A former personal assistant of U2's Adam Clayton earned his trust before being promoted to the role and embezzling €2.8 million of his funds, a court heard today.

All the books that made the Orange shortlist are really good reads - great story, beautiful prose, a brilliant theme

A telephone scam in which victims are duped into allowing their bank cards to be sent by courier directly to conmen has seen a sharp rise.

Twenty expats adopt tactics of political radicals to protest at unjust law

As Greeks rush to withdraw savings, bailout fund pays US tax exile €400m

Outlook Last week, Andrew Moss was giving up his pay rise. This week it's his job. The so-called "Shareholder Spring" has claimed its first scalp. Scalp, perhaps, but Mr Moss is no victim. Aviva's now former chief executive will depart with a severance package of £1.75m despite having presided over a share price fall of around 60 per cent.

A New Yorker who dressed as his dead mother as part of a property scam – using lipstick, manicured nails and even an oxygen tank at a meeting – has been convicted of fraud and faces up to 83 years in jail.

A bank worker today admitted stealing £80,000 while working for Indian firm ICICI.

A former aide to the erstwhile US senator John Edwards has admitted taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from his boss's campaign donors and using it to build a dream house.

The chairman of Barclays apologised to shareholders today as he moved to head off a showdown over the pay of chief executive Bob Diamond.

Former Orange Prize winner Ann Patchett could pick up the prestigious literary prize for a second time after she was nominated again 10 years after she first won.

A former president of the Union of Democratic Mineworkers was found guilty today of stealing thousands of pounds from a miners' care home charity.

A commissioned officer learnt by chance that someone working in the Ministry of Defence had discharged him from the Army when he was 3,500 miles from home, on the front line, in Afghanistan.

Ray Kelvin, founder of the fashion chain Ted Baker, is marrying his long-term girlfriend Clare this weekend and is almost more excited about that than the company's 12 per cent rise in profits last year. "I'm really excited," he exclaimed. "I've lost a lot of weight because she said I had to. And the business is going brilliant."