Ballon d'Or shortlist: Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi the favourites with Gareth Bale and five Premier League stars named

Five Barclays Premier League stars and one Brit - Gareth Bale - have been named on FIFA's 23-man shortlist for the 2014 Ballon d'Or.

Current holder Cristiano Ronaldo and four-time winner Lionel Messi are again the favourites but there is no place on the shortlist for former Liverpool striker Luis Suarez, who was banned for four months in July for biting Italy's Giorgio Chiellini at the World Cup.

Six members of Germany's World Cup-winning squad have been nominated, making them the most represented country on the list.

The five players based in England on the shortlist are Chelsea trio Eden Hazard, Diego Costa and Thibaut Courtois, Manchester City's Yaya Toure and Manchester United's Angel Di Maria.



BALLON D'OR SHORTLIST

Gareth Bale (Wales), Karim Benzema (France), Diego Costa (Spain), Thibaut Courtois (Belgium), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Angel Di Maria (Argentina), Mario Gotze (Germany), Eden Hazard (Belgium), Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Sweden), Andres Iniesta (Spain), Toni Kroos (Germany), Philipp Lahm (Germany), Javier Mascherano (Argentina), Lionel Messi (Argentina), Thomas Muller (Germany), Manuel Neuer (Germany), Neymar (Brazil), Paul Pogba (France), Sergio Ramos (Spain), Arjen Robben (Holland, James Rodriguez (Colombia), Bastian Schweinsteiger (Germany), Yaya Toure (Ivory Coast).

Meanwhile, three Premier League bosses - Manuel Pellegrini (City), Jose Mourinho (Chelsea) and Louis van Gaal (United) - are on the 10-strong shortlist for the manager of the year award.

The award ceremony takes place in Zurich on January 12.


FIFA WORLD COACH OF THE YEAR SHORTLIST

Carlo Ancelotti (Real Madrid), Antonio Conte (Juventus/Italy), Pep Guardiola (Bayern Munich), Juergen Klinsmann (USA), Joachim Low (Germany), Jose Mourinho (Chelsea), Manuel Pellegrini (Manchester City), Alejandro Sabella (Argentina), Diego Simeone (Atletico Madrid), Louis van Gaal (Holland/Manchester United).

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Mother humiliated at Marks and Spencer checkout by cashier

A mother-of-two was asked by a Marks and Spencer worker why she had mutilated and disfigured herself by decorating her neck and arms with tattoos. 

Natasha Henson, 35, had told the cashier that a customer in the store tutted and commented about her tattoos.

But she did not get the understanding she expected when the woman replied that she was not surprised she had 'tutted' and branded her tattoos 'disgusting.'

Mrs Henson, whose husband is a tattoo artist, left the shop in Bournemouth in tears. 

She said: 'It was absolutely horrible. 

'It's my choice to have tattoos and I do not expect people to judge me for it.' 

Mrs Henson mentioned being tutted at by a customer to the cashier and got a response she described as 'upsetting and insulting'.

She said: The woman responded something like, "I am not surprised she tutted I think they are appalling! 

'Why on earth would you want to mutilate and disfigure yourself like that? 

'I don't want to see your tattoos they are disgusting."'

I then mentioned I had a tattoo shop and she said "It doesn't matter if you have a tattoo shop you don't see painters and decorators go out and cover themselves in paint."'

Mrs Henson said when the woman asked who did the tattoos and she said the majority were done by her husband. 

The woman responded: 'My husband would never hurt me like that.

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Oscar Pistorius sentenced to five years in prison

South African athlete Oscar Pistorius  killed his girlfriend on Valentine's Day in 2013 when he shot through the bathroom door and into Ms Steenkamp. He has also been handed a three-year term suspended for five years for a firearm offense.

The amputee athlete, known as the Blade Runner, stood staring straight ahead as Judge Thokozile Masipa announced his sentence for killing the model. The 27-year-old athlete always argued that he thought he was firing at intruders

The Paralympian could have been sentenced to up to 15 years in prison, handed a community-based punishment and a fine or house arrest for shooting the model through a toilet cubicle door in his home.

More than seven months after Pistorius's trial started, Judge Thokozile Masipa announced what punishment she decided on after finding him guilty of culpable homicide, which is comparable to manslaughter, but acquitting him of murder.

Pistorius was asked by the judge to remain seated on a wooden bench in the Pretoria courtroom until she formally announced his sentence. He sat and looked straight ahead at Masipa as she read from her judgment.

Before delivering the sentencing, Masipa spoke of achieving the 'right balance', including the interests of society, but admitted that reaching a 'proper sentence' was a 'challenge'. 

The judge was at pains to point out that South African prisons were 'equipped' to house a double amputee, and added: 'The accused has shown he has excellent coping skills'.

The courtroom was packed, reflecting heightened media and public interest ahead of the sentencing, with police officers standing guard in the aisles.

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Thousands dead... but it's a dog that sparks an outcry:

A Spanish Ebola victim’s pet dog was put down last night over fears it could transmit the disease, prompting outrage from animal lovers who chanted ‘murderers’ outside the woman’s home.

Fury erupted after a government health spokesman confirmed that Teresa Romero Ramos’s dog, Excalibur, had been destroyed. The official explained: ‘Unfortunately we had no other choice.’

The animal was put to sleep inside Mrs Romero Ramos’s home, which was disinfected before the animal’s body was taken away in a white van to a nearby incinerator. 

Health minister Ana Mato is facing calls for her resignation after it emerged that Mrs Romero Ramos complained of feeling unwell six days before she was eventually admitted to hospital. 

She was rushed to hospital by unprotected paramedics in a normal ambulance only taken out of service 12 hours later and found out she had ebola by reading a Spanish newspaper website as she waited to be quarantined.

Her home in Alcorcon near Madrid that she shares with husband Javier Limon Romero, one of those quarantined at Madrid’s Carlos III Hospital, was not disinfected until yesterday morning.

Six people in total have now been quarantined since the start of Monday’s crisis.

They include three other hospital nursing staff who helped treat Miguel Pajares and Manuel Garcia Viejo, the Spanish priests who died after they were repatriated from West Africa. 

Twitter was awash with photographs of dogs, cats and birds which were posted alongside the hashtag ‘SalvemosAExcalibur’ – Spanish for ‘Let’s save Excalibur’.

Mrs Romero Ramos, 44, from Galicia in north-west Spain, who is one of the medical team that treated two repatriated Spanish priests who died from ebola, has been in quarantine since it was confirmed she was carrying the virus.

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