the GPU to offload geometry tessellation from the CPU; per-sample fragment shaders and programmable fragment shader input positions; drawing of data generated by OpenGL, or external APIs such as OpenCL, without CPU intervention; shader subroutines for significantly increased programming flexibility; 64-bit double precision floating point shader operations and inputs/outputs for increased rendering accuracy and quality. Khronos has also released an OpenGL 3.3 specification, together with a set of ARB extensions, to enable as much OpenGL 4.0 functionality as possible on previous generation GPU hardware."

itwbennett writes "In a 45-minute press conference at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Sony announced its motion controller, officially named the Playstation Move. The Move consists of the Eye Toy (a camera pointed at the player) and a wand-like controller with a lighted ball at the end and a range of buttons on the shaft, writes blogger Peter Smith. 'Alternatively games can use two of the wands, or one wand and one "sub-controller" that has an analog stick (the camera is always required),' says Smith. 'If this is sounding very much like the Wii's Remote and Nunchuk well, you aren't far off (though at least there's no cable between the two parts to smack you in the face when things get heated).' Here are Smith's thoughts on the demo: 'All in all, the demos seemed OK, but I, at least, wasn't really blown away by any of them. That said, it's always hard to tell how well these systems work without actually trying them for yourself. You need to feel the connection (or lack thereof) between what your hands are doing and what's going on on-screen in order to be sure. For example, in the boxing demo the player did a quick spin move that led to a roundhouse punch. It's hard to say if his motion triggered a pre-set action (a 'combo') or if the system was able to track the controller that accurately, and was able to 'con

Paul Taylor noted a story that I would have thought to be an April Fool's Day joke a few weeks from now, which makes it only seem more tragic. A 3-year-old shot herself with a gun after mistaking it for a Wii controller.

alphadogg writes "Riding surging prices of his various telecom holdings, including giant mobile outfit America Movil, Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helu has beaten out Americans Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to become the wealthiest person on earth and nab the top spot on the 2010 Forbes list of the World's Billionaires." I'd still let the guy buy me dinner if he's ever in my town. He's probably still good for it even though he's fallen on hard times.

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