Seven people from one traveller family abused and beat up to 24 vulnerable men they kept in captivity making them work without pay, a court has heard.
The six men and one woman deny servitude and forced labour charges at Luton Crown Court.
Police found men living in squalor at the Green Acres caravan park in Bedfordshire last September.
The Connors controlled and exploited the homeless people making considerable amounts of money, prosecutors claim.

Inflation may stay above 3% during the rest of this year, according to Paul Tucker, a deputy governor of the Bank of England.
Mr Tucker said the short-term resilience of inflation was "bad news".
Separately, the Bank has warned of the possibility the economy may fall into recession again this year.
Its Monetary Policy Committee said output may drop in the first six months of this year, after contracting in the last quarter of 2011.

A private equity firm has bought a UK college with its own degree-awarding powers - in a groundbreaking deal for the UK's higher education sector.
The College of Law has been bought by Montagu Private Equity for an amount approaching £200m.
The college, set up as a charity, provides law courses in London and in other regional centres in England.
Nigel Savage, the college's chief executive, welcomed the takeover by this "well-resourced partner".

Companies should give a job to "the surly young man in a hoodie", the employment minister is to say.
In a speech later, Chris Grayling will say that "it's easy to hire someone from Eastern Europe with five years' experience", but firms should take a risk on less obvious "local recruits".
He will also attack those who "rail with outrage" at the idea of young people doing unpaid work experience.

A cross-party parliamentary inquiry into how safe children are online has concluded the government and internet service providers need to do more.
It found that children were easily accessing pornography and websites showing extreme violence.
The inquiry called on the government to back moves for stronger filters of adult content.
The MPs also recommended that the government appoint an internet safety tsar.
The inquiry said that internet service providers (ISPs) and the government should work together to draw up guidelines to make it clearer to parents what safety settings were available on their home computers and other internet-enabled devices.

UK unemployment has registered its first fall since last spring, according to official figures.
Unemployment fell by 35,000 to 2.65 million over the December-to-February period, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The unemployment rate edged down from a 12-year high of 8.4% to 8.3%, the lowest level since the summer of last year.
The claimant count rose by 3,600 in March to 1.61 million.

According to recent polls, Barack Obama is trouncing Mitt Romney nationally among likely female voters, and many have pointed to the supposed Republican “War on Women” as the reason for Obama’s lead. Those who argue that the war is real cite examples like the strong Republican opposition to Obama’s proposed contraception reform and the extreme pro-life stances of people like Rick Santorum—who has said that abortion is wrong even in cases of rape and incest—as instances of lawmakers wading too far into women’s issues. Republican efforts to redefine rape to reduce access to abortions, cut funding for Planned Parenthood, hold a hearing on contraception without any female panel members, and (in South Dakota, at least) make it legal to kill doctors who perform abortions have not helped their case with some women, either.

It seems that more and more youngsters with internet startups are instant bajillionaires. Twenty-seven-year-old Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook is adding two more to the rich under-30 set, purchasing Instagram for $1 billion from founders Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom. There is a bevy of others, as well, like Zuckerberg's Facebook cofounders, as well as Google cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, all of whom were under 30 when they started their wildly popular sites. Add in lists like Inc.'s 30 under 30, which catalogs the hottest young entrepreneurs, and it looks like Generation Y is primed to take over the 1 percent.

Spain has threatened retaliation against Argentina over the forced nationalisation of oil firm YPF, raising the prospects of a trade war between the nations.
YPF's controlling stake, owned by Spain's Repsol, was seized by President Cristina Fernandez's government.
Spain's Industry Minister Jose Manuel Soria said it was considering unspecified action on diplomacy, trade, industry and energy.
YPF's debt was also downgraded.
Ratings agency Moody's cut the oil firm's debt rating to B3 from Ba3, saying further downgrades were possible.

The man who admits killing 77 people in Norway began his trial with a closed-fist salute. What's behind this gesture?
He smiled as the handcuffs were released.
Then Anders Behring Breivik clenched his right hand, held it to his chest and extended his arm to raise it above the Oslo court.
In the world's media, the motion was interpreted as a demonstration that the man who killed scores of people in gun and bomb attacks in July 2011 felt no remorse or repentance.

Eight Metropolitan Police officers and a civilian staff member have been suspended as the IPCC investigates complaints of racism against the force.
Earlier the Met said an acting sergeant and two PCs based in Newham had been suspended over a claim of racist abuse after last year's London riots.
The force has now said a further seven complaints are being investigated and five more officers have been suspended.

It's easy to imagine the two presidential candidates on a playground.
"You're out of touch," Mitt Romney taunts President Obama.
"No, you're out of touch," Obama retorts.
[See pictures of Obama's re-election campaign.]
"No, you're out of touch."
"No, you're out of touch."
"No,…"
This is essentially the dialogue that's emerging between the two presidential campaigns. Romney, the Republican front-runner, has been saying in speeches that "flying around on Air Force One, surrounded by an adoring staff of true believers" has made Obama oblivious to the needs and struggles of ordinary Americans.

Syrian troops have launched fresh assaults on rebels, activists say, as an envoy of UN mediator Kofi Annan arrived in Damascus to discuss implementing a ceasefire plan.
Activists says several towns, including Homs, Deraa and the Douma suburb of Damascus, have been shelled .
There are also reports of a steep rise in refugees crossing into Turkey.
A spokesman for Mr Annan said Syria had reported some troop withdrawals and the UN expects a full truce by 12 April.

Hosepipe bans affecting about 20 million customers have been introduced by seven water authorities in parts of southern and eastern England.
People who flout the bans, which follow one of the driest two-year periods on record, face fines of up to £1,000.
Suppliers Thames, Southern, South East, Anglian, Sutton and East Surrey, Veolia Central and Veolia South East have all introduced "temporary use bans".
The government has urged householders to be "smarter about how we use water".

Analysts say pent-up demand has primed the pump for a banner year in auto sales
By DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN
April 3, 2012 RSS Feed Print
After years of putting it off, Americans are done waiting. They're ready to buy new cars, and even high gas prices aren't going to deter them.
[See why total wedding spending is down.]
Today, Chrysler announced that its March auto sales were up by 34 percent, and other makers also posted positive numbers: General Motors' March sales were up 12 percent, and Ford was up 5 percent. Altogether, car sales look set for a strong year. Truecar.com, an auto price-tracking website, forecasts the best sales quarter since 2008, as well as a total of 14.5 million cars sold in 2012.

BURLESON, Texas (AP) — Dallas Police say possible tornadoes have touched down in the southern part of that city as a band of severe weather moves through northern Texas.
Local television footage shows overturned and smashed semi-trailers on the ground in the southern portion of Dallas County. Dallas Police spokeswoman Sherri Jeffrey says twisters also have caused damage in the city limits.
Weather service advisories issued Tuesday said storm spotters and radar shows separate "large and extremely dangerous" tornadoes both south of Dallas and Fort Worth.

The chairman of the House transportation committee is calling for a hearing following a report that an obscure federal agency blew $820,000 on a conference near Las Vegas.
Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, called the expenses "outrageous" but said it's "just the tip of the iceberg."
"We have been trying to get the administrative costs from the agency and now we see why they have been stonewalling," he said in a statement.

Jurre Herman won €100 in gift vouchers for his devastatingly simple contingency plan for a breakup of the eurozone
An 11-year-old boy from the Netherlands has joined the chorus of people calling for Greece to leave the euro in a surprise entry for the lucrative Wolfson economics prize.
Jurre Herman won €100 (£83) in gift vouchers for his devastatingly simple contingency plan for a breakup of the eurozone. Herman suggested Greeks should be forced to swap their euros for drachmas, so the Greek government could pay back its debts with the euros it collects. Any sceptics will surely be convinced by his drawing, which demonstrates a Greek guy, who "does not look happy!!", delivering his euros to the bank.