Burton Joyce Online

I enjoy ploughing through i's daily email inbox, filtering out the more vituperative comments, replying where needed, but often just being overwhelmed by the kindness of our readers.

Adele is at the forefront of a new British revival in the album charts with home-grown artists recording their best sales since the mid-1990s when Oasis and the Spice Girls ruled.

Newt Gingrich, the former speaker, is not for prevarication and so his response to a direct question from The Independent last night was yes and immediately. Or at least upon his being inaugurated as President.

Retailers suffered a fall in underlying sales last month and the second-worst January of trading since the mid-1990s, hitting them with a "sobering" start to what is expected to be another "tough year".

Plunging temperatures and a supply squeeze sent UK wholesale gas prices soaring to their highest level in nearly six years yesterday, as Europe shivered in the grip of the big freeze.

A five-year-old girl was "happily playing" in a shop when she was hit by gunfire and left permanently paralysed, the Old Bailey heard yesterday.

An authoritative inquiry into Surrey Police's handling of the Milly Dowler case and its decade-long silence over illegal voicemail interceptions and links with the News of The World, has been called for by MPs who helped expose phone hacking.

China's soaring growth rate could be cut in half this year if Europe's debt crisis worsens significantly, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned yesterday.

Iranian authorities have arrested several people over alleged links to the BBC's Farsi-language service, it was reported last night.

The chief executive of the London-listed Arab investment bank EFG-Hermes has been prevented from leaving Egypt amid allegations that he could have helped to incite the football riot which killed 74 people last week.