The brother of the American fraudster Bernard Madoff has pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and falsifying records and has agreed to serve 10 years in prison. But Peter Madoff said he'd not known his brother's decades-long securities business was a sham until his brother told him it had collapsed in 2008. From New York, here's the BBC's Nada Tawfik.
Bernie Madoff maintained no one else knew of his elaborate Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of $20bn, but prosecutors were never convinced. Peter Madoff helped to run his brother's Wall Street firm, but in a New York court he told the judge he was in total shock when Bernie Madoff revealed he had defrauded investors of billions of dollars, and that he was deeply ashamed and terribly sorry. But the FBI says Peter Madoff was one of the chief architects of the scheme, signing his name to documents that certified the firm's investment balances.
The Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has made clear through his spokeswoman that he will continue to seek political asylum in Ecuador. He's wanted in Sweden for alleged sexual offences. Today British police requested that he report to a London police station, but his spokeswoman told the media that Mr Assange feared this would eventually lead to his extradition to the United States on espionage charges.
The film star Tom Cruise and his wife actress Katie Holmes are getting divorced after five years of marriage. They have a six-year-old daughter. Cruise has been married twice before to Nicole Kidman and Mimi Rogers.