1. The Department for Work and Pensions has introduced emergency legislation to “protect the national economy” from a £130m payout to jobseekers deemed to have been unlawfully punished. The so-called “Poundland” ruling would potentially entitle thousands of people to financial rebates after the court of appeal declared that almost all of the government’s “work-for-your-benefit” employment schemes were unlawful. The legislation is will come before the Commons tomorrow as the Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill.
2. Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond, the Steubenville high school football players, were found guilty of raping a 16-year-old after a party in August last year. It’s become a national story in the US – a CNN reporter was accused of being a “rape apologist”.
3. The Public Accounts Committee have declared HMRC’s handling of taxpayers’ calls has been “unambitious and woefully inadequate”. HMRC received 79 million calls in 2011-12, but 20 million of these calls were not answered. On top of that, just last week HMRC announced it was to close all of its 281 enquiry centres in 2014.
4. The inquest into the death in prison of a man convicted of stealing a gingerbread man during the riots in 2011 opens today. He died in Wandsworth prison in August 2011. He had a history of mental illness and physical problems, which his foster family say were not addressed by the prison.
5. BP is taking legal action to limit the compensation it has to pay to people affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. The company says some of the claims being paid are “fictitious” and “absurd”.
6. David Bowie is number one again, for the first time in twenty years.
7. Greek footballer Giorgos Katidis has been banned from playing for the national team for life after he made what’s been called a Nazi salute after scoring the winning goal during a match on Saturday.
8. Another gang rape has taken place in India – five men have been arrested and two more suspects are wanted after a Swiss woman was attacked while camping with her husband in a forest on a cycling holiday.
9. There are fears that once the French withdraw from Mali next month, the remaining African forces wouldn’t be able to cope with a resurgent terror threat from al-Qaeda.
10. We’re not going to get spring until after Easter, apparently. What?
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