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Some workers in New York City fast food restaurants had been warned not to take part in the planned action. Photograph: Alex Segre/Alamy Hundreds of fast food industry workers in New York were due to go on strike on Thursday in the largest such action to ever hit the notoriously low-wage industry. Organisers behind the protest predict that some 400 workers will walk out or stay away from their jobs across the city in a move aimed at impacting at least 70 restaurants from big chains like McDonalds, Wendy's and Burger King. The workers are calling for wages of $15 an hour and the right to organise without the threat of retaliation or intimidation. It follows a previous protest in New York last November when 200 workers went on strike. Jonathan Westin, director of the Fast Food Forward Campaign, said that there was a dire need to raise wages in the fast food industry where many workers put in long hours on minimum wages and thus remained in poverty. There are some 50,000 fast food wor

Jean-Jacques Augier is an influential publisher who studied with François Hollande at the ENA management school. Photograph: Frederic Souloy/Gamma/Getty Images François Hollande faces more embarrassment after it emerged that a close friend and treasurer for his presidential election campaign invested in offshore businesses in the Cayman Islands. Jean-Jacques Augier, a publisher who studied with the Socialist president at the elite ENA management school, featured in records leaked from Britain's offshore financial industry, unearthed in a project by the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists(ICIJ) in collaboration with the Guardian and other international media, including Le Monde. Augier, 59, who once worked as an inspector of finances in France, confirmed the investments and said nothing was illegal. But the revelation comes at a bad time for Hollande, whose government is in crisis following the shock admission by Jerome Cahuzac, the former budget m

Oscar Pistorius was photographed on the athletics track at Pretoria University by a group of high school hockey players. Photograph: Lisa Smith/Barcroft Media Oscar Pistorius has been photographed back on the athletics track – by a group of school hockey players visiting a university campus. Charmaine Koekemoer, director of sport at Voortrekker high school, said there was excitement in the school bus on 24 March when the pupils spotted Pistorius at Pretoria University. "None of us are in any doubt. We saw Oscar training," Koekemoer told South Africa's Witness newspaper. "As we drove past on our way out on Sunday at 10.15, one of the kids screamed: 'There's Oscar!' As true as Bob, there he was." The pupils took pictures with their mobile phones and quickly distributed them on a mobile messaging app. On Thursday the Paralympian's agent, Peet van Zyl, confirmed that the photos were genuine, but told South African media it was not an "official t

Trevor Sinclair, who played alongside Paolo Di Canio at West Ham, has said the Italian’s comments should be taken wirth a pinch of salt. Photograph: Phil Cole/Allsport Trevor Sinclair has confirmed his friendship with Paolo Di Canio while team-mates at West Ham and claims the new Sunderland head coach's historical claims that he is a fascist should be "taken with a pinch of salt". Di Canio's appointment has sparked a flurry of controversy owing to comments made in 2005 to the Italian news agency Ansa in which he stated: "I am a fascist, not a racist." The Italian issued a statement attempting to play down the issue and named the former England winger Sinclair and current Charlton manager Chris Powell as black players with whom he became close friends during his playing days. And Sinclair told Thursday's Daily Star: "I was not surprised to be named as a character witness. We genuinely got on well and I don't mind giving my opinion on such a relev

WWE lawsuit WWE lawsuit , The widow of World Wrestling Entertainment performer Owen Hart says she has settled her lawsuit against WWE over royalties and the use of her late husband's image. The settlement was announced Wednesday by Martha Hart. She did not disclose any details. A spokesman for WWE did not return calls for comment. Owen Hart died in 1999 while being lowered into the wrestling ring at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Mo. He was 34. Martha Hart sued in June 2010, alleging that WWE did not pay royalty payments owed to Owen Hart's estate and violated a contract restricting the use of her late husband's name and likeness. Linda McMahon, a former WWE executive, ran unsuccessfully as Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Connecticut in 2010 and 2012.

Summary Good morning and welcome to today’s Middle East live blog. Here are the headlines: Syria • Twenty-one people have been killed so far in fighting across Syria today, including 12 in Raqqa and nine in Idlib, according to opposition group the Local Co-ordination Committees. The LCCs said there were also “fierce clashes” in the Damascus suburb of Zabadany this morning, and several people were wounded by tank and mortar fire in the suburb of Abadeh. The group reported that 130 people were killed yesterday, including 48 in Aleppo, in the north-west of the country, and 40 in Damascus and its suburbs. The Syrian Network for Human Rights, another activist group, said 132 people had been killed yesterday. Their reports cannot be verified because most media are banned from Syria. • The activist group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights saidthat the opposition had taken an air defence base on the outskirts of Daraa, in the south west near the border with Jordan, after days of fighting.

A makeshift memorial to the victims of the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, which has reignited the national debate on gun control. Photograph: Peter Foley/EPA Connecticut, the US state where 20 children were shot dead at school in December, is to bring in the country's strictest gun control laws after legislation was passed by its senate and lower house. The governor, Dannel P Malloy, a Democrat, said he was ready to sign the bill into law on Thursday. The state, where gun manufacturing dates back to the war of independence, has wrestled with the issue of gun safety since 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot his way into a school in Newtown with a high-powered rifle legally purchased by his mother, whom he also killed. The massacre reignited national debate on gun control, and Barack Obama has made the issue a defining one for his second term, which started a month after the shooting. His proposed gun control measures have largely stalled in Congress, however, and Obama is due to visit Co