News Headlines - 27 October 2012

▽BBC News - Italy ex-PM Berlusconi threatens to topple Monti government

Mr Berlusconi said the cabinet was leading Italy into a "spiral of recession" and that his centre-right PDL party would decide in the coming days whether it would end its support. It is the largest party in parliament and the move could trigger early polls.

▽Trains Cancelled Due To Driver Shortage

A train company has cancelled more than 100 services due to a shortage of train drivers, causing anger among commuters... The company has apologised to customers, saying the shortfall in qualified train drivers should be addressed by mid-December.

▽Barclays slashes bankers' pay by up to half as profits fall - Telegraph

Barclays is to cut the salaries of some of its leading investment bankers by as much as half in a bid to reduce costs and show that the bank has fundamentally changed following the financial crisis.

▽Penguin and Random House in merger talks | The Guardian

The owners of Penguin and Random House are in talks about merging their publishing arms to create the world's biggest books publisher. Pearson, which owns Penguin and the Financial Times, confirmed on Thursday that it has entered into merger discussions with Bertelsmann, the privately owned German company that owns Random House.

▽Cambridge scientists send mobile phone into orbit to see if 'anyone could you scream' | Mail Online

A group of Cambridge scientists called Cambridge University Space Flight have invited members of the public to upload videos of themselves screaming to YouTube and the best ten will then be downloaded to a Google Android smartphone and launched into space on a tiny satellite Once in orbit the sounds of the screams will be played through thephone's speaker and whatever audio comes out will be recorded and beamed back to earth.