The 15 biggest banks operating in the UK have adopted a Government code of practice on reducing tax avoidance, the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, said yesterday.

With the storm of the midterm elections in their rear-view mirror, a coalition of influential opinion-formers is preparing to launch a third political party in the US next month that will eschew the partisan extremes of right and left and seek consensus in the moderate middle of American politics.

The Glazer family, who own Manchester United, are set to pay off £220million of high-interest loans.

Police warned the public not to approach a man accused of assaulting an elderly woman after he disappeared from a mental health hospital.

The increasingly bizarre case of Zulqarnain Haider took a series of contradictory twists yesterday with the Pakistan wicketkeeper first announcing that he had quit the game before later saying he had "no issues" over playing for his country again. At first he also denied he was seeking asylum in the United Kingdom before later seemingly changing his mind on that too, although he maintained all along that he and his family did receive "death threats" over demands that he help fix the result of two one-day internationals against South Africa.

Facebook is working with mobile phone maker INQ Mobile Ltd to create two smartphone devices that may have a network tie up with AT&T, Bloomberg said, citing three people familiar with the matter.

The mystery of how the Glazer family are sustaining the most punishing interest repayments on their £750m Manchester United debt became clearer last night after reports suggested they had wiped a significant portion of it out.

A new competition called the Picture Editor's Guild Awards has been established to reward the best photo journalists.

A soaring new office building planned for midtown Manhattan has won the approval of New York City Council, despite objections from the Empire State Building's owners.

The creative types at Channel Five wondered what the impact would be of Richard Desmond's purchase of the company.

George Osborne delivered a public reprimand yesterday to Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, over his demands for special help in paying the £20bn bill to renew Trident. The Chancellor told his Cabinet colleague that the cost would have to be fully met from the Ministry of Defence's core budget.

Sally Dewar, the managing director of risk at the UK Financial Services Authority, will leave the regulator in May 2011, becoming the second senior official this year to announce plans to depart.