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Donald Trump: Time to work more constructively with Russia - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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But the US ambassador to the UN says her country "can't" and "won't ever" trust Russia.
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US & Canada
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Mr Putin (L) and Mr Trump met on Friday in Germany and, among other things, spoke about Russia's alleged interference in the US election
US President Donald Trump says it is time to work "constructively" with Russia after his meeting with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
He tweeted that Mr Putin "vehemently denied" interfering in the US election at their first face-to-face encounter at the G20 on Friday.
But Mr Trump's position contrasts with some of his own senior officials.
And he is facing criticism from within his party after revealing a proposal to partner with Russia on online security.
He tweeted that he and Mr Putin had discussed forming "an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking and many other negative things will be guarded and safe", prompting derision on social media and from the Republican Party.
Senator Marco Rubio suggested that such an initiative would be like partnering with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on chemical weapons.
And Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told MSNBC: "It's not the dumbest idea I've ever heard but it's pretty close."
Meanwhile, the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley said the US "can't trust Russia" and "won't ever trust Russia".
She told CNN that talking to Russia should never mean that the US "take our eyes off the ball".
And US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said interference in the 2016 election remained an impediment to better relations with Russia.
A special prosecutor is investigating whether Trump associates colluded with alleged Russian efforts to influence last November's US election.
At the meeting at the G20 in Hamburg, both sides confirmed that the presidents had discussed Russia's alleged meddling, but at the time seemed unable to agree on the exact outcome.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Mr Trump accepted Mr Putin's assertions that the allegations were not true.
Mr Tillerson, meanwhile, said the two men held a "robust" discussion on the issue, and that Mr Trump had pressed the Russian leader on several occasions - but that an "intractable disagreement" might remain.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40549475
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Sue Perkins: 'I knew Mel would quit Bake Off with me' - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Sue Perkins says the pair are "like twins in a cot" so she knew what the decision would be.
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Entertainment & Arts
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Mel and Sue quit hosting The Great British Bake Off when it was announced the show would be moving to Channel 4
Former Great British Bake Off host Sue Perkins says she knew Mel Giedroyc was also going to leave the show - even though they had never discussed it - because they are "like twins in a cot".
The pair both decided to quit the programme when the BBC lost the rights to Channel 4 in a bidding war last year, saying they weren't "going with the dough".
Perkins said the pair were so close after a 30-year friendship that they frequently did the same thing.
"I didn't need to ring her and say 'what are you going to do?', because I knew what she was going to do - it was merely a question of how we were going to do it," she told Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.
Perkins told Kirsty Young she missed hosting Bake Off and would have carried on fronting it if it had remained on the BBC.
In explaining her decision to leave, she joked: "I think we were running out of puns - there's only so many in the tank."
"Every bap pun, every Hungarian ring pun was mined and mined.
"But there was one point when I did think 'can I do this forever?' - four days before I came to the Bake Off tent I had been with the first family of the Mekong in Tibet, who had no electricity and no running water and they would [only eat] yak butter and barley.
"Four days later I was in a tent where somebody was crying because they couldn't find the packet of marron glace, and I did think how can I rationalise these two worlds?"
Next year marks the 30th anniversary of when Mel and Sue first met at Cambridge University and went on to forge a career as a comedy double-act.
"The first thing I noticed was she had some dusky pink DMs (Doctor Martin shoes) and I looked up and saw a shock of bleached blonde hair, this profusion of teeth like a broken piano and a hearty laugh," Perkins said.
"I felt compelled to just move into her orbit and I knew we'd know each other forever.
"We have seen each other through such highs and lows, and above and beyond our working relationship we're friends - we love each other and want the best for each other."
Now their time on Bake Off has come to an end, Perkins hinted they might reunite for another TV project soon.
"I'm very hopeful Mel and I will do some pratting about, but I couldn't tell you exactly what yet. Possibly some prime-time pratting."
Desert Island Discs will be broadcast on Sunday at 11:15 BST on BBC Radio 4.
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-40534891
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10 things we didn't know last week - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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How many cans of Spam in the past 80 years - and other news nuggets.
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Magazine
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1. More than eight billion cans of Spam have been sold over the past 80 years.
2. Sports Direct's Mike Ashley allegedly "vomited into fireplace" at a business meeting in a pub - a court has heard.
Find out more (The Guardian)
3. Rice - when prepared in the right way - can bounce.
4. The world's most detailed scan of the brain's internal wiring has been produced by scientists at Cardiff University.
5. The asteroid strike that killed off the dinosaurs could be the reason there are so many different kinds of frogs.
6. More than a third of Premier League football fans watch matches live online via unofficial streams.
7. The grandson of the first-ever NHS patient married the granddaughter of the prime minister whose government founded the service in 1948.
9. If Facebook were a religion, it would be the second largest in the world (after Christianity).
10. Just 150 passengers use Wales's quietest train station each year.
Seen a thing? Tell the Magazine on Twitter using the hashtag #thingididntknowlastweek
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-40532830
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Ivanka Trump takes Donald Trump seat at G20 leaders' table - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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In an unusual move, the first daughter sits with world leaders while Donald Trump steps away.
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World
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Ms Trump accompanied her father to earlier sessions before sitting in for him later
In an unusual move Ivanka Trump briefly took her father Donald's seat at a summit of world leaders on Saturday.
The US president had stepped away for a meeting with the Indonesian leader during the G20 meeting.
Ms Trump is an adviser to her father, but a leader's absence is usually covered by high-ranking officials.
A BBC correspondent at the summit said he could recall no similar precedent. There has been widespread criticism on social media.
Mr Trump returned a short while later to retake his seat between the British prime minister and the Chinese president.
Ms Trump did not seem to make any major contribution to the session on African migration and health during her father's absence.
A photograph of her presence was tweeted by a Russian attendee, but later deleted.
Some users highlighted that Ms Trump is unelected, or questioned her credentials - as a fashion brand owner - to sit at such a senior diplomatic meeting.
Others lampooned her appearance among the world's most powerful leaders after her claim in an interview two weeks ago that she tries to "stay out of politics".
But her brother appeared to suggest there was nothing wrong and asked the "outraged left" if they would rather he sat in instead.
Ms Trump had joined her father for an earlier G20 event on Saturday on women's entrepreneurship and finance, along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Christine Lagarde, director of the International Monetary Fund.
All three women had previously appeared together on a panel during the G20 women's summit in Berlin in April.
At that appearance she defended her father as a "tremendous champion of supporting families and enabling them to thrive".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ivanka Trump explains her praise for her father
Earlier on Saturday, Donald Trump said having him for a father was the only "bad thing" in Ms Trump's life.
"I'm very proud of my daughter, Ivanka - always have been, from day one," he told world leaders at the panel on female entrepreneurs.
"If she weren't my daughter, it would be so much easier for her. Might be the only bad thing she has going, if you want to know the truth."
While her siblings, Donald Jr and Eric, took over the family business, Ms Trump put her own fashion brand assets in a trust in order to take an unpaid White House position, a move criticised as nepotism.
After a brief modelling career as a teenager, Ms Trump was given a job in her father's company.
There, she expanded the Trump hotel brand and became an executive vice-president of development, alongside her siblings.
Ms Trump is married to Jared Kushner, who also plays an influential role in Donald Trump's White House.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-40541611
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Theresa May 'quit' stories blamed on 'warm prosecco' - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Tory minister David Lidington dismisses speculation about Theresa May's future as drinks party "gossip".
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UK Politics
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. David Lidington MP: "Too much sun and warm Prosecco leads to gossipy stories in the media"
Justice Secretary David Lidington has dismissed speculation about Theresa May's future as the product of "too much sun and too much warm Prosecco".
He said summer drinks parties produced "gossipy stories" and the public wanted the PM to get on with her job.
Stories have suggested the PM is under pressure to name a departure date after losing her Commons majority.
There are also reports Tory MPs are unhappy with the deal Mrs May did with the DUP to prop up her government.
Mr Lidington, who was promoted to the job of justice secretary by Mrs May in her post-election reshuffle, described stories about Mrs May's leadership as "gossip".
He told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show: "I have been in Parliament 25 years and almost every July a combination of too much sun and too much warm Prosecco leads to gossipy stories in the media.
"But the key thing is this - the public's had an election and I think they want politicians to go away and deal with the real problems this country is facing".
Former Conservative chief whip Andrew Mitchell has, meanwhile, sought to play down comments about Mrs May, reported in the Mail on Sunday.
He reportedly told a private dinner for Tory MPs that Mrs May was dead in the water and should go.
A Conservative MP present at the gathering told the paper: "He said she was weak, had lost her authority, couldn't go on and we needed a new leader.
"Some of us were very surprised and disagreed with him."
Mr Mitchell, who was described as a key ally of Brexit Secretary David Davis, one of those being tipped as a future Tory leader, said the Mail story was "an overheated report of a private dinner conversation".
Mr Mitchell is alleged to have made the comments at a dinner on 26 June, the day Mrs May struck a deal with the DUP to prop up her minority government.
He did not mention Mr Davis in his comments at the One Nation Commons dining club of Tory MPs, of which he is the secretary, the newspaper added.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40547731
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Labour 'aim' to wipe £100bn student debt - Angela Rayner - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Its "ambition" is to write off all student debts when "we can afford to", says a shadow minister.
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UK Politics
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Labour's "ambition" is to write off all student debt, which would cost £100bn, shadow education secretary Angela Rayner has said.
The Labour MP said it was a "huge amount" and the party would not commit to doing it "unless we can afford to".
The Conservatives said it was a "shambolic" proposal, which Labour had no idea how to fund and would lead to higher taxes.
Labour has pledged to scrap university tuition fees if it wins power.
But leader Jeremy Corbyn went further in an interview with the NME during the election campaign, suggesting existing debts could be wiped.
He told the music magazine: "There is a block of those that currently have a massive debt, and I'm looking at ways that we could reduce that, ameliorate that, lengthen the period of paying it off, or some other means of reducing that debt burden.
"I don't see why those that had the historical misfortune to be at university during the £9,000 period should be burdened excessively compared to those that went before or those that come after. I will deal with it."
The Greens were the only party at the general election to include a commitment to wipe all student debt in their manifesto.
Quizzed by the BBC's Andrew Marr on how much it would cost, Ms Rayner said: "It is a huge amount, it is £100bn, which they estimate at the moment, which will increase.
"It's a huge amount of money but we also know a third of that is never repaid."
Lord Adonis has called for tuition fees to be scrapped
Ms Rayner said Mr Corbyn had said it was an "ambition", but she added "we will not announce that we're doing it unless we can afford to do that".
She added: "I like a challenge, Andrew, but we've got to start dealing with this debt crisis that we're foisting on our young people. It's not acceptable.
"They are leaving university with £57,000 worth of debt, it's completely unsustainable and we've got to start tackling that."
Last month, the Student Loan Company said that outstanding debt on student loans had increased by 16.6% to £100.5bn at the end of March.
Only about a third of the students who have taken out £9,000-a-year loans are expected to pay them back fully, meaning the government will have to pick up part of the bill.
Lord Adonis, who came up with the student fees policy as Tony Blair's policy director, has called for them to be scrapped or vastly reduced, saying in an article for the Guardian that he had never meant to create a "Frankenstein's monster of £50,000-plus debts for graduates on modest salaries".
He blamed "greedy" university vice-chancellors, who successfully lobbied the coalition government to increase the £3,000 cap on fees to £9,000.
Conservative First Secretary of State Damian Green, who is effectively Theresa May's second-in-command, has called for a "national conversation" on tuition fees, to consider whether they should be paid out of taxes.
Angela Rayner has previously called on the government to reverse the abolition of student maintenance grants to help the most disadvantaged students.
She also wants to reduce the interest rate that students have to pay on their loans, which has gone up to 6.1%.
Asked by Andrew Marr if fewer working class youngsters were getting into university education as a result of tuition fees, she said: "I don't believe that that's the case actually, but I do believe that many working class and part-time and older mature students are actually leaving university."
Conservative MP Luke Hall said Ms Rayner's comments contradicted Mr Corbyn's claim that fewer people from disadvantaged backgrounds were going to university.
He said: "The truth is that the number of people going to university from disadvantaged backgrounds has never been higher.
"Now Labour are making shambolic promises to spend £100bn extra, without any idea of how to fund it, that could only be paid for through higher taxes on families.
"This government is committed to making sure that everybody has the chance to go to university no matter their background, so that we can build a country that works for everyone."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40547740
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Tory-DUP deal to face legal challenge - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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A mental health worker from NI has started a crowdfunding campaign to fund a judicial review.
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Northern Ireland
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Ciaran McClean stood unsuccessfully for the Green Party in West Tyrone in June's election
A mental health worker is to legally challenge the UK government's deal with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).
Ciaran McClean, who is a member of the Green Party, says the pact breaches the Good Friday Agreement and the Bribery Act.
The DUP has agreed to support the minority Conservative government in important votes, in return for money for Northern Ireland.
A former government lawyer said the bribery claim was "spurious".
The government has said it believes the confidence and supply agreement is within the law.
Mr McClean has launched a crowdfunding campaign to fund the judicial review.
David Greene, Mr McClean's solicitor, said an application for a judicial review would be submitted either on Monday or Tuesday.
On his crowdfunding webpage, Mr McClean, who stood unsuccessfully for the Green Party in West Tyrone in June's election, says the government is "threatening hard-won peace" with its DUP deal.
The Tory-DUP deal came two weeks after June's election resulted in a hung Parliament
"The Tories are being propped up by the DUP in order to cling to power after the recent election. This horrifies me. It's straight bribery - money for votes.
"The deal flies in the face of the Good Friday Agreement, under which the government is obligated to exercise its power with 'rigorous impartiality' on behalf of all the people in the diversity of their identities and traditions."
He is pursuing the legal challenge as an individual, not on behalf of the Green Party.
Mr McClean's solicitor is a senior partner at London-based Edwin Coe solicitors, who represented hairdresser Deir Tozetti Dos Santos, one of the claimants in the successful Brexit challenge in the Supreme Court.
Mr Greene told the BBC there had been a "public outcry" over the Tory-DUP deal.
"It's not a question of foisting views and the important point is this is about the rule of law," he said.
"This is about a citizen's entitlement to go in front of a court and say that doesn't look right and to be able to challenge it in some meaningful way."
DUP MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson and Tory Chief Whip Gavin Williamson sign off on the deal
Alberto Costa, former government lawyer and now MP for South Leicestershire, told the BBC the investment given to Northern Ireland as part of the deal was not a "personal inducement" and Prime Minister Theresa May had a constitutional duty to form a government.
He said the deal was "transparent and lawful" and the bribery claim was "vexatious" and "totally without merit".
Under the confidence and supply arrangement, the DUP guarantees that its 10 MPs will vote with the government on the Queen's Speech, the Budget, and legislation relating to Brexit and national security - while Northern Ireland will receive an extra £1bn over the next two years.
While rival parties in Northern Ireland have largely welcomed the additional funding, concerns have been raised that the deal could undermine the peace process and devolution negotiations, with the UK government dependent on the support of the DUP.
The deal was also widely criticised by opposition parties in the UK.
Labour branded it "shabby and reckless", while the Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones called it a "straight bung" and said it "kills the idea of fair funding".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-40547775
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Army chief: Public has to understand why we need 'boots on the ground' - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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General Sir Nick Carter, the Army's top soldier, says the force's future depends on better public understanding.
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UK
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As he visits troops bolstering Nato's eastern border in Estonia in response to rising tensions with Russia, General Sir Nick Carter - the British army's top soldier - explains how the armed forces need to win support for their changing mission.
Public support in Britain for the Army has been consistently strong. But General Carter says there are risks here as well as benefits.
"That public support," he says, "is very much based upon sympathy and not necessarily upon empathy.
"And I think if we wish to sustain our numbers, and indeed the sort of attitude you would want your army to have, I think it's important that the cursor swings more towards empathy than sympathy, so that people understand more about what an army does and why you need an army, and therefore what its final task might be."
Of course the Army is about much more than that final task - "closing with and engaging the enemy".
But the unpopularity of some of Britain's recent wars, the lack of understanding about military matters among much of the public, and the increasing sensitivity to casualties, have all meant that the term "boots on the ground" - putting soldiers into harm's way - has become almost toxic.
General Carter has some sympathy with this view.
"I think the term 'boots on the ground' has become difficult for people to comprehend.
"The trick of course is for boots on the ground to be applied in a way that is not necessarily risk-free, but is done for appropriate gain and benefit."
This issue of the relationship between Britain and her army is a central aspect of General Carter's thinking.
He is speaking at an Estonian army base in Tapa, a garrison town a little under 100 miles from the Russian border.
The general is visiting the British-led multi-national battle group, which is there as part of a Nato deployment to reassure the Estonians and to demonstrate the alliance's cohesion to Moscow.
British soldiers took part in a ceremony welcoming the Nato battalion to Estonia earlier this year
"Young people join an army to be used and that is important to us," he says.
"So the opportunity to do something like we are doing up here in Estonia is important.
"But we also need to be prepared to be used in other ways as well, providing we can be used in an effective fashion."
For the British army, this is a period of unprecedented change as it transitions away from a dominant focus on counter-insurgency operations in the heat of Iraq and Afghanistan, and re-builds its capability to fight modern high-intensity combat - the sort of conflict it trained for day-in and day-out during the Cold War years.
The strategic picture is also changing dramatically.
The potential threats are becoming more complex, the dividing line between peace and war ever less clear.
Some people argue that the modern, Western way of war is at arm's-length - exemplified by armed drones and stand-off weapons fired at great distances from their intended targets.
By such readings the traditional army - leaving aside maybe the special forces - seems strangely out of step with the apparent new reality.
"I don't subscribe to the view that we find ourselves in a new era of warfare where you can do it all with stand-off; you can do it all with bombing; you can do it all with special forces and you can do it all with proxies," he tells me emphatically.
"Those are all simply fallacies. The bottom line in all of this is that, in the final analysis, people live on land and it is ultimately the land component that has to 'mix it' where people live. History proves that that is a requirement.
"Our policy makers absolutely understand that you have an army because, in the final analysis, armies are the business when it comes to a decision, and ultimately it's about a decision."
Britain's army is of course an awful lot smaller than it once was.
How big should it be in part depends upon what the country can afford. So does General Carter think that he has enough soldiers?
"The straightforward answer to that question is that given the tasks that we have currently got, we have adequate numbers," he says.
"If the tasks change or the tasks increase then we might have to ask questions about it."
On equipment he is confident that the Army will get things that it needs, though "how quickly it arrives is always a question".
But the Army itself is going to change even more dramatically in the years ahead. And this too is something that General Carter is pushing forward.
Traditionally the Army - like most others - is what he terms "bottom-fed".
In other words, "it recruits people who are youngsters and we grow them through a career".
But he believes that as the Army requires and takes on more specialists, it is going to have to offer a very different career structure.
"I suspect," he says, "that maybe as much as 30% of the army may be specialists in the future - and how we supply those specialist career schemes is something we have to think about."
This could mean a lot more of what the Army calls "lateral entry" (ie joining at a much later age, probably from an established career) or indeed sharing people with industry.
Nonetheless, at least in his lifetime, General Carter does not expect the combat arms of the Army "to look particularly different" to the way they do today.
"I think we will still deliver that effect through a bottom-fed delivery system in the way that we understand it."
But he says specialists will need to be recruited differently and that will have significant implications requiring a review of ranks, career structures, working practices and so on.
General Carter thinks that the Army is about a year or two away from taking on regular personnel by this lateral entry method.
But the core business of the Army is not going to change.
While its roles go way beyond just training for high-intensity combat, as here in Estonia, it remains part of the nation's insurance policy.
So being so close to the Russian border, what security challenge does the general worry about most?
"Probably the greatest risk at the moment," he says, "is the risk of miscalculation.
"Understanding your potential opponents," he says, "and having the communications systems in place and the processes in place so that you realise what messages you are sending is fundamental.
"Miscalculation is the thing that we probably need to watch."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40534771
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Woman and three children die in Bolton house fire - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The two boys and a girl were all under 13; a man jumped to safety from a first floor window.
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Manchester
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The two boys and a girl were all under the age of 13, police say
A woman and three children have died after a house fire in Bolton.
The blaze broke out at Rosamond Street in the Daubhill area of the town just after 09:00 BST.
A man managed to jump from a first floor window but two boys and a girl - all under the age of 13 - and a woman were still inside.
One of the children was pronounced dead at the scene and the woman and two other children died later in hospital, Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said.
The force said it was currently not treating the fire as suspicious.
A man jumped from the first floor before trying to rescue other residents
One resident said: "It's terrible, absolutely terrible. I saw them bringing people out. They were doing chest compressions.
"I saw them bring two out and then they put a green sheet up."
She said she was first alerted to a "commotion" when she heard a man "banging on a door" of one of the terraced houses.
"There was just a load of hammering... I went to the window and saw smoke billowing.
"When I saw him after, he had his hands bandaged up and his head."
Assistant fire officer Tony Hunter said the man, believed to be the children's father, had jumped from the first floor window and tried to get back into the property to rescue them and their mother.
He is currently being treated in hospital.
Mr Hunter added firefighters had to use a specialist tool to break the front door down. They found the heat had been so "intense" it had burnt off plaster on the walls to reveal the brick underneath, he said.
A child was pronounced dead at the scene and a woman and two other children died in hospital
Police have launched a joint investigation with Manchester Fire and Rescue into the cause of the blaze.
Det Ch Insp Chris Bridge, from GMP, said: "These are utterly heartbreaking circumstances and our thoughts go out to anyone affected by this tragic incident.
"This happened on a Saturday morning when many people would be up and about and I would appeal to anyone with any information about this incident to please call us."
The fire, which has now been extinguished, led to the temporary closure of nearby roads.
Manchester Fire and Rescue tweeted: "Our deepest condolences go to the family and the community. We will be in the local area in the coming days reassuring residents."
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham posted on Twitter: "Dreadful news coming out of Bolton today. My thoughts are with the family, their friends and the whole community."
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-40543541
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Four dead in week of West Midlands stabbings - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner says knife crime is a 'major concern'.
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Birmingham & Black Country
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Four men have died in a week of stabbings in the West Midlands.
The first of the four separate attacks happened on Monday, with the latest on Saturday afternoon.
The offences in Birmingham and Solihull are not linked, but have raised fears about knife crime in the area.
David Jamieson, the region's police and crime commissioner, said knife crime was a "major concern and has been for quite some time".
A man died in a stabbing outside The Forge Tavern in Digbeth
Mr Jamieson said: "There has been a growing trend that's particularly prevalent in the warmer weather, The warm weather does bring out more crime, particularly crime that happens on the streets.
"It's desperately worrying. Any increase in any violent crime is worrying.
"The police are there to tackle the violence so people will have the full weight of the law thrown at them."
Elsewhere, a man was arrested on Saturday in connection with a stabbing at Merry Hill shopping centre in Brierley Hill at about 11:15 BST.
A 19-year-old man was taken to hospital to be treated for a stab injury, where he remains in a stable condition.
Ronan Parker, 19, of Dixons Green Road, Dudley, has since been charged with wounding with intent. He will appear at Dudley Magistrates' Court on Monday, police said.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-40543309
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KKK rally in Virginia leads to rival protests and clashes - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Supporters of the white supremacist group were surrounded by many more counter protesters.
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US & Canada
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Riot police stood between Ku Klux Klan and its opponents
A march by supporters of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan (KKK) group in the US state of Virginia has been met by hundreds of rival demonstrators.
Dozens of KKK members took part in an authorised march to protest at the planned removal of a statue of General Robert E Lee from Charlottesville.
Lee commanded forces of the pro-slavery Confederacy in the US Civil War.
The marchers, some carrying Confederate flags, were separated from rival groups by metal barricades and armed police.
The KKK supporters were escorted to and from the rally on Saturday by police.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Racism in the US: Is there a single step that can bring equality?
They were greeted in the university town by large crowds chanting "shame" and "racists go home" shortly after they had gathered at Justice Park.
"Police were deployed to secure access to the park and ensure the safety of all involved," a Virginia State Police spokeswoman said.
Police declared the counter-protests "unlawful" and used tear gas to disperse the crowds. Several people were arrested, local media report.
Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets in protest at the KKK rally
A protester is doused with water after being tear-gassed
While some Americans regard the Confederate flag and associated Civil War monuments as part of their Southern heritage, the far right have adopted them as a rallying cause.
Some observers argue that US President Donald Trump's election to the White House re-energised the far right across the US.
In May, a torch-lit rally against the removal of Confederate monuments in Virginia was condemned by a local mayor. More than 100 people attended a counter-protest the following night.
A rally in February 2016 ended with the arrests of 13 people after a violent brawl between members of the KKK and rival demonstrators resulted in a number of stabbings in Anaheim, California.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40546260
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Near-blind kitten finds new adopted home after 400 mile trip - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Bear's non-conventional looks did not put off a couple who drove across the country to adopt him.
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Suffolk
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A kitten left almost blind by cat flu has found a new home on the other side of the country after a couple fell in love with him on the internet.
Bear arrived at the Blue Cross's Ipswich centre "in an appalling state" when he was just three months old.
A couple in Somerset spotted him on the charity's website and knew, despite his deformed eyelids and partial sight, that they had to adopt him.
Several months later and after a 400-mile trip he is now settled with them.
Bear could barely see due to ulcers on his eyes, and his inner eyelids had fused together when he arrived in December. He needed two operations to save his vision, the Blue Cross said.
He can still only partially see and has deformed eyelids.
Bear can go outdoors but needs to be accompanied because of his poor sight
However, his non-conventional looks did not put off Tara Newton and Luke Thomas, from Yeovil.
"We wanted to give a home to a cat with a disability, as a lot of people overlook them," Ms Newton said.
"I saw Bear on the website and I just knew we had to have him. He looked like such a lovely little guy and he is."
They made the round trip of about 400 miles (645km) to Suffolk, and more than seven hours later, Bear was settling into his new home.
He still needs daily eye drops and morning and night eye bath as his tear ducts are deformed.
Bear also needs to be closely monitored as the cat flu that caused his problems - caused by the feline herpes virus - is incurable and will remain in his body for life, the animal charity said.
"He is so loving and affectionate," Ms Newton said.
"To go through so much at such a young age and still be so friendly is amazing."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-40533508
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Migrant crisis: 'Hipster right’ group trying to stop rescue ships - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Anti-migrant groups accuse aid agencies of providing a taxi service to migrants crossing to Europe.
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Europe
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More than 80,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean to Italy this year
They call themselves Generation Identity. Made up of mainly 20-something tech-savvy members, the Identitarian movement has been described as the hipster right.
Fiercely anti-immigration and anti-Muslim, its aim is to stop mass migration to Europe. With headquarters in Austria and France, the group may be small in size, but its message is starting to resonate in Italy - a country where sympathy for migrants is wearing thin.
As the number of people seeking to reach Europe rises again, Italy continues to be the major point of entry for those arriving illegally on boats - particularly in the south.
However, attitudes are hardening and now this new "alt-right" movement says it will do whatever it can to protect Italian identity and culture from outsiders.
Since the start of 2017, more than 80,000 people have made the journey from Libya, across the Mediterranean, to Italian shores, the vast majority landing in Sicily.
Around 2,000 are thought to have died in the attempt, but with almost all other European countries closing their borders, most of the survivors end up staying in Italy.
The vast majority are not refugees fleeing war, but are considered economic migrants and mainly come from sub-Saharan Africa and as far as the Indian sub-continent.
Alarmingly, there's been a rise in the number of young girls from Nigeria who are forced into prostitution, while boys as young as 16 from Bangladesh are coming via Dubai and Libya looking for work.
"More than 90% of the immigrants coming here by boat are economic refugees," claims 20-year-old Viviana Randazzo, a newly-recruited member of the Identitarians, although official Italian statistics put the figure at 85%.
"We Italians are also suffering from poverty. Yet we are not given the same treatment - our needs perhaps count even less than theirs."
Italy is feeling the full burden of these new arrivals and there are now concerns that anti-immigration activists are exploiting the crisis for their own ends, calling for the "remigration" of second and third generation immigrants and the closure of mosques.
The Identitarians point the finger of blame at aid agencies and NGOs (non-governmental organisations) operating close to the Libyan coastline, accusing them of essentially acting as a taxi service to Europe.
"I think these [migrants] are coming to Europe because they know someone will save them," the movement's Italy co-ordinator, Lorenzo Fiato, told me in Catania, on Sicily's eastern coast.
"You can't solve this problem by helping the human traffickers do their jobs, because they want to transport illegal migrants."
Lorenzo Fiato says the Identitarians want to defend Europe against multiculturalism
The NGOs say they operate in co-ordination with the Italian coastguard and argue that they are there to save lives.
"[The people smugglers] don't need a 'pull' factor. They are pushing these people out come what may, and if we're not there, they will drown. We're not prepared to let that happen," says a defiant and frustrated David Alexander, from the charity Save the Children, talking to me in the western port of Trapani.
This summer the Identitarian movement tried to stop a Medecins Sans Frontieres rescue ship from leaving port.
The stunt failed but the group has now managed to raise more than €70,000 (£62,000) in less than three weeks, which it says it will invest in its "Defend Europe" campaign.
Save the Children says the Vos Hestia has rescued 4,000 migrants since September 2016
Ultimately, this means the group will keep targeting boats run by NGOs trying to rescue the migrants. "We want to defend Europe against mass immigration and multiculturalism," says Mr Fiato.
"We think that in every city where multiculturalism is present, radical Islam and violence is also present.
"This is a different kind of migration. These are thousands of illegal migrants coming to our shores and flooding into our cities," he adds.
This comes amid two ongoing investigations by the Italian authorities, who are trying to determine whether the NGOs are bringing migrants to Italy according to international maritime laws of saving lives, or whether they are merely assisting illegal migrants on their journey.
Ambrogio Cartosio, the chief prosecutor in Trapani, said he felt that the NGOs were somehow encouraging the people smuggling trade.
"It pushes the traffickers to load the migrants on ever more precarious vessels. They can be sure that after a few miles, they will be picked up by the ships," he told me.
The buying and selling of people is big business and the human trafficking trade continues to become more sophisticated and organised.
It is estimated that this year a quarter of a million migrants will make the perilous journey from Libya to Italy, after the escalation in numbers which typically happens over the summer months. It's been described as Europe's graveyard but it's also now the only route available to them.
David Alexander says people would drown if aid agencies did not get involved
"I think what is clear is that people will continue to do this, unless and until there is a safer, legal way to do it," says Mr Alexander.
"In the meantime, this tragedy will go on unfolding, and we will continue to pick up the pieces, and we will continue to get the blame for something that other people can solve."
While the crisis continues, so will criticism of the humanitarian effort. As will the message of intolerance.
And a solution? No end in sight.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40505337
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The painstaking task of naming Grenfell's victims - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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Relatives are angry at the time it's taking to identify victims. But experts say the process is a highly complicated one.
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Magazine
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Relatives of those who died in the Grenfell Tower tragedy are angry at the time it's taking to recover and name victims. But police and forensic science experts say the process of identifying severely fire-damaged remains is a highly complicated one - and it will take some time before families can know the fate of their loved ones.
On Tuesday night, tempers flared in a closed-door meeting as survivors of the Grenfell Tower disaster demanded to know why the police and coroner weren't able to give out more details about those still missing.
So far, 21 people have been formally identified as having died in the fire and their families informed. But police believe at least 80 were killed. Met Police Commander Stuart Cundy has said there have been a total of 87 "recoveries" but, due to "catastrophic damage" inside the building, that did not mean 87 people.
Some residents suspect the figure could be even higher, and the slow pace of progress has fuelled fears of a cover-up.
The distress and frustration felt by survivors as a result of the delay is understandable, especially given that police have said the final death toll will not be known until the end of the year.
But experts in the specialised field of victim identification say this fire is a particularly challenging disaster and, that despite fears that the job is not being done properly, the UK has one of the best identification systems in the world.
"We need to make sure by scientific means," says the UK's Disaster Victim Identification Co-ordinator, Det Supt Alan Crawford. "That's why it takes longer to get identification, but then and only then, when we are 100% certain, do we tell the family."
Scotland Yard says all "visible human remains" have now been removed from the building. Specially trained officers and forensic anthropologists will continue to sift through more than 15 tonnes of debris on each floor by hand in the hope of finding other human material.
Disaster victim identification (DVI) is a police discipline that has developed out of lessons learnt from dealing with incidents of mass casualties around the world.
Every airplane crash, terrorist bombing and natural disaster adds to the collective sum of knowledge around issues - such as where to locate a temporary mortuary, how to collect and categorise fragmented remains and what the most accurate method is to identify them.
The practice is regulated internationally according to Interpol standards, adhered to by 197 countries.
In the UK, a pivotal moment in disaster victim identification came after the 1989 Marchioness boat tragedy in the Thames, in which 51 people died.
Eleven years after the Marchioness sank, a public inquiry was ordered to look into the work of the coroner after relatives complained they were kept in the dark, prevented from seeing bodies and that the hands of some victims had been removed unnecessarily for fingerprinting.
Victims' families complained they were kept in the dark after the Marchioness disaster
"The inquiry made a number of recommendations, principles we hold true now," says Det Supt Crawford.
"Avoid misidentification at all costs, treat the deceased with respect and dignity, be open and honest with families at all times and give as much information as we can."
In the UK, there are now around 2,000 police officers throughout the country who have volunteered for specialist DVI training in addition to their normal duties. They can be called on at any moment.
"We're up there in relation to being one of the best in the world at what we do," says Det Supt Crawford.
"We lead a lot of countries and they seek our advice."
When a disaster like Grenfell Tower happens, there are two distinct strands to the process of identifying victims.
One is gathering as much information as possible about potential victims from relatives, and friends, including collecting medical and dental records.
On the morning of the Grenfell Tower fire, the number for a Casualty Bureau phone line was given out the media. Members of the public who called in were asked a number of specially scripted questions designed to prioritise those with information about potential victims.
Those deemed likely to know someone caught up in the fire were allocated a family liaison officer who logged details about the missing person onto an official Interpol form.
The other strand of identification involves collecting information from the bodies themselves. This work is led by a senior identification manager (SIM), who appoints a scene evidence recovery manager, or SERM, who in turn oversees the work of DVI-trained body recovery teams.
These teams log every detail before moving them to a designated mortuary.
"At that time, we don't know who we are recovering so it's really important we recover the body or human remains in a dignified manner," says Det Supt Crawford.
"We need to make sure it's photographed, there's a continuity of evidence, there's a forensic preservation and all the way through that process from body recover to being lodged at the mortuary is done to a judicial standard."
When bodies are brought into the mortuary, experts try to identify them according to standards set by Interpol.
This means identification must be made using dental records, fingerprints or DNA. Medical implants that carry serial numbers such as pacemakers or hip replacements can be used as secondary identifiers, as can scars, marks and tattoos.
Visual identification by relatives is not used because this is regarded as unreliable. Nor is the discovery of property on a body, such as bag or purse.
Det Supt Crawford cites a 2006 case in the US where five college students were killed in a minibus crash. One family was told their daughter had died, after her body was identified from the bag she was found with. In fact, she had survived and was heavily bandaged in intensive care being watched over by another family whose daughter had been killed in the crash. It was several weeks before the mistake was discovered.
In the case of Grenfell Tower, there are several factors complicating this identification process.
The first is that the fire is what's referred to as an "open" disaster. A "closed" disaster is a situation such as a plane crash, in which a manifest exists of all the passengers and crew. In such a case, identification is a relatively straightforward case of matching the dental records of those on board with the victims.
Open disasters are more difficult. Here, investigators might have an idea of who was present, but do not know conclusively, making it hard to collect references for DNA, fingerprints or dental records.
Although the police have a list of those missing and presumed dead from the fire, they still have no information on the inhabitants of 23 out of the 129 flats in the building.
The Metropolitan Police says it is working with the Red Cross and community groups to spread their message of an amnesty for illegal immigrants, as well as those illegally sub-letting, so more potential victims can be identified.
The intensity of the fire also poses an immense challenge to forensic experts. The Westminster coroner, Dr Fiona Wilcox, is reported to have described the scene inside the burnt-out tower block as "apocalyptic".
Dr Denise Syndercombe-Court is a forensic scientist at Kings College London who works with the Metropolitan Police. She says experts will have to rely on new, sensitive techniques to analyse the remains. It's a slow and painstaking procedure.
"In some cases, these bodies are so badly damaged by the heat - terrific heat temperatures - we literally will have fragments of bones," she says.
"We'll work on providing strategies for what material is suitable for what analysis technique."
Knowing where the remains have been found is a key part of solving the identification puzzle. That is why it is so important for the DVI-trained body teams to log every detail before the body is moved.
"There's no point analysing material if you have no idea where it came from," says Dr Syndercombe-Court.
When the World Trade Center towers collapsed on 9/11, human remains were fragmented and mingled in among the debris of the buildings. As a result, 40% of the victims have still not been identified.
If DNA can be extracted, it then needs to be matched with that of potential victims. Here again, the ferocity of the fire poses additional challenges as surrogate samples of DNA, such as from personal items or toothbrushes, will have also been destroyed.
Because many of the victims were immigrants, investigators may need to work with police forces in other countries to collect DNA from at least two family members - all of which takes time.
The process can also take a huge emotional toll on those carrying it out.
Forensic scientist Prof Peter Vanezis is a veteran of identification investigations, including working on mass graves in the Balkans.
"There were some people who weren't very keen on being counselled," he says of his time in Kosovo. "They were the ones who were really affected because they thought they were being very macho by not worrying about these things, but they do get to you."
Det Supt Crawford says that officers who volunteer for DVI-duties are monitored and offered counselling because of the traumatic nature of the work.
It's only when the coroner is satisfied that the information provided about the missing person from relatives, dental and medical records matches that taken from the remains that a formal identification can be made.
This can be an extremely slow process.
"There might be an awareness of how long it takes if one sits down and thinks about it in the cool light of day," says Prof Peter Vanezis, who was part of the team who identified the final Kings Cross fire victim, 20 years after the disaster.
"But when you're dealing with relatives who are bereaved or waiting to find out what happened, frustration comes along very quickly."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-40517658
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Unesco awards Lake District World Heritage site status - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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It joins the likes of the Grand Canyon and Machu Picchu as it gets world heritage status.
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Cumbria
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About 18 million people visit the Lake District each year
The Lake District has joined the likes of the Grand Canyon, the Taj Mahal and Machu Picchu by being awarded Unesco World Heritage status.
The national park was one of 33 sites around the world to be discussed by the Unesco committee in Krakow, Poland.
The committee praised the area's beauty, farming and the inspiration it had provided to artists and writers.
It is the 31st place in the UK and overseas territories to be put on the Unesco World Heritage List.
The committee suggested the impact of tourism be monitored and requested improvements in conservation efforts.
The delegates heard the 885 sq-mile (2,292 sq km) Lake District had been trying to obtain the Unesco status since 1986.
Lord Clark of Windermere, chairman of the Lake District National Park Partnership which put together the bid, described the decision as "momentous".
"A great many people have come together to make this happen and we believe the decision will have long and lasting benefits for the spectacular Lake District landscape, the visitors we welcome every year and for the people who call the National Park their home," he added.
Steve Ratcliffe, director of sustainable development at the Lake District National Park, said the application had been a "long time in the making" and he was "incredibly proud" of the landscape which has been shaped by nature, farming and industry.
He told the committee: "The Lake District now becomes an international and global property and we look forward to working with you and our communities to make sure this site inspires future generations around the world."
Steve Ratcliffe said it "has taken millennia to become the evolving masterpiece it is today"
About 18 million people visit the Lake District each year, spending a total of £1.2bn and providing about 18,000 jobs.
It is home to England's largest natural lake - Windermere - and highest mountain - Scafell Pike.
The Lake District has inspired artists and writers
Nigel Wilkinson, managing director of Windermere Lake Cruises, said he was hopeful the Unesco status would put the Lakes on an international level.
"What we really hope is it will act as an economic driver and will grow the value, not the volume, of tourism by giving people more... reasons to make day visits and sustained visits."
Harriet Fraser, a writer and patron of Friends of the Lake District, said: "It's the most beautiful district but it has a very deep culture which is largely hill farming but also conservation."
Other UK Unesco sites include Stonehenge, Durham Castle and Cathedral, and the city of Bath.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-40547691
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Holiday sickness fakers face government crackdown - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Ministers are seeking to make it harder for UK holidaymakers to make bogus food poisoning claims.
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Business
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Ministers are seeking to make it harder for UK holidaymakers to make bogus food poisoning claims.
Travel industry bosses and Spanish hotels have complained of a huge rise in false insurance claims.
They warned that heavy payouts could lead to British tourists paying higher package holiday prices and being barred from some resorts.
The government said it would reduce the cash incentives of bringing such cases against holiday firms.
Justice Secretary David Lidington said it wanted to limit the legal costs that travel firms had to pay out for the claims.
"Our message to those who make false holiday sickness claims is clear - your actions are damaging and will not be tolerated," Mr Lidington said.
The problem recently led Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to observe British digestive systems "had become the most delicate in the world".
Travel trade body Abta said it "strongly welcomed" the government move.
The escalating problem of claims, according to one UK travel company boss, risked making British tourists the laughing stock of Europe.
That's because thousands of French, German, Danish etc holidaymakers staying in the same hotels and dining in the same restaurants as British tourists, didn't get as sick and as often as UK visitors.
The dilemma for hotels and restaurants is the cost of challenging these claims in the courts is so high yet the sums involved are relatively modest.
So most hotels and their insurance firms simply pay out. That ends up with higher premiums for everyone else.
This move to clamp down on bogus claims by the government could - in theory - save us all some money.
UK holidaymakers who are found guilty of making a fraudulent claim face up to three years in jail, the Ministry of Justice said.
It added that the travel industry estimated holiday sickness claims had increased by 500% since 2013 - a rise not seen in other countries.
The government is closing a loophole that means legal costs are not currently capped on claims for foreign holidays.
Those with genuine claims will still be able to sue for damages, it said.
Mark Tanzer, chief executive of Abta, said: "These claims are tarnishing British holidaymakers' reputation abroad, particularly in Spain where they are costing hoteliers millions of pounds."
He welcomed efforts to stop firms from "unduly profiting from false claims", but called on the government to also increase transparency between claims firms and solicitors.
Last month, Tui's UK managing director Nick Longman and Thomas Cook UK's managing director Chris Mottershead both warned that if the problem continued, it could spell the end of the all-inclusive holiday for UK travellers.
Mr Mottershead said: "It has the potential of putting hoteliers out of business. They will stop British customers coming into their hotels."
A British citizen was arrested in Majorca in June for encouraging holidaymakers to submit bogus claims for food poisoning against the hotel where they were staying.
It followed an undercover operation by the hotel chain which had been subjected to a spike in claims from UK tourists.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40550858
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'Cheaper' Heathrow airport third runway plans proposed - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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Hotel tycoon Surinder Arora puts his scheme to the government's public consultation on the airport.
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Business
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A wealthy businessman has submitted plans for a third runway at Heathrow which he says would be £5bn cheaper than the airport's current scheme.
Hotel tycoon Surinder Arora has put his proposal to the government's public consultation on Heathrow.
Ministers have expressed a preference for the airport's plans for a new runway and terminal costing £17.5bn.
Heathrow said it was already considering some of the ideas, and wanted to lower the cost too.
Arora Group's proposals include changing the design of terminal buildings and taxiways, and reducing the amount of land it is built on.
Mr Arora said: "We want passengers to be at the heart of our plans and the current monopoly at Heathrow, which over-charges airlines and in turn raises fares for passengers, is not the right model for the future.
"Heathrow needs competition and innovation which puts passengers and airlines at the heart of the expansion project."
He added: "One of the options we have proposed to government includes a possible shift of the runway so that it does not impact on the M25 and M4, as we know the M25 junction being affected threatens the deliverability of the whole project.
"We appreciate this is a politically sensitive issue but it is merely an option with additional savings of £1.5bn, whereas the rest of our proposals save up to £5.2bn without the need to amend the runway location."
He said: "The government should look closely at Arora's proposal as it would significantly reduce costs."
An airport spokeswoman said: "Heathrow's expansion proposals are supported by the government and have widespread cross-party political, business and union support.
"We continue to develop our plans to improve passenger experience, reduce the impact on local communities and lower the cost so we deliver expansion at close to current charges.
"Some of the options we are looking at sound similar to those suggested in this submission, and we will welcome views on these in the public consultation later this year."
Construction will not begin for at least three years, and it could be delayed by legal challenges over the runway's environmental impact.
A Department for Transport spokesperson said: "The government has made clear that it believes a new north-west runway at Heathrow is the best scheme to deliver the economic and connectivity benefits this country needs.
"New capacity will increase competition between airlines resulting in lower fares for passengers.
"A consultation on a draft airports national policy statement closed on 25 May and we are currently analysing the responses, and will set out our next steps in due course."
The Department for Transport has estimated a new runway at Heathrow would bring economic benefits to passengers and the wider economy worth up to £61bn, and create as many as 77,000 additional local jobs over the next 14 years.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40546225
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The road markings that left red faces - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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From wonky bikes to supermarket "petrel" - the road markings that left contractors with red faces.
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England
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The wonky bike, which was spotted by a chuckling Paula Brown, has since been repainted by the contractors responsible
A wonky cycle path sign that appeared in the Lincolnshire market town of Sleaford last weekend caused much mirth among local residents, who described it as looking like a penny farthing - albeit one with angular wheels.
But this was far from the first time bungling contractors have been left with red faces. BBC News rounds up some of the gaffes that have hit the headlines.
The sign outside Highfield Community Primary School was corrected within 24 hours
When a misspelt road marking appeared outside a school in Chester, the finger of blame was as usual pointed at hapless contractors.
The lettering outside Highfield Community Primary School, in Blacon, was "claer" evidence that spelling was not the forte of the person who painted it.
The marking was hastily corrected, at no cost to the council, after it appeared in February 2014.
The unnecessary "I" was eventually covered up with black paint
At least the simplest of fixes was possible when blundering workmen misspelled the word "minutes" as "minuites" at an NCP car park at Cambridge's railway station.
Although it was two years before anything was done about the gaffe, eventually an NCP boss harnessed an inner Mick Jagger and gave the order: "I want it painted black."
Thus the offending "I" was covered up to restore basic literacy to this corner of Cambridge.
NCP said those responsible for the cock-up were "committed to playing Scrabble in their lunchtimes as spelling revision".
A set of double yellow lines that appeared in Cardiff last summer couldn't be faulted in terms of execution - but the location chosen for the markings led to the city council being widely mocked.
That's because the road on which the lines were painted is barely 5ft (1.5m) wide and too narrow for anything but a toy car.
Despite the markings being branded "ridiculous" and a "waste of money", the beleaguered council stuck to its guns, arguing the double yellows were necessary to "deter anti-social parking on the narrow access lane".
Motorists using a supermarket petrol station in Doncaster were amused to find themselves being directed towards a species of low-flying seabird.
The word "petrel" was painted in 3ft letters, next to the flawlessly spelt word "exit" and some perfectly drawn arrows, on the approach to the pumps at the Sainsbury's Edenthorpe store in September 2016.
In a light-hearted response, Sainsbury's said it was "correcting the misteke".
This "ridiculous" piece of road painting led the council to urge contractors to use "common sense"
Not wanting to let anything as inconvenient as a parked car get in their way, slapdash council contractors tasked with painting double yellow lines in a suburb of Leeds simply daubed the markings around the vehicle.
However, once the car's owner returned and drove away, the lines were left sticking out from the kerb.
Leeds City Council branded the markings in Hyde Terrace, Clarendon, as "ridiculous" and said it would remind contractors "to use common sense" in future. The lines were later repainted.
All official road signs in Wales are bilingual
Welsh-speaking drivers in Swansea were bemused to encounter a road sign that informed them: "I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated."
Above the baffling statement on the dual-language sign was the correct wording in English: "No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only".
The howler came about because a non-Welsh speaking council employee emailed the authority's in-house translation service, and took the response received as the translation being sought for the new road sign.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-40520746
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Donald Trump Jr met Russian lawyer before election - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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It is described as the first confirmed meeting between a Russian national and Trump's inner circle.
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US & Canada
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Mr Trump Jr said there was no follow-up to the meeting
The US president's son, Donald Trump Jr, has admitted meeting a Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer last year.
The encounter is thought to be the first confirmed private meeting between a Russian national and a member of Donald Trump's inner circle.
A special prosecutor is investigating whether Trump associates colluded with alleged Russian efforts to influence last November's US election.
Both Mr Trump Jr and the lawyer say the campaign was not discussed.
Mr Trump Jr was accompanied by the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner, and then-campaign head Paul J Manafort, meeting Natalia Veselnitskaya at New York's Trump Tower on 9 June, two weeks after Donald Trump secured the Republican nomination.
Mr Trump Jr said in a statement that they discussed a suspended programme for Americans to adopt Russian children.
He said it "was not a campaign issue at that time and there was no follow-up".
Mr Kushner's lawyer said he had previously disclosed the meeting on security clearance forms.
President Vladimir Putin suspended the adoption programme in 2012 after the US Congress voted in a law to allow the US to withhold visas and freeze financial assets of Russian officials thought to have been involved with human rights violations.
Ms Veselnitskaya, who played a key role campaigning against the law, said "nothing at all was discussed about the presidential campaign.
"I have never acted on behalf of the Russian government and have never discussed any of these matters with any representative of the Russian government."
Last week Mr Trump said interference in the election "could well have been" carried out by countries other than Russia and interference "has been happening for a long time".
• None Russian interference in US election- No-one knows - Trump - BBC News
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40549398
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Charlie Gard: Parents hand in petition to Great Ormond Street Hospital - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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A petition signed by more than 350,000 people is handed to Great Ormond Street Hospital.
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London
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Charlie's parents want to take him to the US
The parents of Charlie Gard have joined supporters to deliver a petition to Great Ormond Street Hospital calling on doctors to allow the sick baby to travel to the USA for treatment.
The petition has been signed by more than 350,000 people.
The 11-month old boy's case is due to return to the High Court on Monday after the hospital said it had seen claims of new evidence relating to the potential therapy.
His family said the fight was not over.
Speaking outside the hospital, Charlie's parents, Connie Yates and Chris Gard thanked their supporters and the media for sharing the story of their 11-month-old son worldwide.
The couple both in their 30s and from Bedfont, west London, want to take the baby to a hospital in the US for experimental treatment, but lost a lengthy legal battle after judges ruled in favour of doctors at GOSH.
GOSH doctors argued the therapy would not improve Charlie's quality of life.
Charlie Gard has been in intensive care since October
Mr Gard said they needed a specialist in Charlie's condition and therefore need to send him to America to "give him the chance he deserves."
Ms Yates added: "We have seven doctors supporting us from all around the world.
"There is up to 10% chance that this treatment may work and that's a chance worth taking.
"He's our son, he's our flesh and blood. We feel that it should be our right as parents to decide to give him a chance at life."
She added: "There is nothing to lose, he deserves a chance."
It comes after GOSH said on Friday it had applied to the High Court for a fresh hearing "in light of claims of new evidence relating to potential treatment for his condition".
Clinicians from the Bambino Gesu paediatric hospital's neurosciences department said tests in mice and patients with a similar, but not the same, genetic condition as Charlie had shown "dramatic clinical improvements".
Charlie inherited the faulty RRM2B gene from his parents, affecting the cells responsible for energy production and respiration and leaving him unable to move or breathe without a ventilator.
Charlie's case will be heard by Mr Justice Francis on Monday at 14:00 BST, according to a High Court listing.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-40548553
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Eurasian lynx: Plan to return it to Kielder Forest to be submitted - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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Campaigners want to reintroduce the lynx 1,300 years ago after it became extinct in the UK.
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Tyne & Wear
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The Lynx UK Trust wants to place up to six lynx in Kielder for a five-year trial
Plans to reintroduce the Eurasian lynx 1,300 years after it became extinct in the UK will be submitted soon, campaigners have said.
The Lynx UK Trust wants to import up to six of the cats from Sweden to Kielder Forest in Northumberland.
With a public consultation over, the trust said the five year trial plan would go to Natural England by September.
It has been criticised by some residents and sheep farmers.
The trust said the lynx hunt in woods and would control the deer population
The scheme would see four to six lynx wearing radio tracking devices with Kielder chosen due to its dense woodland and low number of roads.
The trust said the animals would help control deer numbers as well provide a tourism boost.
Dr Paul O'Donoghue from the trust told the Guardian the lynx "belongs here" and is an "intrinsic part of the the UK environment".
He also told the paper he hoped the lynx could be in the forest by the end of the year.
Sheep farmers fear the animals could target their livestock although the trust said the cats would hunt in woods rather than fields.
The trust did admit, however, that some sheep could be killed but farmers would be "generously compensated" for any losses.
Phil Stocker, chief executive of the National Sheep Association, said there were several hundred sheep farmers around Kielder, any one of whom could be affected by the lynx.
He said valuing a sheep was complex and, money aside, there were major welfare concerns.
Mr Stocker said people would not accept animals facing "unnecessary pain" and one sheep being attacked by a lynx could cause major stress and possible damage to others in the flock.
He said the UK no longer had the "landscape" for the lynx to be "genetically sustainable" and it would not be in the cat's interest to be reintroduced into an environment that, thanks to roads and industry, has changed so much since the cat existed here.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-40542306
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G20: UK-US trade deal to happen quickly, says Trump - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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The US president confirms he will go to London, as he holds talks with Theresa May at the G20 summit.
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UK Politics
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Donald Trump: "Trade will be a very big factor between our two countries"
US President Donald Trump has said he expects a "powerful" trade deal with the UK to be completed "very quickly".
Speaking at the G20 summit in Hamburg, he said he would visit London. Asked when, he said: "We'll work that out."
In one-to-one talks, Mr Trump and UK Prime Minister Theresa May agreed to prioritise work on a post-Brexit trade deal, a UK government official said.
Mrs May said she was "optimistic" about a deal, but warned there was "a limit" to what could be done before Brexit.
She told a news conference that world leaders - including those from China, India and Japan, as well as the US - had expressed a "strong desire" to forge "ambitious new bilateral trading relationships" with Britain.
The prime minister hailed it as a "powerful vote of confidence" in Britain.
Asked about Mr Trump's visit the UK, Mrs May said: "We don't have a date yet, we are still working on a date."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Theresa May was asked about Donald Trump's proposed visit to the UK
Earlier, during a 50-minute meeting with Mr Trump - which overran by 20 minutes - the two leaders spent a "significant" amount of time on trade, in a discussion described as entirely "positive", Downing Street said.
Before their meeting, Mr Trump hailed the "very special relationship" he had developed with Mrs May.
"There is no country that could possibly be closer than our countries," he told reporters.
"We have been working on a trade deal which will be a very, very big deal, a very powerful deal, great for both countries and I think we will have that done very, very quickly."
Under EU rules, formal talks between London and Washington cannot begin until after the UK leaves the EU in March 2019, without EU agreement.
Sir Christopher Meyer, a former British ambassador to Washington, said Mr Trump's statement of intent was a "very good sign for the future" and would be "useful" to Mrs May.
However, Sir Simon Fraser, a former diplomat who served as a permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office, cast doubt on how soon any trade deal could be reached.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Donald Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Theresa May seem to be enjoying another photo shoot
"The point is we can't negotiate with them or anyone else until we've left the European Union," he said.
"And the Americans and others will not negotiate with us until they know what our relationship with the EU is going to be, because the access we have in Europe is hugely important for the advantages that they can get from their relations with us."
Mr Trump has previously accepted an invitation for a state visit to the UK - a prospect that has caused controversy - although no date has been given.
Mr Meyer said his visit would be a "very important moment" to nail down Mr Trump's commitment to a strong bilateral agreement.
Under EU rules, formal talks between London and Washington cannot begin until March 2019, unless Brussels agrees the UK can make a start earlier.
Trade talks tend to be complex and technical, lasting several years.
The EU and Japan took four years to reach an agreement in principle. But those discussions involved 29 nations; UK-US talks would involve just two.
With strong political will and determination, a transatlantic agreement could perhaps be completed more speedily than has been the norm for trade pacts.
Talks would cover cutting customs duties, making products such as cars and food cheaper.
The average UK-US tariff is relatively low anyway, at 3%, and huge amounts of trade already take place.
Negotiations usually cover thornier topics, such as food safety and environmental standards.
If one side agreed to accept the other's rules, a deal could be done quickly. But that would be controversial in various sectors. That's when negotiations can begin to drag.
Mrs May later said she was "dismayed" Mr Trump had withdrawn the US from the Paris Agreement on climate change.
The accord, signed in Paris in 2015, is an international agreement on how to deal with greenhouse gas emissions.
Mrs May said she raised the issue during one of "a number" of conversations she had with Mr Trump at the summit - not during the official bilateral talks.
The prime minister said she had "urged President Trump to rejoin", adding: "I continue to hope that is exactly what the United States will do."
Mrs May also held a 20-minute meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and a 25-minute meeting with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.
Talks with Mr Abe focused on trade and North Korea's nuclear missile programme.
Japan's new trade deal with the EU, signed off on Thursday, "could form the basis" of an agreement between London and Tokyo following Brexit, Mrs May told her fellow leader.
Meanwhile, Mr Modi told Mrs May he wanted to see economic links with the UK deepen now and after Brexit, according to a UK government official.
Shinzo Abe and Theresa May discussed trade and North Korea's nuclear missile programme
After a meeting on Friday, Chinese President Xi Jinping said China and the UK were in a "golden era" of relations and increased investment from his country since the Brexit vote showed its confidence in Britain.
The G20 summit is the first gathering of world leaders since the UK's general election last month, during which Mrs May's Conservative party lost seats and her performance was widely criticised.
The two-day meeting is being held against a backdrop of violent protests on the streets of Hamburg, with demonstrators and heavily-armed police clashing into the early hours of Saturday.
The protests centre mainly on the presence of Mr Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, climate change and global wealth inequalities.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40540340
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Newspaper headlines: 'May's cry for help to Corbyn' - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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Theresa May's hold on power and the fate of sick baby Charlie Gard dominate the front pages.
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The Papers
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Theresa May's speech on Tuesday reaching out to opposition parties makes the lead for several of the papers - with headlines such as "May's cry for help to Corbyn" in the Daily Telegraph, "Weakened May pleads for support from rivals" in the Times and "May appeals to Labour for policy ideas" in the Guardian.
The i says the prime minister's message would have been unthinkable before her election gamble backfired.
The Times says it is an admission of her political weakness.
For the Guardian, the speech will be seen as an attempt to relaunch her faltering premiership.
The Telegraph says Mrs May's appeal comes at a time when her leadership is at its weakest, with calls by Tory MPs for her to stand down after her failure to secure a majority.
The Financial Times describes it as an attempt to shore up her premiership against mutinous MPs as she prepares to publish the most significant piece of Brexit legislation - the Repeal Bill - on Thursday.
Manoeuvring among ambitious backbenchers and pro-EU MPs is intensifying ahead of the bill, it adds.
Leo McKinstry in the Daily Express says there's no obvious, clear alternative to Mrs May, so the idea of a smooth coronation for her successor is just a fantasy.
The Sun agrees, saying a coronation to replace her won't happen and the leadership battle will be a bloodbath.
It will put the Brexit talks on hold and make us a laughing stock in Brussels, the paper adds.
For the Daily Mirror however, talk of plots means the prime minister's mind is on personal survival rather than Britain's future prosperity. It thinks she should resign and call another election.
The Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror and the Sun lead on Monday's fresh High Court hearing on the case of the terminally-ill baby, Charlie Gard.
The Mail says his heartrending fight for life has gripped the world, and even prompted dramatic interventions from the White House and the Vatican.
Today, it adds, his parents will beg the court to be able to seek treatment for his rare genetic condition, which has left him on life support.
It has the headline: "Charlie's day of destiny".
The Sun's headline says their plea to the judge will be: "Give our Charlie a miracle."
Reports and pictures of Iraqi forces and civilians celebrating on the streets of Mosul following the Iraqi government's announcement that the city had been liberated from the Islamic State group are on several front pages.
The Guardian says victory in Mosul is both a strategic and symbolic milestone for Iraqi fighters backed by US-led coalition forces.
But its residents have paid a steep price, with thousands killed or wounded in the battle.
The Financial Times warns that the advances on IS-held territory in Iraq and Syria will deal a heavy blow, but not eliminate the group.
It says its militants can melt into the desert and will probably keep up insurgent attacks and suicide bombings.
And the Telegraph says the UK and other European countries must be ready for the threat arising from the return of more jihadis.
Other extremists, it adds, will head for Libya or Sinai, presenting a menace to the world for years to come.
The Sun welcomes the proposal to keep zero hours contracts - one of the expected recommendations of the government's review of employment practices.
It accepts that some workers are exploited, but says most like the flexibility they offer.
Banning them - it argues - would harm small businesses who can't afford full-time staff.
The review strikes a decent balance by enhancing workers' rights without damaging business, it adds.
The Times reports that ministers have rejected calls to lower interest rates on student loans.
It quotes a government source as saying that interest charged on loans is below equivalent market rates and those of payday lenders, and they offer protection to borrowers that critics overlook.
The paper says First Secretary of State Damian Green appeared to support a review of tuition fees last month.
But the source tells the paper he was trying to highlight that Labour's policy of abolishing fees would mean the reintroduction of student number controls, reversing progress in social mobility and a dramatic underfunding of universities.
The Daily Mail has the results of a study of what it calls "motherhood in 2017", showing how the pressures of parenting and holding down a career have meant that many traditional tasks have fallen by the wayside.
According to the research, 23% of women said they did not have time to cook an evening meal from scratch and one in five was unable to find time to make a child's birthday cake.
Among the 1,000 mothers polled, 17% were unable to take a role in their child's Parent Teacher Association and a third said chores such as ironing bed linen were too much for them.
But - the paper adds - the vast majority made sure they never missed important events in their children's lives such as attending a school play, parents' evening or sports day.
Finally, depending which paper you read, play at Wimbledon will be "magic Monday" for the Mail; "mega Monday" for the i and "middle Monday" for the Telegraph.
Whatever it is called, the Mail explains that the second Monday of the tournament is when the last-16 in both the men's and the women's all play on the same day - the only Grand Slam where this happens.
The i says that if Andy Murray and Johanna Konta win their matches they will be through to the quarter-finals - and that would be the first time a British man and woman have made the last-eight together since 1973.
The Telegraph reports that fans have been queuing for two days to see the two players.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-40551928
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Prison Service finds 225kg of drugs in one year - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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About 13,000 phones and 7,000 Sim cards were also confiscated in a year in England and Wales.
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UK
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Prison officers have confiscated 225kg (about 500lb) of drugs in one year in England and Wales, according to the Ministry of Justice.
In 2016, 13,000 mobile phones and 7,000 Sim cards were also seized from prisoners.
The haul comes after new mobile phone detectors were introduced, as well as 300 specialist dogs for drug detection.
New Justice Secretary David Lidington said he was not content with the state of prisons, and hoped to improve them.
Four weeks into his new post, Mr Lidington told BBC's Andrew Marr show that he planned to put in place "effective measures" to more accurately detect drugs, phones and drones.
In recent years, legal highs - or psychoactive drugs - had become a problem, he said, as the prison population had shifted in character to include more gangsters and a higher proportion of sexual and violent offenders.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch a drone deliver drugs and mobile phones to London prisoners in April 2016
The government's National Offender Management scheme previously said that by using mobile phones, inmates had: "commissioned murder, planned escapes, imported automatic firearms and arranged drug imports".
Shadow Justice Secretary Richard Burgon said it was "clear that we have a crisis" and blamed the findings on cuts to prison budgets.
Director of the Prison Reform Trust, Peter Dawson, said the Prison Service should consider giving prisoners legitimate access to mobile phones as they helped people "cope with the experience" and prepare for release.
"It's in all our interests that people retain their family ties and the phone is an obvious way of doing that," he said.
Mr Dawson said it was "pointless" tracking down inmates who used a mobile to "call their mum" rather than for criminal purposes.
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Former prisoner Alex Cavendish, who was released in March 2014, said the contraband haul was the "tip of the iceberg".
He told BBC Radio 5 live that cuts to staffing budgets and "corrupt" prison officers were to blame, adding: "It's really proving a struggle to keep these things out of prisons."
Dave Todd of the Prison Officers Association conceded that "you get corruption" in the prison workforce, but added that a lack of experienced staff "destabilised regimes".
"It needs addressing fundamentally by recruitment and retention of prison officers," he told BBC One's Breakfast, adding: "New prison officers may be compromised by threats, they may be taken in by financial gain, which is not acceptable and my union doesn't defend those people."
In February, a reporter from BBC's Panorama programme went undercover at HMP Northumberland, where he found a number of inmates incapacitated from taking the drug spice.
In 2016, more than 45% of prisoners in a survey conducted by the HM Inspectorate of Prisons said it was easy to get drugs behind bars.
The overall number of staff employed across prisons has fallen from 45,000 to just under 31,000 in September 2016.
Mr Lidington said the government planned to have 2,500 new officers trained and in place in England and Wales by the end of next year - 500 of whom were already working.
He said that at the cabinet table he would push forward "very vigorously" with a programme for prison reform and measures to increase security and reduce violence.
The Ministry of Justice also said prisons were working to curb the use of drones in delivering phones and drugs, by creating "a specialist squad of prison and police officers".
To date, 35 people have been arrested and 11 others have been convicted for drone-related activities.
The department began rolling out tests for psychoactive substances at prisons in September 2016.
It is also working with mobile network operators to develop ways of blocking mobile phone signals in prisons.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40544569
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Reality Check: Is the Wimbledon seeding system a good predictor? - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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Wimbledon seedings are calculated differently from other grand slam tournaments.
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UK
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Wimbledon's seeding system for the men's singles has made an unusually big difference this year, as you can see from the lists above of the ATP rankings a week before the tournament and the Wimbledon rankings.
Wimbledon uses a system that favours grass-court specialists - taking the ATP ranking points, doubling the points earned at grass tournaments in the past year and adding on 75% of the points earned on grass the previous year. The other grand slams just use the ATP rankings.
There are usually only two or three changes in the top eight seeds each year.
Over the last five years you could classify three of the changes to the top eight seeds as being "good" in that they make the seeding a better predictor of the outcome, and four of them as "bad" because they make it a worse predictor.
The highest profile example came in 2014, when Novak Djokevic was made number one seed at Wimbledon, despite being number two on the ATP rankings. He won the tournament while Rafa Nadal, who was demoted to the number two slot, was knocked out in the fourth round.
On the other hand, in 2012 Tomas Berdych was promoted above David Ferrer in the seedings and was knocked out in the first round, while David Ferrer reached the quarter-finals.
The difference has been marginal overall, but it also must be taken into account that changing seedings is partly a self-fulfilling policy, because a higher-seeded player is likely to get further in the tournament as a result of playing lower-ranked players.
Novak Djokovic won Wimbledon as top seed in 2014 when he was number two in the ATP rankings
Looking at how much difference the Wimbledon seeding system makes got the Reality Check team wondering about whether it had been a better predictor than seedings at other grand slams.
To compare the seedings with the outcomes for the top eight seeds in grand slams from 2012 to 2016, we allocated a numerical value for the stage at which a player was knocked out. For example, a player knocked out in the semi-finals gets a value of 3.5, because he could have come either third or fourth. Similarly, someone knocked out in the first round would get a value of 96.5.
If the seeding system was perfect then adding up the outcomes for the top eight seeds in a single year would give a total of 36 (one + two + 3.5 + 3.5 + four lots of 6.5). In fact, the average number you get for the last five years at Wimbledon is 146. And actually, you also get 146 if you do the calculation with the ATP rankings instead of the Wimbledon seedings.
But that is considerably higher than the figures of 106 at the US Open, 93 at the French Open and 89 at the Australian Open. It should be said that all of these numbers are pretty high. There is not a strong correlation between seeding and outcome.
Nonetheless, it is much worse an indicator at Wimbledon, suggesting that Wimbledon has been a less predictable tournament over the past five years than the other grand slams.
Correction 10 July 2017: This report has been updated to include rankings for the 2017 tournament and to correct some outcomes from the analysis.
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G20: Trump hails talks as 'success' despite divisions - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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The US president lauded the summit - despite his country's isolated position on climate change.
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Europe
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Mr Trump said the G20 summit in Germany was "carried out beautifully" by Mrs Merkel
US President Donald Trump has declared the G20 summit in Germany a "wonderful success", despite his country's isolated position on climate change.
In a joint statement, the leaders of 18 nations and the EU recognised the US decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.
However, they also said other G20 members remained committed to the "irreversible" accord.
Deadlock over the issue had held up the last day of talks in Hamburg.
A final agreement was eventually reached and the joint summit statement was officially released on Saturday.
The statement also said the US would seek "to work closely with other countries to help them access and use fossil fuels more cleanly and efficiently".
The Paris accord sets targets for greenhouse gas emissions aimed at curbing global temperature increases.
In her closing news conference, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who hosted the summit in Hamburg, said she still deplored Mr Trump's position but that she was "gratified" the other 19 nations opposed its renegotiation.
However Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan later said that his country's ratification of the Paris accord was now in doubt, as the US withdrawal jeopardised compensation for developing countries.
Mr Erdogan said the US stance on the Paris accord makes Turkey less inclined to ratify the deal
Mr Erdogan said that when Turkey signed the accord, France had promised that Turkey would be eligible for compensation for some of the financial costs of compliance.
"So we said if this would happen, the agreement would pass through parliament. But otherwise it won't pass," Mr Erdogan told a news conference, adding that parliament had not yet approved it.
Mr Trump also won a concession on trade, with leaders underlining the right of countries to protect their markets with what they referred to as legitimate trade defence instruments.
He later tweeted: "The #G20Summit was a wonderful success and carried out beautifully by Chancellor Angela Merkel. Thank you!"
Mr Trump held his final talks of the event with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and the two leaders discussed efforts to rein in North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
The US president told his Chinese counterpart that "something has to be done" after Pyongyang tested an intercontinental ballistic missile on Tuesday with the potential to hit the US state of Alaska.
President Xi said he supported denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, and said the China US relationship had made "progress... despite some sensitive issues", state news agency Xinhua said.
Mr Xi suggested visits between the two countries' defence ministers, Xinhua added.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Water cannon was used on protesters
There were violent protests in the early hours of Sunday, with demonstrators setting cars on fire and throwing projectiles.
Hamburg has seen several days of anti-G20 demonstrations, with some of the rallies turning violent.
Police say 213 officers were injured, and 143 people were detained at the protests.
The demonstrators were protesting against the presence of Mr Trump and Vladimir Putin, as well as climate change and global wealth inequalities.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40546621
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US priest pulls out gun in Florida road rage incident - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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The 35-year-old pointed a semi-automatic gun at another driver trying to overtake him, police say.
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US & Canada
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A North Carolina priest faces assault charges after he pulled out a gun in a road rage incident, officials say.
They say the priest, William Rian Adams, was driving near Palm City in Florida when a pick-up truck that had been following his Chevrolet Corvette closely tried to overtake him.
Mr Adams, 35, then "pointed a semi-automatic hand gun" at the two people in the other vehicle, police say.
The priest was arrested on Friday after the victims reported the incident.
He is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40547137
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Bradley Lowery: Jermain Defoe pays tribute to 'best friend' - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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The footballer says he will always carry the six-year-old's memory in his heart.
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England
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Footballer Jermain Defoe has paid tribute to his "best friend" Bradley Lowery.
The six-year-old Sunderland fan died on Friday following a fight with neuroblastoma - a rare type of cancer.
The club's former striker struck up a close friendship with the avid Black Cats fan and club mascot in the months before his death.
A tweet by the 34-year-old described Bradley as a "little superstar".
It said the youngster's "courage and bravery will inspire me for the rest of my life".
He wrote: "Goodbye my friend, gonna miss you lots. I feel so blessed God brought u into my life and had some amazing moments with u and for that I'm so grateful".
Bradley, from Blackhall Colliery, County Durham, was diagnosed with the disease when he was 18 months old. He underwent treatment and was in remission, but relapsed last year.
His plight touched the lives of many, and well-wishers raised more than £700,000 in 2016 to pay for him to be given antibody treatment in New York.
But medics then found his cancer had grown and his family was informed his illness was terminal.
Bradley has been Sunderland mascot several times with his "best mate" Defoe
His death was confirmed on social media by his parents.
The posting read: "My brave boy has went with the angels today.
"He was our little superhero and put the biggest fight up but he was needed else where. There are no words to describe how heart broken we are."
Tributes have poured in to the football fan, including one from his beloved club which said: "Bradley captured the hearts and minds of everyone."
The England football squad, for which Bradley was also a mascot, tweeted: "There's only one Bradley Lowery."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-40545488
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Former Manchester United footballer ordained as priest - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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Philip Mulryne has taken a vow of poverty, a world away from top-level professional football.
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Northern Ireland
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Fr Philip Mulryne says his switch from pitch to priesthood was a 'kind of a mystery'
The former Northern Ireland footballer Philip Mulryne has been ordained a Roman Catholic priest in the Dominican Order.
Father Mulryne, who is reported to have once earned £600,000 a year, has also taken a vow of poverty.
Philip Mulryne prostrate as he was ordained a priest in Dublin on Saturday
He was ordained in Dublin on Saturday by Archbishop Joseph Augustine Di Noia, who had travelled from Rome for the ceremony.
Fr Mulryne had been ordained a deacon in October last year.
Belfast-born Fr Mulryne won 27 caps for Northern Ireland in a career that included spells with Norwich City and Leyton Orient.
He made his debut for Manchester United in 1997 after progressing through the youth team.
Unable to forge a lengthy career with the Premier League club, he moved to Norwich City in 1999, but his time at Carrow Road was plagued by injuries.
The west Belfast man was capped 27 times for Northern Ireland, scoring three goals
He officially retired from football in 2009 and began his journey to ordination, entering the Diocesan Seminary of Saint Malachy's Belfast.
He spent two years studying philosophy at Queen's University in Belfast and at the Maryvale Institute before going to the Pontifical Irish College in Rome to study theology for one year at the Gregorian University.
He entered the Dominican Novitiate House in Cork in 2012.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-40545129
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Brexit may never happen - Sir Vince Cable - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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Labour and Tory divisions are "enormous" and the economy is "deteriorating", says Sir Vince Cable.
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UK Politics
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Vince Cable: "I'm beginning to think Brexit may never happen"
Sir Vince Cable - the likely next Lib Dem leader - says he is "beginning to think Brexit may never happen".
He said "enormous" divisions in the Labour and the Tory parties and a "deteriorating" economy would make people think again.
"People will realise that we didn't vote to be poorer, and I think the whole question of continued membership will once again arise," he said.
He was speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr show.
His comments were dismissed by leading Eurosceptic Conservative MP Owen Paterson, who said Sir Vince was just "chucking buckets of water around" and ignoring the "huge vote" in favour of leaving in the referendum and at the general election, where the two main parties backed Brexit.
"Vince Cable's party went down in votes, as did the other little parties who want to stay in the European Union," he told the BBC's Sunday Politics.
He added: "I am afraid Vince is behind history. We are going to leave. We are on target."
Sir Vince conceded that the Lib Dem policy on a second referendum on the terms of a Brexit deal "didn't really cut through in the general election".
But he said it could offer voters "a way out when it becomes clear the Brexit is potentially disastrous".
The former business secretary looks set to be crowned Lib Dem leader. He is the only candidate following the resignation of Tim Farron.
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Sir Vince told the BBC he wants to work with Labour and Tory MPs to block what he regards as Theresa May's "hard Brexit" policy.
"A lot of people are keeping their heads down," he said, and "we'll see what happens" when MPs returned from their summer break.
But he added: "I'm beginning to think that Brexit may never happen.
"The problems are so enormous, the divisions within the two major parties are so enormous. I can see a scenario in which this doesn't happen."
MPs are set to vote on the Repeal Bill, a key piece of Brexit legislation, in the autumn.
Sir Vince has said he wants to form a cross-party coalition including like-minded Tory and Labour MPs to oppose Britain's exit from the single market - the official policy of both the Conservative and Labour parties.
He said Labour MPs who disagreed with their leader's position were welcome in his party, and predicted Labour's divisions on the issue would get worse.
"Jeremy Corbyn had a good election, for sure, but there is an element of a 'bubble' about it," he told Andrew Marr.
"He managed to attract large numbers of people on the basis that he was leading opposition to Brexit.
"Actually he is very pro-Brexit, and hard Brexit, and I think when that becomes apparent, the divisions in the Labour Party will become more real and the opportunity for us to move into that space will be substantial."
Sir Vince has come under fire for saying Theresa May's comment, in her 2016 Conservative Party conference speech, that "if you believe you're a citizen of the world, you're a citizen of nowhere," was like something out of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.
Quizzed by Andrew Marr on this, Sir Vince said he had got the wrong dictator: "I got my literary reference wrong - I think it was Stalin who talked about 'rootless cosmopolitans'."
Sir Vince, who won back his Twickenham seat at the general election, is not expected to face a challenger for the Lib Dem leadership but he said would still produce a manifesto. He suggested he would back income tax rises to pay for improvements to health and social care.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40547733
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True Blood star Nelsan Ellis dies aged 39 - BBC News
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2017-07-09
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Nelsan Ellis, who starred in the popular HBO series, died from complications after heart failure.
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US & Canada
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Co-stars of Nelsan Ellis said they were "stunned" and "devastated" by the news
US actor Nelsan Ellis, who starred in the popular HBO series True Blood, has died aged 39, his manager confirmed.
Ellis, best known for playing the flamboyant Lafayette Reynolds in the horror-drama series, died after complications from heart failure.
"He was a great talent, and his words and presence will be forever missed," his manager Emily Gerson Saines told the Hollywood Reporter.
Ellis appeared in True Blood from 2008 until the series ended in 2014.
"We were extremely saddened to hear of the passing of Nelsan Ellis," HBO said in a statement on Saturday.
"Nelsan was a long-time member of the HBO family whose groundbreaking portrayal of Lafayette will be remembered fondly," the statement added.
Ellis appeared regularly throughout the series of True Blood after first appearing as the cook at a local restaurant in 2008. He played the role of Lafayette, a charismatic gay medium who was able to contact ghosts.
He also featured alongside Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer in the film adaptation of Kathryn Stockett's novel The Help in 2011.
Spencer paid tribute to Ellis on Saturday with a comment posted on Twitter: "Just got word that we lost @nelsanellisofficial. My heart breaks for his kids and family."
Others to pay their respects were True Blood co-stars Michael McMillian, Lauren Bowles, Kristin Bauer and Joe Manganiello.
Manganiello said that he had been "crushed by the loss of my friend".
Bauer wrote in a post on the image sharing app Instagram: "One of the sweetest most talented men I've ever met. A terrible loss for all of us."
McMillan said on Twitter that he was "stunned" and "devastated" by the news.
Ellis is survived by his grandmother Alex Brown, his father Tommie Lee Thompson and his son Breon, along with seven siblings.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40546257
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Niagara Falls: Officials explain why the water turned black - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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Officials say maintenance work caused the inky, stinky discharge to appear in the water by the falls.
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US & Canada
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It was initially feared the black discharge was an oil leak
Mystery surrounding a foul-smelling black cloud that appeared in water at the base of the Niagara Falls on the US-Canadian border has been explained.
Experts say the discharge - which at one point was feared to be an oil leak - was caused by residue from black carbon filters used to clean the water.
The leak happened during maintenance work on Saturday, US officials say.
The Niagara Falls Water Board (NFWB) has since apologised for causing alarm to residents and tourists.
In a statement the board said the "inky water" was the result of "routine, necessary and short term change in the waste water treatment process" at its plant near the city of Buffalo.
The black cloud remained in the water for much of Saturday
"The blackish water contained some accumulated solids and carbon residue within permitted limits and did not include any organic type oils or solvents," the statement said.
"The unfortunate odour was limited to the normal sewer water discharge smell," it added.
Officials say the plant had the correct paperwork to release the discharge - which came from one of its five sediment filtration basins and was being flushed out over the weekend in preparation for contractors to begin upgrade work.
Among the first to notice the problem was Pat Proctor, vice president of Rainbow Air Inc, which provides helicopter tours over the falls. He said the black residue remained in the water for several hours on Saturday before it dissipated.
"I was just praying it wasn't an oil leak," Mr Proctor told the BBC. "It had spread across a half-mile area, looked very menacing and smelt terrible."
Usually such basin discharges are not carried out at peak tourism times, like last weekend, he said.
The Niagara Falls straddle the US and Canada. They are made up of three separate waterfalls and have been a popular tourist attraction for more than 200 years, in addition to being a major source of hydroelectric power.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40777634
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HMP The Mount: Second day of trouble at prison - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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Riot specialists have restored control at the category C prison amid fresh reports of violence.
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Beds, Herts & Bucks
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Armed prisoners were understood to have taken over a wing of the category C men's prison
Riot-trained staff have been sent to HMP The Mount in Hertfordshire for the second day running.
BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw said armed prisoners took over Nash Wing and smashed windows, according to well-placed sources.
The Ministry of Justice said order was restored shortly before 17:00 BST.
About 30 inmates at Erlestoke prison in Wiltshire also became violent and four people were taken to hospital, the Prison Officers Association said.
The acting chairman of the association, Mark Fairhurst, told the BBC that more than 80 inmates were unlocked on a wing at the jail at the time - with "a nucleus of about 30 prisoners being involved in the violence".
The MoJ has confirmed that some prison officers were taken to hospital but would not confirm the number or the nature of their injuries.
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Following the end of the problems at The Mount, a Prison Service spokesperson said: "Specially trained prison staff have successfully resolved an incident at HMP The Mount on 1 August. There were no injuries to staff or prisoners.
"We do not tolerate violence in our prisons, and are clear that those responsible will be referred to the police and could spend longer behind bars."
HMP The Mount was designed as a category C training prison built on the site of a former RAF station on the outskirts of Bovingdon village, Hertfordshire
The Mount Prison opened in 1987 as a young offenders institution.
It was designed as a category C training prison built on the site of a former RAF station on the outskirts of Bovingdon village, Hertfordshire.
A report in 2016 by the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) found "all the ingredients were in place for The Mount to suffer disorder such as has been experienced in other prisons:
The prison now has a population of more than 1,000 prisoners.
The Nash wing is fairly new - it was completed in 2015 - with 94 double cells and 62 single cells.
On Monday at least 50 cells are thought to have been damaged when violence broke out in two wings at The Mount. No-one was injured on that occasion.
A Hertfordshire Constabulary spokeswoman said: "Following [Monday's] incident we are working with the Ministry of Justice and are currently reviewing what, if any offences, have occurred."
The Mount, near Hemel Hempstead, opened in 1987 and is classed as a category C male prison. Nash wing is believed to hold between 200 and 250 inmates serving short sentences or with only three months left to serve of their sentence.
HMP Erlestoke is also a category C men's prison, which the Prison Reform Trust describes as one where "prison staff think [inmates] will not escape", while acknowledging they "cannot be trusted in an open prison".
Incidents take place in prisons all the time; it's usually problems with one or two individuals, and most go unreported.
When an incident like this take place - when tornado (specialist riot) teams are involved - it takes it up to a new level.
When you have prisoners rioting or barricading themselves in, with staff having to withdraw, that is very serious.
Problems at the Mount have been brewing for some time.
The independent inspectors that go into prisons were saying they were 25 staff short out of 136 - that is a significant shortfall.
Last week the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) published its annual report into Erlestoke, and said that the smuggling of tobacco, which has been banned by the prison, had contributed to bullying.
Before the violence broke out on Monday, the IMB also published its annual review into conditions at The Mount and said it had "struggled" with staff shortages.
There were 24 vacancies out of a total of 136 officers in February, it added.
Riot officers with shields were called to attend HMP The Mount on Monday
It also claimed violence "grew considerably" throughout the year and that drugs were readily available, in particular the synthetic cannabis substitute spice.
The report said concerns raised last year had not been addressed by the MoJ.
A 2017 IMB report on the prison found that lack of experienced officers was a concern.
The prison has 388 prisoners with 115 of them serving a life sentence.
About 60% of inmates are aged between 21 and 39.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-40789332
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Labour MP Steve McCabe smashed in face with brick by biker - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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The member for Birmingham Selly Oak said he was nursing a "very sore and swollen face".
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Birmingham & Black Country
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. X marks the spot for MP hit with brick
An MP was left with facial injuries when he was hit in the face with a brick thrown by a motorcyclist.
Labour's Steve McCabe said two people were riding "really recklessly" in Birmingham and he shouted at them to stop or he would call the police.
The Birmingham Selly Oak MP, who said he had given a statement to police, stated he had a "beautiful black eye".
On Monday evening he tweeted pictures of two motorcyclists allegedly involved in the attack.
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Mr McCabe told BBC WM he was out with Labour volunteers in the Yardley Wood area when the attack happened.
"We were just assembling at Greenford Road... to go and do a spot of door knocking, when a couple of characters came down, riding really recklessly, dangerously, doing wheelies in the middle of the road," he said.
"I mean we've had umpteen complaints about this kind of dangerous behaviour and so I shouted at them to pack it in or I'd call the police.
"These are really quite nasty, violent thugs," the MP said of his attackers.
"It is a big issue in south Birmingham, they are terrorising neighbourhoods, but I don't think there is a direct connection in that they knew who I was.
"I think that's just the way they treat anybody who dares to challenge their behaviour."
He added he was sure somebody knew who they were but that people were "terrified of these thugs".
Mr McCabe tweeted: "Sure somebody recognises these two. All I need are names & addresses. Send them to me anonymously & I'll do the rest with the police."
He said he was feeling "a bit battered and bruised, but I think I'll live".
He expects to have some X-rays later but said "it could've been a lot worse. It could've been my eye".
MPs from his own and other parties sent messages of sympathy to Mr McCabe.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-40785740
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Knightsbridge moped attack: Man left with facial injuries - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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Officers said the man was taken to a central London hospital but his condition was not yet known.
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London
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A man has been left with facial injuries after two people on a moped threw an unknown liquid at him in London's Knightsbridge.
The Met Police said the 47-year-old man was attacked in Walton Place at about 20:30 BST by "two males" on a moped.
The force said the man had been taken to a central London hospital but has since been discharged.
A spokesperson said it was not yet known if the liquid thrown was a corrosive substance.
They said no-one had yet been arrested but officers remained at the scene and inquiries were ongoing.
The incident follows a recent rise in the number of attacks involving corrosive substances.
More than 400 were carried out in the six months up to April 2017, according to figures from 39 forces in England and Wales.
The Metropolitan Police has said its response cars will now carry equipment that will help officers to better deal with calls to such attacks.
• None The moped crime wave that has swept London
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-40784105
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How much of the world's wealth is hidden offshore? - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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The chunk of global wealth illegally stashed in tax havens is a big feature of the modern economy.
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Business
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Would you like to pay less tax? Make a sandwich: specifically, a "double Irish, Dutch sandwich".
Suppose you're American. You set up a company in Bermuda and sell it your intellectual property. It then sets up a subsidiary in Ireland.
Now, set up another company in Ireland: it bills your European operations for amounts resembling their profits. Now, start a company in the Netherlands.
Have your second Irish company send money to your Dutch company, which immediately sends it back to your first Irish company. You know, the one headquartered in Bermuda.
Are you bored and confused yet? If so, that's part of the point.
Tax havens depend on making it, at best, very difficult to get your head around financial flows, and, at worst, impossible to find out any facts.
Accounting techniques that make your brain hurt enable multinationals such as Google, eBay and Ikea to minimise their tax bills - completely legally.
50 Things That Made the Modern Economy highlights the inventions, ideas and innovations that have helped create the economic world.
You can see why people get upset. Taxes are a bit like membership fees for a club: it feels unfair to dodge the fees but still expect to benefit from the services provided to members - defence, police, roads, sewers, education, and so on.
But tax havens haven't always had such a bad image. Sometimes they've functioned like any other safe haven, allowing persecuted minorities to escape the oppressive rules of home.
Jews in Nazi Germany, for example, were able to ask secretive Swiss bankers to hide their money.
Unfortunately, secretive Swiss bankers soon undid the good this did their reputation by proving to be just as happy to help the Nazis hide the gold they managed to steal, and reluctant to give it back to the people it was stolen from.
Nowadays, tax havens are controversial for two reasons: tax avoidance and tax evasion.
Tax avoidance is legal. It's the stuff of double Irish, Dutch sandwiches.
Like other major technology companies, Google has come under pressure over its tax arrangements.
The laws apply to everyone: smaller businesses and even ordinary individuals could set up border-hopping legal structures too. They just don't earn enough to justify the accountants' fees.
If everyday folk want to reduce their tax bill, their options are limited to various forms of tax evasion, which is illegal: VAT fraud, undeclared cash-in-hand work, or taking too many cigarettes through the "nothing to declare" lane at customs.
The British tax authorities reckon that much evaded tax comes from countless such - often modest - infractions, rather than the wealthy entrusting their money to shadowy bankers.
But it's hard to be sure. If we could measure the problem exactly, it wouldn't exist in the first place.
In 1934, the Swiss made it a criminal offence for bankers to disclose financial information
Perhaps it's no surprise that banking secrecy seems to have started in Switzerland: the first known regulations limiting bankers' ability to share information about their clients were passed in 1713 by the Great Council of Geneva.
Secretive Swiss banking really took off in the 1920s, as many European nations hiked taxes to repay their debts from World War One - and many rich Europeans looked for ways to hide their money.
Recognising that this was boosting their economy, in 1934 the Swiss made it a criminal offence for bankers to disclose financial information.
The euphemism for a tax haven these days, of course, is "offshore" - despite Switzerland's lack of coastline. Gradually, tax havens have emerged on islands such as Jersey or Malta, or, most famously, in the Caribbean.
Many small islands have become tax havens as a pragmatic way to grow their economies
There's a logistical reason for this: a small island isn't much good for manufacturing or agriculture, so financial services are an obvious alternative.
But the real explanation is historical: the dismantling of European empires in the decades after World War Two.
Unwilling to prop up Bermuda or the British Virgin Islands with explicit subsidies, the UK instead encouraged them to develop financial expertise, plugged into the City of London. The subsidy was implicit, instead - tax revenue steadily leaked away to these islands.
The economist Gabriel Zucman came up with an ingenious way to estimate the wealth hidden in the offshore banking system.
In theory, if you add up the assets and liabilities reported by every global financial centre, the books should balance - but they don't. Each individual centre tends to report more liabilities than assets.
Zucman crunched the numbers and found that, globally, total liabilities were 8% higher than total assets. That suggests at least 8% of the world's wealth is illegally unreported. Other methods have come up with even higher estimates.
Zucman identified a gap between the global economy's declared assets and liabilities
The problem is particularly acute in developing countries. For example, Zucman finds 30% of wealth in Africa is hidden offshore. He calculates an annual loss of $14bn (£11bn) in tax revenue. That would build plenty of schools and hospitals.
Zucman's solution is transparency: creating a global register of who owns what, to end banking secrecy and anonymity-preserving shell corporations and trusts.
That might well help with tax evasion. But tax avoidance is a subtler and more complex problem.
To see why, imagine I own a bakery in Belgium, a dairy in Denmark, and a sandwich shop in Slovenia.
I sell a cheese sandwich, making 1 euro of profit. How much of that profit should be taxed in Slovenia, where I sold the sandwich, or Denmark, where I made the cheese, or Belgium, where I baked the bread? There's no obvious answer.
As rising taxes met increasing globalisation in the 1920s, the League of Nations devised protocols for handling such questions. They allow companies some leeway to choose where to book their profits.
There's a case for that, but it opened the door to some dubious accounting tricks.
Did a company in Trinidad really sell pens to a sister company for $8,500 (£6,600) apiece?
One widely reported example may be apocryphal, but illustrates the logical extreme of these practices.
A company in Trinidad apparently sold ballpoint pens to a sister company for $8,500 (£6,600) apiece, resulting in more profit booked in low-tax Trinidad and less in higher-tax regimes elsewhere.
Most such tricks are less obvious, and consequently harder to quantify.
Still, Zucman estimates that 55% of US-based companies' profits are routed through some unlikely looking jurisdiction such as Luxembourg or Bermuda, costing the US taxpayer $130bn (£100bn) a year. Another estimate puts the losses to developing country governments at many times the amount they get in foreign aid.
Solutions are conceivable: profits could be taxed globally, with national governments devising ways to apportion which profit is deemed taxable where.
A similar formula already exists to apportion national profits made by US companies to individual states.
But that would need political desire to tackle tax havens. And while recent years have seen some initiatives, notably by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), they've so far lacked teeth.
Perhaps this shouldn't surprise us, given the incentives involved. Clever people can earn more from exploiting loopholes than trying to close them.
Individual governments face incentives to compete to lower taxes, because a small percentage of something is better than a large percentage of nothing.
For tiny, palm-fringed islands, it can even make sense to set taxes at 0%, as the local economy will be boosted by the resulting boom in law and accounting.
Perhaps the biggest problem is that tax havens mostly benefit financial elites, including some politicians and many of their donors. Meanwhile, pressure from voters for action is limited by the boring and confusing nature of the problem.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40442595
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Beaten up for being gay - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Six people affected by homophobic hate crimes share their stories.
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Magazine
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Fifty years ago, gay sex between men in private was decriminalised in England and Wales. Despite this, hate crimes against gay people have persisted, and the number of attacks recorded by police has been rising. There were 7,194 in England and Wales in the year to April 2016. Campaigners say this isn't the full picture, though, as many victims still don't report assaults. Six people affected by hate crimes share their stories.
Warning: This story contains details of violence and images which some readers might find upsetting.
James and Dain were enjoying a night out together in Brighton in May 2016 when they were followed out of a nightclub and attacked on the seafront. The assault has left physical and emotional scars.
James: We were at the bar and we got this look from a couple of guys from across the dance floor. It takes a lot to make me feel uncomfortable but it was just such a weird look they gave us. Dain had his arm around me. I don't think they liked that. Then they started shouting at us. I told Dain we needed to get out of the club into a taxi the quickest way possible.
Dain: We left the bar. No-one was about. All of a sudden I heard running behind us. There was no way we were going to outrun them. They grabbed us from behind and chucked us to the floor. I was lying on the pavement and all I could see was James but the next thing I saw was a shoe coming towards my face. That knocked me completely unconscious.
James: One of the boys started kicking Dain's face really rapidly. There was a lot of aggression and shouting of "gay boys". Every time I tried to crawl closer to Dain, I was dragged along the pavement. At that point, a taxi drove past and called the police. I remember standing up for the first time and Dain looked at me and said, "I can't see."
Dain: My eye socket was completely shattered. I had haemorrhages in both my eyes and fractures on my cheeks. My tooth was chipped and my nose was broken as well. I remember being in hospital and kept asking, "Am I going to be able to see again?" They said, "We can't tell you because everything is so swollen." They couldn't even open my eyes.
Dain in hospital after the attack
James and I were very close anyway but spending that much time with each other really proved to me how strong our relationship is. I'm a very resilient person and I'm not going to live my life how someone else wants me to. I'm not going to let anyone change that. If anything, this has made me want to be who I am even more.
James: It's made him stronger and it's made him not care about what other people think and to go out there and be himself even more, whereas it's done the opposite to me. It's changed me. I've changed my thought process and mindset, how I think, how I look, how I speak, who I'm with, where we go and it's sad because I remember how we were before it happened and I look at us now and it's upsetting because it's them who made this happen. That's what's hard to accept.
It's a year since it happened and I thought things would probably get easier but they haven't. When we're out and about he wants us to look like we're together obviously but I'm scared of something similar happening again. It wasn't like that a year ago. We didn't go down the street holding hands but I wasn't fully aware of us making sure that we weren't seen as a couple.
I couldn't ever forgive the people who attacked us or forget what happened. It will stay with me and I'm sure it will stay with them for the rest of their lives.
Both attackers, Gage Vye-Parminter and Matthew Howes, pleaded guilty to grievous bodily harm and assault and were sentenced to seven years in prison.
Becky and Alex were attacked on a night out in Croydon in August 2016. One man was convicted but he left the country before he could be sentenced, leaving the couple feeling angry and frustrated.
Alex: I'm angry about everything that's happened - the fact that I had a black eye to explain to a six-year-old, why Mummy was hurt, why Becky had bruises. It's not something I want to explain to my child, that there's hatred in this world. It's odd that it still happens just because of who we choose to love. For once we had a babysitter and got out of the house and that happened. We haven't been out since.
Becky: The first thing he said was, "I like lesbians" and I thought "Oh God, not one of these."
Alex: He had a South African accent, all seemed quite pleasant and he seemed quite tipsy but I'm never really rude to anyone. He asked our friends to kiss, to which they said "No" and I said, "It's not for your pleasure."
Becky: He said something like "dyke" which offended one of my mates. You don't say that. We went to the kebab shop to get a bit of food. I didn't think it was going to get violent.
Alex: Another guy that had begun joining in then started circling us as a group and focused his attention on me.
Becky: That's when he started getting touchy-feely, groping Alex's breasts and really hanging on her arm. He called us "fat dykes" and she pushed him away. The other guy saw her do it. He swung for her.
James, Dain, Becky, Alex and Jenny tell their stories in the TV programme Is it safe to be gay in the UK? Viewers in the UK can watch it at 21:00 on Tuesday 1 August on BBC One or catch up later online.
The documentary is part of Gay Britannia - a season of programming across the BBC to mark the 50th anniversary of The Sexual Offences Act 1967, which partially decriminalised gay sex between men in England and Wales.
Alex: I got groped, kicked and slammed into a street light. My wife got punched and our two friends got punched too. To hit a woman is wrong but do that just because we didn't want them is disgusting and vile. I am so angry I have been violated for loving my wife. The next day I had to wear glasses as I couldn't cover up the darkness around my eye.
I feel guilty because I have chosen to love Becky which in turn has brought this crap into my son's life. Just me and him, we look completely normal. We wouldn't attract attention but being with Becky does because she is so obviously gay.
I'm disappointed, upset and angry with my attacker, at the court, the justice system. I just hope and pray it doesn't happen to someone else.
A South African man, Sazi Tutani, was found guilty of assault but he couldn't be sentenced because he had left the UK and returned home. There is a warrant out for his arrest. Another man was found not guilty of all charges.
Ian Baynham died after being punched and kicked on a September night in 2009 in Trafalgar Square, central London. His sister Jenny, who is also gay, talks about the loss of her "inseparable link".
Ian was the first born in the family and he was four years older than I was. He had this amazing smile, he just loved life really. When things were tough, he'd be there and he'd never judge you.
As we grew up, we went our separate ways. In our early 20s, I went to a gay party with a girl. It was packed. I looked across the room and I thought: "That's Ian."
He spotted me. He came up to me, put his arm around me and he said, "What are you doing here?" and from that moment we realised we were both gay. That really forged this inseparable link.
On the night he was attacked, he was walking down the street with his friend, Philip. He'd just had his first week at work so he was going out to have a drink.
Someone shouted, "Faggots." My brother turned round and said, "I may be gay but…"
And then there was some kind of altercation. He was kicked in the groin and punched.
They were kicking him, stamping on him and shouting at him.
It's shocking, absolutely shocking. I couldn't believe it. There was a crowd of people around him, which you can see on the CCTV footage. How could you leave somebody in that state? Why didn't they go back to him and check he was OK? Those questions still nag at the back of my mind. To walk away, how could you do that?
Ian was in hospital for 18 days. When I got there he was unconscious with two big black eyes. His breathing was changing. My experience told me that this was the final breath. He struggled a bit and then he stopped breathing. And so he died. We were with him. It was very sad.
Thousands of people with lights attended an extraordinary coming together of gay and straight people in Trafalgar Square because of what had happened. It was magic really and such a fitting event for Ian. Just across the road was where he was last conscious. I went there a couple of times to look. It really is significant. That tree, I know it very well. He's part of Trafalgar Square now.
We always used to say, "We can always live together when we get older and retire. We'll be like Darby and Joan and have a few tea parties." We'd laugh about it. I probably miss him more and more as I get older.
You can't have hate and I think hate is a very divisive thing to hold on to. I'm starting the restorative justice programme and hoping that will give me some sense of closure and also that it will help the offenders. I'd like to meet them all. They're still alive and they have a life. I do care what happens to people and I know some people don't have the same advantages as others. I actually think he would support me doing this and this really will be a bit like a springboard in helping me move on. I'm hopeful.
Ruby Thomas and Joel Alexander were found guilty of manslaughter. Thomas was sentenced to seven years in prison and Alexander was sentenced to six years.
Over the past 12 years, Paul Harfleet has planted hundreds of pansies across the world at spots where gay people have been subjected to homophobic abuse - including locations in Austria, Sweden, Turkey and the US.
It started in Manchester in 2005 when I experienced three separate instances of homophobia in one day. People were really shocked that I had these experiences all the time and I thought, "I have to do something about this."
I began to plant pansies wherever I'd experienced abuse. I wanted to do something that changed the location. I never wanted there to be any signage, it had to be something that was subtle but noticeable, in the way that I am in the street. A pansy is a pansy, you kind of understand and read what it's about just by knowing it's there.
Quite quickly, people started telling me where they had experienced abuse and I started planting for them too. If I plant a flower for someone who's been murdered I usually dedicate it to them. I take photographs and add them to my website.
I often name the pansy after the abuse that has happened. The first one I planted was called: "I think it's about time we went gay bashing again." Two builders sitting on a wall said that directly to my face and I was so shocked I really didn't know what to do.
When you have that experience you're forced to think about what it is you can do. Do you react, do you close up?
The ritual of digging into the ground, kneeling on the ground, feels solemn and slightly healing. I'm subverting this terrible thing that's happened and turning it into something more positive. It also raises awareness.
When someone's been violently attacked, the location is so loaded that they can't stop thinking about it when they go past. What I witness when I go back with them is their experience and healing of that location. They can then think: "This isn't only the place where I was beaten up but also somewhere a pansy was planted." It's almost like sticking a plaster over the violence.
I plant pansies wherever I am. Unfortunately everywhere I go there's usually a place where someone has experienced homophobia. If I mark a location for someone I don't know, I'll contact them using social media saying, "I've done this for you." Every single pansy marks a story of someone who has experienced homophobia on the streets. I don't think it will end. I will always plant them.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-40643461
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Moscow court shooting: Gang suspects killed in escape bid - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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They were shot dead after trying to take the arms from the officers who were escorting them.
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Europe
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The incident took place as the suspects were being escorted in the building
Three defendants have been killed in a court in the Russian capital, Moscow, after they tried to take the arms from officers in an attempt to escape, officials say.
Five suspected gang members attacked two agents who were escorting them in a lift, the Investigative Committee said.
The group was handcuffed and it was not immediately clear how they managed to free themselves to attack the guards.
The two other suspects and three security officers were wounded.
The suspects were accused of being part of a group known as GTA Gang, named after the violent game series Grand Theft Auto.
The group of Central Asian nationals was suspected of killing 17 motorists in the Moscow area between 2012 and 2014. Cars were forced to stop on a main road and their drivers were killed for reasons as yet unknown; none of their possessions were stolen.
In the court, one of the suspects attacked and tried to strangle an agent, as others attempted to seize the officers' weapons, Russia's Investigative Committee said in a statement.
When the lift they were in opened on the third floor, Russian National Guard officers opened fire, killing three of the suspects as they tried to escape, the statement added.
The fact that the suspects were in any position to assault security agents inside the court and even attempt an armed escape is likely to raise questions, BBC Russian's Oleg Boldyrev in Moscow reports.
Suspects are usually brought into courtrooms handcuffed, with their arms crossed behind their backs, so this turn of events will probably be seen as bizarre, our correspondent adds.
The building was evacuated following the shooting
The security officers injured include a National Guard member, who had a gunshot wound and was taken to hospital, and two police officers, who sustained various injuries, according to the Interior Ministry.
A lawyer who was at the building when the incident happened said that at least 20 shots were heard.
The members of the gang are accused of murder, banditry and other crimes, the Investigative Committee said. One of them had fought for so-called Islamic State in Syria before returning to Russia, Russian television reported.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40788237
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Sam Shepard: US actor and playwright dies aged 73 - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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He won a Pulitzer Prize for his writing and was nominated for an Oscar for his acting.
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Entertainment & Arts
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Sam Shepard wrote more than 40 plays in his career
US actor and playwright Sam Shepard has died at the age of 73.
Shepard wrote more than 40 plays and won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for Buried Child in 1979.
He went on to be nominated for the best supporting actor Oscar for 1983's The Right Stuff and starred in films like Black Hawk Down as well as co-writing 1984's Paris, Texas.
He died at home in Kentucky on Thursday, his family have confirmed.
Shepard's death came after he experienced complications from motor neurone disease, also known as ALS.
His first major acting role was in Terrence Malik's Days of Heaven in 1978, in which he starred alongside Richard Gere.
Other film credits include Steel Magnolias, The Pelican Brief and The Accidental Husband.
Shepard was surrounded by family when he died last week
More recently, he was seen as Robert Rayburn in two series of Netflix thriller Bloodline.
Shepard also appears in psychological thriller Never Here, which had its premiere last month.
He was nominated for two other Pulitzers, for Broadway plays Fool for Love and True West. He was also nominated for two Tony Awards.
His final play was A Particle of Dread, which was first performed in Derry/Londonderry in 2013 as part of its year as UK City of Culture.
Shepard with Brad Pitt (centre) and Casey Affleck (right), his co-stars in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
And he wrote the screenplay for Robert Altman's big screen adaptation of his play Fool for Love. His novel, The One Inside, was published earlier this year.
A spokesman said Shepard's family were with him when he died. He leaves children Jesse, Hannah and Walker Shepard and sisters Sandy and Roxanne Rogers.
Tributes have been paid from the worlds of film, theatre and TV.
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Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who starred in Black Hawk Down and also appears in Game of Thrones, wrote: "A hero of theatre. A hero of writing. A hero of acting. A hero of mine."
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Actor Rob Lowe described him as "a true American icon of letters", while True Blood star Joe Manganiello called him "a true American legend", adding: "Your plays and roles will live on forever."
Beau Willimon, creator of Netflix's House of Cards, described Shepard as "one of the greats", adding: "These eyes saw so much, and he wrote of what he saw with fearless, timeless honesty."
Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.
• None Something in Derry air for Shepard
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-40777076
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Man dies in 70m Snowdon mountain Pyg track fall - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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His body was recovered from Snowdon's Pyg track on Monday night.
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North West Wales
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A man has died after falling more than 70m on Snowdon.
His body was recovered by Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team volunteers after the incident on the Pyg track at about 18:30 BST on Monday.
He was taken from the cliff on a stretcher to Llyn Glaslyn before being carried off the mountain.
The man is the second person in three days to have died on the Snowdonia mountain range after a man fell to his death on nearby Tryfan.
• None A walk up the Pyg track - Snowdon-Yr... (C) John S Turner -- Geograph Britain and Ireland The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-40796503
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Ciarán Maxwell: The dissident republican who infiltrated the Royal Marines - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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How did Ciarán Maxwell infiltrate an elite unit of the military and evade detection for so long?
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Northern Ireland
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A photograph of Maxwell posing with cannabis, recovered from one of his memory cards
The jailing of Royal Marine Ciarán Maxwell for terror offences raises troubling questions for the military.
How was an Irish republican with links to violent dissidents able to infiltrate an elite Royal Navy unit and evade detection for so long?
For five years, Maxwell researched, acquired and stockpiled an arsenal of weapons, including material stolen from his base.
A former Army officer has called for an overhaul of the vetting system.
On the face of it, when the man from Larne, a coastal town in County Antrim, began the gruelling 32-week training to become a Royal Marine in 2010 he could not have seemed prouder.
A young Ciarán Maxwell was beaten by loyalists before he became a marine
He posted on his Facebook page: "Pain is temporary, the Green Beret is forever."
But he had gone into the military nursing a grudge after being severely beaten by a loyalist mob oozing sectarian hatred and wielding golf clubs eight years earlier.
They left the teenage, Catholic boy with a fractured skull.
His case featured in the republican newspaper, An Phoblacht, and is said to have left Maxwell "angry and traumatised".
So even before he completed his Marines training, Maxwell was living a dangerous double life.
He had dedicated himself to creating an arms cache for use against the British state he was purportedly serving.
It is not clear whether Maxwell was asked about the incident in which he was beaten as part of his security vetting to become a Royal Marine.
He will have undertaken a long interview, which usually covers most areas of the applicant's life, including his family background.
A balaclava recovered from a hide at Powderham New Plantation
The Royal Navy rejects the suggestion there was a failure of vetting in the Maxwell case, but would not talk about specifics.
"All security personnel are subject to security checking prior to employment and at regular intervals throughout their careers," said a spokesman.
But Doug Beattie, who served three tours of duty in Afghanistan as a captain in the Royal Irish Regiment and is now an Ulster Unionist politician, told the BBC: "We could have been looking at loss of life perpetrated at the hands of a serving soldier of the British military.
"If we don't have a look at our security checks and how we vet people before they join the military, we're going to have problems in the future."
The rogue marine stole rounds of military ammunition and detonators from his unit, exploiting weaknesses in a system that is mainly based on trust.
At the end of training exercises, military personnel have to declare any ammunition they have not used and they may be searched but it is nearly impossible to account for every round.
Maxwell was careful to smuggle out small amounts at a time and he carried them back to Northern Ireland on ferries where there are fewer security checks.
But he took enormous risks, including storing drugs such as LSD in his work locker.
Commander Dean Haydon, the head of counter terrorism command at the Metropolitan Police, described the Maxwell case as "very alarming".
"The fact that ammunition was taken from a military base is clearly of concern and we are working with the military in that regard."
The security of weapons, ammunition and equipment is taken "very seriously", according to the Royal Navy.
"All personnel are instructed in appropriate procedures and any incidents are investigated and action taken where necessary," added a spokesman.
During Maxwell's sentencing hearing, it emerged that he advised the military after his arrest on how it could tighten up the procedure for checking ammunition out of the stores.
A greenhouse used by Maxwell at Powderham New Plantation in England
Even more alarming than his theft of ammunition is that some of Maxwell's improvised pipe bombs are unaccounted for.
"We assess that it's a possibility that a small number - and I would stress that it's a small number - of devices that Maxwell would have made were not recovered and are in the hands of violent dissident republican groupings," said Assistant Chief Constable Stephen Martin of the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
"These groupings do carry out attacks in Northern Ireland - they do attempt to kill people and if they have devices they will use them.
"But I want to reassure people that we are doing everything that we can as a police service to try to constrain these groups."
A handwritten note from Maxwell, recovered from hides at Powderham New Plantation
The group that Maxwell was supplying pipe bombs to calls itself the Continuity IRA (CIRA), which believes it is carrying on the original IRA mission to force the British out of Northern Ireland.
Maxwell admitted he was working with CIRA member Niall Lehd, who went to the same school as him and who was convicted of possessing explosives with intent to endanger life in 2014.
Soon after his release from a short prison term two years later and while still on licence, Lehd teamed up again with Maxwell.
The pair concealed explosives in various hides around Larne.
It is unclear why the diligent and highly-organised marine threw in his lot with a man described by his trial judge as "more a risk to yourself than others".
And the police are reluctant to talk about the relationship between the men or say why Lehd was not charged as part of this investigation.
Though his eventual arrest in August 2016 brought Maxwell's long years as an undercover terrorist to a dramatic end, this case is another reminder of the dark shadow that Northern Ireland's Troubles have cast over the region and beyond.
• None The Marine who turned to terror
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-40742236
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NHS staff: How many foreign staff work in the NHS? - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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As training bursaries end, Reality Check looks at the figures for NHS workers from overseas.
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Health
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From Tuesday 1 August, most new students of areas such as nursing, midwifery and physiotherapy will no longer be able to apply for grants, and will have access instead to the student loans system.
UCAS announced earlier this year that there had been a notable decrease in students from England applying to do at least one nursing course, saying it had fallen 23% to 33,810 in 2017.
Chancellor Philip Hammond spoke last week about the "very high numbers of foreign workers keeping our NHS going".
Looking at the figures from NHS Digital, overall, 82% of NHS staff are UK nationals, with 5% from the European Economic Area (EEA, that's the EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) and 6% from the rest of the world. The remaining 7% are of unknown nationalities.
The unknowns are relatively high because they come from electronic staff records, not HR information, and it is not compulsory for staff to declare their nationalities for those records.
For doctors, it's 70% UK, 9% EEA, 16% from the rest of the world and 5% unknown.
And for nurses and health visitors it is 78% UK, 7% EEA, 8% from the rest of the world and 6% unknown.
To put that into context, according to the latest labour market figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), 7.3% of workers in the UK are EU nationals while 3.9% are from the rest of the world.
Clearly, the unknowns throw comparisons out a bit, but the proportion of NHS staff from the EEA appears to be a bit below the workforce as a whole while there are considerably more from the rest of the world than the workforce average.
For doctors, there are proportionally more foreign nationals than in the workforce as a whole, especially for those from the rest of the world.
If you look at the figures for where doctors earned their qualifications, the rest of the world comes even higher with 27%, compared with 64% from the UK and 9% from the EEA.
Nurses from the EEA work in the NHS in the same proportion as the rest of the workforce while nurses from the rest of the world are overrepresented.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-40753751
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Cannon, anchors and skull found during Portsmouth dredging - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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Millions of metres of mud have been dredged, clearing the way for Britain's newest aircraft carrier.
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Hampshire & Isle of Wight
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Eight cannon were found during the dredging work
More than 20,000 items ranging from a human skull to shoes and sea mines have been discovered during dredging work in Portsmouth Harbour.
The work has been carried out to deepen and widen a four-mile (7km) channel to allow the the navy's new 65,000-tonne aircraft carriers to dock.
It also uncovered eight cannon, an aircraft engine and 36 anchors.
A German sea mine and five bombs uncovered caused major disruption to the area while each was made safe.
The devices, found on the seabed, were towed out to sea and detonated by the Royal Navy's Explosive Ordnance Disposal team.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A total of 36 anchors were found during the work, along with a skull
More on this and other stories from across the South of England.
A military aircraft engine was among the finds
The human skull, which is thought to date back to the Napoleonic Wars, has been passed to police in Portsmouth.
Capt Iain Greenlees, who is in charge of the dredging project said: "There was a burial ground on one of the islands in the harbour and it was almost certainly washed away from there."
Other items included bottles, plates and ceramics - all of which have been passed to archaeologists at Wessex Archaeology for study.
The dredging, which started in September 2015, was carried out to allow HMS Queen Elizabeth - due to arrive later this year - and its sister ship, Prince of Wales, to be based at Portsmouth Naval Base.
The MoD said specialist dredging vessels have removed 3,200,000 cubic metres of sediment - the equivalent to 1,280 Olympic swimming pools.
A number of WW2 fuse caps were also found
Clay pipe fragments have been passed to archaeologists to study
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-40787660
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Australian intruder 'drank champagne and fell asleep' - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The man broke into an Australian home before being discovered sleeping in a bed, police say.
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Australia
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Police arrested the intruder, who had fallen asleep
A man has been charged by Australian police after allegedly breaking into a home, drinking the owner's champagne then falling asleep in her bed.
Police said the 36-year-old man forced his way into the house in Esperance, Western Australia, around lunchtime on Friday.
He fell asleep after drinking the resident's "quite expensive" champagne, officers said.
The owner returned home and allegedly found the thief in her bed.
"She used her great initiative and crept outside the house to phone police who attended and arrested the offender," Senior Sgt Richard Moore, from Esperance Police, told the BBC.
"Police attended as soon as we got the call and located the person asleep."
The man was taken to hospital after being found "very intoxicated", Senior Sgt Moore said.
He has been charged with burglary offences.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-40785646
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Bank of England strike over 'derisory' pay rise - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Unite members among maintenance, security and Parlour staff start three days of strikes.
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Business
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Some of the Bank's staff have started a three-day strike
A three-day strike by some Bank of England support staff has begun, after talks at the conciliation service Acas ended without agreement.
Employees in the Unite trade union are disputing a below-inflation pay rise of 1%, which has been imposed.
About 20 union members, including cleaners, security and maintenance staff, are picketing the Bank's headquarters in the City of London.
Some are wearing facemasks of the Bank's governor, Mark Carney.
They have been joined by the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell.
Staff in the Bank's "parlours", which are meeting rooms on the ground floor of the Bank's building in Threadneedle Street, have also walked out.
It is the first time for more than 50 years that workers at the central bank have been on strike.
"The union balloted approximately 2% of the workforce," the Bank said, as only 150 staff work in the three affected departments.
"The Bank has plans in place so that all essential business will continue to operate as normal during this period.
"The Bank has been in talks with Unite up to and including today and remains ready to continue those talks at any time," it added.
The last time Bank of England staff went on strike was in the late 60s and involved printers at the Bank's printing plant in Debden, who were employed by the Bank of England at that time.
Unite said the dispute centred on the "derisory" pay settlement that the bank had imposed on staff without the union's agreement.
It was the second year running that staff had received a below inflation pay offer, it said.
Unite's London and Eastern regional secretary, Peter Kavanagh, said its members had "been left with no choice but to take industrial action".
"Mark Carney should come to the picket lines outside this iconic British bank today and explain why hardworking men and women deserve to face years of pay cuts."
"They are struggling to pay their bills and feed their families because the bank has unjustly imposed a below inflation or zero pay rise," he added.
Inflation was 2.6% last month, according to official figures.
• None Bank of England staff to go on strike
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40778372
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Dark web markets boom after AlphaBay and Hansa busts - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Following the closure of two illegal markets, listings on rival sites have risen by as much as 28%.
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Technology
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TradeRoute has seen its illegal listings rise following the demise of AlphaBay
Trade on several of the dark web's illegal markets has boomed since two major players were shut by the authorities last month, according to research carried out for the BBC.
The US and Dutch authorities forced AlphaBay and Hansa offline to prevent the sale of drugs, weapons and malware.
But over the last week of July, other sites saw their number of listings rise by as much as 28%, the study indicates.
Sales of some goods do, however, appear to have been reduced.
"There is growing evidence that when one illegal dark web marketplace is closed, the illicit business quickly starts to be redirected to other sites which are still active," commented Elad Ben-Meir, marketing chief at the Israeli cyber-security firm Cyberint, which carried out the research.
"However, there is also evidence that continuing crackdowns by international law enforcement operations, are having the effect of forcing illicit traders away from those sites selling firearms or child pornography."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Technology explained: What is the dark web?
The markets are given the "dark web" moniker because they cannot be accessed via a normal internet browser without using a workaround, and their listings are hidden from mainstream search engines.
The closure of AlphaBay and Hansa was revealed on 20 July.
Cyberint looked at what change in activity there had been on five other leading dark web markets between 24 July and 31 July.
According to its numbers, Dream Market is now the biggest illegal store with a total of 98,844 listings at the end of the month.
The authorities revealed their closure of AlphaBay and Hansa last month
The site was launched in late 2013 and is now one of the oldest dark web markets in existence.
Its number of listings rose by 3,818 over the course of the week.
While that was the biggest increase of the surveyed sites in numerical terms, it represented a relatively modest increase of 3.9%.
"There is some interesting buzz around Dream Market potentially being compromised and/or under law enforcement control, which is feeding fear and uncertainty amongst vendors and buyers," said Mr Ben-Meir.
"That is probably why Dream Market has not grown substantially in the wake of the takedowns."
Europol and the FBI have promised "hundreds" of follow-up investigations off the back of their initial takedowns.
Dream Market vendors are aware that Hansa was seized and covertly monitored for about a month after AlphaBay was deactivated.
That has led to unverified speculation on several online forums that Dream Market's servers have also been hijacked.
The next biggest site is TradeRoute, which rose from 14,914 listings to 17,816 over the period - a 16.3% gain.
It includes forged documents and black market tobacco and alcohol among its wares.
"TradeRoute is actively touting for new business with threads welcoming vendors displaced from AlphaBay," said Cyberint's report.
The Tochka marketplace is believed to be of Russian origin
In percentage terms, Tochka can claim the biggest boost. Its listings rose by 28.1% to 2,390.
The site specialises in illegal and prescription drugs among other products.
Wall Street Market, a relatively new platform with a more polished design than is the norm for such sites, experienced a similar lift.
Its number of listings grew by 25.4% over the week to 2,216.
Of the markets covered, only one experienced a drop-off in activity.
RsClub Market is the only one of the five sites to sell guns - its only restriction on weapons listings is that they must not offer "weapons of mass destruction".
The site's listing count dropped by 638 to 1,689 over the week - a 37.8% fall-off.
RsClub Market lists weapons as well as drugs and other illegal goods
Cyberint suggested that this might be linked to the fact the Rand Corporation think tank and the University of Manchester had jointly published a report into the size and scope of the dark web's illegal arms trade on 19 July. It said that 60% of the weapons put on sale had been sourced from the US, and that terrorists were among suspected buyers.
Cyberint believes those looking to buy and sell other illegal goods might now be steering clear of RsClub Market because it was likely to be a focus of follow-up investigations.
One adviser to Europol said the findings were of interest but only told half the story.
"The takedowns have certainly not discouraged the vendors but it's still not totally clear if it has put off the buyers," said Alan Woodward.
"The sellers believe they are relatively immune - they don't use their real details so are hard to track down even if a site is commandeered - but the users have to give delivery addresses and the like.
"That's why the emphasis is on taking the markets down and that's exactly what law enforcement wants to do."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40788266
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Newspaper headlines: Passport 'shambles' and Bake Off 'battle' - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Longer queues for passport checks and a television baking "feud" make some of Wednesday's front pages.
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The Papers
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Holidaymakers queuing in a Spanish airport for passport control make the front page of the Daily Mail.
The paper calls new, tougher checks imposed by Brussels a "shambles" and claims British families - coming from outside the Schengen free movement zone - are suffering the most, with waits of up to four hours.
Airline executives - the Mail says - are blaming airports for not upgrading their computer systems or recruiting enough border officials.
Other papers lead with the decision by British Gas to raise prices.
"Shameless" is the headline for the Daily Mirror - which calls Centrica's chief executive "greedy" for announcing the increase, while admitting that wholesale prices are falling.
The Guardian warns the hike could prompt a fresh round of increases by the rest of the "big six" suppliers.
A government source tells the paper that the regulator Ofgem must act quickly to protect poorer customers, adding that ministers were still prepared to use legislation.
Mary Berry will be judging bakes once again n a new cookery programme
The Sun says a new BBC cookery programme - with Mary Berry as a judge - has sparked accusations of plagiarism.
A source at Channel 4 complains that similarities between Britain's Best Cook and the Great British Bake Off "have not gone unnoticed" and "will not be overlooked" once the programme goes to air.
The paper lists the similarities and differences. For example, Mary Berry will judge different dishes every week in a patriotic search for the country's best cook...but won't be with Paul Hollywood, in a tent.
The Guardian has seen list of more than a thousand vacant properties - and their owners - in the borough where the Grenfell Tower was destroyed by fire.
The proprietors include the former Mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg who owns a Grade II listed mansion, a Ukrainian oligarch and a luxury property developer.
The Times reports that efforts to conserve the population of hump-back whales in Australian waters may have had a savage, unintended consequence.
Fishermen and surfers have linked growing whale numbers to a recent spate in deadly great white shark attacks - and the government has ordered an inquiry into whether the two are related.
The president of a New South Wales surf group tells the paper he's in no doubt shark numbers are on the up - and that a cull should be a foregone conclusion.
Finally, the Sun has spoken to the British man who sent hoax emails to high-profile figures in the White House - prompting several to respond, sometimes emphatically.
Posing as Reince Preibus - the ousted Chief of Staff - the unnamed prankster provoked former communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, into referencing Shakespeare and making a veiled threat.
"It was easy" he boasts. "Imagine if I had had sinister intentions."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-40798085
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Manchester firearms police: A unit in turmoil? - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The force is being investigated over three fatal incidents. One ex-officer criticised its "aggressive" tactics.
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UK
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Anthony Grainger, PC Ian Terry and Jordan Begley were all killed in separate incidents
Greater Manchester Police is facing new investigations by the police watchdog over three separate fatal firearms incidents, the Victoria Derbyshire programme has learned.
It raises questions about the conduct of one of the UK's biggest firearms unit at a time when Manchester has recently been hit by a terror attack.
A public inquiry into one of the deaths has heard about flawed intelligence, a senior officer destroying notes and employment of an officer disciplined for assault.
Its former head of training, John Foxcroft, said he left the firearms unit due to its "aggressive" tactics.
Many of the officers in the cases are still serving.
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said its firearms officers "volunteer for the role and do a very difficult job, quite rightly under the highest levels of scrutiny".
Here is the story of the three fatal incidents, with new findings uncovered by the Victoria Derbyshire programme's investigation.
"He was a beautiful person inside and out," Anthony Grainger's partner Gail says.
The couple lived together with their two young children.
"I remember thinking, 'My life's perfect.' Then he nipped out - and he didn't come home."
Anthony Grainger was unarmed in a car when he was shot by police in Cheshire, in March 2012.
Police intelligence had suggested he was going to carry out an armed robbery with two associates, also in the car.
Mr Grainger had previously been found guilty of handling stolen cars, but had no convictions for violence.
The two other men did have convictions for violence. Police saw one as very dangerous.
Mr Grainger was killed in a car park on a busy Saturday evening in the village of Culcheth.
Armed officers said they saw him drop his hands in a move interpreted as him going to grab a gun - he was shot once, fatally.
But another man in the car, David Totton, told the inquiry no warning was given before the shot was fired.
All three men in the car were unarmed.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Gail Hadfield-Grainger explains how she first heard her partner had been shot
On the day of the operation, the firearms team had been on duty for 14 hours when it was told to move in.
There were 16 firearms officers. Several had failed training courses and it was argued during the public inquiry they should not have been on the operation, which Greater Manchester Police disputed.
One officer, known as X7 - who had directed the operation on the ground - had failed a firearms course with the Met Police, who removed him early as his performance was "adversely affecting other students."
Another, known as Z15, had failed a safety course shortly before the operation after three extreme safety breaches in potentially life-threatening situations.
A firearms expert told the inquiry these were so "fundamental and inherently dangerous" that it should have led to Z15's "immediate suspension".
Martin Harding, a former superintendent and firearms officer with Greater Manchester Police, told the BBC: "A force such as Manchester has got resilience, so there shouldn't be a reason why you would have someone on a job who wasn't trained to carry out their role."
It emerged during the public inquiry that the officer who fired the gun - referred to as Q9 - had seriously injured a suspect during a previous arrest.
He had also been disciplined for assaulting two people. He was cleared of 10 other separate assault allegations - and remained a firearms officer.
This was not the last serious case Q9 was involved in, we have discovered there was another incident where his conduct was called into question.
All the firearms officers in the Grainger case were granted anonymity so will not talk about this other incident in detail.
Questions over Mr Grainger's death go right to the top of Greater Manchester Police.
During the public inquiry, an assistant chief constable apologised for changing his record of the operation leading up to Anthony Grainger's death, and it was discovered the head of the firearms unit had destroyed his notes when he retired - a year after the shooting.
The police watchdog has launched a new investigation into the case.
It is the second time the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has looked into the case - which is extremely rare. It told us it is examining evidence given at the public inquiry.
In 2008, during a practice exercise at a disused factory, he volunteered to play the role of a criminal fleeing in a car.
Unusually, the decision - made just that morning - had been taken to use live rounds to make the exercise more realistic.
Mr Terry was shot by an officer using a shotgun loaded with a so-called Rip round cartridge - deadly at close range. He died within minutes.
The father-of-two was not wearing body armour.
His father, Roy Terry, said the family were told "he had been involved in an accident at work".
"We were allowed to believe it was some horrendous accident initially, which in the end it transpired it wasn't really."
Roy Terry said the exercise in which his son died had been made "too dangerous"
The IPCC was scathing, calling the case "a shocking wake-up call for Greater Manchester Police firearms unit".
An inquest jury in 2010 ruled Ian Terry had been unlawfully killed and that he "would have been saved" if the training had been properly prepared.
His father Roy Terry said the exercise had been made "too dangerous".
"We got the impression that the firearms officers were more or less allowed just to get on and do their own thing," he added.
John Foxcroft, who ran the firearms training unit at Greater Manchester Police until 2006, before retiring in 2008, told the programme he left the position believing that the force was "getting a little bit too much into the aggressive tactics".
"The more aggressive you get, the more likely you are to have people shot."
The Crown Prosecution Service said there was not enough evidence to bring criminal charges against any officers but Greater Manchester Police was fined for health and safety offences.
John Foxcroft, ex-head of training at the firearms unit, claims tactics were becoming too "aggressive"
In 2014, one of the officers who organised the training was fired from the force.
The man who shot Ian Terry was disciplined but still works for the police.
Roy Terry said this was "not totally satisfactory, but all we were going to get".
The BBC has now discovered there is a new investigation by the IPCC into the case, nine years after Ian Terry was killed.
The police watchdog said it has started an investigation looking at evidence given by a number of officers to the IPCC, to the inquest into PC Terry's death, and to a subsequent Health and Safety Executive (HSE) crown court trial.
GMP's Det Ch Supt Paul Rumney said the force "will consider any recommendations made" by the the public inquiry.
Jordan Begley was 23. He worked in an ice-cream factory near his home in Gorton in Manchester.
On the night of his death, in July 2013, he had been involved in a drunken argument with his neighbours, and was threatening to attack them with a knife. His mother called the police.
"I need the police here. You need to get the police here. Jordan stay here, you're not going out," she can be heard saying in the recorded 999 call.
A patrol officer calmed him down - then other officers arrived, 11 in total, including armed police.
Mr Begley was Tasered and restrained by armed officers. He was punched while he was on the ground and died from heart failure.
"It was a shock. They didn't need that many officers for one person. He was harmless," his cousin Conor Turner explained.
At a 2015 inquest the jury found police failings played a part in his death and said he had been unlawfully killed.
It said the force "inappropriately and unreasonably" used the Taser for longer than was necessary, once he was on the floor,+ the firearms officers did not try to establish whether he was conscious, and that during restraint Mr Begley "offered minimal resistance" with "no need" to punch him twice.
The police were initially cleared of any blame but after the inquest the police watchdog quashed its first report and started a new investigation - which had never been done before.
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-40727842
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UK soldier arrested after fatal car crash at Cyprus base - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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A soldier was arrested after Corporal John Fernandez, 32, died following a car crash on Saturday.
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UK
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Cpl John Fernandez was a "true tiger", his commanding officer said
A British soldier has been arrested following a car crash that killed an infantryman on a UK base in Cyprus.
The Royal Military Police said it was investigating the death of Cpl John Fernandez, 32, of the 2nd Battalion the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, who died following an incident on Saturday.
The Ministry of Defence said he died in a road traffic incident while walking at a UK military base in Dhekelia.
"A thorough investigation is now under way," a MoD spokesman said.
"British Forces Cyprus can confirm that a member of the British military has been arrested in connection to the road traffic incident on 29 July which resulted in the death of Corporal John Fernandez.
"It would be inappropriate to comment any further at this time."
Lt Col James Skelton, commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment - also known as the Tigers - said Cpl Fernandez was "the finest of men and a true Tiger".
"He stood out from his peers as an exemplary infantry soldier, a leader and a servant to his soldiers.
"His example of fitness, courage and personal discipline stand as a marker as to what we, as infantrymen, can all aspire to be.
"More importantly he was a great friend to so many in the battalion who sought the friendship of a kind, funny and genuinely good man. His loss is keenly felt by each and every one of us.
"Along with his family and friends, the Tigers mourn his loss, but at the same time we must celebrate his memory and follow his example in life."
Cpl Fernandez had recently been nominated for a commendation for his actions during an explosive attack at the base's police station in Dhekelia last month.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40791038
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Battle of Britain pilot Kenneth Wilkinson dies aged 99 - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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Kenneth Wilkinson was one of the pilots dubbed "the few" by wartime leader Winston Churchill.
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Birmingham & Black Country
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Kenneth Wilkinson met Prince William during an event to mark the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain
A Battle of Britain pilot who once told off the Duke of Cambridge for "flying choppers" has died at the age of 99.
The Battle of Britain Memorial Trust said it was with great sadness that it announced the death of Flying Officer Kenneth Astill Wilkinson AE.
Mr Wilkinson, of Solihull, West Midlands, was "a true gentleman", the statement added.
Battle of Britain pilots were dubbed "the few" by wartime leader Winston Churchill.
Mr Wilkinson once told off Prince William for "flying choppers instead of proper aeroplanes".
The light-hearted comments came during an event to mark the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain in 2015.
The Battle of Britain Memorial Trust said he had been an active member of the Battle of Britain Fighter Association (BBFA).
"We shall miss him dearly," it added.
Mr Wilkinson was one of the pilots dubbed "the few" by Winston Churchill
Retired group captain Patrick Tootal said Mr Wilkinson was "one of the first to join the BBFA in 1958".
"It was for all the navigators and pilots. He was one of the most junior members having joined us later on in the war," he added.
"He always had a twinkle in his eye, and he liked a glass of red wine. We would always have a joke about it."
He said there were ten members left in the association, ranging from the age of 95 to 99.
The Battle of Britain has become known as a turning point for Britain during World War Two when, in 1940, Germany launched an attack on Britain's air defences. The RAF withstood the attack and Germany called off its invasion plans.
• None BBC iWonder - What was the secret to winning the Battle of Britain-
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-40791988
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Man sees crash that kills wife and step-children in Devon - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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The family is believed to have been on holiday in Devon from the Milton Keynes area.
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Devon
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The carriageway was closed in both directions to allow the air ambulance to land
A woman and her two young children have died in a crash witnessed by her husband.
The woman's car collided with an oncoming lorry on the A361 near Barnstaple in Devon at 08:25 BST.
The woman's husband was travelling in a separate vehicle and saw the crash unfolding behind him.
The family is believed to have been on holiday in Devon from the Milton Keynes area. The road has now reopened.
Insp Richard McLellan said: "It would seem that a car travelling towards Barnstaple, for unknown reasons at the moment, has crossed the centre white line and hit an oncoming truck.
"Unfortunately the family were travelling in two separate cars but travelling together along this road so dad was there at the scene as well."
A woman and her two children died in the crash
Three ambulances, five rapid response vehicles and the air ambulance attended the scene near Barnstaple.
Devon and Cornwall Police said two children and a woman, believed to be their mother, had died as a result of the crash.
The children's stepfather was travelling in a vehicle in front and saw the crash happen.
An investigation is under way and police have asked for witnesses to come forward.
A woman and two children are in hospital after a crash on the same stretch of the North Devon Link Road on Sunday.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-40778903
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Man in toy dinghy rescued a mile off Redcar coast - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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The man, who barely fitted into the dinghy, was rescued by lifeboat as he continued to drift.
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Tees
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Redcar rescue: Man found in dinghy mile out to sea
A man who drifted a mile out to sea in a toy dinghy he barely fitted into has been rescued.
The alarm was raised at 19:30 BST on Monday after he was spotted near a wind farm off the coast of Redcar.
The Redcar RNLI lifeboat was launched and found the man attempting to paddle against the wind and tide but drifting further off shore.
Dave Cocks, from Redcar RNLI, said the man was dressed only in a hoodie and shorts
"This is a good example of the types of incident we repeatedly warn people about," Mr Cocks said.
"If the alarm hadn't been raised there was every likelihood he'd have drifted out of sight of land and we could well have been bringing a dead body back."
The man was given sea safety advice after being taken back to dry land.
The man was given sea safety advice after being taken back to dry land
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-40781810
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EU airport security checks: Holidaymakers 'face long delays' - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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Security checks brought in after recent terror attacks "have led to some people missing flights".
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UK
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Palma Airport in Majorca is among those where passengers have faced delays, Abta says
New checks at many EU airports have left holidaymakers facing long queues, an airline lobby group has warned.
Rule changes brought in after recent terror attacks mean people entering and leaving the Schengen area, which allows passport-free movement across much of the EU, face more security checks.
Airlines For Europe (A4E) said people were having to wait for up to four hours and some had missed flights.
The European Commission said the delays were "the price of security".
The new measures introduced in response to attacks in Paris and Brussels mean the details of passengers from non-Schengen countries, such as the UK, are run through databases to alert authorities if they are known to pose a threat.
Practically it means that border staff in the affected countries have to swipe each passport through a reader, rather than waving British holidaymakers though as before.
This has taken up to two minutes per passenger which has led to delays.
A4E, which represents carriers including Easyjet, Ryanair and British Airways-owner IAG, said delays at some airports had increased by 300% compared with last year.
Managing director Thomas Reynaert said: "Travellers face long lines and can't get on their flights. Queuing for up to four hours has been the top record these days.
"Airports like Madrid, Palma de Mallorca, Lisbon, Lyon, Paris-Orly, Milan or Brussels are producing shameful pictures of devastated passengers in front of immigration booths, in lines stretching hundreds of metres."
A4E added that the situation could worsen in the coming weeks as the new regulations have not yet been fully implemented.
A spokeswoman for travel trade organisation Abta said: "New, stricter passport checks are resulting in longer queues at some airports, including Palma, which is already busy due to a significant increase in passenger numbers.
"Tour operators will ensure that customers get to the airport in plenty of time so that they are not in danger of missing their flights."
She urged independent travellers to check for delays with their airlines and "ensure they factor these longer queuing times into their travel plans when flying".
Border check points should be kept "sufficiently resourced" to keep queuing times as short as possible, she added.
The European Commission has defended the changes, spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said: "More checks can lead to more delays and that is the price of security.
"We understand that there are concerns about EU rules leading to longer waiting periods, but let us be very clear - this is about the security of our citizens.
"All EU member states wanted to have the current rules. We cannot have on the one hand, a joint request from member states to have more checks and controls, to increase security, and at the same time have complaints about longer waiting periods."
She said it was the responsibility of member states to provide enough resources to make the checks "as smooth as possible", adding it was "very clear that member states had time to prepare".
The BBC's Brussels reporter, Adam Fleming, said there were issues with smaller airports at the weekend.
There were big queues at Malaga and Palma, Majorca as they were not geared up for the delays. Orly airport in Paris was able to draft in extra staff when the management realised there was a problem.
He said the airlines were issuing this warning to let people know that any coming delays would not be their fault.
The BBC has contacted several airlines and airports. They have said there was no sign of huge delays on Tuesday or any change in advice for passengers with regards to checking in earlier.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40791058
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Sheriff Joe Arpaio found guilty of violating judge's order - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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Joe Arpaio violated a judge's order that he cease detaining people whom he racially profiled.
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US & Canada
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Arpaio was known for his anti-immigration stance, and tough enforcement tactics
Joe Arpaio, the controversial former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, has been found guilty of criminal contempt - a federal offence.
He was found to have violated a judge's 2001 order that he cease detaining migrants who are not suspected of having committed a state crime.
Judge Susan Bolton determined that by detaining those living in the US illegally, Mr Arpaio was acting as a de facto wing of the federal government.
He faces up to six months in prison.
However, lawyers say it is unlikely that he will ever serve time behind bars.
Mr Arpaio, 85, had boasted of being "America's toughest sheriff" during his time as the elected lawman of Maricopa County, which includes the city of Phoenix.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Arpaio said in 2011 interview that he was protecting jobs
He rose to national prominence due to his tough stance against illegal immigration. However, a judge reminded him during his trial that only federal officers have jurisdiction over immigration.
He had claimed that the judge's injunction in 2011, which he was found to have violated, was vague and unclearly worded.
But a judge found on Monday that Mr Arpaio had understood the temporary injunction, which was later made permanent, and had deliberately violated it to score political points ahead of his re-election campaign in 2012.
He was known during his tenure as sheriff for sweeps of undocumented immigrants in Hispanic communities, and for detaining Spanish-speakers under suspicion of being undocumented migrants.
He also famously required his inmates to wear pink underpants and socks.
Mr Arpaio, in a statement, insisted that the judge who issued the ruling was biased, and said he would appeal to have a jury hear his case.
"Joe Arpaio is in this for the long haul, and he will continue his fight to vindicate himself, to prove his innocence, and to protect the public," a statement issued by him reads.
• None UK blogger takes on 'toughest sheriff in US'
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40780659
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UK theme park rides closed after Ohio death - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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High-speed pendulum rides have been closed in England and Wales after the death of a US teenager.
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UK
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Lightwater Valley theme park in North Yorkshire says it has decided to close its Eagle's Claw ride as a precaution
Six high-speed theme park rides have been shut across the UK after a death on a similar attraction in the US.
An 18-year-old man died and three others were critically injured after being flung from the ride at the Ohio State Fair on Wednesday.
The ride, known as the KMG Afterburner, swings at high speed from side-to-side while also spinning passengers.
The Health and Safety Executive ordered the re-inspection and temporary closure of similar rides in the UK.
Three of the rides closed are in theme parks, Pleasurewood Hills in Suffolk, Coney Beach in South Wales and Brean Theme Park in Somerset.
The other two rides are owned by Ryan Crow Amusements in the North East of England and by Joseph Manning in Hertfordshire.
Lightwater Valley in North Yorkshire has voluntarily closed its pendulum-style ride until the HSE has deemed the KMG Afterburner safe.
Following the accident in Ohio, Thorpe Park in Surrey closed one of its pendulum rides, Vortex, as a precaution, but it has since reopened.
A spokeswoman said: "We reopened the ride on Saturday with the endorsement of both manufacturer and the HSE."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A witness said "several people came flying out" from the ride
Unverified footage from Wednesday's accident in Columbus shows one passenger carriage breaking loose near the bottom of its pendulum swing, tossing passengers into the air as it rose again.
An HSE spokeswoman said all five rides in the UK had been "thoroughly inspected within the last 12 months", but there was no "verified information" on the cause of the fatal accident in the US.
As a result the body had served an enforcement notice on the machines, which takes them out of use.
"HSE will ensure operators are kept abreast of information as it arrives and will take such action as is necessary to ensure the rides are inspected and tested as necessary to ensure safety," the spokeswoman added.
Ripon-based theme park Lightwater Valley is telling customers that its ride, called the Eagle's Claw, is closed "due to circumstances beyond our control".
A spokesman said: "We were deeply saddened and shocked to hear of the tragic accident in the US and our thoughts go out to the families of those concerned."
He added that although there are "fundamental and significant differences" between the ride at Lightwater and the one in Ohio, the park "entirely supported" the HSE's decision to close similar rides.
The theme park would keep the ride closed as a "precaution" until HSE had completed its safety checks.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40788040
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Britain's Best Cook: Mary Berry to judge new BBC cooking contest - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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Britain's Best Cook will be presented by Claudia Winkleman and be broadcast on BBC One.
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Entertainment & Arts
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Mary Berry said the series would "encourage proper home cooking"
The BBC has announced a new TV cookery competition - with Mary Berry as the lead judge.
Britain's Best Cook will be broadcast on BBC One and presented by Claudia Winkleman.
The BBC said 10 contestants will compete across eight episodes, serving meals that reflect both the modern and classic dishes of British home cooking.
Berry said: "I am never more at home than when I have my judging hat on."
She continued: "This series is going to encourage proper home cooking, which I have always championed and I cannot wait to start. Claudia, for me, is the icing on the cake."
The 82-year-old will be joined by a second judge - but their identity hasn't yet been revealed.
Winkleman and Berry were pictured with Nigella Lawson at the BBC's factual launch in June
Winkleman said: "I am over the moon to be part of this show. Am slightly obsessed with Mary so will follow her around with my own moussaka for most of the filming. Apologies in advance."
The BBC announcement said contestants will have to prove they have the "skills and repertoire, technical ability, resourcefulness and creativity" to be crowned Britain's Best Cook.
Berry left The Great British Bake Off last year, when it was announced that the programme would move from the BBC to Channel 4.
Presenters Mel and Sue also exited the programme, but Paul Hollywood stayed with the show. He'll appear in the new series later this year alongside Sandi Toksvig, Noel Fielding and fellow judge Prue Leith.
This won't be Berry's first show for the BBC since leaving Bake Off.
It has been announced she will appear in Mary Berry's Secrets From Britain's Great Houses, and she has also fronted Mary Berry Everyday for BBC Two.
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-40788338
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'Significant' Roman silver hoard found in Fife by teenager - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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David Hall made the discovery at the age of 14 and says it was his "first proper find".
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Edinburgh, Fife & East Scotland
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. David Hall was just 14 when he made the discovery
A hoard of Roman silver discovered by a teenage metal detectorist in his "first proper find" is to go on display in Scotland.
David Hall, from Livingston who is now 16, found the hacksilver in Fife when he was aged 14, in 2014.
The silver was believed to have been used by Roman soldiers to bribe Picts while passing through Scotland.
David said he did not initially realise the importance of the find and is excited to see how it now looks.
The Dairsie hoard dates to the late 3rd century AD and is the earliest hacksilver from anywhere beyond the frontiers of the Roman Empire.
The find has been hailed as "internationally significant" and will go on show for the first time in a new exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland in October.
David told BBC Scotland he first became interested in metal detecting after watching an American TV programme. He then saved up and bought a "low-end" detector.
Archaeologists think the silver came to Fife as a gift or payment
He had only been using it for a few months when he came across the silver.
"It was quite a boring day," he said. "I was at a rally with 103 metal detectorists and we were looking in three fields and nothing had come up.
"All of a sudden I found a few bits of silver and I showed it to a friend who said it was Roman and after that we found another 200 pieces on the first day."
Hacksilver consists of silver objects hacked into pieces to make raw bullion.
Archaeologists think the silver came to Fife as a gift or payment from the Roman world.
The Romans could not just rely on the strength of their army - they also used diplomatic efforts to secure the empire's borders by buying off surrounding tribes.
As well as being hacked-up by the Romans, the hoard had been shattered by ploughing.
Curators have been piecing the silver back together
Curators have undertaken a daunting jigsaw puzzle, reconstructing four Roman vessels from more than 300 fragments, as well as examining how they had been cut into packages of bullion.
David said: "This was really my first proper find.
"I didn't realise how important it was at first, but it's been really exciting to be able to come and see what National Museums' curators and conservators have been able to do to clean it up and to examine it to work out what it is.
"It looks really different now. It's great to have unearthed a piece of history and I'm looking forward to seeing it on display at the museum."
David Hall had only been using his metal detector for a few months when he came across the silver
The silver will go on display at the National Museum of Scotland in October
Dr Fraser Hunter, principal curator at National Museums Scotland said: "New archaeological evidence is rewriting our understanding of Roman frontier politics, and silver was a key part of this.
"It's a fascinatingly complex picture that shows interaction and realpolitik, with the Romans changing their approach to deal with different emerging problems, and local tribes taking advantage of Roman 'gifts'. The Dairsie hoard is internationally significant.
"It's the earliest evidence for a new phase of Roman policy in dealing with troublesome tribes, using bribes of silver bullion in the form of hacked silver vessels.
"It's been great to show David Hall, the finder, the next steps in translating a find like this from the field, through the laboratories and on to public display."
The exhibition, Scotland's Early Silver, will show for the first time how silver, not gold, became the most important precious metal in Scotland over the course of the first millennium AD.
New research and recent archaeological discoveries will chart the first thousand years of silver in Scotland.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-40778533
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New Zealander paints his own parking restrictions - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Russell Taylor says his homemade yellow lines stop selfish parking caused by rising gentrification.
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Asia
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Mr Taylor says that his unofficial yellow lines stop people from parking on blind corners
A New Zealand activist who has unlawfully painted yellow line parking restrictions outside his house in Wellington for the last 20 years says he has done so to improve road safety and to protest against gentrification.
Russell Taylor said it was necessary to stop cars from parking dangerously in an increasingly busy street.
"It's a major contribution to road safety," he told the BBC.
The city council says the lines are illegal and will be removed.
My Taylor says he has painted the lines intermittently over the last two decades when the parking problem in his street has become especially bad.
"It's a protest against the failure of our council to take action," he said.
His personal campaign has attracted thousands of online comments since it was highlighted by local media on Monday.
Mr Taylor said that life in Holloway Road has changed dramatically since he moved there in 1979.
Mr Taylor - who says he looks like British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn - staunchly supports better road safety in his street
"Hardly anyone had cars then but now it has all changed as the area has become more middle class and gentrified.
"Cars park on blind corners, and on occasions fire lorries and rubbish collection vehicles have been unable to turn around because vehicles are parked on both sides of the road.
"More recently we have had the additional problem of drivers going far too fast down our narrow street."
The activist said the only way to combat the problem was by using a can of yellow paint stored in his garage.
The homemade yellow lines on Holloway Road in Wellington
A city council spokesman, Richard MacLean, told Stuff New Zealand that it was aware there was a parking problem in Holloway Road, and it will shortly be discussed by residents and councillors.
Mr Maclean said that among the measures the council was considering was the implementation of "no stopping" restrictions later this year.
He said it was unlikely that Mr Taylor would be punished for his long-running, unofficial road-marking campaign.
"Given the glorious and healthy history of civic activism in Holloway Road, we would rather not pick an unnecessary fight with the locals," he said.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-40776651
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Fentanyl deaths: Warning as drug kills 'at least 60' - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Fentanyl, the drug that killed pop star Prince, has been found in batches of heroin.
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England
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Laboratory testing found traces of fentanyl and carfentanyl in batches of heroin
At least 60 people have died in the UK in the last eight months after taking the strong painkiller fentanyl.
Tests on heroin seized by police since November found traces of the synthetic drug, with more than 70 further deaths pending toxicology reports, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said.
Some contained carfentanyl, which is 10,000 times stronger than morphine and often used to tranquillize elephants.
Health officials and police have warned heroin users to be "extra careful".
Most of the deaths were in the police force areas of West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, North Yorkshire, Humberside and Cleveland, the NCA said.
They were predominantly men and a range of ages, with none younger than 18.
Fentanyl, which hit the headlines after it was linked to the death of US singer Prince, is considered to be 50 times more potent than heroin according to America's Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
While it can be legally prescribed, sometimes in the form of a patch or nasal spray, carfentanyl is only used as an anaesthetic for large animals, the NCA said.
Recent NCA investigations found that fentanyl and its analogues are being both supplied in and exported from the UK.
Fentanyl is an extremely strong painkiller, prescribed for severe chronic pain, or breakthrough pain which does not respond to regular painkillers.
It is an opioid painkiller which means it works by mimicking the body's natural painkillers, called endorphins, which block pain messages to the brain.
The risk of harm is higher if the wrong dose or strength is used.
Typical symptoms of a fentanyl overdose include slow and difficult breathing, nausea and vomiting, dizziness and increased blood pressure.
Officers have warned drug users that heroin and other class A drugs were being laced with synthetic opioids like fentanyl.
Det Supt Pat Twiggs, of West Yorkshire Police, said: "People are playing Russian roulette with their lives by taking this stuff, that's why we would strongly recommend to the drug-using community to stay away from it.
"The business is not done under lab conditions, it's not done by scientists, it's done in a very uncontrolled way by people seeking out profit - this is why we're concerned when you're dealing with such toxic chemicals."
Fentanyl is considered to be 50 times more potent than heroin
A national alert was issued in April by Public Health England to warn medical and drugs services of the need to be vigilant.
Richard Sykes, principal analyst at West Yorkshire Analytical Services, said: "If you look at normal street heroin probably something like a quarter of a sugarcube would be a normal dose, but with carfentanyl a single grain of salt would probably be enough to kill a person, so it's extremely dangerous."
On Monday a 25-year-old man from Gwent was charged in connection with investigations into the supply of synthetic opioids.
Three men arrested in April in Leeds have also been charged.
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Twin to twin skin transplant hailed as a success - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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The 66-year-old Fields twins have lived together all their lives - now they are even closer after sharing their skin.
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Health
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Marian received a large quantity of skin from her twin sister Mary Jane
The 66-year-old Fields twins, from Missouri, have lived together all their lives - now they are even closer after sharing their skin.
Marian Fields had an aggressive and very rare form of skin cancer, which left her with large, open wounds around her backbone following multiple operations and radiation treatments.
She was beginning to lose all hope of recovery after plastic surgeons in the US refused to take on her case because of the size of the wound.
But her identical twin sister Mary Jane provided the solution.
"There was never a moment of hesitation when the option to donate skin and tissue was a possibility," Mary Jane said.
"I had what she needed. We are two bodies with one soul. She is my other self."
Surgeons worked for 14 hours to remove Marian's skin cancer from her back
Dr Jesse Selber, a plastic surgeon from the MD Anderson Cancer Centre at the University of Texas, who had previously performed the first skull-scalp transplant, said the surgery was "incredibly challenging and complex".
His team of five plastic surgeons removed skin, tissue and blood vessels from Mary Jane's abdomen and transplanted it to Marian's back, connecting eight different arteries and veins under a microscope during surgery.
The hole in Marian's back was 21.5in by 8.5in (55cm x 22 cm), making it one of the largest tissue transplantations on record.
By donating skin to her sister, Mary Jane - in effect - got a giant tummy tuck.
Having an identical twin made the transplantation process more likely to succeed for Marian because no suppression of her immune system was required - but there were still huge risks.
Surgeons said they were concerned about the donated skin being rejected and the possibility of the cancer recurring.
Although the tumour in Marian's back was very aggressive, it was not a type that spreads to other parts of the body so receiving her sister's skin and tissue was a perfect fix.
Mary Jane and Marian attend an appointment with Dr Selber
Dr Selber said: "Marian's wound was impossibly large - without her genetically identical sister, we would not have had enough tissue to reconstruct it."
The surgery took 14 hours and involved "extensive resection through skin, muscle and bone", followed by "hours of meticulous microvascular work".
The surgery was meticulously planned beforehand - and it paid off, according to Dr Selber.
"It went quite beautifully," he said.
Before the transplant surgery, Marian was in horrible pain. She couldn't lie on her back or sit up in a chair properly.
One month on from the surgery, the twins have been discharged, the stitches have been removed and they have returned home.
Marian says: "I'm looking forward to getting back to work, driving, running and sitting comfortably.
"I've never been sick before 2012 and am ready to get back to life."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-40729082
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HMP The Mount disturbance: Riot staff sent to tackle violence - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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A report into HMP The Mount that highlighted violence as an issue had been released hours earlier.
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Beds, Herts & Bucks
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Riot-trained staff were sent to Mount Prison in Hertfordshire
Riot-trained prison staff were sent to a jail amid reports of violence on two wings.
Sources earlier told BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw that one wing of HMP The Mount in Hertfordshire and half of another wing had been "lost".
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) later said the incident was "resolved" and no staff or prisoners had been injured.
A report into the jail published earlier highlighted staffing problems and said violence was an issue.
The Mount, in Bovingdon village near Hemel Hempstead, opened in 1987 and is classed as a category C male prison.
A "tornado team" made up of riot-trained staff arrived at the jail at about 18:30, equipped with shields and batons while fire, police and ambulance crews were on standby outside.
Riot officers with shields entered HMP The Mount at about 18:30 BST
The MoJ said officers had dealt with an "incident involving a number of prisoners".
The BBC understands the wings involved were H and L, which house 110 and 117 prisoners.
At about 23:45, a Prison Service spokesman said: "Specialist prison staff resolved an incident involving a number of prisoners. There were no injuries to staff or prisoners.
"The offenders responsible will be referred to the police and could spend longer behind bars."
Earlier on Monday, the Independent Monitoring Board published its annual review into conditions at Mount Prison and said it had "struggled" with staff shortages.
There were 24 vacancies out of a total of 136 officers in February, it added.
It also claimed violence "grew considerably" throughout the year and that drugs were readily available, in particular the synthetic cannabis substitute spice.
The report says concerns raised last year had not been addressed by the MoJ.
The Prison Reform Trust calls this type of institution one where "prison staff think [inmates] will not escape", while acknowledging they "cannot be trusted in an open prison".
Prison affairs academic and blogger Alex Cavendish had tweeted on Saturday: "Staff shortages at HMP The Mount (Herts) are so severe that this is the 3rd weekend of total lockdown. Meals given at cell door. Trouble brewing."
HMP The Mount is for prisoners coming to the end of longer sentences
Mark Fairhurst, of the Prison Officers Association, said staff shortages in UK jails were "an epidemic" and partly due to "poor salaries".
"We need to increase the starting salary to incentivise people to join and then we need to give them regular increments to incentivise them to stay," he said.
Mr Fairhurst added it was difficult to retain staff because of "adverse working conditions, the violence they face and poor salary".
Hertfordshire Police, Hertfordshire Fire Brigade and East of England Ambulance crews stood by as riot officers entered the prison
The Mount is built on a former RAF station site and has more than 1,000 prisoners, according to the MoJ.
It is described as a "hybrid training and resettlement prison" for inmates in the final six months of their sentences.
A 2015 inspection of the prison found The Mount was "reasonably safe and felt calm and well ordered", but chief inspector of prisons Nick Hardwick added that there was "room for improvement".
In March 2016 an inmate at The Mount stabbed a fellow prisoner with a shard of glass from a microwave.
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Teacher jailed for watching live stream of child rape - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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Wayne Brookes joined 45 other paedophiles online to watch the abuse being streamed live from the US.
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Somerset
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Brookes viewed the abuse from an online chat room, Bristol Crown Court heard
A primary school teacher who watched a live stream of a six-year-old boy being raped has been jailed.
Wayne Brookes joined 45 other paedophiles online to watch the abuse being streamed live from America.
Bristol Crown Court heard he also used the site to watch a recording of a six-month-old baby being abused.
Brookes, 43, from Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, admitted four charges of making indecent images of children and was jailed for 20 months.
The court heard the former teacher accessed the online chat room after being given a 10-digit code by another paedophile.
The rapist who broadcast the attack was arrested in the US in February and jailed for up to 30 years.
Brookes, who had worked as a teacher for 10 years, was identified by officers after using a profile named Bear to access the chat room.
He was found to have downloaded more than 200 indecent images of children, including dozens in the highest category.
Judge Martin Picton said he had kept his interest in young children a secret from his partner, viewing the indecent material "late at night".
"One of the pieces of footage depicted the live streaming of a rape of a little boy," he added.
"I do give you the benefit of doubt with the issue of whether you understood that you were watching a live event."
The judge said although there was "no suggestion" that Brookes accessed indecent images at work or "offended against any of the children" in his care, his offences would have caused "alarm and distress" at the school where he worked.
Defence barrister Virginia Cornwall said Brookes had "demonstrated remorse and understanding for his criminality" and was "a broken man".
Brookes is the second of four men to be sentenced following an investigation into the chat room by the National Crime Agency.
Last month, youth worker Darren Williams, 44, was jailed for 11 years for his part in the live stream of the rape.
Philip Crabtree, 35, of Newcastle-Under-Lyme, and Christian Johnson Lueking, 36, of Raynes Park, London, are currently awaiting sentencing.
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JK Rowling apologises over Trump disabled boy tweets - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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The apology came after a disabled boy's mother said the US president did not ignore her son.
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UK
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Author JK Rowling has apologised for incorrectly accusing Donald Trump of ignoring a disabled boy.
A video emerged that appeared to show the US president refusing to shake the boy's hand at the White House.
"How stunning, and how horrible, that Trump cannot bring himself to shake the hand of a small boy who only wanted to touch the president," the author said.
But Marjorie Kelly Weer, mother of Monty, said Rowling's interpretation of the clip was wrong.
The Harry Potter author tweeted: "Re: my tweets about the small boy in a wheelchair whose proffered hand the president appeared to ignore in press footage.
"Multiple sources have informed me that that was not a full or accurate representation of their interaction.
"I very clearly projected my own sensitivities around the issue of disabled people being overlooked or ignored onto the images I saw and if that caused any distress to that boy or his family, I apologise unreservedly."
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Mr Trump is said to have shaken the boy's hand as the president entered the room.
Ms Weer wrote on Facebook: "If someone can please get a message to JK Rowling: Trump didn't snub my son & Monty wasn't even trying to shake his hand."
She also said her son was not all that keen on shaking hands anyway.
Rowling has deleted her initial tweets on the subject.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40785321
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Why are there so many US diplomats working in Russia? - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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Hundreds of people are set to lose their jobs after Putin's crackdown.
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US & Canada
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Hundreds of people work for the US in Moscow and other Russian cities. What are they all doing there?
Over the weekend Russia President Vladimir Putin said that the US had to reduce its diplomatic staff in the country by more than 750 people.
It was a startling development in US-Russia relations, exposing tension between the two countries that arises from new sanctions imposed on Russia, and suspicions about meddling in the US election.
For many it also raised a question: why are so many people working at the US embassy in Moscow and in other places around Russia? By some estimates, there are 1,200 US state employees in the country.
The number seems high - at first glance. Yet it makes sense for those who are working at the White House and trying to manage a challenging, tumultuous relationship with Russia.
Americans and Russians have important areas of co-operation: they're working together to combat militant groups, assure the security of nuclear weapons in both countries, and reduce violence in Syria.
Besides that, the US exports billions of dollars worth of products to Russia every year.
But they also fight about things: aside from the controversy over election meddling, they're trying to work out issues such Russia's territorial ambition and its expansion in the region.
US officials say that monitoring Russia's activities and keeping abreast with the different aspects of the relationship requires a lot of support in Moscow.
To that end, Americans in Russia are involved in a variety of undertakings - in different locations. Most work in Moscow, but some are employed in offices in Vladivostok, St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg.
In Moscow and the other cities, Americans process visa applications for Russians who want to travel to the US. In addition, they write cables to officials in Washington about human rights, labour and other matters.
Some of them work on agricultural, scientific and public-health initiatives that, for example, help to protect rare wildlife and combat infectious diseases.
Some work in Russia for other government agencies, as the CIA and US intelligence agencies are euphemistically known.
The number of people in Russia who are employed by the US intelligence agencies is substantial, although specifics are unavailable. Georgetown University's Angela Stent, who used to work as a national intelligence officer, laughed at the question.
"Nobody knows that," she said.
Still most of the people who work at the embassy and in other US offices in Russia are not spies or spymasters; most, in fact, are not even US citizens. They're Russian.
Of the 1,279 people who worked at the embassy in 2013, according to a 2013 inspector general report, 934 were locally hired.
The Russian staff help to organise events, process visas, fix computers and otherwise keep the place running. For them, Putin's announcement was troubling.
"These people will lose their jobs," said Yuval Weber, a fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington.
It also means that Russians will have a harder time getting visas for their trips to the US: at this point, he said, it takes two to five weeks for them to get a visa. With a reduced staff, it will take longer.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40780841
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British Gas to raise electricity prices - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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Prices are to increase by 12.5% from mid-September, affecting 3.1 million customers.
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Business
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British Gas will increase electricity prices by 12.5% from 15 September, its owner Centrica has said, in a move that will affect 3.1 million customers.
Gas prices are unchanged, but the average annual dual-fuel bill for a typical household on a standard tariff will rise by £76 to £1,120, up by 7.3%.
Centrica said the rise was a result of transmission and distribution costs and the costs of government policy.
But the government said its policy costs "could not explain" the rises.
Centrica said the price increase was its first since November 2013, adding that British Gas was one of the last suppliers to raise prices.
The company said it would protect its most "vulnerable customers" against the rise and that British Gas would credit more than 200,000 people on the government's Warm Home Discount with £76.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Centrica boss says the price rise is partly down to government policy
Centrica chief executive Iain Conn told the BBC's Today programme that wholesale costs had gone down and were not the reason for the price rise.
"We have seen our wholesale costs fall by about £36 on the typical bill since the beginning of 2014 and that is not the driver. It is transmission and distribution of electricity to the home and government policy costs that are driving our price increase."
He added: "We are selling electricity at a loss and that is not sustainable."
British Gas had frozen its gas and electricity prices for six months in February, saying at the time it was able to do so by cutting costs to offset higher wholesale prices.
A spokeswoman for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said: "Energy firms should treat all their customers fairly and we're concerned this price rise will hit many people already on poor value tariffs.
"Government policy costs make up a relatively small proportion of household energy bills and cannot explain these price rises."
"In response to a letter from the Business and Energy Secretary asking what action the regulator intended to take to safeguard customers on the poorest value tariffs and the future of the standard variable tariff, Ofgem has committed to taking prompt action, in consultation with consumer experts, to develop proposals including a safeguard tariff.
"We want to see rapid progress on this commitment."
Alex Neill of Which? magazine urged British Gas customers on the standard variable tariff deal to switch to another provider immediately.
"For the customers of British Gas, they won't really care about any of this squabbling about who's to blame for the costs or the price rises," she said.
"At the end of the day, these people are now paying another £76 on top of what is already more than £1,000 a year for a bill. And they're not really seeing the difference in value that they are getting from British Gas for that £76."
Centrica tried to land the blame for higher bills partly on the government's doormat, but the government wasn't having it.
Renewable targets, smart meter rollout, subsidies for insulation and other social and environmental policies were a big factor driving prices higher.
The government abandoned a manifesto promise to cap energy bills and instead threw this perennially hot potato to the regulator Ofgem, which is currently consulting on what action to take.
Umpteen probes, competition reviews, promises or threats of caps or nationalisation - the problem of what to do about energy remains as thorny as ever.
The government has reiterated its position that it is not ruling anything out - either by regulation or legislation. That means that although it's on the back-burner for now, an energy price cap is still officially an option.
Shadow energy minister Alan Whitehead told the Today programme that he believed the government should have acted on its pre-election promise of imposing a price cap on energy costs.
"It is really important now that energy prices are stabilised and we need a cap to do that," he said.
"We also need action on the make-up of the customer base of energy companies. It clearly is not sustainable as far as customers are concerned being on mainly these standard variable tariffs, which land the greatest cost on the customers who can least bear it on a regular basis."
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Shadow energy minister Alan Whitehead urges the government to keep its pre-election promise of an energy price cap
Former Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said: "This is a colossal increase that will really hurt customers already struggling with rising prices due to the deteriorating economic situation.
"As a former public utility, British Gas has a huge number of customers who don't switch and is clearly treating these people like cash cows.
"We need to open up the market to more competition to drive down prices and take action to help lower income families. As things stand, there will be a lot of people in fuel poverty this winter shivering in homes they cannot afford to heat or even light."
Centrica Consumer chief executive Mark Hodges said: "We held off increasing prices for many months longer than most suppliers in order to protect our customers from rising costs, so it is a difficult decision to have to announce an increase in electricity prices."
The company added that 5.3 million of its customers would be unaffected by the rise.
The news came as Centrica's half-year results revealed that it lost 377,000 customer accounts in the first half of 2017, with its consumer earnings dropping by more than a quarter as a result.
Underlying operating profits from its UK home energy supply arm fell 26% to £381m as the group said it was also hit by warmer than normal temperatures and the pre-payment tariff cap.
Centrica's overall underlying operating profits were 4% lower at £816m for the six months to 30 June.
Are you a British Gas electricity customer? Have you recently switched to a BG electricity account? Let us know about your experiences. Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk with your stories.
Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:
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Corrie Mckeague: Burnt waste examined in missing airman probe - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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Police say the missing airman's family had been updated on the development.
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Suffolk
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Material found at an incinerator plant needs "further examination" to establish whether it is linked to missing RAF airman Corrie Mckeague, police said.
The 23-year-old was last seen alive on a night out in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, on 24 September.
Police said they would search the facility at Great Blakenham, near Ipswich, after they ended their 20-week probe of a landfill site.
They said his family has been updated.
A Suffolk Constabulary spokesman said: "Police searching incinerated waste at the Great Blakenham energy-from-waste facility have recovered some material that requires further examination in order to establish whether it is in any way connected to the Corrie Mckeague missing person inquiry.
"At this stage it cannot be confirmed whether or not this material is in any way linked to Corrie and so it will be subject to specialist examination and forensic analysis in the coming weeks.
"Police expected that it would be necessary to take items recovered from the search away from the site in order to examine them more carefully."
He said the search of the incinerated waste was now complete.
Waste from the Great Blakenham incinerator is being taken away to be examined
Mr Mckeague, from Fife, was last seen entering a bin loading bay in the Suffolk town.
Suffolk Police said he was known to "sleep in rubbish on a night out".
Det Supt Katie Elliott said the landfill search for Mr Mckeague had been "systematic, comprehensive and thorough".
The force said no more rubbish will be added to the search area at the landfill site at Milton, near Cambridge, until an independent review into the case has been carried out.
It has not yet been determined who will carry out the review.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-40792024
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Apology to Cardiff priests over stag party mix-up at pub - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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Pub bosses apologise after asking priests to leave their Cardiff venue, mistaking them for a stag party.
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South East Wales
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The priests saw the funny side of the misunderstanding
Pub bosses have apologised after asking a group of trainee priests to leave their Cardiff venue, mistaking them for a stag party in fancy dress.
The seven Roman Catholic seminarians had gone to The City Arms to toast Father Peter McClaren's ordination when they were asked to move on.
But assistant manager Matt Morgan said they received a free round of drinks when the situation was explained.
"They were all dressed in their black and white clothes," he said.
"The staff thought they were a stag. We do have quite a few issues on the weekends with parties wearing fancy dress so it is our policy to turn them away."
The priests enjoyed a few pints in the pub in the end
Father Michael Doyle, who knows the group, said the seven went to the pub in Quay Street to celebrate the ordination at Cardiff Metropolitan Cathedral of St David in nearby Charles Street.
He added the pub was a favourite of his colleagues including the Archbishop of Cardiff, George Stack.
"They arrived at The City Arms and they were dressed wearing the clerical collar," he said.
"The doorman basically said something along the lines of, 'sorry gents, we have a policy of no fancy dress and no stag dos'."
The students had started to leave when they were approached by the bar manager.
"He basically said, 'you're real, aren't you?'," said Fr Doyle.
"He invited them back in and when they walked back in the entire pub burst into a round of applause, and they had a free round off The City Arms."
Six of the priests who were turned away from the pub
Fr Doyle said the group stayed at the pub most of the afternoon chatting to customers.
Mr Morgan said the priests were "all great sports and saw the funny side of the situation".
A spokesman for the Archdiocese of Cardiff added: "We'd like to thank The City Arms for being good sports through all of this and their kind gesture to our seminarians."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-40792962
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Email prankster 'fooled' White House officials - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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A cyber security adviser and Trump's ex-media chief are reportedly among those tricked.
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US & Canada
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The hacker shared emails on Twitter that he sent while pretending to be Reince Priebus, the recently sacked White House chief of staff
The self-proclaimed "email prankster" convinced a senior cyber security adviser he was the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, CNN says.
He also goaded the then media chief, Anthony Scaramucci, in the guise of ex-chief of staff Reince Priebus.
Concerns about cyber security are running high amid claims hackers interfered in the US election.
The White House told CNN it was investigating the latest incident and took the issue very seriously.
The prankster posted some of the email exchanges on Twitter, where he describes himself as a "lazy anarchist", and said he was doing it for fun. On Tuesday he promised not to target the White House again, but said "you need to tighten up IT policy".
Here are three of the most memorable parts of the hoax:
Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert was apparently tricked into believing Mr Kushner had invited him to a party and gave out his personal email address unsolicited.
"Tom, we are arranging a bit of a soirée towards the end of August," the fake Mr Kushner wrote in emails shared with CNN. "It would be great if you could make it, I promise food of at least comparible [sic] quality to that which we ate in Iraq. Should be a great evening."
Mr Bossert replied: "Thanks, Jared. With a promise like that, I can't refuse. Also, if you ever need it, my personal email is [redacted]."
The prankster pretended to be Jared Kushner, a senior White House adviser and husband of Mr Trump's daughter Ivanka
The cyber security adviser has not commented publicly on the reports.
A day after Mr Priebus was removed as White House chief of staff, the hacker emailed then-White House media chief Mr Scaramucci pretending to be his adversary.
The fake Mr Priebus accused Mr Scaramucci of being "breathtakingly hypocritical" and acting in a way not "even remotely classy".
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The feud between Priebus and Scaramucci decoded
Mr Scaramucci, appointed communications director a week earlier, had accused Mr Priebus - a Republican Party stalwart - of leaking to the press. He also phoned a reporter to unleash a profanity-filled rant against Mr Priebus, whom he called a "paranoid schizophrenic".
Tricked by the fake emails on Saturday, the real Mr Scaramucci said: "You know what you did. We all do. Even today. But rest assured we were prepared. A Man would apologize."
When the pretend Mr Priebus wrote back defending his work, Mr Scaramucci responded: "Read Shakespeare. Particularly Othello."
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Mr Scaramucci was sacked as President Trump's media chief on Monday.
Eric Trump, too, was briefly hoodwinked by the prankster emailing as his older brother, Donald Trump Jr, about a long-range hunting rifle.
But Donald Jr soon realised it was a scam and replied: "I have sent this to law enforcement who will handle from here."
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Experts told CNN the incidents showed how even the most powerful people in America remained vulnerable to phishing attacks, where hackers send fake emails to induce individuals to reveal personal information.
Concern about politicians being targeted is particularly high after the attack on the Democratic National Committee during the US presidential election.
US authorities attributed that incident to Russia and said that a significant component of the attack involved phishing.
More recently, the electoral campaign of President Emmanuel Macron in France was targeted by a similar campaign.
Analysis: 'All they do is spoof the email'
If you think your email address is proof of who you are, think again. It's long been a feature of the technology that someone can set up a mail server to send emails that look as though they have come from another person. Say "reince.priebus@whitehouse.gov".
But in such cases, any reply to that message will go to the real "reince.priebus@whitehouse.gov". The email prankster was able to receive the replies, of course, because he or she published them. How?
While we don't know the details, it's possible that an email address was set up at a domain name that was very similar to "whitehouse.gov".
It's a well-known problem, says cyber security expert Prof Alan Woodward at the University of Surrey. He points out that scammers in the UK have been known to email house buyers with an apparent message from their solicitor. It asks them to transfer payment to the scammer's account.
"All they do is they spoof the email by changing one character," says Prof Woodward. The recipient's eye hastily skims over the altered or missing letter, and the message is simply taken as legitimate.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40788080
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Easyjet passengers to Gatwick delayed to protect turtles - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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People wait two days to get from Zante to Gatwick because of a curfew to protect a turtle population.
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Sussex
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Easyjet passengers were left stranded for two days on a Greek island after a relief flight was cancelled to protect a threatened turtle population.
The flight from Zante to London Gatwick was cancelled on Sunday over technical issues, which continued through Monday.
The airline apologised but blamed the relief plane not reaching the airport on the island's night flight curfew.
Night flights are prohibited on Zante as planes pass over a beach where loggerhead turtles nest.
The curfew is in place on the island, which is also known as Zakynthos, because the lights and noise can disturb the animals.
Passengers were left waiting for around 55 hours
About a quarter of passengers made it home on alternative flights, and the remaining passengers took off on Tuesday.
A spokeswoman for Easyjet said: "Engineers were immediately dispatched to Zante and believed that the technical issue was rectified yesterday [Monday], however it then reoccurred before boarding which meant the flight could not operate.
"The safety of our passengers and crew is our highest priority and we will only operate if it is safe to do so.
"We do all possible to try and minimise delays and as such planned to send a replacement aircraft. Unfortunately, due to the night curfew rule at the airport, we were unable to get the replacement aircraft into the airport yesterday [Monday]."
Hatchlings usually emerge at night and overhead flights can disorientate them
One passenger, Rebecca Clark, tweeted Easyjet on Monday asking: "Can you let us know what's going on? Day two stuck at Zante airport. Now replacement flight isn't going. No staff coming to see us!"
On Tuesday, Mark Longbottom tweeted: "Day 3 - have given up on #easyjet and have been saved by Thompson's though and fly today."
A spokeswoman for Easyjet added: "Passengers have been provided with hotel accommodation and expenses in line with EU regulations and will also be entitled to compensation.
"We are very sorry for the delay and thank customers for their understanding."
• None Turtles take 45 years to grow up
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-40793119
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World leaders asked how UK would 'get round' Brexit, says Hague - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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"Business leaders and politicians asked how we would get round the result," says former foreign secretary.
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UK Politics
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Business leaders and politicians asked former Foreign Secretary William Hague how the UK would "get round" the EU referendum result, he has revealed.
In the Daily Telegraph, Lord Hague said he was asked the question "for months... everywhere I went abroad" if "we would lose heart" about leaving.
He said he explained to them that "this really is a democracy".
Lord Hague also backed a "transitional" withdrawal from the EU saying it had "immense" attractions.
Lord Hague - who campaigned to remain in the EU - stood down as foreign secretary in 2014, and left the House of Commons in 2015.
He wrote in Tuesday's Telegraph: "The electorate voted to leave the EU, and therefore we leave.
"What is more, the number of people who voted to do so was higher than the number of votes cast for any government in our history.
"To me and many of my former colleagues in government who preferred to remain, the argument was over.
"In the recent general election, both main parties were clear that they were committed to the referendum outcome.
"Globally, the message has now got through."
But Lord Hague added that "just as the message was accepted, the voters pulled off another surprise and refused to give a majority to the ministers negotiating the exit" [in the general election].
He said there was the clear potential for Brexit to become the "greatest economic, diplomatic and constitutional muddle in the modern history of the UK, with unknowable consequences for the country, the government and the Brexit project itself".
And he said the Chancellor Philip Hammond deserved "great credit" for putting forward a possible solution.
Lord Hague said: "He has evidently been trying to persuade his cabinet colleagues that we should be seeking to stay in the EU single market and customs union during a transition and 'implementation' phase lasting to 2022, followed by a free trade deal with our former partners after that.
"This is seen by longstanding advocates of leaving as a 'soft' position or a climbdown.
"But in reality it is a plan to rescue Brexit from an approaching disaster."
Mr Hammond has said any transitional deal in the period after Brexit must end by June 2022, the time of the next general election.
But the chancellor said there must be "business as usual, life as normal" for Britons as the UK left the EU.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40785322
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Newspaper headlines: 'Fired! White House in turmoil' - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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The sacking of Donald Trump's communications director is the lead story on several front pages.
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The Papers
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The abrupt dismissal of Donald Trump's communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, makes many of the front pages.
"White House in turmoil" is the headline in the Times, which says the new Chief of Staff, the battle-hardened General John Kelly, did not take long to end Mr Scaramucci's brief career as the West Wing's chief troublemaker.
The i newspaper says Mr Scaramucci's recent foul-mouthed tirade against senior colleagues was seen as evidence of a lack of discipline that left him devoid of any credibility.
The paper says he was apparently escorted from the White House by security guards.
Several papers report on the intervention by Downing Street in the Brexit debate.
The Daily Telegraph says Number 10 moved to soothe cabinet nerves - and rein in Chancellor Philip Hammond - by appearing to contradict his suggestion that free movement of people would continue after the UK leaves the EU.
The Sun attacks Mr Hammond, saying he is starting to prove a liability, with every speech and interview an accident waiting to happen.
The paper urges the prime minister to tell him to belt up.
But the chancellor is defended by former Conservative leader William Hague, writing in the Telegraph.
He says Mr Hammond deserves great credit for suggesting a transition period after Brexit, during which several aspects of the UK's relationship with the EU would be broadly similar.
Lord Hague calls it a plan to rescue Brexit from approaching disaster.
The Guardian reports that the judge-led inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire might have to suspend operations for a long period if prosecutors authorise corporate manslaughter charges.
The paper says the identification of Kensington and Chelsea Council as a possible defendant, along with the organisation that managed the tower block, has created the potential for conflict with the public inquiry.
Survivors and residents, it says, have expressed alarm at the prospect of the inquiry being delayed or diluted.
The Daily Mail's front page says pupils as young as 11 could have lessons in breastfeeding to make the practice more widespread.
The paper says only a tiny percentage of British mothers still breastfeed after one year.
The paper quotes the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health as saying that many women are still too embarrassed to breastfeed in cafes or public places.
It believes that educating girls - and boys - from an early age will help remove any potential stigma.
The Times reports that the Isle of Skye is debating the introduction of a tourist tax to help it cope with a massive influx of visitors.
Some local groups are said to believe that a visitor levy would do more harm than good.
But a local businessman tells the paper that Skye's attractions and single-track roads can no longer cope with cavalcades of tour coaches and motor homes.
He believes even £1 from each tourist would make a difference.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-40785306
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AA sacks boss Bob Mackenzie for 'gross misconduct' - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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The motoring organisation fires its executive chairman, Bob Mackenzie, with immediate effect.
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Business
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Mr Mackenzie had been the AA's executive chairman since June 2014
The AA has fired its executive chairman, Bob Mackenzie, for "gross misconduct", with immediate effect.
Its statement gave no further details as to the reasons for his departure, but an AA spokeswoman said it was "a personal conduct matter".
But Mr Mackenzie's son said his father had "tendered his resignation this morning... due to acute ill health".
Peter Mackenzie said: "This is an extremely distressing mental health issue."
He said his father had been suffering symptoms of the ill health "for some time".
"A consultant clinical psychologist advised him last week that he needed to take at least six months leave. He is very unwell and has been admitted to hospital."
Shares in the AA closed 14% lower after the roadside recovery firm also said trading had been affected by "erratic workload patterns".
Mr Mackenzie had been the AA's executive chairman since June 2014.
The company said he would be replaced by non-executive chairman John Leach, while Simon Breakwell - who was a founder of Expedia - has been named as acting chief executive.
Mr Mackenzie had led the AA since overseeing a management buy-in of the company in June 2014, which led to its shares being listed on the stock market.
Before that, the company had been owned by private equity firms Permira, Charterhouse and CVC.
The AA's share price plummeted after the announcement was made:
Mr Mackenzie's departure had "created some concern and a lot of uncertainty. Sellers/shorters are seeing this as a potential opportunity to put more pressure on the shares," said Berenberg analyst, Ned Hammond.
"Obviously the circumstance of his departure is particularly bizarre and unforeseeable," he said.
Shareholders and people who were thinking of buying AA shares didn't really know what to make of the development, he added.
The AA said it would release its half-year results at the end of September.
It said these would be hit by the "erratic workload" issue, particularly in June and July, when the company had not had enough patrol vehicles to meet demand and had had to buy in last-minute cover.
The company has also made changes to the way it accounts for certain products.
One example is that the commission paid on the sale of breakdown cover is paid upfront to third parties, whereas the benefit to the AA is booked later.
The company said its full-year performance would now be broadly in line with last year's. It added: "We remain confident in the resilience and long-term prospects of the AA."
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40789450
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Myers apologises to Jewish presenters Feltz and Winkleman - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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Kevin Myers suggested Vanessa Feltz and Claudia Winkleman earned high salaries because they are Jewish.
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Europe
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Vanessa Feltz and Claudia Winkleman are among the BBC's highest-paid female stars
A Sunday Times columnist has apologised to Vanessa Feltz and Claudia Winkleman after suggesting they earned high salaries because they were Jewish.
Kevin Myers said he was "very, very sorry" for offending the broadcasters and said he was genuinely contrite.
Mr Myers, whom the paper has said it would not commission again, told Irish broadcaster RTÉ he had "uttered those words out of respect for the religion".
His article on BBC equal pay was in the paper's Irish edition and online.
He said it was "over for him professionally", adding that he was both the author of the article and his own misfortunes.
"I'm the master of my soul and I must answer for what I have done," he said in a radio interview with presenter Sean O'Rourke. "I cannot blame anybody else."
Mr Myers insisted he was neither anti-Semitic nor a misogynist.
"I've got serious professional flaws. I'm not sure that anyone is going to see those professional flaws in future, because I'm not sure I have a career in which to show them," he said.
One of his flaws was to deal with major issues in throwaway lines, he added.
"The throwaway line is so often my pitfall," he said, blaming his own "stupidity".
Mr Myers said his career was over and he was not trying to rescue it by apologising
Asked if the Sunday Times was right to fire him, he replied: "Yeah. I think so," although he felt that the manner in which the matter was handled could have been better.
Mr Myers said he had made an error of judgement. Since it happened, he said, he had not slept, had lost his livelihood and was "in a very bad way".
"I'm not sure if there is any redemption for me now which will give a lot of people satisfaction," he added.
Feltz described the article as "so obviously racist it's surprisingly hurtful".
The piece was taken down following anger on social media and a formal complaint from the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism to press regulator Ipso.
Mr Myers' column - entitled "Sorry, ladies - equal pay has to be earned" - was published last Sunday and centred on the BBC gender pay row.
Commenting that two of the best-paid presenters, Winkleman and Feltz, were Jewish, Mr Myers wrote: "Good for them.
"Jews are not generally noted for their insistence on selling their talent for the lowest possible price, which is the most useful measure there is of inveterate, lost-with-all-hands stupidity."
The article has been removed following outcry at its content
In the article, he also argued that male presenters might earn more because they "work harder, get sick less frequently and seldom get pregnant".
Sunday Times editor Martin Ivens said the piece should not have been published.
Frank Fitzgibbon, editor of the Sunday Times Ireland, said he took "full responsibility", adding: "This newspaper abhors anti-Semitism and did not intend to cause offence to Jewish people."
However, an Irish Jewish leader has defended Mr Myers.
Maurice Cohen, from the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland, said Mr Myers "inadvertently stumbled into an anti-Semitic trope".
"More than any other Irish journalist he has written columns about details of the Holocaust over the last three decades that would not otherwise have been known by a substantial Irish audience," he said.
"We, who have been reading Kevin's work over many years and those who know him personally, know that while this was a real error of judgement on his part, also know that he is not an anti-Semite."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-40790195
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Game of Thrones script 'stolen in HBO hack' - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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HBO confirms it experienced a "cyber incident" after hackers claimed to have breached the firm.
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Technology
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An upcoming Game of Thrones script was allegedly stolen
A group of hackers claims to have stolen the script for a forthcoming Game of Thrones episode and other data in a breach at entertainment firm HBO.
The group says it has 1.5 terabytes of the company's data and has posted episodes of Ballers and Room 104 online.
It added that more material would be released "soon".
HBO confirmed it had experienced a "cyber-incident" in a statement.
In an email published by Entertainment Weekly, the hackers appeared to offer more details in exchange for favourable coverage.
"Hi to all mankind," they wrote. "The greatest leak of cyber-space era is happening."
They encouraged recipients to download the material and added: "Whoever spreads well, we will have an interview with him."
Reports have said the allegedly stolen Game of Thrones script appears to be from the fourth episode of season seven, which is currently being broadcast.
The BBC has not been able to independently verify that the hackers possess the material they claim to have stolen.
HBO confirmed that a "cyber incident" had resulted in the compromise of information.
"We immediately began investigating the incident and are working with law enforcement and outside cybersecurity firms," the firm added.
"Data protection is a top priority at HBO, and we take seriously our responsibility to protect the data we hold."
The intrusion was "obviously disruptive, unsettling, and disturbing for all of us," said chairman and chief executive Richard Plepler in an email to HBO employees.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40776517
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Police testing moped crime tagging spray - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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The Metropolitan Police says clothing or equipment could link suspects to a crime scene.
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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. Teenagers appear to be posting pictures of stolen bikes and robberies on social media.
A spray that links suspected moped criminals to a crime scene is being tested by the Metropolitan Police.
The liquid would tag clothing or equipment with a unique chemical footprint only visible under ultraviolet light.
The BBC has also learned that offenders are increasingly travelling into London from the Home Counties to commit thefts.
The force says the average age of those carrying out crimes in London is 15.
There has been a marked increase in the number of moped crime offences carried out in the capital in the last year.
In the 12 months to the end of June 2017, the Met logged 16,158 crimes involving powered-two-wheel vehicles compared with 5,145 the year before.
Police say phones, watches, bags and other mopeds and motorbikes are generally the target of thefts.
The BBC has also seen social media messages where offenders brag about selling stolen bikes.
One account called "bristolbiketaker" features photographs of motorbike riders with masked faces, ditched or hidden bikes and bolt-cutters.
Avon and Somerset Police is investigating the account. It says posts often taunt the owners of stolen bikes.
Other accounts feature video of police chases filmed by offenders themselves and appear to show them selling keys for unlocking stolen bikes.
Avon and Somerset Police says it is aware of accounts bragging of moped crimes
Officers say they have developed new tactics - including the use of tyre-deflation devices - but now want to be able to track offenders.
Det Supt Stuart Ryan, the force's lead on moped crime, said a tagging spray was being tested under Home Office guidelines.
"If delivered it will be a very exciting change because it does give us an opportunity to track them in a different way than we've been able to do before.
"We're trying to find a way we can deliver it safely both to the people on the bike and also the community and officers."
Det Supt Ryan said offenders were often travelling into London to carry out thefts.
"Mostly we're seeing it from Kent and Essex but we have had incidents from Surrey, Buckinghamshire, all round London coming in.
"It's quite stark that the average for these offenders is 15."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40788491
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Four countries on Euro 2017 and what it means for women's football - BBC News
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2017-08-01
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Four countries tell Newsbeat what the Women's Euros is doing for football where they are.
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Newsbeat
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And just like that, 43 years of hurt are over for England.
The 1-0 win over France at Euro 2017 was their first victory against Les Bleus since 1974.
Jodie Taylor's goal not only rewrites recent history, but also puts her country into the semi-finals.
"I'm very, very proud," manager Mark Sampson told the BBC afterwards.
The Lionesses, who finished third at the World Cup two years ago, will now play the Netherlands on Thursday.
Austria or Denmark will compete in the other semi-final.
But will England's run help to further the game back home? And is Euro 2017 having the impact on women's football in Europe that Uefa hopes?
Ruth and her dad Paul travelled out to see the Lionesses play in Deventer.
"I've played since I was five," explains 14-year-old Ruth.
"This England success really is making girls like me realise we can play this sport and it's grown dramatically these last few years.
"But this run needs to continue so we get better pitches and better coaches to make grassroots girls' teams better."
Ruth's dad Paul, who is a football coach, says he hopes England's success will spur more professional men's clubs into action.
"They have got to buy in to the women's game because I think it's just bits and pieces at the moment," he tells Newsbeat.
"The women's game is massive for our country.
"Hopefully England can go all the way and that will spark even more interest in the game for young girls, much like the Olympics did in 2012."
It was disappointment for the French players
France has been one of the leaders in women's football across Europe.
Lyon and Paris Saint-Germain play in front of huge crowds each week - and use the regular homes of their men's counterparts - in contrast to the non-league men's grounds commonly used in England.
Claire helped create a women's team back home in Paris for her old schoolmates.
"We are surprised because the attendances here [at Euro 2017] haven't been as good as we thought they would be," she says.
"But the game is growing back home and we are now getting a lot more men watching the women's game as well.
"This Euro cup is being shown on normal TV back home too so everyone can watch which is important."
Crowds for the quarter-final match between Netherlands v Sweden
While passion for the Netherlands Women's team has been high at Euro 2017, gates have been much lower at the matches not involving the Dutch.
Many of the fans Newsbeat has spoken to during the tournament have said that has been frustrating.
Tim and his friend Sjors are helping out in the official fan zone in Deventer.
"This is one of the biggest events of the year," says Tim.
"We have seen a mix of attendances because some countries don't bring as many fans.
"But women's football is big here in the Netherlands and is the fastest growing sport here so the tournament will help that for sure."
And Sjors says it is vitally important the Netherlands continue to do well to help that.
"We need to keep scoring lots of goals and keep people's interest," he explains.
"I'm certain a lot of young girls will be looking to go and play and watch football next season which is what this is all about."
Gerry brought his girls' team to cheer on Scotland
He brought his girls' team to the Netherlands to cheer on Scotland.
Earlier in the tournament Gerry told Newsbeat "we wanted to bring them out here to inspire the girls to play football and maybe emulate what this Scotland team has done".
Despite beating Spain 1-0, Scotland didn't qualify for the knockout stages of the competition.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/articles/40772847
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Wayne Rooney charged with drink-driving - BBC News
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2017-09-01
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Ex-England captain Wayne Rooney is due to appear at court later this month.
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Liverpool
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Wayne Rooney is due to appear at Stockport Magistrates' Court later this month
Everton striker Wayne Rooney has been charged with drink-driving, Cheshire Police have said.
Rooney was arrested shortly after 02:00 BST after officers stopped a black VW Beetle on Altrincham Road, Wilmslow.
Cheshire Police said Rooney, 31, had been charged with driving whilst over the prescribed limit.
The ex-England captain has been released on bail and is due to appear at Stockport Magistrates' Court later this month.
Rooney, who retired from the national team last month, is England's all-time record goal scorer.
He rejoined his boyhood club Everton this summer, 13 years after leaving the Merseyside team for Manchester United.
Rooney's court hearing is set for 18 September - the day after Everton take on Manchester United at Old Trafford in the Premier League.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-41123148
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Would you take a ride in a pilotless sky taxi? - BBC News
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2017-09-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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How Dubai may be winning the race to launch the first passenger-carrying flying drones.
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Business
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Dubai says it will begin a five-year test period of the Volocopter later in 2017
Tech companies are competing to develop the first viable passenger-carrying sky taxis, whether manned or pilotless, but how soon could these clever copters really be whizzing over our cities? And would you trust one?
Dubai is racing to be the first to put drone taxis in the air.
In June, its Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) signed an agreement with a German start-up Volocopter to test pilotless air taxis towards the end of this year.
The firm has received 25m euros (£22m; $30m) from investors, including German motor manufacturer Daimler, to develop the 18-rotor craft capable of transporting two passengers at a time.
The promotional video claims a top speed of 100km/h (60mph) and a maximum flight time of around 30 minutes, while nine independent battery systems ensure safety.
"You will never require" the onboard emergency parachute, Volocopter assures us.
Dubai's RTA has also teamed up with China's Ehang and is testing the drone maker's single passenger Ehang 184 "autonomous aerial vehicle".
The Ehang 184 will land automatically if any systems malfunction, its maker says
But the largest city in the United Arab Emirates faces stiff competition. It seems the whole world has gone gaga for air-cabs.
In February, ride-sharing giant Uber poached Nasa chief technologist Mark Moore and set him to work heading their Project Elevate - "a future of on-demand urban air transportation".
Airbus, the French aircraft maker, is also working on a prototype air taxi, Vahana, saying it will begin testing at the end of 2017 and have one ready by 2020.
They all spy opportunities in the air because traffic is becoming increasingly clogged on the ground. To take an extreme example, in Brazil's Sao Paulo, the world's 10th richest city, traffic jams average 180km (112 miles) on Fridays, and sometimes stretch to a barely credible 295km.
Yet the world's megalopolises are continuing to grow. No wonder air taxis are capturing people's imaginations.
The Airbus Vahana drone concept features rotors that can swivel for vertical and horizontal flight
Ehang carries a single passenger, Volocopter two, while City Airbus is looking at four to six. And each of these companies is pursuing electric propulsion, seeing it as greener and quieter.
The preferred horizontal rotor technology allows for vertical take off and landing, which makes sense in densely built up urban spaces. And composite materials, such as carbon fibre, help keep weight to a minimum.
But how will they work in practice and will they be affordable?
Uber's Mr Moore says the cost, with three or four passengers sharing a pool, will be "very similar to what an UberX [car] costs today".
More seriously, given the trade-off between power and weight, how long will these things be able to stay up in the sky relying on battery power alone?
Because if you don't like your mobile going flat, you definitely won't like it when your air taxi does.
With traffic jams like this in Sao Paulo, Brazil, it's no wonder sky taxis are an appealing concept
China's Ehang drone currently flies for 23 minutes. But US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulates stipulate that aircraft require a spare 20 minutes of fuel. So this would limit the drone to a commercially unviable three-minute flight.
"It's really a problem," says Janina Frankel-Yoeli vice-president of Israel's Urban Aeronautics, a firm taking a manned, combustion-engine approach to air taxis instead.
But Mr Moore argues that improvements in batteries are "on the track we need for them to be there in 2023", when Uber plans to have its first 50 air taxis ready.
The vastly increased investment in electric cars around the world is improving recharging speeds and capacity, he says.
"We don't need long range - 60 miles covers the longest trip across a city."
So rapid recharging capability is more important than range, he argues.
Airbus concept: Is it a car? Is it a plane? Could it be both?
Another solution may involve a two-part drone, with the batteries stored in a detachable base that can be swapped quickly between flights, says Tim Robinson, editor of the Royal Aeronautical Society's magazine, Aerospace.
"If there was a drone waiting and it had a flat battery I'm pretty sure it wouldn't let you take off, whatever your journey was," he says.
In other words, it's very unlikely that a sky taxi would run out of juice mid-flight. Once battery levels reached a critical point, the drone would make an emergency landing.
"I think we'll see multiple redundancy and back-up systems," says Mr Robinson, "like a ballistic parachute which would trigger automatically if it detected a descent rate beyond the parameters."
Another major challenge is managing the airspace and avoiding collisions.
Most major cities already have air corridors set up for helicopters that air taxis could use, Mr Moore says. But requesting to enter the corridors is currently done manually.
"You'd fly to the edge of that airspace, request to enter, and maybe be told 'Nope, hold, wait'," he says.
So Nasa's NTX research centre is exploring how flight corridors can work without voice interactions. This includes improved "sense-and-avoid" technology that will allow drones to communicate with other passenger aircraft to avoid one other.
But perhaps the biggest drag on sky taxi development is regulation.
While commercial aircraft are already "virtually capable of taking off, flying and landing on their own", says Ms Frankel-Yoeli, the US FAA and European Aviation Safety Agency will not allow them to fly without a pilot.
It may take a long time for autonomous drone tech to win regulatory - not to mention public - trust. And that's ignoring the potential complaints about the noise all these buzzing copters would make in our cities.
Uber's Mr Moore believes air taxis will have autonomous capability built in from 2023, but will have human pilots for the first five-to-10 years while enough data is collected to convince regulators that sky taxis are safe.
Meanwhile Dubai seems to be racing ahead, with ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum saying "by 2030, 25% of the mass transportation in the city has to be autonomous".
But Dubai is a harsh aviation climate, where "winds can go up to 40-50 knots [46-58mph], there's sand, there's fog", warns Mark Martin, an aviation consultant working there.
Perhaps Dubai is moving too quickly and should work more closely with the slower US and European regulators, he argues.
"If one crashes, who's ever going to take a drone?"
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41088196
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7 days quiz: What record did Taylor Swift break? - BBC News
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2017-09-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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A weekly quiz of the news, 7 days 7 questions.
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Magazine
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It's the weekly news quiz - have you been paying attention to what's been going on in the world over the past seven days?
If you missed last week's quiz, try it here
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-41100200
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Houston floods: White House seeks disaster aid from Congress - BBC News
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2017-09-01
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President Trump is expected to ask for $5.9bn in federal aid, and pledged $1m of his own money.
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US & Canada
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Mike Pence: "The American people are with you"
The White House says it will ask the US Congress for emergency funding to help those affected by Hurricane Harvey.
President Donald Trump is expected to propose an initial $5.9bn (£4.56bn). Texas authorities say the state might need more than $125bn.
At least 39 people have died in the storm and its aftermath. East of Houston, floodwaters are still rising.
Visiting Texas, Vice-President Mike Pence promised federal help to "rebuild bigger and better than ever before".
The BBC's Barbara Plett Usher in Houston, Texas, says Congress is expected to act quickly on the request for initial funding when it reconvenes next week after its August recess.
But, she adds, that will be only the first tranche of money needed for the recovery.
Mr Pence said 311,000 people had registered for disaster assistance. It is not yet clear how quickly funds might reach victims.
Visiting the battered town of Rockport, Mr Pence paid tribute to the people of Texas: "The resilience of the people of Texas has been inspiring."
He added: "The American people are with you. We are here today, we will be here tomorrow and we will be here every day until this city and this state and this region rebuild bigger and better than ever before."
The White House also said Mr Trump would donate $1m of his own money to the relief effort.
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Firefighters in Houston have been carrying out door-to-door searches for survivors and bodies in an operation that could take up to two weeks.
Rescue operations are still continuing further east, where floodwaters are still rising.
Hundreds of thousands of residents who were evacuated or chose to leave are being warned not to return home until they are told it is safe to do so.
Earlier, a senior White House aide said about 100,000 homes, not all of which were fully insured, had been affected by the storm and the flooding that accompanied it.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse finds out what Storm Harvey left behind
The US Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) said its teams had rescued more than 3,800 people, and more than 90,000 had already been approved for disaster assistance.
Fema also warned that residents were being targeted by scams. There are reports of criminals impersonating inspectors and immigration officials.
Others were receiving fraudulent calls about flood insurance claiming a premium must be paid or coverage would be lost.
Energy suppliers in southern Texas were forced to shut down refineries and close off pipelines, sending petrol prices higher across the US. Many have restarted operations, but it could take weeks before production is back to normal.
Residents returning to their homes are also facing challenges.
The Environmental Protection Agency is warning residents that floodwater can contain bacteria and other contaminants from overflowing sewers. It said the biggest threat to public health was access to safe drinking water.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What are the long-term health risks for Storm Harvey victims?
One chemical plant in Crosby, near Houston, caught fire on Thursday, and more fires are expected in the coming days.
Chemicals stored at the flooded Arkema plant are no longer being refrigerated, making them combustible.
Residents have been evacuated from the plant in a 1.5 mile (2km) radius, and smoke was seen rising from the site on Thursday.
President Trump and his wife Melania are expected to return to Texas on Saturday.
The president visited the flood-hit state earlier in the week but limited his visit to Corpus Christi, which avoided the worst of the flooding, over fears his presence could divert resources from rescue efforts.
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Storm Harvey has been downgraded to a tropical depression and is expected to dissipate in Ohio on Saturday evening.
Several inches of rainfall are expected in Tennessee and Kentucky over the next two days, and flood warnings remain in effect in parts of Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas, and Louisiana.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41118993
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Stephanie Slater: Michael Sams kidnap victim dies aged 50 - BBC News
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2017-09-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Stephanie Slater was held in a wooden "coffin" for eight days in 1992 by murderer Michael Sams.
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England
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Stephanie Slater moved to the Isle of Wight after she was kidnapped in 1992
Stephanie Slater, the estate agent who was kidnapped and held captive for eight days in 1992, has died of cancer aged 50.
Ms Slater was held in a "cramped wooden coffin" after she was kidnapped by Michael Sams.
Sams posed as a house buyer to kidnap Ms Slater in Birmingham. She was freed after her employer paid a £175,000 ransom.
Ms Slater moved to the Isle of Wight and went on to help kidnapping victims.
Stephanie Slater worked as an estate agent and was kidnapped during a bogus house viewing
Sams, from Sutton-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire, was jailed for life in 1993 for kidnapping Ms Slater and for the kidnap and murder of Leeds teenager Julie Dart.
Sams, now 76, was caught after his third wife recognised his voice from a clip played on BBC's Crimewatch.
Ms Slater was 25 and working at Shipways Estate Agency in Great Barr when she was kidnapped.
She was gagged and driven from Birmingham to Sams' workshop in Newark.
She was put in a wooden box inside a wheelie bin where she was handcuffed and had electrodes attached to her leg.
Michael Sams was jailed for life for kidnapping Ms Slater and for the murder and kidnap of Julie Dart
Ms Slater spent her life working with police forces to improve treatment of kidnap victims and also with victims to help them overcome their experiences.
She wrote a book, Beyond Fear: My Will To Survive, telling of her time in captivity which she hoped would help others better understand the point of view of female victims of violence.
Her best friend, Stacey Kettner said: "I know that she never truly got over the events that changed her life so dramatically in January 1992.
"It's been an honour and a privilege to be Stephanie's best friend."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-41123348
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Brexit talks: Why it's all about the money - BBC News
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2017-09-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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As Brexit talks make slow progress, Reality Check looks at why the divorce bill is causing such deadlock
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UK
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All smiles from the Brexit negotiators despite major differences between the two sides
The biggest fights in the European Union are always about money, so there was never any reason to suppose that the Brexit negotiations would be any different.
Last year, Treasury figures show the UK paid about £13bn to the EU, around £200 per person. Some of which then gets spent in the UK.
But the European Commission is trying to calculate what the UK's outstanding financial obligation should be when it leaves.
The EU argues that the UK has made a series of big financial commitments as part of the current seven-year budget that need to be paid on exit.
It also says the UK needs to settle its share of what's known as the "reste à liquider". This is money that has been committed but not yet paid - in effect the EU's credit card bill.
Here's the problem for the EU: the less the UK agrees to pay, the more other countries will have to fill the gap.
That means that countries that are net contributors to the EU budget, like Germany or the Netherlands, will have to pay more.
At the other end of the scale, the countries that are net beneficiaries, like Poland or Greece, will receive less.
So when the UK argues that the EU is being unreasonable in its demands, it has no allies at all.
The hard line approach adopted by the European Commission has come from pressure from other member states. They don't think, for example, that the UK should be entitled to a share of the EU's assets when financial calculations are made.
British officials spent several hours during this week's negotiations questioning the legal basis of the EU's proposals. But they haven't put forward counter-proposals of their own - which, in turn, is annoying European officials.
How can we negotiate, they argue, when we don't know what you want?
Hence the pessimistic tone of Europe's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, who again insisted that the divorce deal must be agreed before talks move on to discuss issues such as the future trade relationship.
Mr Barnier claimed there had been "no decisive progress" and the negotiations were still "quite far" away from being able to move on to other issues.
The EU hasn't publicly put a figure on the amount it thinks the UK should pay, but many estimates come up with a net figure of about 60 billion euros. The UK says it won't pay anything like that.
One possible route out of the impasse is talk of a transition period. If the UK was still paying into the EU budget for two or three years after Brexit, that could help reduce the final exit bill considerably. It would also fill a hole in the EU budget, and generate goodwill elsewhere on the continent.
Mujtaba Rahman is a Brexit expert and Managing Director at the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy. He says that it will be up to Theresa May to lay the groundwork in order for negotiations to progress:
"In October when heads of state get together there will be an opportunity for Theresa May to make the case that she can only write a cheque if it's packaged as part of a bigger deal that gives the UK concessions on both transition and future trade terms."
It is worth remembering that compared to what's at stake in renegotiating the UK's entire trading relationship with the EU and the rest of the world, even 60 billion euros or more isn't a huge amount.
But politically, it's explosive. And three months after these negotiations finally began, under pressure of time, it has become the toughest nut to crack.
In the end it will have to be resolved by political decisions rather than legal or technical advice.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41111994
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Case against Auschwitz Nazi, 96, to be thrown out - BBC News
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2017-09-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Hubert Zafke, who faced 3,681 counts of being an accessory to murder, has severe dementia.
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Europe
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Hubert Zafke faced 3,681 counts of being an accessory to murder
German prosecutors have said a case against a 96-year-old former SS medic should be thrown out because he is unfit to stand trial.
Hubert Zafke is accused of assisting in the killing of 3,681 people at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
Medical evaluations in March and July this year determined Mr Zafke, who has dementia, to be "unfit to stand trial".
A court spokesman said "the defendant is no longer able to reasonably assess his interests".
It is estimated that 1.1 million people, most of them European Jews, died at Auschwitz before it was liberated by Soviet forces in 1945.
Mr Zafke's defence have said he suffers from poor health, high blood pressure and suicidal thoughts.
His trial, which began in February 2016 in the north-eastern town of Neubrandenburg, has been postponed three times because of concerns regarding his health.
Stefan Urbanek, a spokesman for the regional prosecutor's office, said, quoted by AFP: "Now the dementia has reached a severity that the defendant is no longer able, inside and outside the courtroom, to reasonably assess his interests or coherently follow or give testimony."
He said that prosecutors were required by law to submit a motion to dismiss the case after receiving this independent medical evaluation.
A lawyer for the two co-plaintiffs, who are sons of a woman murdered at Auschwitz, acknowledged the motion to end the trial "complied with the rule of law".
The former SS medic served for several weeks in the summer of 1944 in the medical unit at the Auschwitz death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.
Hubert Zafke denies the charges, and argues that he treated only wounded soldiers and members of the SS.
A Polish court sentenced him to a four-year jail term after the war, and he was released in 1951.
But during his first questioning by German prosecutors in 2014, he denied ever having worked at Auschwitz.
He later acknowledged his presence but said he was unaware of the gas chambers and crematoria at the death camp until after the war had ended.
Teenage Jewish girl Anne Frank arrived at the camp during the period covered by Hubert Zafke's indictment. She died in another camp, Bergen-Belsen, shortly before it was liberated by the British Army in 1945.
Hubert Zafke served in the medical unit at Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp
Proceedings against Mr Zafke, a farmer's son who joined the SS when he was 19, were halted last October following complaints that the judges were biased.
The International Auschwitz Committee, which represents Holocaust survivors, has previously attacked Germany's handling of the case, saying the court was hurtling "between sloppy ignorance and complete disinterest" in a resolution.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41113613
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Newspaper headlines: Conservation charity and countryside campaigners clash - BBC News
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2017-09-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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A row between the National Trust and the Countryside Alliance over hunting makes headlines.
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The Papers
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The National Trust is "embroiled in a row with countryside campaigners", according to the lead in the Daily Telegraph.
The conservation charity has been accused of "effectively painting targets" on people who hunt after it decided to publish details of the times and locations of legal hunts on its land.
Hunt supporters say such information could be used by saboteurs, increasing the risk of violent disruption.
The trust is due to vote at its AGM next month on whether to ban the sport on its land in a motion tabled by the League Against Cruel Sports.
It tells the paper it had lost confidence everything possible was being done to ensure the law on hunting was being upheld.
The Sun accuses Labour of "betrayal" over Brexit.
"Labour is now the anti-Brexit party", it says, after deputy leader Tom Watson said the UK could remain a permanent part of the single market and customs union.
The Daily Express agrees, saying any effort to keep Britain within the bloc following Brexit would be "shamefully undemocratic".
The Daily Mail accuses Labour of a "risible volte-face" - for soft Brexit read no Brexit at all, it says.
The Financial Times says a ruling by Kenya's Supreme Court to nullify the presidential election will go some way to restoring faith in the country's democracy.
Alex Vines, head of the Africa programme at the Chatham House think tank, tells the Guardian it is good news for Kenya but says there is no precedent for such a judgement anywhere on the continent.
The Times says the decision will be especially keenly felt in other Commonwealth countries - such as South Africa, Uganda and Rwanda - where democracy is under threat.
But it will be a slap in the face for international observers, led by former US Secretary of State John Kerry, who declared that the last election had been largely fair.
The Telegraph has learned that the Metropolitan Police has paid £100,000 in compensation to Lord Bramall and Lady Brittan after raiding their homes during child sex abuse investigation Operation Midland.
The paper says lawyers for Scotland Yard agreed the settlements, which include gagging clauses, after accepting that the searches had been unjustified and should never have taken place.
John Lewis has become the first major retailer to ditch "boys" and "girls" labels from its clothing range, the Mail reports.
The department store, which is introducing non gender-specific clothes for children, has also ditched boys and girls signs in stores.
It says it does not want to reinforce stereotypes.
The paper points out that the move has been welcomed by some parents on social media but Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen said the signs were informative, and removing them could be very confusing.
"It appears political correctness continues to march", he said.
The grass is always greener in Stuart Grindle's garden.
The Express reports the 74-year-old from Doncaster has taken the title of Britain's Best Lawn.
The Daily Mirror points out that the lawn has taken work - Mr Grindle cuts it four days a week, two or three times a day, and would not let his son play football or cricket on the grass when he was a child.
He tells the Times he might sound a bit of a geek but "it's the be all and end all".
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-41131803
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Cycling Weekly sorry for 'token attractive woman' caption - BBC News
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2017-09-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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A cycling magazine says an "idiotic" caption appeared next to a photo of a female rider.
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Leicester
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The caption labelled one of the Hinckley club's female riders a "token attractive woman"
A leading cycling magazine has apologised after a female rider was labelled "token attractive woman".
Cycling Weekly's edition from 31 August featured a profile of Hinckley Cycle Racing Club to mark the Leicestershire group's 70th anniversary.
Club secretary Tim Ellershaw said they were annoyed, and the comment "should never have been made in the first place".
The magazine accepted the caption was idiotic and not funny.
The caption appeared in a feature about the club, which was founded in 1947
Hannah Noel, the cyclist in the picture, said on Facebook: "I made it into Cycling Weekly, it seems not for my ability as a female cyclist but as a 'token attractive woman' - I'm absolutely gutted and disappointed in the magazine."
In response to a comment about her looking "fabulous", she said: "It's not really the reason I'd want to be in a magazine, it's sexist and derogatory to female cyclists."
Simon Richardson, editor of Cycling Weekly, said in a statement: "Unfortunately during the magazine's production process a member of the sub-editing team decided to write an idiotic caption on a photo of one of the female riders of the club.
"The caption is neither funny nor representative of the way we approach our work."
Mr Ellershaw said it had "taken the shine off" an exciting event for the club.
"It's really not appropriate in this day and age," he said.
"You can see how these things happen - comments slip through the net when things need to be proof-read properly - but it shouldn't be made in the first place.
"The lady in the picture is a keen member of the club - she rides every week, and she's certainly not just a token woman."
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-41122033
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Yellow Pages to stop printing directory after 51-year run - BBC News
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2017-09-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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The local business listings will no longer be available on paper after more than five decades.
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Business
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The local business directory that helped JR Hartley find his book on fly fishing is set to go out of print.
The Yellow Pages will no longer be published on paper from next year onwards, more than five decades after it launched in the UK.
Its owner, Yell, has announced that the first of its 104 final editions will be distributed in Kingston next January.
A year later, a final directory will be sent out in Brighton, where it was first published in 1966.
Yell, the UK operation owned by Hibu, is going fully digital and says that it hopes to "help a million businesses be found, chosen and trusted by more customers online by 2020".
A household staple - and handy doorstop - for years, Yellow Pages was known for its advertisements, among them the JR Hartley classic and the one featuring a hungover teenager in desperate need of a French polisher.
Richard Hanscott, chief executive of Yell, said: "After 51 years in production Yellow Pages is a household name and we're proud to say that we still have customers who've been with us from the very first Yellow Pages edition in 1966.
"How many brands can say they've had customers with them for over 50 years?"
Commenting on why the company is ending the print edition, Mr Hanscott said: "Like many businesses, Yell has found that succeeding in digital demands constant change and innovation. We're well placed to continue to help local businesses and consumers be successful online, both now and in the future.''
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41125865
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Was summer 2017 the craziest transfer window ever? - BBC Sport
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2017-09-01
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What was the biggest shock? Who was the biggest bargain? And biggest risk? BBC pundits assess the signings in a topsy-turvy transfer window.
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Last updated on .From the section Football
After two months of mind-boggling spending, miles of social media speculation, smoke, mirrors and silly signing announcements, the transfer window has finally closed.
Amid all the noise, which are the bargains, bloopers and just plain bonkers signings of a roller-coaster transfer window?
Stoke midfielder Charlie Adam, ex-England winger Trevor Sinclair, former Everton winger Kevin Kilbane and Andy Townsend, once of Aston Villa, Chelsea and Republic of Ireland's midfields, were in the BBC Sport centre for transfer deadline day.
Amid all the breaking late news, they gave their perspectives on a topsy-turvy transfer window.
• None Everton's Barkley 'did not have Chelsea medical'
• None Who did what? Complete list of transfers
• None Watch: Who were the transfer window's winners and losers?
What was the biggest surprise?
Andy Townsend: I was really surprised at Chelsea's decision to sell Nemanja Matic - such a key part of their title-winning squad - to Manchester United - such a key rival. That seemed peculiar and I bet that Jose [Mourinho] could not believe it when he was told it was possible.
That brought in £40m which was pretty much what Chelsea had spent on Monaco's Tiemoue Bakayoko. But then they were reportedly after Danny Drinkwater at Leicester as well. All very strange.
Trevor Sinclair: One of the biggest surprises for me was the lack of planning at Arsenal. They were not able to react to Manchester City's interest in Alexis Sanchez. There was no contingency plan in place.
I thought they would have [Paris St-Germain winger] Julian Draxler lined up given the French side have brought in Neymar and Kylian Mbappe at such expense.
Draxler is 24 years old still, a player that Arsene Wenger is believed to have been interested in in the past and has a ton of experience.
The rush for [Monaco midfielder] Thomas Lemar - after Wenger had said any deal for him was dead - was just too late.
Charlie Adam: That Manchester City could not get a deal done for Jonny Evans was surprising to me.
He has got the experience of playing at a big club in the same city having been at Manchester United, he has won trophies and he plays the game the way that Pep Guardiola likes.
That would have been a great bit of business for both the player and City.
Kevin Kilbane: The sheer size of Neymar's £198m deal to go from Barcelona to Paris St-Germain has got to be the biggest surprise.
When Paul Pogba joined Manchester United for a world record £89m last year, it felt like we were already seeing the record shift dramatically. Now, it has more than doubled. It really is remarkable.
Trevor Sinclair: The deal to sign Neymar got people talking, but he is already established as a star of the club and international game.
But, the deal that has been set up to take Kylian Mbappe from Monaco to Paris St-Germain is extraordinary.
He obviously looks like an exceptional prospect, but he is still only 18 and his value is based on one outstanding season.
He scored 24 goals in 41 appearances for Monaco last season and he looks the real deal, but £165.7m is a huge amount for someone who is still a little bit of an unknown quantity.
Andy Townsend: I think that £45m is a lot for Everton to have spent bringing in Gylfi Sigurdsson from Swansea. He has the ability to score goals and create, but he is nearly 28. I don't think he would have improved any of the clubs above Everton.
I can understand why Everton wanted him and how well he fits into Ronald Koeman's plans, but at £45m it seemed like a lot of money.
Trevor Sinclair: I think if Liverpool can keep Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain fit I think they have got a matchwinner on their hands. He has explosive power, balance, the agility and trickery to go past people and, at his best, takes games by the scruff of the neck.
At 24, he is at a good stage of his career, he has a heap of experience and I think Liverpool's narrower shape will suit him.
If they can get him on the pitch 80% of the time, I think that £35m is a bargain.
Charlie Adam: Swansea's loan deal to take Renato Sanches from Bayern Munich for the season is not cheap - there is talk of a £4m loan fee and the Welsh club having to pick up most of his wages.
But if they stay in the league it is going to be small change and he will be committed to the cause. Paul Clement will put an arm round him, tell him to express himself and get the best from him. I think that is a good move for Swansea.
Andy Townsend: I think that Tottenham have done very good business in bringing in right-back Serge Aurier from Paris St-Germain for £23m.
I have seen a lot of him and he is an incredible athlete, very quick, a real beast of a player. He has actually got more facets to his game than Kyle Walker I think.
He has had issues off the pitch, but if he knuckles down, he is a proper player.
Who much would you have been worth in your prime?:
Trevor Sinclair: When Ray Wilkins first came in at QPR in 1994 he put a £10m pricetag on my head, which would have been a British record at the time.
There were a few inquiries about me around that time. It was only a few years later that I found out that when Bobby Robson became manager of Barcelona in 1996, he asked about me.
That was the time that they had Ronaldo, Luis Figo, Hristo Stoichkov. If I had known about that at the time, I would have swum there!
Andy Townsend: I went to Chelsea for just over £1m in 1990, when some of the really top deals were around £1.5m to £2m. Dennis Wise joined the same summer for £1.6m.
When I left for Aston Villa in 1993, I cost around £2.5m and there were deals around the £3m mark.
I don't know what that equates to in today's money, but I'm very happy to have played in the era that I did.
There are a lot of obvious reasons why being a young footballer nowadays is tempting but there are a lot of downsides as well.
Their privacy is seriously invaded, everywhere they go they are scrutinised and any mistakes are pounced on.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/41108842
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Could a new political party be on the way? - BBC News
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2017-09-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Voices in Westminster are whispering about change but how realistic is talk of a new political force?
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UK Politics
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How realistic are Westminster whispers about a new political party?
Whispers of collaboration waft through the air. Rumours of a new political entity emerging into the light. Stories of politicians ready to cast aside tribal instinct and join something new.
But that is quite enough about the political intrigue in Germany where, weeks before the general election, there is no doubt breathless discussion in the cafes near the Bundestag about who Angela Merkel may end up working with if she's returned as chancellor again.
I talk of the occasional chat here, among those who describe themselves as forced to sleep on the political streets: homeless in the era of Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn.
Destitute, desperate and with a desire for something different, the story goes, they are smooching their way discreetly towards an immaculate political conception.
They are searching for the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of France's En Marche, the miracle birth over the water.
President Emmanuel Macron built his own political kit car widget by widget, and, fuelled by the French electorate, drove it straight to the Elysee Palace.
So this political correspondent peeled himself away from the feverish summer squalls over the Big Ben bong ban, and instead made some inquiries.
One household name had already told me privately that they frequently passed colleagues from other parties in the corridors here, and thought that they had much more in common with them than plenty of their own supposed political brethren.
Another well-known politician told me of their desire to "create a home for those deeply politically engaged people who I call the 'militant, muscular moderates'".
"On the surface, there is the two-party system, but it is more complex than that," I was told.
"There is a lot of voter churn - the electorate is soft and fluid."
That's Westminster speak for: "No-one's quite sure what's going on, so anything's possible." Possibly.
Look closely and what could be the embryonic beginnings of a new party are there.
Left-leaning parties worked together to try to defeat the Conservatives at the general election
There was what was called the Progressive Alliance at this year's general election.
There were 42 seats across the UK where candidates broadly of the left stood aside with the intention of helping another candidate on the left beat the Conservatives.
In 38 of them, the Green Party didn't put up a candidate. In two, the Liberal Democrats didn't bother. And in one, the Women's Equality Party didn't. Not one Labour candidate stood aside.
Then there is the More United campaign. It says that at the general election it "backed 49 candidates from five different parties. Of these, 34 have been elected to be members of Parliament."
Of those, 26 were Labour, five were Lib Dem and there was one each for the Conservatives, Greens and the SNP.
Again, then, the same asymmetry: Labour was the principal beneficiary.
Former Chancellor George Osborne argues there's a potentially fertile gap between the right and left
But glance towards the Conservatives and some see contemporary politics as a doughnut or a mint: something with a large hole in the centre.
There's "a real gap in the middle of politics at the moment between the Corbynistas and the hard Brexiteers," says the former Chancellor George Osborne in an interview with Influence, a magazine for the PR industry, to be published next month.
Another Tory tells me they are "frightened". Politics, they say, "is dominated by the far-left and the far-right".
But, they point out, politics for most at Westminster is like supporting a football team: tribal blindness reigns. Plus, there's the 2017 general election result.
Two quotes from my notebook here: "The election changed everything" and "A new party is not a goer".
These remarks from two people within Labour, one of whom thought, until June, that their party was "more likely than not to split".
Next, a third voice. A trenchant, persistent critic of Jeremy Corbyn who still harbours vast doubts about him, but acknowledges his election performance reshaped the landscape.
Jeremy Corbyn's campaign slogan "For the many, not the few" resonated with many young voters in particular
"There is no place - and no need - for another party. He killed that. It is dead, literally dead. You don't vote against someone who is going to get you into power."
You'll have noticed in this report the absence of people speaking on the record.
There's a good reason for that. Beyond saying "it's not going to happen," plenty are reluctant to talk publicly.
For the adhesive that binds parties together becomes altogether stickier when the two giants of Westminster politics each poll at least 40% of the vote.
Even the other established parties resemble toddlers in a world of giants, reducing the nascent rumblings described above to the microscopic level.
And then, the bete noire of any potential political pregnancy: the first-past-the-post electoral system for Westminster. It requires concentrated pockets of support to ensure any breakthrough.
Glance into the graveyard of political failure, and you see the tombstones of Veritas, Libertas, The Jury Team, No2EU and Your Party.
The one example still alive: UKIP. But even it only ever managed to win one seat at a general election.
It won't stop the chatter, the never-ending asking of the question: "What next?"
And yes, it's been a rough old time at Westminster recently for our old friend conventional wisdom.
But, for now at least, I see little sign of the midwives gathering or a delivery suite assigned for the birth of a new political giant.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41096500
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Sierra Leone mudslides: UK team races to stop disease - BBC News
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2017-09-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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A team of UK experts is in Sierra Leone trying to prevent disease adding to the death toll from mudslides.
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Health
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The relief team visits the site of the fatal mudslide
As families desperately clawed through red earth and debris that had buried their communities within just a few hours, another fear was already taking hold.
Gushing muddy waters had poured into poor communities, killing at least 500 people, leaving many more homeless and wrecking what were already very basic water and sanitation systems.
Although tragedy has already struck, things could get a lot worse.
"The floods and landslides have caused damage to water and sanitation systems in affected areas thus resulting in contamination of open water sources, and also created possible breeding sites for vectors like mosquitoes," World Health Organization Sierra Leone officer in charge, Dr Alexander Chimbaru, said.
Large displaced populations, limited clean water supplies and no or unhygienic places to go to the toilet, all create the perfect conditions for deadly diseases to spread fast.
Within four days of the disaster, the Sierra Leonean government had called on the new UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST) to deploy to Freetown and help them prevent a major outbreak of disease.
The team is made up of top experts, who commit to jumping on a plane within hours of a disaster anywhere in the world.
It was created in response to the world's tardy reaction to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
Little did the team know that one of its first deployments would be back to one of the worst Ebola-hit countries.
"We got the call on 18 August, and I was on a plane within three days," said epidemiologist Maria Saavedra-Campos.
"It's unfortunate we need to come back again in these circumstances. But it's clear how resilient Sierra Leoneans are."
Their job - in short - is to help local governments stop major outbreaks before they start.
"We are part of an additional level of surveillance of disease that the government put in place after this disaster struck. We do active case finding" said Ms Saavedra-Campos.
"We are looking for what we call 'epidemic prone' diseases, such as cholera, measles, malaria and typhoid."
Many have died in tragedy
Every day, the team goes into community health centres in and around the worst affected areas and helps local health workers to build the systems needed to gather detailed information about illnesses in local areas.
For example, how many people reported having diarrhoea or a fever in the community that day, what medication or other intervention were they given.
Gathering this information on a daily basis helps build a better picture of whether there may be small clusters of disease that could be the beginnings of a major outbreak.
The idea is any potential epidemic is picked up super-early, so it can be stamped out before it spirals into a national or even international emergency.
"Many of these health workers have themselves lost loved ones in the mudslides," said Ms Saavedra-Campos.
"It is a difficult situation, and we are asking them to report every morning while some of them are still grieving. "
"We try to make it easy as possible by visiting them often and having a presence.
"Government teams and NGOs [non-governmental organisations] also do similar visits."
The World Health Organization says the loss of life in Sierra Leone has been devastating, both after Ebola and this recent disaster, and the recovery will again take time.
Maria Saavedra-Campos is assessing the best way forward
"This was an unanticipated tragedy which resulted in sudden loss of life and property and is hugely traumatic," said Dr Alexander Chimbaru.
"People here are incredibly brave and resilient, but we should not underestimate the effects an incident like this can have on people's mental health and wellbeing."
UK-PHRST is funded by the British government, which believes getting involved in such relief efforts abroad is money well spent.
"Diseases can spread rapidly around the world," said Ms Saavedra-Campos.
"We can travel to the other side of the globe in less than a day, diseases don't care about borders - we've seen that here in Sierra Leone with Ebola.
"If we can detect diseases early and tackle them at source, they won't spread to neighbouring countries or internationally - including to the UK."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-41111839
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Police officer Corey Alvey sacked for sex with teenager - BBC News
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2017-09-01
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The officer flirted with the vulnerable 17-year-old before they had sex at his home, an inquiry hears.
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Lincolnshire
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A police officer who had sex with a "vulnerable" teenager has been dismissed.
Special Sgt Corey Alvey, 26, was part of a team involved in a search for the 17-year old, referred to only as HF, who had been reported missing.
A disciplinary hearing, at Lincolnshire police headquarters, was told Mr Alvey - based in Stamford - made legitimate contact with the teenager on Snapchat.
But he had then continued to contact HF on Instagram after the search ended.
The officer had flirted with the vulnerable teenager on Instagram, the panel heard
Matthew Green, for Lincolnshire Police, told the hearing in Nettleham the subsequent contact via Instagram was "inappropriate, personal and unprofessional".
He said it was plain the officer "believed he could facilitate a personal relationship with HF".
The panel heard the officer had initially appeared to be supporting and reassuring HF after the incident on 9 April, but the content of his messages had then become flirtatious.
The following day Mr Alvey took HF, whose gender was not revealed at the hearing, to his home where they had sex, Mr Green told the panel.
The matter was then reported to police by HF's father, he said.
In conclusion, Mr Green told the hearing the officer knew, or should have known, HF was vulnerable.
He added it was clear public trust in the police had been seriously damaged.
Lincolnshire's Chief Constable Bill Skelly, who chaired the hearing, found the officer's actions amounted to gross misconduct and dismissed him without notice.
He said Mr Alvey, who was not present at the hearing, had grossly undermined his privileged position.
The hearing comes just a day after another Lincolnshire police officer was dismissed.
PC Rebecca Stevenson was found to be at twice the legal alcohol limit when she lost control of her vehicle and crashed into a dyke.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-41109310
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Car makers offer scrappage deals in race for new customers - BBC News
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2017-09-01
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Renault-Nissan and Kia follow VW and Toyota in announcing new incentive schemes for UK buyers.
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Business
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Renault-Nissan and Kia are the latest car companies to launch car trade-in schemes, aimed at persuading UK customers to swap older, more polluting, car models for new ones.
Earlier Volkswagen and Toyota announced diesel scrappage schemes, joining BMW, Ford, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz and Vauxhall who have all launched schemes.
The car companies will accept trade-ins from any brand registered before 2010.
It comes as the "toughest ever" new-car emissions tests begin to be rolled out.
Kia and Renault are offering £2,000 off new models, for part-exchanged vehicles, all of which will be taken off the road.
Nissan is calling its scheme a "switch" scheme since not all the cars traded in will be scrapped. The firm is also offering a £2,000 incentive and encouraging customers to consider buying their all-electric Leaf model.
VW will give discounts of up to £6,000 to trade in diesel vehicles when buying a new car. Meanwhile, Toyota is offering up to £4,000 off models more than seven years old.
Amongst the biggest firms marketing cars in the UK only Peugeot, Landrover, Honda, Citroen, Fiat and Volvo, have not announced trade-in schemes.
Car manufacturers have been under increasing political pressure, especially in Germany, to encourage consumers to buy less polluting cars.
It follows VW's "Dieselgate" scandal, in which 11 million vehicles worldwide were found to have cheated on emissions tests.
VW's German scrappage scheme offered discounts of up to 10,000 euros
VW's UK scheme, which includes all its UK brands - including Audi, Seat, Skoda and VW Commercial Vehicles - follows an initiative launched in Germany.
VW's German scheme offered a discount of up to 10,000 euros (£9,000) to trade in diesel vehicles.
Its UK scheme will apply to any diesel vehicle that has emissions standards lower than Euro 5 and was registered before 2010.
Incentives range from £1,800 off a new VW Up! to £6,000 off a Sharan people carrier.
Electric and hybrid vehicles, which attract government grants, will be included in the scheme.
Tim Urquhart, principal analyst at IHS Automotive, said the move was both about restoring VW's credibility after "dieselgate" and boosting sales.
"We've seen a bit of a drop in the UK car market this year after years of really accelerated growth. I think the manufacturers are looking to get people into their showrooms," he told the BBC's Today programme.
"At the same time VW are showing they are being socially responsible. They are getting some of these older diesel vehicles off the roads."
Jim Holder, editorial director of Haymarket Automotive, told the BBC that VW's scrappage incentives would vary from country to country, due to factors such as transport costs and vehicles being cheaper in its home market.
However, he said VW would probably have pitched their discounts in order to compete with rival schemes in the UK market.
Toyota's scheme offers discounts of up to £4,000
VW's UK scheme offers substantially higher discounts than some of its competitors, which seem to hover around the £2,000 mark as an upper limit.
However, Mr Holder said it was not clear what impact the VW scheme would have on vehicle sales.
"Owners of older vehicles typically don't have the money to spend on a new vehicle, even with these discounts - in normal circumstances it would be far more likely that they would trade up to another, less old, used car."
Toyota's scheme runs from 1 September to 31 December and is open to any vehicle more than seven years old.
Customers can get a discount of £2,000 off models including Aygo, Prius and Hilux, and £4,000 off a Land Cruiser.
Paul Van der Burgh, Toyota GB managing director, said: "Our scrappage scheme is a win-win solution. Motorists can dispose of their older vehicles and have access to our cleaner, more efficient model range."
It comes as tougher emissions tests begin to be rolled out across the European Union on Friday.
As well as a new laboratory test, all newly launched car models will have to undergo robust "on-road" testing before they go on sale.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said the tests would better reflect modern driving habits. They will also be more stringent than any other vehicle testing regime in the world.
Chief executive Mike Hawes said: "Combined, these new and demanding tests will soon give consumers emissions performance information that is far closer to what they experience behind the wheel.
"They will also inspire greater confidence that the new cars they buy are not only the cleanest, but the most fuel efficient ever produced."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41114738
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Turning the dead into vinyl records - BBC News
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2017-09-01
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From vinyl records, to coffee mugs, flower pots and diamonds - the end-of-life industry has new ways to preserve you.
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Business
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There is about a teaspoonful of Madge Hobson's ashes in her record
John Hobson is listening to a recording of conversations with his late mother, mostly small talk about family.
The words are on a vinyl record, although this is more than a recording of memories.
The ashes of Madge Hobson are combined with the vinyl, with a photograph and details of her life printed on the labels.
"It makes the perfect family record, which can be passed down the generations," says Jason Leach, 46, the founder of And Vinyly, which produced the disc.
The firm is part of a fast-growing sector of the end-of-life industry. No longer need ashes be stored in an urn or scattered to the wind. Now you can wear, drink from, or display a little part of what is left of your loved one.
Mr Hobson, a 69-year-old sculptor, says his mother, a devout churchgoer, would thoroughly approve of her record.
"I had to weigh out a quantity of the ashes [which had been kept in an urn], and put a large teaspoonful into a number of small plastic bags, one for each disc," he says.
Fifteen records were pressed for family and friends. Says Mr Hobson: "I think And Vinyly has undoubtedly helped to keep the memory of my mother alive."
Jason Leach says he wants to increase production to meet increasing demand
Mr Leach, based in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, began pondering the possibilities of pressing ashes into records about 10 years ago.
There was no business plan. He was just reflecting on mortality, issues brought into sharper focus when his mother began work at a funeral directors.
"I was amazed by how little I or any of my friends had even properly considered or even accepted our own mortality, and how incredibly sheltered many of us are from death and conversations around it," Mr Leach says.
"It was not intended to be a business. It was the result of having a bit of fun with what at the time felt like a shocking and disconcerting inevitability."
The process is the same as making a standard vinyl disc, with ashes (human or pet) added at a specific stage in production.
"It's a balance between adding enough ashes so as to be seen, but not so much as to affect the grooves' smooth playing," says Mr Leach.
"There will, of course, be some extra pops and crackles resulting from the inclusion of ashes - but we like these, as this is you."
Prices vary as every request is different, he says. A basic package costs about £900, rising to about £3,000.
Options include 7-inch or 12-inch discs, specially-composed music, a portrait painted on the record using the ashes, and clear or coloured vinyl.
This could be you - an Algordanza diamond is made from human ashes
Mr Leach, a music producer and music label owner, currently presses about two discs a month that have human ashes added to them, on equipment he already owns.
But he is in the process of arranging more funding to meet rising demand. He is also linking with funeral homes which will offer the service. "The concept markets itself," he says.
"Of course, there are those who find it strange, even creepy, but most people actually come round to the idea."
And his plans for his own record? Spoken words from him, his partner of more than 25 years, and their two daughters, plus some music he has written.
"I like to think about my great, great grandchildren listening to me. This is about as close to time travel as I'm going to get," he says.
In Domat/Ems, Switzerland, Rinaldo Willy, 37, has another way of keeping memories alive - turning ashes into diamonds.
"I was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 21, and therefore was sensitised to the topic of death," he says.
While a business studies student, in 2003, he read about isolating carbon from ashes to create synthetic diamonds. A year later, with his professor, he founded Algordanza.
A diamond is 99.9% carbon, while the human body is 20%. After cremation about 1-5% of carbon remains.
Natural diamonds - symbols of love and the everlasting - are created under enormous pressure and high temperatures inside of the earth. Algordanza replicates the process in its laboratory, creating stones within weeks.
About 85 diamonds a month are made, costing between about £2,800 and £12,700.
More stories from the BBC's Business Brain series looking at quirky or unusual business topics from around the world:
The start-up investment in Algordanza was £300,000, with Mr Willy using all his savings.
"After six years, we were able to pay ourselves a proper salary," he says. The business now employs 60 people worldwide, with 12 based at the Switzerland headquarters.
Many of Algordanza's customers have gone through huge trauma. "We have families who lost someone in events and incidents such as the tsunami in Thailand, the earthquake in Chile, soldiers who lost their lives on duty in Afghanistan, the terror attack in Madrid, the flight crash of Germanwings," Mr Willy says.
In Santa Fe, in the US, Justin Crowe, 29, uses cremated ashes as raw material for pottery.
A fine art graduate, he founded Chronicle Cremation Designs in 2016. He already ran a ceramics studio, so needed minimal initial investment. But he has now raised $100,000 (£78,400) seed funding to expand.
At Chronicle Cremation, Justin Crowe will turn ashes into home decor and small jewellery pieces
A typical ceramic glaze is made up of flint, minerals and clay. "We've developed a special glaze recipe that incorporates the cremated remains, which ultimately function to form the gloss you see on the surface of the work," Mr Crowe says.
His Lifeware product line includes vases, urns, and coffee cups. The most popular items are candle luminaries and jewellery. Prices range from $195 for a necklace up to $995 for a large bowl.
The ashes are used to help glaze the cups
He gets plenty of unusual requests, such as from a women who wanted the ashes of her sister and two dogs glazed on to coffee mugs.
Mr Crowe acknowledges that some people feel that transforming someone into a piece of homeware is disrespectful.
But, he says, a flower vase or candle holder provide daily reminders of loved ones. "Ultimately, the pieces are about keeping memories close in daily life."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40492466
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Brexit: UK 'must not allow itself to be blackmailed' - BBC News
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2017-09-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Businesses are impatient at the slow progress of Brexit talks, the international trade secretary adds.
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UK Politics
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Liam Fox says negotiations should focus on the final Brexit settlement
The UK must not be "blackmailed" into agreeing a Brexit "divorce" bill before trade talks begin, Liam Fox has said.
Talks should begin soon "because that's good for business", the international trade secretary added.
EU negotiator Michel Barnier has said trade talks are still a way off, due to slow progress on other key issues.
The UK Brexit Secretary, David Davis, has warned that negotiations will be turbulent and disagreements over the divorce bill were "the first ripple".
Concluding the third round of Brexit negotiations on Thursday, both he and Mr Barnier made clear that the size of the UK's Brexit "divorce bill" remained a sticking point in talks.
The UK wants to begin trade talks and discuss the future relationship between Britain and the EU as soon as possible, saying it would benefit both sides.
However, Brussels insists that discussions about the future relationship can only begin once "sufficient progress" has been made on the "divorce bill" - the amount the UK will pay to settle its liabilities when it leaves the EU - citizens' rights, and the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish republic.
Speaking in Japan on Friday, Mr Fox was asked whether it was time for the UK to name its Brexit price.
He told ITV News: "We can't be blackmailed into paying a price on the first part (the divorce fee).
Liam Fox undertook a range of broadcast interviews before flying back from Japan.
His accusation of "blackmail" featured only in the first of these. That suggests this wasn't a pre-scripted broadside.
Instead, it perhaps demonstrated frustration that, so far, the government's strategy of pushing for wider trade talks with the EU in the autumn hasn't been successful.
The aim was to persuade big EU trading nations to put pressure on the EU Commission to start trade talks after the October EU summit but it seems that the end of the year now looks a more likely timescale.
His colleague David Davis - a self-declared "determined optimist" - thinks that there could be more progress after German elections later this month.
Interestingly, he declined to repeat or endorse the international trade secretary's rather undiplomatic language - simply warning of more turbulence to come.
"We think we should begin discussions on the final settlement because that's good for business, and it's good for the prosperity both of the British people and of the rest of the people of the European Union."
Speaking to the BBC at the end of the three-day visit to Japan, Mr Fox said businesses were "getting impatient" and a willingness by the EU to negotiate on the future trading relationship now would "unlock some of the tension".
When asked about Mr Fox's "blackmail" remark, Mr Davis, who has been giving a speech in Washington DC, said he did not comment on other ministers' views.
But he added: "We are in a very difficult and tough, complicated negotiation. I have said from the beginning it will be turbulent. What we are having at the moment is the first ripple and there will be many more ripples along the way."
Britain, which voted to leave the EU in June 2016, officially began Brexit talks on 19 June this year and is due to leave the EU on Friday, 29 March 2019.
Mr Barnier said that at the current rate of progress, he was quite far from being able to recommend opening parallel talks on a future trade relationship.
No figure has yet been put on the "divorce" payment, but European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has suggested it could come in at about 60bn euros (£55bn).
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. David Davis, Brexit secretary: "I think it's fair to say we've seen some concrete progress"
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Writing in the Daily Telegraph on Friday, Belgian MEP Guy Verhofstadt, who heads the European Parliament's Brexit group, said the EU has been "fully transparent" about its negotiating positions and mandates since day one.
"This is not a ploy to derail talks, but an inevitable consequence of the Brexit decision," he said.
Labour MP Chuka Umunna, who works with the pro-EU Open Britain pressure group, said Mr Fox's comments were "sabre rattling from a trade secretary who is twiddling his thumbs because he cannot do anything until the trade position of the UK has been resolved with the EU".
The European Council is due to meet in October and will decide whether sufficient progress has been made on key Brexit discussions to allow negotiations to move on to trade and the UK's future relationship with the EU.
If it has not, as Mr Barnier has suggested, the next opportunity would be the council's meeting in December - meaning talks about the future relationship would be unlikely to begin before the end of the year.
Meanwhile the Home Office has told EU citizens in the UK, and UK expats in the EU, that "progress was made" in this week's negotiations on rights to healthcare, and the right of EU citizens to set up and manage a business.
The update said: "We agreed to protect the rights to reciprocal healthcare, including European Health Insurance Cards (EHICs), for EU citizens in the UK and UK nationals in the EU who are present on the day of exit.
"Both sides also agreed that the rights of cross border workers should be protected.
"On economic rights, we have confirmed the right of EU citizens to set up and manage a business in the UK, and the same applies to British citizens in their member state of residence," the Home Office added.
It also said it had apologised to about 100 EU citizens who received deportation letters "in error" and said the letters should be ignored.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41119870
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'Divorce bill' row frustrates Brexit talks - BBC News
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2017-09-01
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UK's David Davis urges more flexibility as EU negotiator says "no decisive progress" has been made.
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UK Politics
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Both the UK and EU have expressed frustration at the pace of Brexit talks amid disagreement over the size of the UK's "divorce bill".
EU negotiator Michel Barnier said the UK did not feel "legally obliged to honour its obligations" after Brexit.
He said "no decisive progress" had been made on key issues, following the third round of talks.
But Brexit Secretary David Davis said the UK had a "duty to our taxpayers" to "rigorously" examine the EU's demands.
And he urged the EU to be "more imaginative and flexible" in its approach.
During a joint press conference, Mr Barnier acknowledged there had been some "fruitful" discussions on the issues surrounding the relationship between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, but he struck a pessimistic tone overall.
He stressed that he was "impatient… I am not angry… I am impatient and determined" about the progress of negotiations, adding that "time is flying" and the EU was willing to intensify the "rhythm" of talks.
Behind their polished podium performances, it's clear there are major gaps between the stance of Michel Barnier and David Davis which are not being bridged.
Money is the big sticking point of course, although the phraseology around the issue is a little more elegant than that, and the language at these moments can give you a real feel for the underlying atmosphere.
Mr Barnier says that after this week "it's clear that the UK doesn't feel legally obliged to honour its obligations".
Mr Davis claims it's natural that the UK would want to "interrogate rigorously" any demand placed on its taxpayers. But he is also careful to note that Britain is a country that meets its obligations - moral as well as legal; it just expects them to be properly specified.
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. David Davis, Brexit secretary: "I think it's fair to say we've seen some concrete progress"
The UK wants to begin trade talks as soon as possible, but Brussels insists that discussions about the future relationship after Brexit can only begin once "sufficient progress" has been made on the arrangements for withdrawal - including on the so-called "divorce fee".
Mr Barnier said that at the current rate of progress, he was quite far from being able to recommend opening parallel talks on a future trade relationship with the UK.
He cited two areas where "trust" needed to be built between the two sides - on citizens' rights and the financial settlement, stressing that 27 members of the bloc should not have to pay for obligations taken by 28.
Claiming there had been a shift in the UK government's approach, he said: "In July the UK recognised that it has obligations beyond the Brexit date but this week the UK explained that these obligations will be limited to the last payment to the EU project before departure."
No figure has yet been put on the payment, but European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has suggested it could come in at around 60 billion euro (£55bn), while unconfirmed reports have put it as high as 100 billion euro (£92bn).
Mr Davis defended the "rigorous" line-by-line examination of the EU's demands carried out by British officials in response to the "unspecified but undoubtedly large" sum demanded by Brussels.
He added: "It will, of course, lead to difficult exchanges - nobody will pretend it was anything but a tough exchange this week - but I think the British taxpayer would expect nothing less."
Former Labour PM Tony Blair was also in Brussels for talks with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker
Mr Davis also told reporters the talks had exposed how the UK approach was "substantially more flexible and pragmatic than that of the EU".
"This week we have had long and detailed discussions across multiple areas and I think it's fair to say we have seen some concrete progress, and Michel referred to one but there's more than that," he said.
"However, as I said at the start of the week, it's only through flexibility and imagination that we will achieve a deal that works truly for both sides.
"In some areas we have found this from the [European] Commission's side, which I welcome, but there remains some way to go."
He added: "Beyond the debates about process and technicalities, at the heart of this process, must be a desire to deliver the best outcome for the people and the businesses of the European Union and the United Kingdom," he added - particularly on citizens' rights.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41106507
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Am I eligible for 30 hours' free childcare? - BBC News
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2017-09-01
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As the 30 hours of free childcare scheme comes into effect, here's everything you need to know about how it works.
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England
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The government is increasing the funded hours from 15 to 30 a week for children of working families who meet the eligibility criteria
From September, working parents of three and four year olds in England will be entitled to 30 hours' free childcare a week. But how do you know if you are eligible and what is the process for applying?
The government is doubling the universal entitlement of 15 hours' free childcare, which is available for all three and four year olds. It is funded during term time only - so 38 weeks of the year - but parents can chose whether to use it as 30 hours per week during term time or 22.8 hours per week across 50 weeks of the year.
The free childcare concept was at the centre of the Conservative's 2015 election manifesto
Both parents must be working or the sole parent must be working in a lone-parent family. They must earn a minimum of the equivalent of 16 hours per week at the national living or minimum wage and less than £100,000 a year. If you are self-employed or on a zero hours-contract you are still eligible as long as you meet the earnings threshold.
If one parent is not in paid employment you will not usually be eligible although there are exceptions for those who are on parental, maternity, paternity, adoption or sick leave.
Once the government confirms your eligibility, the funding comes into effect the September, January or April following your child's third birthday.
To qualify for the extra hours from next month, you must have applied by midnight on August 31. Cut off dates for the other school terms are: 31 December for the spring term (January) and 31 March for the summer term (April).
Through the government's online childcare service. You can also apply by ringing the childcare service helpline on 0300 123 4097.
You must make the application the term before you wish to start receiving the funding and you can apply up to 16 weeks before your child turns three.
It you are eligible, you'll receive an 11-digit code which you then take to your childcare provider along with your national insurance number and child's date of birth.
There will be a short grace period allowing parents to have a chance to find new employment.
Karen Simpkin, from Sunflower Children's Centre in Sheffield, said they were having to charge extra for meals
Any provider on Ofsted's Early Years Register, including childminders, day nurseries, playgroups, pre-schools and nurseries. You cannot use it with a nanny or an unregistered childminder.
Does my childcare provider have to offer it?
No. It is completely up to your provider as they are under no legal obligation to do so.
Can I use more than one provider?
Yes. You can split the funded hours between different providers, for example between a childminder and a session at pre-school.
Why is my provider charging me a top-up fee?
Government funding is meant to cover the delivery of early education and care only. This means the extra funding does not include food or cover the cost of additional services such as day trips, costs of drop-offs and pick-ups. Providers can therefore charge for things such as drinks, meals, nappies, wipes and trips out.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-41111132
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Andy Carroll robbery: Man jailed for targeting West Ham striker - BBC News
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2017-09-01
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Jack O'Brien tried to rob the West Ham striker of a £22,000 watch as he drove home from training.
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London
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This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Footage of the chase was captured on a dashcam and bus CCTV cameras
A man has been jailed for trying to rob footballer Andy Carroll of his £22,000 wristwatch as the striker drove home from West Ham's training ground.
Jack O'Brien, 22, claimed he was not the motorbike rider who targeted Mr Carroll as he waited at traffic lights in north-east London, on 2 November.
O'Brien, of Navarre Gardens, Romford, was given six years, with another five years three months for other crimes.
The sentences are to run consecutively.
He had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to several other robberies, carried out in October and November, last year.
O'Brien was found by police hiding beneath a mattress in a property in Dagenham 10 days after the attempt.
The footballer told jurors he was scared when the motorcycle rider pulled up beside him, said "nice watch" then demanded he gave it to him.
Mr Carroll did a U-turn, but was forced to drive on the wrong side of the road as he was pursued back to West Ham's training ground where there were security staff.
In a 999 call played in court he was heard telling responders: "There's two motorbikes, one's behind me pulling out a gun, I don't know what to do."
Mr Carroll also said he had "probably just hit about 10 cars" during his getaway.
In a victim impact statement Mr Carroll said he had "feared for his life" and now travels to and from training with security guards.
The West Ham striker told the court he now travels to and from training with security guards
Police seized a motorcycle helmet, Ducati jacket and a Suzuki motorbike which they believed were used by O'Brien during the attempted robbery.
DNA matching the 22-year-old's was found on the helmet and jacket, but O'Brien said that while he had used the equipment for other robberies, somebody else was wearing them when Mr Carroll was targeted.
No firearm was found by police. The second motorbike rider has not been located.
Judge John Lodge suggested O'Brien had targeted Mr Carroll, telling the court it "doesn't take an awful lot of work" to find out when the striker would leave training and by what route.
Det Sgt Brett Hagen said CCTV footage of the pursuit "shows the persistent and reckless lengths this man went to in order to try to steal a high-value watch".
"I would like to thank the victim who showed great courage and calmness throughout this terrifying robbery attempt," he continued.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-41124929
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Air Transat probed after flights delayed for hours on Ottawa runway - BBC News
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2017-09-01
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Passengers who were held for six hours on Ottawa runway rang the emergency services for help.
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US & Canada
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The passengers of two international flights were held for up to six hours
The Canadian Transportation Agency is holding an inquiry into two Air Transat flights held on the tarmac at Ottawa for hours in conditions passengers called "deplorable".
The flights from Brussels and Rome were diverted on 31 July amid bad weather in Montreal and Toronto.
Passengers said they were stranded for up to six hours without adequate air conditioning, food or water.
The two international flights were among 20 diverted to Ottawa from Montreal and Toronto.
Air Transat said that numerous factors beyond its control, including long waits for fuel, had resulted in its inability to reduce the delay and allow passengers to disembark safely.
Flight staff said food and water were running low but that refreshments were available and temperatures seemed acceptable.
But travellers who gave statements or testified before the inquiry painted a very different picture, with some describing a growing frustration and panic fuelled by poor communication from airline staff.
More than one passenger testified during the public hearings that they felt they were seen simply as "luggage".
In a statement to the panel, passengers Alan and Patricia Abraham, of Flight 507 from Rome, said they were initially told the delay in Ottawa would be just 45 minutes to refuel.
The plane ended up held for five hours.
The couple said they were stranded in the stuffy plane, were given a small meal and only once offered a small glass of water.
"The bathroom had run out of toilet paper. One young boy became nauseous and was trying to make his way to the bathroom when he vomited in the aisle and all over several passengers two rows behind us," they said. "The stench was unbearable."
Air Transat says many factors contributed to the delay on 31 July
Pilot Yves St-Laurent testified before the CTA panel that the tarmac delay seemed like "the lesser evil" compared to the logistics of getting passengers off the aircraft and sending them through customs, and then arranging transport and accommodation for them.
Pilots have the final say on whether to unload a plane.
He said he did not consider disembarking the aircraft as he was consistently told it would be refuelled in short order.
"If we had known that the delay would be longer than three hours, the decisions would have been very different," Mr St-Laurent said, adding that the air conditioning stopped working only for a minute or two.
People on board Flight 157 from Brussels to Montreal were experiencing similar conditions to Flight 507. They ended up being stranded for six hours.
At one point passengers chanted "open the door, open the door" to cabin crew. The cabin temperature reached more than 31C (87F).
Pilot Denis Lussier also said he was told his plane would be quickly refuelled.
He added that his flight was short on fuel when it landed and that the air conditioning was cut off when the power shut off.
Passengers eventually rang the emergency services to complain of the heat and inability to disembark, and emergency responders came to their assistance and handed out water.
Several of the passengers shared their ordeal on social media while inside the planes.
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Both pilots said they had not received any calls from passengers to get off in Ottawa.
Airline CEO Jean-Francois Lemay said on Thursday that "something did not work well, obviously" on 31 July.
"I am not saying there is a fault or blame but there is a collective responsibility that has to be observed in these events."
Christophe Hennebelle, vice president of corporate affairs, said other planes also suffered significant delays, but that Air Transat was being singled out because of the media attention over the call to emergency services.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41075522
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Solar power deal will lower social tenants' energy bills - BBC News
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2017-09-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Investment from the Netherlands will see 800,000 English and Welsh homes get free solar panels.
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Business
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Solar panels are to be installed in 800,000 low-income homes across England and Wales over the next five years, as part of a new government scheme.
The Dutch firm, Maas Capital, is investing £160m in the project.
The panels, which will be free to tenants, are expected to cut hundreds of pounds from energy bills, according to the UK firm Solarplicity.
The first people to benefit from the scheme include residents of a sheltered retirement home in Ealing, west London.
Speaking at the site, International Trade minister Greg Hands said: "This initial £160m capital expenditure programme will deliver massive benefits to some of the UK's poorest households.
"As well as creating 1,000 jobs and delivering cheaper energy bills for up to 800,000 homes, it shows yet another vote of confidence in the UK as a place to invest and do business."
The firm providing the panels, Solarplicity, will work with more than 40 social landlords, including local authorities across England and Wales.
It will profit from the payments received under the feed-in tariff scheme and payments for energy from social housing customers.
The feed-in tariff scheme offers guaranteed cash payments to households that produce their own electricity using renewable technologies.
It changed in February, adopting different rules and lower tariff rates.
Mr Hands also told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that Solarplicity will target military veterans when it recruits staff to install the panels.
"Armed forces veterans are very good at doing this, actually," he said. "They understand how to put the panels on efficiently and well."
Tenants in the North West will be the biggest beneficiaries, with more than 290,000 homes receiving solar panels in towns and cities such as Oldham and Bradford.
The North East and Midlands will also see a significant number of homes benefit.
Tenants will not pay anything towards the installation of the panels and their energy bills will be reduced by an average of £240 per year, according to the Department for International Trade.
Julian Bell, leader of Ealing Council, welcomed the scheme, but said its own programme of installing solar panels had been curtailed after the government reduced the feed-in tariffs that offered a return on electricity generated from small-scale energy schemes.
"The business case didn't quite add-up when the government made changes to subsidies and feed-in tariffs for sustainable energy," he said.
"We're grateful that private investors are coming here and investing in Ealing and benefitting our residents but the government still needs to do more to move people to sustainable energy and solar power particularly."
Greg Hands says the scheme is a show of confidence for business in the UK
The chief executive of Solarplicity, David Elbourne, said the price of solar panels had fallen enough so that government subsidies were no longer essential.
"In the past, the feed-in tariff meant that people who could afford to have solar, benefitted from solar. But now people who can't afford to have solar [can]- we'll put it on the roof for free - and they will get a reduced energy bill."
David Hunter, director of market studies at energy management firm Schneider Electric gave the scheme a cautious welcome.
"Obviously any kind of investment in the transition to low carbon energy supply can be a positive thing and with any of these developments it's always best to consider whether it's best value for money.
"But certainly the idea of upgrading our social housing stock to make it more energy efficient and lower carbon is a worthwhile aim," he said.
Maas Capital is the equity investment arm of ABN AMRO, which specialises in shipping, oil and gas, and renewable energy. ABN AMRO is 75% owned by the Dutch government.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41122433
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MPs declare sports and bookies as most common donors - BBC News
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2017-09-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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Ladbrokes Coral companies appear 15 times for hospitality in the register of MPs' donations.
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England
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MPs have declared about £215,000 worth of gifts, benefits and hospitality
Sports and betting companies top the list of donors treating MPs to gifts and hospitality.
The Ladbrokes Coral group appeared 15 times in the register of members' interests, more than any other donor.
Out of 187 donations from UK sources registered by MPs, 58 were from the world of sport. A further 19 were from betting companies.
Ladbrokes Coral said it wanted MPs to take decisions "from a position of knowledge".
But campaigners for tighter rules on gambling said companies could use hospitality to lobby MPs not to change rules on fixed odds betting terminals.
MPs are required to declare any gifts, benefits and hospitality over a value of £300. The latest register was published on 29 August and most declarations date from the beginning of 2016 to July 2017.
The Ladbrokes Coral Group accounted for 15 entries including trips to Ascot, Doncaster and Cheltenham races, the Community Shield at Wembley and dinner at the Conservative Party conference.
Altogether, the group of companies donated £7,475-worth of hospitality to four MPs, Conservatives Philip Davies (eight occasions - totalling £3,685), Laurence Robertson (four occasions -£2,550) and Thérèse Coffey (twice - £890) and Labour's Conor McGinn (once - £350).
The total does not include any gifts or hospitality worth less than £300 as MPs do not have to declare this.
ITV appeared eight times and Channel 4 was mentioned five times. BBC Northern Ireland appears once.
While Ladbrokes Coral appeared most often it was not the biggest donor in terms of the value of its hospitality.
The largest individual donor in the section on "gifts, benefits and hospitality from UK sources" was the Road Haulage Association, which the register revealed funds a researcher in the office of Dover's Conservative MP Charlie Elphicke at a cost of £22,577.
Mr Elphicke said: "The researcher is looking at how we can be ready on day one for Brexit - particularly at the Dover front line.
"This is vital work for both my constituency and the haulage industry. No-one wants to see long queues of lorries at Dover.
"In this work the interests of the haulage industry and my constituency are strongly aligned. That's why we decided to join forces."
Matt Zarb-Cousin, spokesman for the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, accused Ladbrokes Coral of being "desperate" to keep fixed odds betting terminals (FOBTs) at £100 a spin.
He said: "They will throw as much money as they can. It shows a lot about the strength of their argument that they need to wine and dine MPs."
The organisation wants to see the maximum stake on the terminals cut from £100 to £2 amid concerns vulnerable people can lose a lot of money very quickly.
Its founder Derek Webb has funded the Liberal Democrats and also appeared in previous registers of members' interests as a donor to Labour deputy leader Tom Watson.
The government is conducting a review into FOBTs.
A spokesman for Ladbrokes Coral said: "We employ over 25,000 people, we have a high street presence in nearly every constituency in the land and pay UK taxes of circa £55m per annum.
"Of course we engage with politicians, we want to make sure that when decisions are taken that affect our 25,000 people, they are done from a position of knowledge."
Mr Davies, MP for Shipley and one of the recipients of Ladbrokes' hospitality, said: "I am the elected chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Betting and Gaming - and a former bookmaker - so of course I meet with bookmakers.
"It would be rather extraordinary if I didn't."
Tewkesbury MP Mr Robertson said he did discuss FOBTs with Ladbrokes, but also other issues such as taxation and their relationship with horse racing.
He said: "Very many companies (including the BBC) provide hospitality as a means of lobbying MPs pretty well every day of the week, inside and outside the Palace of Westminster, at various sporting and other events, at party conferences and so on.
"Charities do similar. Some of it is declarable, if it is over the threshold, and some of it isn't.
"I represent the Cheltenham racecourse and am also joint chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Racing and Bloodstock, so have responsibilities in this area.
"Similar to most countries in the world, UK horse racing is very largely financially supported by bookmakers and there is a fear that curtailing their income by reducing the stakes on FOBTs could cause many shops to close which would, in turn, lead to a dramatic reduction in the funding of horse racing, which, contrary to popular belief, is a very poorly funded sport in the first place."
Dr Coffey and Mr McGinn have been approached for comment.
• None Fifth of MPs still employ family member
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-41027964
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One in three 'sick notes' for mental health, says NHS - BBC News
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2017-09-01
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https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews
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One in three "sick notes" issued by GPs are for mental health problems, a new NHS report shows.
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Health
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Nearly a third of fit notes issued by GPs are for psychiatric problems, says an NHS report.
This makes them the most common reason for people to take time off work, ahead of musculoskeletal diseases.
There was a 14% rise in notes relating to anxiety and stress between 2015-16 and 2016-17.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists said the findings were "alarming" and pointed to a need for more to be done to help get people back to work.
Fit notes is the formal name given to what were once called sick notes.
The new data analysed more than 12 million of them, issued over almost two and a half years from GP practices across England.
Around half of the notes had a known diagnosis.
It was the first time this information had been collected from GPs and analysed.
Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, said: "These figures explain why the NHS is now putting mental health front and centre, in what was recently independently described as 'the world's most ambitious effort to treat depression, anxiety and other common mental illnesses'."
The NHS Digital report also revealed that fit notes for psychiatric problems were being issued for longer periods of time than other types of illness.
For example, more than one in five psychiatric sick notes were issued for longer than 12 weeks, compared to only 3% of notes for diseases of the respiratory system.
Jed Boardman, from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said not enough was being done to facilitate a person's return to work.
"GPs will write suggestions on the fit note, such as staggered work days or agreeing specific goals for the returning employer - both parties need to be more active in tailoring these suggestions to that person," he said.
Dr Boardman said the data "may underestimate the scale of the problem" as discrimination can mean those with mental health issues are out of the labour force completely.
"Almost half of benefits claimants of Employment and Support Allowance in England are receiving payments as the result of mental and behavioural disorders," he pointed out.
A spokeswoman from the Department for Work and Pensions said: "We're helping thousands of people to remain in, or get back into work after a period of ill-health.
"We're determined to go further, and these statistics will provide us with a better understanding of why people take sickness absence in different areas across the country."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-41124238
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