• Liverpool faces a second year of council budget cuts. Social services are expected to bear the brunt (pages 1, 6 and 7).

• The council's £15,000 "Mission to America", aimed at attracting US businesses to Liverpool, has elicited the names of a handbag firm and an electric blanket manufacturer who might possibly be interested (page 8).

• Lord Leverhulme sacks his gardener after discovering he is not officially married to the woman he has been living with for seven years. The couple are also evicted from a cottage that came with the job (pages 1 and 4).

• British Rail is exaggerating losses on the Gateacre line in an apparent effort to close it down (pages 1, 6 and 7).

• Lynwood Nursing Home, a privately-run clinic charging excessive amounts for abortions has set up a "pregnancy advisory bureau" to recruit patients, since it is not legally allowed to advertise (page 3).

• A group of Kirkby women have secured a reduction in rates (council tax) because of a "loss of amenity" caused by a betting shop and the Peacock pub near their homes (page 5).

• Why does Southport have 17 "international employment agencies" – one of them run from a garden shed? (page 10).

• Liverpool is to host an international conference on town planning. Sculptor Arthur Dooley and the Merseyside Worker Artists Association announce they will organise an alternative conference (page 10).

• In industrial news, the Free Press explains the background to a year-long strike by electricians at the Inland Revenue Office construction site in Bootle (page 8) and reports a new round of job losses among dock workers (page 10).

• The saga of the Realmdeal property firm's activities in Toxteth continues (page 5).

• The sixth extract from The Little Red Schoolbook (page 4) is about smoking and drugs.

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