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Barack Obama will hand back 5% of his presidential salary of $400,000. Photograph: Brennan Linsley/AP Barack Obama will return 5% of his salary to the US treasury in a show of solidarity with federal workers affected by $85bn in government-wide spending cuts. Hundreds of thousands of workers could be forced to take unpaid leave if Congress fails to reach an agreement soon to undo the cuts, which came as punishment for the inability of the Obama administration and Congress to come up with another way to address the country's debt. The 5% that Obama will hand back mirrors the 5% cut that domestic agencies took when the reductions went into effect. The Pentagon's budget took an 8% hit. Every federal agency is grappling with spending cuts, which the White House has said could affect everything from commercial flights to classrooms. A 5% cut from the president's salary of $400,000 (£265,000) a year amounts to $20,000. "The salary for the president, as with members of Congre

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

Bald men should not be too alarmed by the analysis, said the British Heart Foundation, saying more research was needed. Photograph: Eirik Dreyer/Getty Bald men are at greater risk of developing heart problems than those who retain a full head of hair – but only those with hair loss on top of their heads, and not at the front, are affected, new research suggests. While baldness is associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease (CHD), men who have a receding hairline are not at heightened risk of the condition, according to a study in the journal BMJ Open. Researchers in Japan who examined six previous studies from Europe and America of the link between baldness and CHD, comprising 36,990 men, found that five of the studies confirmed an association. Men who have lost most of their hair are 32% more likely to go on to develop heart trouble compared with full-headed peers, according to three studies, which tracked men's health for at least 11 years. But men aged less than

A civilian worker at the Fort Knox US army base has been shot dead in a parking lot of the Kentucky complex, with authorities saying the killer remained at large. Authorities said the shooting outside the army's Human Resources Command headquarters was "not a random act". It took place less than two weeks after a US marine shot dead two colleagues at a Virginia base. The victim, an employee of the human resources command, was transported by ambulance to Ireland army community hospital where he was pronounced dead. "Special Agents from the US army Criminal Investigation Command are investigating a personal incident and not a random act of violence," said Chris Grey, a spokesman for the independent army investigative agency. Fort Knox's gates were locked to all inbound and outbound traffic as a standard security measure, the army said. The main gate was reopened an hour later. The Fort Knox army base, near Louisville, is home to more than 40,000US military per

New Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda. Photograph: Jiji Press/AFP/Getty Images The Japanese central bank has said it will massively expand the country's money supply to spur inflation as it strives to get the world's third-largest economy out of its slump. The Bank of Japan (BoJ) on Thursday vowed to achieve a 2% inflation target at "the earliest possible time". To do so, the central bank has launched "a new phase of monetary easing both in terms of quantity and quality" that will double the money supply, it said in a statement. The new BoJ governor, Haruhiko Kuroda, has vowed to meet the inflation target within two years, heeding demands from the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, to once and for all end a long spell of deflation which has hindered investment and economic growth. Abe's government, which took power late last year, accused the previous central bank governor, Masaaki Shirakawa, of balking at undertaking bold enough monetary easing to get the

David Cameron said the 'unpredictable and aggressive' regime in North Korea could already have material to build a dozen nuclear weapons. Photograph: Anna Gowthorpe/PA The prime minister has stressed the need for the UK to retain its Tridentnuclear deterrent, saying it would be "foolish to leave Britain defenceless" in the face of the growing threat posed by North Korea andIran. David Cameron's insistence on the need for an independent nuclear deterrent came as the US said it was moving a missile defence battery to the Pacific island of Guam as Pyongyang continued to ratchet up the rhetoric against South Korea and its American ally. What did Cameron say? Writing in Thursday's Daily Telegraph, the prime minister said such "evolving threats" underlined the need for the UK to maintain the ultimate deterrent. "We need our nuclear deterrent as much today as we did when a previous British government embarked on it over six decades ago," he said.

Clashes flared after the death on Tuesday of Maysara Abu Hamdeya, 64, who was serving a life sentence in an Israeli jail. Photograph: Abed Al Hashlamoun/EPA Israeli troops have shot dead two Palestinian youths in the occupied West Bank, medical officials said on Thursday, as confrontations entered a third day following the death of a prisoner in an Israeli jail. The Israeli army said troops fired on Palestinians who threw firebombs at a guard post after dark on Wednesday near Tulkarm, in the northern West Bank. One body was swiftly recovered and a second was found in the early hours of Thursday. Palestinian officials named the dead men as Amer Nassar, 17, and Naji Belbisi, 18. The army said it was investigating the incident, which left at least one other Palestinian wounded. Tensions have risen rapidly in the West Bank and Gaza Strip following the death on Tuesday of Maysara Abu Hamdeya, 64, who was serving a life sentence in an Israeli jail. Palestinians accuse Israel of withholding c

A face-sized tarantula was found in Sri Lanka. Face-sized tarantula, A new species of spide was found in northern Sri Lanka. Named Poecilotheria rajeai, this face-sized tarantula has a leg span of up to eight inches across. According to an April 3 report by Wired, this species of spider is rare. Although similar to other spiders found in the area, scientists believe it is different enough to be it's own species. One of the characteristics that makes this face-sized tarantula unique is it's colorful markings. It has a pink abdominal band and daffodil-yello and gray inlays on it's first and fourth legs. View slideshow: Tarantula This is another form of “tiger spiders,” which belongn to the arboreal group. They are native to India and Sri Lanka. Like other tiger spiders, this face-sized tarantula is colorful, fast and venoumous. The face-sized tarantula was named after a police inspector who helped the scientific team navigate Sri Lanka. The police inspector knew the are

Mount Everest. Photograph: Image Source/Corbis "Mount Everest has been flown over." The laconic message, received last night, announces that the Houston Everest expedition has met with complete success and that the world's highest mountain has surrendered to the all-conquering aeroplane. Lord Clydesdale, Colonel Blacker, and Flight Lieutenant McIntyre set off early yesterday in the Westland planes on what was intended to be a trial flight. But the wind conditions turned out to be so favourable that they went on to Everest, circled the summit at a hundred feet above it, and were safely back again at Purnea soon after eleven. It is a splendid achievement, and hearty congratulations must go out to the airmen and to all who have made it possible. It is a splendid achievement - not for any material gains, any additions to aeronautical knowledge that it brings, for it brings few or none, but simply because it was one of the few last great spectacular flights in aviation which r

An unarmed Trident missile test launched from a submarine in the Atlantic ocean. Photograph: Lockheed Martin/ MoD Crown Copyr/PA David Cameron has issued a stark warning against any move to abandon Britain's Trident deterrent in the face of the growing nuclear threat from North Korea and Iran. The prime minister said it would "foolish" to leave the country defenceless at a time when the "highly unpredictable and aggressive" regime in North Korea was developing ballistic missiles that could eventually threaten Europe. His comments came as the United States said that it was moving an advanced missile system to the Pacific island of Guam as Pyongyang continued to ratchet up the rhetoric against South Korea and its American ally. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Cameron said such "evolving threats" underlined the need for the UK to maintain the ultimate deterrent. "We need our nuclear deterrent as much today as we did when a previous British government

Facebook is expected to launch its mobile offering. Photograph: Chris Jackson/Getty Images Facebook will take its biggest leap into mobile this evening when it is expected to unveil a collaboration with handset maker HTC and software that can take over any Android phone. At an event in its San Francisco headquarters, the world's largest social network will reveal how it intends to keep up with the computing habits of its 1 billion monthly users, 680 million of whom now access Facebook from a phone. The centrepiece will be Facebook Home, an application which can be downloaded to Android phones to customise an array of functions from the camera to the home screen, according to a leak of the software seen by the Android Police website. The software is likely to be illustrated on a device called Myst, specially made by Taiwanese firm HTC. The long-rumoured Facebook phone is the fruit of a two year development project whose early incarnation bore the codename 'Buffy' – presumabl

Today's final extract from the book After Leveson* is by Professor Chris Frost, head of journalism at Liverpool John Moores university. A former president of the National Union of Journalists, he gave evidence to theLeveson inquiry alongside the NUJ's general secretary, Michelle Stanistreet. As the debate over the form of a new press regulator continues, he considers some of the problems that are still taking time to sort out... Lord Justice Leveson's report was always going to be controversial. While he, along with many politicians and most of the public believe we need a regulator with teeth, and one that has universal writ, there are some, particularly those working in journalism, who believe any regulation risks damaging the concept of a free press. Journalists are trained to be sceptical to the point of cynicism about the different agendas people bring to the business of the media. They are well aware that the desire of many people to limit the power of the press is of

Desmond Tutu was praised for his 'steadfastness to core Christian principles such as love and forgiveness'. Photograph: Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters Desmond Tutu, a clarion voice from the pulpit during South Africans' struggle against racial apartheid, has won the £1.1m Templeton prize for advancing the "spiritual liberation" of people around the world. The John Templeton Foundation describes the 40-year-old prize as the world's biggest annual monetary award for individuals. Tutu, who adds it to honours including the Nobel peace prize, said he was "totally bowled over". The former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town helped keep the struggle alive during the dark years when Nelson Mandela and other activists were jailed or exiled. He went on to chair the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Ever outspoken, he has admitted sometimes feeling angry with God and two years ago wrote a book with the provocative title God is Not a Christian. The Temple

North Koreans attend a rally against the US and South Korea in Nampo, North Korea, on Wednesday. Photograph: Kcna/Reuters The Pentagon ordered an advanced missile defence system to the western Pacific on Wednesday, as the US defence secretary, Chuck Hagel, declared that North Korea posed "a real and clear danger" toSouth Korea, Japan and America itself. The deployment of the battery to the US territory of Guam is the biggest demonstration yet that Washington regards the confrontation with North Korea as more worrying than similar crises over the past few years. It also suggests the Americans are preparing for a long standoff. North Korea ramped up its rhetoric on Wednesday, warning that it had authorised plans for nuclear strikes on targets in the US. The North Korean military said that the "moment of explosion is approaching fast" and that war could break out "today or tomorrow". An unnamed North Korea army spokesman, in a statement carried by the Korean

Passengers arriving in Seoul from China are checked with thermal imaging equipment for high temperatures that might indicate infection with bird flu. Photograph Yonhap/EPA Nine reported cases of avian flu in eastern China have galvanised the country's health officials and sparked a frenzy of concern on social media networks. Since Chinese media reported late last month that avian flu virus H7N9 had killed two men in Shanghai, additional reports of the disease have emerged in eastern Anhui and Jiangsu provinces and the metropolis Hangzhou, triggering fears of an incipient pandemic. Three people have been killed by the virus. The remaining six are in critical condition. The World Health Organization (WHO), which is monitoring the cases in cooperation with Chinese authorities, said the strain was not transmittable from human to human. China's state newswire Xinhua reported that almost 200 people who came into contact with infected patients had tested negative for the virus. Among

Testing for the H7N9 virus at the Centre for Diseases Control and Prevention in Beijing. Photograph: Reuters A third person has died from H7N9 bird flu in China as the total number of confirmed cases rose to nine and concerns were raised that the virus might have mutated to infect other animals and humans more readily. The latest victim was a 38-year-old cook who fell ill early in March while working in the province of Jiangsu, where five of the other cases were found, authorities said. He died in hospital in on 27 March and a positive test for H7N9 flu came back on Wednesday. Chinese authorities have said there is no evidence the strain spreads easily between humans but experts say it seems to move through poultry without making them sick, making it hard to track, and possesses genetic markers that indicate it is infectious to people. In the wake of the illnesses, the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention shared the genetic sequence of H7N9 with other scientists to help st

A dinner with Ferran Adria, the elBulli chef, has sold at a Hong Kong auction for £18,800. Photograph: Robin Townsend/EPA A chance to dine with the world-famous Spanish restaurateur Ferran Adria sold at auction Wednesday for 220,500 Hong Kong dollars (£18,800/US$28,270). Bidding started at HK$40,000 for the meal with Adria, often cited as the planet's most talented and imaginative chef. His now-closed restaurant elBulli was rated the world's best five times by British magazine The Restaurant. An online bidder beat out four others at the Sotheby's auction in Hong Kong with a winning bid of HK$180,000, not including a buyer's premium of more than 20%. The winner and three friends will eat with Adria and his brother at a restaurant in Barcelona and visit the premises of elBulli in Catalonia,Spain. Another meal with the chef known for his creations in molecular gastronomy will be auctioned on 26 April in New York. "Everybody knew there was just one chance to get this l

The British Virgin Islands, location of many of the offshore accounts. Photograph: Massimo Borchi/Corbis The ICIJ's exploration of offshore secrets began when a computer hard drive packed with corporate data arrived in the post. Gerard Ryle, ICIJ's director, obtained the small black box as a result of his three-year investigation of Australia's Firepower scandal, a case involving offshore havens and corporate fraud. The hard drive contained more than 260 gigabytes, the equivalent of half a million books. Its files included 2m emails, four large databases. There were details of more than 122,000 offshore companies or trusts, and nearly 12,000 intermediaries (agents or "introducers"). Unlike the smaller cache of US cables and war logs passed in 2010 to WikiLeaks, the offshore data was not structured or clean, but an unsorted collation of internal memos and instructions, official documents, emails, large and small databases and spreadsheets, scanned passports and acc

Face-sized tarantula Face-sized tarantula - A new type of tarantula about the size of your face has been found in northern Sri Lanka. Scientists found the spiders -- with a leg span up to 8 inches (20cm) across -- living in trees and the old doctor's quarters of a hospital in Mankulam. Covered in beautiful, ornate markings, the spiders belong to the genus Poecilotheria, known as "Pokies" for short. These are the tiger spiders, an arboreal group indigenous to India and Sri Lanka that are known for being colourful, fast, and venomous. As a group, the spiders are related to a class of South American tarantula that includes the Goliath bird-eater, the world's largest. The new spider, named Poecilotheria rajaei after a local police inspector who helped the team navigate post-civil war northern Sri Lanka, differs from similar species primarily in the markings on its legs and underside, which bears a pink abdominal band. "This species has enough significant diff

Pakistani schoolgirls at a makeshift school near Lahore. Education will be the largest UK aid-backed programme in Pakistan. Photograph: Muhammed Muheisen/AP Britain should increase aid to Pakistan only if there is clear evidence that the newly elected government will increase tax revenues, MPs say. A report from the House of Commons international development committee on Thursday urges the Department for International Development (DfID) to focus more closely on supporting the rule of law and anti-corruption efforts. "Many people in Pakistan who live below the poverty line gain from the projects supported by DfID's valuable programmes in education, health and governance," says Malcolm Bruce, the committee chairman. "But the committee is concerned that not enough tax is raised in Pakistan to fully finance improvements in the quality of life for poor people. In particular, we cannot expect people in the UK to pay taxes to improve education and health in Pakistan if the