The Times

When I sat a recent mock GCSE exam at school, the paper turned out to be a past paper that I had done at home as part of my revision preparation. Since I will now probably get a very good mark for this exam, am I morally obliged to confess to my teacher (and classmates) the reason for my strong performance?

RESULTS FOR 2008 Ranking: 784= Worth: £100m Source of wealth: Plant and equipment

The anti-obesity strategy outlined by ministers yesterday is not unlike the typical British body. The framework is sound enough but its potential is buried beneath layers of blubber. The need for a drive against obesity is clear: the link between it and a range of health difficulties is indisputable. Yet whether the whole £372 million programme that was set out will be value for money, or produce any advance of note, is disputable.

Although many aspire to live in a home designed by an architect, few can afford to do so. Some savvy housebuyers, however, have discovered that a search of Scotland's former local-authority stock, throws up the occasional unexpected gem.

Emily Diamand's Reavers was the unanimous winner of the first Times/Chicken House Children's Fiction Competition, but she seemed almost too good to be true. Was her surname really Diamand? Was this genuinely her first novel? Was she truly a young mother with an 18-month-old baby, just like J.K. Rowling when Barry Cunningham spotted her?

ABSURDISTAN by Gary Shteyngart

Sir, I may not be alone in detecting a case of having your Christmas cake and eating it in David Aaronovitch’s defence of carol-singing atheists (Comment, Dec 20) and accompanying letters. I find it hard to respect anyone who proclaims their atheism with missionary zeal, and then happily joins in singing such lines as “O Come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord”, however agreeable they may find the experience.

Where was Sheba of biblical times, and what was the name of its queen who famously visited Solomon?

Click link below left for full picture gallery of Matthew Cook's Atonement sketches.

Wearing “I love China” T-shirts, they unload the injured from ambulances. Driving their Hondas and their Audis, they deliver water to the homeless.

Four stars! Read James Christopher's review

Heads bowed, helmets in their hands, soldiers balanced on the rubble of a town devastated by last Monday’s earthquake. A childless mother wept quietly in her van. Thousands gathered under the portrait of Chairman Mao in Tiananmen Square.

A US soldier has been sent home after shooting at a copy of the Koran during target practice near a village outside Baghdad in an act that enraged local tribesmen and prompted the US military to issue an apology.

Anil Ambani, the billionaire Indian industrialist, has announced a $1 billion ($£511.1 million) foray into Hollywood through a series of deals with A-list film stars including George Clooney, Nicholas Cage, Tom Hanks and Brad Pitt.

The Saudi blogosphere is in mourning after the sudden death of a young female web-diarist and author who battled for a freer media in the restrictive kingdom.

Across the Pond: Obamamania in Portland

South Africa has been left in shock after an eruption of violence on a scale not seen since the end of apartheid.

A total of 200 Chinese rescue workers have been buried by mudslides in the past three days, it was announced today.