National / International News

Wales bring in forwards Sam Warburton, Alun Wyn Jones and Paul James for Saturday's Six Nations visit to Scotland.

Supercars for the super rich despite bleak economic times

China's National People's Congress convenes today as it concludes its once-in-a-decade transition of power. In his final address to the Congress, outgoing Premier Wen Jiabao set an ambitious economic growth target of 7.5 percent.

BBC correspondent John Sudworth in Shanghai joins Marketplace Morning Report host Jeremy Hobson to explain how China plans to achieve that level of growth.

NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson spells out his determination to carry on leading the health service as he faces a grilling from MPs over his role in the Stafford Hospital scandal.

A "grand coalition" to get some of Europe's 26 million unemployed into IT-related jobs is outlined by the European Commission.

This weekend, New York subway and bus riders were hit with their fourth fare hike in five years. That money is collected with every swipe of a Metrocard -- a piece of technology that was introduced 20-years-ago and becomes more obsolete by the day. Despite the cards slow slide into obsolescence, riders must now pay a dollar surcharge if they lose or discard their card.

That has some straphangers, like Rich and Jean Wasicki, grumbling. Every six weeks, the couple come to New York from Buffalo to visit their son, a student at Fordham University. Each time, they buy a Metrocard and, after using it, throw the card away. When Rick Wasicki was informed that the practice will now cost him a dollar per card, he blurted, “Ridiculous! Absolutely ridiculous.”

Wasicki said it’s a lot to ask a Buffalo guy to keep track of his New York City Metrocard. But the NY Metropolitan Transportation Authority says it costs $10 million a year to produce those cards. Plus, there’s the extra cost to cleaning up cards that riders toss on the ground.

Jean Wasicki countered that the NY MTA profits from some of those discarded cards. “Half the time we put dollars, as out-of-towners, on that card that we ultimately don’t end up using,” she said. “And so those are dollars that the MTA has in its pocket.”

Riders do leave about 50 million unredeemed dollars on Metrocards each year. But the NY MTA says that’s not extra revenue. It costs the authority the same amount of money to run subway trains on a schedule, whether Wasicki uses all the value on her Metrocard or not.

Naomi Rosenberg, who commutes by the 1 train to her job at a non-profit serving the homeless, wondered why New York can’t get rid of the Metrocard for something more convenient, like the Transit Card used in Chicago, where her mom lives.

“My mom has a plastic credit card. It’s basically connected to her credit card, her transit card,” Rosenberg said.

Her mom’s transit card draws money directly from her bank account, and refills automatically. “You don’t have to keep track of old cards. It’s not paper, it’s plastic,” she added.

The New York plan was to swap out its Metrocard last year for a bank card with a computer chip that would let riders pay their fare. But not enough banks signed up, and the program was scrapped.

The NY MTA is now building its own transit card. The new technology must be ready by 2019, which is around the time the Metrocard turnstiles and vending machines are expected to wear out. In the meantime, the authority expects to collect $20 million a year from the new Metrocard replacement fee, one dollar at a time.

A conman who gambled money from a £125,000 grant which was meant to have been used for a hotel for injured soldiers is jailed for three years.

Thomson cancels plans to start services using Boeing's 787 Dreamliner planes in May, transferring long-haul passengers to its 767 aircraft.

The family of South African athlete Oscar Pistorius, accused of murder, distances itself from his father's comments that guns are needed to protect white people from crime.

The PSNI chief constable defends police impartiality during the union flag protests after controversial remarks from Northern Ireland's first minister.

News photos over 24 hours: 5 March

Hundreds of parents were forced to take their children home from a Justin Bieber concert before the singer even came on stage on Monday night, after he turned up two hours late.

Former Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Imperial Commander is out of next week's race with a lung infection but could run at Aintree in April.

A head teacher calls on Education Secretary Michael Gove to visit East Durham after his comments about "a sense of defeatism".

Four members of a criminal gang which imported £1.2m of cocaine into Scotland are handed lengthy jail terms.

The diseases killing more than 150,000 Britons a year

Glasgow stand-off Duncan Weir makes his first start for Scotland in Saturday's Six Nations match against Wales.

A two-year-old was among at least 250 children in the UK helped last year by a unit which tackles forced marriages, a report finds.

Also: Alice B. Toklas' fudge recipe; a fireproof edition of Fahrenheit 451; and a Milton scholar on ghostwriting the Sweet Valley High series.

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From toxic infant formula to the widespread use of gutter oil in local restaurants, the Chinese have little confidence in their government’s ability to make sure their food is safe.

Shaun Rein, author of The End of Cheap China, says creating a "super agency" is essential to restore consumer confidence and address the current risks.

"Otherwise, the government is going to face severe social instability and dissatisfaction in the coming five years," says Rein. "People have the money, they have the education, and they’re no longer willing to accept it."

More and more middle class Chinese are buying imported milk formula, imported vaccinations for their kids, and imported food -- good news for American companies exporting food to China, but not so much for domestic companies.

Rein says a new Chinese equivalent to the FDA comes partly in response to falling revenue for domestic brands.