Cheats such as Mark Owen don’t ‘love’ women, as they often claim. If you trick women and lie to them, you must hate them I feel devastated. Every time I think about it, I feel sick.

Benedict XVI’s spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, suggests ‘tenacious’ plot to implicate pontiff in cover-up The pope’s spokesman has launched a vigorous counter-attack against a report linking Benedict XVI to a sex abuse cover-up while he was archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1981. Father Federico Lombardi appeared to suggest in an interview on Vatican Radio that the pope, who also has strong links to the city of Regensburg, was the victim of a plot

In Texas conservative Republicans are rewriting the textbooks to be used in the state’s schools to fit their political agenda When people worry about the US economy being surpassed by the likes of India and China, it’s often slipping educational standards that are identified as a possible cause. With that in mind, consider the worrying events in Texas, where Republicans on the state’s Board of Education enforced party-political changes to the state’s curriculum. As the New York Times reports : After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light

As Eliot Spitzer left office and David Paterson became governor, New Yorkers almost breathed a sigh of relief. It didn’t last long When Eliot Spitzer bucked the New York Democratic establishment and selected Senate minority leader David Paterson as his running mate in 2006, many people thought Spitzer was crazy – and Paterson, too.

Progress can be achieved through open engagement without preconditions – and that includes Hamas I returned last week from a visit to Gaza as part of a parliamentary delegation from the Britain-Palestine All-Party Group. Knowing that no political delegations were getting in via the Erez border crossing (the Irish foreign minister was turned away last month), we opted for the longer route through Cairo and Rafah, entering from the Egyptian side. To smooth our passage we thought a letter from the Foreign Office (FCO) would assist.

Will the Democrats pass healthcare reform? We’ll find out next week if Nancy Pelosi can deliver the votes she needs There have been so many twists and turns in the struggle to pass healthcare reform that anyone watching could get dizzy. But the endgame is near.

Disciplinary procedures are already in place to deal with staff with discriminatory views – there’s no need for a BNP ban It goes without saying that schools should be places that promote tolerance and understanding, and that there is no room for racist views in such organisations. However, the decision of the government not to ban teachers who are members of the British National party (BNP) or other groups that may promote racism is a welcome glimmer of common sense in an otherwise increasingly frustrating political landscape. School are havens of fairness and inclusivity and only a handful of cases have come to light of teachers with BNP membership or extremist views.

At a summit in Dubai, scholars and clerics are gathering to destroy the Somalian rebels’ religious credibility Somali president Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed has been busy of late. This weekend he is attending a summit in Dubai, along with an international cast of scholars and clerics, to refute the ideologies of groups that “abuse the name of sharia by imposing their own literal, ill-informed interpretations onto others”.

By refusing to bar BNP members from the classroom, the government is allowing these vile people to spread their hatred The BNP’s march into the mainstream moves forward. Fresh from their top-table seat on the BBC’s Question Time (which marked International Women’s Day with an all-female audience; it marked last year’s Black History Month with an invite to Nick Griffin), party members have now been told that it’s OK for them to teach our children . In a review which will shock many members of the teaching profession, not to mention ethnic-minority parents, Maurice Smith, former chief inspector of schools, concludes: “I do not believe that barring teachers or other members of the wider school workforce from membership of legitimate [sic] organisations which may promote racism is necessary.” He reaches his decision because, in the last seven years, only four teachers, and two governors, have been found to be BNP members, and only nine incidents of teachers making racist remarks or holding racist materials have been uncovered.

More than half a million travellers to be hit by strikes on successive weekends from 20 March Martin Rowson