Mange tout. Photograph: Stockbyte Platinum/Getty Images British-grown mange tout will go on sale on the UK high street for the first time this week in a boost for shoppers keen to avoid produce that has racked up air miles. The vegetable is typically grown in Kenya, and British growers have until now been unable to [...]

Hundreds of people looking for employment wait in line at an over-50s job fair in New York in April. US joblessness now stands at 9.5% and one in six are believed to be under-employed. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images A crippled housing market. Stubbornly high levels of unemployment. Falling consumer confidence. Slower growth in industrial production. [...]

Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke testifying before the House Financial Services Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington today. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP The head of America’s central bank, Ben Bernanke, warned against immediate European-style budget austerity today when he insisted that withdrawing fiscal stimulus was too risky for the recession-threatened US economy. In a [...]

No 10 denied ministers had acted improperly over the cancelled loan to Sheffield Forgemasters. Photograph: John Giles/Press Association The government was forced last night to deal with its first sleaze row since the general election when secret Whitehall documents showed a Tory donor successfully lobbied for the cancellation of an £80m loan to a leading [...]