'THUNDERSNOW' STORMS SET TO PELT UK

Britain will be hit by a week of snow and freezing temperatures as the country's "yo-yo" weather continues.

The North will be worst hit with "thundersnow storms" striking, while snowfalls of up to 15cm are predicted tonight.

There are fears the plummeting temperatures could endanger the health of the elderly and vulnerable and cause travel disruption as the snow showers are expected to hit during this morning's rush hour.

NEW GUIDANCE ON CONSENT ISSUED

Police and prosecutors are to be given fresh guidance about the issue of consent in rape cases, the Director of Public Prosecutions said.

For the first time a new "toolkit" will move well beyond the idea of "no means no" to spell out situations where possible victims may have been unable to give consent to sex, Alison Saunders said.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said this includes situations where someone is incapacitated through drink or drugs or where "a suspect held a position of power over the potential victim - as a teacher, an employer, a doctor or a fellow gang member".

CARNEY URGES EU FISCAL SOVEREIGNTY

Bank of England governor Mark Carney has urged the eurozone to follow the example of the Union joining together the nations of the UK by making a "bold" move towards shared tax and spending arrangements.

He accused the 19-nation bloc of being "relatively timid" in some of the reforms needed to drag it out of stagnation and urged it to embrace "mechanisms to share fiscal sovereignty".

Mr Carney's remarks come days after Greece elected the radical Syriza party into power on a platform of ending the austerity policies imposed on it as part of the debt-laden country's bail-out - a result that threatens to destabilise the currency union.

100,000 BACK NO-STUN SLAUGHTER BAN

A petition demanding an outright ban on slaughtering animals without stunning them first has attracted more than 100,000 backers - but the Government insisted it still had "no intention" of outlawing religious slaughter.

Vets chief John Blackwell vowed to continue the fight, warning ministers they "simply cannot ignore the strength of public feeling" over animal welfare and a failure to let consumers know how their meat was killed.

Campaigners will now press for a fresh Commons debate on the issue after quickly exceeding the six-figure threshold required on the parliamentary petition site to trigger a possible time slot.

MUSLIMS URGED ON PEACEFUL PROTEST

The Muslim community has a "unique responsibility" to help to ensure that there are fewer terrorist acts in the future, according to a leading private headmaster.

Richard Cairns, of Brighton College, is urging leaders of the Islamic faith to gather support for a peaceful protest against violence and extremism.

He suggests that while Muslims cannot and must not be held responsible for violent acts committed in the name of their religion, they do have a role to play in fighting against atrocities such as the attacks on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket in Paris earlier this month.

EBOLA VACCINE 'POTENTIAL TO WORK'

Results from an early Ebola vaccine trial are said to be a "tad disappointing" but show that the drug is safe.

The trial conducted at Oxford University paves the way for the vaccine, jointly developed by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), to be further tested on patients in West Africa.

The vaccine uses a single Ebola gene carried in a harmless chimpanzee cold virus to trigger an immune response.

CROSSRAIL WORKERS TUNNEL UNDER CITY

Workers on the £14.8bn Crossrail project have made their latest breakthrough by tunnelling under the City of London.

The project's 1,000-tonne tunnel machine, named Elizabeth after the Queen, broke into the eastern end of Liverpool Street Crossrail station - 40 metres below the financial district.

Elizabeth now has 750m to bore to reach the end of the line as part of Crossrail's longest tunnelling drive of 8.3km from Limmo Peninsula, near Canning Town, to Farringdon and is expected to be finished in the spring.

DONOR OVERSIGHT 'UNACCEPTABLY POOR'

The Department for International Development has been strongly criticised by MPs for channelling hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money into an overseas investment agency despite fears that the funds were going to projects linked to known fraudsters.

The UK is the biggest donor to the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) - which was set up to invest in infrastructure projects in developing countries - with total support expected to reach £860 million by 2017.

However the Commons Public Accounts Committee said that PIDG was beset by "poor financial management", lavish travel spending, and doubts about the integrity of its investments.

LABOUR IN HOME RULE BILL PLEDGE

Labour will introduce a new Home Rule Bill for Scotland within 100 days of being voted into office, Ed Miliband has pledged.

The Labour leader said that in the same way that Tony Blair acted quickly to establish the Scottish Parliament after his 1997 victory, devolution would be "one of the first things on our agenda" if the party wins May's general election.

Work on the legislation, which comes in the wake of the promise of further powers made by Mr Miliband and other Westminster leaders ahead of the independence referendum, would start on the first day of a new Labour government, the party said.

TEACHER KILLER IN MINIMUM TERM BID

The 16-year-old boy who murdered teacher Ann Maguire is challenging his 20-year minimum term today.

At Leeds Crown Court in November, Will Cornick was warned that he might never be released from prison by a judge who found his pride and lack of remorse over his actions "truly grotesque".

Cornick stabbed Mrs Maguire, 61, seven times from behind as she taught a Spanish class at the city's Corpus Christi Catholic College in April last year.