Derby House Fire: Man Charged With Murder

A 45-year-old man has been charged with the murder of six siblings who died as a result of a house fire in Derby in May.

Paul Mosley, of Derby, is accused of murdering Jade Philpott, 10, and her brothers John, nine, Jack, eight, Jesse, six, Jayden, five, and 13-year-old Duwayne, Derbyshire Police said.

He will appear before Derby Magistrates Court later.

Another man, 49, arrested earlier on Monday, has been released without charge.

The children died after the blaze engulfed their home in Victory Road in the Allenton area of the city on May 11.

Their parents, Mick Philpott, 55, and his 31-year-old wife Mairead, have also been charged with their murders.

They are next due in court for a plea and case management hearing at Nottingham Crown Court on Thursday.

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Obama: Key States May Swing It For President

By Greg Milam, US Correspondent

Barack Obama looks on course to secure a second term in the White House as the most expensive and negative campaign in history finally reaches election day.

Mr Obama looks to have the narrowest of leads over rival Mitt Romney in a number of critical swing states.

The Republican candidate has even added two election day campaign stops in Ohio and Pennsylvania, a break with election tradition.

Mr Obama wrapped up his campaign with a rally in Iowa, the state where his 2008 campaign sparked into life, and he called on Americans to give him a second chance.

"I came back to ask you to help us finish what we started because this is where our movement for change began, right here," he said.

Barack Obama's final rally in Iowa

"After all we've fought through together, we cannot give up on change now. We know what real change looks like."

The two candidates have criss-crossed a handful of swing states in recent days as they try to energise supporters and secure every last vote. Both have sounded weary and hoarse at times.

The result is that national opinion polls put Mr Obama on 48% and Mr Romney on 46%.

In swing states, Mr Obama maintained a four-percentage point lead in Ohio and was ahead by slimmer margins in Virginia and Colorado. Mr Romney led in Florida.

The other states to watch include Iowa, Wisconsin, Nevada and Pennsylvania, where Mr Romney has poured money into a late run.

The electoral college system and the way the state polls are going suggests that Mr Obama could be headed toward re-election partly due to his lead in Ohio, according to Ipsos pollster Julia Clark.

Mr Romney called on New Hampshire voters to back him

A victory in US presidential elections relies not on a popular vote count but reaching 270 electoral college votes. They are allocated to each state based on population size.

Ms Clark said: "Obama only needs a couple of these swing states and the data suggests that he'll win one or two of them."

Mr Romney's advisers dismiss those polls and believe they have the momentum.

He said: "The same course we're on isn't going to lead to a better destination. The same course we're on is going to lead to $20bn in debt. Unless we change course, we also may be looking at another recession."

And speaking at a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, he said: "Tomorrow is a moment to look into the future and imagine what we can do, to put that past four years behind us and build a new future.

"Walk with me. Tomorrow, we begin a new tomorrow."

The economy has been the key issue in the campaign and both candidates have been driving grassroots efforts to mobilise support.

Mr Romney told them:  "We have one job left, and that's to make sure that on election day, we make certain that everybody that's qualified to vote gets out to vote."

In the last few days, Mr Obama has been accompanied by stars including Bruce Springsteen and Jay-Z and with appearances from former president Bill Clinton.

While Mr Romney makes those extra stops in blue-collar districts, Mr Obama will spend the day in his home-town of Chicago. He has recorded a number of television and radio interviews which will air today.

Both campaigns have victory rallies lined up, in Chicago and at Romney HQ in Boston, and the candidates will address the nation once the results are known.

There have already been some allegations of irregularities at polling stations and if the numbers are close, recounts and absentee ballots could mean it is days before the result is known.

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Election: Final Push In Race To White House

Who Will Win The Presidency?

Updated: 12:54am UK, Monday 05 November 2012

By Adam Boulton, Political Editor

In predicting who is going to be the next US president, all we have to go on are the opinion polls - the rest comes down to hunches and conscious or unconscious prejudice.

What's more, opinion polls in America are particularly unreliable. Polling just a few thousand people in a country where around 140 million are expected to vote is a risky business.

In many polls the margin of error, typically plus or minus 3%, is much bigger than the arithmetical 'lead' enjoyed by the top candidate.

There are also differences in the representative sample used by the pollsters. For example, that venerable organisation Gallup seems consistently to favour the Republicans by as much as 6% more than its rivals in national opinion polls.

As things stand, national opinion polls are mostly a dead heat, when a margin of error is allowed for.

Mr Obama's popularity declined after his poor performance in the debate on October 3 and he has not recovered his big lead since then. But Mr Romney had no "momentum" by the beginning of November.

At the weekend, the RealClearPolitics (RCP) National Poll Average stood at 47.5% for Mr Obama and 47.3% for Mr Romney.

Mr Obama is clearly not on course to do as well as he did in 2008 against John McCain when he polled 52.9% of votes cast compared to 45.7% for the Republican.

Indeed conventional wisdom has now placed at least two of the states he won then - Indiana and North Carolina - firmly in the Republican column.

National opinion polls reflect the popular vote across the country, and winning that is not how you get to be president. You win the election by winning the vote state by state, thus stacking up the majority of the 538 electoral college votes.

It's perfectly possible to win the popular vote and lose the electoral college. That's what Al Gore did against George W Bush in 2000. And it's what some Republicans fear Mr Romney may do this time.

So to work out who is going to sleep in the White House next January, you need to follow the state polls.

Working from this data America's leading analysts have come up with different snapshots of the state of the electoral race.

With 270 college votes needed to win, RCP allocates 201 to Mr Obama, 191 to Mr Romney and 146 votes in 11 states to play for.

Calling states on a solid and leaning basis, the Washington Post gives Mr Obama 243 electoral votes, Mr Romney 181, with 89 up for grabs in the toss up states - Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Wisconsin, Colorado, Iowa and New Hampshire.

Nate Silver at the New York Times' controversial FiveThirtyEight blog makes a different probability-based analysis of the same polling data. 

He says there is now an 85.1% chance of Mr Obama being re-elected compared to just 14.9% that Mr Romney will become the 45th POTUS.  He calculates final electoral vote share at 306.9 for Mr Obama compared to 231.1 for Mr Romney.

You get a similar result if you apply the latest state polls to the toss-up states in the Washington Post and RCP models. With two days to go these state polls do not point to a dead heat - they suggest that Mr Obama is going to be re-elected.

In the latest polls from most of the swing states - Wisconsin, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Virginia and above all Ohio - the President is ahead, not by much but consistently. He has also edged ahead in Florida, where he held his biggest rally on Sunday.

The Romney campaign shifted its focus to Pennsylvania at the weekend, in an attempt to suggest that more states than the usual suspects may be in play. But here and in Minnesota and Michigan, which the Republicans are also citing, the latest polls are also against them.

David Axelrod, Mr Obama's campaign chief, has promised to shave off his moustache if the President loses any of these three.

So why is there such confidence among Republicans that their man will win? Basically they say the opinion polls are wrong - and they point to surveys of early voting which show that Mr Obama's support amongst key voters is well down on 2008.

This argument, best articulated by George W Bush's old aide Karl Rove in the Wall St Journal, says the pollsters are over-representing democrats in their samples. On the ground they say Democrats are de-motivated to vote, while Republicans are fired up, and independents are breaking their way.

No wonder so many pundits are sitting on the fence, pointing out that this is a very close race according to the polls - with Mr Obama's edge in most circumstances in the margins of error.

Those who are making a guess, have to fall back on hunches and rules of thumb.

There are plenty of personal bellweathers to choose from.

No president since Franklin D Roosevelt has ever been re-elected with unemployment this high (although at 7.9% it is only a tenth of a per cent above the level where they have been returned).

At the start of the campaign, 25% of the electorate said the would never vote for a Mormon.

"As goes Ohio, so goes the nation" is pretty good but not infallible, but it is the case that no Republican has ever won without carrying what pundits insist on calling the Buckeye [i.e. Conker] State.

Then there are the lessons from recent history.

Incumbent presidents generally have some squatter's advantage. In modern times the only two incumbent presidents denied re-election have been George Bush senior and Jimmy Carter. But both had stronger negatives against them than Mr Obama.

Mr Bush's 1988 election pledge "read my lips no new taxes" was a demonstrable lie by 1992, while in 1980 Mr Carter was humiliated by  American hostages held in Iran and a disastrous military mission to rescue them.

In contrast, Mr Obama presided over the killing of Osama bin Laden, economic indicators are at last moving in the right direction, and he's enjoyed high approval and endorsement in the past week for his handling of Hurricane Sandy.

It's also the case that the more charismatic candidate tends to win the presidency. Mr Carter outshone Gerald Ford but was put in the shade by Ronald 'Morning in America' Reagan; the reserved George Walker Bush was no match for 'Slick Willy' Clinton.

This year, by common consent, Mr Obama has the star power although Mr Romney is making the best of his buttoned-up big businessman demeanour.

Fifty-one-year-old Mr Obama is playing the man of the people: most often open-necked, shouting till he is hoarse and allowing himself the occasional blunt epithet such as "bull****er" about his opponent.

A well-preserved 65-year-old Mr Romney presents more formally as a president in waiting, he's even had his campaign plane painted to look like Air Force One. He's less inclined to dive into the crowd and typically delivers more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger pep talks about the state of Mr Obama's nation. A bit like the harangues most managers subject their employees to these days.

There is also a clear choice between the two men's visions of America - although both claim they are the man to unite the country across the political divide.

Arguing "we are all in this together" Mr Obama argues that government has a role in directing the country, the rich he says, need to contribute more.

Mr Romney champions the private sector, volunteers and individuals. He argues that lower taxes, even for the better off, will benefit all.

So who do I think will win?

I think it's unlikely that all the polls are as wrong as they would have to be for a Republican victory.

I note that the Republicans are under-performing in their ambitions for the US Congress - unlikely to take control of the Senate and set to lose a few seats in the House.

It also seems to me that the Republican Party is a house divided against itself. With powerful voices on the right such as the Tea Party pulling it along way from the centrist ground which saw Mr Nixon, Mr Reagan and even the Bushes first elected. If Mr Romney is elected, I suspect that the internal rows are only just beginning. Swing voters don't like divided parties.

Shifts in the US population do not favour Republicans - if this was a 'whites only' election Mr Romney would be home and dry. But as the Republican Senator Linsey Graham quipped this summer: "We are not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term."

Disappointment yes, almost everywhere, but I don't detect widespread anger and contempt for Mr Obama. The mood seems more to press on in hard times. A mood which may well have been strengthened by the travails of Hurricane Sandy in this closing week.

So my guess is that the President will be re-elected taking Ohio and probably Florida. But it is only a guess, America has two credible leaders to take it forward.

But most of the real votes have not been cast yet in spite of early polling, and they won't be until Tuesday.

Paddy Power is already paying out on an Mr Obama victory. If you've got a bet on, my advice is to get down to the bookies ASAP.

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Delicate Diplomacy On Cameron Gulf Arms Tour

David Cameron has begun a three-day tour of the Gulf and Middle East in a bid to cement major UK arms sales and bolster relations with allies in the region.

The Prime Minister will personally spearhead a push to persuade the United Arab Emirates to buy 60 of BAE's Typhoon jets over French rivals in a deal reported to be worth upwards of £3bn.

On Tuesday, he will travel to Saudi Arabia - Britain's biggest trading partner in the region - which is also considering adding to its fleet of aircraft.

Downing Street said the visit - Mr Cameron's second to each country as premier - was part of a wider effort to build a "reinvigorated partnership" between Britain and the region's leaders.

Reinforced military ties are seen as crucial amid continued fears over Iran's nuclear ambitions and the threat Tehran could seek to badly disrupt oil supplies by blocking the Straits of Hormuz.

Mr Cameron will fly first to a military airbase near Dubai where a number of RAF Typhoons are stationed to promote the aircraft to military and political figures from the UAE.

He will also hold talks with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Prime Minister of the UAE on the potential for a joint work on the next generation of military aerospace equipment.

The Government hopes to secure deals for 100 Typhoons to be sold to the region in the coming year - worth at least £6bn to British firms.

Mr Cameron faces a tough balancing act, however, as he attempts to secure billions in investment from the oil-rich states while addressing concerns about the human rights records of their regimes.

The Arab Spring has led to an increased focus on largely autocratic rule in many states, including crackdowns on pro-democracy and other protest movements.

The Government has been criticised for failing to condemn abuses and accused of continuing to sell military equipment with insufficient guarantees it would not be used in repression.

But Saudi officials reacted angrily to an "insulting" inquiry into it by the Commons foreign affairs committee, warning it would be "re-evaluating" relations.

"We want to work together with the Gulf countries towards a future that is rich in prosperity, strong in defence and open in its handling and pursuit of political and economic reform," Downing Street said ahead of the visit.

On Wednesday, Mr Cameron will make a short visit to the Middle East before flying home for talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at Downing Street ahead of the crunch EU budget summit.

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Obama And Romney Hit Key US Swing States

The King Is Dead Long Live The King

Updated: 6:26pm UK, Saturday 03 November 2012

By Kay Burley, In Las Vegas

Elvis rocked the '60s with Viva Las Vegas. Almost half a century later and the two presidential candidates are hoping they can do the same.

Nevada is one of a handful of crucial swing states which will decide whether there's a new man at the White House or the present incumbent stays at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for four more years.

Such then is the importance of the Silver State to both candidates that the President broke off from visiting those worst affected by superstorm Sandy to make a flying visit to Vegas.

Mitt Romney has also spent much of his time in the desert gambling on being able to woo the locals.

Barack Obama is counting on the Latino, Hispanic and female vote. Mr Romney is hoping for some divine intervention with the support of fellow Mormons, who make up 10% of the vote in Nevada.

In fact, so deep is their faith, they put aside contempt for drinkers and gamblers and reluctantly attended a celebration party in a Vegas casino when their man won the party nomination here.

It was all so different four years ago. Back in 2008, Mr Obama found it easy to walk voters up the aisle of the little White Chapel where thousands of others tie the knot each year in Vegas.

He won the state convincingly with a 12-point margin. But did the President not pay his new companions enough attention? Could he be heading for a messy divorce in 2012?

The Obama campaign is spending a fortune on TV advertising to try to make sure they forget any indiscretions and give him another chance.

Vegas residents are bombarded with more political ads than any other viewers in the country. Apparently those watching the local news, Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune are particularly vulnerable to the TV appeals.

So what's the message? Well, the challenges of the economy have taken their toll on the USA and Nevada in particular. No longer are the streets paved with gold, certainly not for the residents at least.

If the issues this time are jobs and the economy then it should be easy for Mr Romney to convince the voters here to say "I do".

Nevada has the highest unemployment in the country (11.8% in September) and 60% of mortgages are underwater - negative equity - here, that's almost three times higher than the national average.

The city of northern Las Vegas has been described as the Ground Zero of the housing market. Foreclosure racked neighbourhoods sprawl way beyond the strip - and beneath it too.

More than 1000 people live in dirty, rat-infested underground flood tunnels way beneath Caesar's Palace and the Luxor casino hotels.

Disease and highly poisonous spiders are the major concern. Begging and "dumpster diving" for food is how they survive.

Many of those who call this home are former war veterans or those who came to Las Vegas in pursuit of the American dream.

Drink, drugs and depression are now their way of life. So, who do the residents of underground Vegas want to win on Tuesday?

I'll be finding out as I spend the next few days broadcasting for Sky News from Nevada.

But it's not just Vegas baby. There are another half a dozen swing states where the election can be won and lost.

My Sky News colleagues have fanned out from Washington to Florida, Ohio to Colorado to find out who the American people want to see victorious on Tuesday.

Using wireless digilinks we'll have correspondents strolling down mainstreet Des Moines and beach side Tampa. We'll be presenting across all the US time zones and have a pop up newsroom in Chicago.

Coverage starts in quite reserved Las Vegas with quite reserved me at 0600 Monday morning. Worth remembering that Nevada has backed the winning candidate in every election since 1976.

By early Wednesday morning UK time we should know who'll be King of Vegas and most probably the USA for the next four years.

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Sandy: Hypothermia Warning For Storm Victims

New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has warned residents of the risk of hypothermia as temperatures plunge in the wake of superstorm Sandy.

Temperatures are set to dip as low as 2C in the area, as some residents remain without gas for heating or electrical power.

Mr Bloomberg said the Long Island Power Authority (Lipa) had not acted aggressively enough to restore power to storm-hit residents in the region.

He said it was "unacceptable" that the worst-hit areas were not being made a priority for repairs after some residents were told it could take two weeks to restore power.

The Red Cross said it was stepping up its efforts in the face of a new storm, which is expected to bring cold winds, rain and possibly snow.

Charley Shimanski, senior vice president of disaster services, said: "We're working closely with emergency operations centres to stand up warming facilities, warming shelters, and stocking those with additional blankets, pillows and everything needed."

Electrical power has been restored to many residents

Mr Bloomberg's attack on the power company came just hours after US President Barack Obama showed reporters a photograph of a US Air Force transport plane being used to bring electrical utility cherry-picker trucks from other parts of the country to the damaged areas.

Mr Bloomberg also warned residents that fully resolving the shortages at petrol stations could take a few days.

Long lines of vehicles and pedestrians formed after governor Andrew Cuomo announced the US Department of Defence was opening mobile fuel stations in New York City and on suburban Long Island.

The government then asked the public to stay away from the locations until emergency responders get their fuel tanks filled.

But National Guard Colonel Richard Goldenberg said people who were already at the distribution sites would not be turned away.

Residents get into arguments over gasoline supplies

Energy companies have said they were working around the clock to restore power to parts of New York devastated by the powerful storm.

Engineers in Manhattan have managed to repair 11 power grids damaged by the high winds and storm surge.

But around 5,800 homes were still without electricity in Manhattan as of Saturday morning.

The worst-hit area of New York remains Queens - with 81,000 people still without power. Brooklyn and Staten Island both have 31,000 and the Bronx has 25,000 without electricity.

A statement from energy firm Con Edison said it had now restored power to 70% of customers - around 645,000 homes.

New Jersey governor Chris Christie stopped gas to the Barrier Islands

It said: "The hurricane is the worst natural disaster to strike Con Edison's customers in the company's history.

"Crews are facing thousands of downed wires in New York City and Westchester County.

"Some cannot be re-energised since they are in flood zones with damage that bars the safe re-introduction of electricity."

Some residents of New Jersey have been moved to tents set up by a utility company due to the length of time they are expected to be homeless due to the storm that hit the US East Coast last Monday.

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Expenses: Police Unable To Use MacShane Letters

Letters in which a former Labour minister admitted expenses abuses cannot be used to prosecute him because they are protected by parliamentary privilege, an official has said.

Denis MacShane stepped down as an MP after a damning report from the Commons expenses watchdog found he had wrongly claimed thousands of pounds.

The report said he submitted 19 false invoices "plainly intended to deceive" Parliament's expenses authority - which said the case was the "gravest" it had dealt with.

There are now calls for a police investigation into Mr MacShane's expense claims, which was dropped in July, to be reopened.

The Metropolitan Police said: "We are aware of the report and will be assessing its content in due course."

The letters, which were never shown to the original inquiry because of parliamentary privilege, are likely to be examined by the police, but are still protected from being used in court.

Clerk of the Journals Liam Laurence Smyth, who is responsible for parliamentary privilege issues, admitted that many people would find the situation "surprising", but said privilege was necessary for Parliament to function effectively.

Even if Mr MacShane had openly admitted criminal behaviour in his evidence, the police would not be able to rely on the comments in court, he said.

However, he suggested the police might now be able to use the letters as a "map" to further their own enquiries.

Conservative MP Philip Davies, who urged the Met to reopen its investigation, said it was a "sad state of affairs" that Mr MacShane was protected by parliamentary privilege.

"All it will do is further undermine the reputation of Parliament," he said.

"There will be millions of people out there who think that MPs are above the law and that is what the perception will be."

Parliamentary Standards Commissioner John Lyon found the MP had entered 19 "misleading" expenses claims for research and translation services from a body called the European Policy Institute (EPI), signed by its supposed general manager.

However, the institute did not exist "in this form" by the time in question and the general manager's signature was provided by Mr MacShane himself or someone else "under his authority".

One letter from the MP to Mr Lyon in October 2009 described how he drew funds from the EPI so he could serve on a book-judging panel in Paris.

"I appreciate the committee's ruling that I made no personal gain and I regret my foolishness in the manner I chose to be reimbursed for work including working as the Prime Minister's personal envoy in Europe," he said.

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