Allen Stanford's dream of turning Twenty20 cricket into a multibillion dollar industry was just one of a string of Caribbean business ventures that would have reaped huge profits for his investors – if only the US government hadn't moved in with bogus fraud charges against him.

Allen Stanford, the one-time billionaire financier, will finally go to court this week accused of running a $7bn Ponzi scheme.

Rick Perry, a Republican presidential hopeful, is accusing the Obama administration of "over-the-top rhetoric" and "disdain for the military" in its attack on a video apparently showing Marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters.

Mitt Romney's rivals attacked the Republican presidential front-runner from the opening moments of a campaign debate, dismissing him as a mere business manager rather than a leader and a man whose investment company actually cost workers jobs.

It is a little bit of history that has been a decade in the making. Tonight at the Reliant Stadium, the Houston Texans will entertain the Cincinnati Bengals and finally experience a belated first taste of post-season in the opening fixture of the NFL play-offs.

Like many a teenage runaway, Jakadrien Turner wasn't exactly forthcoming when police in Houston arrested her for shoplifting in early April.

The Republican nomination race started like a train – but became a train wreck. As the primaries loom, David Usborne charts how the GOP became the gaffes and 'oops' party

A late surge in the polls and a negative ad from one of his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination has put Rick Santorum under the spotlight ahead of voting in the first primaries next week.

The suspect in a Christmas Day shooting – in which he and six members of his extended family were killed – was dressed as Santa Claus, Texas police said.

US police say the man they believe carried out a Christmas Day shooting that left him and six members of his extended family dead was dressed as Santa Claus.

Newt Gingrich may be leading in polls of Republican voters in the US state of Virginia, but the presidential hopeful's name will not appear on the state's primary ballot, a significant setback for a candidate whose standing in polls has recently been slipping.

The long-awaited trial of Allen Stanford, who is accused of swindling thousands of investors out of more than $7bn through an elaborate Ponzi scheme, will start next month.

This "update" of Robert E Howard's Cimarron has loads of fighting, flexed pecs and twirling swords, but little lamentation of the women, virtually zero mythology and no Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Many artists have a "career record", a song which becomes so well-known that it swamps anything else they do. With Billie Jo Spears, it was her 1975 single, "Blanket on the Ground", a song which suggested putting the romance back into a marriage. "It became controversial," said Spears, "as many of the listeners thought I was singing 'sleep around' instead of 'slip around'. The country fans thought it sounded like a cheating song, and they don't like girls who sing cheating songs." With a few more plays, everyone realised what the song was about and it became an international bestseller.