Business news 

Big companies delay suppliers' cash

Payment delays of more than 100 days are the biggest squeeze on the cashflows of smaller suppliers since the early 1990s

Average home asking price down £4,000

Homeowners are resorting to increasingly aggressive price cuts in an effort to sell properties, according to Rightmove

• Home sales fall to lowest level in 30 years

• Sellers spend thousands to shift their home

Treasury poised to drop tax of foreign profits

Government to execute a U-turn over the introduction of controversial plans to tax foreign profits in wake of a backlash

Sport News 

Drogba absence adds to doubts over future

Ivory Coast striker was left behind from Chelsea’s pre-season tour to Asia along with three other departing players

England forced to do more hard labour

Michael Vaughan's side face a huge task to rescue the second Test after disappointing performance on the third day

Comment 

The Seventies with less good cheer

We have more debt and are less secure than we were the last time things got really tough

• Libby Purves

The Europhiles are not the future, Mr Obama

Most US Presidents share the common American view that Europe will naturally evolve into a United States of Europe

• William Rees-Mogg

Don't slip on a subsidised banana skin

Here's a thought, free trade could produce food surpluses in places where there are now shortages

• Carl Mortished

Life & Style 

How smart are 'smart drugs'?

There's a buzz about modafinil, meant to make you brighter and more energized. But does it work, and at what cost?

Working women no longer want to be men

All around us we see women celebrated more for their traditionally feminine roles and lifestyles, than for their own achievements

Pop your cherry

With orchards fast disappearing, it's time to help our cherry farmers by feasting on this luscious British fruit

Arts & Entertainment 

Alan Ayckbourn: my love-hate thing

He has been writing plays for more than 50 years, but the eminent British playwright still distrusts most theatre

Hadrian: Empire and Conflict at British Museum

The BM’s Hadrian show couldn’t be more timely. His political problems were just like ours, says Waldemar Januszczak

10 things you need to know about Haruki Murakami

The key facts about the coolest writer in the world today, by Stephen Armstrong