It's eight o'clock on Thursday the 14th of December.
Lord Stevens publishes his report today on the car crash that killed Diana, Princess of Wales.
A post mortem examination is to be carried out on the body of the fifth young woman to be found dead near Ipswich.
The trade and industry secretary is to set out plans that could bring the closure of thousands of Post Offices.
And Monty Panesar has been taking wickets - on a good day for England's cricketers in Perth.
DIANA
The findings of a three-year investigation into the death of Princess Diana will be published today. The princess and Dodi Fayed died when their car crashed in a tunnel in Paris in 1997. Ten detectives - led by the former Metropolitan Police commissioner, Lord Stevens - have been examining what happened. An inquest into the deaths will resume in January. Our Royal Correspondent, Peter Hunt, reports:
HUNT: It's been a complex, expensive inquiry with one key aim: to establish beyond doubt whether an iconic princess died in a tragic car accident, or was murdered. The detectives spoke to four-hundred people, including Prince Charles and the heads of MI5 and MI6. The fruit of their labours is an eight-hundred-and-fifty-page report. Lord Stevens briefed Diana's sons, William and Harry, on its contents yesterday. The young princes are said to be shocked and upset by what they were told about the behaviour of the paparazzi on that fateful night. The first copies of the report will be delivered later this morning to Mohammed Al Fayed and to one of the princess's sisters. The Stevens inquiry is expected to have concluded that Diana and Dodi died because their chauffeur was driving too fast. It's understood tests on blood taken from the car have shown she wasn't pregnant, and Trevor Rhys Jones, who survived the crash, was saved by an air-bag.
IPSWICH
Police investigating the deaths of five young women found naked on the outskirts of Ipswich say they urgently need to find the clothes that the victims had been wearing. They haven't yet established whether a jacket, pulled from the River Orwell, and a handbag found in the town are significant. The second body discovered near the village of Levington is expected to be moved today. Our correspondent, Stephen Chittenden, is in Ipswich:
CHITTENDEN: The woods near Levington on the outskirts of Ipswich remained sealed off overnight, guarded by dozens of police wearing yellow jackets. At the roadside, a tent covers the remaining body, surrounded by floodlights on metal stands. Police are expected to remove the victim this morning, and take her for a post mortem examination at Ipswich hospital. Detectives say they've been overwhelmed by the public response to their investigation, receiving over two-thousand calls a day. Last night, they examined clothing found in the River Orwell, and a handbag recovered on Norwich Road, in the town centre. Another line, widely reported today, is that of the chubby man in a blue BMW. Friends of Anneli Alderton say they saw him picking her up in an Ipswich car park. But, officially, detectives won't confirm which lines of inquiry they're pursuing.
DARLING
As many as three-thousand post offices could close, under plans to be outlined later today. The trade and industry secretary, Alastair Darling, will tell MPs how many branches are expected to close, and the amount of subsidy that the government will provide in future. Mr Darling told us why he believed action had to be taken:
DARLING: The problem we've got is that if you look in the last two years alone, the post office is serving four-million less customers than it was. Its losses have gone from two-million pounds a week last year, to four-million pounds a week this year. Now, we need to deal with that, but we do need to make sure we've got a national network, because we recognise the importance of the post office to people the length and breadth of the country.
PRISONERS
The government will today begin a consultation process to decide whether to give prisoners the right to vote. The move follows a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, and could mean, for the first time in British history, that convicts would become part of the electorate. Our Political Correspondent, Norman Smith reports.
SMITH: Ministers could scarcely be less enthusiastic about the idea of giving prisoners the vote, aware that such a move is likely to be unpopular and politically awkward. However, following a ruling by the European Court on Human Rights, which found that a blanket ban on prisoners having the vote was a breach of their human rights, ministers believe they have no option but to seek to change the law. It's pointed out that Britain has never not complied with a European court ruling. However, the hope is that, following consultation, legislation can be framed which would only give the vote to prisoners serving short sentences of perhaps between three and six months. Whether that would satisfy the European court is another matter, particularly since almost every other Western European country already gives many prisoners the right to vote.
SOLDIERS
An inquiry into allegations by thousands of Kenyan women that they'd been raped by British soldiers has concluded there's insufficient evidence for a criminal prosecution. The two-year investigation by the British Royal Military Police found widespread tampering with of evidence, negative DNA tests and inconclusive information. The women's only option is to now is to make a claim in a civil court.
EURO
The size and shape of the European Union will be at the top of the agenda when the twenty-five leaders of the EU gather in Brussels today. Arguments are likely over plans to drop the veto on justice and home affairs to help the battle against terrorism. From Brussels, here's our Europe Editor, Mark Mardell:
MARDELL: The European Commission has argued strongly that the fight against crime and terrorism needs far closer cooperation between countries, and that this could be best achieved by governments dropping their right to veto ideas they don't like; instead, they could be outvoted. Those who oppose increasing EU power don't like the idea anyway, but find it all the more offensive because it was part of the constitution rejected in the French and Dutch referendums. It seemed that it had been thrown out by home affairs ministers in the autumn, but now it's back. The Finns, who are in the chair at the moment, are very keen, and they'll be asking the twenty-five prime ministers and presidents to sign up to a statement saying the ideas in the constitution about the veto are the best way forward. Tony Blair, along with the Dutch and the Germans, will be fighting to get this dropped. If it isn't, those who warn parts of the constitution will be introduced by the back door will feel vindicated.
WEATHER
2006 is on course to be the warmest year on record in the United Kingdom. Figures show that the average temperature for the year is the highest for more than three-hundred years. Dr Vicky Pope, from the Met Office, says we can expect to see more high temperatures in future:
POPE: Clearly there's a lot of variation from one year to the next, so we can't say what's going to happen next summer -- although we will be looking at predictions for the next year or so. But what we can say is that this type of event is likely to occur more often in the future; as temperatures warm up generally, we will expect to see more and more of these records broken.
LANGUAGE
It's being recommended that foreign language lessons should become a standard part of teaching in primary schools. Lord Dearing was asked by the government to review the decline in language learning in schools in England. Here's our Education Correspondent, Mike Baker:
BAKER: Teachers and employers have been shocked by the sharp fall in language teaching since the government removed languages from the compulsory curriculum after the age of fourteen. Only half of all pupils now take a foreign language at GCSE, down from three-quarters just a few years ago. However, Lord Dearing's review has concluded that a return to forcing all fourteen to sixteen-year-olds to study languages is not the answer. Instead, it'll say it's better to start young, and will suggest that foreign languages should become a 'standard part' of the primary curriculum. But the review will suggest ministers could take powers to force secondary schools to ensure a minimum proportion of fourteen to sixteen-year-olds study a language. Currently, some schools have no language teaching at all after fourteen.
GALLERIES
Forty-three per cent of the population visited a museum or gallery at least once over the last year, according to a new report. The study, commissioned by the National Museum Directors' Conference and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council also suggests they make a contribution of one-and-a-half-billion pounds a year to the economy. But, as our Arts Correspondent, Rebecca Jones, reports, it also warns those achievements risk being undermined if government funding is cut:
JONES: These look like golden days for the UK's musuems and galleries. Thanks to the abolition of admission charges, more people are visiting them than ever before. There are forty-two-million visits every year - which is greater than the number of people who go to football matches. But Mark Jones, the director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, says continued success can't be taken for granted:
JONES: Museums have done really, but if they're going to go on doing well, they do need sustained investment. Without it, Britain's museums will not compare as favourably in the future as they do today.
JONES: But the government has already warned it may have other spending priorities in the future, so museums and galleries know they may have to look for funding elsewhere if they're to continue to thrive.
CRICKET
Cricket: England have been making inroads into Australia's batting line-up in the third Ashes Test in Perth. Monty Panesar, who was absent from the first two Tests, made an immediate impact. Joining us from the Waca is Peter Baxter:
BAXTER: Yes, Monty Panesar's taken four of the seven Australian wickets that have fallen. We're forty minutes after tea now on this opening day. It was Hoggard who made the first breakthrough. He's taken the one wicket - that of Hayden in the morning session; England capturing three wickets before lunch. Steve Harmison has taken a couple of wickets, and his first also in that morning session was that of Ricky Ponting - lbw for two. Huge celebrations from Harmison - it's only his second wicket of the series. He's taken another one since then. He got Clarke caught-and-bowled for thirty-seven. Panesar took his just before lunch, with his seventh ball in Ashes cricket, when he bowled Justin Langer for thirty-seven. Since then, he's also had Symonds, who was trying to attack him for twenty-six; Gilchrist for a duck; and Warne for twenty-five. And now Australia have reached two-hundred-and-twenty-seven for seven.
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