Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, today unveiled the country's final annual budget before the general election. The biggest announcements included abolishing stamp duty on homes under £250,000 for first-time buyers, whilst increasing it to 5% on homes over £1 million. In his statement to the House of Commons, the Chancellor claimed that the Labour government had made the right calls in countering the global recession, but warned that introducing cuts too early would jeopardise the recovery.
The United States Federal Communications Commission released a plan to provide broadband Internet access to at least 90% of the American population today, and sent a copy of the plan to Congress, which will consider whether to introduce legislation to enact portions of the proposal. Other parts will be decided on by various government agencies.
The UK government plans to replace the House of Lords, the upper house ofBritish Parliament with a duly elected one to make it "legitimate." Ministers working on this proposal plan to style this new chamber loosely on the United States Senate.
The 2010 BRIT Awards, presented by the British Phonographic Industry, is an annual award ceremony for music artists. This year, the competition took place in the Earls Court Exhibition Centre in London, England. The event started taking place in 1980, with this year's event being the 30th BRIT Awards. This year, the programme was broadcast live - although with a short delay to allow censorship of strong language - on ITV1 from 2000-2200 GMT on Tuesday. 5.8 million viewers watched it, which was an audience share of 21.9%.
The BBC have broadcast the first ever live episode of television soap-opera EastEnders, a fictional programme set in London, England. The show, celebrating 25 years since the broadcast of the first episode, was aired on BBC One at 8pm UTC yesterday.
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Tiger Woods while playing golf in 2007
Image: Keith Allison.
American golfer Tiger Woods delivered a speech on Friday where he apologized for his recent marital infidelities. Before an audience of the press, family, and friends, Mr. Woods admitted that he did indeed have a Sex addiction. He said that he would one day return to golf, although he did not specify when.
South Wales Police are on the scene at a Tesco in St Mellons, Cardiff, Wales in case a pyjama flashmob turns rowdy.
In the National Football League, the New Orleans Saints defeated the Indianapolis Colts, 31-17, to win Super Bowl XLIV.
Class of 2010 Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith did the coin toss. The Saints won toss and elected to receive. It was the thirteenth straight time that the NFC won the Super Bowl coin toss. The Saints got the ball first inside the 25, and went three and out. The Colts' first play was a first down pass to Dallas Clark. The first penalty comes with 8:36 left in first quarter, a false start on the Colts. Their third 3rd down of the drive failed, and kicker Matt Stover's 38 yard field goal was good, giving the Colts the first score of the game, 3-0.
Clare Short, the United Kingdom's then-Secretary of State for International Development, appeared before the Iraq Inquiry yesterday, and told the panel that the Cabinet was "misled" about the Iraq War's legality prior to the 2003 invasion. The three-hour session was held in the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London's City of Westminster.
Clare Short speaking at a rally in Birmingham.
Image: Faizan Bhat.
The University of Oxford is preventing students from accessing the legal, peer-to-peer online music service Spotify. Officials in the university's Computer Services department (OUCS) say too much of the network's bandwidth is taken up by people using such services, slowing down the network for others.
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The United Nations has announced that the government of Haiti has put an end to its efforts to rescue survivors of the earthquake that hit the region eleven days ago. The announcement comes just a day after two people were found alive.
Downtown Port-au-Prince after the earthquake.
Image: UNDP Global.
The UK's Home Secretary said today that Britain has raised its terrorism alert level to "severe", the second-highest level, which indicates that an attack is "highly likely". The highest level, "critical", means that an attack is believed to be "imminent".
A 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which claimed that the glaciers in the Himalayas were likely to melt within thirty years, was at least in part not based on scientific data.
The Big Switch is a frighteningly epic depiction of how technological innovation has moulded our society, from the Ford Model T, Industrial Revolution, Thomas Edison and electricity to Cloud Computing, data privacy, terrorism and Artificial Intelligence. This is a must read by anyone with an interest in Computing, Business, Internet, Economics, Science or History. Nick Carr delivers a crisp, broad minded insight into the potential digital utopia or virtual wasteland that we are creating for ourselves.
Teodoro García Simental, alleged to be a major kingpin in Mexico, has been arrested by Federal Police in southern Baja California.
"No shots were fired. It was a very fast operation. The investigation has been going on for a long time," an unnamed police officer told Reuters. Simental was handcuffed and swiftly flown to Mexico City.
Teodoro García Simental (DEA)
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