ONE MISSING IN FIREWORK PLANT BLAZE

A search is due to get under way for a person missing after a large blaze at a fireworks factory which saw two others taken to hospital.

A specialist team will search premises of SP Fireworks in Tilcon Avenue, Stafford as police work to trace those people who were at the factory shortly before the explosion yesterday evening.

The rescue workers will begin their search for the person who remains unaccounted for after the premises are deemed safe, a spokesman for Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service said.

MILIBAND RALLIES SCOTTISH TROOPS

Ed Miliband insists Labour's general election battle "is no tougher than the fights we have faced in the past" - despite a new poll which suggests he is on course to lose 90% of his Scottish MPs to the SNP.

Mr Miliband acknowledged that Labour has had a "tough week" with the dramatic resignation of Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont, but said its general election success and devolution referendum in 1997 and the success of Labour-led Better Together in September demonstrates that the party has won tough battles in the past.

Scottish MP Jim Murphy has launched a campaign to lead Scottish Labour and end the streak of "losing Labour" following two poor Holyrood campaigns.

WOOLF UNDER NEW PRESSURE TO QUIT

Fiona Woolf is facing fresh pressure to quit as the head of the Government's inquiry into historical child abuse after the chairman of an influential group of MPs claimed drafts of letters to the Home Secretary showed she attempted to play down links with former Cabinet minister Lord Brittan and his wife.

Home Affairs Select Committee Keith Vaz said the final version of the letter sent by Mrs Woolf to Theresa May "gave a sense of greater detachment" between Mrs Woolf and the Brittans than the earlier documents.

The disclosure of the drafts intensified calls for Mrs Woolf to stand down and led to questions about the role of Home Office and inquiry officials in helping to produce the letter.

PLEA TO CONFRONT AID CORRUPTION

The Government is failing to tackle corruption levels in international aid programmes it is funding, an independent watchdog has found.

At least one programme supported by British cash appears to have actually "increased the opportunities for corruption", according to the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI).

It warned that the poorest were suffering most as a result of so-called petty corruption but said political sensitivities were constraining the Department for International Development's (DfID) willingness to directly tackle the problem.

MILIBAND IN ENGLISH DEVOLUTION ROW

A Labour government would pass an English Devolution Act, transferring control over £30 billion worth of funding to England's cities and counties, Ed Miliband has announced.

The Labour leader said the law change would build on his party's devolution of powers to Scotland and Wales under the previous Government, and ensure that economic recovery benefits all parts of England, and not just the City of London.

Authorities in the English regions would receive devolved funding of £30 billion over five years to spend in areas like transport, housing infrastructure, business support, skills and employment, while new powers to regulate bus services would be granted to city or county regions which want them, said Mr Miliband.

FIRMS 'SHOULD STATE DRINK CALORIES'

Drinks companies should label their alcoholic products to show the number of calories they contain as part of a bid to tackle obesity, a health organisation has said.

Irresponsible drinking is causing an obesity epidemic and threatening public health, the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) said.

The majority of the 2,117 UK adults they asked in a poll this month either did not know or underestimated the number of calories in a glass of wine and a pint of lager.

TROOPER AMBUSH SUSPECT IS CAPTURED

A survivalist accused of ambushing two state troopers, killing one and seriously wounding the other, was captured by US marshals near an abandoned aeroplane hangar.

Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for Eric Frein, who meekly gave himself up when surrounded, ending a seven-week manhunt in Pennsylvania that had rattled the nerves of area residents.

"He did not just give up because he was tired," state police commissioner Frank Noonan said. "He gave up because he was caught."

UKRAINE AND RUSSIA CLINCH GAS DEAL

Moscow and Kiev have clinched a deal that will guarantee that Russian gas exports flows into Ukraine throughout the winter despite their intense rivalry over the fighting in eastern Ukraine.

In the signing ceremony in Brussels following protracted negotiations, the two sides promised to get the gas flowing into Ukraine again after a long and bitter dispute over payments.

EU Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, whose offices mediated the talks for months, said the EU will also help cash-strapped Ukraine with the payments through aid and guarantees.

HALLOWEEN COSTUMES 'DAMAGING'

Halloween's ghoulish festivities have turned into a "dangerous" culture that brands the mentally ill as "psychos or schizos or freaks", a Government minister will warn today.

Liberal Democrat Care and Support Minister Norman Lamb will give a speech urging retailers not to "demonise" people with mental health problems by selling trick-or-treat and party outfits that mock psychiatric patients.

His address to the National Child and Adult Services (NCAS) conference in Manchester comes after several joke outfits depicting dangerously violent mental patients in chains and wearing masks made headlines after going on sale online.

ROYAL COUPLE TO END COLOMBIA TOUR

The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall will end their four-day tour of Colombia by visiting the Caribbean influenced city of Cartagena today.

Charles and Camilla will carry out a number of engagements including visiting a museum that is home to fabulous gold treasures from the Latin American nation's early history.

At a Naval Academy the royal couple will view a display of ingenious semi-submersibles captured from drug smugglers.