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World Anti-Doping Agency figures show 14% rise in doping sanctions - BBC Sport
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2017-04-04
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More than 1,900 athletes were sanctioned for doping in 2015 - a 14% rise from 2014 - new World Anti-Doping Agency figures show.
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Last updated on .From the section Sport
More than 1,900 athletes were sanctioned for doping in 2015, new World Anti-Doping Agency figures show.
The 1,929 punishments for failed drug tests were an increase of 14% on the previous year, when 1,693 doping offences were carried out.
Wada says increased focus on investigations, intelligence gathering and whistleblowing are behind the rise.
"Recent events have shown investigative work is becoming ever more important," said Wada president Sir Craig Reedie.
However, he added that "testing remains vital to detecting doping".
Last year's McLaren report, which found more than 1,000 Russians benefited from a state-sponsored doping programme between 2011 and 2015, was commissioned by Wada following evidence from whistleblowers.
The report led to Russians being banned from international athletics competition as well as last summer's Paralympic Games in Rio.
Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee is retesting hundreds of doping samples from the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games based on targeted intelligence. More than 100 athletes have already been sanctioned as part of the retesting programme.
The latest Wada figures, though, are based on 2015 data. Its 2015 Anti-Doping Rule Violations Report shows there were 2,522 "adverse analytical findings" from 229,412 samples, of which 1,929 led to action against athletes.
The number of samples taken was 5% up on the 217,762 taken in 2014.
The figures do not include more than 70,000 tests and 1,200 failed tests which were not processed through Wada's anti-doping administration system (Adams). Many professional sports in North America do not use the Adams system.
The figures also show Russian athletes had the most anti-doping rule violations in 2015, with 176. The sport with the most sanctions was bodybuilding, with 270.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/39486028
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Pining for cleaner air in the Norwegian fjords - BBC News
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2017-04-04
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Diesel-powered ferries are big polluters, so could electric engines be a cleaner option?
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Business
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It might be slow, but the romance of commuting by ferry is not lost on Trond Bonesmo as he boards MF Norangsfjord for the crossing from Magerholm to Sykkylven.
"It's a welcome break, and the view isn't too bad either," he says as he looks across the sea towards the Sunnmoere Alps' snow-covered peaks.
"A bridge across the fjord would obviously make the crossing faster, but Storfjorden is two or three kilometres wide and 700 metres deep, which makes it very expensive to build one," says Mr Bonesmo, IT and operations manager for a consumer goods company.
Many Norwegian fjords present similar difficulties to bridge builders, so instead the country's coastal population relies on ferries that link their often remote communities.
Each year, some 20 million cars, vans and trucks cross the country's many fjords on roughly 130 ferry routes.
Most of Norway's ferries run on diesel, spewing out noxious fumes and CO2.
But this is about to change.
Building bridges across Norway's mountain-flanked fjords would be difficult and costly
Following two years of trials of the world's first electric car ferry, named Ampere, ferry operators are busy making the transition from diesel to comply with new government requirements for all new ferry licensees to deliver zero- or low-emission alternatives.
"We continue the work with low-emission ferries because we believe it will benefit the climate, Norwegian industry and Norwegian jobs," Prime Minister Erna Solberg said in a speech in April 2016, in which she vowed to help fund required quayside infrastructure.
Ferry company Fjord1, which operates the MF Norangsfjord, has ordered three fully electric ferries that are scheduled to enter active service on some of its routes in January 2018.
Multi Maritime, which designed the ferries, welcomes the growth in demand.
"Several years of investment in sustainable technologies have resulted in us having more than 10 fully electric and plug-in hybrid ferries under construction by several yards," says Gjermund Johannessen, managing director.
Multi Maritime has designed three electric ferries for Fjord1
In addition to new-builds, the marine division of Siemens, which developed the technology for Ampere, believes 84 ferries are ripe for conversion to electric power. And 43 ferries on longer routes would benefit from conversion to hybrids that use diesel engines to charge their batteries.
If this were done, nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions would be cut by 8,000 tonnes per year and CO2 emissions by 300,000 tonnes per year, equivalent to the annual emissions from 150,000 cars, according to a report penned jointly by Siemens and the environmental campaign group, Bellona.
Long-distance ferries are not well suited to electrification, but about 70% of Norway's ferries cover relatively short crossings, so switching to electric power would pay for itself in a few years, according to the report.
Each ferry would save about a million litres of diesel per year, helping to reduce energy costs by 60% or more, says Odd Moen, head of sales at Siemens' marine division.
"The electricity to power Ampere, with its 360 passengers and 120 cars, across a six kilometre-wide fjord costs about 50 kroner (£4.65; $5.80)," he says.
"In Norway, that won't even pay for a cup of coffee and a waffle."
Norway's older ferries are also being converted from diesel to electric
Ampere's electric powertrain, which was designed by Fjellstrand shipyard using Siemens technology, includes an 800kWh battery pack weighing in at a hefty 11 tonnes, which powers two electric motors, one either side of the vessel.
The batteries are fully charged overnight, but as each of the 34 daily 20-minute crossings of the Sognefjorden requires 150kWh, the battery must be topped up during loading and unloading as well.
During initial trials, the fast charging placed excessive strain on the local grid, designed as it was to service a relatively small population.
To lighten the load, high-capacity batteries were put on constant charge on either side of the fjord, ready to transfer the electricity quickly to the ferry's batteries whilst docked.
The charging added an extra burden to the Ampere crew's busy schedules. But this challenge is being dealt with by the latest electric ferry designs, which incorporate fully automatic charging systems.
Emissions from diesel-powered ferries have always been a problem.
"When they're docked, their engines are idling - that's when you see those black fumes coming out of their chimneys - and then they're accelerating hard away from land, so their engines are never operating with maximum efficiency," explains Mr Moen.
Ferry pollution is an issue for most busy city ports; Hong Kong is no exception
Mr Moen says he has registered much interest in the technology from overseas, and urges other governments to require and support a switch from diesel to electric ferries where appropriate.
Indeed, emissions from ferries is a problem not just in Norway, but in coastal communities and cities all over the world.
This is why Scotland has been moving to lower-carbon hybrid ferries - combining diesel and lithium-ion batteries - with three ferries now in operation.
In Hong Kong, the Environmental Protection Department has long been waging a war on emissions from ferries that are responsible for much of Victoria Harbour's poor air quality.
Similarly, in New Zealand a single ferry visit to Wellington used to pollute the air as much as all Wellington's cars did in a month, according to National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research figures.
Back in rural Sykkylven, where the air is relatively fresh, NOx emissions pose less of a problem than in a congested city.
But CO2 emissions from ferries should be curbed nevertheless to help combat climate change, Mr Bonesmo says, as he steers his electric car off the ferry.
By 2020, an all-electric solution will have replaced the current diesel-electric ferry on the Magerholm-Sykkylven crossing.
"And then my entire commute will be emissions free," Mr Bonesmo grins.
Follow Technology of Business editor Matthew Wall on Twitter and Facebook
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39478856
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Tick tock: The importance of knowing the right time - BBC News
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2017-04-04
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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From sailing to smartphones, accurate timekeeping has been essential to the world's economy.
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Business
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In 1845, a curious feature was added to the clock on St John's Church in Exeter: another minute hand, running 14 minutes faster than the original.
This was, as Trewman's Exeter Flying Post explained, "a matter of great public convenience", for it meant the clock exhibited, as well as the correct time at Exeter, "railway time".
Our sense of time has always been defined by planetary motion. We talked of "days" and "years" long before we knew the Earth rotated on its axis and orbited the Sun.
The Moon's waxing and waning gave us the idea of a month. The Sun's passage across the sky gave us "midday" and "high noon". Exactly when the Sun reaches its highest point depends, of course, on where you are.
Someone in Exeter will see it 14 minutes after someone in London.
Naturally people tended to set their clocks by their local celestial observations. That is fine if you co-ordinate only with locals. If we both live in Exeter and agree to meet at 19:00, it hardly matters that it is 19:14 in London, 200 miles away.
But as soon as a train connects Exeter and London - stopping at multiple other towns, all with their own time - we face a logistical nightmare.
50 Things That Made the Modern Economy highlights the inventions, ideas and innovations that helped create the economic world.
Early British train timetables valiantly informed travellers that "London time is about four minutes earlier than Reading time, seven and a half minutes before Cirencester", and so on, but many passengers were understandably confused.
More seriously, so were drivers and signalling staff, increasing the risk of collisions.
So railways adopted "railway time", based on Greenwich Mean Time, set by the famous observatory.
Railway companies such as GWR took accurate timekeeping extremely seriously
Some municipal authorities quickly grasped the usefulness of standardised national time.
Others resented this metropolitan imposition, insisting that their time was - as the Flying Post put it, with charming parochialism - "the correct time".
For years, the dean of Exeter refused to adjust the clock on the city's cathedral.
In fact, there is no such thing as "the correct time".
Like the value of money, it's a convention that derives its usefulness from widespread acceptance by others.
But there is such a thing as accurate timekeeping. That dates from 1656, and a Dutchman named Christiaan Huygens.
There were clocks before Huygens, of course.
Water clocks appear in civilisations from ancient Egypt to medieval Persia. Others kept time from marks on candles. But even the most accurate devices might wander by 15 minutes a day. This didn't matter to a monk wanting to know when to pray.
But there was one increasingly important area of life where the inability to keep accurate time was of huge economic significance: sailing.
By observing the angle of the Sun, sailors could calculate their latitude - where they were from north to south. But their longitude - where they were from east to west - had to be guessed.
Mistakes could - and frequently did - lead to ships hitting land hundreds of miles away from where navigators thought they were, sometimes disastrously.
How could accurate timekeeping help? If you knew when it was midday at Greenwich Observatory - or any other reference point - you could observe the Sun, calculate the time difference, and work out the distance.
Huygens's pendulum clock was 60 times more accurate than any previous device, but even 15 seconds a day soon mounts up on long sea voyages. Pendulums don't swing neatly on the deck of a lurching ship.
Huygens's pendulum clock was 60 times more accurate than any previous device, but still lost time
Rulers of maritime nations were acutely aware of the longitude problem: the King of Spain offered a prize for solving it nearly a century before Huygens's work.
Famously, it was a subsequent prize offered by the British government that led to a sufficiently accurate device being painstakingly refined, in the 1700s, by the Englishman John Harrison. It lost only a couple of seconds a day.
Since the dean of Exeter's intransigence, the whole world has agreed on "the correct time" - coordinated universal time (UTC), as mediated by various global time zones.
Usually, these zones maintain the convention of midday being vaguely near the Sun's highest point. But not always.
Since Chairman Mao abolished China's five time zones and put everyone on Beijing time, residents of westerly Tibet and Xinjiang have heard their clocks strike 12 not long after sunrise.
Meanwhile, since Huygens and Harrison, clocks have become much more accurate still. UTC is based on atomic clocks, which measure oscillations in the energy levels of electrons, and are accurate to within a second every hundred million years.
Does such accuracy have a point? We don't plan our morning commutes to the millisecond, and an accurate wristwatch has always been as much about prestige as practicality.
For over a century, before the hourly beeps of early radio broadcasts, members of the Belville family made a living in London by collecting the time from Greenwich every morning and selling it around the city, for a modest fee.
Their clients were mostly tradesfolk in the horology business, for whom aligning their wares with Greenwich was a matter of professional pride.
But there are places where milliseconds do matter. One is the stock market, where fortunes can be won by exploiting an arbitrage opportunity an instant before your competitors.
Some financiers recently calculated it was worth spending $300m (£247m) drilling through mountains between Chicago and New York to lay fibre-optic cables in a slightly straighter line. That sped up communication between the two cities' exchanges by three milliseconds.
The accurate keeping of universally accepted time also underpins computing and communications networks. But perhaps the most significant impact of the atomic clock - as in the past with ships and trains - has been on travel.
Nobody now needs to navigate by the angle of the Sun. We have GPS.
The most basic of smartphones can locate you by picking up signals from a network of satellites: because we know where each of those satellites should be in the sky at any given moment, triangulating their signals can tell you where you are on Earth.
The technology has revolutionised everything from sailing to aviation, surveying to hiking. But it works only if those satellites agree on the time.
GPS satellites typically house four atomic clocks, made from caesium or rubidium. Huygens and Harrison could only have dreamed of their precision, but it is still possible to misidentify your position by a couple of metres - a fuzziness amplified by interference as signals pass through the Earth's ionosphere.
That is why self-driving cars need sensors as well as GPS. On the road, a couple of metres makes the difference between lane discipline and dangerous driving.
Scientists have recently developed one, based on an element called ytterbium, that will not have lost more than a hundredth of a second by the time the Sun dies and swallows up the Earth, in about five billion years.
How might this extra accuracy transform the economy between now and then? Only time will tell.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39129620
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Lexi Thompson: Rickie Fowler wants a stop to TV viewers affecting game - BBC Sport
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2017-04-04
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Television viewers affecting golf tournaments "is not making the game look very good at all", says Rickie Fowler after Lexi Thompson's costly penalty.
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Last updated on .From the section Golf
Rickie Fowler says television viewers affecting golf tournaments "is not making the game look very good at all".
American Lexi Thompson, 22, was leading the ANA Inspiration on Sunday when she received a four-shot penalty after a TV viewer spotted an infringement and emailed officials.
Thompson ultimately lost the year's first women's major in a play-off.
"There's no question it should be ended," Fowler said of spectators being able to alert officials of breaches.
"I don't think you could find one player that would say otherwise."
Speaking in the build-up to this week's Masters in Augusta, the former world number four said he had sympathy for Thompson and that things need to change.
"There shouldn't be any outside contact, whether it's email or phone calls, whatsoever," he said.
"There's no other sport where people can call or email in or contact officials. These decisions are left up to officials. There are not people sitting at home dictating this, or in this case, having a large effect on the outcome of a major.
"I feel bad for Lexi. The way she handled it, the way she fought, was impressive."
Thompson, meanwhile, has issued a new statement saying professional golfers should accept the decision of officials "no matter how painful it is".
Thompson was leading by two shots in Sunday's final round when she was penalised for incorrectly replacing a marked ball in Saturday's third round.
The offence had been spotted by a viewer who emailed organisers. Thompson was penalised two strokes for putting the ball back in a different place and two for signing for an incorrect score.
Her five-under-par third-round 67 was therefore changed to a 71 which led to a play-off between Thompson and eventual winner Ryu So-yeon.
"What happened was not intentional at all - I would never do that purposely and I hope everyone knows that," Thompson said.
"The LPGA rules officials made a judgment call at the moment, and we as professional golfers must accept it, no matter how painful it is."
She added she did not want anything to detract from Ryu's victory, and also praised the fans who cheered her around the course after learning of her penalty.
"Hearing all the fans cheer me on after every shot, going to every tee, truly brought tears to my eyes every time."
Television scrutiny 'not fair' on best players
"It's not a fair system," was four-time major winner Laura Davies' verdict on the incident.
"Not everyone's shots are under scrutiny, just the leaders, so it's not a fair system," the Briton told BBC Radio 5 live.
"Golf has long since been the game of honour and there's no way in a million years Lexi has done that on purpose," Davies added.
"You could call her clumsy at worst but golfers rule themselves to a certain extent and that's the way it's always been."
"If Lexi was first out on Sunday morning and no cameras were on her, nobody would have seen it," he said.
"I don't understand how they can allow people to call in. I just find that absurd. Now you're telling me that you basically have two million rules officials.
"I don't think it should happen because you're only showing the people out there who are in contention. Every shot Tiger Woods plays the camera is on him. It's not the same playing field."
Former world number one Woods, who was penalised two shots for an incorrect drop during the 2013 Masters, earlier wrote on Twitter: "Viewers at home should not be officials wearing stripes."
We have all screamed at screens having witnessed what we consider sporting injustice, but we have no part in altering the course of action in other sports.
But golf allows for sofa-seated witnesses to influence outcomes and it does no-one any favours.
In this case Ryu So-yeon is celebrating her second major title but no one is talking about her performance. Instead the player who finished second is gaining all the attention and sympathy.
Ultimately it was Thompson's fault that she lost but no-one wants to see any sporting event decided in such a way.
Golf's rules are under review. There are many good ideas under discussion for implementation in 2019.
Here's another one they should adopt - make sure the referee's decision is final, because there should be no place for interference from anyone else.
• None 'Thompson's TV penalty shows rules need changing' - read more from Iain Carter
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/39485717
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Jess Fishlock column: I feel such honour to have reached 100 caps - BBC Sport
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2017-04-04
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It is a huge week in my life as I prepare to play for my country, Wales, for the 100th time on Wednesday.
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It is a huge week in my life as I prepare to play for my country, Wales, for the 100th time on Wednesday.
No footballer has represented Wales 100 times and it is a very proud moment to have reached the milestone.
I have just flown in. I've come to Wales via Seattle, where I have been in pre-season preparation, and before that I was in Melbourne, which is where I last flew into Wales from, for the Cyprus Cup.
I am pretty exhausted from the travel and not entirely sure what time zone I am in, but now all the focus is on Wales.
I think when it comes on Wednesday it is going to be a little bit emotional and maybe a bit overwhelming too. I think that is when the emotion is going to kick in. I am pretty excited already.
My family are going to be at the game against Northern Ireland and it is huge for me that they will be there.
They have been with me for my whole career and are the reason I am where I am and that I am who I am, so if they didn't turn up, there would be questions asked! They deserve this moment as much, or more, than I do.
I never even thought about the possibility of getting to 100 caps, since my first game, I've always just wanted to play for Wales.
Even when I got to 50 caps, I thought another 50 was miles away.
I remember my first game was against Switzerland away in 2006. We won 3-2 and scored a free-kick from a training ground routine, which any footballer will tell you is one of the best feelings in the world, when that comes off. That was my first cap.
To have reached the milestone of 100 now is amazing. I am extremely proud. Football is full of opinions, so it feels nice to become a statistic.
The landscape of women's football, in Wales and globally, has changed dramatically in the time I have taken to make it to 100 caps. It is like a different sport now to what it was then.
Women's football has really jumped levels in the last five years, which is great to see. Ten years ago there was nothing, you literally had to pay to play.
I was extremely lucky because I was seven when I went to my first women's football club.
The Cardiff City Ladies team, if it wasn't for them and the coaches dedication, I would never have got anywhere. There was nothing for women in football back then.
They enabled a seven-year old to achieve their dream and I'll live it by playing for Wales for the 100th time.
I have told Jayne Ludlow, the national team manager, that I am 100% committed to this campaign, I can't say I will play past that, but for this campaign, I believe in what we are doing and I would really love to play in a major tournament. That is the dream.
We don't want to be that maybe team anymore. We want to be the team that makes it.
I was disappointed when I landed in Wales and caught up with the news to hear the story about David Moyes and what he said to a female BBC reporter.
It is extremely patronising and I can't imagine David Moyes speaking like that if it was to a male reporter.
I don't think he would go to that tone or that way of speaking.
And I think this is something that male managers have to get used to. When a male manager is speaking to a female reporter, the way he speaks maybe has to be different, but it certainly does not have to be patronising.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/wales/39484351
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Is Trump now part of the establishment? - BBC News
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2017-04-04
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Donald Trump condemns Washington insiders, but some conservative critics say he's now the problem.
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US & Canada
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Donald Trump campaigned for president as the ultimate outsider, promising to unseat a corrupt and atrophied Washington establishment. Now, after two months in office, has he become the establishment? Are Trump and his team the insiders now?
One thing the recent collapse of healthcare reform efforts in the House of Representatives has revealed is just how quickly attitudes and alliances can shift in Washington, DC.
Last year Mr Trump and members of the House Freedom Caucus, a collection of 30 or so libertarian-leaning fiscal conservatives in Congress, were singing from the same anti-government hymnal.
Now, however, Mr Trump is the government - and he teamed up with congressional leadership to back a healthcare bill that conservative hard-liners believe didn't go far enough in undoing the 2009 Democratic-designed system.
The effort's failure set off back-and-forth sniping between Mr Trump and the Freedom Caucus that morphed into a classic insider-outsider faceoff, with Mr Trump cast as the new voice of the powers that be.
Congressman Justin Amash said the White House has become part of the hated status quo - the "Trumpstablishment", he called it in a Saturday tweet.
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That line drew the ire of Mr Trump's director of social media, Dan Scavino Jr, who tweeted that Mr Amash was a "big liability" and encouraged Michigan voters to unseat him in next year's Republican primary. (The tweet has since been criticised as a possible violation of a federal law preventing executive branch officials from attempting to influence election campaigns.)
If Mr Trump's conservative critics are trying to make the case that the president has become the establishment he campaigned against, their arguments have been buttressed by the financial disclosure documents released by the White House on Friday evening, which revealed exactly how well-heeled and connected many of the top White House staff are. According to the Washington Post, 27 members of Mr Trump's team have combined assets exceeding $2.3bn (£1.84bn).
Presidential daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner - both unpaid presidential advisers - are worth roughly $740m.
Senior White House strategist Steve Bannon earned as much as $2.3 million in 2017. Gary Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs executive who is one of Mr Trump's top economics advisers, has a net worth approaching $611m.
The New York Times points out that many in the inner circle of the putatively anti-establishment Mr Trump drew significant sums from the network of big-money political donors, think tanks and associated political action committees that populate the Washington insider firmament.
"The figures reveal the extent to which private political work has bolstered the financial fortunes of Trump aides, who have made millions of dollars from Republican and other conservative causes in recent years," the paper reported.
Already there are signs that conservative true-believers - some of whom were never fully sold on Mr Trump to begin with - are questioning Mr Trump's anti-establishment bona fides.
"That's the dirty little secret," writes conservative columnist Ben Shapiro. "Trump isn't anti-establishment; he's pro-establishment so long as he's the establishment."
Even conservative radio host Laura Ingraham, an early Trump supporter, is having some doubts.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump railed against the Washington establishment
"I think it is really, really unhelpful to Donald Trump's ultimate agenda to slam the very people who are going to be propping up his border wall, all the things he wants to do on immigration, on trade," she said on Fox News."I don't know where he thinks he's going to get his friends on those issues."
Perhaps of greatest concern to Mr Trump is that the failure to enact promised healthcare reform, along with his recent feud with members of his own party, have been accompanied by a softening of his core support in recent polls.
In a Rasmussen survey, the number of Americans who "strongly approve" of the president has dropped from 44% at shortly after his inauguration to 28% today. While the Republican base is largely sticking with Mr Trump so far, they may be starting to have some doubts.
For much of 2016 Donald Trump was the barbarian at the gate, threatening to rain fire on the comfortable Washington power elite. Even in his January inaugural address, he condemned an establishment that "protected itself" at the cost of average Americans.
"Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation's capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land," he said.
Now, however, Mr Trump and his team of formerly angry outsiders meet in the Oval Office. They fly on Air Force One. They host events in the White House rose garden. They issue tweets warning apostates of harsh political consequences.
They walk the halls of power and call the shots.
It doesn't get any more "insider" than that.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39483715
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Mike Ford replaced by Richard Cockerill as Toulon boss until end of season - BBC Sport
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2017-04-04
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Mike Ford leaves his role as Toulon's head coach, with former Leicester boss Richard Cockerill taking charge until the end of the season.
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Last updated on .From the section Rugby Union
Ex-Bath boss Mike Ford has left his role as Toulon's head coach, with former Leicester Tigers director of rugby Richard Cockerill replacing him until the end of the season.
Former England defence coach Ford, 51, only joined the French club in October.
He brought Cockerill in to work with him after the latter was sacked by Leicester in January.
The ex-England hooker will take charge until the end of the season before leaving to become Edinburgh boss.
It was announced last month that Ford would be leaving the post at the end of the season, to be replaced by Fabien Galthie.
But after the three-time European champions were knocked out of the Champions Cup in the quarter-finals by Clermont on Sunday, Toulon have decided to bring forward his departure.
Cockerill will be assisted by forwards coach Marc Dal Maso.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/39489771
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Masters 2017: Danny Willett hopes Augusta return can spark return to form - BBC Sport
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2017-04-04
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Defending Masters champion Danny Willett says returning to the scene of his greatest triumph may not spark an instant upturn in form.
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Last updated on .From the section Golf
Coverage: Watch highlights of the first two days before live and uninterrupted coverage of the weekend's action on BBC Two and up to four live streams available online. Listen on BBC Radio 5 live and BBC Radio 5 live sports extra. Read live text commentary, analysis and social media on the BBC Sport website and the sport app.
Defending Masters champion Danny Willett says returning to the scene of his greatest triumph may not spark an instant upturn in form.
The Englishman, 29, won his first major after a shock win at Augusta, aided by American Jordan Spieth's collapse.
Willett rose to a career-high ninth in the world, but has dropped to 17th after failing to win an event since.
"You do have a spring in your step coming back as champion," he said. "But you can't change your game like that."
• None 'Everything was shaking' - Willett relives his Masters win
• None Masters quiz: Match the winner with the dinner
Willett became the first Briton to win the Green Jacket in 20 years when he shot a five-under-par 67 as 2015 champion Spieth crumbled during a thrilling final round.
However, he has struggled to regularly match his form at Augusta since.
The Yorkshireman finished third in the PGA Championship and second in the Italian Open following his Masters triumph, but suffered a dip in form ahead of his Ryder Cup debut in October.
He failed to win a single point as Europe lost 17-11 at Hazeltine, while also being distracted by questions over his brother Peter's controversial comments about American fans.
Willett has only claimed one top-10 finish so far in 2017, blowing a three-shot 54-hole lead to finish fifth at the Maybank Championship in February.
"The pressure has been more from myself. It's not a nice feeling to not hit good golf shots when you know what you can do," he said.
"I think the last 12 months has made me a little more impatient.
"I think achieving what I achieved last year and performing under the pressure that I did on Sunday, if you don't do that every time you get a bit annoyed.
"That's where the game jumps up and bites you. It's not that easy."
'If the Yorkshire puddings go flat we won't be happy'
One of Willett's roles in his return to Augusta as defending champion is choosing the menu for the annual Masters champions' dinner on Tuesday.
Thirty-four former winners will start with cottage pie before tucking into roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and apple crumble.
"There's been a lot of thought gone into it about how we can embrace British culture and hopefully they enjoy a little taste of Yorkshire," said Willett, who was born in Sheffield.
Asked if Augusta's chef was confident of making Yorkshire puddings, he responded: "He'd best be, otherwise I'll be in the kitchen making sure his oil is hot enough!
"If they go a bit flat, we're not going to be happy. I'm sure that he's been practising."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/39495282
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Jeff De Young: The dog who saved my life and came to live with me - BBC News
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2017-04-04
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Jeff De Young served in Afghanistan with a bomb-detection dog named Cena N641, a black Labrador. In the intense atmosphere of war they developed an unbreakable bond.
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Magazine
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Jeff De Young served in Afghanistan with a bomb-detection dog named Cena N641, a black Labrador. In the intense atmosphere of war the two developed an unbreakable bond. This is the story of how Cena helped Jeff survive not only war, but also life after war.
The day I turned 18 I started Marine Corps boot camp, and 15 months later I went to Afghanistan. It was 2009 and I was absolutely terrified.
They paired us with the dogs based on our personalities. Cena was a slightly goofy, quiet dog, and I was a slightly goofy, quiet kid, so it made sense for us to be with each other.
Together we were known as Kid and Chicken. Chicken was one of those nicknames that you don't remember where it came from, it just kinda stuck. And although I was 19 by this stage, I looked like I was about 12, I didn't even have any facial hair. As a joke, the Marines mailed a permission slip home for my mom to sign because I looked so young they didn't believe that I was allowed to be over there.
I would operate Cena using hand and arm commands and a whistle. I'd be in front of the patrol and Cena would be further ahead again, so if either of us walked on an improvised explosive device, although we would have been hurt, the rest of the patrol would be safe. I'd never been faced with a situation like that before and it felt like a crash course in adulthood, responsibility, and survival.
Cena had been a champion bird dog. When waterfowl falls from the sky there is no scent trail to follow like there would be with a rabbit or a deer, so the dog has to investigate the area and find the scent on the wind, it's amazing.
Dogs' noses are so much more powerful than ours. We smell cookies, but they smell the flour, the nutmeg, the butter, the eggs, the milk - they can dissect everything and they can detect smells that we don't even know exist.
He'd been trained to detect more than 300 different types of explosives and if he smelled something interesting on patrol he would lie down and notify me, and then I'd call in an explosives technician.
We had to trust each other - we would have a dozen, two dozen marines behind us and any mistake could have been fatal.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Listen: Jeff describes how Cena supported him during his darkest hours serving in Afghanistan
The battle of Marjah was a turning point in my life. We approached the town before the sun came up, no-one was talking, no-one was joking. It was very tense. You could hear the rounds snap overhead, and then when the round went past you, you heard a zing almost like a whistle.
I was so worried about getting Cena to safety, I even had to lie on top of him to protect him from gunfire. Another time I carried him through a freezing cold, flooded river on my shoulders like a hunter would a deer.
It got so cold in the fighting holes that even Cena's body heat didn't help, so one day I offered an Afghan soldier the entire contents of my wallet for his scratchy, olive, drab wool army blanket. I had $100 (£80) in my wallet. I was either going to burn the money or get the blanket, that's how cold I was. I still have that blanket.
The first week inside Marjah I lost a couple of very good friends. One of them was a former room-mate I'd trained with, Lance Corporal Alejandro Yazzie. He was 23, a Navajo, and an all-round good guy. His grandfather had been a wind talker [code talker] in World War Two. When I found out it was Yazzie I was devastated. I held on to Cena and cried into him.
Yazzie was the first of seven friends I lost in Afghanistan. I carried a flag inside my helmet and whenever a friend would pass away I'd add their name to it.
Eventually I just couldn't cope any more. I grabbed my military rifle and went to the latrine area. I remember sitting there trying to prepare my mind and make peace, and then Cena peeked around the corner. His ears went up like in the cartoons and he opened his mouth like he was smiling. His tail started spinning so hard that his whole body was rocking back and forth like he was excited by a piece of bacon.
I started laughing, and I laughed so much that I just broke down crying. I realised then that I couldn't leave Cena because I didn't know if his next handler would love him the way I did. He really was the only person in my life that I had a deep relationship with at that time. I left the latrine, put my rifle back and focused on work.
It's really hard to explain what it's like, psychologically, coming back from war. Even the drive home was strange. New music was out, new cars were on the roads, there were new stores. It felt like when you leave the cinema to get popcorn and then miss the best part of the film.
I got married three days after returning and I was so busy doing all this happy stuff, it was like a Band-Aid over Afghanistan. But I wasn't really taking care of myself and dealing with what had happened over there.
A couple of weeks after coming home the post-traumatic stress (PTSD) and separation anxiety from being away from Cena really hit me. I'd always understood that I wouldn't have him forever but I'd had no idea how being apart from him would affect me. I felt like a stranger at home and I didn't feel comfortable unless I was with my battalion members or other veterans. I had nightmares and spent many nights crying in the bedroom corner or talking out loud to my fallen friends.
Over the next four years Cena was always on my mind, but as time went on it became hard to keep up hope that we would be together again.
Then one day, when I was in college, I got a call. The woman on the phone said: "Mr De Young? My name is Mrs Godfrey, would you like to adopt your bomb dog?" Without even thinking I said, "Heck, yes!" That was 24 April 2014, one day shy of four years since Cena and I had been separated.
It was just a turmoil of emotions on the car ride there. When Cena came down the aisle I very awkwardly - like a guy crossing a high school dance floor - ran up, kneeled down and started hugging him. He leaned into me like, "Hey man, what's up?" and started licking my face.
Aside from my children being born and the day I was married, that was the happiest day of my life. It was like all of my Christmases rolled into one.
I'd been married for four years by the time I got Cena back. Unfortunately, my inability to recognise that I had issues as a result of being in Afghanistan ultimately led to my divorce. Cena was helping me with healing and support but the damage to my relationship was already done. On 5 June 2015 I ended my marriage.
I have three daughters, they are six, five and two-and-a-half. Cena took to them instantly, and they love him back - they try to paint his nails and put bows on him. Before getting Cena back, the sound of a child crying would trigger a panic attack in me, as a result of an incident in Afghanistan, and it was tough knowing that I couldn't help my kids because my brain couldn't process that memory.
With Cena, if my daughters cried I would sit on the couch, put my forehead to his, scratch his ears and just breathe. Gradually, Cena would only need to be beside me and I could cope.
By the time my third daughter was born I was able to do a lot of the diaper changes and bottle feeding even if she was crying, and to finally be able to help my daughter felt like being released from jail, it was freedom.
I'm a military ambassador for the American Humane Association now and I travel around the country raising awareness about how important it is to reunite service dogs with their handlers, and how the dogs can be a vital form of treatment for veterans with PTSD. My work is most definitely therapy for me, too. The military teaches us how to put the uniform on, but it doesn't teach us how to take it off, metaphorically speaking. I've lost count of how many friends I've lost now, who've taken their lives - four just last year alone.
I couldn't even think about talking about what I saw in Afghanistan four or five years ago, but slowly, by opening up to other veterans, by putting myself out there and airing everything that happened it's becoming so much easier.
I've recently found out that I have a heart condition called tachycardia. The doctors say it was probably triggered by an explosion or something that happened in Afghanistan. When I'm stressed my heart rate goes up to 200 beats per minute, high enough for a heart attack, so I'm having an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) fitted in my chest. I'm still mentally processing the idea that soon I'm going to have an electronic box in my chest to keep my heart in check.
Cena is in OK health, although his front wrist bothers him and his hips are pretty bad. He'd been back to Afghanistan, and I tracked down two of his other handlers through Facebook. I keep them up to date with how he is doing and I hope to get them to come to Michigan to see him - it's been years since they've seen Cena too.
Cena was retired after his third deployment because of a hip injury and there's no doubt in my mind that he has PTSD. I think he has memories of things that he saw that he doesn't like. He has nightmares, he'll whimper, he'll run around in his sleep and his teeth will snarl. But he's always by my side - we go to the gym together, we go to college together - my college even wants to get him his own cap and gown for when I graduate.
Cena's nine-and-a-half now. Dogs tend to live to 11 or 12, so I've started making peace with the fact that he may pass away soon. I've been preparing my mind for that.
Jeff De Young was interviewed by Sarah McDermott and Rose de Larrabeiti.
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Reality Check: Does Spain have more to lose than the UK? - BBC News
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2017-04-04
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Jack Straw argues that Spain won't let Gibraltar get in the way of an EU trade deal for the UK.
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UK Politics
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The claim: Spain has more to lose in EU trade negotiations with the UK - because of its trade surplus with the UK.
Reality Check verdict: Spain sells more goods and services to the UK than it buys from the UK. It is also the top destination both for visits by UK residents and for UK nationals living abroad.
A clause about Gibraltar in the EU document outlining the negotiating strategy for Brexit has raised the question of sovereignty over the territory.
Over the weekend, former Home Secretary Lord Howard said the prime minister would defend Gibraltar the same way that Margaret Thatcher had protected the Falklands.
But on Monday, Jack Straw, the former home secretary and foreign secretary who held talks in the early 2000s with the Spanish government about sharing Gibraltar's sovereignty, said the idea of conflict with Spain over the territory was absurd.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme that Spain was unlikely to let Gibraltar get in the way of a future EU trade deal with the UK.
"Spain has hugely more invested in their trade and relations with the UK," he said, adding that Spain exports more to the UK than it imports from the UK, which means it has a balance of trade surplus.
The most recent figures broken down by country are from 2015. In that year:
But the UK arguably has more to lose than Spain on the issue of nationals living in the other country, because there are many more British nationals living in Spain than there are Spanish nationals living in the UK.
Of an estimated 900,000 British citizens who live in the EU, the largest number of them, by individual country, live in Spain: 308,805. Of those, 101,045 are aged 65 and over.
About 132,000 Spanish nationals live in the UK.
Correction 4 April 2017: An earlier version of this story said that Jack Straw had organised Gibraltar's referendum in 2002. In fact, while he had said that he would hold a referendum over proposals for shared sovereignty, the referendum that took place in 2002 was organised locally to pre-empt his discussions with the Spanish government.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39480836
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Confident EU coy on start date for Brexit trade talks - BBC News
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2017-04-04
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The mood in Brussels is more bullish, so the EU may take its time before discussing a free-trade deal.
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Europe
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Greeks have already learned it can take time for the EU to switch on the green light to talks
So how long is that famous piece of string? I certainly don't know.
Nor, I suspect, does the European Commission. Or the press. Or the UK government.
So, trying right now to answer the vexed question (for the UK) as to when exactly, during Brexit negotiations, the time will come to turn attention from divorce to that much anticipated new EU-UK trade deal is possibly rather futile.
As we know, the EU's draft guidelines for negotiations state that talk of the future will only begin in earnest when good progress has been made on Britain's exit deal.
But when, and based on what criteria?
The only thing we know for sure is that it is in the EU's gift to make that judgement. Not the UK's.
First Vice-President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans told me point-blank there could be no agreement on the future "if we're not very clear what the divorce settlement is going to look like".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Mr Timmermans: "It's going to be a very difficult job"
So if the UK wishes to see through the process of making that free-trade deal, it will have to wait for Brussels to switch on the green light.
"Not dissimilar to the Greece conundrum," an EU diplomat commented to me this weekend.
The EU has told debt-laden Greece it will only countenance debt relief once Athens has made sufficient progress on restructuring and reform.
As with the EU conditions for UK trade talks, Greece finds itself staring at unquantifiable strands of EU string.
The mood in Brussels right now is cautiously bullish (an interesting state of being).
Of course Brexit hurts. The EU has lost one of its influential members, a big contributor to the EU budget, a powerful economy, and one of only two serious military powers in Europe (France being the other).
The EU has indicated trade talks will not begin until key Brexit divorce negotiations are resolved
But as soon as Article 50 was triggered last week, the words of sadness and regret that poured out of Brussels following the UK's EU referendum vanished into the mists of Dover.
"Britain is now on the other side of the negotiating table," said European Council President Donald Tusk on Friday.
And the rest of the EU is closing ranks. Just look at the current row over Gibraltar.
When Britain was on the same side of the table as the EU, Brussels remained resolutely neutral.
It was a diplomatic coup for Spain to have it written into the draft EU guidelines that any Brexit deal could only apply to Gibraltar with a nod from Spain (which contests British sovereignty over the territory).
These are only draft guidelines; they carry no legal weight and they still need to be formalised at a summit of the 27 remaining EU member countries on 29 April.
But this was a clear Brussels message: we look after our own.
A missive directed not only at Britain but, significantly and purposefully, at the remaining EU countries.
Across the Channel, Brexit is not just about the UK, but about safeguarding the European Union.
Spain's foreign minister said he was "surprised by the tone of comments coming out of Britain" over Gibraltar
It's common knowledge that this is a fractious union, whose members fall out over funding, euro rules, migration and more.
It is also a common assumption, as Frans Timmermans put it, that each side in a negotiation seeks out the other's weak spots.
The UK - respected and feared in Brussels as a wily negotiating power - is expected to try to divide and rule in the EU during the Brexit process by promising individual countries custom-made sweetheart deals.
Security against Russia for the Baltic States, peace of mind for Poland and Spain's citizens in the UK, an Irish border deal that doesn't harm the Good Friday Agreement and so on, in the hope those countries will champion the UK against any hardline attitude from Brussels.
But the EU needs to unite to survive and maintain credibility after the UK walks out of the door.
"However much we want and, to be honest, we ideally need a good future relationship with Britain, it has to be clear we're there for the EU 27 now," one high-level Brussels source told me.
The EU's draft Brexit guidelines were designed to be firm-sounding towards Britain - a warning for others who may want to leave the EU - but they had a plethora of priority pledges for those who stay: Ireland (land border), Spain (Gibraltar), all those countries with citizens living in Britain, nations with security fears and businesses with logistical concerns post-Brexit.
Easy promises, of course, before negotiations begin but the EU, for the first time in many, many months, is feeling less beleaguered, less on the back foot; more confident.
While an undeniably huge blow to the EU, Brexit has served to concentrate Europeans' minds on what membership means to them.
One of the pro-EU rallies held across Europe over the weekend was in Hamburg
Germany's Süddeutsche newspaper on Monday had a front-page photo and article on the pro-EU demonstrations it says took place in 60 European cities this weekend, organised by the Pulse of Europe initiative.
The activists' aim: to stop the EU debate being dominated by the voices of Eurosceptic nationalists across the continent.
Brussels was already buoyed by the success of unashamedly pro-EU parties in last month's elections in the Netherlands.
It has hopes, too, for French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron and looks contentedly at the two pro-EU front runners in Germany's upcoming elections.
News on growth in the eurozone is comforting for Brussels, which prefers to overlook the fault lines in Greece and Italy when possible.
And the latest EU feel-good factor comes from perhaps the most surprising source of all: the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump. The man who, weeks ago, publicly prophesied that other EU countries would likely follow the UK's example and leave.
Yet, in an interview published in Monday's Financial Times, President Trump appears to have changed his mind. In fact he is quoted as saying he thinks the European Union is getting its act together.
But even the most ardent of Euro-enthusiasts admit maintaining EU unity during divisive Brexit talks will be tough. Never mind all the other challenges the bloc currently faces.
"We (in the EU) can't be naive," European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said to me just before last week's triggering of Article 50.
"This is no time for complacency."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39481066
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Theresa May's Saudi Arabia balancing act - BBC News
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2017-04-04
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Theresa May will push for trade on a visit to Saudi Arabia but humanitarian issues also figure.
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UK
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Mrs May has defended Britain's ties with the Saudi regime
Prime Minister Theresa May flies into Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for a two-day visit to Britain's biggest trading partner in the Arab world.
For the British, the visit has a straightforward agenda; in a world overshadowed by the uncertainties of Brexit this trip is primarily about trade and investment - Saudi investment that is - into the UK.
British goods and services exported to Saudi Arabia totalled £6.6bn ($8.25bn) in 2015.
For the Saudi rulers - one of the few remaining absolute monarchies in the world - it is also about something else.
The Saudis are feeling increasingly surrounded and threatened by their regional rival Iran and its proxy militias.
When they look at the map of the region they see Iran effectively controlling five Middle Eastern capitals now: Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Sana'a, and spreading its influence among the Shia populations in Bahrain and along Saudi Arabia's Gulf coast.
So the Saudis want to know that their defence alliance with the UK, as well as the US, is rock solid.
But left out of the picture are the human rights organisations and campaign groups that want Mrs May to use this visit to pressure the Saudis to both end their military campaign in neighbouring Yemen and to release three young prisoners held on death row.
The death toll is mounting from the war in Yemen, at least 7,700 civilians killed according to the UN, most by Saudi-led air strikes, and millions at risk of malnutrition or even starvation.
More than 60% of civilian deaths in Yemen are due to Saudi-led air strikes, the UN says
In Yemen, the Saudis and their allies the UAE are determined to reverse what they see as an Iranian-backed coup by minority Houthi rebels who have illegally taken over half the country, including the capital, and carried out numerous human rights abuses since seizing power in 2014.
But the Saudis have got themselves bogged down in an unwinnable war and paying the price are Yemen's civilians; schools, hospitals, markets and a funeral have all been hit by clumsy targeting from the air.
This has prompted calls for the UK and the US to stop supplying planes, weapons and intelligence to the Saudis, at the very time that the UK is seeking ever closer ties with the Gulf Arab states.
Mrs May has defended the UK's ties with the Saudis by pointing out that they have provided vital intelligence that has saved British lives.
This is true. In 2010 a Saudi human informant inside al-Qaeda in Yemen tipped off MI6 that a bomb was hidden in cargo on a plane heading for Britain.
It was. The printer ink toner cartridges, packed with PETN explosive, got as far as East Midlands Airport before the police finally discovered them after the agent gave them the serial numbers.
Campaigners want the UK government to halt arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and to call for the release of blogger Raif Badawi, sentenced to 10 years and 1,000 lashes for "insulting Islam"
But Saudi Arabia's human rights record still makes the country a controversial ally for the UK which purports to have an ethical foreign policy.
Commenting on Mrs May's Saudi visit, human rights pressure group Reprieve said: "As the prime minister makes ever greater overtures towards the Saudi government, the kingdom continues to carry out appalling abuses, including torture, forced 'confessions' and death sentences for juveniles.
"Theresa May's desire for closer relations with the Gulf must not cloud Britain's commitment to human rights."
So for Theresa May the coming two days will require something of a balancing act - pushing for much-needed trade, more investment and closer ties with Riyadh and yet at the same time expressing just enough concern at humanitarian issues to avoid excessive criticism at home.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39486475
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Seeking funds to say a final farewell to sons on death row - BBC News
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2017-04-04
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Poverty and distance mean that families can't always visit loved ones who are scheduled to be put to death.
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US & Canada
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Marilyn Shankle-Grant on a recent visit with her son, Paul Storey
For the families of men facing the death penalty, money can be a barrier to seeing a loved one before the end.
Marilyn Shankle-Grant's son, Paul Storey, has been fighting his death sentence for almost 10 years. All his legal efforts so far have fallen short, and in autumn, a judge set his execution date for 12 April, 2017.
Storey was convicted in the 2006 shooting death of 28-year-old Jonas Cherry during an armed robbery. Storey's accomplice - the gunman - pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison. Storey went forward with a jury trial and received the death penalty in 2008.
Since he was sent to death row, Shankle-Grant has been able to see her son about once a month, making the four-hour drive from her home in Fort Worth, Texas, to the state prison in Livingston, Texas.
But recently things have got more difficult for the 57-year-old hospitality worker. The stress and depression over her son's impending execution was affecting her work performance, and she lost a job she had held for 30 years.
She tried to pick up temporary work, and even started her own business, Marilyn's Old-Fashioned Tea Cakes, baking flat, buttery rounds from her grandmother's recipe, wrapping them up in cellophane and selling them at local events.
But even that small income stream has dried up - she stopped making tea cakes not long after her son's execution date was announced.
"When I do them, I do it with lots of love," she explains. "Right now that's just not in me."
The situation has become dire - her Forth Worth home entered foreclosure this week. She needs $8,000 (about £6,400) to save it.
The prison in Livingston, Texas, where Paul Storey and other death row inmates are held
Her financial difficulty - not to mention her broken car - have made the trips to Livingston a real financial strain, at the same time that the approaching execution date makes them more important than ever. She estimates each trip costs roughly $350.
With just six weeks left to visit before her son is executed, Shankle-Grant posted a weary status to her Facebook page, lamenting the short amount of time she has left with her son and the financial struggle she faces just to see him.
It caught the eye of Abraham J Bonowitz, co-director of Death Penalty Action, an anti-death penalty charity. He had met Shankle-Grant many times over the years at death penalty abolition events.
Bonowitz reached out to Shankle-Grant to ask her permission to set up an online fundraiser on her behalf. He created a page on the crowdfunding site You Caring, which included a note from Shankle-Grant.
"My love and devotion to my son are not matched by the resources needed to make the trip as often as I am allowed to visit him," she wrote. "With a heavy heart I turn to my fellow human light to ask you to help me help my son face the darkness as his destruction approaches."
The donations began streaming in. One anonymous donor contributed $1,000.
"My father was executed in Texas 13 years ago, and while the situation is still painful, I'm thankful for our last few visits, and I know he was as well," wrote one contributor.
"Nobody's going to be able to take away the pain that Marilyn has, but we can take away some of the anxiety," says Bonowitz, who is considering making these fundraisers a permanent part of his work.
So far, he has raised nearly $6,000. The money allows Shankle-Grant to rent a car each weekend, stay for two nights in a nearby hotel, as well as pay for meals and gas.
Thanks to the funds, Shankle-Grant has been able to visit her son every weekend since. She says she is incredibly grateful for the help.
"None of this would be able to be happening if it weren't for that You Caring page," she says. "I'm able to talk to him. When he's down and out and depressed, we can talk about it and talk him through it. It gives me comfort, too."
Abraham Bonowitz at an anti-death penalty rally he hosts in front of the US Supreme Court each year
Shankle-Grant's situation illustrates the hidden impact on the families of the condemned, who often come from low-income backgrounds and can live far away from the prison in which their loved one is housed. After 30 years of death penalty abolition work, Bonowitz has seen the situation many times before. Often a church or a non-profit will step in to help defray the cost of visiting a family member before an execution.
"None of these families have any money," he says. "Marilyn never did anything wrong and yet she is made to suffer. It's her son's fault, yes, but that doesn't mean the love for her child stops."
The success of the fundraiser caught the attention of advocates in Arkansas, which is poised to execute eight inmates over the course of 10 days, due to the fact that the state's supply of an execution drug called midazolam is about to expire.
Deborah Robinson, a freelance journalist who is writing a book about the eight men, says she has heard from three of them, asking for help so that their families can see them before the execution dates in late April.
"I have a 21-year-old daughter whom I haven't seen in 17 years, along with a 3-year-old granddaughter," wrote inmate Kenneth Williams, who is scheduled to die on 27 April, in a message to Robinson.
"The financial costs have prevented her from coming. If I am going to be executed, I would love to see her before I go one last time and to see my grandchild for the first time."
Lynn Scott with her brother Jack Jones, Jr, who has been in prison since 1995
Lynn Scott, the sister of death row inmate Jack Jones, Jr, lives in North Carolina. She runs her own business as a wedding planner, but she and her husband lost nearly everything after the 2008 recession - their house, their 401k, they sold off most of their possessions. After Scott's husband suffered a massive heart attack in 2015, they found themselves financially devastated.
"We live paycheck to paycheck," she says.
Arkansas is scheduled to execute her brother on 24 April. With airfare, hotel, car rental and meals - plus cremation and burial expenses - she expects that she will need about $5,000.
"It's very difficult," says Scott. "What I want people to know is - whatever the inmates did, we didn't do that. I didn't do that to those people, but I'm still losing someone."
Modelling a crowdfunding page after the one in Texas, Robinson is now raising funds for all three Arkansas families to help defray some of those costs.
Shankle-Grant and Storey on a visit in 2014
If Shankle-Grant's You Caring page raises more money than she can use to see her son, she says she wants the excess funds to go to the families in Arkansas.
Her son, Storey, still has a lawyer fighting for a stay of execution, in part based on the fact that his victim's parents are opposed to the death penalty and do not want him to be executed. Glenn and Judy Cherry have written letters to Texas Governor Greg Abbott and other state officials asking for mercy.
Shankle-Grant still holds out hope that her son's execution will be halted, and the portion of the fundraiser money that is designated for her son's burial can be sent to the other families. She is asking supporters to write letters to the Texas Department of Corrections, asking that Storey's life be spared.
In the meantime, because of a court hearing Storey has been moved to a county jail that allows him to use the phone for the first time in years (phone calls are not allowed for death row inmates in his prison). Shankle-Grant says he has been able to talk to his elderly grandparents, who can't travel to see him, and thanks to the fundraiser, she was easily able to pay the hefty $300 phone bill. She is also able to talk to him, sometimes as often as four times a day.
It's a small comfort as the execution date creeps closer and closer.
"He'll hang up and call back, hang up and call back," she says. "I don't know after [nine] days if I'm ever going to hear his voice again. For me, it's very important."
If an inmate's family does not make other arrangements - which can cost thousands - they are buried in this prison cemetery in Huntsville, Texas
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39460976
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David Moyes: FA to ask Sunderland boss to explain himself over 'slap' remark - BBC Sport
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2017-04-04
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Sunderland boss David Moyes will be asked by the Football Association to explain himself after telling a BBC reporter she might "get a slap".
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Last updated on .From the section Football
Sunderland boss David Moyes will be asked by the Football Association to explain himself after telling a BBC reporter she might "get a slap".
After his side's draw with Burnley on 18 March, Moyes was asked by Vicki Sparks if the presence of owner Ellis Short had put extra pressure on him.
He said "no" but, after the interview, added Sparks "might get a slap even though you're a woman" and told her to be "careful" next time she visited.
"It was in the heat of the moment," added the 53-year-old Scot.
Both Moyes and Sparks were laughing during the exchange and the former Everton and Manchester United manager later apologised to the reporter, who did not make a complaint.
The FA will now write to Moyes to ask for his observations on the incident.
Speaking in a news conference on Monday, he said: "I deeply regret the comments I made.
"That's certainly not the person I am. I've accepted the mistake. I spoke to the BBC reporter, who accepted my apology."
The BBC confirmed that Moyes and Sparks had spoken about the exchange and the issue had been resolved.
A spokesman said: "Mr Moyes has apologised to our reporter and she has accepted his apology."
However, shadow sports minister Dr Rosena Allin-Khan called on the FA to act.
"If you look at the fact that he wouldn't have said that to a male reporter, and I truly believe that, I think the comments and his behaviour and attitude was sexist," she told BBC Radio 5 live.
"With the FA, part of what they have been criticised for in the past is not tackling sexism and other forms of discrimination, which needs to be stamped out across the sport.
"Fundamentally it's a male-dominated environment that women find it incredibly difficult to break into and comments like this do nothing to encourage women."
Former England striker and BBC Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker also condemned Moyes' behaviour.
"Moyes incident highlights a tendency for some managers to treat interviewers with utter disdain. Pressured job. Well rewarded. Inexcusable," he said.
A statement from Women in Football said it was "deeply disappointed and concerned" but "pleased that David Moyes has apologised".
It added: "No-one should be made to feel threatened in the workplace for simply doing their job.
"We hope that the football authorities will work with us to educate football managers and those working within the game to prevent this kind of behaviour."
Sunderland are bottom of the Premier League on 20 points, eight points from safety, going into a game at Leicester City.
The FA must now decide what action, if any, it will take following David Moyes' comments.
His swift apology to Vicki Sparks may help him mitigate any punishment if he is subsequently charged by the governing body.
However Moyes' admission of wrongdoing and "deep regret" shows that he himself believes he's done something wrong.
Under such circumstances could The FA publicly justify simply warning him as to his future conduct? Would there be criticism of the message that sends from an organisation which prides itself on the values and high standards it tries to uphold in football?
It must now await Moyes' letter - and then decide how best to proceed.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39484238
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Masters 2017: Danny Willett starts title defence alongside Matt Kuchar - BBC Sport
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2017-04-04
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England's Danny Willett begins the defence of his Masters title playing alongside American Matt Kuchar and Australian amateur Curtis Luck.
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Last updated on .From the section Golf
Coverage: Watch highlights of the first two days before live and uninterrupted coverage of the weekend's action on BBC Two and up to four live streams available online. Listen on BBC Radio 5 live and BBC Radio 5 live sports extra. Read live text commentary, analysis and social media on the BBC Sport website and the sport app.
England's Danny Willett will begin the defence of his Masters title playing alongside American Matt Kuchar and Australian amateur Curtis Luck.
The 29-year-old, who won his first major at Augusta National last year, will tee off at 17:24 BST.
World number one Dustin Johnson is in the final trio with two-time winner Bubba Watson and Jimmy Walker at 19:03.
American Jordan Spieth, winner in 2015 and runner-up in 2014 and 2016, starts his fourth Masters campaign at 15:34. The 23-year-old is playing with Germany's Martin Kaymer and England's Matthew Fitzpatrick.
Three-time winner Phil Mickelson, 46, is in the following trio at 15:45.
American record six-time winner Jack Nicklaus, 77, and South Africa's Gary Player, 81, who has three Green Jackets, will be the honorary starters. The pair have hit the opening tee shots of the tournament for several years in the company of four-time winner Arnold Palmer, who died in September 2016 at the age of 87.
Georgia native Russell Henley, who only qualified by winning the Houston Open on Sunday, is in the first pairing, out at 13:00.
England's Justin Rose, who has had four top-10 finishes in the past 10 years, will play with Australia's world number three Jason Day and American Brandt Snedeker. They tee off at 15:56 and are last out in Friday's round two at 19:03.
Spain's Sergio Garcia and England's Lee Westwood are in the same trio as Ireland's Shane Lowry.
A record 11 Englishmen are in the field of 94 players, which also includes two Scots - Russell Knox and 1988 champion Sandy Lyle - while 1991 winner Ian Woosnam is the only Welshman.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/39495090
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Masters 2017: Five greatest shots at Augusta - BBC Sport
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2017-04-04
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BBC Sport delves into the Masters archive to relive five of the greatest shots ever played at Augusta.
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BBC Sport delves into the Masters archive to relive five of the greatest shots ever played at Augusta.
Watch coverage of the 2017 Masters live on BBC TV, Red Button, Connected TVs and online from Saturday. Listen live on Radio 5 live or 5 live sports extra and follow on the BBC Sport website from Thursday.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/35948056
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Mosul from the sky: Evidence of IS using human shields - BBC News
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2017-04-04
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The BBC is given exclusive access to Iraqi army helicopter missions over IS-held Mosul.
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Middle East
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. IS militants were seen using human shields
The BBC has seen evidence that so-called Islamic State (IS) has been using children as human shields as they fight to keep control of the Iraqi city of Mosul. BBC Persian correspondent Nafiseh Kohnavard and producer Joe Inwood had exclusive access to helicopter missions of the Iraqi military and witnessed the battle from above.
Erij Military camp is a dusty compound just a few miles south of Mosul. The mangled and melted gas tanks that rise in the background hint at violent battles in the recent past. Giant attack helicopters sit on the tarmac, their sleek fronts give them an aggressive look, ready for action.
They never have to wait long.
Within minutes of our arrival, two young men in their flight suits run to their helicopter. The ground crew spring into action and within moments they are in the air. Their destination is west Mosul, the newest front in the battle against IS.
We spent more than a week living at the base, flying with the pilots who have helped in the battle against the militants who have ruled Mosul for two years.
It is not the first time that we have followed Iraq's helicopters as they battle IS: at Sinjar as they delivered aid to refugees trapped on the mountain; over the factory in Mishraq that doubled as a training camp for suicide bombers; last summer in the bloody fight for Falluja.
Thousands of residents are still trapped in Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city
But, somehow, this time felt different. General Samir Hussain, the man in charge of the mission, confirmed our suspicions.
"Mosul is the toughest job we have ever had. There is no comparison with any other mission that you have witnessed."
It should not be surprising. For the first time, the pilots are operating above a city where tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of civilians are trapped. And, unlike Falluja, the militants are encircled. They have no prospect of escape or chance of a military victory. And so they turn the people of Mosul into human shields.
As we sit having tea one morning, we see a familiar face. With his smiling eyes and toothy grin, Colonel Mohammed is a popular figure amongst the Iraqi army. He is also one of their most experienced pilots. We last saw him flying over Falluja.
He joins us for a green tea, and describes a scene he recently witnessed in old Mosul. The smile flickers from his face as he recalls it. An IS sniper had shot a woman in the street. She was being used as bait to lure federal police into his cross hairs. Col Mohammed was called in for air support.
IS militants have been encircled in Mosul as the Iraqi army moves in to recapture the city
It is just one example of the suffering being inflicted on the people of Mosul by IS. But their pain has not only come from the ground. Civilian deaths at the hands of coalition air strikes have been a source of both controversy and embarrassment for the Iraqi government.
Col Mohammed acknowledges that a potential danger is there. It was enough to make his wife and children beg him not to come. To this day they do not know he is here. "They think I am training," he jokes.
So, when firing high-explosive missiles into the middle of a city, how can he be certain he will not hurt an innocent civilian? The answer may be the only one he can give: he puts his faith in God.
But it is not just faith guiding him. We witnessed pilots holding fire as often as not. The on-board camera picked up clear examples of IS fighters walking in the streets in the company of children. If the shot was not clear, it was not taken.
The Iraqi military has pushed the militants from several neighbourhoods of Mosul
As we land from another flight, the sound of gunfire still ringing in our ears, there is an unfamiliar helicopter on the tarmac. It is bigger than the others and unarmed. A group of people runs towards it carrying a stretcher. In the distance flashing lights pull into view. One casualty becomes three, amongst them a general.
It is a reminder that no matter how well the battle seems to be going, war is never without cost.
When the Iraqi army fled Mosul two years ago, leaving it in the hands of IS, it was a source of national humiliation. Retaking it, therefore, is about more than territory and security, it is about restoring reputation and pride.
But it is also about showing the people of Mosul that the government in Baghdad is on their side. Every wayward missile, every stray bullet, every wounded or dead civilian undermines that work, handing a propaganda victory to IS even as they suffer military defeat.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-39475591
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Premier League predictions: Lawro v DJ and Man Utd fan Goldie - BBC Sport
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2017-04-04
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BBC football expert Mark Lawrenson takes on DJ, artist and drum and bass pioneer Goldie in this week's Premier League predictions.
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Last updated on .From the section Football
BBC Sport's football expert Mark Lawrenson is pitting his wits against a different guest each week this season.
Lawro's opponent for the midweek Premier League fixtures is DJ, artist and drum and bass pioneer Goldie.
Goldie is a Manchester United fan who follows Jose Mourinho's side from his home in Thailand, and has seen a lot of the rest of the Premier League too.
"I never thought I would say this but, as well as United, I will sit and watch any good games I get on the TV," he told BBC Sport.
"I watch more other teams than I have ever done before because I just miss a bit of footy."
Goldie feels Mourinho is the right manager to bring success back to Old Trafford but is unsure whether they will make the top four this season.
"We have been dropping points in silly games and we are relying on one of the teams above us imploding," he explained.
"Tottenham have been that team in past seasons but, looking at the top four now, I am not sure who will slip up this time.
"It is going to take time for Jose to get it right, but I think he will."
Goldie, who used to go clubbing with Dwight Yorke when the striker was at United, is less impressed with Paul Pogba, who returned to Old Trafford for a world record £89m fee last summer, four years after leaving to join Juventus for a nominal amount.
He added: "Seriously, why did Fergie [Sir Alex Ferguson] get rid of Pogba? I think we are seeing why. He did not see anything special.
"I am sorry but for the money we spent on him, we could have reinforced the entire midfield. He has not done anything for us this season and for me he is in the same bracket as Diego and Juan Sebastian Veron - disappointing.
"It is all right saying that he has sold a lot of shirts but come on, you have got to do more than that, mate."
You can make your Premier League predictions now and compare them with those of Lawro and other fans by playing the BBC Sport Predictor game.
A correct result (picking a win, draw or defeat) is worth 10 points. The exact score earns 40 points.
*Does not include scores from postponed games.
Lawro's worst score: 20 points (week 28, but only five games played so far) or 30 points (week four v Dave Bautista)
How did Lawro do last time?
Last weekend, Lawro got six correct results, including one perfect score, from 10 matches for a total of 90 points.
He beat comedian and actor Omid Djalili, who got one correct result with no perfect scores, for a tally of 10 points that leaves him bottom of the guest leaderboard.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39467289
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The hospital where parents care for premature babies - BBC News
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2017-04-04
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Putting parents at the centre of care for premature babies leads to better outcomes, doctors say.
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UK
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Anna says she would have been in hospital for longer if it wasn't for the system
On a hospital ward in Leeds, parents of premature babies are encouraged to help care for their newborns - from taking temperatures to the delicate task of inserting feeding tubes. So how does the approach benefit families?
"It is just nice to feel like a mum, rather than just somebody watching," Anna Cox tells the Victoria Derbyshire programme, as she takes the temperature of her baby.
Lola was born at just 23 weeks. She had a twin brother who sadly did not survive and she was given little hope of survival.
"During labour, one of the neo-natal consultants came to see us and painted a really bad picture that she could have all sorts of problems," Anna says.
Lola was cared for at St James's University Hospital in Leeds -the first in the UK to implement a family integrated care system.
It put parents - not nurses - in charge of everything other than the most complicated medical treatments for their premature babies while they were in hospital.
"One of the jobs we have to do is take her temperature, maybe every three or four hours," Anna says.
"It is a pretty simple procedure really."
However, parents also perform more complicated tasks, including inserting a tube into their baby's nose to allow them to feed.
"There are certain things they [nurses] obviously watch over you quite a bit to begin with because it needs to be done right," she says.
"They do like to make sure you know what you're doing, they wouldn't just leave you to it."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Lola was born at just 23 weeks
Katie Crossley's daughter, Molly, was born eight weeks early and had breathing difficulties.
"While I'm here, I pretty much do everything that a normal mum would do," she says. "Everything, from feeding to medicine, cleaning, bathing."
She has also been taught how to insert a tube up Molly's nose and into her stomach allowing her to be fed.
"Being around it and watching it has made me more confident when I've come to actually doing it," she says.
In the past, caring for premature babies usually meant keeping parents at arm's length.
As recently as 20 years ago, the closest parents of premature babies could get to their newborns was looking at them through a glass window.
It meant the bond between parent and child was harder to establish and breastfeeding rates were often lower.
But the idea of putting parents in charge of neonatal care is not a new one.
In the 1970s in Tallinn, Estonia - then part of the Soviet Union - the head of the local hospital faced a problem. The hospital had too many premature babies to look after and not enough nurses.
However, they soon noticed the system was helping babies.
Under his system, mothers had more regular "skin to skin" contact with premature babies. It resulted in better breastfeeding rates and shorter hospital stays.
It took 30 years for other hospitals to copy the system, but now the system has been introduced in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and now Leeds.
Katie Crossley says she is now confident inserting a tube to feed her baby
Dr Liz McKechnie, consultant neonatologist at St James's, says the family integrated care scheme aims to put the parent at "the very centre of the team caring for the baby".
"It is not rocket science, it is such a straightforward thing to do, to allow parents to look after their babies," she says.
She is adamant the move was not down to cost-cutting and that nursing levels on the unit have not dropped.
"In the past, care has been very much the nurse leading it, so they're saying 'right, it's feed time, it's bath time'. Whereas now, it is very much the parents who are leading that.
"They are feeding the baby when the baby needs feeding, rather than when the clock says it is feed time - and that's much better for the baby."
She says the new system was a "major cultural change" and caused anxiety among nurses on the neonatal unit when it was introduced 18 months ago.
Nurses on the ward say training parents to care for their babies takes as long - if not longer - than doing the procedures themselves.
But they say families are getting home sooner, the long-term development of babies is improving and breastfeeding rates have increased.
The system is about to be trialled in the intensive care unit in St James's sister hospital.
Parents are encouraged to take the temperature of their babies
As for Lola, she was allowed home just before she was 14 weeks old.
"Without the family integrated care we would've been in a lot longer," says her mother, Anna. "Lola is still on oxygen and [otherwise] they wouldn't have allowed us to come home with that.
"I feel really confident in everything they taught us."
Dr McKechnie adds: "The fact is that families are going home more confident and more able to care for their babies, and that means a lot.
"Nobody wants to stop it, it is definitely here to stay, everybody can see the benefits of it."
Watch the Victoria Derbyshire programme on weekdays between 09:00 and 11:00 on BBC Two and the BBC News Channel.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39444127
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Manchester United 1-1 Everton - BBC Sport
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2017-04-04
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Zlatan Ibrahimovic scores an injury-time penalty but Manchester United draw at home again in the Premier League against Everton.
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Last updated on .From the section Football
Zlatan Ibrahimovic rescued an injury-time draw for Manchester United against Everton as Jose Mourinho's side once again failed to win in the league at Old Trafford.
The Swede's 94th-minute penalty was awarded after Luke Shaw's goal-bound shot was handled on the line by visiting defender Ashley Williams, who was given a red card.
The point means United extend their unbeaten run to 20 games, but have now drawn nine times at home in the league and 12 overall, while opponents Everton missed the chance to leapfrog them in the table.
Everton's opener came through Phil Jagielka's clever, flicked finish from close range when he had his back to goal.
In response to going behind, Ander Herrera struck the crossbar after Joel Robles parried Daley Blind's free-kick and the United midfielder also forced Toffees goalkeeper Robles into a full-stretch save.
Paul Pogba came on for the second half and headed against the bar from Ashley Young's free-kick, while Ibrahimovic had a goal disallowed for offside in a disjointed United performance.
Relive the draw from Old Trafford
United were staring at defeat for the first time since their 4-0 drubbing against Chelsea in October before Ibrahimovic's coolly taken penalty which sent Robles the wrong way.
The striker said before kick-off that he and the club are "still in talks" about signing a new deal for next season and they are indebted to the Swede for his 27 goals this term, many of which have been on important occasions.
It was a huge let-off for the hosts, who had 61.5% possession and 18 shots, but only three on target, showing their obvious weakness in front of goal.
Much of United's play was in front of the Everton backline - often sideways and ponderous - without displaying any real strategy to breakdown the opposition.
Previous boss Louis van Gaal's slow style of play was criticised by the supporters, but United's last two performances have been a throwback to those days.
In fact, after 29 games in his first season, Van Gaal claimed 56 points and were fourth in the league, while Mourinho has two fewer points and are a place further back.
In an attempt to get back into the contest, world record signing Pogba replaced left-back Daley Blind at half time.
A reshuffle to the side meant Herrera dropped to Blind's previous position, allowing Pogba to take up his role in the middle of the park.
But less than five minutes later, Herrera swapped positions with Young to go to the right-back spot.
All this took place with full-backs Matteo Darmian and Luke Shaw - whose commitment has been questioned by the manager - sitting on the bench.
Shaw did come on just after the hour mark but only after an injury to Young, while Henrikh Mkhitaryan - dropped as Mourinho was "not happy" with his performance in the previous match against West Brom - replaced Michael Carrick.
The confusion from his players and the muddled changes from boss Mourinho showed the apparent mistrust he holds towards his squad as they struggle to find cohesion and incisiveness.
A busy April for United has started with two draws, with five further league and two Europa League games to play.
From Manchester United, it was a dog's dinner of a performance. They had no idea who was playing where and they played that way. They have gone away with one point but should have had none.
United were absolutely all over the place. I cannot see what they were trying to achieve here. They had no shape about them at all.
Where was Marouane Fellaini even playing? One second he is trying to go forward and the next he is running back - at times he is just chasing the ball like a six-year-old in the playground.
Having collected 1-0 victories in his two previous visits to Old Trafford with Southampton, Dutchman Ronald Koeman was looking to make it a hat-trick by becoming the first manager in Premier League history to win three consecutive away games at Old Trafford.
The Everton boss was one minute away from doing so.
The Dutchman would have set a record which even Sir Alex Ferguson, Louis van Gaal and Mourinho failed to do in their opening three home games as United manager.
Koeman's side took the lead as centre-back Jagielka nipped in ahead of the hesitant Marcos Rojo and from there on, the Blues defended deep and resolutely but ultimately came away with just a point.
Everton's robustness was typified by the assured 20-year-old Mason Holgate, who made four interceptions and regained possession nine times, which was more than any other team-mate.
The impressive Ashley Williams patrolled the defence and completed 11 clearances for his team, but it was his late error which led to the equaliser.
A flash point in the second half saw Kevin Mirallas petulantly refuse a handshake from his manager when substituted on 67 minutes.
Commenting on the incident, Koeman said: "I can understand players are a bit disappointed if you sub them but the way he reacted was not a team in my opinion and I will speak with him about that."
'Result is hard to take'
Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho told BBC Sport: "We scored two legal goals but I tell you with a smile on my face because I am not upset with the linesman. A really difficult decision for him, only video assistant replay could help this.
"After pressure, after pressure, after pressure the goal finally arrived and at least you don't have the feeling of defeat.
"The players gave everything. The performance from a football point of view was not good but I am very pleased with the effort."
Everton boss Ronald Koeman told BBC Sport: "It was a difficult game, we controlled it well at 1-0 up, we had chances on the counter in the second half but not always was the last ball a good one.
"It was really disappointing you don't get the win. The penalty was the right decision but it was really hard to take.
"Manchester United were attacking, taking risks, for that we had to kill the game. I was really confident to keep the clean sheet tonight."
United continue their difficult month with a trip to bottom side Sunderland on Sunday (kick-off 13:30 BST), while Everton host Leicester on the same day (kick-off 16:00 BST).
No more second half comebacks - the stats
• None Manchester United's Premier League unbeaten run now stands at 20 games, but they've drawn half of those (won 10, drawn 10).
• None Ashley Williams became the first Everton player to be sent off in the Premier League against Manchester United since David Weir in October 2002.
• None Phil Jagielka has scored his first Premier League goal since May 2015, 703 days ago against Aston Villa.
• None Defender Jagielka is the 17th scorer for Everton this season in the Premier League - they have had more different scorers than any other club.
• None The Red Devils have drawn 12 league games this season, their most in a campaign since the 1998-99 season (13).
• None United have won just one of the 11 Premier League games they have been trailing at half-time at Old Trafford since Alex Ferguson left the club (drawn three, lost seven).
• None United have won just six of their 16 league games at home this season (37.5% win percentage), their worst home win % in a campaign since 1973-74 (33.3%).
• None Goal! Manchester United 1, Everton 1. Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Manchester United) converts the penalty with a right footed shot to the bottom right corner.
• None Penalty conceded by Ashley Williams (Everton) with a hand ball in the penalty area.
• None Attempt blocked. Luke Shaw (Manchester United) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked.
• None Attempt missed. Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Manchester United) header from the centre of the box is too high. Assisted by Marcus Rashford with a cross.
• None Tom Davies (Everton) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
• None Attempt blocked. Marcus Rashford (Manchester United) left footed shot from the left side of the box is blocked. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39414200
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Monterrey Open: Heather Watson begins title defence with win over Nina Stojanovic - BBC Sport
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2017-04-04
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Defending champion Heather Watson fights for two hours and 52 minutes to beat Nina Stojanovic at the Monterrey Open.
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Last updated on .From the section Tennis
Defending champion Heather Watson beat Serbia's Nina Stojanovic in three sets to reach the second round of the Monterrey Open in Mexico.
Watson, 24, fought for two hours and 52 minutes to register a 6-2 6-7 (7-9) 6-4 victory over the world number 126.
The British number three smashed her racquet in frustration after squandering two match points in the second set tie-break.
She will face Russian sixth seed Ekaterina Makarova in the second round.
Watson, currently ranked 125th in the world, led the second set 5-2 before Stojanovic hit back to force a deciding set.
She is joined in the second round by compatriot Naomi Broady, who beat Catherine Bellis on Monday.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/39498614
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Chinese Grand Prix: Antonio Giovinazzi replaces Pascal Wehrlein for second race - BBC Sport
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2017-04-04
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Antonio Giovinazzi will race again for Sauber in Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix as replacement for Pascal Wehrlein.
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Last updated on .From the section Formula 1
Coverage: Practice and qualifying on BBC Radio 5 live sports extra; race on BBC Radio 5 live. Live text commentary, leaderboard and imagery on BBC Sport website and app.
Antonio Giovinazzi will again race for Sauber in Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix as the replacement for Pascal Wehrlein.
Italian Giovinazzi replaced Wehrlein for the season-opener in Australia after the 22-year-old German withdrew because of a lack of fitness following a back injury.
Giovinazzi, 23, finished 12th in Melbourne on his grand prix debut.
Wehrlein hopes to be fit for the third race of the championship in Bahrain or the following race in Russia.
"For me the most important is that I can train intensively to ensure a 100% performance from my side as soon as possible," said Wehrlein.
"I will then be well-prepared for my first complete grand prix weekend for Sauber."
Wehrlein, a Mercedes protege who was in the running to replace retired world champion Nico Rosberg at the factory team before losing out to Valtteri Bottas, injured his back in a crash at the Race of Champions in Miami in January.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has backed Wehrlein to "come back strong".
"I feel for Pascal, because he has had all the bad luck," said Wolff.
"I'm impressed with the maturity he has shown to inform Sauber that he wouldn't be able to perform at the level required in Melbourne.
"That took courage and selflessness, which I know earned him a lot of credit within the team."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/39485374
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Swansea City 1-3 Tottenham Hotspur - BBC Sport
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2017-04-05
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Tottenham produce a sensational late turnaround to beat a stubborn Swansea side and keep their title aspirations alive
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Last updated on .From the section Football
Tottenham produced a sensational late turnaround to beat a stubborn Swansea side and keep intact their aspirations of winning a first Premier League title.
Despite dominating possession, Spurs fell behind to a neat close-range finish from their former winger Wayne Routledge.
The visitors were camped in their opponents' half for long periods but were frustrated by a combination of their own lack of a cutting edge and Swansea's diligent defending, before Dele Alli eventually broke through to convert Christian Eriksen's cross after 88 minutes.
Son Heung-min fired Tottenham ahead in added time, and then Eriksen completed the remarkable comeback with a curling effort.
While second-placed Spurs continue to breathe down the necks of leaders Chelsea, a third defeat in four games sees Swansea drop into the relegation zone.
Having cut Chelsea's lead at the top of the table to seven points with Saturday's win at Burnley, Spurs were aiming to further reduce that deficit with a fifth successive Premier League victory.
Yet for all that Mauricio Pochettino's side had impressed this season, that triumph at Turf Moor was only their fifth away league win - and their vulnerability on the road was evident at the Liberty Stadium.
Although they enjoyed near total control of possession and territory during a one-sided first half, Tottenham fell behind after Swansea's first attack of the game.
Jordan Ayew muscled his way into the visitors' penalty area and pulled the ball back to Routledge, one of four former Spurs in the hosts' line-up, and the winger squeezed his finish past ex-Swans keeper Michel Vorm.
Tottenham continued to boss proceedings but lacked a cutting edge in attacking positions, missing injured top scorer Harry Kane and frustrated by their dogged opponents.
But as they had demonstrated in their previous seven games without Kane - four wins and three draws - Spurs can cope in the striker's absence.
They left it late, with Alli tapping into an empty net from Eriksen's wicked low cross, before Son finished from close range to send the visiting Spurs fans into raptures.
Eriksen then added a third in added time to complete a stunning fightback and leave their opponents crestfallen.
A return of just one point from their previous three games had seen Swansea sink deeper into relegation trouble, one point and one place above the bottom three.
Head coach Paul Clement spoke of a nervousness inside the Liberty Stadium during Sunday's goalless draw with Middlesbrough, though any creeping sense of anxiety for the home fans was eased with Routledge's early goal.
They made their ground a cauldron of noise, roaring their approval with every tackle, block or pass from a Swansea player.
The hosts dared to attack on occasion, with Kyle Naughton close to becoming the second ex-Spurs player to score against his former employers as his deflected shot fizzed wide.
But it was Swansea's defensive effort which provided the foundation for their admirable display, and looked set to earn them a first league win over Spurs since 1982.
However, their resistance was eventually broken and, with relegation rivals Hull beating Middlesbrough, the Swans' descent back into the bottom three leaves their hopes of survival in doubt.
Swansea have never beaten Spurs in the Premier League - the stats you need to know
• None Tottenham Hotspur (29) have won more points in 2017 than any other Premier League team (W9 D2 L1).
• None Spurs have won 17 points from losing positions in the Premier League this season; more than any other side in the competition.
• None In fact, under Mauricio Pochettino Tottenham have won 53 points from losing positions - 13 more than any other Premier League side in that time.
• None Swansea have never beaten Tottenham in 12 matches in the Premier League, drawing two and losing 10.
• None No Premier League team has scored more 90th minute winning goals this season than Tottenham (3 - level with Arsenal).
• None Dele Alli has been involved in 13 goals in 12 Premier League games for Tottenham in 2017 so far (9 goals, 4 assists).
• None Alli has yet to lose a Premier League game in which he has scored, winning 16 and drawing five. Christian Eriksen has been directly involved in 10 goals in his seven Premier League games against Swansea (6 goals, 4 assists).
• None Wayne Routledge made his 182nd Premier League appearance for Swansea City; more than any other player in the competition.
• None Routledge scored his first Premier League goal at the Liberty Stadium since Dec 2014, ending a run of 33 apps there without one.
'This season we are fighting again' - What they said
Swansea manager Paul Clement: We are clearly very disappointed to get to 88 minutes leading 1-0 - we had a good chance at 1-0 as well.
"We continued to defend well and limit them. The fact we conceded on 88 and then couldn't even draw is heartbreaking.
"You still have to do all the things we had done. We were fatigued at the end but the lads gave everything and I am proud of them. We can't feel sorry for ourselves. We have two massive games now at West Ham and Watford."
Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino: "We started the game very well and created some chances in the first few minutes. In that moment I think we feel the game is going to be easy. The perception from the touchline was that the players started to play at a low tempo. When we concede the goal we realise we need to push and increase our level.
"How the goals arrived at the end was crazy but we pushed, we played better and we created chances to win. It is a good example of the team never giving up and trying to the end. Big credit to the players, they showed big character.
"The most important thing is the badge. When you play for Tottenham it is not about the names it is about the team and the spirit. You would like to have all your players available but this season we are showing we are a team."
Swansea face two big Premier League away games, at West Ham this Saturday, followed a week later by a trip to Watford.
Tottenham are at home against the Hornets this Saturday and then host Bournemouth on the 15th.
• None Offside, Tottenham Hotspur. Vincent Janssen tries a through ball, but Dele Alli is caught offside.
• None Attempt missed. Alfie Mawson (Swansea City) header from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the right. Assisted by Gylfi Sigurdsson with a cross following a corner.
• None Goal! Swansea City 1, Tottenham Hotspur 3. Christian Eriksen (Tottenham Hotspur) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the bottom right corner. Assisted by Dele Alli following a fast break.
• None Goal! Swansea City 1, Tottenham Hotspur 2. Son Heung-Min (Tottenham Hotspur) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the centre of the goal. Assisted by Vincent Janssen.
• None Attempt saved. Vincent Janssen (Tottenham Hotspur) left footed shot from the left side of the box is saved in the bottom left corner. Assisted by Dele Alli.
• None Goal! Swansea City 1, Tottenham Hotspur 1. Dele Alli (Tottenham Hotspur) left footed shot from very close range to the bottom left corner.
• None Attempt blocked. Christian Eriksen (Tottenham Hotspur) right footed shot from the right side of the box is blocked.
• None Attempt blocked. Dele Alli (Tottenham Hotspur) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Mousa Dembélé.
• None Attempt saved. Dele Alli (Tottenham Hotspur) header from the centre of the box is saved in the bottom right corner. Assisted by Christian Eriksen.
• None Attempt missed. Toby Alderweireld (Tottenham Hotspur) right footed shot from outside the box is too high. Assisted by Son Heung-Min. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39426837
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The drink Brits go to bed with and Indians wake up with - BBC News
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2017-04-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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How does a company go from succeeding in its home country to a global brand?
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Business
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In the UK, Horlicks has long been seen as a soothing bedtime drink
"Comforting, warming, fortifying since 1906," is written on the promotional mug Horlicks launched in the UK last year.
In Britain, the malted milk drink has long been linked to bedtime, a soothing aid to sleep.
In India, it's an entirely different story. "Taller, stronger, sharper," is at the top of the Indian website, which has lots of photos of energetic schoolchildren leaping about.
In India, Horlicks is a breakfast drink, given to children as an energy boost to fortify them ahead of a long day of learning.
Yet the drink's main ingredients are exactly the same: wheat, malted barley and milk.
The fact that the same liquid can be perceived in two such different ways is a great example of the "crazy nonsense and beauty of marketing", says Andrew Welch.
As London managing director for brand consultancy Landor, Mr Welch's job is to help brands build and improve their reputation, and ultimately create higher sales.
International expansion is often the only way for firms to do this. When domestic growth has stalled, other countries can provide a business with fresh customers potentially in an area with less competition or where demand for a particular product or service is higher.
And of course, having a presence in more than one country ensures a firm isn't reliant on the health of just one nation's economy for its success.
But how exactly do companies go from being a local firm based in one country to a global name?
Mr Welch says how Horlicks has been marketed is a great example of how to do it, with the drink's attributes emphasised in different ways to appeal to specific audiences. The drink has significantly boosted non-pharmaceutical sales in India for its owner, drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline.
"You can't cookie cutter your brand around the world. This is an organisation which has gone beyond its home market and managed to stay relevant," says Mr Welch.
Or, to use the industry lingo, "global is out" and "multi-local" is in.
A well-known brand in the West, eBay had to change its tactics to succeed in China
But it's not easy. Online auction site eBay is one of the world's best-known firms, boasting 167 million active buyers and reporting just shy of $9bn (£7bn) in revenues last year.
Yet when it first tried to launch in China it failed. The difficulty of competing with local rivals meant that in 2006, a mere two years after entering China, it was forced to admit defeat and shut down its main website in the country.
Instead it formed a joint venture with a local partner to help operate an online auction business in the country.
Critics say it failed to recognise that having a strong US brand would not automatically translate to success in China.
Airbnb boss Brian Chesky has rebranded itself in China in a bid to make the home rental firm more appealing
Home rental site Airbnb is already trying to avoid that mistake, recently rebranding itself as "Aibiying" in China. The name translates as "welcome each other with love", and the company reportedly said it would be easier for Chinese people to pronounce.
One of the frequent criticisms of globalisation is that it is eroding countries' distinctive differences, making cities everywhere look more and more similar.
From Germany to the United Arab Emirates to China you can visit the same shops, buy the same furniture, eat the same food, watch the same programmes and listen to the same music.
Chris Hirst, European and UK group chief executive of advertising agency Havas, says firms expanding overseas have to overcome people's natural antipathy to this.
"People don't like the idea of a global phenomenon. They want to feel close to a brand and want it to be relevant to them."
Part of the appeal of luxury firms such as Louis Vuitton is that they're foreign
The one exception to this is luxury firms, such as Louis Vuitton or Hermes, who can get away with less local differentiation because their foreignness is part of what makes them desirable, he says.
At the other end of the scale, firms such as fast-food chain McDonald's may appear the same in whichever country you go to, but actually works hard to localise its branches, he says. He notes the firm differentiates some menu items to fit in with the local cuisine and tends to source ingredients from the host country.
But the number of potential countries a firm can now reach has made it harder. In the 1990s, going global simply meant expanding into western Europe and north America, now countries such as India, China and Russia are all in play, says Mr Hirst.
In fact, many of the areas that will generate the most growth in future are currently unfamiliar in the West, according to management consultancy McKinsey.
It predicts about 400 midsize emerging-market cities will create nearly 40% of global growth over the next 15 years.
Tech firms such as Apple consistently are ranked amongst the world's most successful brands
In some ways advances in technology have made this easier, enabling firms to be present around the world, even in places where they don't have a physical presence.
The latest annual ranking of the world's most valuable brands by consultancy Interbrand is dominated by tech firms. Apple and Google came top for the fourth year in a row.
Simon Cotterrell, head of strategy at Interband, says that as well as needing to invest less in infrastructure when they expand, their success is also down to the simplicity of their business models.
"The utility is staring customers in the face and doesn't need an explanation."
In the end, what determines global success for all firms is the same thing that drives success in a company's home market, he says.
"You have to have an offer that meets the needs of that audience. Your relevance has to come back to that problem: are you solving a customer problem in that market?
"It's not brain surgery," he says.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39448013
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Fishlock scores stunning goal in 100th Wales game - BBC Sport
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2017-04-05
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Jess Fishlock celebrates her 100th Wales cap in style as she scores with a stunning strike against Northern Ireland.
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Jess Fishlock celebrates her 100th Wales cap in style as she scores with a stunning strike against Northern Ireland.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39509727
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The women who sleep with a stranger to save their marriage - BBC News
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2017-04-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Some Muslim women believe they must marry a new man before they can return to their first husband.
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UK
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A number of online services are charging "divorced" Muslim women thousands of pounds to take part in "halala" Islamic marriages, a BBC investigation has found. Women pay to marry, have sex with and then divorce a stranger, so they can get back with their first husbands.
Farah - not her real name - met her husband after being introduced to him by a family friend when she was in her 20s. They had children together soon afterwards but then, Farah says, the abuse began.
"The first time he was abusive was over money," she tells the BBC's Asian Network and Victoria Derbyshire programme.
"He dragged me by my hair through two rooms and tried to throw me out of the house. There would be times where he would just go crazy."
Despite the abuse, Farah hoped things would change. Her husband's behaviour though became increasingly erratic - leading to him "divorcing" her via text message.
"I was at home with the children and he was at work. During a heated discussion he sent me a text saying, 'talaq, talaq, talaq'."
"Triple talaq" - where a man says "talaq", or divorce, to his wife three times in a row - is a practice which some Muslims believe ends an Islamic marriage instantly.
It is banned in most Muslim countries but still happens, though it is impossible to know exactly how many women are "divorced" like this in the UK.
"I had my phone on me," Farah explains, "and I just passed it over to my dad. He was like, 'Your marriage is over, you can't go back to him.'"
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Farah would have had to consummate her halala marriage
Farah says she was "absolutely distraught", but willing to return to her ex-husband because he was "the love of my life".
She says her ex-husband also regretted divorcing her.
This led Farah to seek the controversial practice known as halala, which is accepted by a small minority of Muslims who subscribe to the concept of a triple talaq.
They believe halala is the only way a couple who have been divorced, and wish to reconcile, can remarry.
Halala involves the woman marrying someone else, consummating the marriage and then getting a divorce - after which she is able to remarry her first husband.
But in some cases, women who seek halala services are at risk of being financially exploited, blackmailed and even sexually abused.
It's a practice the vast majority of Muslims are strongly against and is attributed to individuals misunderstanding the Islamic laws around divorce.
But an investigation by the BBC has found a number of online accounts offering halala services, several of which are charging women thousands of pounds to take part in temporary marriages.
One man, advertising halala services on Facebook, told an undercover BBC reporter posing as a divorced Muslim woman that she would need to pay £2,500 and have sex with him in order for the marriage to be "complete" - at which point he would divorce her.
The man also said he had several other men working with him, one who he claims initially refused to issue a woman a divorce after a halala service was complete.
There is nothing to suggest the man is doing anything illegal. The BBC contacted him after the meeting - he rejects any allegations against him, claiming he has never carried out or been involved in a halala marriage and that the Facebook account he created was for fun, as part of a social experiment.
In her desperation to be reunited with her husband, Farah began trying to find men who were willing to carry out a halala marriage.
"I knew of girls who had gone behind families' backs and had it done and been used for months," she says.
"They went to the mosque, there was apparently a designated room where they did this stuff and the imam or whoever offers these services, slept with her and then allowed other men to sleep with her too."
But the Islamic Sharia Council in East London, which regularly advises women on issues around divorce, strongly condemns halala marriages.
"This is a sham marriage, it is about making money and abusing vulnerable people," says Khola Hasan from the organisation.
"It's haram, it's forbidden. There's no stronger word I can use. There are other options, like getting help or counselling. We would not allow anyone to go through with that. You do not need halala, no matter what," she adds.
Farah ultimately decided against getting back with her husband - and the risks of going through a halala marriage. But she warns there are other women out there, like her, who are desperate for a solution.
"Unless you're in that situation where you're divorced and feeling the pain I felt, no-one's going to understand the desperation some women feel.
"If you ask me now, in a sane state, I would never do it. I'm not going to sleep with someone to get back with a man. But at that precise time I was desperate to get back with my ex-partner at any means or measure."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39480846
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Wisden: Ben Duckett, Chris Woakes and Toby Roland-Jones among Cricketers of the Year - BBC Sport
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2017-04-05
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English trio Ben Duckett, Chris Woakes and Toby Roland-Jones are named as three of Wisden's five Cricketers of the Year.
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Last updated on .From the section Cricket
English trio Ben Duckett, Chris Woakes and Toby Roland-Jones have been named among Wisden's Cricketers of the Year.
India captain Virat Kohli, 28, was named leading cricketer in the world, while Australia's Ellyse Perry, 26, was the world's leading women's cricketer.
The coveted awards, which began in 1889, are a central feature of the annual Wisden Cricketers' Almanack.
The Wisden Five - the editor's verdict
Wisden editor Lawrence Booth said 2016 was the year Woakes, 28, "announced himself as an international-class all-rounder".
He praised the 26 wickets the Warwickshire player took over last summer's four Tests against Pakistan, and the unbeaten 95 he scored in a one-day international against Sri Lanka at Trent Bridge in June.
Northamptonshire batsman Duckett, 22, was singled out for his "remarkable" run total of 2,706 across all formats of the game last year.
"As much as anyone, he epitomised English cricket's new breed of 360-degree batsmanship," it was added.
Roland-Jones, 29, who was called up to England's Test squad for the first time in July, picked up a hat-trick for Middlesex as they secured a first County Championship title in 23 years in September.
Booth described the feat as "the highlight of the domestic summer".
Younus' "classy" 218 in Pakistan's final Test against England at The Oval was "a reminder that his struggles earlier in the series had been a blip rather than part of a decline", Booth wrote.
Misbah's celebratory press-ups after an unbeaten century in the first Test at Lord's were described as "one of the motifs of the year".
Traditionally, the editor chooses five cricketers each year, but players can only be nominated once in their careers.
Perry and Kohli on top of the world
Meanwhile, Australia all-rounder Perry "seemed to be operating on another level" over a year in which she averaged 81 with the bat in one-day internationals, taking her record between 2014 and 2016 to 17 half-centuries in 23 innings.
And India captain Kohli's double ton in Mumbai confirmed him as "the spiritual successor to Sachin Tendulkar".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/39501030
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Vanessa White on life after The Saturdays - BBC News
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2017-04-05
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Pop singer Vanessa White invites us into the studio as she makes her new EP, Chapter 2.
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Entertainment & Arts
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She made her name as the youngest member of girl band The Saturdays - but Vanessa White has ditched the squeaky clean pop of All Fired Up and What About Us for an altogether more intriguing foray into sultry and infectious R&B.
It's two o'clock on a crisp November day and Vanessa White saunters up to the gates of Ealing Studios in west London.
The film studio has played host to Shaun of the Dead, Bridget Jones and the entire "downstairs" set of Downton Abbey - but she's not here to film a cameo ("Can you imagine?" she giggles).
Instead, the 27-year-old climbs the fire escape of a dilapidated high-rise building, enters a propped-open door and navigates the corridors to a small back room that's been converted into a recording studio.
Like all such facilities, it's painted black and littered with empty liquor bottles. The walls are haphazardly decorated with polaroids of previous occupants - including US hitmakers The Chainsmokers - and, in the corner, there's a tiny figurine of Ariel from The Little Mermaid.
Inside, Vanessa's producer SwiftKnight is ready and waiting, sorting through various tracks he's hoping she might choose for her forthcoming EP.
But first, the singer has a confession: "I've got a sore throat and I'm a bit hung over."
It doesn't seem to matter. If anything, the consensus is that a husky voice is better for the material - a sultry and sumptuous serving of downtempo R&B; all heavy breathing and soaring harmonies.
Staving off the hangover with a "nourishing" lunch box, Vanessa explains her musical state of mind to the team.
"Everything I'm doing now is so dark," she says, cueing up a song on her phone. "Not like I-want-to-kill-myself dark, but it's quite angry."
One of the tracks - tentatively called Trust - is seething with vitriol.
"I won't stroke your ego," she spits. "I'm onto you, I'm onto you. Don't underestimate my intelligence."
The song was inspired by encounters with "snaky people" in the music industry, she explains: Specifically, a toxic situation that developed around her and ended up "with the lawyers" last year.
She can't discuss the details, but says her solo career was significantly delayed as a result. The EP she's working on today was originally due last summer.
"There were certain songs I loved that I couldn't use any more," she explains. "So I've basically had to start again, which is why it's taken this long.
"The silver lining is it's given me something to write about. I'm in a much better position now, mentally.
"I used to get so scared of going in the studio with people I didn't know but now, you could put me anywhere and I'd be fine."
Vanessa certainly takes charge in the studio. Having brought the producers up to speed, she sits cross-legged on a sofa as they scroll through a few skeleton songs, looking for "an uptempo track with a dark heart".
One by one, Vanessa dismisses them. "That's too light," she says of one. "I'm not instantly drawn to it," is her verdict on the next.
After half a dozen tracks are waved off, engineer Day Decosta brings up a simple loop built around a gooey, pulsing bass groove.
Vanessa instantly sits up, alert. "Oh, I like this."
She starts ad-libbing vocal riffs over the top, trading ideas with co-writer Celetia Martin, a former vocalist for Groove Armada whose credits include Skepta, Conor Maynard and, yes, The Saturdays.
Within minutes, she heads to the vocal booth. "I don't really know what I'm doing right now," she laughs. "I'm just going to sing loads of random nonsense."
Slowly, painstakingly, the song takes shape. Some of the improvisations stick and are pieced together into a coherent melody. Every so often, Vanessa emerges from the booth to kneel on the floor with Celetia, and the pair go back and forth over lyrics and harmonies.
When inspiration dries up, they scroll through Instagram, gossip about TV box sets, and goof off doing the Mannequin Challenge for Vanessa's Instagram page.
Conversation eventually turns to the singer's upcoming holiday, a "juice retreat" in Portugal, where solid food is forbidden for an entire week.
It sounds awful (although photos from the journey suggest otherwise) - but it's apparently the standard sort of torture female pop stars endure before the promotional round of video and photo shoots begin.
"It sounds worse than what it was," laughs the singer when we catch up four months later.
"Honestly, if you were hungry it wasn't like they starved you. They added more to the smoothies or they'd give you a piece of fruit. It was actually fine.
"I feel like I need another one now, that's the problem!"
In any case, the 27-year-old counts dressing up and being photographed as a perk of her job... although it wasn't always that way.
"When I was in The Sats, it actually got a bit boring having to be made up every single day," she says. "I stopped appreciating it.
"Now I can come to the studio looking like this and it's fine. Dressing up has become more of a treat again."
Back at Ealing Studios, work continues late into the night - long after the BBC has left the building, having contributed precisely zero to the writing process.
The song is ultimately destined for the scrapheap, but Trust (completely overhauled and re-titled Trust Me) makes it onto Vanessa's Chapter Two EP, which was released last Friday.
As she predicted, it set the tone for a collection of brooding neo-soul that's surprisingly candid about anger, lust and sexuality. Fans of The Saturdays' chirrupy chart fodder are in for quite a surprise.
"I guess people are going to question it," she admits of her new direction. "But I feel pop is not very me at the moment.
"It took a bit of time to find a sound that was completely right for me. Now I feel like I've really nailed it, and it's obvious it's coming from me. Once people believe that, you're half-way there."
Born in 1989, the star was just 17 when The Saturdays formed
Certainly, the sophisticated harmonies and complex ad-libs reflect the US singers she grew up idolising - Janet, Alliyah, Brandy and Mariah - without sounding like a cheap, plastic counterfeit.
"We've had a problem with that in the UK in the past," she acknowledges. "I don't know why we haven't really got the sounds right before - but this is what I listened to for years and years, so I guess that's where it's come from."
The EP has been well-reviewed on the sort of music sites that would have given The Saturdays a wide berth. But it's hard to see where the music fits in the current charts, crammed full of Ed Sheeran's acoustic pop and The Chainsmokers' emo EDM.
"To be honest with you, I'm not even thinking about that," says the singer. "With everything that's happened this year, including the label stuff, I've ended up doing this on my own - and at this point I'm preferring it, to be honest.
"I feel like I have to run with this. I'm not going to be hard on myself and expect it to be [huge] at this point.
"Whatever happens will happen."
Vanessa White's Chapter Two EP is out now on Salute the Sun Records.
Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-39479581
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Reality Check: European Parliament's 'red lines' on Brexit - BBC News
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2017-04-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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BBC Reality Check correspondent Chris Morris analyses the detail of the European Parliament vote.
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Europe
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Michel Barnier (R), European Chief Negotiator for Brexit and Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission will pay a key role in negotiations
The European Parliament has overwhelmingly approved a non-binding resolution that lays out its views on the Brexit negotiations.
The parliament will have no formal role in shaping the Brexit talks. The negotiations will be led by the European Commission on behalf of the EU's remaining 27 member states. Their draft negotiating guidelines were issued last week.
But the parliament's views still matter because under the Article 50 rules it will get a vote on the final EU-UK "divorce" deal and if it does not like what has been agreed it could demand changes and delay the process.
BBC Reality Check correspondent Chris Morris teases out some of the key sentences from the resolution and explains their significance.
- A revocation of notification needs to be subject to conditions set by all EU-27, so that it cannot be used as a procedural device or abused in an attempt to improve on the current terms of the United Kingdom's membership;
This is interesting. It implies that the European Parliament thinks the UK can change its mind about Article 50 (whereas the UK government has implied the opposite). The truth is that irrevocability is the subject of legal dispute and, as this is a matter of interpreting a European treaty, the ultimate arbiter would be the European Court of Justice. Either way, the parliament makes clear here that it would not allow the UK to plead for a better deal if it tried to return - even the package of measures offered to David Cameron in February 2016 (remember this?) is now null and void.
- Reiterates the importance of the withdrawal agreement and any possible transitional arrangement(s) entering into force well before the elections to the European Parliament of May 2019;
In theory the two-year Article 50 negotiating period could be extended if all parties agreed, but no-one really wants that to happen. And this is one of the reasons why the timetable is so tight. If the UK was still part of the European Union in May 2019, it might have to hold elections to elect British MEPs, despite being on the verge of leaving. It would raise all sorts of complications that the European Parliament is determined to avoid.
- Stresses that the United Kingdom must honour all its legal, financial and budgetary obligations, including commitments under the current multiannual financial framework, falling due up to and after the date of its withdrawal;
Another reminder of the looming fight about settling the accounts (also known as the divorce bill). Parliament insists that the UK must honour all its commitments under the current multiannual financial framework - a kind of long-term budget - which runs until 2020. Because of the way the EU budget process works, that would mean the UK would have to help pay for things like infrastructure projects in poorer EU countries several years after it had left the Union.
- States that, whatever the outcome of the negotiations on the future European Union-United Kingdom relationship, they cannot involve any trade-off between internal and external security including defence co-operation, on the one hand and the future economic relationship, on the other hand;
I think this is probably cleared up by now, but the implied link between security co-operation and trade in Theresa May's Article 50 letter raised a few eyebrows elsewhere in the EU. Cooler heads suggested it was there for domestic consumption and the UK government said it was all a misunderstanding. But the parliament is putting down an explicit marker that trade-offs between security and the future economic relationship won't be acceptable.
- Stresses that any future agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom is conditional on the UK's continued adherence to the standards provided by international obligations, including human rights and the Union's legislation and policies, in, among others, the field of the environment, climate change, the fight against tax evasion and avoidance, fair competition, trade and social rights, especially safeguards against social dumping;
The resolution suggests that the future relationship could be built upon an agreement under which the UK would have to accept EU standards over a wide range of policy areas from climate change to tax evasion. In some areas that might be exactly what the UK government wants to do anyway, given that the UK has played a leading role in forging those policy positions in the first place. But domestic politics in the UK means any wholesale acceptance of EU policies could be a tough sell.
- Believes that transitional arrangements ensuring legal certainty and continuity can only be agreed between the European Union and the United Kingdom if they contain the right balance of rights and obligations for both parties and preserve the integrity of the European Union's legal order, with the Court of Justice of the European Union responsible for settling any legal challenges; believes, moreover, that any such arrangements must also be strictly limited both in time - not exceeding three years - and in scope, as they can never be a substitute for European Union membership;
Two important points here. Firstly, the parliament is determined that the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice would continue to run during any transition period. The draft guidelines produced by the European Council last week made the same point but in less explicit language. If it wants a transition, the UK will have to accept a role for the ECJ. Secondly, the parliament says the transition should last no longer than three years, which is a shorter period than some might think necessary.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39501866
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Luke Shaw used his body with my brain, says Man Utd boss Jose Mourinho - BBC Sport
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2017-04-05
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Jose Mourinho says Luke Shaw used "his body with my brain" during Manchester United's draw with Everton on Tuesday.
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Manager Jose Mourinho said Luke Shaw used "his body with my brain" during Manchester United's 1-1 draw with Everton and has told the club's young players they need to "grow up" quickly.
Defender Shaw, 21, made his first appearance since January on Tuesday night and it was his injury-time shot that led to the penalty from which Zlatan Ibrahimovic equalised.
"He was in front of me and I was making every decision for him," said Mourinho.
"He has to change his football brain."
Shaw's appearance as a substitute against the Toffees was only his 16th match of the season for United and, while elements of his display pleased Mourinho, the Portuguese had a warning message.
"We need his fantastic physical and technical qualities but he cannot play with my brain," added the Old Trafford manager, who sent on Shaw only after Ashley Young's injury.
"He must accelerate the process. Twenty-one is old enough to have a better understanding. He has a future here but Manchester United cannot wait."
Shaw was left out of the United squad altogether for the draw with West Brom on Saturday, which led to a meeting between Mourinho and the full-back, who signed from Southampton for £27m in 2014.
If you were doing that to under 10s it would be embarrassing, never mind a full international. I can't believe what I heard last night.
Jose obviously feels he needs more from him but I don't know how much he can take. It's like Luke Shaw's a punchbag at the moment.
I don't know about management at that level but I've got my own kids - in a similar kind of thing, man management - and sometimes you need to put your arm around them. At the moment that's certainly not happening for Luke Shaw, the poor lad.
Shaw was not the only United youngster singled out by Mourinho after United had drawn for the ninth time at home in the league this season.
England striker Marcus Rashford scored eight times in his first 14 Premier League games but has not found the net since 24 September.
Rashford had one early chance saved on Tuesday, although he was flagged offside, and then struggled.
Mourinho says the 19-year-old is suffering from a major lack of confidence.
"The kid is desperate," said Mourinho. "He tries and tries.
"It is not a surprise in the second year. One day I will try to find out if it happened with Ryan Giggs or one of those guys.
"I must not kill him. I have to help him because the kid is phenomenal."
United had striker Ibrahimovic to thank again as the Swede's injury-time penalty rescued a point which keeps United fifth in the table.
The former Barcelona, Inter Milan and Paris St-Germain striker's contract expires at the end of the season and he is yet to decide whether he will still be at Old Trafford next term.
"We are talking," the 35-year-old told MUTV. "Whether we were far from each other or close to each other, there is no news. There are still talks and let's see what will happen. I am open and nothing is done yet.
"I came here without the Champions League and I came here with the team as it was. It was not a team that was favourite to win. I still came and I came to help. I came to do what I am able to do - to make it better and to bring the team to higher views so let's see what happens.
"I am 35. A lot of things have to be settled. It's not like I'm 20 and I have another five or 10 years. Probably I have one, two, three years so everything depends on what you want and what the club wants, and what the vision of the club is because I said from day one I didn't come here to waste time. I came here to win.
"If you want to win bigger then you have to create bigger."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39499154
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David Moyes: Sunderland boss never feared for his job despite slap comment - BBC Sport
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2017-04-05
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Sunderland boss David Moyes says he never feared for his job following his comments to a BBC reporter that she might "get a slap".
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Last updated on .From the section Football
Sunderland boss David Moyes says that he never felt his job was in danger following his comments to a BBC reporter that she might "get a slap".
Moyes has apologised for what he said to Vicki Sparks after an interview following a draw with Burnley in March.
Sunderland are standing by the Scot, who has been asked to give his observations on the incident by the FA.
"It's really good to have the support and I'm really grateful to them," Moyes told BBC Radio 5 live.
When asked if he had thought his position was under threat following the comments, he said: "No. I felt I had made my apology, there had been no complaint from Vicki Sparks, and because of that, everything was fine."
He also said it was his idea to offer an apology, adding: "As I said at the time, I regret my words."
In his post-match news conference following Tuesday's 2-0 loss at Leicester, he admitted that he had been "surprised, in many ways" by the reaction to his comments.
"The world of football is a great business now," he added. "It employs an incredible amount of people now, be it through the media or on the training grounds, and for that reason it is a big talking point."
In the interview in question, Moyes was asked by Sparks if the presence of owner Ellis Short had put extra pressure on him.
He said it had not but, after the interview, added Sparks "might get a slap even though you're a woman" and told her to be "careful" next time she visited.
Both Moyes and Sparks were laughing during the exchange and the former Everton and Manchester United manager later apologised to the reporter, who did not make a complaint.
Moyes revealed on Monday that the club knew about the incident soon after it occurred.
In a statement on Tuesday, the club said: "The exchange between the manager and a BBC reporter was wholly unacceptable and such actions are not condoned or excused in any way.
"David recognised this immediately, proactively bringing the matter to the attention of the CEO and apologising to the reporter.
"The club also spoke with both a senior figure at the BBC and the reporter personally, expressing its profound regret over what had occurred.
"The matter was treated with the utmost seriousness from the outset and the swift and decisive action taken by the club and the manager at the time ensured that it was resolved to the satisfaction of the reporter and the BBC, which was the priority.
"With both the BBC and the reporter agreeing that appropriate action had been taken at the time, the club continues to fully support David in his role as manager of Sunderland AFC."
• None Listen - "doubly difficult for women to be accepted in world of sport reporting"
His comments have been criticised by shadow sports minister Dr Rosena Allin-Khan and Women in Football, with the latter saying it was "deeply disappointed and concerned" but "pleased that David Moyes has apologised".
Football Association chairman Greg Clarke said: "It was regrettable, it was distasteful and I think it showed a complete lack of respect. And we in the game stand for respect.
"But I don't think it undermines football's desire to be inclusive and respectful. Every now and again, we will have to remind people of the high standards we need to observe in football."
When asked if it was sexist, Clarke said: "It could have been interpreted as such.
"I think it's doubly bad to use such a term to a woman because there is a lot of violence against women in society and terms like that aren't just disrespectful, I think they are bad examples.
"I regret that it happened and I'm sure that David Moyes regrets that it happened."
The chief executive of Domestic violence charity Women's Aid, Polly Neate, said: "We cannot be complacent about remarks like these from influential men.
"We urge the FA to act swiftly and take this opportunity to send out a clear and strong message to the footballing community that there is no place for sexism and misogyny in modern football."
Speaking in a news conference on Monday, Moyes said: "I deeply regret the comments I made.
"That's certainly not the person I am. I've accepted the mistake. I spoke to the BBC reporter, who accepted my apology."
The BBC confirmed that Moyes and Sparks had spoken about the exchange and the issue had been resolved.
A spokesman said: "Mr Moyes has apologised to our reporter and she has accepted his apology."
Sunderland are bottom of the Premier League on 20 points, eight points from safety.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39498426
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Masters 2017: Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth among favourites at Augusta after Dustin Johnson withdraws - BBC Sport
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2017-04-05
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Who are the main contenders? Who are the British hopes? Why the Green Jacket? And everything you need to know about the Augusta National.
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Last updated on .From the section Golf
Coverage: Watch highlights of the first two days before live and uninterrupted coverage of the weekend's action on BBC Two and up to four live streams available online. Listen on BBC Radio 5 live and BBC Radio 5 live sports extra. Read live text commentary, analysis and social media on the BBC Sport website and the sport app.
Augusta National. The Green Jacket. Amen Corner. The manicured fairways. The blooming azaleas. Unmistakably, the Masters.
Golf's first major of the year is upon us, with the world's finest players making their annual pilgrimage to one of sport's most iconic venues.
The first tee shot will be hit at 13:00 BST on Thursday with a field of 94 men aiming to sink the winning putt come Sunday.
World number one Dustin Johnson and Northern Ireland's four-time major winner Rory McIlroy head the field in the year's first major.
• None Quiz: Match the Masters winner with his champions dinner.
What else do you need to know? Plenty. Here's the lowdown...
Who are the main contenders?
Plenty of people backed Dustin Johnson to win his first Green Jacket - but that was before the current world number one suffered a back injury the day before the tournament started, after a fall at his rented home.
Johnson tried to take part in the tournament, but walked off the first tee on Thursday without playing his shot and withdrew.
The American, 32, had been head and shoulders above his rivals over the past nine months, winnnig seven of the 17 tournaments he has played since claiming his first major at the US Open at Oakmont in June, racking up another seven top-10 finishes in the process.
In Johnson's absence, Jordan Spieth will look to banish memories of last year's spectacular final-day collapse by winning his second Masters.
The American, 23, led by five shots as he approached the 10th at Augusta on the Sunday, only to dramatically drop six shots in three holes and allow England's Danny Willett to take advantage.
"No matter what happens at this year's Masters, whether I can grab the jacket back or I miss the cut or I finish 30th, it will be nice having this Masters go by," he said earlier this month.
"The Masters lives on for a year. It brings a non-golf audience into golf. And it will be nice once this year has finished to be brutally honest."
Spieth has dropped to sixth in the world rankings since his Masters meltdown, but did claim his first PGA Tour title since May when he won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am last month.
World number three Jason Day will play at Augusta after pulling out of a recent tournament to spend time with his mother, who has been treated for lung cancer.
The Australian, 29, broke down in tears after withdrawing from the WGC Match Play a fortnight ago.
"There's been a lot of things go on this year that have been somewhat distracting to my golf," he said.
"Golf was the last thing that I was ever thinking about when this first came about. I'm in a much better place now.
"I feel happier to be on the golf course and enjoying myself out here a lot more than I was the last month or two."
Japan's Hideki Matsuyama is bidding to become the first Asian player to win the Masters, having risen to fourth in the world after a stellar finish to the 2016 season.
The 25-year-old ended last year with four victories in five tournaments - finishing second in the other - but has not been able to recapture the form in recent weeks.
"I'm really not hitting it as well as I would like, so whether or not my confidence level is where it should be, I'm not sure," said Matsuyama, who finished fifth in the 2015 Masters and shared seventh place last year.
That is the question we have been asking since McIlroy won the 2014 Open Championship at Hoylake.
The Northern Irishman steps on to Augusta's first tee on Thursday (18:41 BST) aiming to become only the sixth man to win all four majors.
He is seeking a first Masters title following victories at the US Open, the Open Championship and the US PGA Championship.
Winning the Green Jacket would propel the 27-year-old into exalted company alongside Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Gene Sarazen, Gary Player and Ben Hogan.
And, after three consecutive top-10 finishes at Augusta, the world number two has made no secret that finally sealing victory is his main priority.
"I don't feel like I can fly under the radar anymore, but at the same time it has been nice to just go about my business and try to get ready for this tournament," McIlroy said.
"I've realised that the more I can get comfortable with this golf course and the club as a whole, the better.
"The more I can just play the golf course and almost make it seem like second nature to me, the better."
When the fourth home nations golfer followed in the footsteps of Sandy Lyle, Nick Faldo and Ian Woosnam to win the Masters, most expected it would be Rory McIlroy slipping into the iconic wool jacket.
Instead it was Danny Willett.
The Englishman, playing in only his second Masters, was three shots adrift of Spieth going into Sunday's final round last year, but was catapulted to victory thanks to a superb five-under-par 67 and the Texan's meltdown.
What made his triumph even more remarkable was his participation at Augusta had been in doubt.
His wife Nicole was due to give birth on the final day, with only the early arrival of baby Zachariah allowing him to play.
"It's going to be awesome to go back as defending champion," he said in BBC documentary When Danny Won the Masters.
"I can't wait to take part in all the things you get to take part in, the par three competition, the champion's dinner and see all the other people who've won that golf tournament who are still there to be able to enjoy it with you.
"It is something that you can't buy in life. You can only earn and the fact that I've earned is going to be something pretty special."
However, Willett has since struggled to match his form over those four days at Augusta.
He rose to a career-high ranking of ninth in the world following his maiden major, but has dropped to 17th after managing just four top-10 finishes in the past 12 months.
"The game is not far away," said the 29-year-old Yorkshireman.
"Our run of form obviously has been nowhere near what it was last year and nowhere near what some of the other guys are playing."
Willett is one of a record 11 English players in the 94-strong field at Augusta, while Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are also represented.
McIlroy is the only Northern Irishman taking part, while Scotland's Sandy Lyle and Wales' Ian Woosnam make their annual return as former champions.
England's Justin Rose has been a regular top-10 finisher in golf's four majors over the past decade, but only has one victory at the 2013 US Open to show for his efforts.
He finished tied 10th at Augusta last year, his fourth top-10 finish at the Masters.
Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton and English amateur champion Scott Gregory are making their Masters debuts this week - no player has won the Masters on their debut since American Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979.
Fleetwood, 26, was ranked 188th in the world in September 2016, but has climbed to career-high 32nd after returning to former coach Alan Thompson and employing friend Ian Finnis as his caddie.
"One of the greatest accomplishments I've had in my career was actually qualifying for the Masters," said Fleetwood.
Gregory, a 22-year-old from Hampshire, secured his place by winning the British Amateur Championship last summer.
His preparations have included watching hours of footage from the past four tournaments at Augusta.
"I've watched a lot of clips on YouTube," he told BBC South Today.
Willett's surprise success ended a long European drought at Augusta, becoming the continent's first winner since Jose Maria Olazabal's success 17 years previously.
This year, American players will be hoping to regain their recent dominance.
Ten of the previous 16 winners have been home players, with Johnson and Spieth leading the charge alongside fellow top-15 players Justin Thomas, Rickie Fowler and Patrick Reed.
And rule out left handers Phil Mickelson and Bubba Watson at your peril.
Between them the veteran pair have five Green Jackets hung up in their wardrobes - three for Mickleson and two for Watson - and are still loitering around the world's top 20.
"I always think I have a chance," said 38-year-old Watson, who has won just one PGA Tour title in nearly two years.
Strong winds and cool temperatures have been forecast on Thursday and Friday, conditions which 46-year-old Mickelson believes will play into his hands.
"I hope to rely on that knowledge and skill to keep myself in it heading into the weekend where players less experienced with the golf course will possibly miss it in the wrong spots and shoot themselves out," said the world number 18.
Twenty years ago at Augusta, Tiger Woods memorably blitzed his way to a first major, the first step towards his impending global superstardom.
But the 41-year-old will not be marking the special anniversary by walking the fairways after pulling out this week through injury.
The 14-time major winner, who has been plagued by injury problems in recent years, said he is not "tournament ready" to tee up at an event with which he is synonymous.
The American went on to wear the Green Jacket on another three occasions - 2001, 2002 and 2005 - but has not been able to play in two of the past three tournaments because of long-running back problems.
"I did about everything I could to play at this year's Masters," he said.
"I'm especially upset because it's a special anniversary for me that's filled with a lot of great memories.
"I have no timetable for my return, but I will continue my diligent effort to recover, and want to get back out there as soon as possible."
Woods has only played twice this year, missing the cut at the Farmers Insurance Open in January and withdrawing from the following week's Dubai Desert Classic before the second round.
This year's tournament will be tinged with sadness - but also a cause for celebration - as Augusta pays its own tribute to the man who won four Masters titles and was fondly known as 'The King' in golfing circles.
Arnold Palmer, viewed as one of the greatest and most influential players in the sport's history, died at the age of 87 in September.
"His presence at Augusta National will be sorely missed, but his impact on the Masters remains immeasurable - and it will never wane," said Billy Payne, chairman of Augusta National, shortly after his death.
Where the Masters will be won or lost
Seeing the sign pointing towards Amen Corner can strike fear into the minds of even the world's best golfers.
Amen Corner, a term coined by legendary sports writer Herbert Warren Wind in 1958, geographically refers to the approach to the par-four 11th, all of the short 12th and the first half of the par-five 13th but many tend to think of it as all three holes in their entirety.
"If you can get through those in level par you're a happy man," says BBC golf commentator Ken Brown.
If Jordan Spieth had got through those holes in level par in the final round last year then he, and not Danny Willett, would have won the Green Jacket.
The Texan appeared to be cruising towards becoming only the fourth man to win back-to-back Masters, leading by five shots as he approached the 10th.
But he twice found the water on the iconic 12th to card a quadruple bogey seven - following successive bogeys on the 10th and 11th holes - to hand the advantage to Willett.
Spieth was not the first Masters contender to see their dreams fade on the back nine on the final day, with Greg Norman in 1996 and Rory McIlroy in 2011 immediately springing to mind.
One suspects he won't be the last...
Although the Masters began in 1934, the victorious golfer did not receive a Green Jacket until Sam Snead triumphed in 1949.
However, Augusta members had worn the coloured coats since 1937, encouraged by co-founder Clifford Roberts, so patrons could easily identify "a source of reliable information".
Once Snead received his Green Jacket, the coat became a symbol of success - and is now one of the most iconic prizes in sport.
Winners are allowed to take the jacket home for a year and are rather generously allowed to wear the single-breasted, lightweight jacket "in public during that time on special occasions".
After that, past champions have a custom-tailored coat waiting for them on their return to the Augusta clubhouse.
"It felt like my old friend was back on my shoulders," said 2013 champion Adam Scott when he returned a year later.
How to follow on the BBC (all times BST)
Saturday 8 April: The Masters Live, BBC Two, 19:30-00:00 and BBC Radio 5 live, 21:00-01:00
Sunday 9 April: The Masters Live, BBC Two, 18:30-00:00 and BBC Radio 5 live, 20:00-01:00
Live text commentary with analysis and social media on the BBC Sport website from 12:45 on Thursday and Friday and from 16:00 on Saturday and Sunday.
Full details of the BBC's extensive coverage from Augusta
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/39406171
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Nick Skelton: Rio Olympics gold medallist show jumper retires - BBC Sport
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2017-04-05
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Nick Skelton, who won Olympic gold for Great Britain in the individual show jumping at Rio 2016, announces his retirement.
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Last updated on .From the section Equestrian
Show jumper Nick Skelton, who became Britain's second-oldest Olympic gold medallist with victory at Rio 2016, has retired from the sport.
The Warwickshire rider, 59, will appear for a final time at May's Royal Windsor Horse Show, to parade Big Star, the horse on which he won Olympic gold.
Skelton was competing at his seventh Games - 16 years after a broken neck forced his initial retirement.
"This sport has given me more than I could have ever hoped," he said.
"It is such a difficult decision to make, but I'm not getting any younger and it is nice for the two of us to end on the highest note possible.
"Thank you to all of the incredible friends and fans for your support - we are truly appreciative and humbled.
"And lastly, thank you to all of the horses I've ridden. You have provided me with opportunities one could never have imagined."
Skelton broke his neck in a fall in September 2000 that looked to have ended his career, but he recovered enough to begin competing again in 2002. He has also had a hip replacement and two knee operations.
He began riding at just 18 months on a Welsh pony called Oxo, who was born in the same year as him and lived to the age of 39.
It was the beginning of a career that yielded 10 European and six World Championship medals and a World Cup title in addition to two Olympic golds.
Skelton holds the British record for jumping the highest fence, clearing over 7ft 7ins on Lastic in 1978, and won the Hickstead Derby three times in the 1980s.
He claimed team gold at London 2012 and in Rio provided Britain's first individual show jumping gold, and the first medal of any colour in the sport, since Ann Moore's silver 44 years earlier.
Skelton came third in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award for 2016, behind triathlete Alistair Brownlee and winner Andy Murray.
In accepting the prize in December, tennis star Murray joked: "I've got a bone to pick with my wife because about an hour ago she told me she'd voted for Nick Skelton. Not smart from her with Christmas coming up."
Skelton was later asked whether he was aware Murray's wife had voted for him and responded: "I'm very pleased with her actually. But she didn't vote enough times."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/equestrian/39502046
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Could making the Ganges a 'person' save India's holiest river? - BBC News
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2017-04-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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A new ruling has the potential to become a game-changer in legally enforcing environmental protection.
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India
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A court in India has declared the Ganges river a legal "person" in a fresh effort to save it from pollution. Research associate Shyam Krishnakumar explains how the ruling could help preserve the waterway upon which so many depend.
The legal battle to save the Ganges, the lifeline of more than 500 million people across India, has received a fresh boost thanks to a series of rulings by the high court in the north Indian state of Uttarakhand.
First the court declared the Ganges and Yamuna rivers to be legal persons. In a subsequent hearing, it also gave this designation to glaciers, including Gangotri and Yamunotri (where the Ganges and Yamuna originate from), rivers, streams, rivulets, lakes, air, meadows, dales, jungles, forests wetlands, grasslands, springs and waterfalls.
These verdicts represent a shift from a view that sees nature as a resource to one that considers it an entity with fundamental rights. Other non-human entities that have legal personalities in India include companies, temple deities and trusts.
In jurisprudence, nature is considered property with no legal rights. Environmental laws only focus on regulating exploitation. But this is now changing, with calls for the inherent rights of nature to be recognised, both in India and around the world.
The Ganges is seen as sacred by Hindus
In Ecuador, a new constitution mandates that nature has the right to exist, maintain and regenerate. New Zealand recently granted the Whanganui River personhood status, the culmination of a 140-year legal struggle by the Maori people.
Making nature a legal entity means that cases can be brought up directly on its behalf. This has the potential to become a game-changer in legally enforcing environmental protection.
For instance, it may no longer be necessary to prove in court that polluting the Ganges actually harms humans. Contamination on its own could be enough to make the case that it violates the river's "right to life".
In addition to this, in a related order, the court imposed a blanket ban on new mining licenses for four months and has set up a committee to explore the environmental impact of mining in India's mountainous regions. The Uttarakhand state government is planning to challenge the ban in the Supreme Court.
But it is not just mining. The court has also directed the state pollution control board to shut down hotels, industries and ashrams that discharge untreated waste into the river. This is expected to affect over 700 hotels in the tourist areas of Haridwar and Rishikesh alone.
These rulings indicate that the court will strictly monitor polluting of the Ganges. The response of the government, however, is yet to be seen.
The ruling could be a powerful tool in the fight to save the Ganges from pollution
It may no longer be required to prove in court that polluting the Ganges actually harms humans
Some aspects of this ruling are still unclear, though. What does a right to life mean for a river or a water body? If it means the right to flow freely, what happens to dams across the Ganges?
Enforceability is another issue. Will this ruling be restricted to only the state of Uttarakhand or will it be extended across India?
The legal guardians appointed are members of the government. Will they have the independence to appeal against governmental actions like unsustainable canal dredging? Can a citizen bring a case representing a water body?
If yes, this can become a powerful legal tool in the hands of communities and activists to safeguard the environment.
While radically new from a legal perspective, the case has also been about recognising the traditional Hindu view that regards the universe as a manifestation of the divine.
This means that rivers, plants, animals and even the earth are considered sentient divinities with particular forms, qualities and characteristics.
Millions of people across India depend on the Ganges for their livelihoods
Hindus come from across India to bathe in the waters of the Ganges
Personification as a deity cultivates empathy and creates a strong emotional bond with the ecosystem, leading to social norms emphasising conservation. This principle of sacredness and respect has been passed down through the generations through stories and local bio-cultural traditions.
In Hinduism, the Ganges is revered as a goddess who purifies a person of all sins. The river is worshipped as "Ganga Mata", the divine mother who has sustained life and nurtured civilisation for thousands of years.
Expressions of her worship include the Ganga Aarti, where thousands offer lit lamps to the river every evening, and the Kumbh Mela, a pilgrimage of over 100 million people.
Can this view that considers rivers, trees and animals sacred, personifies them as deities and reveres them through bio-cultural traditions hold possibilities for sustainability in India? Evidence seems to suggest so.
The most famous case is the "Chipko" movement of the 1970s where tribal women hugged trees to prevent the felling of their sacred groves.
And recently, the north-eastern state of Sikkim became India's first fully organic state in just 10 years, as people saw organic farming as taking their traditional way forward.
In the case of the Ganges, the organisers of the Ganga Aarti use the occasion to raise awareness about actions that pollute the river and administer a pledge to keep it clean to thousands every day.
When environmental conservation is seen to be in alignment with the cultural context, it drives community involvement. The High Court's judgement is a welcome step in that direction.
Shyam Krishnakumar is a Research Associate with Vision India Foundation and a member of Anaadi Foundation. His work focuses on civilisational studies.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-39488527
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'Undocumented students' in US face anxious future - BBC News
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2017-04-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Will a tougher line on immigration in the US mean deportation for many undocumented university students?
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Business
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There have been fears about deportation among migrant families in the US
Sitting in a lecture hall at the University of California, Los Angeles, Maria Marquez found her mind was wandering.
The history undergraduate was wondering what would happen if she or a member of her family were to be deported from the United States.
"I remember sitting in class and making a list of people I would contact," she says.
"I made a list of the lawyers I would go to and the paperwork I would need."
Ms Marquez, 25, is an "undocumented student". Her family moved from Guadalajara, Mexico to California without papers when she was just three years old and have lived there ever since.
Hundreds of thousands of students are in a similar position. They have succeeded at school, and started university, with dreams of professional careers in fields such as medicine and law.
A charity in Connecticut is running workshops for migrants fearing deportation
But since the election of President Trump, and his tough talking on illegal immigration, they feel increasingly vulnerable.
The subject of undocumented students' status has electrified US college campuses since the election.
As students ramp up campaigns for immigrants' rights, university leaders are appointing full-time immigration lawyers and counsellors to support them, running "know your rights" classes and even lobbying the government on their behalf.
Ms Marquez is in a legal grey area. She is one of about 750,000 young people recognised under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme, an Obama-era measure that offers two-year protection from deportation, as well as work permits, to some undocumented immigrants who moved to the US as children.
Yale student Larissa Martinez is worried about her future status in the US
President Trump's campaign website said he would "immediately terminate" the DACA programme. He has so far left it in place, but many students worry that its days might be numbered.
And many students without DACA are more worried than before about deportation, because the administration has toughened guidance on enforcement to expand the list of prioritised "removable aliens".
However, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security said that the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency was focusing on "convicted criminals who pose a threat to public safety as well as recent border crosses".
Amid this uncertainty, universities are offering extra support for undocumented students.
University leaders have called on President Trump to lift the "cloud of fear"
Harvard University in January appointed an in-house immigration lawyer, Jason Corral, to handle their concerns.
"Since the election we've stepped up our efforts because our students feel vulnerable," says Loc Truong, the university's director of diversity and inclusion. He says that Mr Corral has been kept "very busy".
The university has attempted to reassure students by saying it will not share their information with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement without a court order.
Others, including New York University and Columbia University, have given similar reassurances.
But the Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman said that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement "has not and does not conduct enforcement on campuses unless there is a serious and extraordinary circumstance such as a threat to national security".
Harvard has an in-house immigration lawyer to help anxious students
Meanwhile 560 college and university presidents signed a letter in March that urged President Trump to lift the "cloud of fear" over undocumented students.
Ignacia Rodriguez, an immigration policy advocate at the National Immigration Law Centre, says the number of requests from colleges for its "know your rights" training sessions for undocumented students has significantly increased.
More stories from the BBC's Global education series looking at education from an international perspective, and how to get in touch.
You can join the debate at the BBC's Family & Education News Facebook page.
"I think that frankly universities should not be going to efforts to support people who are here breaking the law [by living in the US without papers]," says Sterling Beard, editor-in-chief of the conservative site Campus Reform.
He said he had "sympathy" for young people brought to the US illegally as children, but that those who were in the country lawfully should be a priority.
There are also voices saying universities should not support students in the US illegally
"You have American students who are graduating tens of thousands of dollars in debt, or foreign students who come to the United States legally, but they don't get the same kind of attention," he said.
As the political battles rage, students are trying to carry on with their education - but this can be difficult.
Larissa Martinez, 19, is in her first year at Yale University. She is an undocumented student who is not eligible for DACA status, because her family moved to the US in 2010, and the programme requires applicants to have lived in the US since 2007.
"There's an everyday struggle of wondering whether the worries of school are as important as they are to all of my peers," she says. "I care about school, and I understand its importance, but sometimes it's hard to reconcile that with real life problems.
"Like, sometimes I wonder, what if every day I try my hardest and three and a half years into this [degree] I get deported? Then all of the struggle of working hard to be here meant nothing if it can be taken away so easily."
Migrant parents in Connecticut assign custody of their children to friends if they are deported
Ms Marquez, who is due to finish her studies in June, is rethinking her plans in the wake of the election. She had hoped to go to graduate school in a northern area of California, such as San Francisco or Berkeley - but has decided to study somewhere further south where she will be closer to her parents because she is worried that they might be deported.
"Since Trump took office I've thought, I can't leave southern California," she says. "I'm focusing on schools where I can easily go to my parents if they need me or if I need them."
Marisa Herrera, executive director for community building and inclusion at the University of Washington in Seattle, says such concerns show how quickly undocumented students' experience has changed.
"A year ago, these kids thought anything was possible, regardless of their immigration status, whether that was studying abroad or being a doctor or a lawyer," she says.
"They really were unstoppable. Those possibilities are not out of the question for them now, but things have significantly changed," she says. "Now, it's complicated."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39479029
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Pining for cleaner air in the Norwegian fjords - BBC News
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2017-04-05
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Diesel-powered ferries are big polluters, so could electric engines be a cleaner option?
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Business
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It might be slow, but the romance of commuting by ferry is not lost on Trond Bonesmo as he boards MF Norangsfjord for the crossing from Magerholm to Sykkylven.
"It's a welcome break, and the view isn't too bad either," he says as he looks across the sea towards the Sunnmoere Alps' snow-covered peaks.
"A bridge across the fjord would obviously make the crossing faster, but Storfjorden is two or three kilometres wide and 700 metres deep, which makes it very expensive to build one," says Mr Bonesmo, IT and operations manager for a consumer goods company.
Many Norwegian fjords present similar difficulties to bridge builders, so instead the country's coastal population relies on ferries that link their often remote communities.
Each year, some 20 million cars, vans and trucks cross the country's many fjords on roughly 130 ferry routes.
Most of Norway's ferries run on diesel, spewing out noxious fumes and CO2.
But this is about to change.
Building bridges across Norway's mountain-flanked fjords would be difficult and costly
Following two years of trials of the world's first electric car ferry, named Ampere, ferry operators are busy making the transition from diesel to comply with new government requirements for all new ferry licensees to deliver zero- or low-emission alternatives.
"We continue the work with low-emission ferries because we believe it will benefit the climate, Norwegian industry and Norwegian jobs," Prime Minister Erna Solberg said in a speech in April 2016, in which she vowed to help fund required quayside infrastructure.
Ferry company Fjord1, which operates the MF Norangsfjord, has ordered three fully electric ferries that are scheduled to enter active service on some of its routes in January 2018.
Multi Maritime, which designed the ferries, welcomes the growth in demand.
"Several years of investment in sustainable technologies have resulted in us having more than 10 fully electric and plug-in hybrid ferries under construction by several yards," says Gjermund Johannessen, managing director.
Multi Maritime has designed three electric ferries for Fjord1
In addition to new-builds, the marine division of Siemens, which developed the technology for Ampere, believes 84 ferries are ripe for conversion to electric power. And 43 ferries on longer routes would benefit from conversion to hybrids that use diesel engines to charge their batteries.
If this were done, nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions would be cut by 8,000 tonnes per year and CO2 emissions by 300,000 tonnes per year, equivalent to the annual emissions from 150,000 cars, according to a report penned jointly by Siemens and the environmental campaign group, Bellona.
Long-distance ferries are not well suited to electrification, but about 70% of Norway's ferries cover relatively short crossings, so switching to electric power would pay for itself in a few years, according to the report.
Each ferry would save about a million litres of diesel per year, helping to reduce energy costs by 60% or more, says Odd Moen, head of sales at Siemens' marine division.
"The electricity to power Ampere, with its 360 passengers and 120 cars, across a six kilometre-wide fjord costs about 50 kroner (£4.65; $5.80)," he says.
"In Norway, that won't even pay for a cup of coffee and a waffle."
Norway's older ferries are also being converted from diesel to electric
Ampere's electric powertrain, which was designed by Fjellstrand shipyard using Siemens technology, includes an 800kWh battery pack weighing in at a hefty 11 tonnes, which powers two electric motors, one either side of the vessel.
The batteries are fully charged overnight, but as each of the 34 daily 20-minute crossings of the Sognefjorden requires 150kWh, the battery must be topped up during loading and unloading as well.
During initial trials, the fast charging placed excessive strain on the local grid, designed as it was to service a relatively small population.
To lighten the load, high-capacity batteries were put on constant charge on either side of the fjord, ready to transfer the electricity quickly to the ferry's batteries whilst docked.
The charging added an extra burden to the Ampere crew's busy schedules. But this challenge is being dealt with by the latest electric ferry designs, which incorporate fully automatic charging systems.
Emissions from diesel-powered ferries have always been a problem.
"When they're docked, their engines are idling - that's when you see those black fumes coming out of their chimneys - and then they're accelerating hard away from land, so their engines are never operating with maximum efficiency," explains Mr Moen.
Ferry pollution is an issue for most busy city ports; Hong Kong is no exception
Mr Moen says he has registered much interest in the technology from overseas, and urges other governments to require and support a switch from diesel to electric ferries where appropriate.
Indeed, emissions from ferries is a problem not just in Norway, but in coastal communities and cities all over the world.
This is why Scotland has been moving to lower-carbon hybrid ferries - combining diesel and lithium-ion batteries - with three ferries now in operation.
In Hong Kong, the Environmental Protection Department has long been waging a war on emissions from ferries that are responsible for much of Victoria Harbour's poor air quality.
Similarly, in New Zealand a single ferry visit to Wellington used to pollute the air as much as all Wellington's cars did in a month, according to National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research figures.
Back in rural Sykkylven, where the air is relatively fresh, NOx emissions pose less of a problem than in a congested city.
But CO2 emissions from ferries should be curbed nevertheless to help combat climate change, Mr Bonesmo says, as he steers his electric car off the ferry.
By 2020, an all-electric solution will have replaced the current diesel-electric ferry on the Magerholm-Sykkylven crossing.
"And then my entire commute will be emissions free," Mr Bonesmo grins.
Follow Technology of Business editor Matthew Wall on Twitter and Facebook
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39478856
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Should exercise be compulsory at work? - BBC News
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2017-04-05
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The news that millions of us are physically inactive has led some to ask if employers hold the answers.
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Health
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The news this week that more than 20 million people in the UK are physically inactive has led to a lot of discussion over how to tackle the problem. But with no easy solution and rates of obesity rising fast has it come to the point that exercise should become part of our working day?
"Exercise in the office isn't a new idea. But it's such a clear win-win - in terms of health, morale and productivity," says Ryan Holmes, the CEO of HootSuite, a social media platform.
In a first-person article on Medium entitled, Why It's Time We Paid Employees to Exercise at Work, Holmes makes a passionate case for exercise becoming part of the working day and bosses paying for it.
His social media tech company has about 700 employees, and exercise before, during and after working hours is encouraged, in the small on-site gym.
"Yoga classes are packed before work, at lunch and after work. In the gym, volunteers from our company lead sweaty bootcamps and cross-training classes. Groups set out from our office for lunchtime runs and evening hikes. We have a hockey team and a road biking team and even a Quidditch team that does battle on broomsticks in the park."
Tech giant Google led the way in office gyms but Holmes doesn't believe a company has to have a gym on site, and says he encouraged staff to exercise even when they were a small start-up.
"We made it clear that anyone could block off an hour for exercise during the day, provided it didn't conflict with meetings and they made up the time (by having lunch at their desks, for instance)."
And he believes it's more than worth it.
"I see employees return from workouts refreshed and better focused on their jobs. Time lost on exercise is made back and more in terms of improved productivity."
And he believes he'd never have built up his company without taking exercise himself during the day that enabled him to "maintain composure and focus in the midst of chaos".
Are exercise classes in the office a far-fetched idea?
The main barrier raised by many against taking regular exercise is work-life commitments so finding more time in the day for exercise does lead us to the workplace.
The government issued guidelines via NICE in 2015 on how promoting a culture that improves the health and wellbeing of employees is "good management and leads to healthy and productive workplaces".
And there is an economic case for promoting exercise at work - healthy staff mean fewer absences due to illness.
Each year, more than a million working people in the UK experience a work-related illness. This leads to around 27 million lost working days costing the economy an estimated £13.4bn.
A study at Bristol University showed that employees who can exercise at work "are more productive, happy, efficient and calm".
Exercise re-energised staff, improved their concentration and problem-solving and made them feel calmer.
Many major companies now have gyms on site
With 60% of our day often spent at work, the British Heart Foundation wants employers to make workplaces healthier places.
They have lots of tips for employers on how to make businesses more healthy and point out that classes like pilates and boxercise can be popular in the workplace if organised to fit around the working day, and delivered on-site or in a facility nearby.
But if employers can't go that far, the foundation says bosses should encourage staff to take a short active break during the day as shown in their 10 minute workout video.
Exercise breaks are a feature of a number of large Japanese companies. In 2010, China reintroduced mandatory exercises twice a day at state-owned companies after a three-year gap.
Set up by the Communist Party, they had previously been running since the 1950s, with state radio broadcasting music at 10:00 and 15:00 for workers to do their set exercises.
Making exercise compulsory would be seen as a step too far for a country like the UK, but with more and more desk-bound jobs these days, do employers hold the key?
One place to start could be for employers to ban "cake culture" in the office.
Prof Nigel Hunt, from the Faculty of Dental Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons, says the habit of bringing cakes into the office fuels obesity and dental problems.
"For many people, the workplace is now the primary site of their sugar intake," he says, and suggests staff should be rewarded with fruit, nuts or cheese instead.
Working standing up is being encouraged to improve workers' health
Another very simple step to help our health in the office is to stand up more.
The NHS offers advice on how to manage the government's recommended 150 minutes of exercise a week, but they also have advice on how much just standing up can improve our health.
The link between illness and sitting first emerged in the 1950s, when researchers found London bus drivers were twice as likely to have heart attacks as their bus conductor colleagues.
Standing up three hours a day, five days a week for a year, would be the equivalent of "running 10 marathons", according to experts.
NHS Choices recommends breaking up long periods of sitting time with "shorter bouts of activity for just one to two minutes".
And some people now choose to work standing at higher desks.
One final option we could suggest is getting an office dog.
Nestle's headquarters in London allows employees to bring their dogs to work because they say it promotes a less stressful office and encourages more exercise and a healthier work-life blend.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-39490607
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Is Trump wise to take on China over trade? - BBC News
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2017-04-05
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What's the problem with the US-China trade relationship - and what can Trump do about it?
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US & Canada
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Presidents Xi and Trump meet in Florida on Thursday
US President Donald Trump has said that trade negotiations with China will be "very difficult" when he meets President Xi Jinping in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, on Thursday.
Trade will be one of two key issues on the agenda, along with North Korea. But what's the problem - and what can Trump do about it?
The problem with the US-China trade relationship is that it is highly unequal and has been for a long time.
In 2016 alone, the US imported $480bn (£385bn) of goods and services from China - mostly consumer items like clothing, shoes, televisions, smartphones, laptops and tablets.
Those imports keep prices low for American consumers.
In return, the US sold just $170bn (£137bn) worth of exports to China - including sophisticated machinery like aircraft and agricultural products like soybeans.
It also makes money from services, like the education of an estimated 350,000 Chinese students in the US.
Overall, China is the largest source of the US trade deficit - the amount by which the value of its imports exceeds the value of its exports. In 2016 it accounted for about 60% of its overall deficit of $500bn (402bn).
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The meeting takes place at Mar-a-Lago in Florida - a private members club as well as the Trump family's winter getaway
President Trump is unhappy with this state of affairs, tweeting in January: "China has been taking out massive amounts of money & wealth from the US in totally one-sided trade."
He sees a link with the loss of manufacturing jobs - and he has a point, because a large trade deficit generally goes hand-in-hand with a smaller manufacturing sector.
This is a problem, because for people without college degrees these jobs tend to be well-paying ones.
US shoppers have enjoyed years of cheap imports
During his campaign, Mr Trump spoke often of wanting to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US and, in the first presidential debate, said: "They're using our country as a piggy bank to rebuild China."
After China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001 there was a surge of Chinese imports into the US, something economists called the "China shock".
Between 2000 and 2007, US manufacturing jobs fell sharply, from 16.9 million to 13.6 million. The 2008 financial crisis pushed the number lower, to 11.2 million, although the number has since been fairly stable.
Workers making clothing and electronic goods were among the worst affected.
It is difficult to settle upon an exact figure, but some economists think that 40% of these job losses can be linked to Chinese imports.
However, the influx of cheap goods also created non-manufacturing jobs in the US, because consumers had more money to spend on other things.
That boosted healthcare, entertainment, travel, and leisure. So, think of the trade deficit destroying some jobs and creating others.
So, what can President Trump do about the trade deficit?
Candidate Trump threatened harsh protectionist measures, such as a 45% tariff on Chinese imports, but history shows that protectionism does not reduce trade deficits.
He also threatened to name China a "currency manipulator" and at one point during his campaign went so far as to accuse it of "raping" the US with its trade policy.
For years China intervened to keep its exchange rate low, which kept the price of its goods down and helped increase the US deficit. But more recently its central bank has kept the currency high - making its exports more expensive - and it is in the US's interest to encourage more of this.
The US has long been spending more on goods from other countries than it sells
The most promising route for President Trump is to negotiate better access to Chinese consumers.
China has many restrictions on imports, for example a 25% tariff on cars. And while the US sells a lot of agricultural products to China, notably soy beans, key markets like beef and pork are highly restricted.
Probably most important for the US is that modern service sectors like finance, social media, telecommunications, health care and transportation are largely closed to imports and foreign investment.
So far there has been little progress, but opening China's markets would offer more choice to its own consumers and would help maintain a stable relationship with the US.
China's economy depends on keeping the trade flowing with its biggest customer.
Will there be a trade war?
Probably not, because protectionist measures would hurt the US economy and the Chinese are counting on it to be impractical.
The Chinese Communist Party has an important congress at the end of the year and it will be difficult for Xi to do anything bold before then.
Even afterwards, China is likely to move very gradually on market opening.
Trump was smart to set low expectations for the summit.
David Dollar is a senior fellow in the John L Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution, a public policy organisation based in Washington DC.
• None An A-Z of big issues in tense US-China summit
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39479751
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Talks over women's Team GB football team continue at Uefa Congress - BBC Sport
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2017-04-05
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Four home football associations hold talks over the possibility of a Great Britain women's team taking part in 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
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Last updated on .From the section Football
The four home football associations have held further talks over a Team GB women's football team taking part in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
English, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish representatives held discussions on the topic while attending the Uefa Congress in Helsinki, Finland.
Men's and women's sides competed under the GB banner during the 2012 Olympics.
Plans for the teams to compete at the 2016 Games were scrapped after protests from the Irish, Scottish and Welsh FAs.
Though there is no prospect of a return for a men's side, it is believed there could be a possibility of a women's team competing in 2020.
The associations of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have traditionally been against teams playing under a GB flag for fear of losing their status as independent football nations.
Wales boss Chris Coleman has previously said he is not in favour of the idea.
"I cannot accept we should be a Great Britain team. I think that is wrong. Our independence would possibly go away," former Football Association of Wales (FAW) president Trefor Lloyd Hughes told BBC Wales Sport.
British Olympic chiefs have already said they are in favour of fielding GB soccer teams in Tokyo.
Went out in quarter-finals after 2-0 defeat by Canada (at Coventry City - attendance 28,828) Beat New Zealand 1-0 in opening match - the first event of the 2012 Olympics (24,549 watched in Cardiff) Topped group with 1-0 win over Brazil before record British women's football crowd of 70,584 at Wembley Coach Hope Powell picked an 18-strong squad, consisting of 16 English and two Scottish players
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39506411
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Is Trump now part of the establishment? - BBC News
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2017-04-05
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Donald Trump condemns Washington insiders, but some conservative critics say he's now the problem.
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US & Canada
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Donald Trump campaigned for president as the ultimate outsider, promising to unseat a corrupt and atrophied Washington establishment. Now, after two months in office, has he become the establishment? Are Trump and his team the insiders now?
One thing the recent collapse of healthcare reform efforts in the House of Representatives has revealed is just how quickly attitudes and alliances can shift in Washington, DC.
Last year Mr Trump and members of the House Freedom Caucus, a collection of 30 or so libertarian-leaning fiscal conservatives in Congress, were singing from the same anti-government hymnal.
Now, however, Mr Trump is the government - and he teamed up with congressional leadership to back a healthcare bill that conservative hard-liners believe didn't go far enough in undoing the 2009 Democratic-designed system.
The effort's failure set off back-and-forth sniping between Mr Trump and the Freedom Caucus that morphed into a classic insider-outsider faceoff, with Mr Trump cast as the new voice of the powers that be.
Congressman Justin Amash said the White House has become part of the hated status quo - the "Trumpstablishment", he called it in a Saturday tweet.
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That line drew the ire of Mr Trump's director of social media, Dan Scavino Jr, who tweeted that Mr Amash was a "big liability" and encouraged Michigan voters to unseat him in next year's Republican primary. (The tweet has since been criticised as a possible violation of a federal law preventing executive branch officials from attempting to influence election campaigns.)
If Mr Trump's conservative critics are trying to make the case that the president has become the establishment he campaigned against, their arguments have been buttressed by the financial disclosure documents released by the White House on Friday evening, which revealed exactly how well-heeled and connected many of the top White House staff are. According to the Washington Post, 27 members of Mr Trump's team have combined assets exceeding $2.3bn (£1.84bn).
Presidential daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner - both unpaid presidential advisers - are worth roughly $740m.
Senior White House strategist Steve Bannon earned as much as $2.3 million in 2017. Gary Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs executive who is one of Mr Trump's top economics advisers, has a net worth approaching $611m.
The New York Times points out that many in the inner circle of the putatively anti-establishment Mr Trump drew significant sums from the network of big-money political donors, think tanks and associated political action committees that populate the Washington insider firmament.
"The figures reveal the extent to which private political work has bolstered the financial fortunes of Trump aides, who have made millions of dollars from Republican and other conservative causes in recent years," the paper reported.
Already there are signs that conservative true-believers - some of whom were never fully sold on Mr Trump to begin with - are questioning Mr Trump's anti-establishment bona fides.
"That's the dirty little secret," writes conservative columnist Ben Shapiro. "Trump isn't anti-establishment; he's pro-establishment so long as he's the establishment."
Even conservative radio host Laura Ingraham, an early Trump supporter, is having some doubts.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump railed against the Washington establishment
"I think it is really, really unhelpful to Donald Trump's ultimate agenda to slam the very people who are going to be propping up his border wall, all the things he wants to do on immigration, on trade," she said on Fox News."I don't know where he thinks he's going to get his friends on those issues."
Perhaps of greatest concern to Mr Trump is that the failure to enact promised healthcare reform, along with his recent feud with members of his own party, have been accompanied by a softening of his core support in recent polls.
In a Rasmussen survey, the number of Americans who "strongly approve" of the president has dropped from 44% at shortly after his inauguration to 28% today. While the Republican base is largely sticking with Mr Trump so far, they may be starting to have some doubts.
For much of 2016 Donald Trump was the barbarian at the gate, threatening to rain fire on the comfortable Washington power elite. Even in his January inaugural address, he condemned an establishment that "protected itself" at the cost of average Americans.
"Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation's capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land," he said.
Now, however, Mr Trump and his team of formerly angry outsiders meet in the Oval Office. They fly on Air Force One. They host events in the White House rose garden. They issue tweets warning apostates of harsh political consequences.
They walk the halls of power and call the shots.
It doesn't get any more "insider" than that.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39483715
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Syria 'chemical attack': What now? - BBC News
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2017-04-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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How will the international community respond to the latest atrocity in Syria's intractable conflict?
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Middle East
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A Civil Defence volunteer uses an oxygen mask to help him breathe.
The response to this latest chemical "attack" in Syria will provide a measure of just how far the international community has come in struggling with the security crisis in Syria.
It also demonstrates the growing calamity in the country where the conflict moves from phase to phase, but shows no sign of ending.
Perhaps at the outset it should be established what we know. There seems no doubt that a chemical incident occurred, and there were Syrian government air attacks in the area. The opposition of course has no air force.
The West places the blame squarely on the Assad regime. Russia - one of President Assad's few allies - has a different story.
It says an air attack hit a weapons dump, thus releasing the chemical agent. All of the Western experts on chemical warfare contacted by the BBC have been highly sceptical about the Russian claim.
As yet there has been no clear analysis of samples from the location of the strike or from the victims. More information will undoubtedly become available.
Reports of the first significant use of chemical weapons - including Sarin nerve agent - by the Assad regime in 2013, prompted the international community's first purposeful diplomatic intervention in the Syrian War.
The Obama administration had marked down the use of chemical arms as "a red line", which, if crossed, would lead to serious consequences for the Assad regime.
In the event, President Obama decided to pull back and avoid military action. The US and Russia came together and brokered a deal under which the Assad regime would give up its chemical arsenal under international inspection.
The problem of chemical weapons in Syria appeared to have been resolved. But this was not so.
Since then there have been sporadic reports of the further use of chemical weapons both by the Assad regime and so-called Islamic State. These have often involved the use of commercial chemicals like chlorine.
But this latest use of what looks to be a nerve agent like Sarin, and the frightful images of the attack, have underscored just how little progress has been made.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Rescue workers said many children were among those killed or injured in the attack
Between the Ghoutta attack in August 2013 to the incident in Idlib province this week, the situation on the ground in Syria has changed dramatically. Then the Assad regime seemed to have only a tenuous grip on power.
The policy of the West and its allies was to see Syria's leader - already branded by some as a war criminal - forced from office.
There was still a good deal of talk about a credible "democratic" opposition, which, if given sufficient means, could wrest control of much of the country from the Assad regime and IS alike.
The "democratic" opposition proved to have a very limited military capacity.
Many of its most capable elements are closely linked to al-Qaeda: the next major problem that is likely to face the West some way down the line.
The Assad regime, bolstered by Iranian military assistance and Russian air power, has more than consolidated its position.
And the most successful Western-backed elements of the opposition - the coalition of Kurdish and Arab fighters in northern Syria - may be advancing against IS, but its success brings a host of other problems, notably in relations with Turkey, whose troops and proxies already occupy a significant zone inside the country.
The saga of the West's response to the use of chemical weapons underscores the improvised and uncertain course of policy towards Syria almost from the outset.
Russia's intervention in the conflict managed to turn the tide in favour of Assad
President Obama's declaration in 2012 that the use of chemical arms would cross "a red line" and change Washington's "calculus" seemed to go further than many of his advisers had expected.
But in the event - when push came to shove in 2013 - there were no punitive air strikes and the chemical disarmament deal seems now incomplete at best.
Neither is US policy today any more coherent.
The Trump administration has roundly condemned the attacks, but President Trump himself has used the opportunity to condemn his predecessor for "weakness and irresolution" for not making good on his threats when the red line was crossed in 2013.
However, back then, Mr Trump seemed to endorse the President's caution. He tweeted on 1 September 2013 that "President Obama's weakness and indecision may have saved us from doing a horrible and very costly (in more ways than money) attack on Syria."
Today, the international reaction in the wake of this latest episode is predictable and formulaic.
With Russia already providing an alibi for the Syrian regime, it is hard to see what can come out of the UN Security Council's meeting. It has been consistently and fatally divided on Syria since the outset of the crisis. But the chemical attack could still change "the calculus" around Syria to use President Obama's phrase.
President Obama's failure to forcefully respond to the first chemical weapons attacks disappointed the Syrian opposition
For one thing, there will be a renewed debate about the whole question of "safe areas" and "no-fly zones" to provide protection to civilians, principally from regime air attack.
Indeed the potential for such zones - especially in northern Syria close to the border with Turkey - has increased in the wake of the Turkish Army's entry on to Syrian soil.
Such zones though are a vexed question.
At some point - however defined or delineated - they require a willingness to take action against aircraft who strike inside them. Russia's air campaign complicates matters and so far has pretty well ruled out their establishment.
The chemical attack could change diplomatic calculations as well. The Trump administration's policy on Syria is still unformed.
The last major attack in 2013 brought Washington and Moscow together, albeit briefly. So far the Trump administration's much heralded reset with Moscow has proved elusive. Could this latest tragedy - whatever its cause - change that?
The Syrian crisis has decidedly entered a new phase - with new threats and new challenges emerging.
Peace remains as elusive as ever.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-39496149
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Masters 2017: Rory McIlroy confident after 99 practice holes at Augusta National - BBC Sport
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2017-04-05
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Rory McIlroy says he has tried to make Augusta National feel like his "home golf course" as he seeks a maiden Masters title.
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Last updated on .From the section Golf
Coverage: Watch highlights of the first two days before live and uninterrupted coverage of the weekend's action on BBC Two and up to four live streams available online. Listen on BBC Radio 5 live and BBC Radio 5 live sports extra. Read live text commentary, analysis and social media on the BBC Sport website and the sport app.
Rory McIlroy has sought to make Augusta National like his "home golf course" during frequent practice sessions as he seeks his first Masters title.
The 27-year-old Northern Irishman has played 99 practice holes so far, with nine more to come on Wednesday.
"It's been a quiet build-up compared to previous years and I haven't minded that - it's been quite nice," he said.
"I feel good, like my game is there. I feel ready to go," the world number two told BBC Radio 5 live.
"I feel like I've done everything I can do to prepare. It's just a case of going out there and hitting the shots I need to."
Victory this week would see McIlroy become just the sixth player to complete a grand slam of majors, adding to his US PGA Championship titles from 2012 and 2014, his 2014 Open Championship win and the US Open success he recorded in 2011.
Last year he chose to sit out the traditional Par 3 contest - played on the eve of the Masters - to focus on winning the main event, but finished tied for 10th, his third top-10 finish in a row.
Famously, no player has ever won Wednesday's curtain-raiser and gone on to win the main prize in the same year.
He will play in this year's Par 3 competition, adding to the number of holes he has amassed on the course in the run-up to the season's first major.
"The more you can make Augusta National feel like your home golf course, the better," added McIlroy.
"I've played here a good bit in recent weeks. I've shot good scores and I feel like I know what I am doing here. It's all there. I know it's all there, it's just a matter of going out there and doing it.
"That's the difficult thing - it's almost like getting out of your own way and letting your subconscious take over."
McIlroy, who picked up a £7.7m bonus in September by winning last year's PGA Tour points race, begins his first round at 18:41 BST on Thursday alongside Japan's Hideto Tanihara and Spain's Jon Rahm.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/39500585
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Luke Shaw: Manchester United defender concerns Phil Neville - BBC Sport
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2017-04-05
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Ex-Manchester United defender Phil Neville says there is "something fundamentally wrong" to force boss Jose Mourinho to criticise Luke Shaw.
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Ex-Manchester United defender Phil Neville believes there is "something fundamentally wrong" with Luke Shaw that has forced manager Jose Mourinho to publicly criticise him.
BBC pundit Neville scouted Shaw for United when he was at Southampton, believing the full-back, 21, would become a star at Old Trafford.
But the £27m signing has played only three times since the end of November.
The England player says he will "fight to the last second" to prove himself.
Shaw came off the bench in Tuesday's Premier League 1-1 draw with Everton and won the late penalty that salvaged a point for the home side.
• None Neville: Fergie would have given Shaw 'full barrels'
Mourinho, who had criticised the player's commitment and focus earlier in the week, did praise him - but also commented on his lack of "a football brain", adding: "I was making every decision for him."
Neville told BBC Radio 5 live: "When Luke Shaw signed for Manchester United I was probably involved in the process of scouting him and recommending him as a player because I thought he would be a Manchester United left-back for the next 10 years. You would think he would be a sensational player, but he just hasn't done it.
"I know he's suffered an injury but there must be something fundamentally wrong if the manager is questioning your attitude, training performances, desire. That from a 21-year-old with the world at your feet, you think maybe this is the last throw of the dice from Jose to try and get something out of Luke Shaw that he knows is in there."
Neville said his Old Trafford boss Sir Alex Ferguson "would have probably dealt with it in a similar way to Jose" though "probably not as much publicly".
He added: "Behind the scenes he [Ferguson] would have been giving him the full barrels and leaving him in no doubt that if you don't meet those standards, go and play for somebody else."
"Jose's probably tried this behind closed doors and this is the last throw of the dice. To speak poorly about one of his own players, he must be absolutely at his wits end."
'I love this club and will give everything to be here'
Full-back Shaw, meanwhile, is determined to meet the challenge of becoming a United player.
"I will fight to the last second because I want to be here for the club," he said.
Shaw met Mourinho on Monday morning to clarify his position.
It is not known what was said but the defender feels he still has a future at Old Trafford.
"I am keeping my head up," he said. "I love this club and will give everything to be here.
"I am going through a phase where everything is sort of going against me. But I want this so badly. I want to prove everyone wrong.
"The stuff that has been going on is hard for me to take because deep down that is not me as a person."
'Eight new signings and a Jose team'
Neville feels Mourinho has similarly given plenty of chances to his squad, who lie sixth in the Premier League table, four points and two places behind Manchester City who hold the final Champions League qualifying spot.
They could still qualify for the lucrative Champions League by winning the Europa League.
Neville, who spent a decade at United as a player, said many members of the squad seemed nervous at home, which had played a part in them drawing nine games at Old Trafford.
"If anything goes drastically wrong and they are knocked out of the Europa League or struggle to qualify in the top four, I think Jose Mourinho will make major changes," added Neville.
"He's given this team a year now to prove themselves: the Chris Smallings, the Phil Jones, the Marcos Rojos, the Daley Blinds of this world - if they don't perform from now until the end of the season I think you'll see six, seven, maybe eight new signings in the summer and a real Jose Mourinho-type team picked."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39505222
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Miles Storey's astonishing goal-line miss in Aberdeen's victory against Inverness CT - BBC Sport
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2017-04-05
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Watch Miles Storey's astonishing goal-line miss in Aberdeen's victory against Inverness Caledonian Thistle.
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Miles Storey misses a golden opportunity on the goal-line during Aberdeen's victory against Inverness CT at Pittodrie. Commentary by Colin Wallace.
Please note, only available to users in the UK.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/scotland/39500209
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The hospital where parents care for premature babies - BBC News
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2017-04-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Putting parents at the centre of care for premature babies leads to better outcomes, doctors say.
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UK
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Anna says she would have been in hospital for longer if it wasn't for the system
On a hospital ward in Leeds, parents of premature babies are encouraged to help care for their newborns - from taking temperatures to the delicate task of inserting feeding tubes. So how does the approach benefit families?
"It is just nice to feel like a mum, rather than just somebody watching," Anna Cox tells the Victoria Derbyshire programme, as she takes the temperature of her baby.
Lola was born at just 23 weeks. She had a twin brother who sadly did not survive and she was given little hope of survival.
"During labour, one of the neo-natal consultants came to see us and painted a really bad picture that she could have all sorts of problems," Anna says.
Lola was cared for at St James's University Hospital in Leeds -the first in the UK to implement a family integrated care system.
It put parents - not nurses - in charge of everything other than the most complicated medical treatments for their premature babies while they were in hospital.
"One of the jobs we have to do is take her temperature, maybe every three or four hours," Anna says.
"It is a pretty simple procedure really."
However, parents also perform more complicated tasks, including inserting a tube into their baby's nose to allow them to feed.
"There are certain things they [nurses] obviously watch over you quite a bit to begin with because it needs to be done right," she says.
"They do like to make sure you know what you're doing, they wouldn't just leave you to it."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Lola was born at just 23 weeks
Katie Crossley's daughter, Molly, was born eight weeks early and had breathing difficulties.
"While I'm here, I pretty much do everything that a normal mum would do," she says. "Everything, from feeding to medicine, cleaning, bathing."
She has also been taught how to insert a tube up Molly's nose and into her stomach allowing her to be fed.
"Being around it and watching it has made me more confident when I've come to actually doing it," she says.
In the past, caring for premature babies usually meant keeping parents at arm's length.
As recently as 20 years ago, the closest parents of premature babies could get to their newborns was looking at them through a glass window.
It meant the bond between parent and child was harder to establish and breastfeeding rates were often lower.
But the idea of putting parents in charge of neonatal care is not a new one.
In the 1970s in Tallinn, Estonia - then part of the Soviet Union - the head of the local hospital faced a problem. The hospital had too many premature babies to look after and not enough nurses.
However, they soon noticed the system was helping babies.
Under his system, mothers had more regular "skin to skin" contact with premature babies. It resulted in better breastfeeding rates and shorter hospital stays.
It took 30 years for other hospitals to copy the system, but now the system has been introduced in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and now Leeds.
Katie Crossley says she is now confident inserting a tube to feed her baby
Dr Liz McKechnie, consultant neonatologist at St James's, says the family integrated care scheme aims to put the parent at "the very centre of the team caring for the baby".
"It is not rocket science, it is such a straightforward thing to do, to allow parents to look after their babies," she says.
She is adamant the move was not down to cost-cutting and that nursing levels on the unit have not dropped.
"In the past, care has been very much the nurse leading it, so they're saying 'right, it's feed time, it's bath time'. Whereas now, it is very much the parents who are leading that.
"They are feeding the baby when the baby needs feeding, rather than when the clock says it is feed time - and that's much better for the baby."
She says the new system was a "major cultural change" and caused anxiety among nurses on the neonatal unit when it was introduced 18 months ago.
Nurses on the ward say training parents to care for their babies takes as long - if not longer - than doing the procedures themselves.
But they say families are getting home sooner, the long-term development of babies is improving and breastfeeding rates have increased.
The system is about to be trialled in the intensive care unit in St James's sister hospital.
Parents are encouraged to take the temperature of their babies
As for Lola, she was allowed home just before she was 14 weeks old.
"Without the family integrated care we would've been in a lot longer," says her mother, Anna. "Lola is still on oxygen and [otherwise] they wouldn't have allowed us to come home with that.
"I feel really confident in everything they taught us."
Dr McKechnie adds: "The fact is that families are going home more confident and more able to care for their babies, and that means a lot.
"Nobody wants to stop it, it is definitely here to stay, everybody can see the benefits of it."
Watch the Victoria Derbyshire programme on weekdays between 09:00 and 11:00 on BBC Two and the BBC News Channel.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39444127
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Masters 2017: Danny Willett hopes Augusta return can spark return to form - BBC Sport
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2017-04-05
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Defending Masters champion Danny Willett says returning to the scene of his greatest triumph may not spark an instant upturn in form.
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Last updated on .From the section Golf
Coverage: Watch highlights of the first two days before live and uninterrupted coverage of the weekend's action on BBC Two and up to four live streams available online. Listen on BBC Radio 5 live and BBC Radio 5 live sports extra. Read live text commentary, analysis and social media on the BBC Sport website and the sport app.
Defending Masters champion Danny Willett says returning to the scene of his greatest triumph may not spark an instant upturn in form.
The Englishman, 29, won his first major after a shock win at Augusta, aided by American Jordan Spieth's collapse.
Willett rose to a career-high ninth in the world, but has dropped to 17th after failing to win an event since.
"You do have a spring in your step coming back as champion," he said. "But you can't change your game like that."
• None 'Everything was shaking' - Willett relives his Masters win
• None Masters quiz: Match the winner with the dinner
Willett became the first Briton to win the Green Jacket in 20 years when he shot a five-under-par 67 as 2015 champion Spieth crumbled during a thrilling final round.
However, he has struggled to regularly match his form at Augusta since.
The Yorkshireman finished third in the PGA Championship and second in the Italian Open following his Masters triumph, but suffered a dip in form ahead of his Ryder Cup debut in October.
He failed to win a single point as Europe lost 17-11 at Hazeltine, while also being distracted by questions over his brother Peter's controversial comments about American fans.
Willett has only claimed one top-10 finish so far in 2017, blowing a three-shot 54-hole lead to finish fifth at the Maybank Championship in February.
"The pressure has been more from myself. It's not a nice feeling to not hit good golf shots when you know what you can do," he said.
"I think the last 12 months has made me a little more impatient.
"I think achieving what I achieved last year and performing under the pressure that I did on Sunday, if you don't do that every time you get a bit annoyed.
"That's where the game jumps up and bites you. It's not that easy."
'If the Yorkshire puddings go flat we won't be happy'
One of Willett's roles in his return to Augusta as defending champion is choosing the menu for the annual Masters champions' dinner on Tuesday.
Thirty-four former winners will start with cottage pie before tucking into roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and apple crumble.
"There's been a lot of thought gone into it about how we can embrace British culture and hopefully they enjoy a little taste of Yorkshire," said Willett, who was born in Sheffield.
Asked if Augusta's chef was confident of making Yorkshire puddings, he responded: "He'd best be, otherwise I'll be in the kitchen making sure his oil is hot enough!
"If they go a bit flat, we're not going to be happy. I'm sure that he's been practising."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/39495282
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Alastair Cook: Joe Root will take time to get used to England captaincy - BBC Sport
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2017-04-05
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Former England test captain Alastair Cook says his successor Joe Root will take time to get used to England captaincy but will find his way.
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Last updated on .From the section Cricket
Joe Root will take time to get used to the England captaincy because "nothing can prepare you" for the role, says his predecessor Alastair Cook.
Cook resigned as England captain in February, with Root taking over for this summer's home series against South Africa and the West Indies.
"It is a big role, but an exciting one. Joe will find his feet," 32-year-old Cook told BBC Look East on Wednesday.
"He will find his way, it will probably take him a while to get used to it."
Essex batsman Cook led his country to Ashes victories in 2013 and 2015 during a record 59 matches in charge.
He is England's highest run-scorer in Test cricket with 11,057, while his 140 Test appearances and 30 centuries are also England records.
• None Listen: England will be fearful of Aussie attack
"I am looking forward to working with Joe in a different way.
"I think a couple of moments will be slightly strange in that first Test match week but it won't be any different in the long run.
"Hopefully I can help him, and the most important thing is England winning.
"I don't think anything can prepare you for the England captaincy but he will find his feet. He is a very good player, has a very good cricket brain and has got the respect of the dressing room."
Cook has been ruled out of Essex's opening County Championship game against Lancashire on Friday with a hip injury.
But he still holds ambitions of playing under Root during the next Ashes series at the end of the year.
"I have still got a few games left in me. I'm 32 years old but hopefully I can carry on scoring runs for England," said Cook.
"It is a different phase of my career after being captain but I love playing for England. I hope to score enough runs to get on that plane for the Ashes tour."
And last month Root confirmed that having Alastair Cook in the side was integral to both his and the team's future success.
He told BBC Sport: "If I feel I need help he'll be more than willing, but he'll also let me do it my own way."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/39509613
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Jeff De Young: The dog who saved my life and came to live with me - BBC News
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2017-04-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Jeff De Young served in Afghanistan with a bomb-detection dog named Cena N641, a black Labrador. In the intense atmosphere of war they developed an unbreakable bond.
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Magazine
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Jeff De Young served in Afghanistan with a bomb-detection dog named Cena N641, a black Labrador. In the intense atmosphere of war the two developed an unbreakable bond. This is the story of how Cena helped Jeff survive not only war, but also life after war.
The day I turned 18 I started Marine Corps boot camp, and 15 months later I went to Afghanistan. It was 2009 and I was absolutely terrified.
They paired us with the dogs based on our personalities. Cena was a slightly goofy, quiet dog, and I was a slightly goofy, quiet kid, so it made sense for us to be with each other.
Together we were known as Kid and Chicken. Chicken was one of those nicknames that you don't remember where it came from, it just kinda stuck. And although I was 19 by this stage, I looked like I was about 12, I didn't even have any facial hair. As a joke, the Marines mailed a permission slip home for my mom to sign because I looked so young they didn't believe that I was allowed to be over there.
I would operate Cena using hand and arm commands and a whistle. I'd be in front of the patrol and Cena would be further ahead again, so if either of us walked on an improvised explosive device, although we would have been hurt, the rest of the patrol would be safe. I'd never been faced with a situation like that before and it felt like a crash course in adulthood, responsibility, and survival.
Cena had been a champion bird dog. When waterfowl falls from the sky there is no scent trail to follow like there would be with a rabbit or a deer, so the dog has to investigate the area and find the scent on the wind, it's amazing.
Dogs' noses are so much more powerful than ours. We smell cookies, but they smell the flour, the nutmeg, the butter, the eggs, the milk - they can dissect everything and they can detect smells that we don't even know exist.
He'd been trained to detect more than 300 different types of explosives and if he smelled something interesting on patrol he would lie down and notify me, and then I'd call in an explosives technician.
We had to trust each other - we would have a dozen, two dozen marines behind us and any mistake could have been fatal.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Listen: Jeff describes how Cena supported him during his darkest hours serving in Afghanistan
The battle of Marjah was a turning point in my life. We approached the town before the sun came up, no-one was talking, no-one was joking. It was very tense. You could hear the rounds snap overhead, and then when the round went past you, you heard a zing almost like a whistle.
I was so worried about getting Cena to safety, I even had to lie on top of him to protect him from gunfire. Another time I carried him through a freezing cold, flooded river on my shoulders like a hunter would a deer.
It got so cold in the fighting holes that even Cena's body heat didn't help, so one day I offered an Afghan soldier the entire contents of my wallet for his scratchy, olive, drab wool army blanket. I had $100 (£80) in my wallet. I was either going to burn the money or get the blanket, that's how cold I was. I still have that blanket.
The first week inside Marjah I lost a couple of very good friends. One of them was a former room-mate I'd trained with, Lance Corporal Alejandro Yazzie. He was 23, a Navajo, and an all-round good guy. His grandfather had been a wind talker [code talker] in World War Two. When I found out it was Yazzie I was devastated. I held on to Cena and cried into him.
Yazzie was the first of seven friends I lost in Afghanistan. I carried a flag inside my helmet and whenever a friend would pass away I'd add their name to it.
Eventually I just couldn't cope any more. I grabbed my military rifle and went to the latrine area. I remember sitting there trying to prepare my mind and make peace, and then Cena peeked around the corner. His ears went up like in the cartoons and he opened his mouth like he was smiling. His tail started spinning so hard that his whole body was rocking back and forth like he was excited by a piece of bacon.
I started laughing, and I laughed so much that I just broke down crying. I realised then that I couldn't leave Cena because I didn't know if his next handler would love him the way I did. He really was the only person in my life that I had a deep relationship with at that time. I left the latrine, put my rifle back and focused on work.
It's really hard to explain what it's like, psychologically, coming back from war. Even the drive home was strange. New music was out, new cars were on the roads, there were new stores. It felt like when you leave the cinema to get popcorn and then miss the best part of the film.
I got married three days after returning and I was so busy doing all this happy stuff, it was like a Band-Aid over Afghanistan. But I wasn't really taking care of myself and dealing with what had happened over there.
A couple of weeks after coming home the post-traumatic stress (PTSD) and separation anxiety from being away from Cena really hit me. I'd always understood that I wouldn't have him forever but I'd had no idea how being apart from him would affect me. I felt like a stranger at home and I didn't feel comfortable unless I was with my battalion members or other veterans. I had nightmares and spent many nights crying in the bedroom corner or talking out loud to my fallen friends.
Over the next four years Cena was always on my mind, but as time went on it became hard to keep up hope that we would be together again.
Then one day, when I was in college, I got a call. The woman on the phone said: "Mr De Young? My name is Mrs Godfrey, would you like to adopt your bomb dog?" Without even thinking I said, "Heck, yes!" That was 24 April 2014, one day shy of four years since Cena and I had been separated.
It was just a turmoil of emotions on the car ride there. When Cena came down the aisle I very awkwardly - like a guy crossing a high school dance floor - ran up, kneeled down and started hugging him. He leaned into me like, "Hey man, what's up?" and started licking my face.
Aside from my children being born and the day I was married, that was the happiest day of my life. It was like all of my Christmases rolled into one.
I'd been married for four years by the time I got Cena back. Unfortunately, my inability to recognise that I had issues as a result of being in Afghanistan ultimately led to my divorce. Cena was helping me with healing and support but the damage to my relationship was already done. On 5 June 2015 I ended my marriage.
I have three daughters, they are six, five and two-and-a-half. Cena took to them instantly, and they love him back - they try to paint his nails and put bows on him. Before getting Cena back, the sound of a child crying would trigger a panic attack in me, as a result of an incident in Afghanistan, and it was tough knowing that I couldn't help my kids because my brain couldn't process that memory.
With Cena, if my daughters cried I would sit on the couch, put my forehead to his, scratch his ears and just breathe. Gradually, Cena would only need to be beside me and I could cope.
By the time my third daughter was born I was able to do a lot of the diaper changes and bottle feeding even if she was crying, and to finally be able to help my daughter felt like being released from jail, it was freedom.
I'm a military ambassador for the American Humane Association now and I travel around the country raising awareness about how important it is to reunite service dogs with their handlers, and how the dogs can be a vital form of treatment for veterans with PTSD. My work is most definitely therapy for me, too. The military teaches us how to put the uniform on, but it doesn't teach us how to take it off, metaphorically speaking. I've lost count of how many friends I've lost now, who've taken their lives - four just last year alone.
I couldn't even think about talking about what I saw in Afghanistan four or five years ago, but slowly, by opening up to other veterans, by putting myself out there and airing everything that happened it's becoming so much easier.
I've recently found out that I have a heart condition called tachycardia. The doctors say it was probably triggered by an explosion or something that happened in Afghanistan. When I'm stressed my heart rate goes up to 200 beats per minute, high enough for a heart attack, so I'm having an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) fitted in my chest. I'm still mentally processing the idea that soon I'm going to have an electronic box in my chest to keep my heart in check.
Cena is in OK health, although his front wrist bothers him and his hips are pretty bad. He'd been back to Afghanistan, and I tracked down two of his other handlers through Facebook. I keep them up to date with how he is doing and I hope to get them to come to Michigan to see him - it's been years since they've seen Cena too.
Cena was retired after his third deployment because of a hip injury and there's no doubt in my mind that he has PTSD. I think he has memories of things that he saw that he doesn't like. He has nightmares, he'll whimper, he'll run around in his sleep and his teeth will snarl. But he's always by my side - we go to the gym together, we go to college together - my college even wants to get him his own cap and gown for when I graduate.
Cena's nine-and-a-half now. Dogs tend to live to 11 or 12, so I've started making peace with the fact that he may pass away soon. I've been preparing my mind for that.
Jeff De Young was interviewed by Sarah McDermott and Rose de Larrabeiti.
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-39355775
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IPL 2017: Ben Stokes and Eoin Morgan among eight England players at competition - BBC Sport
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2017-04-05
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Eight England players could appear in the 10th edition of the Indian Premier League, which begins on Wednesday.
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Last updated on .From the section Cricket
Eight England players are set to appear at the Indian Premier League when the 10th edition of the competition begins on Wednesday.
Ben Stokes became the IPL's most expensive foreign player when Rising Pune Supergiants bought him for £1.7m.
Bowler Tymal Mills, bought for £1.4m by Royal Challengers Bangalore, could face former international team-mate Chris Jordan in the opening match.
The Sunrisers, captained by Australia international David Warner, beat RCB in the final of the 2016 competition.
All-rounder Stokes could be in action on Thursday when his side play Mumbai Indians, who have wicketkeeper Jos Buttler in their ranks.
The competition features some of the best Twenty20 players in the world, including South Africa's AB de Villiers, Australia batsman Aaron Finch and India captain Virat Kohli.
• None Quiz: How well do you know the IPL?
England one-day captain Eoin Morgan joined Kings XI Punjab for £240,066, while limited-overs opening batsman Jason Roy was sold to Gujarat Lions and all-rounder Chris Woakes was bought by Kolkata Knight Riders for £504,140.
Sam Billings was also kept on by Delhi Daredevils during the first round of the auction.
Fast bowler Mills is available for the whole tournament as he is limited to playing T20 cricket because of back pain.
England's other players may not be available for the full competition because of international commitments, beginning when England host Ireland in one-day matches on 5 and 7 May.
The eight-team IPL format is similar to the proposed city-based Twenty20 tournament for English domestic cricket, which could be introduced in 2020.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/39494450
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Theresa May's Saudi Arabia balancing act - BBC News
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2017-04-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Theresa May will push for trade on a visit to Saudi Arabia but humanitarian issues also figure.
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UK
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Mrs May has defended Britain's ties with the Saudi regime
Prime Minister Theresa May flies into Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for a two-day visit to Britain's biggest trading partner in the Arab world.
For the British, the visit has a straightforward agenda; in a world overshadowed by the uncertainties of Brexit this trip is primarily about trade and investment - Saudi investment that is - into the UK.
British goods and services exported to Saudi Arabia totalled £6.6bn ($8.25bn) in 2015.
For the Saudi rulers - one of the few remaining absolute monarchies in the world - it is also about something else.
The Saudis are feeling increasingly surrounded and threatened by their regional rival Iran and its proxy militias.
When they look at the map of the region they see Iran effectively controlling five Middle Eastern capitals now: Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Sana'a, and spreading its influence among the Shia populations in Bahrain and along Saudi Arabia's Gulf coast.
So the Saudis want to know that their defence alliance with the UK, as well as the US, is rock solid.
But left out of the picture are the human rights organisations and campaign groups that want Mrs May to use this visit to pressure the Saudis to both end their military campaign in neighbouring Yemen and to release three young prisoners held on death row.
The death toll is mounting from the war in Yemen, at least 7,700 civilians killed according to the UN, most by Saudi-led air strikes, and millions at risk of malnutrition or even starvation.
More than 60% of civilian deaths in Yemen are due to Saudi-led air strikes, the UN says
In Yemen, the Saudis and their allies the UAE are determined to reverse what they see as an Iranian-backed coup by minority Houthi rebels who have illegally taken over half the country, including the capital, and carried out numerous human rights abuses since seizing power in 2014.
But the Saudis have got themselves bogged down in an unwinnable war and paying the price are Yemen's civilians; schools, hospitals, markets and a funeral have all been hit by clumsy targeting from the air.
This has prompted calls for the UK and the US to stop supplying planes, weapons and intelligence to the Saudis, at the very time that the UK is seeking ever closer ties with the Gulf Arab states.
Mrs May has defended the UK's ties with the Saudis by pointing out that they have provided vital intelligence that has saved British lives.
This is true. In 2010 a Saudi human informant inside al-Qaeda in Yemen tipped off MI6 that a bomb was hidden in cargo on a plane heading for Britain.
It was. The printer ink toner cartridges, packed with PETN explosive, got as far as East Midlands Airport before the police finally discovered them after the agent gave them the serial numbers.
Campaigners want the UK government to halt arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and to call for the release of blogger Raif Badawi, sentenced to 10 years and 1,000 lashes for "insulting Islam"
But Saudi Arabia's human rights record still makes the country a controversial ally for the UK which purports to have an ethical foreign policy.
Commenting on Mrs May's Saudi visit, human rights pressure group Reprieve said: "As the prime minister makes ever greater overtures towards the Saudi government, the kingdom continues to carry out appalling abuses, including torture, forced 'confessions' and death sentences for juveniles.
"Theresa May's desire for closer relations with the Gulf must not cloud Britain's commitment to human rights."
So for Theresa May the coming two days will require something of a balancing act - pushing for much-needed trade, more investment and closer ties with Riyadh and yet at the same time expressing just enough concern at humanitarian issues to avoid excessive criticism at home.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39486475
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Manchester United 1-1 Everton - BBC Sport
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2017-04-05
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Zlatan Ibrahimovic scores an injury-time penalty but Manchester United draw at home again in the Premier League against Everton.
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Last updated on .From the section Football
Zlatan Ibrahimovic rescued an injury-time draw for Manchester United against Everton as Jose Mourinho's side once again failed to win in the league at Old Trafford.
The Swede's 94th-minute penalty was awarded after Luke Shaw's goal-bound shot was handled on the line by visiting defender Ashley Williams, who was given a red card.
The point means United extend their unbeaten run to 20 games, but have now drawn nine times at home in the league and 12 overall, while opponents Everton missed the chance to leapfrog them in the table.
Everton's opener came through Phil Jagielka's clever, flicked finish from close range when he had his back to goal.
In response to going behind, Ander Herrera struck the crossbar after Joel Robles parried Daley Blind's free-kick and the United midfielder also forced Toffees goalkeeper Robles into a full-stretch save.
Paul Pogba came on for the second half and headed against the bar from Ashley Young's free-kick, while Ibrahimovic had a goal disallowed for offside in a disjointed United performance.
Relive the draw from Old Trafford
United were staring at defeat for the first time since their 4-0 drubbing against Chelsea in October before Ibrahimovic's coolly taken penalty which sent Robles the wrong way.
The striker said before kick-off that he and the club are "still in talks" about signing a new deal for next season and they are indebted to the Swede for his 27 goals this term, many of which have been on important occasions.
It was a huge let-off for the hosts, who had 61.5% possession and 18 shots, but only three on target, showing their obvious weakness in front of goal.
Much of United's play was in front of the Everton backline - often sideways and ponderous - without displaying any real strategy to breakdown the opposition.
Previous boss Louis van Gaal's slow style of play was criticised by the supporters, but United's last two performances have been a throwback to those days.
In fact, after 29 games in his first season, Van Gaal claimed 56 points and were fourth in the league, while Mourinho has two fewer points and are a place further back.
In an attempt to get back into the contest, world record signing Pogba replaced left-back Daley Blind at half time.
A reshuffle to the side meant Herrera dropped to Blind's previous position, allowing Pogba to take up his role in the middle of the park.
But less than five minutes later, Herrera swapped positions with Young to go to the right-back spot.
All this took place with full-backs Matteo Darmian and Luke Shaw - whose commitment has been questioned by the manager - sitting on the bench.
Shaw did come on just after the hour mark but only after an injury to Young, while Henrikh Mkhitaryan - dropped as Mourinho was "not happy" with his performance in the previous match against West Brom - replaced Michael Carrick.
The confusion from his players and the muddled changes from boss Mourinho showed the apparent mistrust he holds towards his squad as they struggle to find cohesion and incisiveness.
A busy April for United has started with two draws, with five further league and two Europa League games to play.
From Manchester United, it was a dog's dinner of a performance. They had no idea who was playing where and they played that way. They have gone away with one point but should have had none.
United were absolutely all over the place. I cannot see what they were trying to achieve here. They had no shape about them at all.
Where was Marouane Fellaini even playing? One second he is trying to go forward and the next he is running back - at times he is just chasing the ball like a six-year-old in the playground.
Having collected 1-0 victories in his two previous visits to Old Trafford with Southampton, Dutchman Ronald Koeman was looking to make it a hat-trick by becoming the first manager in Premier League history to win three consecutive away games at Old Trafford.
The Everton boss was one minute away from doing so.
The Dutchman would have set a record which even Sir Alex Ferguson, Louis van Gaal and Mourinho failed to do in their opening three home games as United manager.
Koeman's side took the lead as centre-back Jagielka nipped in ahead of the hesitant Marcos Rojo and from there on, the Blues defended deep and resolutely but ultimately came away with just a point.
Everton's robustness was typified by the assured 20-year-old Mason Holgate, who made four interceptions and regained possession nine times, which was more than any other team-mate.
The impressive Ashley Williams patrolled the defence and completed 11 clearances for his team, but it was his late error which led to the equaliser.
A flash point in the second half saw Kevin Mirallas petulantly refuse a handshake from his manager when substituted on 67 minutes.
Commenting on the incident, Koeman said: "I can understand players are a bit disappointed if you sub them but the way he reacted was not a team in my opinion and I will speak with him about that."
'Result is hard to take'
Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho told BBC Sport: "We scored two legal goals but I tell you with a smile on my face because I am not upset with the linesman. A really difficult decision for him, only video assistant replay could help this.
"After pressure, after pressure, after pressure the goal finally arrived and at least you don't have the feeling of defeat.
"The players gave everything. The performance from a football point of view was not good but I am very pleased with the effort."
Everton boss Ronald Koeman told BBC Sport: "It was a difficult game, we controlled it well at 1-0 up, we had chances on the counter in the second half but not always was the last ball a good one.
"It was really disappointing you don't get the win. The penalty was the right decision but it was really hard to take.
"Manchester United were attacking, taking risks, for that we had to kill the game. I was really confident to keep the clean sheet tonight."
United continue their difficult month with a trip to bottom side Sunderland on Sunday (kick-off 13:30 BST), while Everton host Leicester on the same day (kick-off 16:00 BST).
No more second half comebacks - the stats
• None Manchester United's Premier League unbeaten run now stands at 20 games, but they've drawn half of those (won 10, drawn 10).
• None Ashley Williams became the first Everton player to be sent off in the Premier League against Manchester United since David Weir in October 2002.
• None Phil Jagielka has scored his first Premier League goal since May 2015, 703 days ago against Aston Villa.
• None Defender Jagielka is the 17th scorer for Everton this season in the Premier League - they have had more different scorers than any other club.
• None The Red Devils have drawn 12 league games this season, their most in a campaign since the 1998-99 season (13).
• None United have won just one of the 11 Premier League games they have been trailing at half-time at Old Trafford since Alex Ferguson left the club (drawn three, lost seven).
• None United have won just six of their 16 league games at home this season (37.5% win percentage), their worst home win % in a campaign since 1973-74 (33.3%).
• None Goal! Manchester United 1, Everton 1. Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Manchester United) converts the penalty with a right footed shot to the bottom right corner.
• None Penalty conceded by Ashley Williams (Everton) with a hand ball in the penalty area.
• None Attempt blocked. Luke Shaw (Manchester United) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked.
• None Attempt missed. Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Manchester United) header from the centre of the box is too high. Assisted by Marcus Rashford with a cross.
• None Tom Davies (Everton) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
• None Attempt blocked. Marcus Rashford (Manchester United) left footed shot from the left side of the box is blocked. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39414200
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Luke Shaw, problem or punchbag at Manchester United? - BBC Sport
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2017-04-05
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Manchester United's Luke Shaw is being targeted by Jose Mourinho as a player who needs more development.
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Manchester United's Luke Shaw is being targeted by Jose Mourinho as a player who needs more development, but is his football brain really a problem or is Shaw being used as a "punchbag"?
WATCH MORE: Shaw needs to grow up - Mourinho
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39509109
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Seeking funds to say a final farewell to sons on death row - BBC News
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2017-04-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Poverty and distance mean that families can't always visit loved ones who are scheduled to be put to death.
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US & Canada
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Marilyn Shankle-Grant on a recent visit with her son, Paul Storey
For the families of men facing the death penalty, money can be a barrier to seeing a loved one before the end.
Marilyn Shankle-Grant's son, Paul Storey, has been fighting his death sentence for almost 10 years. All his legal efforts so far have fallen short, and in autumn, a judge set his execution date for 12 April, 2017.
Storey was convicted in the 2006 shooting death of 28-year-old Jonas Cherry during an armed robbery. Storey's accomplice - the gunman - pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison. Storey went forward with a jury trial and received the death penalty in 2008.
Since he was sent to death row, Shankle-Grant has been able to see her son about once a month, making the four-hour drive from her home in Fort Worth, Texas, to the state prison in Livingston, Texas.
But recently things have got more difficult for the 57-year-old hospitality worker. The stress and depression over her son's impending execution was affecting her work performance, and she lost a job she had held for 30 years.
She tried to pick up temporary work, and even started her own business, Marilyn's Old-Fashioned Tea Cakes, baking flat, buttery rounds from her grandmother's recipe, wrapping them up in cellophane and selling them at local events.
But even that small income stream has dried up - she stopped making tea cakes not long after her son's execution date was announced.
"When I do them, I do it with lots of love," she explains. "Right now that's just not in me."
The situation has become dire - her Forth Worth home entered foreclosure this week. She needs $8,000 (about £6,400) to save it.
The prison in Livingston, Texas, where Paul Storey and other death row inmates are held
Her financial difficulty - not to mention her broken car - have made the trips to Livingston a real financial strain, at the same time that the approaching execution date makes them more important than ever. She estimates each trip costs roughly $350.
With just six weeks left to visit before her son is executed, Shankle-Grant posted a weary status to her Facebook page, lamenting the short amount of time she has left with her son and the financial struggle she faces just to see him.
It caught the eye of Abraham J Bonowitz, co-director of Death Penalty Action, an anti-death penalty charity. He had met Shankle-Grant many times over the years at death penalty abolition events.
Bonowitz reached out to Shankle-Grant to ask her permission to set up an online fundraiser on her behalf. He created a page on the crowdfunding site You Caring, which included a note from Shankle-Grant.
"My love and devotion to my son are not matched by the resources needed to make the trip as often as I am allowed to visit him," she wrote. "With a heavy heart I turn to my fellow human light to ask you to help me help my son face the darkness as his destruction approaches."
The donations began streaming in. One anonymous donor contributed $1,000.
"My father was executed in Texas 13 years ago, and while the situation is still painful, I'm thankful for our last few visits, and I know he was as well," wrote one contributor.
"Nobody's going to be able to take away the pain that Marilyn has, but we can take away some of the anxiety," says Bonowitz, who is considering making these fundraisers a permanent part of his work.
So far, he has raised nearly $6,000. The money allows Shankle-Grant to rent a car each weekend, stay for two nights in a nearby hotel, as well as pay for meals and gas.
Thanks to the funds, Shankle-Grant has been able to visit her son every weekend since. She says she is incredibly grateful for the help.
"None of this would be able to be happening if it weren't for that You Caring page," she says. "I'm able to talk to him. When he's down and out and depressed, we can talk about it and talk him through it. It gives me comfort, too."
Abraham Bonowitz at an anti-death penalty rally he hosts in front of the US Supreme Court each year
Shankle-Grant's situation illustrates the hidden impact on the families of the condemned, who often come from low-income backgrounds and can live far away from the prison in which their loved one is housed. After 30 years of death penalty abolition work, Bonowitz has seen the situation many times before. Often a church or a non-profit will step in to help defray the cost of visiting a family member before an execution.
"None of these families have any money," he says. "Marilyn never did anything wrong and yet she is made to suffer. It's her son's fault, yes, but that doesn't mean the love for her child stops."
The success of the fundraiser caught the attention of advocates in Arkansas, which is poised to execute eight inmates over the course of 10 days, due to the fact that the state's supply of an execution drug called midazolam is about to expire.
Deborah Robinson, a freelance journalist who is writing a book about the eight men, says she has heard from three of them, asking for help so that their families can see them before the execution dates in late April.
"I have a 21-year-old daughter whom I haven't seen in 17 years, along with a 3-year-old granddaughter," wrote inmate Kenneth Williams, who is scheduled to die on 27 April, in a message to Robinson.
"The financial costs have prevented her from coming. If I am going to be executed, I would love to see her before I go one last time and to see my grandchild for the first time."
Lynn Scott with her brother Jack Jones, Jr, who has been in prison since 1995
Lynn Scott, the sister of death row inmate Jack Jones, Jr, lives in North Carolina. She runs her own business as a wedding planner, but she and her husband lost nearly everything after the 2008 recession - their house, their 401k, they sold off most of their possessions. After Scott's husband suffered a massive heart attack in 2015, they found themselves financially devastated.
"We live paycheck to paycheck," she says.
Arkansas is scheduled to execute her brother on 24 April. With airfare, hotel, car rental and meals - plus cremation and burial expenses - she expects that she will need about $5,000.
"It's very difficult," says Scott. "What I want people to know is - whatever the inmates did, we didn't do that. I didn't do that to those people, but I'm still losing someone."
Modelling a crowdfunding page after the one in Texas, Robinson is now raising funds for all three Arkansas families to help defray some of those costs.
Shankle-Grant and Storey on a visit in 2014
If Shankle-Grant's You Caring page raises more money than she can use to see her son, she says she wants the excess funds to go to the families in Arkansas.
Her son, Storey, still has a lawyer fighting for a stay of execution, in part based on the fact that his victim's parents are opposed to the death penalty and do not want him to be executed. Glenn and Judy Cherry have written letters to Texas Governor Greg Abbott and other state officials asking for mercy.
Shankle-Grant still holds out hope that her son's execution will be halted, and the portion of the fundraiser money that is designated for her son's burial can be sent to the other families. She is asking supporters to write letters to the Texas Department of Corrections, asking that Storey's life be spared.
In the meantime, because of a court hearing Storey has been moved to a county jail that allows him to use the phone for the first time in years (phone calls are not allowed for death row inmates in his prison). Shankle-Grant says he has been able to talk to his elderly grandparents, who can't travel to see him, and thanks to the fundraiser, she was easily able to pay the hefty $300 phone bill. She is also able to talk to him, sometimes as often as four times a day.
It's a small comfort as the execution date creeps closer and closer.
"He'll hang up and call back, hang up and call back," she says. "I don't know after [nine] days if I'm ever going to hear his voice again. For me, it's very important."
If an inmate's family does not make other arrangements - which can cost thousands - they are buried in this prison cemetery in Huntsville, Texas
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39460976
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Liverpool fined £100,000 and handed two-year ban on signing academy players - BBC Sport
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2017-04-05
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Liverpool fined £100,000 and handed two-year ban on signing academy players for a rule breach.
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Last updated on .From the section Football
Liverpool have been fined £100,000 by the Premier League and handed a two-year ban on signing academy players from other clubs for a rule breach.
It relates to the club's approach to a 12-year-old academy player at Stoke City in September last year.
Liverpool will be banned from signing any academy players who have been registered with a Premier League or EFL club in the previous 18 months.
This second year of the ban will be suspended for a three-year period.
In September 2016 Liverpool made an application to register the Stoke City Academy player and compensation was agreed.
But the application was rejected by the Premier League Board.
An investigation by the Premier League found that Liverpool spoke to the youngster and his family before they should have and also paid for him and some of his family to attend a game at Anfield.
Liverpool also offered to pay the player's school fees, which were being paid by Stoke at this time, but this was a breach of newly-introduced regulations which state a benefit can only be offered if it is applicable to all youngsters across the club's academy and this was not the case.
Premier League rules ban the offer of any inducements from clubs to encourage a move.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39508491
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GCHQ boss: 'We get crazy theories thrown at us every day' - BBC News
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2017-04-05
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Robert Hannigan, the outgoing head of GCHQ, talks to the BBC about Russia, the attack at Westminster and President Trump.
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UK
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Security correspondent Gordon Corera has had a rare tour of GCHQ
The operations centre sits on one of the upper floors of GCHQ and runs 24/7. At any one time, a team of analysts might be monitoring the kidnap of a British citizen abroad or an ongoing counter-terrorist operation run jointly with MI5.
In one corner, a large globe visualises all the cyber attacks targeting the UK from around the world. The room is a reminder of the range of activity that GCHQ is involved in - as well as its global reach in monitoring communications and data flows.
Russian cyber attacks are high up the agenda, in the wake of claims Moscow interfered in the US election and is trying the same in Europe.
"We have been watching Russian cyber activity since the mid 1990s," GCHQ's outgoing director, Robert Hannigan, tells the BBC.
"The scale has changed. They've invested a lot of money and people in offensive cyber behaviour and critically they've decided to do reckless and interfering things in European countries."
Mr Hannigan says that whilst it is impossible to be absolutely sure, the defences against such attacks seem to have held in the UK.
One of his legacies will be the creation of the National Cyber Security Centre, an arm of GCHQ which is based in London and is much more public facing in providing protective advice to the country about the threats in cyberspace.
Terrorism sits alongside cyber threats on the agenda. So-called Islamic State - or ISIL - has proved adept at exploiting the power of the internet.
The Queen visits the National Cyber Security Centre - part of intelligence agency GCHQ
"It's one of their most important assets. As they are defeated on the ground, the 'online caliphate' will become more important.
"They will continue to try to use the media to crowd-source terrorism to get people around the world to go and commit acts of violence on their behalf...
"There are things we can do to contest ISIL in this media space... but it's not just for governments to do operations online. It's for the companies and for the rest of media and society to have the will to drive this material off the internet..."
When he took over as head of GCHQ in 2014, Mr Hannigan launched what was seen as a broadside against technology companies - arguing they were in denial about the way they were used by terrorist groups to communicate and spread their message.
In the wake of the Westminster attack, the Home Secretary Amber Rudd said that companies should not offer a safe space for terrorists to hide - a reference to the development of end-to-end encryption services which make it impossible to provide the content of communications, even on production of a warrant.
GCHQ, as well as trying to break codes, also works to secure communications and so treads a fine line.
"Encryption matters hugely to the safety of citizens and to the economy.... The home secretary is talking about a particular problem - that this strong encryption is being abused by terrorists and criminals...
"Our best way forward is to sit down with the tech companies..."
Robert Hannigan steps down as GCHQ boss on Friday after nearly three years in the job
The other area of tension with firms has been over extremist content hosted on websites.
Here, government has recently been placing pressure on the companies to be more proactive in taking down content rather than waiting for it to be reported to them.
"I think they have moved a long way [but] there's further to go," Mr Hannigan says.
"When I started the job in 2014 they really were reluctant to accept responsibility for anything they carried on their networks - whether that was terrorism, child sexual exploitation or any other kind of crime."
GCHQ can detect the work of hackers around the globe
The threat from IS has been particularly acute in Europe in the last few years. That has driven increased security co-operation - so will Brexit be a problem?
"I don't think so, because the intelligence-sharing has never been through EU structures and national security has never been part of the European Union's remit.
"It's simply a statement of fact that we have very, very strong intelligence and security and defence capabilities and we bring a lot to Europe and to our European partners..."
The relationship with the US is by far the deepest, which he says will not change under the Trump administration.
"It's the most powerful weapon we have against terrorism in particular and has massively paid dividends in the last 10 years."
In recent weeks, there was controversy after reports claimed the Obama administration asked GCHQ to spy on President-elect Donald Trump.
GCHQ took the unusual step of publicly denying this.
"We get crazy conspiracy theories thrown at us every day," Mr Hannigan says. "We ignore most of them. On this occasion it was so crazy that we felt we should say so and we have said it's a ridiculous suggestion."
A globe in the operations centre visualises the cyber attacks targeting the UK
Deep underground, beneath the grass sit a series of cavernous computer halls. The noise is at points overwhelming.
Much effort goes into cooling the machines. Some of the endless racks contain off-the-shelf server technology but large specialist supercomputers sit alongside which are used by the cryptanalysts for code-breaking.
The exact specifications of these machines and just how much computing power sits in Cheltenham is classified largely to keep other states - primarily the Russians and Chinese - guessing.
"It's impossible to do counterterrorism or cyber security without that kind of power," Mr Hannigan explains, arguing that the challenge remains finding the small needle in the haystack of the massive volume of data on the internet.
Another aspect of Mr Hannigan's legacy will be the push for greater transparency and openness.
"It's very important in a democracy to have the consent of the public as well as the legislation in place and to explain that everything we do is under the law," Mr Hannigan says.
He took over an agency bruised by the Edward Snowden revelations and allegations of "mass surveillance".
"Obviously a debate on privacy and greater transparency are good things - but it was perfectly possible to do that and indeed it was happening anyway without the damage that the Snowden revelations did. The same is true of the WikiLeaks disclosures."
Mr Hannigan says he and the organisation remain optimistic, rather than pessimistic, about the spread of technology.
"Technology and the internet are overwhelmingly brilliant things for human progress," Mr Hannigan says.
"Unfortunately there will always be people who want to abuse the latest technology. And it's our job to deal with that dark side."
Mr Hannigan's successor, Jeremy Fleming, formerly Deputy Director of MI5, takes over on Friday.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39508851
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Chelsea 2-1 Manchester City - BBC Sport
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2017-04-05
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Chelsea maintain their seven-point lead at the top of the Premier League table as two Eden Hazard goals see off Manchester City.
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Last updated on .From the section Football
Chelsea maintained a seven-point advantage over Tottenham at the top of the Premier League with a hard-fought victory over Manchester City.
Pep Guardiola suffered league defeats home and away to the same opponents in a single league season for the first time in his managerial career as City are left to fight for a top-four place.
Eden Hazard gave Chelsea a 10th-minute lead when his shot deflected off returning City captain Vincent Kompany past keeper Willy Caballero, who should have done better.
Chelsea keeper Thibaut Courtois was also badly at fault when his poor clearance to David Silva set up Sergio Aguero's equaliser after 26 minutes - but Chelsea were back in front before half-time.
They were awarded a penalty after Fernandinho tripped Pedro and even though Cabellero saved Hazard's spot-kick, the rebound fell kindly for the Belgian to score.
City, who stay in fourth, had the better chances in a tense second period, with Kompany's header bouncing back off the bar and John Stones shooting over from six yards in injury time. Chelsea, however, held on for a win that was even more vital given Tottenham's dramatic late comeback at Swansea City.
Chelsea's progress towards the Premier League title has been a tale of almost unbroken serenity since manager Antonio Conte reworked his tactical approach after successive losses at home to Liverpool and away to Arsenal in September.
This was arguably their biggest game since as it followed on from the shock home loss to Crystal Palace and it was against a Manchester City side with the talent and capability to make this night at Stamford Bridge a real test of nerve.
And so it proved as City, with Silva the orchestrator supreme, putting Chelsea's defence and their supporters on edge right until the final whistle.
Chelsea emerged triumphant thanks to the mixture of talent and resilience that has served them so well this season and the celebrations at the final whistle reflected just what a significant night this might prove to be.
Hazard provided the flourishes but manager Conte proved his pragmatism with the introduction of Nemanja Matic for Kurt Zouma at the start of the second half to attempt to lock down the win.
It worked to an extent but Chelsea also enjoyed good fortune as Kompany's header bounced back off the bar and Stones somehow scooped an injury-time chance over the top.
In the final reckoning, Chelsea showed the bloody-minded defiance of champions - and this is the sort of result that could earn them that crown.
If this meeting of two of the Premier League's superpowers and two elite coaches was meant to be an enjoyable experience, you would not have known from the body language of Chelsea coach Conte and his Manchester City counterpart Guardiola.
The Catalan, in particular, appears to lead an agonised existence in his technical area. The advocate of the joyous, beautiful game looks as if he is going through torture in almost every match.
He was slapping his thigh and remonstrating with backroom staff within 15 seconds of the kick-off and he was in regular dialogue with fourth official Bobby Madley, with Conte occasionally joining in.
It was, it should be stressed, another frustrating night for Guardiola when his team promised much and ended with nothing - although it concluded with a warm handshake for Conte, who also looked like he had endured a tough night.
Conte, by his standards, was relatively low key but the mask dropped at the final whistle as he pumped his fists in the direction of Chelsea's fans. This was a huge night for the Italian as he did the double over Guardiola.
Manchester City remain the great enigma of the Premier League - looking like they could score every time they attack but liable to concede at any moment.
Guardiola still has a goalkeeper conundrum, with Willy Caballero unconvincing and caught out by a routine deflection from Kompany for Hazard's first goal, while there is an air of permanent frailty at the back.
City's slim title hopes are now over and they must hunt a top-four place, aided by Bournemouth's late equaliser at Liverpool, and the FA Cup.
They must achieve one of both of those targets to stop this season ending unfulfilled before Guardiola tackles those goalkeeping and defensive problems in the summer.
Good for Hazard, not good for Guardiola - the match stats
• None Eden Hazard is the first Chelsea player to score home and away against Man City in the Premier League since Salomon Kalou in 2007-08.
• None Hazard now has 10 Premier League goals at Stamford Bridge this season - more than any other player. This is the second time he's reached double figures at home in the league, after netting 10 there in 2013-14.
• None Sergio Aguero has scored five goals at Stamford Bridge as an away player in the Premier League - the only player with more is Robin van Persie (six), while Craig Bellamy also has five.
• None Pep Guardiola has suffered six league defeats as Manchester City boss this season - his highest tally in a single league season as a manager.
Chelsea manager Antonio Conte told Match of the Day: "My look is tired because I feel like I played it tonight with my players. I suffered with them.
"But we must be pleased because we beat a strong team - the best team in the league. I think they have a great coach - the best in the world. To win this type of game at this time of the season is great."
Man City boss Pep Guardiola told Match of the Day: "It's an honour to have the amazing players I have. We come here to Stamford Bridge and play the way we have, with huge personality. I'm a lucky guy to manage these guys."
Chelsea travel to Bournemouth in Saturday's late kick-off (17:30 BST) while Man City host Hull City at 15:00.
• None N'Golo Kanté (Chelsea) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
• None Attempt missed. John Stones (Manchester City) right footed shot from very close range is too high. Assisted by Vincent Kompany with a headed pass following a corner.
• None Attempt saved. Sergio Agüero (Manchester City) right footed shot from the right side of the six yard box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by Nolito with a through ball.
• None Attempt missed. Gary Cahill (Chelsea) header from the centre of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Willian with a cross following a corner.
• None Vincent Kompany (Manchester City) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
• None Eden Hazard (Chelsea) wins a free kick on the right wing. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39426884
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Monterrey Open: Heather Watson begins title defence with win over Nina Stojanovic - BBC Sport
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2017-04-05
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Defending champion Heather Watson fights for two hours and 52 minutes to beat Nina Stojanovic at the Monterrey Open.
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Last updated on .From the section Tennis
Defending champion Heather Watson beat Serbia's Nina Stojanovic in three sets to reach the second round of the Monterrey Open in Mexico.
Watson, 24, fought for two hours and 52 minutes to register a 6-2 6-7 (7-9) 6-4 victory over the world number 126.
The British number three smashed her racquet in frustration after squandering two match points in the second set tie-break.
She will face Russian sixth seed Ekaterina Makarova in the second round.
Watson, currently ranked 125th in the world, led the second set 5-2 before Stojanovic hit back to force a deciding set.
She is joined in the second round by compatriot Naomi Broady, who beat Catherine Bellis on Monday.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/39498614
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Masters 2017: Dustin Johnson suffers fall before Thursday's opening round in Augusta - BBC Sport
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2017-04-05
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Dustin Johnson suffers a lower-back injury following a fall at his rental home before Thursday's opening round of the Masters in Augusta.
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Last updated on .From the section Golf
Coverage: Watch highlights of the first two days before live and uninterrupted coverage of the weekend's action on BBC Two and up to four live streams available online. Listen on BBC Radio 5 live and BBC Radio 5 live sports extra. Read live text commentary, analysis and social media on the BBC Sport website and the sport app.
Pre-tournament favourite Dustin Johnson has suffered a lower-back injury following a fall at his rental home on the eve of Thursday's opening round of the Masters in Augusta.
His agent David Winkle says he still hopes to play tomorrow.
World number one Johnson fell on the stairs on Wednesday and "landed hard on his lower back".
He is said to be uncomfortable but is resting and doctors have advised him to keep the injury stable.
Johnson is due to tee off in the last group at 19:03 BST on Thursday evening.
• None Quiz: Match the Masters winner with his Champions dinner
"Dustin took a serious fall on a staircase in his Augusta rental home," Winkle said in a statement.
"He landed very hard on his lower back and is now resting, although quite uncomfortably.
"He has been advised to remain immobile and begin a regimen of anti-inflammatory medication and icing, with the hope of being able to play tomorrow."
The American, 32, won his third successive tournament when he beat Spain's Jon Rahm in the World Match Play final in late March.
He has won seven of the 17 tournaments he has played since claiming his first major at the US Open at Oakmont in June, racking up another seven top-10 finishes in the process.
There is the adage of "beware the injured golfer" but there is no doubt this is a significant blow for Johnson.
Since winning last year's US Open he has been a commanding presence and built a telling aura.
Now his Masters bid is surrounded by uncertainty. His late tee time may prove a blessing as it gives an extra recovery period but there is no doubt this is a considerable setback.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/39510391
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Is the humble Lada now a classic car? - BBC News
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2017-04-06
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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A look at the growing classic car market and the popularity of collecting previously unheralded makes.
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Business
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
The classic car speeds through the English countryside, a lovingly-maintained example of motoring heritage.
It rounds a left-hand bend, negotiates a tight right corner, and gracefully dips out of view, a petrol-fuelled gazelle.
This is a collectable automobile that has seen its value soar in recent years. Proud owner Ed Hughes is a very happy man.
Yet the 45-year-old's set of wheels isn't what most people would imagine when they think of a classic car. It isn't a vintage Ferrari, Lamborghini or Jaguar, for example.
Instead, it's a 1994 Lada Riva, the boxy, four-door Russian runabout that regularly features in "worst cars of all time" lists.
Mr Hughes' example has a 1.5 litre engine, 80,000 miles on the clock, and a top speed of 95mph (153 km/h). And he loves Ladas so much that he owns five of them.
While some might scoff at the suggestion that a Lada Riva is a classic car, it does in fact meet the generally agreed criteria - it is an old car that is no longer in production, and there is enough interest in the vehicle for it now to be collectable rather than scrapped.
And like any classic car worth its salt, there is money to be made, although not Ferrari-style tens of millions. Mr Hughes bought his red Riva 14 years ago for £50. It's now worth £2,000.
As the global classic car industry continues to grow strongly, an increasing number of previously unheralded cars are now being avidly collected. But why the Lada Riva?
Mr Hughes, who gave up a career in teaching to write full-time for Practical Classics magazine, admits that Ladas were "deeply unfashionable" for years. But as his father had owned a few of the Soviet cars when he was growing up, Mr Hughes says "he'd always liked them".
So in the late 1990s he started buying Ladas, including the Riva, which was available in the UK from 1983 to 1997.
When most people think of classic cars, they imagine Ferraris not Ladas
"As happens with old cars, people were throwing them away as their value decreased, and I started rescuing some of the nicer models," says Mr Hughes.
"What they lack in fit and finish they make up for in being quite well built mechanically."
Mr Hughes says there are two main reasons for the big rise in the value of Ladas in the UK in recent years.
"Firstly, a new generation of people in their 20s and 30s like the car's shape - there is nothing like it on the road. They've now become a fashion statement."
Dave Richards says it is vital to seek help before buying a classic car
Secondly, they are being snapped up to be exported back to Russia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe.
Mr Hughes explains: "There's a small but avid market for Ladas in Eastern Europe, specifically for nice right-hand drive models made for export to Britain.
"Hungarians go berserk for them [in particular] because they think it's utterly amazing they were built for sale to the 'capitalist West' as it were."
In addition to his five Ladas, Mr Hughes' collection of "Eastern European motoring delicacies" includes three Wartburgs and a Trabant from former East Germany; a Moskvich from Russia; and a Zaporozhets and a Tavria from Ukraine. He also has "a half-share" in a Izh Oda, also from Russia.
Mr Hughes says he wouldn't swap his collection for a Ferrari, because he argues that anyone with a "big enough chequebook" can pick up an old example of the Italian sports car, while it "requires a bit more skill, care, and so on, to own a fleet of motoring's less-loved specimens".
Motoring journalist Dave Richards says that the big increase in the number of formerly "prosaic" or ordinary cars now considered to be classics certainly isn't limited to former Soviet vehicles.
Instead, he says that cars such as old Ford Cortinas and Capris, the original Mini, and even the Austin Maxi, are in big demand. Plus the Citroen 2CV and the original VW Beetle.
"Many of these cars are practically extinct now, you hardly ever see them on the road, but there is a real demand for those that are still out there... this limited supply means that prices are being driven ever upwards," says Mr Richards, who is also co-owner of car restoration business Project Shop, based near the Oxfordshire town of Bicester.
The company makes a good living restoring classic cars to their former glory.
At the UK branch of US car giant Ford, it celebrates its old cars in a quiet corner of its factory in Dagenham, east London.
Its Ford Heritage Collection is an Aladdin's Cave of more than 100 Ford cars from the past 80-plus years.
The jewel in the crown is a Ford Escort 1850GT, which won the first London-to-Mexico rally in 1970.
Ivan Bartholomeusz, who helps to look after the collection, estimates that this car is worth at least £500,000.
Yet the museum of cars is also home to Ford Fiestas from the 1990s.
Ford Capris are now much in demand
Mr Bartholomeusz says that the best Ford Cortinas made in the first half of the 1970s can now sell for £18,000, but back in the 1980s were worth as little as £100.
However, Mr Richards cautions that there is still some risk to buying a classic car, be it a Lada, Ford or Ferrari.
"Don't trust your own judgement," he says. "Instead, elicit the help of a car club who might know the vehicle in question, or take someone from that club with you to look at that car.
"This is better than saddling yourself with a car that could cost you a packet."
Of course, owning a classic car isn't just about money; some people do it for the sheer fun.
Bronwyn Burrell was 25 when she took part in the same 1970 London-to-Mexico rally as the feted Escort, co-piloting an Austin Maxi.
Bronwyn Burrell, pictured here in 1964, took up motorsport in the 1960s
After a 47-year hiatus she's now taking the very same Maxi racing again, and is due to take part in the London-to-Lisbon classic car rally later this month.
Ms Burrell says: "It's such good fun, a really exhilarating drive. It's just like I'm 25 again, reliving my youth.
"I wouldn't sell the Maxi unless I had to. As far as I'm concerned she's priceless."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39489527
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Swansea City 1-3 Tottenham Hotspur - BBC Sport
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2017-04-06
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Tottenham produce a sensational late turnaround to beat a stubborn Swansea side and keep their title aspirations alive
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Last updated on .From the section Football
Tottenham produced a sensational late turnaround to beat a stubborn Swansea side and keep intact their aspirations of winning a first Premier League title.
Despite dominating possession, Spurs fell behind to a neat close-range finish from their former winger Wayne Routledge.
The visitors were camped in their opponents' half for long periods but were frustrated by a combination of their own lack of a cutting edge and Swansea's diligent defending, before Dele Alli eventually broke through to convert Christian Eriksen's cross after 88 minutes.
Son Heung-min fired Tottenham ahead in added time, and then Eriksen completed the remarkable comeback with a curling effort.
While second-placed Spurs continue to breathe down the necks of leaders Chelsea, a third defeat in four games sees Swansea drop into the relegation zone.
Having cut Chelsea's lead at the top of the table to seven points with Saturday's win at Burnley, Spurs were aiming to further reduce that deficit with a fifth successive Premier League victory.
Yet for all that Mauricio Pochettino's side had impressed this season, that triumph at Turf Moor was only their fifth away league win - and their vulnerability on the road was evident at the Liberty Stadium.
Although they enjoyed near total control of possession and territory during a one-sided first half, Tottenham fell behind after Swansea's first attack of the game.
Jordan Ayew muscled his way into the visitors' penalty area and pulled the ball back to Routledge, one of four former Spurs in the hosts' line-up, and the winger squeezed his finish past ex-Swans keeper Michel Vorm.
Tottenham continued to boss proceedings but lacked a cutting edge in attacking positions, missing injured top scorer Harry Kane and frustrated by their dogged opponents.
But as they had demonstrated in their previous seven games without Kane - four wins and three draws - Spurs can cope in the striker's absence.
They left it late, with Alli tapping into an empty net from Eriksen's wicked low cross, before Son finished from close range to send the visiting Spurs fans into raptures.
Eriksen then added a third in added time to complete a stunning fightback and leave their opponents crestfallen.
A return of just one point from their previous three games had seen Swansea sink deeper into relegation trouble, one point and one place above the bottom three.
Head coach Paul Clement spoke of a nervousness inside the Liberty Stadium during Sunday's goalless draw with Middlesbrough, though any creeping sense of anxiety for the home fans was eased with Routledge's early goal.
They made their ground a cauldron of noise, roaring their approval with every tackle, block or pass from a Swansea player.
The hosts dared to attack on occasion, with Kyle Naughton close to becoming the second ex-Spurs player to score against his former employers as his deflected shot fizzed wide.
But it was Swansea's defensive effort which provided the foundation for their admirable display, and looked set to earn them a first league win over Spurs since 1982.
However, their resistance was eventually broken and, with relegation rivals Hull beating Middlesbrough, the Swans' descent back into the bottom three leaves their hopes of survival in doubt.
Swansea have never beaten Spurs in the Premier League - the stats you need to know
• None Tottenham Hotspur (29) have won more points in 2017 than any other Premier League team (W9 D2 L1).
• None Spurs have won 17 points from losing positions in the Premier League this season; more than any other side in the competition.
• None In fact, under Mauricio Pochettino Tottenham have won 53 points from losing positions - 13 more than any other Premier League side in that time.
• None Swansea have never beaten Tottenham in 12 matches in the Premier League, drawing two and losing 10.
• None No Premier League team has scored more 90th minute winning goals this season than Tottenham (3 - level with Arsenal).
• None Dele Alli has been involved in 13 goals in 12 Premier League games for Tottenham in 2017 so far (9 goals, 4 assists).
• None Alli has yet to lose a Premier League game in which he has scored, winning 16 and drawing five. Christian Eriksen has been directly involved in 10 goals in his seven Premier League games against Swansea (6 goals, 4 assists).
• None Wayne Routledge made his 182nd Premier League appearance for Swansea City; more than any other player in the competition.
• None Routledge scored his first Premier League goal at the Liberty Stadium since Dec 2014, ending a run of 33 apps there without one.
'This season we are fighting again' - What they said
Swansea manager Paul Clement: We are clearly very disappointed to get to 88 minutes leading 1-0 - we had a good chance at 1-0 as well.
"We continued to defend well and limit them. The fact we conceded on 88 and then couldn't even draw is heartbreaking.
"You still have to do all the things we had done. We were fatigued at the end but the lads gave everything and I am proud of them. We can't feel sorry for ourselves. We have two massive games now at West Ham and Watford."
Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino: "We started the game very well and created some chances in the first few minutes. In that moment I think we feel the game is going to be easy. The perception from the touchline was that the players started to play at a low tempo. When we concede the goal we realise we need to push and increase our level.
"How the goals arrived at the end was crazy but we pushed, we played better and we created chances to win. It is a good example of the team never giving up and trying to the end. Big credit to the players, they showed big character.
"The most important thing is the badge. When you play for Tottenham it is not about the names it is about the team and the spirit. You would like to have all your players available but this season we are showing we are a team."
Swansea face two big Premier League away games, at West Ham this Saturday, followed a week later by a trip to Watford.
Tottenham are at home against the Hornets this Saturday and then host Bournemouth on the 15th.
• None Offside, Tottenham Hotspur. Vincent Janssen tries a through ball, but Dele Alli is caught offside.
• None Attempt missed. Alfie Mawson (Swansea City) header from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the right. Assisted by Gylfi Sigurdsson with a cross following a corner.
• None Goal! Swansea City 1, Tottenham Hotspur 3. Christian Eriksen (Tottenham Hotspur) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the bottom right corner. Assisted by Dele Alli following a fast break.
• None Goal! Swansea City 1, Tottenham Hotspur 2. Son Heung-Min (Tottenham Hotspur) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the centre of the goal. Assisted by Vincent Janssen.
• None Attempt saved. Vincent Janssen (Tottenham Hotspur) left footed shot from the left side of the box is saved in the bottom left corner. Assisted by Dele Alli.
• None Goal! Swansea City 1, Tottenham Hotspur 1. Dele Alli (Tottenham Hotspur) left footed shot from very close range to the bottom left corner.
• None Attempt blocked. Christian Eriksen (Tottenham Hotspur) right footed shot from the right side of the box is blocked.
• None Attempt blocked. Dele Alli (Tottenham Hotspur) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Mousa Dembélé.
• None Attempt saved. Dele Alli (Tottenham Hotspur) header from the centre of the box is saved in the bottom right corner. Assisted by Christian Eriksen.
• None Attempt missed. Toby Alderweireld (Tottenham Hotspur) right footed shot from outside the box is too high. Assisted by Son Heung-Min. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39426837
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Brexit negotiations: How will Poland behave towards the UK? - BBC News
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2017-04-06
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Poland fears an EU without Britain, but that doesn't mean Mrs May will get her way.
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Europe
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Zachodnia bus station in Warsaw is big, bustling and busy.
People laden with 57 varieties of luggage - from smart suitcases to supermarket bags tied together with string - queue in the spring sunshine, passports open, tickets in their hands.
Coaches come and go all the time. To St Petersburg, Bosnia, Minsk and Vienna. And this one - after a gruelling 29-hour journey with many stops - to London.
As the driver Lukasz hauls bags into the coach's underbelly, he tells me there used to be 20 people a day going to London, but now there's not a single one going the whole way.
"It's a very strong situation in London for Polish people, difficult," he says.
Why? It is because of Brexit.
There is a widespread perception Britain is no longer a friendly place.
I am told Polish TV and radio has been full of a story about a Polish teenager being attacked. It may not be true, but there have been many such stories here, apparently unreported in Britain.
It is at least arguable that one of the main reasons we are leaving the EU is because many people thought there were too many Poles and Eastern Europeans in the UK.
Their fate will be the very first thing to be discussed in the Brexit talks.
Theresa May has said she "wants and expects" to be able to protect the rights of Polish citizens in the UK
Kasia, who lives in the UK, tells me: "Nobody knows what will happen, that's the scariest thing. What will we need to stay? No answers."
The Polish government will be a big player when it comes to the negotiations over the UK's divorce from the EU.
European Council president Donald Tusk, incidentally a former Polish prime minister whose reappointment the Polish government tried to block, stresses the need for unity.
But individual nations will have individual bees in their respective bonnets.
The Polish government will place a high priority on the rights of its citizens who live in the UK and those who want to come in the future.
Students at Warsaw University tell me Britain is still a prime destination. Natalia wants to study in Scotland and helps run an advice service for students.
"We've got thousands of questions," she says. "'What about Brexit?', 'Will we still be able to get a student loan?', 'Will I be able to finish my studies?' And to be honest we can't really answer them.
"My friend is currently studying in the UK and she got an email saying 'We are not sure if you will be able to finish your studies here, but don't worry, we hope it will work out'."
Poland's fiercely nationalistic ruling party Law and Justice (PiS) is very hostile to the powers that be in Brussels and sees the UK as something of an ally, one it will miss.
Prime Minister Beata Szydlo accused President Hollande of trying to blackmail Poland, which is the biggest net recipient of EU funds
One of the party's MPs, Marcin Horala, tells me his government should demand as little change as possible.
"It would be best to keep all the achievements of the EU as it is: free travel, free work. That you can change your place of living freely within Europe is profitable for all sides, including Britain.
"I would try to convince the British government to have two immigration policies," he says. "One for members of the EU, one for others."
As it happens, at the time I visit Poland, Catherine Barnard, professor of European law at Cambridge, is lecturing at the College of Europe just outside Warsaw. She tells me this would all be very complicated.
"For those who are currently [in the UK], there is a real problem. We have no records of who is in the country," she explains.
"For people who have been working for agencies, working in the fields, collecting daffodils in the East of England, [it's] much harder to work out how long they've been here. They may not have any paperwork. It will be quite difficult to prove their right to be in the UK."
She adds: "There will be some sort of work permit scheme in the future. Will it be light touch, or a full visa scheme, as applied now to non-EU nationals? That's extremely burdensome to employers and a lot of small businesses [who have] never been through that process will be in for a quite significant shock."
Pawel Kaczmarczyk, director of the Centre for Migration Research in Warsaw, argues the British government knows the UK needs Polish immigrants, and so - despite claims to be "taking back control" - there won't be any real difference.
"All of us know that migration is a lot about perception, not reality. But when we consider this case, it has been a hugely beneficial process, and still politicians and the media are able to present it as a negative story. That is one of the main reasons for Brexit.
"It's quite a paradox: in the end we will see Polish migrants staying in the UK and the UK out of the EU."
Poland will play a critical role in these coming talks and, despite a great feeling of friendship towards the UK, few think Mrs May will get her way.
Mark Mardell presents The World This Weekend, on BBC Radio 4 on Sundays at 1300 BST. Or you can listen again via the BBC Radio 4 website.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39501648
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Masters 2017: Dustin Johnson pulls out in Augusta due to back injury - BBC Sport
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2017-04-06
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Dustin Johnson withdraws from the 2017 Masters at Augusta National due to a back injury sustained in a fall on Wednesday.
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World number one Dustin Johnson is out of the Masters at Augusta National after suffering a back injury in a fall at his rental home on Wednesday.
The American, 32, looked set to take part after warming up on the range but he then withdrew on the first tee.
The US Open champion fell on the stairs and hurt his lower back on Wednesday.
"I'm playing the best golf of my life and to have a freak accident happen yesterday afternoon, it sucks really bad," said Johnson.
• None Townsend: Johnson could have done 'long-term damage to his swing'
"I have been worked on all morning and obviously I can take some swings, but I can't swing full, I can't make my normal swing and I didn't think there was any chance I could compete."
The 15-time PGA Tour winner added: "I was wearing socks and slipped and went down the three stairs. The left side of my lower back took the brunt of it and my left elbow is bruised as well."
Johnson's caddie was placing the ball on his tee for him on the range, while coach Butch Harmon said pain hindered Johnson's rest overnight.
Shortly before his withdrawal, he progressed from hitting wedge shots on the range to fuller swings and his involvement looked likely as he made his way to the first tee for a scheduled 19:03 BST start alongside playing partners Bubba Watson and Jimmy Walker.
Johnson was a popular pick to win the first major of the year as a result of the fine form he has shown in 2017. He has won the past three tournaments in which he has competed - February's Genesis Open, and both the WGC Mexico Championship and WGC Dell Match Play in March.
As well as winning last year's US Open by four shots, he finished ninth at the Open Championship and tied fourth at the Masters.
Johnson took until the very last second to make what must have been an agonising decision to pull out. He was standing on the first tee before making the toughest call of his career. It is a severe blow for the player who has dominated golf this season.
He arrived here off the back of three big victories and was a justifiable favourite. All that has been lost through his freak fall at his rental home and the damage done to his back.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/39519574
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The women who sleep with a stranger to save their marriage - BBC News
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2017-04-06
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Some Muslim women believe they must marry a new man before they can return to their first husband.
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UK
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A number of online services are charging "divorced" Muslim women thousands of pounds to take part in "halala" Islamic marriages, a BBC investigation has found. Women pay to marry, have sex with and then divorce a stranger, so they can get back with their first husbands.
Farah - not her real name - met her husband after being introduced to him by a family friend when she was in her 20s. They had children together soon afterwards but then, Farah says, the abuse began.
"The first time he was abusive was over money," she tells the BBC's Asian Network and Victoria Derbyshire programme.
"He dragged me by my hair through two rooms and tried to throw me out of the house. There would be times where he would just go crazy."
Despite the abuse, Farah hoped things would change. Her husband's behaviour though became increasingly erratic - leading to him "divorcing" her via text message.
"I was at home with the children and he was at work. During a heated discussion he sent me a text saying, 'talaq, talaq, talaq'."
"Triple talaq" - where a man says "talaq", or divorce, to his wife three times in a row - is a practice which some Muslims believe ends an Islamic marriage instantly.
It is banned in most Muslim countries but still happens, though it is impossible to know exactly how many women are "divorced" like this in the UK.
"I had my phone on me," Farah explains, "and I just passed it over to my dad. He was like, 'Your marriage is over, you can't go back to him.'"
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Farah would have had to consummate her halala marriage
Farah says she was "absolutely distraught", but willing to return to her ex-husband because he was "the love of my life".
She says her ex-husband also regretted divorcing her.
This led Farah to seek the controversial practice known as halala, which is accepted by a small minority of Muslims who subscribe to the concept of a triple talaq.
They believe halala is the only way a couple who have been divorced, and wish to reconcile, can remarry.
Halala involves the woman marrying someone else, consummating the marriage and then getting a divorce - after which she is able to remarry her first husband.
But in some cases, women who seek halala services are at risk of being financially exploited, blackmailed and even sexually abused.
It's a practice the vast majority of Muslims are strongly against and is attributed to individuals misunderstanding the Islamic laws around divorce.
But an investigation by the BBC has found a number of online accounts offering halala services, several of which are charging women thousands of pounds to take part in temporary marriages.
One man, advertising halala services on Facebook, told an undercover BBC reporter posing as a divorced Muslim woman that she would need to pay £2,500 and have sex with him in order for the marriage to be "complete" - at which point he would divorce her.
The man also said he had several other men working with him, one who he claims initially refused to issue a woman a divorce after a halala service was complete.
There is nothing to suggest the man is doing anything illegal. The BBC contacted him after the meeting - he rejects any allegations against him, claiming he has never carried out or been involved in a halala marriage and that the Facebook account he created was for fun, as part of a social experiment.
In her desperation to be reunited with her husband, Farah began trying to find men who were willing to carry out a halala marriage.
"I knew of girls who had gone behind families' backs and had it done and been used for months," she says.
"They went to the mosque, there was apparently a designated room where they did this stuff and the imam or whoever offers these services, slept with her and then allowed other men to sleep with her too."
But the Islamic Sharia Council in East London, which regularly advises women on issues around divorce, strongly condemns halala marriages.
"This is a sham marriage, it is about making money and abusing vulnerable people," says Khola Hasan from the organisation.
"It's haram, it's forbidden. There's no stronger word I can use. There are other options, like getting help or counselling. We would not allow anyone to go through with that. You do not need halala, no matter what," she adds.
Farah ultimately decided against getting back with her husband - and the risks of going through a halala marriage. But she warns there are other women out there, like her, who are desperate for a solution.
"Unless you're in that situation where you're divorced and feeling the pain I felt, no-one's going to understand the desperation some women feel.
"If you ask me now, in a sane state, I would never do it. I'm not going to sleep with someone to get back with a man. But at that precise time I was desperate to get back with my ex-partner at any means or measure."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39480846
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Reality Check: European Parliament's 'red lines' on Brexit - BBC News
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2017-04-06
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BBC Reality Check correspondent Chris Morris analyses the detail of the European Parliament vote.
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Europe
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Michel Barnier (R), European Chief Negotiator for Brexit and Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission will pay a key role in negotiations
The European Parliament has overwhelmingly approved a non-binding resolution that lays out its views on the Brexit negotiations.
The parliament will have no formal role in shaping the Brexit talks. The negotiations will be led by the European Commission on behalf of the EU's remaining 27 member states. Their draft negotiating guidelines were issued last week.
But the parliament's views still matter because under the Article 50 rules it will get a vote on the final EU-UK "divorce" deal and if it does not like what has been agreed it could demand changes and delay the process.
BBC Reality Check correspondent Chris Morris teases out some of the key sentences from the resolution and explains their significance.
- A revocation of notification needs to be subject to conditions set by all EU-27, so that it cannot be used as a procedural device or abused in an attempt to improve on the current terms of the United Kingdom's membership;
This is interesting. It implies that the European Parliament thinks the UK can change its mind about Article 50 (whereas the UK government has implied the opposite). The truth is that irrevocability is the subject of legal dispute and, as this is a matter of interpreting a European treaty, the ultimate arbiter would be the European Court of Justice. Either way, the parliament makes clear here that it would not allow the UK to plead for a better deal if it tried to return - even the package of measures offered to David Cameron in February 2016 (remember this?) is now null and void.
- Reiterates the importance of the withdrawal agreement and any possible transitional arrangement(s) entering into force well before the elections to the European Parliament of May 2019;
In theory the two-year Article 50 negotiating period could be extended if all parties agreed, but no-one really wants that to happen. And this is one of the reasons why the timetable is so tight. If the UK was still part of the European Union in May 2019, it might have to hold elections to elect British MEPs, despite being on the verge of leaving. It would raise all sorts of complications that the European Parliament is determined to avoid.
- Stresses that the United Kingdom must honour all its legal, financial and budgetary obligations, including commitments under the current multiannual financial framework, falling due up to and after the date of its withdrawal;
Another reminder of the looming fight about settling the accounts (also known as the divorce bill). Parliament insists that the UK must honour all its commitments under the current multiannual financial framework - a kind of long-term budget - which runs until 2020. Because of the way the EU budget process works, that would mean the UK would have to help pay for things like infrastructure projects in poorer EU countries several years after it had left the Union.
- States that, whatever the outcome of the negotiations on the future European Union-United Kingdom relationship, they cannot involve any trade-off between internal and external security including defence co-operation, on the one hand and the future economic relationship, on the other hand;
I think this is probably cleared up by now, but the implied link between security co-operation and trade in Theresa May's Article 50 letter raised a few eyebrows elsewhere in the EU. Cooler heads suggested it was there for domestic consumption and the UK government said it was all a misunderstanding. But the parliament is putting down an explicit marker that trade-offs between security and the future economic relationship won't be acceptable.
- Stresses that any future agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom is conditional on the UK's continued adherence to the standards provided by international obligations, including human rights and the Union's legislation and policies, in, among others, the field of the environment, climate change, the fight against tax evasion and avoidance, fair competition, trade and social rights, especially safeguards against social dumping;
The resolution suggests that the future relationship could be built upon an agreement under which the UK would have to accept EU standards over a wide range of policy areas from climate change to tax evasion. In some areas that might be exactly what the UK government wants to do anyway, given that the UK has played a leading role in forging those policy positions in the first place. But domestic politics in the UK means any wholesale acceptance of EU policies could be a tough sell.
- Believes that transitional arrangements ensuring legal certainty and continuity can only be agreed between the European Union and the United Kingdom if they contain the right balance of rights and obligations for both parties and preserve the integrity of the European Union's legal order, with the Court of Justice of the European Union responsible for settling any legal challenges; believes, moreover, that any such arrangements must also be strictly limited both in time - not exceeding three years - and in scope, as they can never be a substitute for European Union membership;
Two important points here. Firstly, the parliament is determined that the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice would continue to run during any transition period. The draft guidelines produced by the European Council last week made the same point but in less explicit language. If it wants a transition, the UK will have to accept a role for the ECJ. Secondly, the parliament says the transition should last no longer than three years, which is a shorter period than some might think necessary.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39501866
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Leicestershire deducted 16 County Championship points - BBC Sport
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2017-04-06
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Leicestershire are deducted 16 County Championship points for repeated disciplinary offences.
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Last updated on .From the section Cricket
Leicestershire have been deducted 16 County Championship points for repeated disciplinary offences.
Bowler Charlie Shreck was found guilty of "using language that is obscene, offensive or insulting and/or making an obscene gesture" in a pre-season match against Loughborough MCCU in March.
The county's fifth offence in 12 months triggered the automatic punishment.
Captain Mark Cosgrove, in charge for each of the indiscretions, has been banned for one Championship match.
The punishment means that Leicestershire, who finished seventh in Division Two in 2016, will begin the season on minus 16 points.
Their campaign begins on Friday at home to Nottinghamshire.
The club have also been fined £5,000 and given a further eight-point penalty suspended for 12 months.
Fast bowler Shreck, 39, has been given a two-match suspension by the county.
Cosgrove pleaded guilty to the charges and is set to serve his suspension in a fortnight's time, in the Championship match against Glamorgan which starts on 21 April.
"We've got to get better and be more disciplined - 16 points is a big deal to us. It's a game," Cosgrove told BBC Radio Leicester.
"Hopefully we can get some positive points on the board. This hurts the boys. We need to learn and get better.
"Charlie is very disappointed and very apologetic. He overstepped the mark. He knows he did the wrong thing.
"We've just got to take it and move on and get busy into the season."
In August 2015, Leicestershire were deducted 16 points and given a suspended fine for similar breaches.
In a statement from the cricket discipline commission on Friday, it was "noted that actions taken by the club since the previous disciplinary panel hearing have not been effective".
Durham begin their Division Two campaign on minus 48 points, the England and Wales Cricket Board having imposed the penalty because of the county's financial problems.
Meanwhile, Leicestershire opener Harry Dearden has signed a one-year contract extension, Aadil Ali has agreed a new deal until 2019 and academy batsman Sam Evans has signed a three-year deal - his first professional contract.
Coverage: Ball-by-ball BBC local radio commentary of every match in Division One and Division Two, plus live text coverage of every round of fixtures on the BBC Sport website.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/39521424
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Masters 2017: Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth among favourites at Augusta after Dustin Johnson withdraws - BBC Sport
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2017-04-06
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Who are the main contenders? Who are the British hopes? Why the Green Jacket? And everything you need to know about the Augusta National.
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Last updated on .From the section Golf
Coverage: Watch highlights of the first two days before live and uninterrupted coverage of the weekend's action on BBC Two and up to four live streams available online. Listen on BBC Radio 5 live and BBC Radio 5 live sports extra. Read live text commentary, analysis and social media on the BBC Sport website and the sport app.
Augusta National. The Green Jacket. Amen Corner. The manicured fairways. The blooming azaleas. Unmistakably, the Masters.
Golf's first major of the year is upon us, with the world's finest players making their annual pilgrimage to one of sport's most iconic venues.
The first tee shot will be hit at 13:00 BST on Thursday with a field of 94 men aiming to sink the winning putt come Sunday.
World number one Dustin Johnson and Northern Ireland's four-time major winner Rory McIlroy head the field in the year's first major.
• None Quiz: Match the Masters winner with his champions dinner.
What else do you need to know? Plenty. Here's the lowdown...
Who are the main contenders?
Plenty of people backed Dustin Johnson to win his first Green Jacket - but that was before the current world number one suffered a back injury the day before the tournament started, after a fall at his rented home.
Johnson tried to take part in the tournament, but walked off the first tee on Thursday without playing his shot and withdrew.
The American, 32, had been head and shoulders above his rivals over the past nine months, winnnig seven of the 17 tournaments he has played since claiming his first major at the US Open at Oakmont in June, racking up another seven top-10 finishes in the process.
In Johnson's absence, Jordan Spieth will look to banish memories of last year's spectacular final-day collapse by winning his second Masters.
The American, 23, led by five shots as he approached the 10th at Augusta on the Sunday, only to dramatically drop six shots in three holes and allow England's Danny Willett to take advantage.
"No matter what happens at this year's Masters, whether I can grab the jacket back or I miss the cut or I finish 30th, it will be nice having this Masters go by," he said earlier this month.
"The Masters lives on for a year. It brings a non-golf audience into golf. And it will be nice once this year has finished to be brutally honest."
Spieth has dropped to sixth in the world rankings since his Masters meltdown, but did claim his first PGA Tour title since May when he won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am last month.
World number three Jason Day will play at Augusta after pulling out of a recent tournament to spend time with his mother, who has been treated for lung cancer.
The Australian, 29, broke down in tears after withdrawing from the WGC Match Play a fortnight ago.
"There's been a lot of things go on this year that have been somewhat distracting to my golf," he said.
"Golf was the last thing that I was ever thinking about when this first came about. I'm in a much better place now.
"I feel happier to be on the golf course and enjoying myself out here a lot more than I was the last month or two."
Japan's Hideki Matsuyama is bidding to become the first Asian player to win the Masters, having risen to fourth in the world after a stellar finish to the 2016 season.
The 25-year-old ended last year with four victories in five tournaments - finishing second in the other - but has not been able to recapture the form in recent weeks.
"I'm really not hitting it as well as I would like, so whether or not my confidence level is where it should be, I'm not sure," said Matsuyama, who finished fifth in the 2015 Masters and shared seventh place last year.
That is the question we have been asking since McIlroy won the 2014 Open Championship at Hoylake.
The Northern Irishman steps on to Augusta's first tee on Thursday (18:41 BST) aiming to become only the sixth man to win all four majors.
He is seeking a first Masters title following victories at the US Open, the Open Championship and the US PGA Championship.
Winning the Green Jacket would propel the 27-year-old into exalted company alongside Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Gene Sarazen, Gary Player and Ben Hogan.
And, after three consecutive top-10 finishes at Augusta, the world number two has made no secret that finally sealing victory is his main priority.
"I don't feel like I can fly under the radar anymore, but at the same time it has been nice to just go about my business and try to get ready for this tournament," McIlroy said.
"I've realised that the more I can get comfortable with this golf course and the club as a whole, the better.
"The more I can just play the golf course and almost make it seem like second nature to me, the better."
When the fourth home nations golfer followed in the footsteps of Sandy Lyle, Nick Faldo and Ian Woosnam to win the Masters, most expected it would be Rory McIlroy slipping into the iconic wool jacket.
Instead it was Danny Willett.
The Englishman, playing in only his second Masters, was three shots adrift of Spieth going into Sunday's final round last year, but was catapulted to victory thanks to a superb five-under-par 67 and the Texan's meltdown.
What made his triumph even more remarkable was his participation at Augusta had been in doubt.
His wife Nicole was due to give birth on the final day, with only the early arrival of baby Zachariah allowing him to play.
"It's going to be awesome to go back as defending champion," he said in BBC documentary When Danny Won the Masters.
"I can't wait to take part in all the things you get to take part in, the par three competition, the champion's dinner and see all the other people who've won that golf tournament who are still there to be able to enjoy it with you.
"It is something that you can't buy in life. You can only earn and the fact that I've earned is going to be something pretty special."
However, Willett has since struggled to match his form over those four days at Augusta.
He rose to a career-high ranking of ninth in the world following his maiden major, but has dropped to 17th after managing just four top-10 finishes in the past 12 months.
"The game is not far away," said the 29-year-old Yorkshireman.
"Our run of form obviously has been nowhere near what it was last year and nowhere near what some of the other guys are playing."
Willett is one of a record 11 English players in the 94-strong field at Augusta, while Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are also represented.
McIlroy is the only Northern Irishman taking part, while Scotland's Sandy Lyle and Wales' Ian Woosnam make their annual return as former champions.
England's Justin Rose has been a regular top-10 finisher in golf's four majors over the past decade, but only has one victory at the 2013 US Open to show for his efforts.
He finished tied 10th at Augusta last year, his fourth top-10 finish at the Masters.
Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton and English amateur champion Scott Gregory are making their Masters debuts this week - no player has won the Masters on their debut since American Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979.
Fleetwood, 26, was ranked 188th in the world in September 2016, but has climbed to career-high 32nd after returning to former coach Alan Thompson and employing friend Ian Finnis as his caddie.
"One of the greatest accomplishments I've had in my career was actually qualifying for the Masters," said Fleetwood.
Gregory, a 22-year-old from Hampshire, secured his place by winning the British Amateur Championship last summer.
His preparations have included watching hours of footage from the past four tournaments at Augusta.
"I've watched a lot of clips on YouTube," he told BBC South Today.
Willett's surprise success ended a long European drought at Augusta, becoming the continent's first winner since Jose Maria Olazabal's success 17 years previously.
This year, American players will be hoping to regain their recent dominance.
Ten of the previous 16 winners have been home players, with Johnson and Spieth leading the charge alongside fellow top-15 players Justin Thomas, Rickie Fowler and Patrick Reed.
And rule out left handers Phil Mickelson and Bubba Watson at your peril.
Between them the veteran pair have five Green Jackets hung up in their wardrobes - three for Mickleson and two for Watson - and are still loitering around the world's top 20.
"I always think I have a chance," said 38-year-old Watson, who has won just one PGA Tour title in nearly two years.
Strong winds and cool temperatures have been forecast on Thursday and Friday, conditions which 46-year-old Mickelson believes will play into his hands.
"I hope to rely on that knowledge and skill to keep myself in it heading into the weekend where players less experienced with the golf course will possibly miss it in the wrong spots and shoot themselves out," said the world number 18.
Twenty years ago at Augusta, Tiger Woods memorably blitzed his way to a first major, the first step towards his impending global superstardom.
But the 41-year-old will not be marking the special anniversary by walking the fairways after pulling out this week through injury.
The 14-time major winner, who has been plagued by injury problems in recent years, said he is not "tournament ready" to tee up at an event with which he is synonymous.
The American went on to wear the Green Jacket on another three occasions - 2001, 2002 and 2005 - but has not been able to play in two of the past three tournaments because of long-running back problems.
"I did about everything I could to play at this year's Masters," he said.
"I'm especially upset because it's a special anniversary for me that's filled with a lot of great memories.
"I have no timetable for my return, but I will continue my diligent effort to recover, and want to get back out there as soon as possible."
Woods has only played twice this year, missing the cut at the Farmers Insurance Open in January and withdrawing from the following week's Dubai Desert Classic before the second round.
This year's tournament will be tinged with sadness - but also a cause for celebration - as Augusta pays its own tribute to the man who won four Masters titles and was fondly known as 'The King' in golfing circles.
Arnold Palmer, viewed as one of the greatest and most influential players in the sport's history, died at the age of 87 in September.
"His presence at Augusta National will be sorely missed, but his impact on the Masters remains immeasurable - and it will never wane," said Billy Payne, chairman of Augusta National, shortly after his death.
Where the Masters will be won or lost
Seeing the sign pointing towards Amen Corner can strike fear into the minds of even the world's best golfers.
Amen Corner, a term coined by legendary sports writer Herbert Warren Wind in 1958, geographically refers to the approach to the par-four 11th, all of the short 12th and the first half of the par-five 13th but many tend to think of it as all three holes in their entirety.
"If you can get through those in level par you're a happy man," says BBC golf commentator Ken Brown.
If Jordan Spieth had got through those holes in level par in the final round last year then he, and not Danny Willett, would have won the Green Jacket.
The Texan appeared to be cruising towards becoming only the fourth man to win back-to-back Masters, leading by five shots as he approached the 10th.
But he twice found the water on the iconic 12th to card a quadruple bogey seven - following successive bogeys on the 10th and 11th holes - to hand the advantage to Willett.
Spieth was not the first Masters contender to see their dreams fade on the back nine on the final day, with Greg Norman in 1996 and Rory McIlroy in 2011 immediately springing to mind.
One suspects he won't be the last...
Although the Masters began in 1934, the victorious golfer did not receive a Green Jacket until Sam Snead triumphed in 1949.
However, Augusta members had worn the coloured coats since 1937, encouraged by co-founder Clifford Roberts, so patrons could easily identify "a source of reliable information".
Once Snead received his Green Jacket, the coat became a symbol of success - and is now one of the most iconic prizes in sport.
Winners are allowed to take the jacket home for a year and are rather generously allowed to wear the single-breasted, lightweight jacket "in public during that time on special occasions".
After that, past champions have a custom-tailored coat waiting for them on their return to the Augusta clubhouse.
"It felt like my old friend was back on my shoulders," said 2013 champion Adam Scott when he returned a year later.
How to follow on the BBC (all times BST)
Saturday 8 April: The Masters Live, BBC Two, 19:30-00:00 and BBC Radio 5 live, 21:00-01:00
Sunday 9 April: The Masters Live, BBC Two, 18:30-00:00 and BBC Radio 5 live, 20:00-01:00
Live text commentary with analysis and social media on the BBC Sport website from 12:45 on Thursday and Friday and from 16:00 on Saturday and Sunday.
Full details of the BBC's extensive coverage from Augusta
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/39406171
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How many pro-Brexit comedians are there? - BBC News
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2017-04-06
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The BBC's David Sillito looks at the relationship between current affairs and comedy.
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Entertainment & Arts
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Marcus Brigstocke is furious about the decision to leave the EU
Comedy and current affairs have always had a close relationship - but Brexit and Donald Trump's presidency have posed new challenges for comics.
Politics has long been a part of Marcus Brigstocke's comedy routine.
He's used to people not always agreeing with what he says, but this year it's been different.
The subject was Brexit and the reaction in some places was unlike anything he'd experienced before.
We met in Llandudno at the Craft of Comedy Festival. It's been described as the party conference of comedy - an annual get together to discuss the life and business of people making a living from making other people laugh.
I spoke to him at the end of a session on politics and comedy.
He explains that, as a result of his jokes, "a lot of the people I think of as 'my audience' post-Brexit will not be back... they were that angry."
Boris Johnson was one of the key figures of the Vote Leave campaign
Brigstocke is furious about the decision to leave the EU. The topic touches him more deeply than almost any other but he has doubts about this political passion.
"Anger's not great for comedy, it's been good for me but you still have to have nuance. You have to find the line and I've struggled with that."
"People are more upset about this than anything else I have experienced."
Gareth Gwynn is one of Britain's most prolific topical gag writers. He's worked on Have I Got News For You, the Now Show and the News Quiz on BBC Radio 4.
He has a different concern about Brexit.
"Since June 2016 almost every time you walk in to that writers' room and it's tail it's Trump, heads it's Brexit," he says.
"It's so big we can't avoid it and the problem is trying to come up with new angles. It's both potentially trying for both the writers and the audience."
Brexit and Donald Trump's presidency have posed new challenges for comics
The passions aroused by Brexit are, it appears, challenging for satire. Britain is deeply divided and that poses problems.
Josh Buckingham is a commissioner for Channel 4. It is legally obliged to be politically impartial and while it can delight in taking pot shots at politicians it can't do it from just one perspective.
He feels some viewers who spend a lot of time watching online content may not be so open to this.
"Audiences expect you to have a view and when they encounter you being even handed they might say, 'pick a side', he explains.
Of course many comics have picked a side. The divide? Marcus Brigstocke could only think of two or three comics who might admit to being pro-Brexit - Lee Hurst and Geoff Norcott are notable examples.
In a room of more than a hundred writers, producers and performers - we asked if any would come forward and admit to being pro-Brexit.
Only one person put their hand up. One or two others approached me quietly afterwards but didn't want to be interviewed.
The UK is scheduled to leave the EU on Friday, 29 March 2019
The one person that agreed to speak was James Cary, a writer of sitcoms. He's also an evangelical Christian and used to being in a minority in the comedy world. He's happy to be contrary.
"I think it's because Brexit is associated with conservatism and patriotism and nationalism and these are things comedians like to play against," he says.
"I think it's led to a really interesting discussion. I think you've got to be very careful about impugning anyone's motives... England and London are very different places"
He adds: "We have to be wary of describing one as a metropolitan elite and likewise seeing people in England backward, nationalistic and patriotic and racist."
Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-39507659
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Could making the Ganges a 'person' save India's holiest river? - BBC News
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2017-04-06
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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A new ruling has the potential to become a game-changer in legally enforcing environmental protection.
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India
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
A court in India has declared the Ganges river a legal "person" in a fresh effort to save it from pollution. Research associate Shyam Krishnakumar explains how the ruling could help preserve the waterway upon which so many depend.
The legal battle to save the Ganges, the lifeline of more than 500 million people across India, has received a fresh boost thanks to a series of rulings by the high court in the north Indian state of Uttarakhand.
First the court declared the Ganges and Yamuna rivers to be legal persons. In a subsequent hearing, it also gave this designation to glaciers, including Gangotri and Yamunotri (where the Ganges and Yamuna originate from), rivers, streams, rivulets, lakes, air, meadows, dales, jungles, forests wetlands, grasslands, springs and waterfalls.
These verdicts represent a shift from a view that sees nature as a resource to one that considers it an entity with fundamental rights. Other non-human entities that have legal personalities in India include companies, temple deities and trusts.
In jurisprudence, nature is considered property with no legal rights. Environmental laws only focus on regulating exploitation. But this is now changing, with calls for the inherent rights of nature to be recognised, both in India and around the world.
The Ganges is seen as sacred by Hindus
In Ecuador, a new constitution mandates that nature has the right to exist, maintain and regenerate. New Zealand recently granted the Whanganui River personhood status, the culmination of a 140-year legal struggle by the Maori people.
Making nature a legal entity means that cases can be brought up directly on its behalf. This has the potential to become a game-changer in legally enforcing environmental protection.
For instance, it may no longer be necessary to prove in court that polluting the Ganges actually harms humans. Contamination on its own could be enough to make the case that it violates the river's "right to life".
In addition to this, in a related order, the court imposed a blanket ban on new mining licenses for four months and has set up a committee to explore the environmental impact of mining in India's mountainous regions. The Uttarakhand state government is planning to challenge the ban in the Supreme Court.
But it is not just mining. The court has also directed the state pollution control board to shut down hotels, industries and ashrams that discharge untreated waste into the river. This is expected to affect over 700 hotels in the tourist areas of Haridwar and Rishikesh alone.
These rulings indicate that the court will strictly monitor polluting of the Ganges. The response of the government, however, is yet to be seen.
The ruling could be a powerful tool in the fight to save the Ganges from pollution
It may no longer be required to prove in court that polluting the Ganges actually harms humans
Some aspects of this ruling are still unclear, though. What does a right to life mean for a river or a water body? If it means the right to flow freely, what happens to dams across the Ganges?
Enforceability is another issue. Will this ruling be restricted to only the state of Uttarakhand or will it be extended across India?
The legal guardians appointed are members of the government. Will they have the independence to appeal against governmental actions like unsustainable canal dredging? Can a citizen bring a case representing a water body?
If yes, this can become a powerful legal tool in the hands of communities and activists to safeguard the environment.
While radically new from a legal perspective, the case has also been about recognising the traditional Hindu view that regards the universe as a manifestation of the divine.
This means that rivers, plants, animals and even the earth are considered sentient divinities with particular forms, qualities and characteristics.
Millions of people across India depend on the Ganges for their livelihoods
Hindus come from across India to bathe in the waters of the Ganges
Personification as a deity cultivates empathy and creates a strong emotional bond with the ecosystem, leading to social norms emphasising conservation. This principle of sacredness and respect has been passed down through the generations through stories and local bio-cultural traditions.
In Hinduism, the Ganges is revered as a goddess who purifies a person of all sins. The river is worshipped as "Ganga Mata", the divine mother who has sustained life and nurtured civilisation for thousands of years.
Expressions of her worship include the Ganga Aarti, where thousands offer lit lamps to the river every evening, and the Kumbh Mela, a pilgrimage of over 100 million people.
Can this view that considers rivers, trees and animals sacred, personifies them as deities and reveres them through bio-cultural traditions hold possibilities for sustainability in India? Evidence seems to suggest so.
The most famous case is the "Chipko" movement of the 1970s where tribal women hugged trees to prevent the felling of their sacred groves.
And recently, the north-eastern state of Sikkim became India's first fully organic state in just 10 years, as people saw organic farming as taking their traditional way forward.
In the case of the Ganges, the organisers of the Ganga Aarti use the occasion to raise awareness about actions that pollute the river and administer a pledge to keep it clean to thousands every day.
When environmental conservation is seen to be in alignment with the cultural context, it drives community involvement. The High Court's judgement is a welcome step in that direction.
Shyam Krishnakumar is a Research Associate with Vision India Foundation and a member of Anaadi Foundation. His work focuses on civilisational studies.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-39488527
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Two visions for the future of media - BBC News
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2017-04-06
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Paying customers are a more reliable source of income for journalists than rich donors
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Entertainment & Arts
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A multi-billionaire donates $100m to investigative journalism and hacks everywhere ask "where do I apply?".
Is this what the future of media looks like?
I hope not. As modern entrepreneurs go, Pierre Omidyar is among the most innovative and successful. With a net worth, according to Forbes, of just over $8bn (£6.3bn), the founder of eBay and First Look Media has used his Omidyar Network to plough huge sums into philanthropy. At the Skoll World Forum in Oxford this week, he said his latest pledge would be distributed over three years, with the aim of fighting the "root causes of the global trust deficit".
Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar donating to fight the "root causes of the global trust deficit"
He went on: "A free and independent media is key to providing trusted information and critical checks and balances on those in positions of power".
The first $4.5m (£3.6m) will go to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which produced the revelatory Panama Papers in 2016.
This is hugely admirable. I wish I had made $8bn, so that I could put one pound in every 80 of my fortune toward uncovering great scoops. And, together with a couple of other developments this week, it shows who is making the running in modern news: Very rich tech industrialists.
On Monday, Facebook announced the launch of the News Integrity Initiative, a $14m project to improve news literacy around the world. This afternoon, Adam Mosseri, Facebook's Vice-President for News Feed, also announced the launch of a new educational tool to help users spot fake news.
And Full Fact, the British fact-checking organisation, is re-publishing its top tips for spotting fake news. These will appear in users' news feeds tomorrow and over the weekend.
All this follows a raft of measures in recent months to show that the social media giant - and specifically its founder, Mark Zuckerberg - take the spread of misinformation online very seriously.
But look more closely at that News Integrity Initiative: It's a collaboration with other international partners, including the Craig Newmark Philanthropic Fund, the Ford Foundation, John S and James L Knight Foundation, and Tow Foundation. That's a lot of charities right there.
In other words, the two biggest announcements in the world of media this week - involving the long-term funding of investigative journalism, and the attempt to protect citizens from the ill-effects of fake news - both stem from charity.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: joining with other charities to improve news literacy around the world
Journalism has always depended on charity. In fact, it has always relied on the whims, fancies and vanity of rich men (it has tended to be men) in particular, who are prepared to lose huge sums of money in return for political and commercial influence. Sometimes they are prepared to lose huge sums of money because they believe deeply in the intrinsic value of journalism, but this is rare.
So, in a sense, the likes of Omidyar and Zuckerberg putting up cash to create a more informed citizenry is nothing new: They're just a digital update of the press barons of the past.
Except for the context, that is. Today, the business model for sustaining high-quality journalism has been undermined by the internet, which has turned general news into a widely available commodity. Consequently, there is a real danger that journalism becomes ever more dependent on charity, especially from the very rich.
But charity is a poor basis for high-quality journalism, because it cannot be relied upon. The whim of donors might be fragile; and excessive dependence on the favour of individuals can leave you exposed. One virtue of The Guardian's current business model, in which it asks digital readers for donations, is that it will help create a broad base of supporters who can be tapped up regularly. (Whether these contributions can meaningfully contribute to eradicating losses currently in the tens of millions of pounds is a more open question).
The news that Omidyar is giving so generously to support journalism is, then, both welcome and a warning. Welcome, because $100m going into scrutiny of the rich and powerful is a great service to democracy. But a warning, because Omidyar knows that his $100m is especially welcome specifically because conventional sources of funding for investigative journalism - that is, paying readers, viewers and listeners - are thought to be in short supply.
In a February blog post, I argued that recent evidence suggests many readers are willing to pay for quality, as shown by the growing circulations of The Spectator, New Statesman, and Private Eye.
Fresh evidence arrived this week, in the shape of the Financial Times' annual results. Across digital and print, the pink'un has a circulation that's nudging 850,000. That's up eight per cent year on year. Digital subscriptions - that is, people paying for journalism online, across multiple platforms - accounts for 650,000 of the total: more than three quarters, and up 14 per cent year on year.
The FT has three big advantages over some of its rivals. First, it is both a specialist and general publication, because it has financial information that some companies prize. And, of course, one viable future for journalism is specialism: Just think of all those guest publications in the final round of Have I Got News For You.
Second, it has a clientele who are generally wealthier than those of, say, most tabloids. And third, a combination of these two factors mean many of their customers can get their companies to pay for those subscriptions.
Nevertheless, it has deployed these advantages effectively. You can't argue with the success of Chief Executive John Ridding's strategy of the "march to a million" - the aim to get to a million subscribers by 2020.
John Ridding, chief executive officer of the Financial Times, is on a "march to a million"
Years ago, I made - and comprehensively lost - an internal argument at The Independent that that paper (which I was not yet Editor of) should go radically upmarket, and become a kind of white FT that had the confidence to charge.
My thinking was that profit is the ultimate and best guarantee of independence; that if you're reliant on advertising alone, your ultimate fidelity is to advertisers rather than readers; and that being paid by your readers has the double advantage of reducing your exposure to the ad market and deepening your relationship with the audience.
There's not much I've seen in the past few years to persuade me that's wrong. We know that The Economist believes print display advertising will completely disappear in the next few years. Media organisations wholly or solely dependent on advertising will find they are susceptible to the vagaries of an ad market which is anyway being gobbled up by Facebook and Google; and their editorial values under pressure from the need to drive traffic.
Of course, you might argue all this is easy for me to say, writing as I am in the offices of a licence-fee funded public broadcaster. That's another model for funding journalism, the long-term viability of which is a subject for another day.
For students with ambitions to enter journalism, this week provided two visions of what the future of this trade looks like: Dependence on charity, and dependence on committed customers, also known as viable business.
For all that Omidyar's largesse is to be applauded, the latter is a much safer bet.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-39516779
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Jesse Lingard: Man Utd midfielder signs new Old Trafford deal - BBC Sport
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2017-04-06
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Manchester United midfielder Jesse Lingard signs a new deal at Old Trafford that could earn him £100,000 a week.
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Last updated on .From the section Football
Manchester United midfielder Jesse Lingard has signed a new contract at Old Trafford that could earn him £100,000 a week.
The 24-year-old England international is now committed to the Premier League club until 2021 and there is the option to extend the deal by a further year.
Lingard has made 70 appearances for United, who he joined as a seven-year-old, and won four caps for his country.
"Manchester United has always been a big part of my life," said Lingard.
"I feel great pride every time I pull the shirt on."
Lingard holds the rare distinction of scoring in three successive games for his club at Wembley.
After netting the winner in last season's FA Cup final, Lingard also scored against Leicester in the Community Shield and Southampton as United won the EFL Cup in February.
"To have scored in two cup finals for my boyhood club were immensely proud moments for me and my family," he added.
"As a team, we have already won a major trophy this season and I look forward to helping us win many more under this great manager."
United boss Jose Mourinho said: "Jesse is a popular member of the squad and I am delighted he has signed a new contract.
"He has good intelligence which, when combined with his energy and ability, makes for a player with a great future ahead of him."
Lingard had spells on loan at Leicester, Birmingham and Brighton before he was given his first-team debut by Mourinho's predecessor Louis van Gaal against Swansea in the opening game of the 2014-15 season.
This season he has played 29 times, scoring five goals.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39518118
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Grand National 2017: Katie Walsh fit for Aintree race despite fall - BBC Sport
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2017-04-06
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Top female jockey Katie Walsh is passed fit for Saturday's Grand National despite injuring her arm in a fall at Aintree on Thursday.
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Last updated on .From the section Horse Racing
Coverage: Build-up and live commentary on BBC Radio 5 live from 13:00, with text updates and pinstickers' guide on the BBC Sport website and app.
Top female jockey Katie Walsh has been passed fit to ride in Saturday's Grand National despite injuring her arm in a fall at Aintree on Thursday.
The 32-year-old fell at The Chair on Distime in the Foxhunters' Chase and was taken to hospital by ambulance.
Early reports suggested she would miss the ride on 33-1 shot Wonderful Charm because of a broken arm.
But later on Thursday, Walsh posted on social media: "All X-rays clear. Just a bit of bruising. Roll on Saturday."
"I am raring to go. It's great to be here," she told BBC Radio 5 live on Saturday morning.
"Wonderful Charm does his work late on in a race, which will suit him well here and I think the ground might suit him."
Walsh finished third on Seabass in 2012, the highest Grand National finish by a female jockey.
Her elder brother Ruby, who has won the Grand National twice, has missed four of the past seven runnings of the race because of injury.
Meanwhile, Daryl Jacob, who suffered a fall in Friday's Topham Chase, is also clear to ride in the National and will partner Ucello Conti for Gordon Elliott.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/horse-racing/39520254
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Late drama keeps Spurs in touch with Chelsea and Hull on track for survival - BBC Sport
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2017-04-06
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Wednesday's Premier League results left the title race unaltered - but the final scores were only half the story, says chief football writer Phil McNulty.
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Chelsea's win over Manchester City and Tottenham's triumph at Swansea meant it was 'as you were' at the top of the Premier League - but the story behind the scorelines was one of pulsating drama.
It was a night of fluctuation at either end of the table, with fortunes swinging back and forth as the season enters the finishing straight.
Exhausted Conte reflects on job well done
Italian Antonio Conte has an image as one of the Premier League's most animated managers, stalking the touchline constantly and even swinging from the dug-out in celebration when Gary Cahill scored a late Chelsea winner at Stoke recently.
He was in more subdued mood during and after the 2-1 win that gave them the league double over Pep Guardiola's side and maintained their seven-point advantage over Spurs in second - although he gave his familiar joyous response to all four sides of Stamford Bridge at the final whistle.
Conte admitted: "My look is tired because I feel like I played it with my players tonight. I suffered with them. But we must be pleased because we beat a strong team - the best team in the league.
"I think they have a great coach - the best in the world. To win this type of game at the end of the season is great."
It restored Chelsea's equilibrium after the surprise home loss to Crystal Palace and brought calm back to a tense Stamford Bridge.
But while Conte was able to rest after this crucial win, events elsewhere mean he and his players cannot relax too much, despite that seven-point cushion with only eight games to go.
When Spurs trailed late in the game at Swansea to Wayne Routledge's early goal, while Chelsea led Manchester City, the gap between the top two was a potential 10 points, and the old insults were being prepared for manager Mauricio Pochettino and his players.
'Spursy' is a label that has often been attached to Tottenham's capacity to come up short, never more so than last season when they finished third in what had effectively been a two-horse race to the title with eventual champions Leicester. On the final day, they lost 5-1 at relegated Newcastle, insult added to injury as bitter rivals Arsenal beat Aston Villa to finish second.
Were Spurs going to falter again, pushing the door ajar on Saturday by beating Burnley while Chelsea lost to Palace, only to slam it shut in their own face in south Wales?
They answered those charges with a brilliant finishing surge at the Liberty Stadium - turning a 1-0 deficit into a stunning triumph with goals from Dele Alli, Son Heung-min and Christian Eriksen.
Spurs are no longer 'Spursy', irrespective of where they finish this season. This is a side and a squad laced with quality and depth, and made of stern stuff - this was another crucial win secured without injured top-scorer Harry Kane.
Two tough away assignments at Turf Moor and struggling Swansea have yielded six points and the statistics speak to both their ability and their durability.
Spurs have won 29 points in 2017 - more than any other Premier League club. They have won nine, drawn two and lost one of their 12 league games.
They have also won 17 points from losing positions, more than any other side, and under Pochettino have won 53 points from losing positions - more than any other side in that time.
Spurs remain outsiders to pip Chelsea but this is a team that will keep Conte and his Blues players just glancing over their shoulder and on their mettle. Pochettino has learned the lesson of last term, when his side ran out of steam. They are looking to last the distance.
Liverpool's season has been summed up in the past five days. Impressive in beating in-form neighbours Everton 3-1 in the Merseyside derby on Saturday then slipping up against so-called lesser opposition as they conceded a late equaliser to draw 2-2 with Bournemouth at Anfield on Wednesday.
Klopp's side have done the double over Arsenal and Everton, drawn twice with Manchester United, and won and drawn against Manchester City, Chelsea and Spurs. It is a hugely impressive record.
Set this against their past six defeats, which all came against teams in the bottom half of the table at kick-off. Liverpool have lost to Burnley, Bournemouth, Swansea, Hull and Leicester this season - even doomed Sunderland held them to a 2-2 draw at the Stadium Of Light.
The loss of top scorer Sadio Mane to injury is also ominous. Liverpool have won only two points in four Premier League games without the Senegal striker this season.
Liverpool remain third but they were victims of their own carelessness and the Spurs' revival at Swansea. If they had held out for another three minutes they would have been only three points behind them - while at one point it looked like results might even have had them level with the second-placed side.
Now their position looks markedly more perilous. They are two points ahead of fourth-placed Manchester City, who have a game in hand, and six points ahead of Arsenal and Manchester United, who both have two games in hand.
Liverpool have two away games coming up at Stoke and West Bromwich Albion - and Klopp has problems to address.
Marco Silva's appointment was questioned when he succeeded Mike Phelan at Hull City in January. Those doubts seemed a long way away as the Portuguese guided them out of the Premier League's bottom three for the first time since October.
The 4-2 victory over Middlesbrough not only provided the Tigers with another vital three points after the win over West Ham at the weekend, it also inflicted a heavy blow on a relegation rival, leaving the Teessiders seven points behind Silva's side, albeit with a game in hand.
Silva has shown a sure touch at home, with five wins and 16 points out of 18, but also a priceless ability to take misfits and give them back their belief.
Oumar Niasse was a laughing stock at Everton, a striker not even given a first-team locker by manager Ronald Koeman and exiled to the under-23s - where, it should be said, his attitude was widely praised - after a miserable time following his £13.5m move from Lokomotiv Moscow in February.
He did not score a goal for Everton and yet he was on the mark for Hull for the fifth time against Middlesbrough and is displaying glimpses of a quality that were never on show at Goodison Park.
And on Wednesday, there was a goal for another on-loan forward, Lazar Markovic, who has been on his travels after struggling at Liverpool following a £20m move from Benfica in 2014.
The Serb had a loan deal with Sporting Lisbon cancelled this season before arriving at Hull and also had an unfulfilling spell at Fenerbahce last season, but Silva has shown faith.
The Portuguese also seems to have built a side with backbone, the Tigers coming from behind twice for the crucial wins against the Hammers and Boro.
The 39-year-old is under contract until the end of the season and his reputation is growing by the week. It will be an impressive addition to his CV if he can navigate a route to safety after taking over when his new charges were propping up the Premier League table.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39506385
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The jockey who raced again after reading his own obituary - BBC News
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2017-04-06
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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When jockey Declan Murphy suffered a disastrous fall, his death was reported in the Racing Post. But 18 months later he raced again - and won.
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Magazine
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When National Hunt jockey Declan Murphy suffered a disastrous fall at Haydock Park in 1994, after winning all the major races that season, the Racing Post published his obituary. But as he explains here, a furious determination got him back in the saddle.
I was probably four when I sat on my first pony. Where I was brought up, in a little village in County Limerick, we had access to ponies the same way as kids in other countries have access to bicycles.
I learned to ride bareback and when you fell off nobody picked you up. You had to be courageous. I remember trying a saddle for the first time thinking, "Why do people use these?" It didn't seem natural.
I'd been a leading amateur jockey, but I'd never really wanted to be a professional, the only thing I'd ever wanted to be was a lawyer. I used to read the Jenny Bannister American Diary - about the lives of Irish people who had emigrated to America - in the Irish Independent every Thursday morning before going to school, and I was convinced that that's where I would be as soon as I had graduated.
In fact I did go to study law at the University of California. I was going to become a criminal lawyer and I had this idea in my head that I was going to put everything right in America.
But then I was invited to England to ride for a famous horse trainer called Barney Curley. He was a gambler and had trained to be a Jesuit priest. The man intrigued me. If he had sold carrots I would probably have gone and sold carrots for him, I was that intrigued by him. It was Barney Curley that introduced me to professional racing.
The greatest sensation one can ever get on horseback is to achieve a perfect rhythm with your horse's stride pattern - you're actually at one with half a ton of horse flesh, galloping at 35, 40mph. You get a sense of adrenaline at that speed, calculating the pace exactly to get the horse to finish the race at his strongest. By the end you are completely drained emotionally but you have this feeling of elation - a feeling that carries you, it lifts you.
On that fateful day I was riding the favourite, Arcot, in the last big race of the season. It had been a fantastic year, I had ridden 60 winners.
When Arcot jumped the second last hurdle I was in position to win the race, but suddenly things started to unfold.
Listen to Declan Murphy talking to Outlook on the BBC World Service at 12:06 on Thursday 6 April, or catch up afterwards on the BBC iPlayer
About 200m before the final hurdle I sensed that my horse did not have the energy within him to sustain the stride pattern that he was on.
I made a tactical assessment that I needed to shorten his stride to clear the last jump. I had calculated everything in my mind perfectly, but in a moment of madness the horse took off a stride too soon. His pelvis cracked with the hyperextension and he crashed on the hurdle.
Propelled forward by the momentum of his stride pattern, my head collided with his head, knocking me unconscious before I hit the ground. Another horse, galloping up from behind, had no way to avoid me - the jockey did everything he could. They managed to avoid my stricken horse and tried to jump over me, but the horse landed on my head.
Declan Murphy falls from his horse at the Swinton Hurdle, Haydock Park, in 1994
My mother had never wanted me to ride horses, but my father loved it and was terribly proud of all my achievements. Both of them were at home watching on TV. Joanna, my girlfriend, was watching on TV too. She had seen me fall many times before and you knew everything was OK when the commentator, Sir Peter O'Sullevan, would say, "And Declan Murphy is up on his feet now."
But the broadcast that day ended with Peter O'Sullevan saying, "We have no news of Declan Murphy. We will bring it to you when we have it."
I was put on a life support machine at Warrington Hospital then taken by ambulance with a police escort to the Walton Centre of Neurology in Liverpool. When Joanna arrived she had to wrestle her way through the paparazzi.
The surgeon who had operated on me told her that I had had a very major trauma to the brain and that there was a chance that I wouldn't survive the next three hours. If I did live for those three hours, I had a 50/50 chance of surviving for the six hours after that, he said. And if I did live after those six hours I would probably be very badly brain damaged.
When they drew back the curtain she says the person she looked at on the bed wasn't me. My head was huge, distended, my eyes were black as soot.
Joanna was told to talk to me to try to get some kind of reaction from me, but there was no reaction.
The doctors came and told her they were going to try to take me off the life support machine, they called it a "sink or swim trial".
Joanna asked them, "What happens if he sinks?"
The first time that they took me off the life support machine she said it was horrific - everybody was shouting at me, trying to get a response out of me, and with a gasp I opened my mouth but I could not breathe, I couldn't get any air. Joanna thought I had died. She says she still has nightmares about it today.
They tried to revive me on three occasions and failed every time. After the third attempt the doctors said, "We think it's time to switch off the life support machine."
At that point the hospital stopped issuing press bulletins about me and the newspapers took that as a sign that I'd died.
My eldest sister, Geraldine, decided it was a parent's prerogative if my life support was to be switched off, but at that moment, my father declared a morbid fear of flying and decided that he and my mother would have to come from Ireland by boat.
So the decision about whether to turn off my life support or not, which could have been made in three hours had they flown, was now not reached for 10 hours since they were coming by sea.
I was 28 when I had my accident, but when I woke up from my coma I was mentally 12 years old.
I was very unwell. I couldn't walk, I couldn't eat. I was paralysed, tubed-up on a hospital bed. I couldn't do anything.
The surgeons came and asked me questions like, "Who is the taoiseach?"
"Jack Lynch," I answered, because he had been when I was 12. The doctors scratched their heads and walked away thinking something wasn't quite right.
There were many moments that I thought, "I'm not going to make it," but I had this way of fooling my mind by doing everything in little increments. If I could walk 10 yards with sticks or with someone holding me today, tomorrow I'd walk 12.
Declan, visiting a racecourse for the first time since his fall, meets Pony Peter at Cheltenham in November 1994
Belief is self-fulfilling, the more you believe that you can do something, the more you give of yourself to achieve that.
Joanna and I had been in love before the accident, we'd been together for five years. But when they cut open my brain to operate they'd torn out the pages of our love story, and when I woke from my coma I couldn't remember parts of my life - there is a period of four years, six months and four days that is still missing. And I couldn't remember that part of myself.
In my head I was 12 years old and Joanna was like a sister to me, not a lover. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with in my life, to own up to that and walk away.
For quite a long time after my accident people always referred to me in the past tense. "You were so great, you were so good at riding horses, you were so stylish, you were so eloquent."
That really, really disturbed me, because I wanted to be a "now".
There's a very thin line between sanity and insanity, and I walked along it, I ran along it, I danced along it. I tilted to the other side on many occasions. I was losing control of my own mind, and without something to focus on I think would have ended up being taken away by men in white coats.
So in my head I decided I wanted to ride again.
When I first sat on a horse after my accident it was a surreal experience. I just sat on the horse - just to feel its body underneath me, to feel its breath, to feel its muscles, to feel everything about the horse.
The first time I ever had a gallop on a horse after my accident I got off that horse and I walked along next to him, with him nuzzling his head in to my shoulder. I could hear those two sounds, his hoof beat and my heart beat.
And that's when I decided I was going to make a comeback.
Declan Murphy on the scales before his comeback race, at Chepstow, in October 1995
When I rode at Chepstow that first time I thought: "I have to do this, I have to prove myself."
I wanted to win and fortunately I rode a good race and I did win.
For the first time since I'd come out of my coma I felt the burden of expectation had been unleashed. I had nothing to prove to anybody any more, least of all to myself. I had that final endorsement that I could still do everything I had ever done. I had placed my flag on my mountain.
When Prof John Miles was interviewed for my book, Centaur, he said that the level of risk that I took in just getting on a horse again was monumental, because had I had any kind of fall, any kind of incident, I would not have survived.
People were amazed that I could get back on a horse and that I could win. And they were surprised that I could then walk away from it as if it had never happened and just get on with my life.
I'm married now and I have a seven-year-old daughter, Sienna. I see my youth in her. I feel very fortunate, having been through what I have but having been able to rebuild my life and reach a state of contentment. That touches my heart.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-39507939
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Reality Check: Do Labour's sums add up on free school meals? - BBC News
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2017-04-06
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn says charging VAT on private school fees could fund free school meals in England.
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Education & Family
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The claim: The Independent Schools Council says Labour's plan to fund free school meals for all primary school children in England by charging VAT on private school fees doesn't add up financially.
Reality Check verdict: Unless increased fees led to large numbers of children switching from private to state schools, there's no reason Labour's plans would not work financially.
Jeremy Corbyn says Labour would provide a free school meal for every primary school child in England, which he would fund by charging VAT on private school fees.
The Independent Schools Council (ISC), which represents private schools, says Mr Corbyn's sums don't add up.
At the moment, every primary school child up to about the age of seven - Year 2 - automatically gets a free lunch at school.
After this point, eligibility depends on whether families receive certain benefits. About 15% of primary school children in Years 3-6 currently receive a free school meal.
Think tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimated in 2012 that the total cost of providing free school meals to all primary school pupils in England would be an extra £1bn per year. Since 2012, inflation will have increased that figure.
But using figures from 2015-16, Mr Corbyn has a slightly lower estimate of £900m. The calculation assumes that not every child would take up their free lunch.
About 7% of English school children attend private schools. The Independent Schools Council represents about 80% of all the private schools across the UK. In England, their 1,217 schools educate 474,687 children. The average annual fee across the UK, as listed by schools, is £16,119.
That would equate to a total fee income in England of £7.65bn a year. Add 20% VAT and you raise a sum of about £1.53bn - much more than the IFS's estimate for the cost of the policy.
That assumes that all pupils pay a full fee. The ISC says a third of pupils at its member schools are on reduced fees. That help is worth about £850m a year across the UK, reducing the total fee income and thus the VAT take.
Another potential reduction might be if non-UK resident parents are able to claim back VAT. Visitors to the UK can claim back VAT on certain goods and services and it's unclear whether school fees would be included in this list.
But the ISC doesn't represent all schools - the total number of privately educated pupils in England is about 570,000. That's more potential VAT take.
However, raising tax also creates behaviour change - with an increased cost some parents would no longer send their child to a private school.
It's difficult at the moment to quantify how big this effect might be. But as shown above, Labour have left themselves a large leeway.
If there was a large exodus from private to state schools, the plan would become less viable.
An ISC spokeswoman says: "A third of pupils at our schools are on reduced fees and are from families where both parents work hard to pay the fees. If this measure was introduced smaller independent schools might close, driving more children back to be funded in the state system."
The tax take would drop with each pupil leaving the private system. There would also be additional financial pressure on state school budgets from having to accommodate extra pupils.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-39518380
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Carl Forster: Whitehaven coach, 24, plotting Challenge Cup upset against Halifax - BBC Sport
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2017-04-06
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Whitehaven's Carl Forster, one of British sport's youngest professional head coaches, hopes to make his mark in the Challenge Cup.
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One of British sport's youngest professional head coaches is hoping to make his mark in rugby league's oldest cup competition.
At 24, Carl Forster has only been playing as a professional for seven years, but he was given the job as head coach when Whitehaven were relegated to England's third tier in 2016.
And now he is hoping to draw on the fountain of youth when his League 1 side aim to cause an upset against Championship team Halifax in the fifth round of the Challenge Cup.
The tie, to be played at Whitehaven's Recreation Ground, has been chosen to be streamed live on the BBC Sport website on Sunday, 23 April (15:00 BST).
It is part of a commitment by BBC Get Inspired to, in the early rounds, put the focus on clubs who do not often get the chance to share the limelight with some of the game's giants.
"We can't wait for this tie," said former Salford and St Helens prop Forster. "It'll be a real chance to see how far we have come in the last few months."
Whitehaven turned heads when they appointed Forster as player-coach after last season's relegation campaign.
He is one of the youngest players in his own squad.
But the Cumbrian side have a strong start in 2017, beating Oxford in round four and South Wales in the league, while they also pushed high-flying Toronto Wolfpack close in their most recent league outing.
Forster continued: "My age has created a bit of publicity. There are a lot of people talking about it. But for me it's not an issue. Nobody within our group talks about it.
"The job has been good. It's come with its struggles, especially in pre-season. But as soon as the competitive games have started, it's been going well."
Now Forster's aim is to add to the collection of magical Challenge Cup memories that began with the 2002 final when he was just nine years old.
"My first memory was, as a St Helens fan, watching us in the final at Murrayfield when we got beaten by Wigan," he said.
"Then I was at the first game back at the new Wembley in 2007 when James Roby scored the first try there.
"Later I was in a St Helens squad that had a good cup run, playing in the early rounds. But now I'm just concentrating on doing a good job here."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/39519133
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Luke Shaw: Manchester United defender concerns Phil Neville - BBC Sport
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2017-04-06
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Ex-Manchester United defender Phil Neville says there is "something fundamentally wrong" to force boss Jose Mourinho to criticise Luke Shaw.
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Ex-Manchester United defender Phil Neville believes there is "something fundamentally wrong" with Luke Shaw that has forced manager Jose Mourinho to publicly criticise him.
BBC pundit Neville scouted Shaw for United when he was at Southampton, believing the full-back, 21, would become a star at Old Trafford.
But the £27m signing has played only three times since the end of November.
The England player says he will "fight to the last second" to prove himself.
Shaw came off the bench in Tuesday's Premier League 1-1 draw with Everton and won the late penalty that salvaged a point for the home side.
• None Neville: Fergie would have given Shaw 'full barrels'
Mourinho, who had criticised the player's commitment and focus earlier in the week, did praise him - but also commented on his lack of "a football brain", adding: "I was making every decision for him."
Neville told BBC Radio 5 live: "When Luke Shaw signed for Manchester United I was probably involved in the process of scouting him and recommending him as a player because I thought he would be a Manchester United left-back for the next 10 years. You would think he would be a sensational player, but he just hasn't done it.
"I know he's suffered an injury but there must be something fundamentally wrong if the manager is questioning your attitude, training performances, desire. That from a 21-year-old with the world at your feet, you think maybe this is the last throw of the dice from Jose to try and get something out of Luke Shaw that he knows is in there."
Neville said his Old Trafford boss Sir Alex Ferguson "would have probably dealt with it in a similar way to Jose" though "probably not as much publicly".
He added: "Behind the scenes he [Ferguson] would have been giving him the full barrels and leaving him in no doubt that if you don't meet those standards, go and play for somebody else."
"Jose's probably tried this behind closed doors and this is the last throw of the dice. To speak poorly about one of his own players, he must be absolutely at his wits end."
'I love this club and will give everything to be here'
Full-back Shaw, meanwhile, is determined to meet the challenge of becoming a United player.
"I will fight to the last second because I want to be here for the club," he said.
Shaw met Mourinho on Monday morning to clarify his position.
It is not known what was said but the defender feels he still has a future at Old Trafford.
"I am keeping my head up," he said. "I love this club and will give everything to be here.
"I am going through a phase where everything is sort of going against me. But I want this so badly. I want to prove everyone wrong.
"The stuff that has been going on is hard for me to take because deep down that is not me as a person."
'Eight new signings and a Jose team'
Neville feels Mourinho has similarly given plenty of chances to his squad, who lie sixth in the Premier League table, four points and two places behind Manchester City who hold the final Champions League qualifying spot.
They could still qualify for the lucrative Champions League by winning the Europa League.
Neville, who spent a decade at United as a player, said many members of the squad seemed nervous at home, which had played a part in them drawing nine games at Old Trafford.
"If anything goes drastically wrong and they are knocked out of the Europa League or struggle to qualify in the top four, I think Jose Mourinho will make major changes," added Neville.
"He's given this team a year now to prove themselves: the Chris Smallings, the Phil Jones, the Marcos Rojos, the Daley Blinds of this world - if they don't perform from now until the end of the season I think you'll see six, seven, maybe eight new signings in the summer and a real Jose Mourinho-type team picked."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39505222
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Fernando Alonso denies claims he could leave McLaren-Honda mid-season - BBC Sport
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2017-04-06
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Fernando Alonso has denies claims he could walk away from McLaren-Honda mid-season if the team's engine troubles continue.
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Two-time world champion Fernando Alonso has rejected claims he could walk away from McLaren-Honda during this season.
Honda's new engine is less powerful and less reliable than last year's and McLaren are struggling towards the back of the field as they go into this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix.
But Alonso said: "I prefer to be here than in a supermarket in my home town."
He said claims from friend and former driver Mark Webber that he could quit mid-season were "definitely not true".
"If one ex-driver is interviewed, there is always one question about Alonso, on the situation, how difficult it is," the 35-year-old Spaniard said.
"Everyone [acts like they are] close to me and it's like I have a depression, and it's not like that.
"In F1, I am delivering at my best, I am more prepared than ever. I perform at my best."
• None What next for McLaren-Honda?
Alonso was on course to earn an unexpected point for 10th place last month in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix after what he said was "one of the best races of my life".
He held off two other cars until damage caused by a broken brake duct forced a late retirement.
"The team is not very competitive now; there's nothing we can do from one day to another," he said.
"At the same time, the team is expecting an extra result from me now, as we did in Australia, when the predictions say we are last.
"If in China they say we are last, hopefully Alonso will be in the points."
However, Alonso said it was "a little bit difficult to understand" how the engine could have "done a step backwards this year".
He added: "We are working very hard for the last couple of months to fight for podiums and victories and if we can't do that we need to change the situation.
"It is what we are asking for. We are here to win and we are not winning so we need to change something."
BBC Sport revealed last month that McLaren had approached Mercedes about the possibility of using their engines in the future.
Alonso said: "I have nothing really to say. I know there is some media speculation about things. I read also the things. But as far as I am concerned there is no news."
Alonso's contract with McLaren runs out this season and there is continuing speculation that he could switch to Mercedes in 2018 to partner Lewis Hamilton, whose team-mate Valtteri Bottas has signed only a one-year deal.
Alonso said: "It is a question for the future. Nothing is ruled out.
"I respect [Hamilton] a lot. We like to compete and beat the best. Same with Michael [Schumacher]. It was fantastic to win titles when Michael was on the track as well, because if not they do not have the same value."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/39512157
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Chelsea 2-1 Manchester City - BBC Sport
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2017-04-06
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Chelsea maintain their seven-point lead at the top of the Premier League table as two Eden Hazard goals see off Manchester City.
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Last updated on .From the section Football
Chelsea maintained a seven-point advantage over Tottenham at the top of the Premier League with a hard-fought victory over Manchester City.
Pep Guardiola suffered league defeats home and away to the same opponents in a single league season for the first time in his managerial career as City are left to fight for a top-four place.
Eden Hazard gave Chelsea a 10th-minute lead when his shot deflected off returning City captain Vincent Kompany past keeper Willy Caballero, who should have done better.
Chelsea keeper Thibaut Courtois was also badly at fault when his poor clearance to David Silva set up Sergio Aguero's equaliser after 26 minutes - but Chelsea were back in front before half-time.
They were awarded a penalty after Fernandinho tripped Pedro and even though Cabellero saved Hazard's spot-kick, the rebound fell kindly for the Belgian to score.
City, who stay in fourth, had the better chances in a tense second period, with Kompany's header bouncing back off the bar and John Stones shooting over from six yards in injury time. Chelsea, however, held on for a win that was even more vital given Tottenham's dramatic late comeback at Swansea City.
Chelsea's progress towards the Premier League title has been a tale of almost unbroken serenity since manager Antonio Conte reworked his tactical approach after successive losses at home to Liverpool and away to Arsenal in September.
This was arguably their biggest game since as it followed on from the shock home loss to Crystal Palace and it was against a Manchester City side with the talent and capability to make this night at Stamford Bridge a real test of nerve.
And so it proved as City, with Silva the orchestrator supreme, putting Chelsea's defence and their supporters on edge right until the final whistle.
Chelsea emerged triumphant thanks to the mixture of talent and resilience that has served them so well this season and the celebrations at the final whistle reflected just what a significant night this might prove to be.
Hazard provided the flourishes but manager Conte proved his pragmatism with the introduction of Nemanja Matic for Kurt Zouma at the start of the second half to attempt to lock down the win.
It worked to an extent but Chelsea also enjoyed good fortune as Kompany's header bounced back off the bar and Stones somehow scooped an injury-time chance over the top.
In the final reckoning, Chelsea showed the bloody-minded defiance of champions - and this is the sort of result that could earn them that crown.
If this meeting of two of the Premier League's superpowers and two elite coaches was meant to be an enjoyable experience, you would not have known from the body language of Chelsea coach Conte and his Manchester City counterpart Guardiola.
The Catalan, in particular, appears to lead an agonised existence in his technical area. The advocate of the joyous, beautiful game looks as if he is going through torture in almost every match.
He was slapping his thigh and remonstrating with backroom staff within 15 seconds of the kick-off and he was in regular dialogue with fourth official Bobby Madley, with Conte occasionally joining in.
It was, it should be stressed, another frustrating night for Guardiola when his team promised much and ended with nothing - although it concluded with a warm handshake for Conte, who also looked like he had endured a tough night.
Conte, by his standards, was relatively low key but the mask dropped at the final whistle as he pumped his fists in the direction of Chelsea's fans. This was a huge night for the Italian as he did the double over Guardiola.
Manchester City remain the great enigma of the Premier League - looking like they could score every time they attack but liable to concede at any moment.
Guardiola still has a goalkeeper conundrum, with Willy Caballero unconvincing and caught out by a routine deflection from Kompany for Hazard's first goal, while there is an air of permanent frailty at the back.
City's slim title hopes are now over and they must hunt a top-four place, aided by Bournemouth's late equaliser at Liverpool, and the FA Cup.
They must achieve one of both of those targets to stop this season ending unfulfilled before Guardiola tackles those goalkeeping and defensive problems in the summer.
Good for Hazard, not good for Guardiola - the match stats
• None Eden Hazard is the first Chelsea player to score home and away against Man City in the Premier League since Salomon Kalou in 2007-08.
• None Hazard now has 10 Premier League goals at Stamford Bridge this season - more than any other player. This is the second time he's reached double figures at home in the league, after netting 10 there in 2013-14.
• None Sergio Aguero has scored five goals at Stamford Bridge as an away player in the Premier League - the only player with more is Robin van Persie (six), while Craig Bellamy also has five.
• None Pep Guardiola has suffered six league defeats as Manchester City boss this season - his highest tally in a single league season as a manager.
Chelsea manager Antonio Conte told Match of the Day: "My look is tired because I feel like I played it tonight with my players. I suffered with them.
"But we must be pleased because we beat a strong team - the best team in the league. I think they have a great coach - the best in the world. To win this type of game at this time of the season is great."
Man City boss Pep Guardiola told Match of the Day: "It's an honour to have the amazing players I have. We come here to Stamford Bridge and play the way we have, with huge personality. I'm a lucky guy to manage these guys."
Chelsea travel to Bournemouth in Saturday's late kick-off (17:30 BST) while Man City host Hull City at 15:00.
• None N'Golo Kanté (Chelsea) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
• None Attempt missed. John Stones (Manchester City) right footed shot from very close range is too high. Assisted by Vincent Kompany with a headed pass following a corner.
• None Attempt saved. Sergio Agüero (Manchester City) right footed shot from the right side of the six yard box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by Nolito with a through ball.
• None Attempt missed. Gary Cahill (Chelsea) header from the centre of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Willian with a cross following a corner.
• None Vincent Kompany (Manchester City) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
• None Eden Hazard (Chelsea) wins a free kick on the right wing. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39426884
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Six Nations: Condensed tournament would 'meddle with players' health' - BBC Sport
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2017-04-06
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Welsh Rugby Union chairman Gareth Davies says condensing the Six Nations would "meddle with players' health".
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Last updated on .From the section Welsh Rugby
Condensing the Six Nations Championship by a week would "meddle with players' health", says Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) chairman Gareth Davies.
Plans by the Rugby Football Union (RFU) would remove one of the two weeks when games are not played to create space for a new global international season.
If agreed, a six-week tournament would start after the 2019 World Cup.
"To squeeze it into a shorter period is potentially damaging," Davies told BBC Radio Wales Sport.
"Yes they are professional and very well paid but the nature of rugby being such a physical game, I think we are meddling with players' health."
Last week Scottish Rugby Union chief Mark Dodson told BBC Sport that reducing the tournament from seven weeks to six would be a threat to player safety.
The plans for a condensed tournament will be discussed at April's Six Nations review meeting where Ian Ritchie, chief executive of England's RFU, will be lobbying for its implementation.
However, speaking to the BBC earlier this week England fly-half George Ford voiced concerns over a shorter Six Nations, saying it was "important" to have rest weekends.
"If we are looking at the intensity at which these guys play at international level these days, and the way they train in between, it's not just the playing of course," Davies added.
"It's the fact you're condensing the training into a far shorter period and I just can't see any argument for shortening it."
Meanwhile, Davies welcomed the news that an independent review will take place into Wales' controversial 20-18 defeat by France in the Six Nations - a game which lasted for 100 minutes.
France brought Rabah Slimani back on for fellow prop forward Uini Atonio in the 81st minute against Wales.
Wayne Barnes allowed Slimani to return to the field after France's team doctor said Atonio needed a head injury assessment.
Slimani's reappearance, which is to be investigated further, coincided with a series of scrums on the Wales line and France finally won in the 100th minute.
"There were some people who thought this could possibly be brushed under the carpet. To be fair to the executives at the Six Nations and the people who have led on the inquiry, they have come to the conclusion that it should go to a totally independent inquiry to really get to the bottom of what has happened," Davies added.
"Obviously the result of that can't be changed, we understand that but it is important because once we start manipulating the rules as it were, that is a dangerous road to go down.
"Rugby does pride itself on its level of integrity and honesty and I think this was obviously something that has threatened that."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/39520704
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Alastair Cook: Joe Root will take time to get used to England captaincy - BBC Sport
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2017-04-06
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Former England test captain Alastair Cook says his successor Joe Root will take time to get used to England captaincy but will find his way.
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Last updated on .From the section Cricket
Joe Root will take time to get used to the England captaincy because "nothing can prepare you" for the role, says his predecessor Alastair Cook.
Cook resigned as England captain in February, with Root taking over for this summer's home series against South Africa and the West Indies.
"It is a big role, but an exciting one. Joe will find his feet," 32-year-old Cook told BBC Look East on Wednesday.
"He will find his way, it will probably take him a while to get used to it."
Essex batsman Cook led his country to Ashes victories in 2013 and 2015 during a record 59 matches in charge.
He is England's highest run-scorer in Test cricket with 11,057, while his 140 Test appearances and 30 centuries are also England records.
• None Listen: England will be fearful of Aussie attack
"I am looking forward to working with Joe in a different way.
"I think a couple of moments will be slightly strange in that first Test match week but it won't be any different in the long run.
"Hopefully I can help him, and the most important thing is England winning.
"I don't think anything can prepare you for the England captaincy but he will find his feet. He is a very good player, has a very good cricket brain and has got the respect of the dressing room."
Cook has been ruled out of Essex's opening County Championship game against Lancashire on Friday with a hip injury.
But he still holds ambitions of playing under Root during the next Ashes series at the end of the year.
"I have still got a few games left in me. I'm 32 years old but hopefully I can carry on scoring runs for England," said Cook.
"It is a different phase of my career after being captain but I love playing for England. I hope to score enough runs to get on that plane for the Ashes tour."
And last month Root confirmed that having Alastair Cook in the side was integral to both his and the team's future success.
He told BBC Sport: "If I feel I need help he'll be more than willing, but he'll also let me do it my own way."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/39509613
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Jemima Sumgong: 2016 Olympic marathon champion fails drugs test - BBC Sport
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2017-04-06
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Reigning Olympic and London marathon champion Jemima Sumgong is the latest high-profile Kenyan athlete to fail a drugs test.
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Last updated on .From the section Athletics
Reigning Olympic and London marathon champion Jemima Sumgong is the latest Kenyan athlete to fail a drugs test.
The 32-year-old tested positive for banned substance EPO in an out of competition test carried out by athletics' governing body the IAAF.
Sumgong - the first Kenyan woman to win Olympic marathon gold - was due to defend her London title on 23 April.
Kenya was last year declared in breach of anti-doping rules, and athletes underwent special testing for Rio 2016.
The East African country was deemed "non-compliant" by the World Anti-Doping Agency, but was reinstated before last summer's Games.
Between 2011 and 2016, more than 40 Kenyan track-and-field athletes failed doping tests.
Among those sanctioned was female marathon runner Rita Jeptoo, 36, who was banned for four years following a positive test for performance-enhancing drug EPO in 2014.
Sumgong is provisionally suspended, and she will face sanctions if her B-sample also tests positive.
Eunice Kirwa of Bahrain took silver behind Sumgong in Rio, with Ethiopia's world champion Mare Dibaba claiming bronze and another Ethiopian, Tirfi Tsegaye, fourth.
"We can confirm that an anti-doping rule violation case concerning Jemima Sumgong (Kenya) has commenced this week," the IAAF said in a statement.
"The athlete tested positive for EPO (Erythropoietin) following a no-notice test conducted in Kenya.
"This was part of an enhanced IAAF out-of-competition testing programme dedicated to elite marathon runners which is supported by the Abbott World Marathon Majors group."
London Marathon organisers said they were "extremely disappointed" by Sumgong's positive test, adding: "We are determined to make marathon running a safe haven from doping."
In 2015, the Sunday Times claimed the London Marathon had been won seven times in 12 years by athletes who had recorded suspicious blood scores.
That followed details of 12,000 blood test results from 5,000 athletes published by the newspaper, in partnership with German broadcaster ARD.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/39522434
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Masters 2017: Charley Hoffman leads, Lee Westwood & Rory McIlroy in contention - BBC Sport
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2017-04-06
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American Charley Hoffman leads the 2017 Masters at Augusta National on seven under, with Lee Westwood and Rory McIlroy in contention.
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Last updated on .From the section Golf
-7-3-2 -1 Henley (US), Chappell (US), Sullivan (Eng), Fitzpatrick (Eng), Mickelson (US), Rose (Eng), Dufner (US) Garcia (Spa)
Unheralded American Charley Hoffman defied tricky blustery conditions to take a four-shot lead after day one of the 2017 Masters at Augusta National.
Hoffman, 40, sank nine birdies in a seven-under-par 65 to lead from compatriot William McGirt.
Lee Westwood is third on two under, one ahead of fellow Englishmen Justin Rose, Andy Sullivan and Matt Fitzpatrick.
Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy rallied with three late birdies in a 72, while 2015 champion Jordan Spieth carded 75.
England's defending champion Danny Willett started his defence with a double bogey and a bogey before fighting back to finish one over par.
World number one Dustin Johnson pulled out on the first tee after injuring his back when slipping on the stairs at his rental house on Wednesday.
• None How the drama unfolded on day one of the Masters
• None How to follow the Masters on the BBC
Scoring was expected to be tough at Augusta with high winds forecast to become even stronger as the opening day progressed.
And that proved to be the case as it became a distinct possibility that no player would shoot under 70 in the opening round for the first time in 60 years.
But the tricky conditions proved little obstacle for McGirt and, particularly, Hoffman, who were the only players to score in the 60s.
Hoffman has only previously claimed one top-25 finish at a major, tying for ninth at the 2015 Masters, but put together a remarkable round.
The world number 52 closed the front nine with two birdies to move two under, then blitzed the back nine with a five-under 31 which included four straight birdies.
The Californian almost made it five on the last, only to see a 16-foot putt fall agonisingly short.
Nevertheless, his four-shot lead is the biggest first-round advantage at Augusta since 1941.
"The putts started going in the hole - as simple as that sounds," he said.
"I kept hitting my spots and in the wind I ended up getting 20 footers and I got some of them down the stretch."
McGirt, making his Masters debut, became the first player to break 70 with four birdies and a bogey in a three-under 69.
The 37-year-old from South Carolina does not have much previous pedigree in the majors, having missed the cut at the US Open and the Open in 2016 before earning a 10th-place finish at last year's PGA Championship.
"It was pretty darn special. Any time to break 70 here is awesome," said McGirt, who is ranked a place below Hoffman at 53rd in the world.
"The few times I came down here to play in practice the wind direction was the same so this was not new to me today.
"I'm lucky enough to know a few members here and I've spoken to a few caddies and they've been happy to share their knowledge with me."
Defending champion Willett is one of a record 11 English players in the 93-strong field at Augusta, but made a nightmare start to his defence with a double bogey and a bogey in the opening two holes.
Birdies on three and 10, with six successive pars sandwiched in-between, steadied the Yorkshireman's scorecard and a superb eagle on the par-five 13th moved him level par for the first time.
However, a bogey on the 18th pushed him back over par.
"Battling back from three over even if it was flat and calm round this place would have been great," said the world number 17, who has not won a tournament since claiming the Green Jacket.
"We gathered ourselves after probably the worst start we could have wished for. A score of 73 seemed like a good score."
On returning to the scene of his greatest triumph for the first time, he added: "The memories came flooding back. To be anywhere defending a title is incredible but to be here at Augusta National is amazing - at least once in your life, but it would be nice to do it a couple of times."
Willett became the first Englishman to win the Masters in 20 years when he overhauled Spieth 12 months ago, and a number of his compatriots are in close contention as they aim to repeat his feat.
Fitzpatrick, the 22-year-old from Sheffield, led for a short period at three under before a double bogey on the 18th dropped him back into the pack also containing Sullivan and Rose.
Westwood, 43, surged into third place with five straight birdies on the back nine as he continued his search for a first major title.
World number two McIlroy, 27, is aiming to become only the sixth man to win all four majors - at his third time of trying at Augusta.
McIlroy is seeking a first Masters title following victories at the US Open, the Open Championship and the US PGA Championship.
And, after three consecutive top-10 finishes in Georgia, he has made no secret that finally winning the Green Jacket is his main priority.
The Northern Irishman made a scruffy start to his opening round, however, dropping three shots without making a birdie on the front nine.
Gutsy par putts on 10, 11 and 12 prevented him dropping further adrift, setting the platform to haul himself back to level par with three birdies in the final six holes.
"After nine holes if someone had said I would shoot even par I would have ripped their hand off," he said.
Two-time major winner Jordan Spieth is hoping to banish memories of last year's spectacular final-day collapse by winning his second Masters.
The American, 23, led by five shots as he approached the 10th in 2016, only to drop six shots in three holes - including a quadruple bogey seven at the 12th - and allow England's Willett to take advantage.
He was putting together an encouraging first round on Thursday until another quadruple bogey wrecked his card, although at three over par he is still in contention.
Spieth was among the leaders heading into Amen Corner, coming through the tough trio of 11, 12 and 13 unscathed.
He found the green on the iconic par-three 12th to huge cheers, then birdied the par-five 13th to move into a 13-man share of the lead at one under.
"I was relieved to see it down and on the green," he said of his tee shot on 12. "And I guess everybody else felt maybe more than I did on it."
But his opening-day challenge faded quickly as a bogey on the 14th was followed by a nine on the par-five 15th.
Spieth's approach fizzed back off the green into the water and, after taking a penalty drop, he knocked his fifth shot over the back, then hit a poor chip before needing three putts from 30 feet.
"It was nice to make a three at 12 and then four at the next," he added. "I really thought we had it going there and just made a club choice mistake on 15 but we're still in the tournament."
Belgium's Thomas Pieters - considered one of the rising stars on the European Tour - was one of the few players who managed to tame Augusta early on Thursday.
He moved into an early four-shot lead on his Masters debut, rattling in five birdies in his opening 10 holes.
Then, the 25-year-old came unstuck at Amen Corner.
He signed for his first bogey at Augusta by three-putting on the 11th, but worse was soon to follow at the 12th.
Pieters dunked his tee-shot into Rae's Creek - the water hazard guarding the narrow green - before knocking on and needing two putts for a double bogey.
And another double bogey at the last dropped him back to level par alongside McIlroy, Ireland's Shane Lowry, England's Paul Casey and four-time major winner Ernie Els.
"This was a day not to play yourself out of the Masters.
"Today, you couldn't win the tournament but you could lose it.
"All of the players that have battled to around par have kept themselves in it."
Coverage: Watch highlights of the first two days before live and uninterrupted coverage of the weekend's action on BBC Two and up to four live streams available online. Listen on BBC Radio 5 live and BBC Radio 5 live sports extra. Read live text commentary, analysis and social media on the BBC Sport website and the sport app.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/39521794
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Trump Xi meeting: An A-Z of the big issues - BBC News
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2017-04-06
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Trump and Xi meet for the first time – what will they talk about?
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China
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What American and Chinese people want
US President Donald Trump will host his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, for two days of talks in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. From trade to currency to North Korea, a lot is on the table for the leaders of the world's two largest economies. Will they have time for some golf?
As in alpha males. At a fraught moment in history, the world's two biggest economies are led by two macho men about to meet on a blind date. A could also be for the anxiety this unpredictable encounter provokes among policymakers on both sides, especially in a Chinese presidential team which hates surprises.
President Trump has done a lot of rhetorical China bashing. But at this summit the contours of a real US China policy must start to appear. Was all Mr Trump's campaign talk of winning against China just sound and fury signifying nothing or was it a muscular new policy in the making?
President Trump has repeatedly accused China of being a master manipulator of its currency. Many economists say it was once but isn't now. For the past two years China has been selling its reserves to keep the value of its currency up rather than driving it down to boost exports. In Florida, will President Trump call President Xi a currency manipulator to his face or will he pick a different battle?
What will this summit actually deliver? Nearly half the US trade deficit is with China and this week President Trump said again the US "cannot continue to trade if we are going to have an unfair deal like we have right now". But in his lexicon, D is also for difficult. He has warned that the summit with President Xi will be exactly that, which is perhaps a way of managing expectations down towards Ds for disappointment and deterioration. Some pessimists warn that the most this summit can deliver is greater predictability in a stressed and uncertain relationship. Other pessimists say those pessimists are already too optimistic, that this summit is premature because President Trump doesn't even have a China team let alone a coherent China policy. But those pessimists are in the American camp. For China, US incoherence is a source of optimism.
And US employment. President Xi must convince his host that China offers solutions for both if he wants to keep US markets open to Chinese goods.
President Trump is giving President Xi plenty of it by inviting him to his private Florida resort. That's meaningful to a status conscious Chinese audience at home. If Mr Trump can refrain from tarnishing the gift by some unforeseen slight or offence, optimists say he may get a calculated concession on North Korea or trade in return.
Because President Xi disapproves of a game played back home between tycoons and corrupt Communist Party officials. Instead G is for globalisation of which the Chinese president now likes to see himself the champion. Along with efforts to tackle climate change. Expect subtle Chinese allusions to President Trump's retreat from both.
It's supposed to be a gesture of peace and its absence would send the wrong signal, but President Xi has his own version of this ritual and will not want to submit to the much studied Trump grab and yank. Watch for a hybrid handshake.
Ivanka Trump, The soft power weapon of the Trump administration in China. Opinions divide on the father, but the daughter is a source of fascination to many young Chinese, and when relations between the incoming Trump administration and Beijing were at their nadir following the president elect's phone call with the Taiwanese president, it was Ivanka who kept lines of communication open with her attendance at a Chinese new year embassy function in Washington.
Jared Kushner, Ivanka's husband, has also established a good relationship with China's top diplomats in the US. At 36 and with no previous government experience, President Trump's son-in-law has become a key channel of communication between the White House and Beijing. But he's a novice on the most complex bilateral relationship in the world, and until last week his family's real estate business was pursuing a significant investment from a politically connected Chinese company. Those negotiations have now been suspended amid suggestions of a potential conflict of interest, but some observers still worry that he may be vulnerable to China's master negotiators and mistake a short-term gain for long-term US advantage.
The leader of North Korea managed to overshadow a visit to Asia last month by the new US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. On that occasion it was the carefully timed announcement of a new rocket engine. No one is in any doubt that North Korea's bid for nuclear missiles which can reach American soil will loom large over this summit. But to prevent the world's inattention even for a moment, Kim Jong-un test fired a missile on the eve of President Xi's arrival in Florida.
And the lower key presence of the first ladies Melania Trump and Peng Liyuan. As fashion model and folk singer respectively, both were familiar with the limelight long before their famous marriages. It will be interesting to watch the first ladies attempt to engage without upstaging the husbands.
For all President Xi's fine talk of openness and globalisation, the US market is currently open to Chinese goods and services in a way that China's is not. Beijing has repeatedly promised to remove import barriers, and as this is in the interests of China's long term growth, there really ought to be room for progress here.
President Trump will have to avoid shouting, sulking and abuse. Chinese protocol will simply not tolerate it.
The slogans that China likes: "One China" and "One Belt, One Road". The former is the formulation which frames a fragile US-China understanding on how to avoid going to war over Taiwan. The latter is China's massive infrastructure and development initiative for Asia. After initially threatening to re-examine relations with Taiwan, President Trump committed to the "One China Policy" in a phone call with President Xi in February. But there is no fixed US position on "One Belt, One Road" and President Trump is highly unlikely to sign up to President Xi's other favourite slogan the 'new model of great power relations' by which China signals its hopes for an Asian sphere of influence.
The American ghost at the summit feast. The pivot to Asia was the slogan of the first Obama administration eight years ago, a vision of a United States firmly embedded in Asia with the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement underpinning a mesh of American security alliances. In Mr Obama's second term, the pivot to Asia was rebranded the rebalance, but with President Trump's decision to walk away from TPP, both pivot and rebalance are history. Even some US security alliances in Asia are looking less than solid in face of the rise of China and its vigorous cheque book diplomacy. If President Trump wants to hang onto allies like the Philippines and Thailand he urgently needs an Asia policy as well as a China policy. In fact, it's hard to define the latter without the former.
The Trump administration talks tough on China, but when it comes to actually engaging, it is in the same quandary as every previous US administration since the US and China restored diplomatic relations four decades ago - how to exert leverage on Beijing without damaging itself or its allies.
But also for rivalry and risk. In just a few brief hours together over a dinner and a lunch, can the two presidents build enough personal rapport to cut through the strategic rivalry and mistrust which risk the future of the world's most important bilateral relationship?
The South China Sea. President Trump does not want to accept China's audacious island-building and militarisation as a fait accompli but President Xi will certainly not back down to a summit threat. And if the new US president is silent on the subject of the South China Sea, some allies may see it as a signal of willingness to surrender control of these vital waters to Beijing. So what to say about the South China Sea?
And tariffs and Twitter. And also for Thucydides Trap, the theory that a rising power causes fear in an established power which then escalates toward war. Xi Jinping actually discussed the Thucydides trap at the 2015 summit with Barack Obama. On that occasion, there was no agreement on how to avoid it. Most would agree that the rise of the rising power and the fear of the established power have only increased in the interim.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What are the contentious issues around US-China trade?
This week President Trump said the US would solve the problem of a nuclear North Korea on its own if China was unwilling to help. In the first instance, dealing with the problem may mean secondary sanctions on Chinese companies and individuals who trade with North Korea. And as a last resort, it may mean the threat of pre-emptive US military action against Pyongyang. It's a discussion which will get President Xi's full attention but it seems unlikely that he and his host can agree on what constitutes Chinese "help with North Korea" let alone how much of it would be enough.
US presidents often use summits to remind their Chinese communist counterparts of the virtues of democracy, human rights and freedom. But President Trump may choose to remain silent on values.
The new US secretary of state gratified President Xi last month when on a visit to Beijing. He used the Chinese formulation "non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation" to describe US-China ties. President Xi would dearly love to hear President Trump echo this language. Despite all the name calling from Mr Trump over the past year, the Chinese president and his state-controlled media have stuck to mild appeals to reason and common interest in framing the US-China narrative. Vanilla is President Xi's favourite flavour here and if he can persuade President Trump to tweet bland he will call it a triumph.
At home, the Chinese president is in the sensitive run up to a Communist Party Congress at which he wants to install key allies in top positions. The last thing he needs is a trade war with a vital export market, especially as China's economic growth is slowing. A standoff in the South China Sea or on the Korean peninsula would be even worse. President Xi needs his relationship with President Trump to work. And he needs to go home calling this summit a success.
… hmmm… not sure. Any suggestions?
As in zero sum game. If President Trump takes a zero sum attitude towards the US trade balance with China, and if President Xi takes a zero sum attitude towards the US role in Asia then their summitry will swiftly sour and all talk of winners will look hollow.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-39503622
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Reanne Evans: Women's number one two wins away from reaching Crucible - BBC Sport
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2017-04-06
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Women's number one Reanne Evans is two victories away from reaching the World Championship at the Crucible.
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Last updated on .From the section Snooker
Reanne Evans moved to within two wins of becoming the first female competitor to reach the main TV stages at the Crucible with a shock 10-8 victory over Robin Hull in World Championship qualifying.
The 31-year-old has won the Ladies' World Championship a record 11 times, but was beaten in last year's final by Hong Kong's Ng On Yee.
The Dudley-born player, who is the women's world number one, will play world number 91 Lee Walker, of Wales, next.
Having accepted an invitation for qualifying at Pond's Forge in Sheffield, Evans fell 2-0 and 4-2 behind to world number 57 Hull before levelling at 4-4 and edging ahead for the first time at 6-5. She trailed again at 7-6 and 8-7 before wrapping up three frames in a row to progress.
In 2015, Evans faced 1997 world champion Ken Doherty in qualifying, but suffered a narrow 10-8 defeat.
"This is my best win," said Evans. "Robin is an amazing player.
"I felt really good out there. If I had lost I would had felt even more gutted than a couple of years ago against Ken.
"When it went 8-8 I thought 'oh no, not again' but I stuck in well. I felt nervous but I had them under control."
The 2017 World Championship takes place from 15 April until 1 May, with world number one Mark Selby looking to successfully defend his title.
• None See the qualifying draw and results in full
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/snooker/39510641
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Miguel Francis: Great Britain switch will help fulfil my potential - BBC Sport
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2017-04-06
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Miguel Francis says he is more likely to fulfil his potential after switching allegiance from Antigua and Barbuda to Great Britain.
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Last updated on .From the section Athletics
Miguel Francis says he is more likely to fulfil his potential after switching allegiance from Antigua and Barbuda to Great Britain.
The 22-year-old, who ran the seventh fastest 200m of 2016, is eligible for Britain as he was born in Montserrat, an Overseas Territory without its own Olympic team.
"I think I'll be less stressed when in a better environment, where people look after you better," he told BBC Sport.
"I do think I will perform better."
He can compete for Britain immediately.
Francis, who is part of a Jamaica-based training group coached by Glenn Mills and led by 100m and 200m world record holder Usain Bolt, ran a personal best of 19.88 seconds in June. Bolt's record is 19.19, set at the 2009 World Championships.
Adam Gemili, 23, competed for Britain in the 200m at Rio 2016 and finished fourth in the final with a time of 20.12. His personal best is 19.97.
Francis was due to also compete at last summer's Olympics, but had to withdraw with a hamstring injury suffered in training.
He started the process to transfer his allegiance in August - before Rio - but appeared unlikely to see it through after announcing an apparent U-turn in March.
Then he told the Antigua Observer that "things got into my head" and "Antigua is who I want to run for", while admitting the condition of the country's only athletics track was a concern.
Now he insists he is more comfortable representing Britain.
"I'm running for who I am supposed to be running for," he added.
"Before I moved to Antigua my only option was Britain, but then Antigua wanted me to run for them. I ran for them for my career basically."
Francis' family fled Montserrat for Antigua following a volcanic eruption when he was six months old.
His parents have lived in Wolverhampton since 2014 and Francis has visited the area several times.
Zharnel Hughes - born in the British overseas territory of Anguilla - and the United States-born quartet of Tiffany Porter, Cindy Ofili, Shante Little and Montene Speight have all switched allegiance to Britain in recent years.
The switches led to criticism from several other British athletes, including former world indoor 60m champion Richard Kilty.
Three athletes, three years on Miguel Francis failed to make the final of the 200m running for Antigua. Thomas Somers made the final, finishing seventh, but has struggled with injury in recent years. Zharnel Hughes, who switched from Anguilla to Britain in 2015, finished fifth.
How can sportsmen and women qualify for Britain? If you hold a British passport, regardless of where you were born, you are eligible. Tour de France winner Chris Froome - born in Kenya, schooled in South Africa, with a father and grandparents all born in Britain. If you are born and raised overseas, but subsequently move to the UK, with a British parent, as a child. Double Olympic champion Mo Farah - born in Somalia, moved to Britain aged eight to live with his British-born father Mukhtar In football and rugby, having an English, Scottish or Welsh parent or grandparent is enough for governing bodies, regardless of which passport the player holds. When is a Briton not a Briton? Read more in Tom Fordyce's blog from 2013
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/39511744
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GCHQ boss: 'We get crazy theories thrown at us every day' - BBC News
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2017-04-06
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Robert Hannigan, the outgoing head of GCHQ, talks to the BBC about Russia, the attack at Westminster and President Trump.
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UK
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Security correspondent Gordon Corera has had a rare tour of GCHQ
The operations centre sits on one of the upper floors of GCHQ and runs 24/7. At any one time, a team of analysts might be monitoring the kidnap of a British citizen abroad or an ongoing counter-terrorist operation run jointly with MI5.
In one corner, a large globe visualises all the cyber attacks targeting the UK from around the world. The room is a reminder of the range of activity that GCHQ is involved in - as well as its global reach in monitoring communications and data flows.
Russian cyber attacks are high up the agenda, in the wake of claims Moscow interfered in the US election and is trying the same in Europe.
"We have been watching Russian cyber activity since the mid 1990s," GCHQ's outgoing director, Robert Hannigan, tells the BBC.
"The scale has changed. They've invested a lot of money and people in offensive cyber behaviour and critically they've decided to do reckless and interfering things in European countries."
Mr Hannigan says that whilst it is impossible to be absolutely sure, the defences against such attacks seem to have held in the UK.
One of his legacies will be the creation of the National Cyber Security Centre, an arm of GCHQ which is based in London and is much more public facing in providing protective advice to the country about the threats in cyberspace.
Terrorism sits alongside cyber threats on the agenda. So-called Islamic State - or ISIL - has proved adept at exploiting the power of the internet.
The Queen visits the National Cyber Security Centre - part of intelligence agency GCHQ
"It's one of their most important assets. As they are defeated on the ground, the 'online caliphate' will become more important.
"They will continue to try to use the media to crowd-source terrorism to get people around the world to go and commit acts of violence on their behalf...
"There are things we can do to contest ISIL in this media space... but it's not just for governments to do operations online. It's for the companies and for the rest of media and society to have the will to drive this material off the internet..."
When he took over as head of GCHQ in 2014, Mr Hannigan launched what was seen as a broadside against technology companies - arguing they were in denial about the way they were used by terrorist groups to communicate and spread their message.
In the wake of the Westminster attack, the Home Secretary Amber Rudd said that companies should not offer a safe space for terrorists to hide - a reference to the development of end-to-end encryption services which make it impossible to provide the content of communications, even on production of a warrant.
GCHQ, as well as trying to break codes, also works to secure communications and so treads a fine line.
"Encryption matters hugely to the safety of citizens and to the economy.... The home secretary is talking about a particular problem - that this strong encryption is being abused by terrorists and criminals...
"Our best way forward is to sit down with the tech companies..."
Robert Hannigan steps down as GCHQ boss on Friday after nearly three years in the job
The other area of tension with firms has been over extremist content hosted on websites.
Here, government has recently been placing pressure on the companies to be more proactive in taking down content rather than waiting for it to be reported to them.
"I think they have moved a long way [but] there's further to go," Mr Hannigan says.
"When I started the job in 2014 they really were reluctant to accept responsibility for anything they carried on their networks - whether that was terrorism, child sexual exploitation or any other kind of crime."
GCHQ can detect the work of hackers around the globe
The threat from IS has been particularly acute in Europe in the last few years. That has driven increased security co-operation - so will Brexit be a problem?
"I don't think so, because the intelligence-sharing has never been through EU structures and national security has never been part of the European Union's remit.
"It's simply a statement of fact that we have very, very strong intelligence and security and defence capabilities and we bring a lot to Europe and to our European partners..."
The relationship with the US is by far the deepest, which he says will not change under the Trump administration.
"It's the most powerful weapon we have against terrorism in particular and has massively paid dividends in the last 10 years."
In recent weeks, there was controversy after reports claimed the Obama administration asked GCHQ to spy on President-elect Donald Trump.
GCHQ took the unusual step of publicly denying this.
"We get crazy conspiracy theories thrown at us every day," Mr Hannigan says. "We ignore most of them. On this occasion it was so crazy that we felt we should say so and we have said it's a ridiculous suggestion."
A globe in the operations centre visualises the cyber attacks targeting the UK
Deep underground, beneath the grass sit a series of cavernous computer halls. The noise is at points overwhelming.
Much effort goes into cooling the machines. Some of the endless racks contain off-the-shelf server technology but large specialist supercomputers sit alongside which are used by the cryptanalysts for code-breaking.
The exact specifications of these machines and just how much computing power sits in Cheltenham is classified largely to keep other states - primarily the Russians and Chinese - guessing.
"It's impossible to do counterterrorism or cyber security without that kind of power," Mr Hannigan explains, arguing that the challenge remains finding the small needle in the haystack of the massive volume of data on the internet.
Another aspect of Mr Hannigan's legacy will be the push for greater transparency and openness.
"It's very important in a democracy to have the consent of the public as well as the legislation in place and to explain that everything we do is under the law," Mr Hannigan says.
He took over an agency bruised by the Edward Snowden revelations and allegations of "mass surveillance".
"Obviously a debate on privacy and greater transparency are good things - but it was perfectly possible to do that and indeed it was happening anyway without the damage that the Snowden revelations did. The same is true of the WikiLeaks disclosures."
Mr Hannigan says he and the organisation remain optimistic, rather than pessimistic, about the spread of technology.
"Technology and the internet are overwhelmingly brilliant things for human progress," Mr Hannigan says.
"Unfortunately there will always be people who want to abuse the latest technology. And it's our job to deal with that dark side."
Mr Hannigan's successor, Jeremy Fleming, formerly Deputy Director of MI5, takes over on Friday.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39508851
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Aintree 2017: Lizzie Kelly guides Tea For Two to victory - BBC Sport
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2017-04-06
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Lizzie Kelly guides Tea For Two to victory in the Betway Bowl on day one of the Grand National meeting at Aintree.
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Coverage: Build-up and live commentary on BBC Radio 5 live from 13:00, with text updates and pinstickers' guide on the BBC Sport website and app.
Lizzie Kelly guided the 10-1 shot Tea For Two to victory in the Betway Bowl on the opening day of the Grand National meeting at Aintree.
Kelly was unseated at the second fence on the horse in March's Cheltenham Gold Cup, leaving her distraught.
But this time they got the better of last year's winner Cue Card for a second Grade One success.
They pulled alongside Cue Card with three to go and showed good strength to win by a neck after an epic battle.
"I just wanted him to run well and confidently and give me what I feel he is capable of," Kelly told BBC Radio 5 live afterwards.
"I thought the others would come back at me in the final stages so I just wanted to keep my momentum.
"I don't think I'm the nation's favourite person having beaten the nation's favourite horse [Cue Card]."
The 23-year-old also admitted that her truncated Gold Cup experience, where she became the first woman since Linda Sheedy in 1984 to ride in the race, had been "character-building".
"I was just so disappointed because there is such a build-up and then, bam, you are out of it," she added.
"But that's racing. Sometimes you have good days and sometimes you have bad days.
"It's difficult to pick yourself up from being that low but I had to get back into the weighing room and things are forgotten quickly and you are on to the next race. You don't get a chance to dwell on it.
"I'm the only jockey to have ridden Tea for Two in a race so to see him running around Cheltenham without me was unnerving.
"When we got home, he was very subdued and I think it has done him the world of good because he has learned if he doesn't listen to me, things will go wrong."
Kelly shot to fame when she became the first female jockey to win a Grade One jumps race in Britain when she guided Tea for Two - part-owned by her mother Jane and trained by her stepfather Nick Williams - to victory in the Kauto Star Novice Chase at Kempton in December 2015.
"This [the Betway Bowl] means more than winning the Grade One at Kempton on him," she added. "I didn't really appreciate that at the time, but this is special."
Kelly's mother Jane, who does much of the work with the horse, told BBC Radio 5 live that Thursday's race had been an anxious experience.
"I spent three-quarters of the race in the car park trying to hide," she said.
"We had such disappointment at Cheltenham. It's hard when you expect a big run, to come crashing down at the second.
"We scraped ourselves off the floor that day. The horse has been doing a lot of dressage and has been very well."
Of the beaten horses, Cue Card's assistant trainer Joe Tizzard said the horse, who is now 11, will continue in training next year but Paul Nicholls's veteran campaigner Silviniaco Conti who finished sixth, has been retired.
This is notable result anyway, with Tea For Two establishing himself amongst jump racing's elite by defeating Cue Card, no less.
But this thrilling finish - they went head to head from the third last of the 19 fences - was also a really good sporting story.
Twenty days after the tide of hype around his jockey being the first female to ride in the Gold Cup in decades came to a grinding halt on the turf at Cheltenham, the popular pair spectacularly re-discovered their mojo. And they also won on a left-handed track for the first time.
Only eight, Tea For Two is a top-flight contender for the future.
Champion Hurdle winner Buveur D'Air looked impressive as he claimed a third Grade One success with victory in the Betway Aintree Hurdle.
Running for the first time over two-and-a-half miles, the 4-9 shot, ridden by Barry Geraghty and trained by Nicky Henderson, beat stable-mate My Tent Or Yours by five lengths.
It was a third Grade One win for the six-year-old who took the lead from The New One at the second-last and powered on to victory.
"He did that really well, he was obviously back in his Cheltenham form and Nicky has done a great job to get him back so soon," said Geraghty, who missed the Cheltenham Festival because of injury.
What are the highlights on Aintree Ladies Day on Friday?
After finishing second in their respective races at the Cheltenham Festival, both Fox Norton and Sub Lieutenant will hope to go one better in the Melling Chase (15:25 BST).
The Colin Tizzard-trained Fox Norton was beaten narrowly by Special Tiara in the Queen Mother Champion Chase but steps up in trip for the 2m 4f race while Sub Lieutenant, from the Henry de Bromhead yard, was edged out by Un De Sceaux in the Ryanair Chase.
The pair are part of a field of nine for the race and last year's winner God's Own, who saw his Champion Chase hopes disappear with two bad mistakes, will aim for back-to-back wins for trainer Tom George.
Jockeys will get a final chance to experience the Grand National before Saturday's big race in the Topham Chase (16:05).
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/horse-racing/39514802
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Masters 2017: Dustin Johnson suffers fall before Thursday's opening round in Augusta - BBC Sport
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2017-04-06
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Dustin Johnson suffers a lower-back injury following a fall at his rental home before Thursday's opening round of the Masters in Augusta.
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Last updated on .From the section Golf
Coverage: Watch highlights of the first two days before live and uninterrupted coverage of the weekend's action on BBC Two and up to four live streams available online. Listen on BBC Radio 5 live and BBC Radio 5 live sports extra. Read live text commentary, analysis and social media on the BBC Sport website and the sport app.
Pre-tournament favourite Dustin Johnson has suffered a lower-back injury following a fall at his rental home on the eve of Thursday's opening round of the Masters in Augusta.
His agent David Winkle says he still hopes to play tomorrow.
World number one Johnson fell on the stairs on Wednesday and "landed hard on his lower back".
He is said to be uncomfortable but is resting and doctors have advised him to keep the injury stable.
Johnson is due to tee off in the last group at 19:03 BST on Thursday evening.
• None Quiz: Match the Masters winner with his Champions dinner
"Dustin took a serious fall on a staircase in his Augusta rental home," Winkle said in a statement.
"He landed very hard on his lower back and is now resting, although quite uncomfortably.
"He has been advised to remain immobile and begin a regimen of anti-inflammatory medication and icing, with the hope of being able to play tomorrow."
The American, 32, won his third successive tournament when he beat Spain's Jon Rahm in the World Match Play final in late March.
He has won seven of the 17 tournaments he has played since claiming his first major at the US Open at Oakmont in June, racking up another seven top-10 finishes in the process.
There is the adage of "beware the injured golfer" but there is no doubt this is a significant blow for Johnson.
Since winning last year's US Open he has been a commanding presence and built a telling aura.
Now his Masters bid is surrounded by uncertainty. His late tee time may prove a blessing as it gives an extra recovery period but there is no doubt this is a considerable setback.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/39510391
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Queens Park Rangers 1-2 Brighton & Hove Albion - BBC Sport
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2017-04-07
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Brighton beat QPR to return to the top of the Championship with their third win in the space of six days.
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Last updated on .From the section Football
Brighton beat QPR to return to the top of the Championship with their third win in the space of six days.
Glenn Murray's 21st goal of the season broke the deadlock in the second half after he and Tomer Hemed saw first-half finishes disallowed for offside.
Sebastien Pocognoli doubled the Seagulls' lead soon after with a spectacular free-kick.
Matt Smith's header from a corner pulled one back for QPR but Brighton held on to go two points clear.
• None Brighton's win at QPR as it happened
Victory for Brighton - their fifth in their past six games - stretched their advantage over third-placed Huddersfield to 12 points with five games remaining.
The Terriers, who still have seven games to play, are in action at Nottingham Forest on Saturday, while second-placed Newcastle travel to Sheffield Wednesday.
Brighton's first win at Loftus Road in almost 60 years came after a dour first half of few chances.
But, approaching the hour mark, Murray broke the Rangers' offside trap to latch on to Hemed's neat through ball and finish past Alex Smithies.
Left-back Pocognoli, whose last goal was in 2011, then executed a pinpoint free-kick with his left foot which flew in off the crossbar for an unstoppable second.
QPR striker Smith flicked in a header at the near post to make it a nervous last 15 minutes for the visitors.
David Stockdale had parried an earlier effort by Smith from close range and the Brighton goalkeeper had to be alert to prevent his team-mate Steve Sidwell accidentally diverting a Ryan Manning cross into his own net.
"If the league are looking at us wondering if we had a go, then boy oh boy did we have a go. We were absolutely terrific.
"I'm in total admiration. We did everyone else in the league proud by giving everything."
"It's a big win and at this moment every win feels like the biggest one.
"I thought we deserved it, we rode our luck near the end but over the 90 minutes I felt we were the better side.
"It became an old-fashioned game at the end, when you are 2-0 down you are going to go direct. They were difficult to handle but we showed great character and determination."
• None Attempt missed. Yeni N'Gbakoto (Queens Park Rangers) right footed shot from the left side of the box misses to the left.
• None Dale Stephens (Brighton and Hove Albion) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
• None Attempt blocked. Idrissa Sylla (Queens Park Rangers) header from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Massimo Luongo.
• None Offside, Brighton and Hove Albion. David Stockdale tries a through ball, but Glenn Murray is caught offside.
• None Steve Sidwell (Brighton and Hove Albion) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
• None Offside, Queens Park Rangers. Massimo Luongo tries a through ball, but Matt Smith is caught offside.
• None Offside, Brighton and Hove Albion. Bruno tries a through ball, but Glenn Murray is caught offside.
• None Glenn Murray (Brighton and Hove Albion) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
• None Attempt blocked. Solly March (Brighton and Hove Albion) left footed shot from the right side of the box is blocked. Assisted by Glenn Murray with a headed pass.
• None Sébastien Pocognoli (Brighton and Hove Albion) is shown the yellow card.
• None Delay over. They are ready to continue.
• None Delay in match Dale Stephens (Brighton and Hove Albion) because of an injury. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39451431
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Masters 2017: Dustin Johnson pulls out in Augusta due to back injury - BBC Sport
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2017-04-07
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Dustin Johnson withdraws from the 2017 Masters at Augusta National due to a back injury sustained in a fall on Wednesday.
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World number one Dustin Johnson is out of the Masters at Augusta National after suffering a back injury in a fall at his rental home on Wednesday.
The American, 32, looked set to take part after warming up on the range but he then withdrew on the first tee.
The US Open champion fell on the stairs and hurt his lower back on Wednesday.
"I'm playing the best golf of my life and to have a freak accident happen yesterday afternoon, it sucks really bad," said Johnson.
• None Townsend: Johnson could have done 'long-term damage to his swing'
"I have been worked on all morning and obviously I can take some swings, but I can't swing full, I can't make my normal swing and I didn't think there was any chance I could compete."
The 15-time PGA Tour winner added: "I was wearing socks and slipped and went down the three stairs. The left side of my lower back took the brunt of it and my left elbow is bruised as well."
Johnson's caddie was placing the ball on his tee for him on the range, while coach Butch Harmon said pain hindered Johnson's rest overnight.
Shortly before his withdrawal, he progressed from hitting wedge shots on the range to fuller swings and his involvement looked likely as he made his way to the first tee for a scheduled 19:03 BST start alongside playing partners Bubba Watson and Jimmy Walker.
Johnson was a popular pick to win the first major of the year as a result of the fine form he has shown in 2017. He has won the past three tournaments in which he has competed - February's Genesis Open, and both the WGC Mexico Championship and WGC Dell Match Play in March.
As well as winning last year's US Open by four shots, he finished ninth at the Open Championship and tied fourth at the Masters.
Johnson took until the very last second to make what must have been an agonising decision to pull out. He was standing on the first tee before making the toughest call of his career. It is a severe blow for the player who has dominated golf this season.
He arrived here off the back of three big victories and was a justifiable favourite. All that has been lost through his freak fall at his rental home and the damage done to his back.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/39519574
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Romelu Lukaku: Chelsea would be a no-brainer for Everton striker - Danny Murphy - BBC Sport
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2017-04-07
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Everton striker Romelu Lukaku faces a big decision about his future in the summer - one to which there is an obvious answer, says MOTD pundit Danny Murphy.
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Everton striker Romelu Lukaku could have a big decision to make in the summer.
He is a fantastic athlete who scores lots of goals but he is still learning the game and, under the right coach and around better players, he is going to get better - the question is, where?
Everton are an ambitious club and a fantastic platform for Lukaku to continue his development but if a Champions League side come in for him and tell him he is going to be first choice, there is not much of an argument for him stay.
That is a big 'if' because he comes with a £60m price tag, but there is already plenty of speculation about Lukaku's next move.
The obvious club to splash out and throw the 23-year-old Belgian straight in the team would be his former side, Chelsea, if they were to sell Diego Costa.
Lukaku has already said he will not sign a new contract at Everton and, if he does get an offer from Chelsea at the end of the season, then it would be a no-brainer - he has to do it.
He would be Chelsea's main striker, playing in the Champions League and challenging for the title in a team which will give him lots of chances, which is exactly where he wants to be.
What he doesn't want is to be stuck on the bench somewhere. For example, if Zlatan Ibrahimovic signs for another year at Manchester United and they come in for Lukaku, then he would be thinking: why would I go there now when I won't be playing every week?
Whichever club you name, if Lukaku joins them for next season and plays 45 games, scores 25 goals and wins a trophy, then he will have made the right choice. If he doesn't, then the argument will be that he should have stayed at Everton for another year, where he will definitely play and his stock could rise even higher.
It is a case of seeing who wants him, having that conversation with them about what his role would be and making a decision. As a player it is hard to know what the right choice is sometimes, but it is not a bad situation for him to be in, really.
'He can work on his touch but goalscoring is a gift'
Lukaku is the Premier League's leading scorer with 21 goals but his hold-up play still gets criticised when people question how good he is.
I actually think his touch is OK - yes it could be better, but there are not many top-flight strikers who are brilliant at link-up play. Costa can also be a bit sloppy at times, and Tottenham's Harry Kane is probably the best at it.
In any case, it is something that Lukaku can work on, along with his awareness. He will have to - the bigger the team you play for, the more packed defences you face and the less space you have to operate in.
But he is still young - he turns 24 next month - and those are the parts of your game that you can improve.
It is not just something that comes with age either. That development comes with playing with better players, who give you better quality balls from closer range.
His main asset as a striker, though, is his ability to score goals - with his right foot, left foot and his head.
That is a gift, and he does it so well that I really don't think the other parts of his game are a weakness, or would be a worry for any club buying him.
A flat-track bully? So are most strikers
Another claim I hear about Lukaku is that he does not perform against the big teams, and it is true that most of his goals this season have come against lesser sides.
But that is true for most Premier League strikers, and there is a logical reason why.
When Everton play the top teams they do not have as much possession or create as many chances, and Lukaku is up against better defenders too.
He scored against Tottenham last month, but he is not going to go White Hart Lane and cause Jan Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld as many problems as he does when he faces Sunderland's defence at the Stadium of Light, playing two centre-halves who are low on confidence and with Everton seeing loads of the ball.
The time when questions come is when you are a striker playing in a top team and you are not scoring against the other top teams.
But it is hard to judge Lukaku like that because he has not played against many big teams while being on an equal footing.
That is the opportunity a move to, say, Chelsea would provide him with - the step-up to play for a team that is going to give you more chances in every game, whoever the opposition.
There is nothing wrong with having that ambition. In fact, it is completely normal.
'I didn't see a Lukaku who wasn't trying for his team'
Lukaku's refusal to sign a new Everton contract has been well publicised, and it means that when he plays people are looking for evidence that he is not happy, or does not care.
I don't think that is the case, and I don't agree with the claims he did not try hard enough in Tuesday's draw with Manchester United.
The on-pitch argument that Lukaku had with Ashley Williams seemed to start with Williams asking him to chase the ball more - my understanding from watching it was that he wanted Lukaku to get across the pitch when a couple of clearances went on the opposite side to where he was standing.
What I would say in Lukaku's defence was that he was very isolated and he could not really win, especially because many of the balls up to him were generally pretty poor - there is only so much pressing you can do when you are outnumbered.
I certainly didn't see a Lukaku who wasn't trying for his team.
Yes, he lost the ball too easily sometimes, and of course that means you are going to get a volley off the players behind you, because they want a rest. "Get hold of it, man" is the kind of thing they would be shouting.
But in terms of his work ethic and his running, then it looked to me like he was giving the same physical output as I've seen from him in games where he has played well and scored.
'I had lots of rows but a handshake and a hug, and everything is fine'
Lukaku's fall-out with Williams at Old Trafford was a mountain out of a mole-hill as far as I am concerned, because that sort of thing happens all the time.
Yes, Lukaku shushing him was a little bit condescending, but I have been shushed before and I have probably shushed people myself. It is not the end of the world.
It does not mean there is a serious rift between the pair of them. Quite the opposite, probably.
As a player, I had loads of rows with my team-mates during games and you quickly forget about it. When you have calmed down you have a handshake and a hug and everything is fine.
I remember one with Steven Gerrard when I was at Liverpool in a game against Leeds. He was my room-mate at the time and we were best buddies, but I had messed up in midfield and lost the ball after dwelling on it, and he had a right good go at me.
It was along the lines of "sort yourself out and get yourself going quickly" but not in those exact words, and I responded, very defensively, along similar lines without registering that he was actually right.
Even though the way I acted was poor, the volley he gave me actually did get me going, and I realised that after the game.
I apologised for coming back at him the way I did, and told him he was right but he just said don't worry, it is done with now - and that was that.
That is the way it should be, and I would be shocked if Williams and Lukaku had not sorted things out in the dressing room after the match or, at the very latest, in training the next day.
It didn't really matter who was right, and who was wrong, but I actually saw Lukaku's reaction as a positive. He cares, and wants to do well for the team.
That sort of passion is part of the game and it would be more of a worry for Everton - or any prospective buyers - if he didn't show any.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39521532
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Chinese Grand Prix: Hamilton calls for race weekend changes after Shanghai cancellation - BBC Sport
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2017-04-07
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Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton calls for a rethink of procedures in bad weather following a farcical day of practice at the Chinese Grand Prix.
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Last updated on .From the section Formula 1
Coverage: Practice and qualifying on BBC Radio 5 live sports extra; race on BBC Radio 5 live. Live text commentary, leaderboard and imagery on BBC Sport website and app
Lewis Hamilton has called for a rethink of Formula 1's procedures in bad weather following a farcical day of practice at the Chinese Grand Prix.
Cars ran for just 15 minutes of three hours' scheduled practice because the medical helicopter could not operate.
Hamilton, who crossed the track to sign caps for fans in the grandstands, wrote on Twitter: "So sorry for all you watching on TV or at the track.
"We must find a solution to deal with the weather issue."
The three-time champion has proposed running practice on Saturday in Shanghai and switching qualifying to Sunday morning before the race in the afternoon.
And the Mercedes driver added that the problems could become an opportunity for F1's new owners, an American media conglomerate which bought the sport in January and removed long-time boss Bernie Ecclestone as chief executive.
"Seriously, though, this could actually be a blessing in disguise. A chance for new bosses to be proactive and creative," he wrote.
Of the two remaining days of the meeting, Saturday is forecast to have the best weather, with rain due overnight before Sunday.
The idea of moving the race to Saturday was discussed briefly by teams with Charlie Whiting, the F1 director of governing body the FIA, after second practice but was quickly dismissed.
Insiders said the weather forecast for Sunday "looks significantly better" than Friday's.
The issue on Friday was that the medical helicopter could not land at the designated hospital, which is more than 30 miles away from the Shanghai International Circuit.
Conditions at the track were poor, with low cloud, smog and mist, but helicopters could fly in its vicinity.
It is a fundamental safety requirement in F1 that the medical helicopter must be able to operate before cars are allowed to take to the track.
Four-time champion Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari, who is leading the championship after winning the first race of the season in Australia two weeks ago, said: "It was boring. It was a shame, especially of the people who came to watch. But what can we do?"
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/39526963
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Leicestershire deducted 16 County Championship points - BBC Sport
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2017-04-07
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Leicestershire are deducted 16 County Championship points for repeated disciplinary offences.
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Last updated on .From the section Cricket
Leicestershire have been deducted 16 County Championship points for repeated disciplinary offences.
Bowler Charlie Shreck was found guilty of "using language that is obscene, offensive or insulting and/or making an obscene gesture" in a pre-season match against Loughborough MCCU in March.
The county's fifth offence in 12 months triggered the automatic punishment.
Captain Mark Cosgrove, in charge for each of the indiscretions, has been banned for one Championship match.
The punishment means that Leicestershire, who finished seventh in Division Two in 2016, will begin the season on minus 16 points.
Their campaign begins on Friday at home to Nottinghamshire.
The club have also been fined £5,000 and given a further eight-point penalty suspended for 12 months.
Fast bowler Shreck, 39, has been given a two-match suspension by the county.
Cosgrove pleaded guilty to the charges and is set to serve his suspension in a fortnight's time, in the Championship match against Glamorgan which starts on 21 April.
"We've got to get better and be more disciplined - 16 points is a big deal to us. It's a game," Cosgrove told BBC Radio Leicester.
"Hopefully we can get some positive points on the board. This hurts the boys. We need to learn and get better.
"Charlie is very disappointed and very apologetic. He overstepped the mark. He knows he did the wrong thing.
"We've just got to take it and move on and get busy into the season."
In August 2015, Leicestershire were deducted 16 points and given a suspended fine for similar breaches.
In a statement from the cricket discipline commission on Friday, it was "noted that actions taken by the club since the previous disciplinary panel hearing have not been effective".
Durham begin their Division Two campaign on minus 48 points, the England and Wales Cricket Board having imposed the penalty because of the county's financial problems.
Meanwhile, Leicestershire opener Harry Dearden has signed a one-year contract extension, Aadil Ali has agreed a new deal until 2019 and academy batsman Sam Evans has signed a three-year deal - his first professional contract.
Coverage: Ball-by-ball BBC local radio commentary of every match in Division One and Division Two, plus live text coverage of every round of fixtures on the BBC Sport website.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/39521424
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The 7 most controversial dance fads in music - BBC Music
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2017-04-07
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From the waltz to twerking, nothing manages to appal parents more than a new move for the dancefloor
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Friday 31 March saw the Ballet Final of BBC Young Dancer 2017 on BBC Four, and while we might not think of ballet as being a controversial dance form, it's caused its fair share of scandals - not least when Vaslav Nijinsky's choreography combined with Igor Stravinsky's score to cause a near-riot at the premiere of The Rite of Spring in Paris, 1913. The truth is that there's barely been a moment in history when a new dance hasn't appalled parents, dramatically widened the generation gap and shocked newspaper editors. Here are seven crazes that caused a genuine fuss, beginning with...
The Oxford English Dictionary defines twerk as a "dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance." As an example of how the word is used, it suggests: "Just wait till they catch their daughters twerking to this song." Well, quite! The word itself is thought to come from New Orleans bounce music culture (its use in songs has been traced back to 1993), and became a well-known dance in hop hop videos towards the end of the 2000s. After Miley Cyrus twerked with Robin Thicke at the 2013 MTV VMA Awards, it went viral, causing outrage and not just because of the sexual nature of the dance. She was accused, including by the Guardian, of cultural appropriation. There was a near-frenzy of interest in what twerking was. As the Guardian also reported, the search term "what is twerking?" shot to the top of one of Google's annual Zeitgeist lists in 2013, and researchers managed to trace the word's origins back to 1820. And then Planet Earth II filmmakers found out that bears have been twerking away - sort of - in the woods, possibly for centuries.
Another consequence of twerkgate was that it caused much discussion about other dance scandals of yore, particularly the controversy surrounding the Charleston, a 1920s jazz age dance named after the city in South Carolina where it originated. In a BBC News article titled, What do twerking and the Charleston have in common?, choreographer Jreena Green says, "Twerking [is] nothing new, it's from the Charleston," and likened the freewheeling moves of 'flappers' - female hipsters of the time, essentially - to those of twerkers today. And it wasn't just in the US that the Charleston became a sensation. It made it to our shores in 1925, and as historian Lucy Worsley says, "It took the dance floor by storm. It allowed women to break free from a man's embrace and dance on their own."
[LISTEN] BBC Radio 3 - The Listening Service: Whatever Happened to the Watlz?
It's fascinating that the Charleston could cause outrage by separating the sexes on the dancefloor, because nearly every dance craze that caused contention before the jazz age did so by bringing young folk close enough together to terrify older members of society. In the above episode of Radio 3's The Listening Service, presenter Tom Service explains how the waltz caused a scandal in the early 19th century because of "the shameless physical closeness of the dancing couples". And it had been preceded by even more racy renaissance-era dances like the volta, which Service suggests would "make any of today's waltzers blush since it required the swain - the bloke - to physically lift his lady into the air and then turn her about. The technique involved lifting her up with one of his hands on her busk... and turning her using the torsion of his thigh between her buttocks". Do the volta today, in other words, and you'd likely be thrown out of every nightclub in the land. Dances that followed it, like the minuet, were tamer and easier, as indeed the waltz is - with one main difference. As dance historian Darren Royston explains: "It was two people face-to-face. Earlier court dances, such as the minuet, were really done with dancers side-by-side... It was a 'turning' dance, and this is where the scandal of the waltz is made - not necessarily because you can face your partner, but because no one else can really see what's going on."
[WATCH] BBC Archive - Doing the twist in the 1960s
You can't mention a turning dance without remembering the twist, the worldwide dance craze spawned from Chubby Checker's 1960 cover of the Hank Ballard and The Midnighters song The Twist. A year later a spin-off film, Twist Around the Clock, was released starring TV host Clay Cole, who sings the title track in the above clip of cool kids doing the dance. The twist is all in the hips, and that's what made it controversial. It was considered sexually provocative, vulgar and, as BBC iWonder reported in 2014, "Medical concerns were raised. An orthopaedic surgeon reported a rise in knee injuries and the Society of New Jersey Chiropractors said it could cause 'strains in the lumbar and sacroiliac areas'." Other famous 60s dances like jerk, the pony, the mashed potato and the funky chicken were all inspired by the twist.
Moshing to punk band Fear at the Country Club, Reseda, California, 1982
Like the Charleston, the twist is performed without a partner but in a group, and the same applies to moshing - a combination of punk pogo dancing, heavy metal headbanging and slamdancing. And, as all rock fans know, although moshing seems to be an incitement to chaos, mosh pits are usually organised affairs with sets of rules to ensure people don't get hurt. Moshing endures, but it became a fad in the early-80s punk scene in the US before spreading to other forms of rock and also into raves. And although moshing is regarded by many as harmless fun, on occasion it can be overtly violent and dangerous. To protect their fans, Washington DC punk band Fugazi took a stand against moshing at their gigs in the 1980s and a small number of people have died as a consequence of being crushed or fighting in mosh pits, including at two Smashing Pumpkins' shows (in 1996 and 2007) and at a Korn performance in 2006.
BBC Radio 4 - Rave: The Beat Goes On
For those who didn't want to rock in the 1980s and 1990s, there was raving - not necessarily a specific dance style, although all ravers (and Bob the Builder fans) will remember Big Fish, Little Fish, Cardboard Box, but a movement that caused a scandal largely because of its close association with illegal drugs and trespassing. The above documentary is about Spiral Tribe, the free-party sound system that was established in 1990 by a group of young people who thought they'd found an entire new way of living, powered by music, dancing, love, and, yes, drugs. No dance fad in the UK managed to get caught up in politics more than rave and, as the Guardian reported in 2010, one rave in particular - the Castlemorton Common festival in 1992 - "set in train the moral panic that led to the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act". Dancing was forced back indoors again, discotheque-style; superclubs like Cream in Liverpool and Fabric in London emerged; and the rave sound, acid house, splintered into an incalculable number of new styles.
We'll finish with the lambada, a Brazilian dance that can be traced back to the 1930s when it caused almost as much outrage as the tango had 50 years earlier. The issue, as BBC iWonder reported, was how close it brought dancers together, "with hips pressed together as they performed a series of spinning steps". Allegedly, the Brazilian president of the time, Getulio Varga, was horrified by the dance's "immorality" and banned it, but the lambada got its revenge when it became a craze again in 1989 after French-Brazilian pop group Kaoma had a hit with a song named after it. Naturally, the BBC brought in an expert to teach the steps (see above).
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/articles/774cb619-5082-4da9-8990-e3903f283522?intc_type=promo&intc_location=news&intc_campaign=dancefad&intc_linkname=bbcmusic_ent_article1
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Chinese Grand Prix: Second practice called off after safety helicopter grounded - BBC Sport
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2017-04-07
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Formula 1 is forced to call off second practice at the Chinese GP as poor visibility prevents the medical helicopter operating.
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Last updated on .From the section Formula 1
Coverage: Practice and qualifying on BBC Radio 5 live sports extra; race on BBC Radio 5 live. Live text commentary, leaderboard and imagery on BBC Sport website and app.
Formula 1 was forced to call off second practice at the Chinese Grand Prix because poor visibility prevented the medical helicopter operating.
Low cloud, rain and smog in Shanghai meant the helicopter was unable to land at the designated hospital.
Safety requirements dictate cars cannot run if the helicopter cannot fly.
The conditions also affected first practice, in which Red Bull's Max Verstappen was fastest during 10 minutes of running on a damp track.
The Dutchman, who was 1.5 seconds quicker than anyone else, said: "The car felt pretty good. Difficult to say [where we are] because Mercedes and Ferrari haven't run so we don't know their pace.
"But from our side it felt good and from the driver's side if the feeling is OK the speed is normally pretty good."
Valtteri Bottas was the only driver of the top two teams to set a lap time all day. The Finn was ninth quickest.
Team-mate Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari drivers Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen managed only a total of five laps between them.
As the clock ticked down, Hamilton did his best to entertain the crowd by crossing the track opposite the pits and walking in front of the main grandstand, filming for his social media accounts and signing caps which he then threw to the fans.
The forecast is better for Saturday, with dry weather predicted and occasional sunshine, and temperatures of 20C.
However, rain is due to return for race day on Sunday, with heavy downpours predicted overnight on Saturday and then fading through the morning, and temperatures of only 13-15C.
If conditions on Sunday are similar to those on Friday, the race would have to be delayed until organisers could guarantee a suitable medical evacuation method.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/39524299
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Sadio Mane: Liverpool forward to have knee surgery and will miss the end of the season - BBC Sport
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2017-04-07
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Liverpool forward Sadio Mane will undergo an operation on a knee injury on Tuesday and is expected to be out for two months.
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Last updated on .From the section Football
Liverpool forward Sadio Mane will have an operation on a knee injury on Tuesday and will miss the rest of the season.
He damaged cartilage in his left knee in a collision with Leighton Baines in a 3-1 home win over Everton.
Manager Jurgen Klopp had said Mane, 25, needed surgery, leaving it "pretty much impossible for him to play again this season".
Liverpool are third in the Premier League and have six games left.
The injury is expected to rule him out for two months.
Mane joined the club for £34m from Southampton last summer and has started all but six of Liverpool's league games this campaign.
Of those, one was won, three were drawn and two were lost.
Klopp, speaking before Saturday's win at Stoke, also said Adam Lallana was "much better but is not in training" as the midfielder continues his recovery from a thigh injury suffered on England duty in March.
Captain Jordan Henderson, who has been out since February, is "in a good way, but I don't know when he can be part of training again", the German added.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39504885
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Masters 2017: Charley Hoffman's round of the day - BBC Sport
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2017-04-07
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US outsider Charley Hoffman sinks nine birdies in a seven-under-par 65 to take a four-shot lead after day one of the 2017 Masters at Augusta National.
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US outsider Charley Hoffman sinks nine birdies in a seven-under-par 65 to take a four-shot lead after day one of the 2017 Masters at Augusta National.
READ MORE: Hoffman leads Masters by four shots
Available to UK users only.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/39525038
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Sir Chris Hoy: Six-time Olympic champion defends British Cycling - BBC Sport
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2017-04-07
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Sir Chris Hoy says recent allegations of bullying and discrimination "are not experiences I recognise from my time at British Cycling".
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Last updated on .From the section Cycling
Britain's six-time Olympic champion Sir Chris Hoy says allegations of bullying "are not experiences I recognise from my time at British Cycling".
Over the past year, several athletes have made claims of discrimination, which British Cycling denies.
Scottish ex-track cyclist Hoy, 41, said "every one of the riders has the right for their grievances to be heard".
But he added he felt the subject had become "sensationalised" through "very public mudslinging and media coverage".
The most recent athlete to come forward was ex-rider Wendy Houvenaghel, who said a "medal at any cost" approach created a "culture of fear" at British Cycling.
• None British Cycling "would never sacrifice medals for welfare"
Jess Varnish first spoke about her experience within British Cycling after she was dropped from the elite programme last April.
She claimed former technical director Shane Sutton used sexist language towards her, and the Australian, who quit in the wake of the allegations, was found to have used the word "bitches" when describing female riders.
"It feels terrible to think that anyone has ever experienced bullying or discrimination during their time with British Cycling," Hoy said.
"As an elite athlete, I trained to win. Training was at times brutal - it has to be when you want to represent your country and to be the world's best.
"I believe all of this contributed to help bring out the best in me when it counted. I would not have achieved what I did without them and will be forever grateful for what they did."
'Some may argue it's too little, too late'
An investigation into the culture at British Cycling was launched last year after ex-riders complained about their treatment.
A report on its findings is imminent, but after a draft version was leaked in March, British Cycling chairman Jonathan Browning apologised for "failings" and said the governing body would be making changes to be more caring to riders.
That includes a 39-point action plan to "systematically address the cultural and behavioural shortcomings". On Thursday, Michael Chivers was appointed as new 'people director'.
On BBC Radio 5 live on Friday, Chivers was asked whether athlete welfare would ever be prioritised over medal success.
He said: "The culture is high performance and challenge. Our athletes do not want to finish second.
"If we can create a high-support environment... we can actually be more successful going forward. But no, we can never sacrifice the success. This makes Britain proud."
Hoy added: "Every organisation has a responsibility to stamp out bullying and discrimination.
"From what I read and understand through various conversations, British Cycling recognise they've fallen short in a number of areas.
"Some may argue it's too little too late, but even for those who did feel let down by British Cycling in the past, it's encouraging to know that it is now engaging with those riders.
"I don't doubt for one second that every single person involved in this process has the interests of our sport at heart."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/39527039
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Chinese Grand Prix: Max Verstappen tops first practice after helicopter delays - BBC Sport
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2017-04-07
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First practice at the Chinese Grand Prix is disrupted by poor visibility that prevents all but a few minutes of on-track running.
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Last updated on .From the section Formula 1
Coverage: Practice and qualifying on BBC Radio 5 live sports extra; race on BBC Radio 5 live. Live text commentary, leaderboard and imagery on BBC Sport website and app.
First practice at the Chinese Grand Prix was badly disrupted by poor visibility that prevented all but a few minutes of on-track running.
The conditions made it impossible for the medical helicopter to operate, a prerequisite of cars being able to run.
Red Bull's Max Verstappen set the quickest time in the 10-minutes of running on a damp track.
The session was stopped twice when nothing could land at the hospital and when the local airport was closed.
Practice started on time on a damp track under smoggy, grey, misty skies but was red-flagged after just five minutes.
There was a 45-minute delay before the cars were sent out again, only for the session to be stopped again after less than 15 minutes.
In that time, both Haas drivers Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen spun at Turn 10 and were able to continue, before Renault's Nico Hulkenberg spun into the gravel at Turn Two.
A virtual safety car period was started to recover the Renault but the session was stopped before that could even be completed.
Verstappen set a best time of one minute 50.491 seconds, 1.5secs quicker than Felipe Massa's Williams in second place. The Brazilian was 0.5secs quicker than team-mate Lance Stroll in third.
Only 14 drivers set a time and championship leaders Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes were not among them.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/39524044
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Malaysian Grand Prix: Sepang to drop off F1 calendar after 19 years of racing - BBC Sport
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2017-04-07
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The Malaysian Grand Prix will not be on the F1 calendar from 2018 after 19 years of racing there.
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Last updated on .From the section Formula 1
The Malaysian Grand Prix will be the country's last after 19 years on the Formula 1 calendar.
The decision, announced by F1 commercial boss Sean Bratches, comes after the country's government questioned the value of the race.
The American said that the F1 calendar would have 21 races in 2018, despite the loss of the south-east Asian event.
The French Grand Prix returns after a 10-year absence and Germany is back on after dropping off in 2017.
Malaysia was in the vanguard of the new races that came to define Bernie Ecclestone's final years in charge of the sport.
A state-of-the-art facility was built and the race funded with government money as the country sought to make a name for itself on the global stage.
Similar events followed the same pattern in Bahrain, China, Abu Dhabi, Russia and Azerbaijan.
Malaysia had struggled in recent years to attract a significant crowd, its appeal damaged by the more glamorous night-time event on a street track in Singapore, which made its debut in 2008.
It was confirmed in November that the race would end after the 2018 staging, but that decision has now been brought forward.
The country's prime minister, Najib Razak, said: "The Cabinet has agreed to end the contract after considering lowering returns to the country compared to the cost of hosting the championships."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/39525076
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