A chronology of key events

Buy-to-let mortgage lender Paragon Group reports a 43% fall in annual profits following the credit market turmoil.

BBC Scotland's Business and Economy Editor Douglas Fraser analyses the state of Scotland's economy as the global financial crisis continues.

Liverpool's Capital of Culture year is hailed as one of the best ever, so far attracting 10 million visitors to the city.

The Bristol Old Vic is to reopen at Christmas with a new children's play, it is announced.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says oil exports to China could triple by 2012, before continuing to Moscow.

Use of paracetamol in the first year of life increases the risk of asthma in six to seven year olds, a large international study suggests.

There are entrenched differences in the amount local health bodies spend on major diseases, a think-tank warns.

A chronology of key events

The number of home computers hijacked by hi-tech criminals leaps during the summer, says a security monitoring firm.

The families of some servicemen killed when their RAF Nimrod plane exploded in Afghanistan serve a writ on the MoD.

The families of some servicemen killed when their RAF Nimrod plane exploded in Afghanistan are serving a writ on the MoD.

Distinguished neuroscientist Baroness Greenfield wonders what computers are doing to the children who use them a lot.

Eating broccoli could reverse the damage caused by diabetes to heart blood vessels, research suggests.

"Why are the Olympics so important to South Americans?"

The four nations that comprise the United Kingdom provide post-devolution health services in considerably different ways.

The use of bicycles by an Irish police unit proves so popular it is to be expanded three-fold.

Ministers urge local authorities to target problem areas after producing a detailed breakdown of public health measures.

It's 2008 and sex seems to be everywhere. So who holds the line between permissiveness and obscenity? What is obscene these days? And how do those people entrusted to make these calls cope with the harrowing work?

University students who are caught submitting plagiarised work are very rarely expelled, shows a survey. Sean Coughlan reports.