The Telegraph – Bruno Waterfield The European Union is to ban olive oil jugs and dipping bowls from restaurant tables The small glass jugs filled with green or gold coloured extra virgin olive oil are familiar and traditional for restaurant goers across Europe but they will be banned from 1 January 2014 after a decision [...]

The Washington Times – Jeffrey T Kuhner All the president’s problems lead to his own doorstep President Obama is facing a perfect storm of scandals, cover-ups and criminality that threatens to sweep him from power. This week marks the 40th anniversary of the first Watergate hearings. They eventually brought down President Nixon, forcing him to resign. [...]

The Telegraph - Tom Phillips, Shanghai and agencies China has tested a long-range missile capable of intercepting satellites, US intelligence sources have claimed. On Monday night local time a rocket was sent into space from a launch centre in Sichuan province, southwest China. Beijing said the launch was part of a scientific data-collecting mission. But that version [...]

BBC At least 30 militants have been killed during air raids on their training camps in north-eastern Nigeria, officials say. An army spokesman said jets and helicopter gunships had been used to attack several camps. He told the BBC that a plane had been hit by anti-aircraft fire but had managed to return to base. [...]

The Telegraph – Jeremy Warner The latest brainwave from Brussels has the City in its sights, even if Britain goes it alone Of all the nonsense to have come out of Brussels over the years, there is little quite so self-defeating, politically driven, and generally threatening to economic wellbeing as the proposed new Financial Transaction [...]

The Telegraph - Louise Armitstead, Chief Business Correspondent A stagnant economy, a weak President and a jump in car burnings are all signs of a looming crisis in France. The billionaire boss of CQS, one of London’s biggest hedge funds, has written to investors warning them that the France could trigger another more dangerous phase of the [...]

CNN Republicans using the Internal Revenue Service scandal to slam health care reform have a new twist in their argument. Sarah Hall Ingram, who heads the implementation of the Affordable Care Act at the IRS, formerly led the agency’s tax exempt/government entities division, the same division that’s now taking heat for targeting conservative groups in the [...]

BBC Russia has sent sophisticated anti-ship missiles to Syria, US media report. The New York Times quotes unnamed US officials as saying the missiles could be used to counter any potential future foreign military intervention in Syria. Without confirming details, Russia’s foreign minister said Russian supplies did not break any international rules. It comes amid growing [...]

CNN – Barbara Starr The U.S. military has updated plans to “capture or kill” alleged perpetrators of the deadly terror attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, CNN has learned. The development comes amid growing pressure on the White House to show progress in the effort to catch those who killed Ambassador Christopher [...]

The Hill - Bernie Becker and Peter Schroeder House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) said Friday that he expects more IRS officials to lose their jobs over the targeting of conservative groups – but that even that won’t fix broad problems within the agency. Camp, leading off the first hearing held on the extra [...]

Mail Online – David Martosko, Washington DC Assailed by questions over three scnadals engulfing White House during Rose Garden press conference with Turkish Prime Minister Would not say whether anyone in his West Wing knew about the IRS targeting of the Tea Party before last week Offered ‘no apologies’ for DoJ secretly seizing phone records [...]

The Telegraph - Simon Johnson, Scottish Political Editor Nigel Farage has been barricaded by police in a pub before being whisked away in a riot van after his visit to Scotland was hijacked by hard-Left independence supporters. The Ukip leader was left stranded in the middle of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, surrounded by around 50 nationalists and socialists [...]

Townhall.com – Guy Benson Remember what we were told when this explosive story first broke less than a week ago?  The IRS official in charge of tax exemptions for organizations saidthe improper methods employed within her division were executed by “low level workers” in Cincinnati who weren’t motivated by “political bias,” and impacted roughly 75 organizations?  Wrong, wrong [...]

The Washington Examiner - Joel Gehrke IRS officials refused to grant tax exempt status to two pro-life organizations because of their position on the abortion issue, according to a non-profit law firm, which said that one group was pressured not to protest a pro-choice organization that endorsed President Obama during the last election. “In one case, [...]

The Daily Caller – Neil Munro The Benghazi-related emails released by the White House late May 15 exclude the critical emails between administration officials that were sent during the crucial first two days after the deadly jihadi attack that killed four Americans last September. The 100 pages of partially redacted emails also conclude with a dismissive message from [...]

BBC French President Francois Hollande says recession is now “threatening the very identity of Europe”. Speaking at a news conference in Paris, he said the financial crisis was now under control and “behind us” but “what is hitting Europe is a recession… provoked by the austerity policy”. Mr Hollande was speaking after figures showed France [...]

The Telegraph – William Clarke and agencies The attack, targeting a Nato military convoy, killed six American Nato personnel and at least eight Afghans, including two children, in the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital for nearly a year. The Toyota Corolla, laden with explosives, detonated in Kabul’s Shah Shaheed district at 8:00am injuring 37 [...]

The Telegraph – Emma Rowley Britain is on track to “accelerate” its shale gas program, according to Michael Fallon, the energy minister. The Government will next year launch the UK’s 14th onshore licensing round, he said, announcing that engineering consultancy AMEC has been hired to do the environmental assessment of plots’ suitability for exploration. The [...]

The Telegraph – Ambrose Evans-Pritchard My colleague Jeremy Warner has set off a storm in the Spanish press and something close to a diplomatic incident by asserting in a blog that Spain is insolvent. The Telegraph has been accused by Spanish newspapers of launching a “brutal attack”, succumbing to “Hispanophobia”, leading an Anglo-Saxon assault, and otherwise [...]

BBC Seven members of the Egyptian security forces have been seized by unidentified kidnappers in the Sinai peninsula, Egyptian officials say. The three policemen and four soldiers were captured while travelling in minibuses in northern Sinai, east of the city of El Arish. The kidnappers are said to be demanding the release from prison of [...]

CNN - Chelsea J Carter, Drew Griffin and David Fitzpatrick The nation’s top tax collector resigned Wednesday amid controversy over Internal Revenue Service targeting of conservative groups that applied for federal tax-exempt status. The official, acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller, was aware employees were targeting conservative groups in May 2012, according to the agency. But Miller, then the [...]

CNN - Jake Tapper and Alison Harding In a letter to Rep. Darrell Issa exclusively obtained by CNN, the co-chairmen behind an independent review of September’s deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya, expressed irritation over the House Oversight Committee chairman’s portrayal of their work and requested he call a public hearing at which they can testify. “The [...]

CNN - Susan Candiotti Boston Marathon bombing victims were collateral damage in a strike meant as payback for U.S. wars in Muslim lands, the surviving suspect wrote in a message scribbled on the boat where he was found hiding, a law enforcement source told CNN Thursday. In the message, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev also proclaimed that an attack [...]

The Hill – Amie Parnes The White House took a series of steps Wednesday to make up with the Washington press corps. The wooing took several shapes and followed a disastrous press briefing on Tuesday at which White House press secretary Jay Carney was torn apart over the Department of Justice’s seizure of Associated Press [...]