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Born to an Italian-Welsh father and Welsh mother in Cwm, Ebbw Vale, he was a regular performer in London's West End as well as with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
He appeared in more than 30 films, including the Beatles' movies and Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
He had been diagnosed with cancer.
Spinetti's agent, Barry Burnett, said: "He had cancer for a year, but he was very cheerful to the end. I spoke to him on Friday and he was talking about his plans and everything."
News of his death prompted a stream of tributes from fans and members of the entertainment world on Twitter.
Actor Rob Brydon tweeted: "So sad Victor Spinetti has died. The funniest story teller I've ever met and a lovely warm man. Proud to have been his friend. 'Eh, Vic...'"
Britt Ekland, actor and singer, wrote: "Just heard my wonderful friend, co writer and director Victor Spinetti died. Am devastated to have lost a true acting genius."
Welsh actor Sian Phillips told BBC Wales she was shocked and saddened, adding: "He was such a force of joy and vitality. When one saw him across a crowded room, one couldn't wait to get together with him and have a chat and a catch-up."
Barbara Windsor, his co-star in the West End stage play Oh! What a Lovely War which transferred to Broadway and a lifelong friend, had visited Spinetti last Thursday.
"We were very close. He was another of my great friends from that era. He was such a great man," she said.
"We just chatted and chatted and talked about old things. But he said, 'let's not talk about all that, let's talk about the future'.
"What he was trying to say was that everything was happy in his room. I was happy to see him. He didn't look ill. He looked great. He was swearing a lot, like that would get rid of the illness, and we just laughed."
Spinetti had recently appeared on her two-part radio series Clubland, and she wanted to play it for him.
"I got the nurses to wake him up to hear it," said Windsor.
"Some of the nurses didn't know who he was so I wanted them to hear it too.
He was part of my life and I'm going to miss him so much. We'd go out for lunch and have a great gossip together.
"He was such a good actor because he took notice of people and used their characters. He portrayed them wonderfully, whatever he did."
Spinetti was born in the living quarters above the chip shop his family owned in Cwm, Ebbw Vale. He attended Monmouth School and initially had ambitions to be a teacher.
But after turning to acting he studied at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Cardiff.
His early stage career saw him make a number of memorable performances with Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop, whose production of Oh, What a Lovely War! transferred to the West End and Broadway.
It was his performance in Oh, What a Lovely War! that prompted the Beatles to ask him to appear in A Hard Day's Night (1964), the first of the group's five films.
It is suggested George Harrison told Spinetti that he had to be in the film because "me mum will only go to see them if you're in them".
Spinetti's collaboration with the Beatles saw him appear in their next two productions, Help! (1965) and the hour-long television film Magical Mystery Tour (1967).
He also worked with John Lennon to turn Lennon's book, In His Own Write, in to a play which he then directed at the National Theatre.
Sir Paul McCartney described him as "the man who makes clouds disappear".
His stage career saw him win a Tony award for his Broadway performance in Oh, What a Lovely War!, as well as co-starring with Jack Klugman when The Odd Couple toured London.
His film career included starring in Zeffirelli's The Taming of the Shrew, again alongside Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, and The Return of the Pink Panther as well as The Krays in 1990.
In his television career, he is perhaps best known for voicing the arch villain character Texas Pete in the S4C animated series SuperTed.
Spinetti was also a noted raconteur whose creative output included poetry, an autobiography and his one-man show, A Very Private Diary.
A
BBC documentary
on his life and work saw contributions from Barbara Windsor and Rob Brydon praising a "great Welsh eccentric".
Spinetti died at a hospice in Monmouth on Monday morning, his agent said. | Victor Spinetti, Welsh-born star of stage and screen, has died at the age of 82. | 18148017 |
The home secretary has called for tighter measures to single out those who have a case to stay from those who don't.
However, nobody knows how many illegal migrants are already in the UK.
In 2009 an academic study, relied on by the Home Office, estimated the figure to be between 417,000 and 863,000.
In 2010 the campaign group Migration Watch said it was closer to 1.1 million.
These are the most recent available estimates but how do illegal migrants get here and how do they evade detection?
Victor is in his early 20s, has piercing blue eyes and an edgy haircut.
He takes me on a tour of the properties he has worked on as a builder in London.
There's a large retailer in Regent Street, the hospital opposite the Houses of Parliament and numerous bars in Russell Square.
He's not directly employed by the construction companies. He gets his work via an agency.
In 2011, he made his way to Italy, where he paid traffickers £2,500 for a false passport.
But when he flew into London, immigration officers realised his papers were fake.
He was fingerprinted and sent back to Italy.
He got another false passport and tried again, but he was deported for a second time.
Undeterred, Victor tried to enter Britain from France by ferry. This time, he got in.
However, before he could start work on construction sites, companies required him to provide them with a valid national insurance number.
Instead of buying a set of fake documents, he paid someone to share their legitimate national insurance number with him.
"You find somebody who is British or [an] EU citizen and encourage them to help you, and we use their documents, photocopies, which would have our photographs on."
He says the other person is "selling their identity" to him.
I hear Ana's bold jewellery jangling down the corridor leading up to the room where we meet. She is a bubble of warmth and enthusiasm, with a thatch of thick black curly hair.
She first arrived in Britain in 2005 on a tourist visa from Brazil. When her visa ran out, she stayed on, working illegally as a housekeeper.
But in 2010, she was caught by immigration officers, fingerprinted and deported back to Brazil.
She quickly acquired a new Brazilian passport. Six weeks after being kicked out of Britain, she flew to Italy, where she paid a man £2,000 to accompany her back to the UK.
When they landed, her companion walked her through the immigration hall.
As she recounts this part of her journey, she bites her lip nervously.
"After showing a piece of paper to the immigration officer, we were let through," she says.
She doesn't know how or why she was allowed in.
She says she was just overjoyed, adding that she loves the UK.
Either immigration service systems failed to identify that Ana had been deported under her old passport or the person who accompanied her had arranged an "inside job".
However, that seems unlikely given she arrived at a busy airport.
She is now working as a nanny for a family who she says are aware of her illegal migrant status.
Can the UK Border Force deliver on the government's promises to make the UK an unattractive place for those who want to work illegally?
Hear BBC Radio 4's File on 4 programme Working in the Shadows
Ali has seen better days. Shabbily dressed, with matted black hair, he is clutching a plastic bag of food and clothes donated by a local charity.
For the past two years, he has been sleeping rough in Southall in west London.
He is Indian and first arrived in 2006. He paid £8,000 to people smugglers to bring him to the UK. He says he was taken from Mumbai across Europe in cars and lorries and crossed the English Channel by ferry.
He was dropped off in London, where he has spent the past nine years working as a day labourer.
In the early hours of the morning, he waits on street corners hoping to get a job.
"I get picked up by anyone who needs labourers, it might be £40 or even £30 some days," he says.
Ali was arrested by immigration officers two years ago and was meant to be deported.
But when he first arrived in the UK, he destroyed his passport. It means the authorities cannot properly identify him or where he is from.
It therefore makes it very hard for them to know where to send him home. Added to that, some countries, including India and China, won't take people back unless they have the relevant paperwork to prove they are genuine nationals.
The irony for Ali is that he now wishes he could return home. Without a passport, he is stuck while the Indian authorities check his identity.
"It would be better if I had not come," he says.
Maria is from Brazil. Her working day begins at 06:00, when she is picked up in a van from a Tube station in south London along with about 10 other workers.
She will spend the next 12 hours working in the "shadow economy" as a domestic cleaner.
She gets £250 a week for 72 hours work. The hourly rate works out at less than £3.50 per hour, and the money is paid cash in hand.
Her employer, who is also Brazilian, won't tolerate people taking time off because they're sick, and there's no holiday pay.
"We only get 10 minutes to eat," says Maria.
"If we do more than 12 hours [work], we don't get paid extra. And if we ask the boss, she says, 'You know your rights.'
"We have no rights," she adds.
She came to Britain on a tourist visa but never returned home when it expired.
Maria knows she is being exploited but puts up with it for the sake of her 13-year-old son, who is desperate to stay in the UK.
He got a place at a secondary school in London four years ago.
When he started, the school asked to see his passport but not a residency visa.
Maria says checks have tightened and schools now want to see up an up-to-date visa, which he doesn't have.
Mother and son live in a single room in conditions she says are "horrible".
"He wants to stay here - but it's no life, it's miserable," she says. | Among the thousands of refugees trying to enter Europe, some warn, are economic migrants exploiting their plight by trying to cross borders with them. | 34329782 |
Cha Halliday, 53, from Greenock, and Sean Donnelly, 48, from Inverkip, have been all over Scotland visiting sites linked to Wallace, the Scottish hero of the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297.
But a small reference in a book on Wallace led them to a little known site close to where they lived.
According to Scottish author David R Ross, in his book On the Trail of William Wallace, the Scottish warrior was captured in August 1305 at what is now Robroyston, north of Glasgow, and taken overnight to Dumbarton Castle to await transfer to London to stand trial for treason.
He recounts the local legend that Wallace was taken across the Clyde at West Ferry, and transported along the old Roman road to an area called Broadfield, which is now in Port Glasgow in Inverclyde.
It is said that he was chained to a tree until English troops arrived and he could be handed over and taken down south.
The chains were said to have remained at the scene for many years and each time they rotted away they were replaced.
They were said to be painted red each year by local children to symbolise the blood shed by Wallace in his fight for Scottish independence.
Historian Fiona Watson said there was very little reliable evidence on Wallace beyond his victory at Stirling Bridge, his defeat at Falkirk a year later and his death in 1305.
Wallace was hanged, drawn and quartered on 23 August 1305 after being found guilty of treason.
Dr Watson said: "We know nothing about Wallace between him being chased by the English near Dundee in autumn 1304 and his capture in summer 1305."
She said there was no evidence to place Wallace in Port Glasgow but over the years people across the country had "filled in the gaps" in Wallace's tale with stories associating their area with the great Scottish hero.
She said: "There is little evidence to support many of the associations but it does not mean they are not strongly held."
The truth behind the Port Glasgow legend is hard to establish but it appears the stories of the Wallace Tree have deep roots in the Inverclyde area.
A 1962 Greenock Telegraph article carries an appeal to save the "gnarled oak", saying its loss would be a "tragedy".
It refers to notes from a Mr Scrymgeour who describes a different legend.
He tells of the flight of William Wallace from English soldiers, with a price on his head.
Mr Scrymgeour begins with Wallace's escape from an inn at Elderslie on a horse belonging to one of the soldiers who had cordoned him off at the hostelry.
Wallace, he says, then made off over the hill towards Greenock.
He claims that when Wallace reached the big tree at Broadfield he climbed into its branches to hide himself and his two-handed broadsword from the pursuing soldiers.
Mr Scrymgeour also tells how the 13th Earl of Glencairn sought to save the tree in 1768 when it was showing signs of decay.
The earl had the infected part bored and boiling pitch poured into the hole.
According to Mr Scrymgeour: "He also had the heaviest branches chained in such a fashion that each or all could be tightened at will by the aid of a triple screw."
This could provide an alternative explanation for the chains which have been associated with the tree.
The tree had been located where the Holy Family Roman Catholic Church now stands when it was blown down in heavy storms in 1995.
More than 18 years after the tree was felled, Mr Halliday set about trying to find it.
After some detective work and the aid of Facebook, the tree was tracked down to the former Gourock Ropeworks yard, where it had been taken for safe-keeping.
"They guy who had it said he knew someone would come looking for it one day," says Mr Halliday.
In order to get a date for the age of the the tree, Mr Halliday called in dendrochronologist Dr Coralie Mills.
It was during her visit that a second piece of the tree was found hidden in the undergrowth.
It had a length of chain embedded in its growth, providing more evidence that it was the tree that had been referred to locally as the Wallace Oak.
The age of the chain is unknown but clearly does not stretch anywhere near as far back as Wallace's time. It is likely have come from a local shipyard in the late 19th or early 20th Century.
Dr Mills told BBC Scotland that the oak itself was very old and put a date of 1786 on the section of the tree that she sampled.
Allowing for the evidence that the section of the tree had probably been about 2m from the ground, she put the age of the tree at 1763, if it was a single-stemmed tree.
However, the newspaper article from 1962 held out the possibility that the tree could still be much older.
Dr Mills said the date of her tree sample was very similar to the reputed date of the Earl's boring of the tree and the stimulation of roots growing down through what must have been a rotten or hollow lower stem.
She said: "In other words, the part of the tree we have aged is re-growth above the much older hollow base."
Dr Mills said she could not determine the age of a hollow stem and so could only estimate the age of a tree which was already old and hollow in the 18th century.
"It could easily have been several hundred years old at that point," she said.
The oldest known scientifically aged living trees in Scotland are mid-15th Century.
"We cannot refute the Wallace tradition on the basis of the dendro results," Dr Mills said.
A conclusion which "delighted" Cha Halliday.
He told BBC Scotland: "I liked the story because it was a legend and I was worried Dr Mills might be able to prove the tree was about 100 years old or something.
"But it was a chance we had to take.
"If she could get it anywhere near Wallace's time then it would keep the story going.
"Obviously a lot of people before me have believed in it and if we can keep it going and get something to mark it then I think it is amazing."
Scotland has a rich heritage of notable trees with famous associations.
In 1830, artist and naturalist Jacob George Strutt, in his book Sylva Brittanica, published a special section called Sylva Scotica in which he listed 10 famous Scottish trees.
Most of these trees have not survived into the 21st century, including two trees associated with William Wallace,
The Wallace Oak at Elderslie, in which tradition provided Wallace and 300 of his followers shelter as they were pursued by the English army and The Torwood Oak, near Stirling, beneath which he was said to have made camp.
The latter tree was already dead by Strutt's time, the pieces being carried off as souvenirs.
A similar fate befell the Wallace Oak at Elderslie after it was brought down by a great storm in 1856.
Strutt also mentioned the Bishopton Sycamore in Renfrewshire where Wallace was 'delivered up to his enemies by the treachery of a pretended friend'. | A local legend claiming that Scottish patriot William Wallace was chained to a tree in what is now Port Glasgow has led two friends to embark on a three-year quest to locate and preserve the tree. | 38747871 |
Turner, 32, retiring this year after 763 winners in a 15-year career, had five races on her final day.
She was no higher than fifth in the first four but was pressing for the lead aboard 25-1 shot Buonarroti into the final furlong, on heavy ground.
However, 10-1 Litigant powered through to win by four-and-a-half lengths.
Turner was riding Buonarroti for trainer Declan Carroll, who gave her a first opportunity in the saddle in 2000.
She has one more assignment as a jockey, travelling to South Africa next week for the Jockeys' Challenge.
The Nottinghamshire rider was given a warm reception on her return to the paddock and was full of praise for both her mount and the winning rider.
"I'm delighted for George, he works so hard. He's a heavy chap and he has to really put the effort in," she said.
"The horse ran a blinder. Declan actually really fancied him before the race so he gave me plenty of confidence.
"I did [think I might] win but when George came past me like that, I thought he would do well to hang on for second and he did and kept going. He's run a blinder. There's no tears - I feel all right about it."
It was a second victory for trainer Joe Tuite with Litigant but Baker rode the horse to victory three times under trainer Seamus Durack.
"I know he had top weight but he is a class horse and without doubt he is going to step up and be a Cup horse next year," the jockey enthused. | Hayley Turner, Britain's most successful female jockey, finished second in her final UK race as Litigant won the November Handicap at Doncaster. | 34756583 |
Clement "Butch" Desmier, 68, was found dead at his house in Rowlestone Rise, Ravenscliffe, Bradford in August 2012.
The father-of-six and grandfather of 10 had suffered multiple injuries, including 40 stab wounds.
Police said the investigation was ongoing and appealed for anyone with information to contact officers. | A 19-year-old man arrested on suspicion of murdering a grandfather who was stabbed to death more than two years ago has been bailed. | 30716450 |
Carwyn Jones had described the repeal bill as a "naked power-grab".
He told an assembly committee on Friday that Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns assured him they would work together "to make the situation acceptable".
Mr Cairns has expressed surprise at Mr Jones's criticism, saying the Welsh Government had helped draft the bill.
Mr Jones and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon issued a strong rebuke to the UK government's publication of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill on Thursday, saying they could not back it "as it currently stands".
Taking questions in Bangor from the assembly committee which scrutinises his work, Mr Jones said there was a feeling among civil servants in Whitehall that they were "superior" to the Welsh Assembly and would "impose their will" on the devolved administrations.
He said his dealings with the UK Government's agriculture department, Defra, led him to believe "they would create an agriculture policy which would suit one part of the UK - England".
Plaid Cymru AM Simon Thomas asked if the first minister was concerned that the UK Government could overrule the Welsh Government on devolved issues where there are different policies in Wales and England, such as the badger cull.
Mr Jones replied that as far as an agriculture policy goes, the UK Government could not impose a cull in Wales.
But he added that if any livestock export agreement between the UK and the EU included a badger cull, the UK Government could say "if you want to export, you have to cull. That is a possibility, yes".
Mr Cairns told BBC Radio Wales on Friday that the repeal bill was intended to give "continuity and certainty" to exporters and prevent "a cliff edge" situation of no rules being in place the day after Brexit.
"Ultimately we've said that the powers of the devolved administrations will be extended, but we really have to focus on Welsh farmers and Welsh businesses that want to export and continue to buy and trade with the European Union," he said.
"If we can't get agreement before we leave the European Union, there's a major risk that we leave Welsh farmers and Welsh businesses without a market." | The first minister has said the UK Government has pledged to allay his fears that a bill converting EU law into British law undermines devolution. | 40607744 |
The replica of the historic facade will include statues of Scottish heroes Robert the Bruce and William Wallace.
It will be shipped in pieces to Melbourne's Etihad stadium, next February.
Performers will enter the stadium by crossing the drawbridge, just as they do in Edinburgh.
"When people see it, they will be absolutely astounded," said Brigadier David Allfrey, the Tattoo's chief executive and producer.
Speaking at a news conference in Melbourne, Brig Allfrey said the 12-13 February tour will be only the fourth time the Tattoo has travelled away from home in its 66-year history.
Shipping over and assembling the replica of the historic fortress, which has dominated Edinburgh's skyline for centuries, is "a huge job", he said.
It will be so authentic that "people will be able to go up and touch it and wonder if it's made of stone".
Its size is matched by the logistics of bringing together more than 1,200 performers from military bands from around the world.
The final line-up is still "under wraps" but it will include bands from Britain, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere, and will also travel to New Zealand.
Front of stage will be the traditional Scottish favourites including Britain's best precision drill teams, pipers, fiddlers and highland dancers.
Brigadier Allfrey would not reveal how many planeloads or tonnes of equipment would be part of the tour, but joked that "the uniforms alone are well over the luggage allowance of any normal airline."
There will be no horses or jeeps, which have featured in previous Tattoos.
With its blend of military pomp, music and entertainment, the Tattoo plays to 220,000 people each year in Edinburgh and attracts an annual television audience of 100 million. Its last 16 seasons in Edinburgh have sold out, with 111,000 tickets sold for the coming 2015 performance in just nine hours last year.
Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle said the Tattoo was "one of the great stirring, visceral events of the world" and expected the 30,000-seat stadium to sell out.
The Tattoo has only left Scotland three times before, always for Australia and New Zealand: to Wellington in 2000 and Sydney in 2005 and 2010.
Brig Allfrey said he hoped that mastery of the logistics for this latest tour would open up audiences beyond Australia and New Zealand.
"We've got all sorts of adventures planned in future," he said.
"This develops an appetite for going abroad." | A replica of Edinburgh Castle will be a dramatic backdrop in Melbourne for a rare trip abroad by the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, organisers say. | 32716757 |
The End The Drone Wars protesters were arrested at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire in January during a demonstration over the use of armed drones.
Appearing at Lincoln Magistrates' Court, the two men and two women received a conditional discharge for two years.
They were also fined £337 each.
The court heard how the protesters, from Oxford, Nottingham, Leicester and Coventry, had been seen by police at the south end of the runway wearing hi-visibility jackets and holding banners.
The four convicted were:
The group said they had entered the base with the intent of preventing more drone strikes on innocent people.
Speaking after their trial, Cole said: "The use of drones should be seen as a war crime."
"We spent two days setting out our argument that RAF Waddington drones are killing innocent civilians," he said, following the trial.
He said the judge told them their actions would not have prevented drone operations, but acknowledged they were "sincere and honest" in their beliefs.
However, he said the judge told them "arguments about the legality of drone strikes was not a matter for this court".
The defendants said they were disappointed with the verdict, but understood the reasons for it. They pledged to continue their campaign against the use of drones.
The Reapers, which have hi-tech sensors and laser-guided weapons, are based in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria but are controlled by military staff at the Lincolnshire base. | Four people accused of cutting a wire and entering an RAF base during a protest have been found guilty. | 34583573 |
Greater the flamingo was put to sleep on Friday due to complications brought about by arthritis and old age, officials at Adelaide Zoo said.
The flamingo, named after its species, arrived at the zoo in 1933 and was a popular attraction.
Flamingos are wading birds with a very specialised diet. They have far shorter life spans in the wild.
Greater flamingos - scientific name Phoenicopterus roseus - are usually larger than lesser flamingos and are characterised by pale plumage and pink bills.
Greater the flamingo, who survived a bad beating by a group of teenagers in 2008, was a zoo favourite, officials said.
"Greater is best known for being the world's oldest flamingo and the last greater flamingo to have resided in Australia," Elaine Bensted, Zoos South Australia chief executive, told Agence-France Presse news agency.
"Although this is an extremely sad loss for us all, it was the right thing to do," she said, adding that there was no treatment that could have improved the flamingo's quality of life.
The flamingo is survived by companion Chilly the Chilean flamingo, 65, said to be the last flamingo in Australia.
Zoo officials said they would keep a close watch on Chilly to see if there was any reaction to Greater's death.
They were also considering a memorial for Greater, they said. | A flamingo believed to be the oldest of its kind in the world has died at the age of 83 in Australia. | 25976523 |
Former Deal or No Deal producer Richard Osman, who now co-presents Pointless, told how one contestant's partner had said she needed £15,000 for treatment.
The next day the singer phoned in to donate the money, Osman tweeted.
Family and friends were touched "beyond words" by the "outpouring of love" from Michael's fans, his publicist said.
Other stories of the star's benevolence, including a £50,000 Sport Relief donation, have emerged on social media.
In a string of tweets celebrating the singer's music and humour, comedian and author David Walliams tweeted that the star had supported his 2006 cross-Channel swim to the tune of £50,000.
Osman tweeted in the hours following news that Michael had been found dead at his home in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, on Christmas Day, aged 53.
The presenter wrote: "A woman on 'Deal Or No Deal' told us she needed £15k for IVF treatment.
"George Michael secretly phoned the next day and gave her the £15k."
The beneficiary was later reported to be Lynette Gillard, 38, from Bolton, whose partner Steve Davies had appeared on the show in 2008.
She told the Telegraph: "For many years I wondered who would have been so generous and now I know. What more can I say other than 'Thank you George'."
At the time, in 2008, Mr Davies had told the Manchester Evening News: "Thank you is not enough. It restores your faith in humankind.
"All the bad news you read about and then something like this happens."
Michael's donations ranged in scope from major charities and appeals to individual acts of kindness.
The proceeds from sales of Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me, his 1991 live duet with Sir Elton John, were donated to HIV and children's charities, including the Terence Higgins Trust.
It tweeted: "Thank you to George Michael for all he did for the LGBT community and to educate about HIV. RIP George."
Michael's family and close friends thanked fans for their "many, many, kind words", his publicist said in a statement.
"There can be no more fitting tribute", the statement said. "We thank those who, rightly, have chosen to celebrate his life and legacy."
Wham! royalties from Last Christmas went to Ethiopian famine relief efforts, while the founder of the children's helpline charity Childline, Dame Esther Rantzen, said Michael had donated royalties from the song Jesus to a Child to the cause.
"He really wanted to keep his help secret, it was an intensely personal gift," Dame Esther told BBC News. "It meant we could answer more children."
She said Michael, who she estimated had donated around £2m to Childline over the years, "completely understood" the importance of helping children. "Maybe he felt their pain or understood from a personal perspective," she said.
Children's charities were also at the fore when he donated each year to Capital Radio's appeal.
Former presenter Mick Brown tweeted: "Every Easter at Capital when I was on air with Chris Tarrant for help a London child, George would call in at 3.30pm with a £100,000 donation."
He also suffered the loss of his mother to cancer in 1997 and in 2006 played a special, free concert at the Roundhouse in Camden, north London, for NHS nurses to thank them for their care.
And he gave his time to Macmillan Cancer Support as one of their ambassadors.
Alongside major charities, individuals on Twitter shared their accounts of his kindness.
Journalist Sali Hughes said: "I wrote in a piece ages ago about a celeb I'd worked with tipping a barmaid £5k because she was a student nurse in debt. Was George Michael."
And Emilyne Mondo said he had worked anonymously at a homeless shelter where she volunteered.
Michael's partner Fadi Fawaz, says he found the singer dead when he went to his home in Goring on Christmas Day.
He told the Telegraph: "We were supposed to be going for Christmas lunch.
"I went round there to wake him up and he was just gone, lying peacefully in bed. We don't know what happened yet.
"George was looking forward to Christmas, and so was I. Now everything is ruined.
"I want people to remember him the way he was - he was a beautiful person."
Meanwhile, Michael's albums and singles have been climbing the charts since his death.
On iTunes, Ladies & Gentlemen became the number one album and Careless Whisper went to 12 in the singles chart. | Tales of George Michael's philanthropy have come to light in the wake of his death - including how he funded a couple's IVF treatment. | 38442559 |
The incident happened at about 15:25 BST between Abergavenny and Raglan.
Two passengers and the pilot have been taken to hospital. Air accident officials have also been alerted.
The road is closed, with two South Wales fire engines at the scene. Crews believed there were about 120 litres of fuel on board, which was contained as they stopped the leak. | Three people have sustained minor injuries after their light plane crashed on the A40 in Monmouthshire. | 36629540 |
The display shows a favourite work by each of the 65 sports photographers at the company, which are on show alongside a selection of classic sports imagery from the archive.
Here is a selection of 11 from the exhibition:
1. Diving Day Seven - 13th Fina World Championships
Alexandre Despatie of Canada competes in the men's 3m springboard final during the 13th Fina World Championships at Stadio del Nuoto on 23 July, 2009 in Rome, Italy. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)
2. Day 12: The Championships - Wimbledon 2015
Serena Williams of the United States leaves court with the Venus Rosewater Dish after her victory in the final of the ladies' singles against Garbine Muguruza of Spain on day 12 of Wimbledon on 11 July, 2015. (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)
3. James Hunt
Racing driver James Hunt (1947-1993) at the wheel of his car at Silverstone on 5 April, 1974. (Photo by Victor Blackman/Express/Getty Images)
4. Give Me Five
American heavyweight boxer Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) lying on his hotel bed in London on 27 May, 1963. He holds up five fingers in a prediction of how many rounds it will take him to knock out British boxer Henry Cooper. (Photo by Len Trievnor/Express/Getty Images)
5. Children playing cricket in South Africa
Children playing cricket with a stick and a can of pop outside the gates of Buffalo Park on 15 February, 2003 in East London, South Africa. (Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
6. Ironman World Championship
A view of the men's age group swim start during the 2016 Ironman World Championship on 8 October, 2016 in Kailua Kona, Hawaii. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images for Ironman)
7. 2016 Australian Open - Day eight
French tennis player Gael Monfils dives for a forehand in his fourth-round match against Andrey Kuznetsov of Russia on day eight of the Australian Open at Melbourne Park on 25 January, 2016. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
8. Scunthorpe United v MK Dons
MK Dons midfielder Mark Wright takes a corner during the League One play off semi-final, first-leg match against Scunthorpe United at Glanford Park on 8 May, 2009. (Photo by Jamie McDonald/Getty Images)
9. The 141st running of the Preakness Stakes
Jockey Victor Carrasco poses for a portrait after riding Never Stop Looking in the second running of the Old Bay Race before the 141st running of the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course on 21 May, 2016 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)
10. Swimming - 2015 European Games
Rebecca Sherwin of Great Britain swims the first leg in the women's 4x100m medley relay heats on day 13 of the 2015 European Games at the Baku Aquatics Centre on 25 June, 2015. (Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images for BEGOC)
11. New England Patriots v Dallas Cowboys
Quarter-back Tom Brady (12) of the New England Patriots drops back to pass during the second half of the NFL game against the Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium on 11 October, 2015 in Arlington, Texas. The Patriots beat the Cowboys 30-6. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images) | Visions of Sport is an exhibition of sporting photographs running at Getty Images Gallery in London. | 40175719 |
Sgt Robert McDonald tried to get Sir Harry Djanogly, 77, out of his Jaguar XJF after pulling him over for speeding on the A40 near Acton, west London.
Sir Harry, from central London, denies dangerous driving and assaulting a police officer on 27 December 2014.
He was taking his wife to hospital when driving at 70mph in a 50mph zone.
The philanthropist, who does not deny speeding, told Isleworth Crown Court that his wife of 52 years, Lady Carol Djanogly, suffers from health problems, including emphysema, and at the time he "honestly believed that her life was in danger" and was trying to get to St John and St Elizabeth private hospital.
Sir Harry said when officers pulled up alongside him in a police van, he told them he needed to get his wife to hospital and asked them to follow him.
But when his car stopped at a red light moments later, Sgt McDonald approached the driver side window.
Sir Harry said: "He said 'get out', I said 'officer, I have explained to you before, I'm taking my wife to hospital and once I'm there...
"He said 'get out', I said 'no I'm going' and he jumped in through the window.
"I was shocked at the way he just threw himself - it is all happening in seconds."
He claimed his foot then slipped off the foot brake as the officer leant in, causing the car to move as the officer clung on.
"I know if I revved that car we would not see that man for dust - he would have, God forbid, have died," the textile manufacturer added.
Sir Harry said: "I'm regret it, I'm sorry. I'm terribly sorry this happened at all."
The millionaire, said to have assets worth £300m, has previously been disqualified from driving for collecting too many penalty points for speeding, the court heard.
Lady Carol told the jury she had felt unwell with "a bug" after returning to their home in Buckinghamshire from Bournemouth, and wanted to go to hospital.
Shortly before the trip she had been in intensive care for a week.
Describing Sgt McDonald's actions she said: "He put his whole body in through the window right up to his waist - it was very aggressive and a bit scary really."
The trial continues. | A millionaire has denied intending to harm a police officer who was dragged hanging out of his car along a dual carriageway in London. | 35709749 |
Since last week, a number of users on popular microblogging network Sina Weibo have been posting selfies of themselves with the hashtag #I'm gay and won't marry a straight person#.
Several parents of LGBT people have also posted pictures of themselves with signs declaring they would not pressure their children into marriage.
The campaign was started by LGBT rights group Pflag China.
Spokesman Zhou Ying told the BBC they had come up with the idea after noticing greater discussion in the media and online on gay rights and the issue of marriages in recent weeks.
Though homosexuality is not illegal in China, gay marriage is still not allowed. On Wednesday a judge ruled a gay couple could not register their marriage in a landmark case.
Last week, a couple of articles in Chinese media - including this Tencent article (in Chinese) - highlighted the plight of women known as "tongqi", who find themselves in sham marriages with gay men. That prompted much public sympathy for the women and criticism of the men, who were seen as cheats.
"This campaign is not meant as criticism of gay people who marry straight people," said Zhou Ying.
"We just want to encourage gay people to treasure themselves, to live the lives they want, to be who they truly are... and we want to push the message of equal rights."
Young people all over China face pressure to marry and start families early, but the problem is even more acute for gay men and lesbians, given conservative attitudes towards homosexuality.
One campaign participant, who wanted to be known as Peng Peng, said: "Many homosexuals because of various pressures get forced into marriages of convenience with straight people, or even real marriages.
"This sort of marriage situation is a form of disloyalty, for many gay people the great institution of marriage has really turned into love's graveyard."
Peng Peng said he had posted the photo of himself, adding, "I'm not willing to pretend for others, no matter how big the pressures are, I still want to be my true self, and so I use this campaign to take a stand."
Another participant, lesbian rights activist Han Haiming, posted a picture of herself at the age of 16 on Weibo, saying she had met her first girlfriend at that age.
She said: "If my parents forced me to marry a straight person, it would be akin to pushing me into a furnace."
"On this point, my family has still been very understanding," she added, saying she had come out to her parents long ago.
But others are not so lucky. She said she took part so that "we can let more people understand our sentiments, and give us the beginnings of respect".
"With many LGBTs taking part [in such campaigns], the strength of our masses could at least let others see us with new eyes, and more importantly perhaps we can get the attention of relevant government agencies, and help us win a victory in the future for gay marriage," she added.
Kenneth Cheung, founder of LGBT rights group Rainbow China, told the BBC that the issue of "tongqi" appeared to have arisen in China due to gay men giving in to social pressure when they reach an older age and marrying straight women.
"I feel that this is a tragedy, both for gay men and these women," he said.
He is urging more gay men to join the campaign as "firstly this would be a personal assertion - that we are gay men, not monsters. Also, it is a self-constraint, that even if society wishes to discriminate against us, we will not be willing to harm the innocent.
"I hope that when straight people see this, they would understand that the issue of LGBT rights closely affects them too, and thus garner more support for marriage equality."
But the campaign has also had its detractors from within the community.
A Weibo user called Brother Mitao felt that the slogan inadvertently acknowledged the attitude that "tongqi" are the only victims in sham marriages.
"A hastily taken stand," he said in a discussion on the hashtag. "Has it ended up proving the point of the news report that this alleged tongqi suffering is deeper [than the gay man's]?"
He also pointed out that the deeper problem stemmed from prevailing societal attitudes about fatherhood and the prioritisation of the family unit. "Not opposing [these attitudes], just holding up these placards about not marrying, isn't this strategy [setting the bar] very low?"
But another commenter replied: "It's true that this method could be inappropriate, but at least it's better than doing nothing. In the end it still has a positive meaning.
"The road to winning our rights is like feeling stones as you cross a river, if you don't bravely try, in this kind of environment, when can we realise our final goal?" | A social media campaign has taken off among China's lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) community which sees members pledging not to enter into sham marriages with straight people. | 36042000 |
And it knows that the the total resources available for day to day departmental budgets will fall in real terms - down by 5% by 2020.
Finance Minister Arlene Foster has warned - again - of hard choices to come.
The first thing the executive needs to do now is strike a budget for 2016/17.
The timetable is tight - a budget paper will need to be produced before the end of the year and a draft budget released for consultation in January.
With a freshly minted agreement between Sinn Féin and the DUP, that process should be less than fraught than in recent years.
And with the chancellor's tax credits u-turn, the parties have one unexpected issue to grapple with.
Last week's 'Fresh Start' agreement set aside £240m to mitigate the impact of tax credit cuts - what does it get used for now?
The finance minister is not committed to using that money for other welfare mitigation.
She argues that "vulnerable people" can be protected by spending it in other areas like health and that the executive will need to discuss it further.
I would be amazed if Sinn Féin do not insist that the money stays in the welfare mitigation pot.
The parties also need to decide to what extent they want to follow in the chancellor's footsteps by continuing with protection for the health and education budgets.
They might also need to think again about their revenue raising powers.
Local councils in England will be allowed to increase council tax by up to 2% in order to fund adult social care.
That's a sector that is under major pressure due to tight budgets, rising demand and the impact of the National Living Wage.
Those pressures also apply in Northern Ireland - so could the executive consider its own "social care precept" by increasing the long-frozen regional rate? | The Northern Ireland Executive now knows how much money it will have to spend over the next few years. | 34926763 |
UK government papers from 30 years ago, released by the National Archive, include briefings from David Willetts.
He said Scotland benefited from £900m "over-provision" compared with England.
At the time he was serving in the Number 10 Policy Unit. He later served as a minister under David Cameron and is now a Conservative peer.
In a briefing he wrote for the prime minister, dated 8 January 1986, he said Scotland was a "juicy target" for the Treasury to "pursue".
But he also noted that George Younger - who was Secretary of State for Scotland at the time - was "reported to be very 'emotional' on the subject" of cuts and "may well threaten to resign" at the prospect.
In another document, from the 12 February 1986, he said the position of the Tories in Scotland was "so bad that it might not deteriorate any further", and that the "envious North of England" might "welcome an attack on the pampered Scots", leading to more votes for the Tories.
Commenting on the release of the files, SNP MP Stewart Hosie said: "No one will be surprised at secret Tory plots to slash Scotland's budget."
He added: "To describe Scotland as 'pampered' and a 'juicy target' may go some way to explaining why the Tories were wiped out in Scotland." | An advisor to Margaret Thatcher argued that the "pampered Scots" were a "juicy target" for spending cuts, according to newly-released records. | 35199599 |
Leeds-born Cox said the medals had been taken from her car that was parked outside of her house in Prestwich, Bury.
The 26-year-old took gold in the T37 women's 100m and T35-38 4x100m relay at the 2015 World Championships in Doha.
She tweeted: "I'm just gutted. My first worlds medals for both sports, worth more than any amount of money."
More stories from across Yorkshire
In the plea posted on social media earlier she wrote: "Got home yest 2 find some1 had got into my car n cause I'd been filming just before my worlds medals were in there! Pls help me find them."
She spent the evening in London on Thursday and only discovered their loss when she got home.
Cox, who had a stroke aged 23, and was later diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, became the first Briton since 1988 to win a medal in two sports at the same Paralympics.
She also took athletics silver in the 4x100m relay and bronze in the 100m, and was picked to be Britain's flagbearer at the Rio closing ceremony. | Double Paralympic champion Kadeena Cox MBE has had two of her IPC Athletics World Championships medals stolen. | 40223477 |
The 25-year-old Brazil international said earlier this month the transfer was "90% certain".
Oscar joined Chelsea from Internacional for £25m in 2012 and has scored 38 times in 203 appearances for the club.
He will complete his move "at the beginning of the January transfer window", the club said in a statement.
Oscar, who has struggled to get into Antonio Conte's Chelsea side since October, will join former Blues boss Andre Villas-Boas in Shanghai.
The Chinese side confirmed Oscar "will arrive in Shanghai in the coming days to officially join SIPG".
The player, who has won the Premier League, Europa League and League Cup during his four-and-a-half-year spell at Stamford Bridge, will earn a reported £400,000 a week and the transfer fee will rank as the seventh-highest of all time.
Conte last week said the huge money being spent on players by Chinese clubs was a "danger for all teams in the world".
Oscar's move comes as former Manchester City forward Carlos Tevez is reportedly on the verge of becoming the world's highest-paid footballer by moving from Boca Juniors to Shanghai Shenhua, where he will earn £615,000 a week.
The transfer window opens on 1 January and closes at 23:00 GMT on 31 January. | Chelsea and Shanghai SIPG have agreed terms for midfielder Oscar's estimated £60m move to the Chinese Super League club in the January transfer window. | 38414256 |
Supporters had planned to have Scotland flags at the Vicente Calderon after the government's representative in Madrid decided not to allow Estelada flags for "operational and security reasons".
But a Madrid judge has overruled that decision after Barcelona appealed.
The club had said it was "an attack on the freedom of expression".
After the flag was banned, Catalan nationalist organisations had decided to hand out 10,000 Scottish Saltires at the Madrid final.
Scotland voted to stay in the United Kingdom in 2014, but the Spanish government will not allow Catalonia a similar referendum.
"We've chosen this symbol because it highlights the different treatment that Catalonia receives from Spain, compared with the UK government's treatment of Scotland," a group of bodies said in a statement.
Barcelona released a statement following Friday's new ruling.
"The club celebrates that the judge's decision will allow the free expression of legal symbols and banners by its members and supporters," it read.
"At the same time, FC Barcelona expresses its concern about the reoccurrence of situations like the one on Wednesday, and which are an affront to the freedom of expression, and do nothing to benefit what has always been a celebration of football and sport."
Carles Puigdemont, President of the Generalitat of Catalonia, tweeted that he will now attend the game following the decision being overruled. | Barcelona fans will now be allowed to bring pro-Catalan independence flags to Sunday's Copa del Rey final with Sevilla. | 36343124 |
The Anglian Sovereign covers Orkney and Shetland but was sent to shadow the escort of a cargo ship to Lewis after it ran aground on Monday night.
The incident came just days after the Western Isles' tug, Anglian Monarch, was withdrawn from coastguard duties.
Other UK emergency towing vessels were withdrawn last year.
In October, the UK government agreed to short extensions to the contracts for the hire of two vessels for Scotland following a campaign by local authorities and politicians.
The funding package for the Anglian Monarch ended at the weekend and at midnight for the Anglian Sovereign.
Talks are still going on between the UK government and the oil and gas industry about how future cover for the Northern Isles might be provided and funded.
Shetland Islands Council convener Sandy Cluness had described the withdrawal of the Anglian Sovereign without a deal being finalised as a "disgrace".
However, MP Alistair Carmichael has told BBC Scotland that the vessel will stay on duty to allow an agreement to be reached. | The contract for the UK's last coastguard tug has been extended after earlier plans to withdraw it from duties at midnight were abandoned. | 17457235 |
As chairman of the influential Home Affairs Select Committee, he regularly questions senior figures and leads inquiries on issues including immigration, policing and counter-terrorism.
He has a high profile in the UK media, regularly commenting on stories ranging from Brexit and drug laws to refugees and the ongoing inquiry into child sexual abuse.
But he is also controversial, with critics branding him a self-publicist and calling him a "Teflon" politician for his perceived ability to emerge unscathed from scandals.
Mr Vaz's parents were from Goa in India, but he was born in Aden, a British colony which is now part of Yemen, in 1956.
He moved to Britain in 1965 and later studied law at Cambridge University before becoming a lawyer.
When he became an MP at the age of 30, his website says, he was the first person of Asian origin elected to the House of Commons since 1922.
He has represented Leicester East ever since, and his parliamentary roles have included serving as minister for Europe under Tony Blair.
Mr Vaz, who is married and has two children, was elected Home Affairs Select Committee chairman in 2007 and has attracted both praise and criticism for his work in this role.
The Independent has called him an "accomplished political operator", though it also said he has been "vilified as a chronic self-publicist".
"No matter how much judicious chairmanship he can boast of at the Home Affairs Select Committee, he is best known for inviting Russell Brand along to talk about drugs and call him 'mate'," it added.
Mr Vaz has been referred to in the media as the "Teflon" politician and "Vazeline" - because, in the words of the Telegraph, "nothing sticks".
The paper said he was "seemingly able to brush aside scandals that would have quickly ended careers for others".
In 2001, he was accused of wrongdoing over his dealings with the billionaire Hinduja brothers.
Some of the claims against him were dismissed, but he was suspended from the House of Commons for a month for "serious breaches of the MPs' code of conduct".
In 2009, Mr Vaz repaid £18,949 in expenses amid the scandal over claims made by MPs.
He was criticised for claiming more than £75,000 to fund a second home in Westminster, despite having a family home just 12 miles away in Stanmore.
In a statement about his repaid claims, Mr Vaz said he had stopped all claims for food and, after feedback from his constituents, had decided only to claim when Parliament was in session.
Despite the negative headlines, his media touch is undeniable.
Few politicians would be comfortable dancing Gangnam Style for the cameras, or telling Parliament that Gary Lineker should keep his promise to present Match of the Day in his pants.
Mr Vaz, who is diabetic, is a long-standing campaigner on a variety of issues including obesity.
In his home affairs role, he is a frequent critic of the government and other authorities.
He has criticised the "shocking" lack of diversity in the police, said the UK Border Agency was "not fit for purpose" and said files on child sexual abuse had been lost "on an industrial scale".
In 2014, he said the UK's immigration system was in "intensive care".
Mr Vaz said the UK's vote to leave the EU was a "crushing decision" which would have catastrophic consequences for the country and the European bloc. | Keith Vaz was Labour's youngest MP when he was elected in 1987, and he has become one of Britain's best-known politicians. | 37271238 |
At present, there are no Chinese players in the elite top 16, with 17th-placed Ding Junhui the highest ranked.
Liang Wenbo, Tian Pengfei, Xiao Guodong, Li Hang, Zhou Yuelong and Yu Delu are the only others from China currently ranked in the top 64.
"Over the next 10-15 years, China will dominate most sports. The government are pouring money in," said Hearn.
Of the nine ranking events this season, the Shanghai Masters and China Open are played in China. In 2014, the country built its own Crucible Theatre to try to lure the World Championship away from Sheffield, which is contracted to host the tournament until 2017.
Ding, 29, is their most successful player with 11 ranking title victories, but has dropped out of the top 16 following a poor season. He had to come through three rounds of qualifying to compete at the World Championship.
"It is inevitable one day [that Ding Junhui will win the World Championship]," Hearn told BBC World Service Sport.
"He hasn't had the best of seasons but that may make him the most dangerous player in the field - he has no pressure.
"If Ding happens to win it, it will be a big boost to the game in China and bring in the start of an era with more and more Chinese players.
"Do I want to see the top-16 players all Chinese players? Do you want to see a draw between all Chinese players? The system is there, if they are good enough, to do exactly that."
In a news conference on Wednesday, Hearn hinted that O'Sullivan's refusal to talk to the media following his first-round World Championship win could lead to first-time fines for the same offence from next season.
Current rules mean O'Sullivan was just warned after beating David Gilbert 10-7.
In February, Hearn said O'Sullivan is "close" to being bigger than snooker.
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"Ronnie is a renegade so gets headlines for other things, which is all part of character building," said Hearn. "Snooker is played with self control and players who exercise that don't become renegades. Ronnie is a one off.
"If Ronnie breaks the rules, he gets punished. It doesn't matter who you are. You have to understand the frailties of nature and understand everyone is different."
Hearn was also bullish about snooker's future as a global game, with major tournaments played in 10 countries.
"Some people have written an obituary about snooker before it's dead," added Hearn. "The truth is that globally, snooker has never been bigger than it is now.
"The danger from the UK is people asking, 'where are the 18.5 million people who watched the Dennis Taylor v Steve Davis final of 1985?' The world has changed. You don't have three or four TV channels - there are hundreds, which takes people's attentions. " | Half of the top 16 players in the world will be from China one day, says World Snooker chairman Barry Hearn. | 36096472 |
As with many other senior member of Sinn Fein from the era, Mr Donaldson was interned for periods during the 1970s.
From 1971, people suspected of involvement with paramilitaries were interned without trial.
Over the years, Mr Donaldson became a trusted and respected senior Sinn Fein figure, close to both party president Gerry Adams and chief negotiator Martin McGuinness.
Following the Good Friday Agreement and the eventual devolution of power to Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein appointed Mr Donaldson as their key administrator in the party's Stormont offices.
It was a key role - co-ordinating the party's tactics and business in the troubled power-sharing arrangements.
But during this time he also led a double life as an agent for the British intelligence services.
For two decades, Mr Donaldson, was a key informer at the heart of Sinn Fein's political machinery.
He played this role during the crucial years when the republican movement began the slow shift away from an armed campaign, leading ultimately to the IRA's ceasefire and dumping of its arms.
His double life was revealed in 2002 after the fall-out from the controversial circumstances of a police raid on Sinn Fein's Stormont offices, amid allegations of a republican spying ring.
That raid led to the suspension of the power-sharing executive after unionists declared they could no longer trust Sinn Fein and threatened to quit.
Three men, one of them Mr Donaldson, were arrested at the time - but late in 2005 prosecutors said they were dropping all charges "in the public interest".
That public interest became clear when days later Mr Donaldson confessed publicly to being a British agent, an admission that led to his immediate expulsion from Sinn Fein and republican circles.
In a statement in December 2005, Mr Donaldson confirmed that he had been an agent at the time of the raid and he apologised to his "former comrades" and family.
"I was recruited in the 1980s after compromising myself during a vulnerable time in my life," he said.
"Since then, I have worked for British intelligence and the [Police] Special Branch.
"Over that period I was paid money. My last two contacts with Special Branch were as follows: two days before my arrest in October 2002, and last night, when a member of Special Branch contacted me to arrange a meeting.
"I was not involved in any republican spy ring at Stormont - I deeply regret my activities with British intelligence and Special Branch."
At the time, Gerry Adams claimed that Mr Donaldson had spoken out because he was about to be "outed" by police officers determined to deflect attention from the raid.
But the republican movement, secretive and often clan-like, was utterly shocked by the revelation.
Denis Donaldson disappeared from the Belfast political scene almost immediately after the revelations.
Past informants - dubbed "touts" in republican circles - were usually tortured, interrogated and shot by the IRA.
But a Dublin-based newspaper tracked him down to a tiny, run-down house in the hills of County Donegal's north west coast.
Mr Donaldson was living in squalid conditions in a remote cottage near the villages of Glenties. He had no contact with the outside world and no police protection.
In April 2006 Mr Donaldson's body was found at the cottage.
His death came hours before a planned visit to Northern Ireland by the then British and Irish prime ministers, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, to unveil their blueprint for reviving the assembly at Stormont.
After his murder, the IRA issued a statement saying it had "no involvement whatsoever" in Mr Donaldson's death.
A preliminary inquest into Mr Donaldson's death was opened in November 2007 but has so been delayed on a number of occasions. | Denis Donaldson was once a key figure in Sinn Fein's rise as a political powerhouse in Northern Ireland but he was found brutally murdered in 2006 after it emerged he had been a spy. | 13063224 |
The eastbound carriageway was closed until 15:50 BST following the crash near junction 24 Coldra roundabout.
Emergency services were called just before 14:00 BST and two people have been taken to the city's Royal Gwent Hospital.
Highways officials say traffic has now returned to normal levels.
Check if this is affecting your journey | Two people have been taken to hospital after a crash involving a 4x4 vehicle on the M4 in Newport led to a six-mile tailback. | 34458280 |
Citizens Advice said that thousands of people in their 20s who signed up to offers were struggling with debt.
These deals allow people to delay paying for items for an agreed period of time, such as six or 12 months.
Yet failing to pay in full by an agreed date brings interest charges backdated to the start of the agreement.
Missing a payment deadline could leave people with bills amounting to twice the original price, Citizens Advice warned.
The charity said this was a persistent issue, having helped 24,000 people with 50,000 catalogue or mail order debt problems in the past year.
These people had an average debt of £1,300, with young adults aged 25 to 29 most likely to have problems with catalogue debts.
One shopper bought a £700 laptop from a catalogue company on a one-year interest-free deal.
Citizens Advice said he developed health problems which meant he had to give up work, and he struggled to pay back the final instalment of £150 during the interest-free period.
He was left with an interest bill that cost nearly as much as the laptop.
The charity also helped a man who bought a £600 tablet computer on a similar one-year deal. He still owed £100 at the deadline.
As a result he received an interest charge amounting to more than the cost of the tablet.
Citizens Advice said its analysis of 250 cases revealed cases of high fees, inadequate affordability checks and poor debt collection methods, such as repeated demands for repayments from debt-ridden customers.
It is calling for the financial regulator to ensure providers display potential charges clearly, and make it clear that a failure to repay will lead to backdated interest payments and additional late payment fees.
"Buy Now, Pay Later deals help people spread the costs of catalogue purchases but it is vital customers understand what they are signing up for and what will happen if they fail to repay on time," said Citizens Advice chief executive Gillian Guy.
"Clearer explanations by catalogue firms when advertising these deals will prevent people being hit with shock bills that could send them spiralling into debt."
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is conducting a review into high-cost, short-term credit, including catalogue debt.
"We will look across all high-cost products to build a full picture of how these are used, whether they cause detriment and, if so, to which consumers," an FCA spokesman said.
Any proposals will be published in the summer of 2017. | Backdated interest payments are leaving young people with unexpected bills from "buy now, pay later" deals, a charity has warned. | 38378069 |
The 51-year-old driver was dropping off a man in Irvine when the passenger threatened him with a knife and demanded money.
The victim handed over a small amount of cash before the suspect made off in an unknown direction.
Police said the robbery took place on Warrix Avenue last Wednesday at about 18:40.
The driver had picked the suspect up at Irvine train station a short time earlier.
Police said the taxi driver was uninjured but badly shaken by his ordeal.
The suspect was described as being a slim white man in his late teens with a local accent. He was wearing a light-coloured hooded top.
Det Con Alex Greig said: "The victim was simply doing his job when he was threatened at knifepoint for fares he had collected.
"Although uninjured, this was a traumatic incident for the driver and we are doing all that we can to trace the man responsible.
"Our inquiries are continuing and we continue to analyse CCTV in the area. We are seeking assistance from the public to help trace the suspect." | Police are hunting for a man who robbed a taxi driver at knifepoint in North Ayrshire. | 30469843 |
The party has also proposed an industry-wide levy, dubbed a "Twitter tax", to fund "preventative activity to counter internet harms".
Labour said it had "pressed for tough new codes" in the past but the government had "categorically refused".
The Liberal Democrats said more needed to be done "to find a real solution".
The Conservatives said the levy, proposed in their election manifesto, would use the same model as that used in the gambling industry, where companies voluntarily contribute to the charity GambleAware to help pay for education, research, and treating gambling addiction.
All social media and communications service providers would be given a set period to come up with plans to fund and promote efforts "to counter internet harms".
If they failed to do so, the government would have the power to impose an industry-wide toll.
The Conservatives say the exact details, including how long the industry will be given to comply and the size of the levy, will be consulted upon.
A Labour spokesman said: "If the Tories are planning to levy a new tax on social media companies, they need to set out how it will work, who it will affect and what it will raise.
"Labour has pushed for a code of practice about the responsibilities of social media companies to protect children and young people from abuse and bullying."
The Conservatives have also pledged to introduce "a sanctions regime" that would give regulators "the ability to fine or prosecute those companies that fail in their legal duties, and to order the removal of content where it clearly breaches UK law".
Social media platforms and internet service providers would have clearer responsibilities regarding the reporting and removal of harmful material, including bullying, inappropriate or illegal content, and would have to take down material.
"It is certainly bold of the Conservatives to boast that they can protect people on the internet," Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael said.
"Government and technology companies must do more to find a real solution to problematic content online."
And Labour's digital economy spokeswoman Louise Haigh said: "The Home Office were crystal clear they did not want to legislate and that they believed the voluntary framework was sufficient.
"The fact is that in government the Tories have been too afraid to stand up to the social media giants and keep the public safe from illegal and extremist content." | Online companies could face fines or prosecution if they fail to remove illegal content, under Conservative plans for stricter internet regulation. | 39974927 |
The 20-year-old world number 102 - who had to come through qualifying in Doha - won 6-2 6-3 and faces Spaniard Daniel Munoz de la Nava in the last 16.
Edmund is preparing for the Australian Open, which starts on 18 January.
Munoz de la Nava, 33, is at a career-high ranking of 75 and beat fifth seed Feliciano Lopez 3-6 7-6 (7-6) 7-5. | Britain's Kyle Edmund beat Slovakia's world number 43 Martin Klizan at the Qatar Open to record the third tour-level victory of his career. | 35228934 |
A campaign was set up on behalf of Bradley Lowery, of Blackhall Colliery, Hartlepool, after doctors said his neuroblastoma could not be beaten.
Friends had hoped to set a world record for most cards received by one person.
However, Guinness said it did not monitor the category "due to the negative impact" on the postal service.
Envelopes and parcels have been flooding into Sunderland fan Bradley's local community centre with members of the public helping to open the deliveries.
It follows a fundraising campaign in which £700,000 was donated to pay for treatment in the United States.
After being told by doctors his cancer had grown and treatment would only give him more time, the money will now go towards the Bradley Lowery Foundation which aims to help other youngsters diagnosed with the disease.
His mother Gemma said: "It means Brad is going to leave a little bit of a legacy and that means a lot to us.
"Obviously it's heart-breaking what's happening. He's going to leave a name behind and hopefully help other children who are in the same position."
Family friend Lynne Murphy said: "We're getting cards from all over. It's so overwhelming for his family that everybody is thinking of their little boy.
"Just from the Post Office cards that have come through we've hit 234,000.
"Then in the parcels there are boxes of cards [which will take the total past 250,000].
A Guinness spokeswoman said it was "an amazing achievement for a very special cause", but added the organisation would not verify the record attempt. | A terminally ill five-year-old boy has received 250,000 Christmas cards from across the world. | 38416336 |
The biggest earner in 2013-14 was the head of Nottingham Trent University whose total benefits were £623,000.
Last week, university leaders warned against cutting tuition fees to £6,000, arguing that budgets were under threat.
The UCU leader Sally Hunt said the lack of "accountability surrounding senior pay and perks is a national scandal".
Business Secretary Vince Cable warned that universities should "think twice" about large pay rises for senior staff and that such pay levels were "hard to swallow".
The survey from the lecturers' union shows that the top 10 earners among vice-chancellors received between £392,000 and £623,000, based on total benefits.
It also revealed how some university heads have had substantial increases, at a time when lecturers have been campaigning over pay.
University income has been under scrutiny during political battles over tuition fees.
Labour last week called for fees in England to be capped at £6,000 per year, a proposal which prompted warnings of financial damage from university leaders.
Top 10 vice-chancellors' pay, 2013-14
1. Nottingham Trent University, Neil Gorman: £623,000 (including accrued bonuses)
2. London Metropolitan University, Malcolm Gillies: £453,000 (including payment in lieu of notice)
3. University of Oxford, Andrew Hamilton: £442,000
4. London Business School, Sir Andrew Likierman: £419,000
5. The Open University, Martin Bean: £412,000
6 University of Birmingham, Sir David Eastwood: £410,000
7. University of Exeter, Sir Steve Smith: £400,000 (including £58,000 performance-related remuneration)
8 University of Bath, Glynis Breakwell: £395,000
9. London School of Economics, Craig Calhoun: £394,000
10. University of Surrey, Sir Christopher Snowden: £392,000
Source: University and College Union
A statement from Nottingham Trent University's board of governors said that Neil Gorman's £623,000 reflected a 2% pay increase, in his final year as vice-chancellor.
But he also received "additional monies" accrued over five years and agreed upon when the university "required continuity of leadership".
This survey also highlights the scale of spending on air fares, including first class and business class tickets.
The head of the London School of Economics tops this list with almost £60,000 in flights.
A spokesman for the university said: "A key part of the director's role at LSE is to maintain the array of international relationships and establish new links with universities, businesses and non-governmental organisations around the world. Inevitably this involves a significant amount of international travel."
In addition to their pay, there were vice-chancellors claiming up to £2,700 per month in expenses.
And in a separate question, vice-chancellors spent up to £2,200 per month on hotel bills.
Glasgow Caledonian University's head Pamela Gillies had the highest amount for hotel bills, with £27,271.
A spokeswoman for Glasgow Caledonian said "universities operate in a fiercely competitive global sector" and the expenses reflected the need for "relationship-building for flagship developments and for graduation ceremonies" in overseas branches in Bangladesh, Oman and South Africa.
"This has inevitably required extended trips to our overseas locations and having increased costs."
The university lecturers' union also criticised the way that some universities refused to reveal details of senior pay. It says that 24 out of 155 institutions would not respond or used exemptions from Freedom of Information requests.
"Many staff and students will be amazed at the size of vice-chancellors' salaries, and at the largesse displayed by some university leaders when it comes to first class flights, hotels and other expenses," said UCU leader Sally Hunt.
"That this is happening in public institutions which are largely funded by the taxpayer and students makes the lack of transparency and accountability surrounding senior pay and perks a national scandal.
"We need agreed standards for open and transparent governance in our universities so trust in the system can be restored."
Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of Universities UK, said: "The salaries of university leaders in the UK are in line with those in competitor countries and comparable to similarly sized public and private organisations.
"Senior management pay needs to reflect what it takes to attract and retain the very best leaders to UK universities, in what is a global market for leadership talent.
"The remuneration packages of vice-chancellors are determined by independent remuneration committees at each individual institution.
"Higher education continues to be one of the UK's most successful sectors, contributing over £73bn to the economy, £10bn in export earnings and providing the skills and ideas that our economy needs to grow."
Business Secretary Vince Cable warned that the public expected university income to be spent "improving the student experience and strengthening the UK's world-class reputation in education and research".
"We have worked hard to protect universities' income so that they can do just this.
"And at a time when most university staff are seeing modest wage increases, if any at all, news of these large pay rises for university bosses will be hard to swallow. It would be wise for the sector to think twice before increasing vice-chancellors' salaries." | University heads received an average of £260,000 per year and 18 received pay rises over 10%, according to a salary survey from the UCU lecturers' union. | 31715020 |
Police were called to Modo bar in Concert Square, Liverpool, at about 22:00 BST on Saturday.
The doorman was taken to Royal Liverpool University Hospital, where he is being treated for a serious injury.
Officers believe the offender had approached the bar earlier in the evening with a group, but they were refused entry.
He later returned and assaulted the doorman, police said.
Det Insp Lee Wilkinson, from Merseyside Police, said: "This was a vicious assault on the doorman.
"Medical staff who are treating him have said that he is extremely lucky and this could have been a lot worse."
The offender is described as white, 5ft 11in (1.80m) tall, in his early 20s with a "heavy" build and short brown hair. He was wearing dark tracksuit bottoms, a navy t-shirt and a hoodie. | A doorman has been stabbed in the neck in a "vicious assault" after refusing to allow a group of men to enter a bar. | 34033672 |
Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said the move would not shut the border, but would allow better control of arrivals.
It came as Germany said it expected the number of deportations of failed asylum seekers to rise.
Meanwhile, at least three migrants drowned and 242 were saved when a boat sank off the Greek island of Lesbos.
"We do not have a picture of how many people may be missing yet," a Greek coastguard spokeswoman said.
Earlier, three migrant boats were reported to have have capsized between Turkey and the Greek islands amid worsening weather in the area.
BBC Europe correspondent Damian Grammaticas says Austria and Germany, the two countries at the heart of Europe's refugee crisis, seem to be toughening their tone.
They appear to be trying to deter refugees from setting out on their journeys and to head off political critics at home, he adds.
The UN estimates more than 700,000 migrants have crossed to Europe by boat so far this year - mainly from war-ravaged Syria. The approach of winter has so far done little to slow the flow.
The latest moves came after Slovenia said it could erect a fence along its border with Croatia if an EU plan agreed on Sunday was not implemented. It follows suggestions from Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria that they might begin building their own barriers.
Some 85,000 refugees have poured into Slovenia in the last 10 days, after Hungary closed its border with Croatia.
On Sunday, 11 EU states and three non-EU countries agreed to set up reception centres with another 50,000 spaces in Balkan countries, and send 400 guards to assist Slovenia within a week. But EU members have previously been slow to deliver on pledges of such assistance.
"If the situation worsens and the Brussels action plan is not fulfilled, then Slovenia has several scenarios prepared, including the installation of a fence guarded by forces," said Slovenian Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec.
Hungary has already fenced off its border with Serbia and Croatia, so such a move would, in theory, mean sealing off that route entirely.
Following a cabinet meeting, Austria's chancellor said a series of barriers would be erected at the Spielfeld border crossing with Slovenia, where several thousand migrants have been arriving every day.
The barriers would improve security, he said, but would be nothing like the hundreds of miles of razor wire fencing Hungary has put up along the length of its frontier.
"We want to be able to carry out controls on people, and for that one needs certain technical security measures," he told reporters.
However, in a joint statement later, Mr Faymann and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said "fences have no place in Europe".
"President Juncker called on Chancellor Faymann to work closely together with the Commission and UNHCR to ensure that the 50,000 objective is reached as soon as possible, including by means of an Austrian contribution," the joint statement said.
Germany's Interior Minister Thomas de Maziere has accused Austria of transporting refugees to the German frontier at night, leaving them there unannounced.
He warned that Germany would start to deport more people who didn't qualify for asylum, and described as "unacceptable" the fact that Afghans now made up the second largest source of arrivals in Germany.
Large amounts of aid had been spent in Afghanistan, Mr de Maziere said, and Afghans should stay in their country.
Ahead of the rescue of 242 people off Lesbos, the United Nations refugee agency said two migrant boats had overturned near the Greek island of Samos on Wednesday afternoon, while another capsized close to the coast of Lesbos.
Some of the migrants on board the three boats were rescued, but about 10 people - including 4 children - are said to be missing.
The weather in the area has worsened in the past few days, with gale force winds and rain affecting the Aegean Sea.
Some transit countries have been seeking to limit the influx, leading to bottlenecks and tensions with neighbours.
Most migrants have been making their way to northern Europe - primarily to Germany, which is expected to receive up to a million asylum seekers this year.
A note on terminology: The BBC uses the term migrant to refer to all people on the move who have yet to complete the legal process of claiming asylum. This group includes people fleeing war-torn countries such as Syria, who are likely to be granted refugee status, as well as people who are seeking jobs and better lives, who governments are likely to rule are economic migrants. | Austria has said it is planning to construct a fence at the main border crossing used by migrants entering the country from Slovenia. | 34657187 |
Laser projectors have been installed in all screens at the new Westquay leisure hub in Southampton.
The complex, containing a cinema, bowling alley and restaurants, was partially opened in December - nearly two years after construction started.
Europe's first all-laser cinema was opened at Breda in the Netherlands in August.
Business analysts IHS said lasers were becoming a "dominant technology" in cinemas around the world.
IHS cinema research director David Hancock said: "More expensive Red Green Blue (RGB) lasers have very high light output, make 3D much brighter... although laser phosphor machines for smaller screens are pretty close to a digital cinema projector."
He said the Southampton theatre was believed to be the first all-laser multiplex in the UK and only the fourth in Europe.
Film buff Adrian Cox, who tours cinemas around the country, said laser projection was an "expensive acquisition" and the investment was "very exciting".
He said the "Dolby Atmos sound in all screens will be a winner", while a new Odeon cinema opening on the same day in Bournemouth would be an "interesting comparison", with Dolby Atmos in one screen out of 10.
He said although laser projectors were already fitted in a handful of screens in the UK, Southampton would be the first all-laser theatre.
Developer Hammerson said the cinema was expected to have about 1.1 million admissions per year and it was hoped the hub would attract more than 200,000 customers to the food outlets and bars. | What is thought to be the UK's "first all-laser cinema" is opening to the public, completing an £85m complex. | 38910728 |
Sir Ed Davey said there was growing evidence that platforms provided a natural reef for marine life.
He argued there was "growing concern" that the "clean seabed principle" might harm the marine environment.
WWF Scotland said oil firms should not be allowed to dodge their obligations.
The UK government said the decommissioning process was "already flexible" but "in the vast majority of cases" installations must be fully removed.
Under existing rules - which include the Petroleum Act 1998 and the Ospar convention governing the North Sea - operators are obliged, under most circumstances, to leave no trace of their operations after installations have reached the end of their lives.
But in an article in the Times, Sir Ed Davey - a Liberal Democrat minister in the former coalition government - and environmentalist Jonathon Porritt argued that environmental science "now questions this legal framework".
They wrote: "The evidence is that the foundations of oil and gas platforms and wind turbines, rather like shipwrecks, can provide important habitats for valuable marine species.
"From hard surfaces acting like a natural reef to de facto marine conservation areas, helping to replenish some fish stocks, many offshore installations have helped to nurture marine eco-systems as biodiverse as natural reefs.
"There isn't yet consensus on a 'new best decommissioning practice' to take account of this science.
"But before we spend billions removing potentially valuable habitats, we should find out."
Sir Ed and Mr Porritt also suggested money for removing platforms should instead be spent on environmental measures.
They said a new "North Sea Environment Fund" could be capitalised over the next two decades through savings made from "a more flexible approach to decommissioning".
They added: "The exact formula would be for analysis and debate, but it would be reasonable to expect a fund of at least £5bn over this period.
"And while the uses of such a fund must also be debated, strong contenders would be restoration of natural reefs in the North Sea; North Sea renewables, like offshore wind and wave power; the re-booting of Britain's carbon, capture and storage policy; and support for those communities that are going to be seriously affected as we transition out of the era of fossil fuels."
A spokesman for the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said: "UK decommissioning is already flexible so that alternatives to completely removing installations can be considered for larger structures, and for pipelines where there is no significant impact on the environment, other sea users, safety implications and cost.
"In the vast majority of cases installations must be fully removed."
WWF Scotland director Lang Banks said: "Having made hundreds of millions of pounds in profit over the years, oil and gas companies should not be allowed to dodge their obligations to clean up their mess and protect the marine environment. Give the fossil fuel industry an inch on this and they'll take a mile.
"The Ospar agreement already allows, in certain circumstances such as protecting worker safety or preventing serious risk to the environment, for companies to request permission to leave some stuff behind on the seabed. This is something we support.
"It should be remembered that it's only because of these Ospar rules that every rig placed in the North Sea for the past two decades has had to be built in a way that allows it to be removed.
"Any moves to unwind Ospar's rules on this issue would not be in the interests of protecting the marine environment or maintaining the 'polluter pays' principle."
He added: "The idea that the oil and gas industry would gladly spend all the money they'd save, from not having to clean up their hazardous legacy, into other environmental projects instead is pie in the sky." | A former UK energy secretary has called for a review of rules that require most infrastructure from North Sea installations to be removed at the end of their life. | 38720211 |
But in August next year, the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I, these stones will be dedicated to all those from Wales, men and women, who served in the conflict.
No-one will drive past them without a passing glance.
"We've passed a milestone," said Ian Macloud, a member of the Welsh Memorial in Flanders campaign.
"Simply getting the stones here has involved a major effort."
In what seemed like a giant game of pass the parcel the stones, each weighing between six and eight tonnes, were taken first from the Graig Yr Hesg quarry to a hauliers yard near Llanelli.
There they were transferred to a lorry to take them via Dover and Calais to Flanders, escorted on the journey by motorcyclists from the Royal British Legion Riders' branch.
"We just felt we had to be involved," said Ian McLauchlan, a rider whose biker leathers are covered with badges giving evidence of his military service and his support for armed forces' charities.
"Escorting the stones here was the least we could do."
Between now and next year's dedication the campaign's Flanders team will take the lead.
Fashioning them into a circle they'll sit on land donated by the local community.
But the Welsh contribution isn't over.
People across Wales have already raised £30,000 but the campaign's supporters are hoping to double that in order to pay for a bronze dragon which will sit on top of the monument.
In Flanders the site of the new Welsh monument is resonant with Welsh connections. It will be just metres from the spot where the poet Hedd Wyn died on the 31 July 1917, the first day of the Battle of Paschendale. A day on which three of his Welsh comrades won Victoria Crosses.
"People here really have taken Wales to their hearts. This memorial is so important to them," said Erwin Ureel, who is heading up the Flemish end of the memorial campaign.
"Here the Welsh sacrifice is not forgotten," he said.
The campaigners say they want a place where we can all remember. | Five great lumps of Pennant bluestone blasted from a quarry near Pontypridd now sit on a roadside in Flanders in Belgium largely unnoticed by passing traffic. | 23269713 |
Mariano Rajoy received Artur Mas for talks in Madrid at which he told him that Spain's economic crisis had to be overcome jointly, a statement said.
Mr Mas said he was disappointed and did not rule out early regional elections.
The crisis has fanned an independence movement in Catalonia, which produces a fifth of Spain's economic output.
Last week, one and a half million people rallied in Barcelona, the regional capital, in what was seen as a show of strength for the pro-independence lobby.
Correspondents say Mr Rajoy is wary of any of Spain's regions seeking to break away amid the economic crisis.
Early elections in Catalonia could be seen as a referendum on autonomy, piling pressure on the central government.
Mr Mas went into talks with the prime minister on granting Catalonia powers to raise and spend its own taxes.
Pro-autonomy leaders argue that Catalonia pays a disproportionate level of taxes to Madrid in relation to the central funding it receives.
"Rajoy showed his opposition to the proposal for an economic accord for Catalonia because it is not compatible with the Spanish constitution," the prime minister's office said in a statement.
He told Mr Mas that the "very serious crisis [would] be overcome through joint responsibility and unity, never through division or institutional instability".
"We lost an historic opportunity in the understanding between Catalonia and the rest of Spain," Mr Mas said after the meeting.
"I would have liked to be able to say that there was room for negotiation but the head of government himself told me that he saw no way forward for the fiscal pact."
"If the negative answer to the fiscal pact is so obvious, then we will have to take decisions in the next days," he added.
Asked about the possibility of calling early elections, he said: "All options are open."
A decision on early polls could be taken as early as next week when the regional parliament holds its annual debate on the state of Catalonia.
Several Spanish newspapers said Mr Mas could call snap elections for 25 November. The Spanish constitution bars any actual referendum on independence for Catalonia, which has its own language.
Mr Rajoy's centre-right Popular Party won a resounding victory in Spain's general election in November, in a vote dominated by the debt crisis. | The Spanish prime minister has rejected a call from Catalonia's leader for fiscal independence, days after a giant pro-autonomy rally in Barcelona. | 19662574 |
Thousands struggled to get online tickets to Dismaland, a dark theme park, which is open for five weeks at the seaside resort.
A "locals only" free ticket day was held on Friday, but the ticket website crashed when it received more than six million hits.
General tickets are due to go on sale online again on Tuesday.
Doors opened just after 11:00 BST on Saturday. Many queued overnight in order to guarantee entry into the show.
A message on the Dismaland website said "due to unprecedented demand" it was unable to process online ticket sales, and Saturday and Sunday tickets, costing £3, would only be available on the door.
The site has capacity for 2,000 people, and after that is reached, it will be one in, one out, organisers said.
BBC News correspondent Andrew Plant, who is at Dismaland, said the queue was taking about 4 hours.
Ticket woes
Fans have been pondering whether their frustration in failing to buy tickets is in fact part of the "Dismaland experience".
The UKBusinessInsider has questioned the functionality of the Dismaland website, which also shows an upside down supermarket trolley.
Queuing is the only way to see Dismaland today. The ticket website is offline until Tuesday.
So hundreds of people started waiting early this morning to pay their £3 and get inside.
By 10:00 BST, there were 2000 people in the line, which snakes round temporary metal fences and looks like the queues for X-factor auditions.
They're called in in groups of ten every few minutes, and then disappear into the double-doors that mark the start of the Dismaland experience.
One family I talked to had rung their relative in Grenoble as soon as they heard about the exhibition. That relative took a plane from the Alps to Luton airport, then a train, then a bus overnight, arriving here at 4am.
When I asked them why, they said simply: "It's a once in a lifetime opportunity. There was no question about making the journey."
So far the queue is taking about 4 hours. It's sunny today and people seem happy.
But there's rain forecast for the next few days, and that is a long time to stand and get wet.
North Somerset Council said it was trying to establish if the difficulty in getting tickets online was a real problem or a deliberate ploy by Banksy.
John Brandler, an art dealer who collects and sells work by Banksy, said it was likely to put off visitors from further afield.
"Where we are, I'm from London, it's a minimum of £80 on a train. To turn up and then find you can't get a ticket, is that good for Weston? I don't think so. I think people will really get annoyed," Mr Brandler said.
However Mike Jackson, the leader of North Somerset Council, was confident people would still flock to the show.
"The queue is already building nicely here, we've estimated the economic benefit (for Weston) is at least £6m, there's a real buzz about the town.
"Virtually everyone you've spoken to here in the town is really excited about this," Mr Jackson told Radio Bristol.
Social media platforms have been awash with speculation that the difficult ticketing was part of the show, where the audience is also part of the art.
Michele Marie tweeted: "I firmly believe the whole debacle was part of the show2, while Paul Vassos tweeted: "To all the punters... ever get the feeling you've been had?"
Dismaland features work by more than 50 artists, including Damien Hirst, Jenny Holzer, Jimmy Cauty and Bristol-born Banksy, who says he chose the venue himself after walking past the old lido six months ago, which had been closed since 2000.
Among the exhibits are a distorted mermaid, a dilapidated fairy castle and a boat pond where all the boats are filled with models of migrants, as well as paintings and a beach ball hovering above upturned knives.
Many are twists on traditional fairground rides - such as a coconut shy featuring anvils, instead of coconuts. Banksy described the show as a "family theme park unsuitable for children". | Hundreds of people have queued for "on the door" tickets to a new Banksy show in Weston-super-Mare. | 34026536 |
The men were arrested shortly before the beginning of the Games, in August, after the FBI alerted the Brazilian authorities.
They are all Brazilian nationals.
The ringleader, Leonid El Kadre de Melo, has been given a prison sentence of 15 years.
His lawyer said her client was on hunger strike.
The other men have been jailed for five to six years. All say they will appeal.
The group had been sharing extremist material online and via messaging apps pledging alliance to IS, said judge Marcos Josegrei da Silva, in Parana state.
El Kadre de Melo was "without a shadow of a doubt the person who took over the role of leader amongst the accused," Mr Silva wrote in his ruling.
The eight men were not IS members but had tried to make contact with the group, officials said.
Their activities had been monitored by the FBI.
Two weeks before the Rio Games the FBI alerted Brazilian authorities, who later said the men had been trying to buy weapons and had shared bomb-making videos.
Federal police launched Operation Hashtag in July and arrested a total of 15 people.
Seven of the suspects were later released but the other eight were tried under Brazil's new anti-terrorism legislation for planning to carry out chemical attacks during the Olympics.
The six men jailed for six years are: Alisson Luan de Oliveira, Oziris Moris Azevedo, Levi Ribeiro de Jesus, Israel Pedra Mesquita, Hortencio Yoshitake and Luis Gustavo de Oliveira.
Fernando Pinheiro Cabral, has been sentenced to five years in jail. | A judge in Brazil has jailed eight men for plotting attacks during the 2016 Rio Olympics last year and for using the internet to promote the Islamic State (IS) militant group. | 39813733 |
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) found expectations of growth strengthened in the last quarter, following a dip after the Brexit vote.
Growth was forecast for 2017 in workloads, employment and profit.
However, concerns were raised over skills shortages.
Rics' UK Construction Market Survey found workload growth expectations improved considerably in the fourth quarter, while 20% more survey respondents said they expected a rise in employment in 2017.
The survey found modest growth in the Scottish construction sector in the final three months of 2016, with 7% more respondents reporting increasing workloads.
The private industrial sector was seen to be driving growth, as 23% more respondents reported an increase.
Growth in private commercial and private housing also increased between September and December, but public non-housing works fell in the same period.
Respondents warned of skills shortages restricting growth, with half of those surveyed pointing to a lack of quantity surveyors.
Rics chief economist Simon Rubinsohn said: "The latest results suggest that the construction sector has shrugged off concerns about the effect of Brexit with key workload indicators remaining firm around the country.
"Indeed, feedback regarding the outlook over the next 12 months is now rosier than it was back in the autumn, with more building anticipated as 2017 unfolds.
"That said, there remains some unease about access to skilled labour in the emerging new world and financial constraints still remain a major challenge for many businesses.
"And significantly, we are being told that a shortage of quantity surveyors is impacting on the development process at the present time." | Scottish construction firms are more optimistic about the year ahead than they were in the autumn, according to a new survey. | 38830968 |
Sergio Aguero scored a hat-trick, after missing two penalties, with David Silva and Nolito also scoring.
City host the Romanian champions next Wednesday at Etihad Stadium in the second leg of the tie.
"We are very pleased about the way we played. The quality of our players is fantastic," Guardiola said.
The Spaniard, who replaced Manuel Pellegrini in the summer, has won two Champions League titles with Barcelona, but did not lift the trophy in three years with Bayern Munich.
City, who have never won the tournament, entered at the final qualifying phase this season after finishing fourth in the Premier League last term.
"I thank Manchester City for giving me the opportunity to train these amazing players," Guardiola said.
"I enjoy every day in Manchester. I am confident we can make a step forward to make people proud of us."
Aguero has now missed four of his past five penalties for City in European competition, but Guardiola is not planning to take him off spot-kicks.
"I am confident if he's confident," he said. "It's not important how many times you fall down, it's how many times you stand up and try again."
England winger Raheem Sterling, 21, has impressed so far under Guardiola after a difficult first season at City.
He won a penalty - which Aguero converted - in the opening-day 2-1 win against Sunderland. In Bucharest, he was fouled for the first penalty Aguero missed and set up goals for Silva and the Argentine.
"Now he is playing really good," Guardiola told BT Sport. "But he's young and has to learn a lot.
"He has a lot of quality, he's fast, has a good work ethic, can play right or left, go out to the line or go in the middle.
"That's why Manchester City were so clever to buy him last season."
Subscribe to the BBC Sport newsletter to get our pick of news, features and video sent to your inbox. | Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola says his side are "almost in the Champions League" after a 5-0 win over Steaua Bucharest in the play-off round. | 37102697 |
8 April 2017 Last updated at 09:53 BST
A group of 82 hot air balloons took off from Dover and travelled to France.
It took them three hours to make the 26 mile journey.
If confirmed by officials, this attempt will beat the current world record of 49 balloons making the trip. | Take a look at a new world record attempt. | 39537848 |
The Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) is about to increase its involvement in the side, which has looked for new investors.
A 47-17 defeat by Glasgow Warriors in Scotland followed a 54-22 defeat at home to Leinster on 24 February.
"We need more depth, we need more investment, but have to be a lot better with the group we have," Jones said.
The Scottish side fielded 11 internationals in their starting 15, despite missing ten of Scotland's first-choice starting side, who were resting between Six Nations games.
When asked about the possibility of change in the boardroom, Jones said: "I've been waiting for positive news with regards to the Dragons going forward for a long time.
"But [chief executive] Stuart Davies is dealing with that, he keeps us informed as much as he can.
"The big picture for Newport Gwent Dragons is that we get more depth, more experience and not only in the playing staff.
"These are not excuses but going forward, I'd love to have more depth in the coaching. We've got two young coaches in Shaun [Connor] and Ceri [Jones] but we need additions everywhere."
The WRU has owned 50 percent of the team since just after its creation in 2003, but has not played an active role in its management.
For the second week running Jones watched his team's defence fall apart, conceding 47 points without reply at Scotstoun between the 30th and 78th minutes.
"It's been a poor ten days for the Dragons," admitted former Wales flanker Jones.
"Two weeks on the trot we've conceded a lot of points, there's issues around the defence but ultimately I think it's a mental one." | Newport Gwent Dragons head coach Kingsley Jones says the region needs more investment and strength in depth after two heavy Pro12 defeats. | 39170271 |
Frith Mitchell, 44, from Musselburgh, pleaded guilty to causing Tiga unnecessary suffering by failing to provide a suitable diet.
He also failed to seek veterinary treatment.
He was sentenced at Edinburgh Sheriff Court earlier this week.
Highlighting the case, Stephanie McCrossan, of the Scottish SPCA, said, "Tiga was in a very poor skeletal condition, he was dragging his leg, which was protruding at an awkward angle, across the floor as he walked and it was clear he was in urgent need of veterinary treatment.
"After taking Tiga to the vet we found out that he had several health issues which would have caused him to suffer unnecessarily for a prolonged period of time due to his owner failing to seek the necessary veterinary treatment he clearly required.
"Unfortunately the vet made the decision to put him to sleep due to the severity of his conditions.
"We are pleased that Mitchell has been dealt with by the courts and hope he will give serious consideration to his ability to care for animals in the future." | An East Lothian man who caused his cat unnecessary suffering has been given a community payback order of 85 hours unpaid work and has been disqualified from owning any animal for 10 years. | 40456380 |
Alexandria Norman, from Worthing in West Sussex, saw the service to soften blemishes, facial lines and acne when viewing her daughter's school photo.
"The photo's not supposed to be about perfection," she said.
Yellow School Photos, which is based in Southampton, said the retouch service was "a popular and helpful option".
It apologised for any offence the service might have caused, and explained that it was "not an airbrushing service, and is a common feature offered by many photography companies, and is a popular and helpful option to remove marks on jumpers, scratches, glass glare etc".
Managing director Mark Keeling said the service had now been withdrawn "in light of the current publicity".
Ms Norman said she was horrified to have been offered the chance to airbrush the photo.
"In the media at the moment there's so much about retouching and airbrushing - and that's with models and celebrities," she said.
"So why should a topic like that... be put to our primary school children?
"The photo's not supposed to be about perfection. It's just to capture them at that moment in time."
Ms Norman added: "I'm not saying that this on its own is going to lead to giving children body image problems, but I just think it's planting a seed in their mind about a topic that children shouldn't even be thinking about."
Martin Garratt, the headteacher of Vale First and Middle School in Worthing, where the photo was taken, also apologised for any offence caused. | A school photographic company has withdrawn its "retouching" service after a mother complained that it sent out the wrong message to children. | 34595435 |
Even on the day that George Osborne wants to sound tough, demanding that the rest of the EU rejects closer and closer political union - and gives legal guarantees to the UK that our businesses will never suffer because they are not in the eurozone, it is almost impossible, observing the chancellor here, to imagine that one day he might stand on a platform and call for the UK to leave.
He is positive about the chances of a deal, and doesn't want to countenance the idea that the negotiations might not achieve very much.
There have been nerves in government that the Eurosceptic side of this argument is gaining momentum.
Ministers' official position, indeed a bargaining chip in the negotiations, is that hypothetically, if other countries don't sign up to our demands, they are ready to campaign to go.
But, observing Mr Osborne in Berlin, continental Europe's most powerful capital, cracking jokes about British and German sausages, clearly delighting in his political friendship with the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schauble, it is Mr Osborne, the self-professed optimist, who is not just an advocate of the UK"s emerging negotiating strategy but of the benefits of our membership itself.
He is visibly confident, but this will be difficult.
He confirmed the changes the government wants to make will require a new EU Treaty.
There is zero chance of that happening before the British vote, and ministers can't answer how or when it might happen.
And for the Chancellor's demands on legal protections for business and the City of London today, it's not clear why other countries will sign up to give equal consideration to Britain's interests, as well as their own - two new challenges on the list, in addition to restricting benefits' migrants, changing the principle of freedom of movement, and getting some powers back for our Parliament.
For Mr Osborne, who twice today refused to rule out becoming the next Conservative leader, his political future depends on steering the government through this vote, which must happen by the end of 2017.
He may well be an optimist, but on this, he needs to be right. | "I'm an optimist". | 34715813 |
Sean McAllister's A Syrian Love Story won the grand jury award at Sheffield Doc/Fest at a ceremony on Wednesday.
His film follows a family as they flee the country during the civil war.
McAllister was detained in Damascus in 2011 and has spoken about how he heard activists being beaten and tortured before his release a week later.
His film depicts two opponents to the Syrian regime who fell in love while communicating through a tiny hole in a wall between neighbouring prison cells 15 years ago.
After being released, they got married and started a family but moved to Lebanon and then France after the Syrian uprising began in 2011.
McAllister, from Hull, said he wanted the film to provide viewers with "time to be with Syrians who laugh and cry and are not just dead news items".
Sheffield Doc/Fest grand jury member Ruby Chen said: "The jury were enamoured by this Bergmanesque portrait of a relationship and love, taking place against an ever-changing and tumultuous backdrop." | A British film-maker who was arrested while making a feature about a Syrian family has won the top award at the UK's leading documentary festival. | 33079812 |
For some, they represent the pursuit of excellence and the opportunity for bright children to be challenged to excel, and for others, the entrenching of advantage and privilege at the expense of the majority of children.
And for the first time in years they are controversially firmly back on the agenda, with a grammar school educated Prime Minister who has expressed sympathy for demands for one in her own constituency.
Lifting the ban on grammar schools would have a huge symbolic value for some within the Conservative party.
But it would be a strange signal on social mobility from a new Prime Minister who has promised to govern for those who feel shut out of opportunity.
And it is social mobility which Education Secretary Justine Greening has been told to put at the centre of education policy.
The research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Cambridge University in 2013 found some striking social differences in grammar school intakes.
If you look just at the children gaining the top level in their end of primary tests, the chances of a child receiving free school meals going to grammar school are lower than their better off classmates.
So take two children who are at the top of their class, and the poorer child is less likely to end up in the academically selective grammar school.
Some schools and counties have tried to mitigate this effect in tests, but they are up against the buying power of parents willing to invest in tuition.
But nothing softens the fact that grammar schools do nothing for the majority of children who don't go to them, apart from skim off the pupils it is easiest to help to do well.
So any decision about grammar schools will have to be weighed politically against other pressing priorities in education.
While the attempts to force the pace of the academy programme were dropped earlier this year, there is no reason to believe the incremental shift towards more academies will do anything but continue.
Both Theresa May and Justine Greening have supported both academies and free schools.
So any shift on grammar schools is likely to be presented within that context, as part of an increasingly mixed economy of schools, rather than an attempt to re-introduce a system which hasn't existed for decades in many parts of the country.
That wouldn't reduce the controversy, nor the substantial opposition in parliament, which would include some Conservative MPs.
There is a precedent for another model too.
In Kent a new grammar school "extension" has already been allowed in Sevenoaks, around ten miles from its nominal base.
Allowing high performing schools, including grammars, to expand was in the Conservative manifesto.
A return more broadly to a grammar system was not. | There are few subjects as controversial in education as grammar schools. | 37010648 |
And yet much played out as predicted: a fresh Greek drama, a fragile economy and the continued rise of anti-establishment parties.
It was the year when crises came in waves pounding the shoreline and prompting leaders and officials to fret over the future of the European project.
In 2016 the migrant crisis will once again shape debate. It may subside during the winter months but it will return in the spring. The world knows that Germany has taken in over a million refugees. Its generosity will be tested further.
Angela Merkel's political future is bound up in the numbers of migrants that will arrive in 2016.
She may have won a standing ovation from her party at its annual conference in December but across Germany the doubts are growing.
The first test will come in state elections in the spring. If the conservative CDU polls badly then the questions will resurface about whether Angela Merkel can stand again in 2017.
There is no obvious successor but the test for the chancellor is a simple one. Is she right to insist that a limit cannot be imposed on the numbers arriving or will it put the social fabric under increasing strain?
Her future - and to a certain extent that of the European project - has been placed in the hands of President Erdogan of Turkey.
In 2016 he will decide whether Turkey's borders should be vigorously patrolled to limit the numbers crossing into Europe.
The Turkish president has been given every incentive to do so, including the offer of visa-free travel in Europe, but it remains uncertain what Turkey will do. The first indication will come when the weather improves.
The year will also test Europe's determination to live up to its values. Will it stand up for press freedom in Turkey, or will necessity silence its voice?
The migrant crisis will also determine the future of the passport-free Schengen area. In the short term I expect more border controls and fences until Europe finds a way to process the new arrivals and limit their numbers.
Europe's leaders have said repeatedly that it will be impossible to defend its passport-free area unless its external borders are secure.
Greece and Italy have been overwhelmed by the numbers of migrants. Many do not even register at the place they arrive in Europe but just head towards Germany or Sweden.
In 2016 Europe seems determined to deploy guards to its external borders, even if that is against the wishes of the member state concerned.
There will be a battle over this but I expect a version of the plan to survive.
Why? Because the survival of Schengen will be framed as a battle to defend the European project.
European border guards will be another giant leap forward for European integration and will once again prove Jean Monnet right when he said that Europe would be built on its crises.
Further attacks - like the ones in Paris - will deepen the debate about open borders.
The European establishment will be nervous about the UK referendum on its future in Europe.
The expectation is that David Cameron will hold an in-out referendum in the summer of 2016.
The view in Brussels is that a deal will be done in February enabling the prime minister to claim Britain's relationship with the EU has changed.
The polls suggest a tight campaign that will severely test the unity of the Conservative party.
If the polls predict a very close outcome then some of the banks expect there will be an impact on sterling, on the equity markets and on the inflows of capital that Britain depends on - running a current account deficit.
In the end the campaign will come down to an argument over what life would be like outside the EU: reclaiming sovereignty and less regulation versus the uncertainty of what would happen to Britain's trading relationships, its economic security.
Several UK ministers believe that the vote will be decided by the issue of migration - a further indication of just how fundamental the migrant crisis is for the future of Europe.
The European economy has shown surprising resilience. The recovery has taken root but growth remains fragile. It is a recovery that remains vulnerable to shocks.
Germany - so reliant on its exports - survived the slowdown in emerging markets. This will be tested again in 2016 with the expected slackening in world growth.
Attention in Europe will fall on the French economy. Unemployment has edged up again. The year ahead will be dominated by the approaching presidential elections in 2017.
For the rest of Europe the key question is whether the Front National of Marine le Pen will be able to push beyond her current levels of support and become a real contender in 2017?
Greece has been taken off the critical list but expect the Greek crisis to flicker back to life in the year ahead.
The radical left government in Athens is hoping that in 2016 debt relief will be on the agenda. Probably the most it can expect is that the terms of its debt repayments will be loosened.
The challenge for Greece and its creditors is that, at some stage, they will have to demonstrate where growth will come from and how unemployment will be reduced in order to sell pension reform and other tough measures.
2016 will see further slippage on countries meeting their deficit reduction targets.
Spain was set to miss its 2015 deficit target of 4.2% (it will stand at 4.7%) even before the recent election - which will usher in a period of political uncertainty. France will likely miss its deficit target through 2017.
With anti-austerity parties having done well in Spain and Portugal there will be fresh pressure on Brussels to police the deficit targets.
The big question for Europe's policymakers is whether it can escape so-called "secular stagnation" - a condition of negligible growth.
In 2016 watch sentiment incline further towards launching major investment projects.
In foreign affairs Europe will once again struggle to have an influential voice. Even though events in Syria are having a huge impact in Europe, Brussels is not a main player.
It will have a seat at the table at the expected Syrian peace conference but it won't have a card like the Russian president has dealt himself. Certainly members of the European Parliament will push for Europe to develop a convincing foreign policy.
After Syria, it is Libya that will preoccupy Europe's leaders. It is the most dangerous crisis.
Sooner or later Europe will have to address the question of whether they are prepared to allow the so-called Islamic State (IS) to have a base on the Mediterranean in Libya.
The current plan is to try to unite the various Libyan factions in the hope they can drive out IS.
If a terrorist attack in Europe was found to have its origins in Libya then the Italian government and its allies would come under huge pressure to respond.
2016 is likely to see Libya move up the international agenda.
Over Ukraine, Europe will struggle to maintain the sanctions against Russia.
2016 will see a further clash of ideas: a struggle between nationalists and globalists; a struggle between those who want to revive the power of the nation states and those who believe the answers lie in international bodies like the EU; a struggle between those who believe they are defending Europe's Judeo-Christian traditions (like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban) and those wedded to multiculturalism (Angela Merkel).
2015 began with the attack on the offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris. It was seen as an attack on freedom of speech and drew thousands on to the streets.
But the argument has not been resolved.
The clash is about the right to offend. In universities in North America and Europe protesters seek to limit debate.
But can you have freedom without the right to offend? Or should speech be curtailed in defence of the right to be different, to be a minority?
2016 will be the year of the migrant but it will be marked by a clash over ideas and freedoms. | In Europe 2015 was, in part, the year of the unexpected: migrants, Schengen in doubt, terror, Volkswagen. | 35160080 |
Ashers Baking Company, based in County Antrim, was taken to court by gay rights activist Gareth Lee.
A Belfast judge said, as a business, Ashers was not exempt from discrimination law.
The firm's general manager said they were "extremely disappointed" by the ruling and are considering an appeal.
Damages of £500 were agreed in advance by legal teams on both sides of the dispute.
A lawyer for Mr Lee said the money would be donated to charity.
The judge said Ashers is "conducting a business for profit", and it is not a religious group.
The firm was found to have discriminated against Mr Lee on the grounds of sexual orientation as well as his political beliefs.
The judge said she accepted that Ashers has "genuine and deeply held" religious views, but said the business was not above the law.
Mr Lee was assisted in taking legal action by the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland.
This case has highlighted once again the continuing tensions in the UK between equality law and freedom of conscience for those whose religious beliefs don't allow them to accept same-sex marriage.
Christian Concern, which backs Christians facing court cases over their beliefs, says the judgement undermines religious freedom in Northern Ireland, while the Evangelical Alliance claims that this is a significant change in the law that will have wider implications and may even suggest that religion has been "effectively banished from the commercial sphere".
During the election campaign, UKIP proposed the idea of a conscience clause to be added into equality law. After the cake case first became public, the Democratic Unionist Party also suggested allowing individuals and businesses an exclusion from discrimination law so that they could - legally - refuse to provide services that went against their religious convictions. However, critics opposed the idea as a "charter for discrimination".
Baroness Hale of Richmond, the deputy president of the UK's Supreme Court, has said she is not convinced the law had found a way to strike a "reasonable" balance between accommodating people's right to follow their beliefs while protecting others from discrimination.
Speaking outside Belfast County Court after the ruling, Ashers general manager Daniel McArthur said his company was "extremely disappointed with the judgment".
"We've said from the start that our issue was with the message on the cake, not with the customer and that we didn't know what the sexual orientation of Mr Lee was, and it wasn't relevant either. We've always been happy to serve any customers who come into our shops.
"The ruling suggests that all business owners will have to be willing to promote any cause or campaign, no matter how much they disagree with it."
Mr McArthur said he did not believe his bakery had done anything wrong and would be taking further legal advice after the ruling.
The chief commissioner of the Equality Commission, Michael Wardlow, said the ruling had "vindicated" both his organisation's decision to support Mr Lee's case and the need for the watchdog itself "to be in existence".
"We started off by saying that we believed that there had been a discriminatory act. The judge has upheld it - that both under sexual orientation regulations, political and religious opinion, that there were discriminatory acts."
Mr Wardlow added: "We're here to help people who otherwise couldn't help themselves and in this particular case it's clear that Gareth was discriminated against, the judge has made that clear."
Reacting to the decision, Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness tweeted: "Ashers bakery judgement a good result for equality, gay people have for far too long been discriminated against. We and the law on their side."
John O'Doherty, of gay rights group the Rainbow Project, said: "While sympathetic as some may be to the position in which the company finds itself, this does not change the facts of the case.
"The judge clearly articulated that this is direct discrimination for which there can be no justification."
However, DUP MLA Paul Givan, who has proposed that lawmakers in the Northern Ireland Assembly introduce a "conscience clause" as a result of the Ashers case, said many Christians would view the ruling as "an attack" on their religious convictions.
"What we cannot have is a hierarchy of rights, and today there's a clear hierarchy being established that gay rights are more important than the rights of people to hold religious beliefs," Mr Givan added. | A judge has ruled that a Christian-run bakery discriminated against a gay customer by refusing to make a cake with a pro-gay marriage slogan. | 32791239 |
Follow all the reaction, key points and analysis on our rolling Election Live page.
Visit our at-a-glance guide to the Conservative manifesto here, and to the Green Party's here.
BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson has been blogging about David Cameron's manifesto launch in Swindon.
He writes: "Today the Tory leader tried to re-discover the rhetorical "sunshine" he was once associated with - with his promise to deliver the 'Good Life' in a country which he claimed was on the 'brink of something special'.
"So, gone is the 'age of austerity'. Gone too the warnings of red flashing lights on the dashboard. Gone all talk of difficult decisions."
For the political parties, they are the key to power. But for social media devotees, manifesto launches present another opportunity to poke fun. The BBC's Kerry Alexandra takes a look at the online reaction.
Confused about how a new British government is formed? The BBC's Rob Watson has set out to explain the process.
Key quotes
Prime Minister David Cameron: "At the heart of this manifesto is a simple proposition: we are the party of the working people offering you security at every stage of your life."
Labour leader Ed Miliband: "The Conservatives are claiming they can fund right-to-buy with a bounced cheque."
Lib Dem Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg: "It's a measure of how the Conservatives have run out of new ideas that on the day they publish their manifesto their big idea is a poor cover version of one of Margaret Thatcher's 1980s hits."
UKIP leader Nigel Farage: "It's a re-hash of so much that was said in 2010 and has not been delivered upon, with a new initiative on housing which will do nothing to guarantee those homes go to British people or solve our housing crisis - and perhaps most worryingly of all no commitment to Britain's defence whatsoever."
SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon: "Tory policy over the past five years has penalised the poorest people in our society. It's penalised women with children, the disabled, the vulnerable and, of course, it hasn't even worked on its own terms."
Green leader Natalie Bennett on her party's manifesto: "This is a vision that sees the end of the disastrous policy of austerity that is making the poor, the disadvantaged and the young pay for the greed and the fraud of the bankers. And this is a vision that is exciting increasing numbers of Britons."
UK politicians are pulling out the stops to attract "the women's vote". But is it really possible to lump all female voters together, asks the BBC's Vanessa Barford.
It was a busy start to the week, with the launch of Labour's general election manifesto. If you didn't get a chance to follow the day's events, you can catch up with our at-a-glance report.
* Subscribe to the BBC Election 2015 newsletter to get a round-up of the day's campaign news sent to your inbox every weekday afternoon. | A daily guide to the key stories, newspaper headlines and quotes from the campaign for the 7 May general election. | 32298636 |
Engineer Pascal Cotte has spent three years using reflective light technology to analyse The Lady with an Ermine.
Until now, it was thought the 500-year-old painting had always included the ceremonial animal.
Mr Cotte has shown the artist painted one portrait without the ermine and two with different versions of the fur.
Leonardo experts have described the new findings as "thrilling" and said the discovery raises new questions about the painting's history.
The Lady with an Ermine is a portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, a young woman in the Milanese court who was mistress to Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan.
It is believed to have been painted between 1489 and 1490.
The Duke was Leonardo's main patron during his 18 years in the city, and he was nicknamed "the white ermine".
Mr Cotte, who is a co-founder of Lumiere Technology in Paris, has pioneered a new technique called Layer Amplification Method (LAM).
It works by projecting a series of intense lights on to the painting. A camera then takes measurements of the lights' reflections and from those measurements, Mr Cotte is then able to analyse and reconstruct what has happened between the layers of the paint.
Following the discovery, new theories have now been applied to the well-known portrait, including a suggestion the artist may have introduced the ermine into the painting to symbolise Gallerani's lover, later enhancing the animal to flatter his patron.
Another theory is that Gallerani asked the artist to add the animal into the painting, so that the Milanese court was made fully aware of her relationship with the Duke.
Mr Cotte said: "The LAM technique gives us the capability to peel the painting like an onion, removing the surface to see what's happening inside and behind the different layers of paint.
"We've discovered that Leonardo is always changing his mind. This is someone who hesitates - he erases things, he adds things, he changes his mind again and again."
Martin Kemp, Emeritus Professor of the History of Art at the University of Oxford, said: "What Pascal Cotte is revealing in France is remarkable.
"It tells us a lot more about the way Leonardo's mind worked when he was doing a painting. We know that he fiddled around a good deal at the beginning, but now we know that he kept fiddling around all the time and it helps explain why he had so much difficulty finishing paintings.
"Leonardo is endlessly fascinating, so getting this intimate insight into his mind is thrilling."
The painting belongs to the Czartoryski Foundation and is usually on display at the National Museum in Krakow, Poland. It is currently hanging in nearby Wawel Castle while the Museum undergoes renovation.
The Lady with an Ermine was one of the star attractions at the National Gallery's 2011 exhibition, Leonardo Da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan.
The painting has previously undergone several examinations using X-ray and infra-red analysis. | A French scientist has revealed a major new discovery about one of Leonardo da Vinci's most famous paintings, shedding new light on his techniques. | 29407093 |
In less than 48 hours last week, Mr Arce and his fellow Paraguayans witnessed a swift impeachment process that removed President Fernando Lugo and installed vice-president Federico Franco as interim leader until elections due in April.
Congress voted almost unanimously to remove Mr Lugo over his handling of clashes between farmers and police that left at least 17 people dead.
Although the impeachment adhered to the country's constitution, the move has threatened to isolate the South American nation from its neighbours.
The left-leaning presidents of Argentina, Bolivia and Venezuela called Mr Lugo's removal "a coup".
Many countries, including right-leaning Chile and Colombia, also recalled their ambassadors for consultations.
This Friday, the diplomatic and economic weight of two regional groupings could be brought to bear on Paraguay.
The Union of South American nations, Unasur, has scheduled an extraordinary meeting to discuss the crisis.
This coincides with the routine meeting of presidents of the South American trading bloc, Mercosur, in the Argentine city of Mendoza, at which developments in Paraguay will be a priority.
Possible economic sanctions on the new government are high on the agenda, and even an expulsion from the bloc will be debated.
Mercosur, which comprises fellow founders Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, as well as several associate members, has already suspended Paraguay "because of a rupture in the democratic order".
"Paraguay's economy strongly depends on the trade links with its neighbours," says economist Fernando Masi, who believes sanctions could hit hard.
Last year, more than half of Paraguay's exports, worth some $2.8bn (£1.8bn), went to Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.
Almost double this amount was imported by Paraguay from the three countries, according to official data.
"As a member of Mercosur, Paraguay can export to other nations in the bloc without paying custom duties, but if expelled, it would have to pay the standard 14% tariff for non-members," says Mr Masi.
The competitiveness of Paraguayan goods in the region would be affected, with potentially damaging effects on its businesses, he says.
In the last two years, Paraguay has had one of the fastest-growing economies in the region, based mainly on commodity exports, and in particular soy bean and beef.
"Paraguay is very vulnerable to any type of sanctions as it does not have sea access, leaving it highly dependent on its neighbours for exporting and importing," says political analyst Milda Rivarola.
The political events of the past week have left many in the capital, Asuncion, shocked and some furious.
"What happened goes against the rules of democracy. I did not like Lugo but they should have allowed him to end the term he won in free elections," said Asuncion resident Maria Teresa.
"This is definitely a coup. If it was the people who voted him into office, it should be the people that vote him out," said Shirley, who also lives in the capital.
Mr Lugo accepted the impeachment, stressing to his supporters that he did not want any bloodshed.
There have been some small demonstrations in the capital against his dismissal.
Farmers' organisations, a key part of Mr Lugo's political base, have also announced further actions.
The newly appointed government has defended the way he was removed.
In his first meeting with the foreign media, Mr Franco stressed that there had been "no coup or breakdown in the democratic order. We respect our country's constitution".
The Paraguayan constitution establishes an impeachment procedure in the event that an elected leader is accused of criminal actions.
And there is support for the new government.
"I think that this is a good thing, because he (Mr Lugo) was not doing a good job," said Asuncion local Severiana.
Francisco Capli, who heads market-research firm First Analysis, also rejects accusations that there was a coup.
Paraguay, he says, remains marked by having a military ruler, Gen Alfredo Stroessner, in power for almost 36 years until 1988.
"When democracy returned, a new constitution was drafted with the aim of giving strong powers to parliament, seeking to avoid the concentration of power in one figure," said Mr Capli.
Since assuming office in 2008, as Paraguay's first elected left-wing president, Mr Lugo had lost most allies in Congress.
It also emerged that the former Roman Catholic bishop had fathered at least two children, which enraged many in a highly religious society.
Many of his own supporters also criticised him for his perceived lack of policies to aid landless farmers.
"If we had a parliamentary system Mr Lugo's government would have fallen long ago," Mr Capli said.
Mr Lugo is the first elected Paraguayan leader to be impeached.
The full consequences of this for Paraguay remain to be seen. | "We're at the beginning of a period of great uncertainty," says Eduardo Arce, a Paraguayan journalist. | 18624031 |
It is estimated that about 100,000 people moved out of Belfast in the 1970s and 1980s.
Now the council is trying to encourage people to come back and hopes 66,000 more people will move into the city.
Council leaders believe that a bigger, better Belfast will be good for Northern Ireland.
The council have launched an ambitious long-term plan, the Local Development Plan (LDP), on how the development of the city will be planned to 2035.
During the Troubles, the population of the city dropped dramatically and economic development was hit hard.
The current population of Belfast is about 340,000 and the aim is to increase the total to above 400,000.
Councillor Peter Johnston, chair of Belfast City Council's planning committee, said: "It's absolutely critical that we plan for and stimulate Belfast's growth.
"Our Local Development Plan will have an impact on everyone who lives in, works in and visits Belfast, because it will shape how Northern Ireland's capital city grows and becomes more competitive in the future."
No firm details have been announced about how exactly the council plans to do it.
A public consultation will take place before concrete plans are announced.
The council is holding a number of information sessions to allow people to give their views. | A plan to bring the population of Belfast up to pre-Trouble levels has been launched by Belfast City Council. | 38757003 |
In the full A-level, 29.9% of students scored A or A*, whereas across the nations 26% got these grades.
Increased interest in film or media studies was linked by the Joint Council for Qualifications to the filming of the Game of Thrones in NI.
However, political studies A-level entries were down.
The Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQCIC) said there was a slight increase in top A* grade, rising from last year's 7.2% to 7.3% this year.
The figure across England, Wales and Northern Ireland was 8.2%.
About 32,000 students in Northern Ireland have received their A-level exam results.
The vast majority of candidates were able to find out their grades online.
About 24,000 of them have been able to log on to the internet from 07:00 BST, wherever they are in the world, to check their performance.
A spokeswoman for the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) said almost 13,000 students had used its online results service by noon on Thursday.
In mathematics, 45.3% of entries were awarded grades A*-A.
The most popular subjects continued to be biology, mathematics, history, English and religious studies.
The most popular subject for boys was mathematics, with 1,815 entries, while the top choice for girls was biology, with 1,871 entries.
Increased interest in the creative industries was reflected in a greater number of entries in subjects such as film and media studies (up 5.7%), and art and design (up 3.5%).
Entry figures at AS level jumped to 45,751, an increase of 5.2% on 2013 figures, the highest entry for AS in Northern Ireland since its introduction in 2001.
Education Minister John O'Dowd said the results were the "culmination of many years of hard work by pupils, with support from their teachers and families".
""However, not all pupils will get the results they were hoping for today and I urge those young people not to worry.
"Help and advice is available to you and I encourage you to speak to your teachers, careers advisers and parents to discuss your future career or study path," he said.
Employment and Learning Minister Stephen Farry said: "The importance of making an informed decision following exam results is imperative to effective career planning.
"Taking time now to explore options will pay dividends in the future."
Rebecca Hall, president of the NUS-USI (National Union of Students - Union of Students in Ireland), said: "Many students in higher education find it difficult to make ends meet and the cost of living has increased in recent times.
"I would take this opportunity to call for the employment and learning minister to examine increasing student grants and maintenance loans in line with inflation annually, within the review being conducting on higher education here."
Northern Ireland's two universities want to recruit higher-paying students from outside the region, but they said local applicants would not be disadvantaged.
Both Queen's University, Belfast, (QUB) and the University of Ulster (UU) have been offering perks, such as free flights and en-suite accommodation, to prospective entrants with addresses outside Northern Ireland.
Students from Great Britain who opt to study in Northern Ireland currently have to pay up to £9,000 a year in tuition fees to their chosen university.
In contrast, applicants from Northern Ireland who are offered a place at either QUB or UU will pay a maximum tuition fee of £3,685 during the academic year 2014/15.
A deal that secured reduced fees for local students was reached in 2011 following negotiations between Northern Ireland Executive ministers and Stormont's Department for Employment and Learning (DEL).
However, if the Northern Ireland students apply for a course based elsewhere in the UK, they could face the full £9,000 annual fee, depending on their choice of course and college.
Anthony McGrath from QUB said students from Great Britain who paid £9,000 for a place at the Belfast university would have "a number of different incentives to come here".
"We've tried to package things together for GB students to try to attract students, try to make things as easy as possible.
"We find that there are a number of barriers in the way for students to come to Belfast, to come to Northern Ireland, and we've tried to reduce those barriers."
Mr McGrath, however, said he believed Northern Ireland students were "getting a great deal at the moment, because they're paying much less than GB students" to study at Queen's.
Both QUB and UU have assured students from Northern Ireland that they would not lose out on university places as a result of their drive to attract higher-paying applicants. | Northern Ireland students outperformed their counterparts in England and Wales in A-level A* and A grades, but were not so strong in A* results alone. | 28780966 |
CoSocius began trading in April 2014 and is jointly owned by Cheshire East and Cheshire West & Chester councils.
The firm blamed a "changing environment" for the decision.
Former Cheshire West council leader Mike Jones called the firm's performance "very disappointing" and "had not delivered what we expected".
In its first 11 months, CoSocius had operating losses of £800,000, added to a pension deficit of £8.5m.
More than 300 council staff employed by the jointly-owned company will now be brought back in-house.
Cosocius was established as "an innovative, sustainable and highly competitive business able to trade profitably with other organisations".
It was hoped the arrangement would generate savings of £5m over the first five years of operation, by bidding for contracts with other public and private bodies.
Managing director Dave Hudson said "CoSocius has made progress in a number of areas and contributed to the success of other areas of both councils, however the changing environment meant that many aspects of the company's original agreed business plan needed revisiting."
Cheshire East Council Labour spokesman Sam Corcoran criticised the project for "exposing council services to the disruption and expense of structural changes that are reversed a few years later."
The company will cease trading in April 2016. | A company set up to provide IT and HR services for councils in Cheshire is to be wound up after making huge losses. | 34487167 |
Response officers PCs David Stamp, Hugh Flanagan and Caroline Irwin face a series of alleged professional standard breaches in relation to the incident in March 2014.
The trio had attended the scene of a car crash caused by ice on the A413 in Buckinghamshire, but are accused of failing to take appropriate action.
A misconduct hearing started on Monday.
At 04:52 GMT on 4 March 2014, driver Martin Kendall phoned Thames Valley Police to report he had crashed his car on the A413 between Wendover and Great Missenden.
PC Stamp, based at Amersham Police Station, was joined at the scene by his colleagues.
It is alleged the officers left the scene at about 05:26 after concluding the accident had been caused by ice.
Shortly before 05:54 there was a fatal crash very close to the location of Mr Kendall's accident, again allegedly caused by ice.
The public hearing, taking place in Newbury, is set to run until 3 March. | Three police officers have been accused of misconduct after failing to shut an icy road before a fatal accident. | 39027035 |
Police Scotland ended the service across most of the country in 2014.
Regeneration group Future Hawick has lodged a petition claiming a "marked increase in the abuse of parking regulations" in the town.
However, Scottish Borders Council claimed parking habits had "not actually changed significantly".
The local authority is currently considering its position with regard to the management of on-street parking.
One option would be to introduce its own wardens but that would be an expensive one.
It would cost the council around ??200,000 to set up and could not happen for at least two years. The Scottish government would have to agree and give the council the necessary powers.
The Future Hawick petition highlights parking issues which it said were decreasing footfall on the High Street at a time when businesses were suffering an economic downturn.
"The situation has reached the stage where action is required," it said.
It has called on the council to take action immediately.
A report on the subject said there was no comparable data for Hawick prior to the removal of traffic wardens but studies in other areas had shown the impact had not been as great as was perceived.
It recommended that the council take no further action before a report in November on the wider issue of parking and traffic management. | A council report has concluded the withdrawal of traffic wardens in the Borders may not have had "as big an impact as is generally perceived". | 37572577 |
Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge said two wards were now shut after flu affected dozens of patients. Earlier three wards and four treatment areas had been closed by the outbreak.
Flu has also hit public areas and people are urged to stay away from A&E.
Routine operations are being delayed and care services are affected by flu, medical director Dr Jag Ahluwalia said.
"The hospital is full and we're struggling to cope. Some patients have had to be diverted to other hospitals," he added.
"We have high numbers of people with flu across the hospital.
"For coughs, colds and flu-like illnesses, people are better off at home, resting and drinking plenty of fluids.
"We need people to stay away from the hospital and ask themselves - do you need to be here?"
Influenza is a virus so cannot be treated with antibiotics and in most cases it will run its course, the hospital said. | Urgent operations including surgery for cancer patients are being delayed by an outbreak of flu at a hospital. | 38788086 |
The body, discovered about 10 miles off the south-west coast of the island, was reported by the coastguard to police on Wednesday at about 13:45 BST.
Dorset Police said it was working with Hampshire force to investigate if the body is that of Hugh Cox, 61.
He was last seen leaving home for work in Poole in 20 June. His family has been informed of the discovery. | The death of a man whose body was found in the sea off the Isle of Wight is not being treated as suspicious. | 40441378 |
The choice of sites was driven largely by operational considerations - they are places engineers believe a lander can get down with the least risk.
No-one has attempted to land on a 10-billion-tonne comet before.
The Rosetta probe will despatch its Philae contact robot to 67P's icy surface on 11 November.
The European Space Agency says it will be a one-shot opportunity.
Rosetta and the comet are currently about 400 million km from Earth, making real-time radio control impossible.
Instead, the process will have to be fully automated with commands uploaded several days in advance.
The five sites on the "longlist" were selected at the end of a special meeting convened in Toulouse, France, this past weekend.
Esa project managers were joined by attendees from the space agencies of France (Cnes) and Germany (DLR), which play key roles in the Philae effort.
Instrument principal investigators on the washing machine-sized robot were also there to argue their preferences, as were the engineers, who could explain the technical possibilities.
If one considers the comet to look like a rubber duck, then three of the chosen potentials (B, I and J) are on the head. Two are on the body (A and C). The dramatic neck region has been ruled out.
The letter designation stems from an even longer list of 10 that was used to kick-off the whole selection process. The letter ordering carries no weight.
A landing site needs to be relatively flat and free from boulders and fissures.
One key requirement has been the need to find places on the comet that experience something of a day/night cycle.
This will give not only a better appreciation of the changing behaviour of 67P under all conditions, but will provide the lander with some important protection - from too much sun, which could lead to overheating, or too little light, which would make it difficult to charge the batteries.
The engineers have also emphasised the need to find locations where Rosetta can deliver Philae at the right altitude and velocity, and maintain a communications link throughout the descent, which is likely to take several hours.
The longlist will be reduced to a leading candidate and perhaps a couple of back-ups in mid-September.
A final go/no-go decision on a target landing site is expected by mid-October.
By then, Rosetta's cameras and other instruments will have returned detailed data on the number one choice.
Comet 67P has very little gravitational attraction - several hundred thousand times weaker than what Philae would experience at the Earth's surface.
For this reason, it will touch down at no more than a walking pace - about 1m/s.
It will use harpoons and ice screws to try to hang on to the comet and avoid bouncing back into space.
Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos | Europe's Rosetta mission, which aims to put a robot on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, has identified five potential locations for the touchdown. | 28923010 |
Benteke, 25, joined the Eagles from Liverpool for a club record £27m.
The Premier League side have yet to win this season after losing 1-0 to both West Brom and Tottenham.
"We're not signing Messi, he's a good player but not a player who is going to get the ball and make things happen," Delaney told the Evening Standard.
"We have to get some ammunition for him, get some crosses in the box, give him supply".
Benteke could make his debut on Tuesday when Palace face Blackpool in the EFL Cup, although the striker is short of match fitness.
"(Benteke) brings a presence, he's a handful, but Connor Wickham is as well. It's time we stop talking about things and go and win games," Delaney added. | Crystal Palace defender Damien Delaney has said new signing Christian Benteke 'is not Lionel Messi' and will need support from the squad. | 37158887 |
The embassy condemned the "deplorable behaviour" and said the staff member would be strongly disciplined.
Israel's ambassador was summoned by the Singapore government over the incident, local media report.
Singapore's foreign ministry said the "misuse" of its flag was considered a serious offence.
Images of the flag draped over a table at a party allegedly hosted by the diplomat were posted online on Monday by a user who said a police report had been filed.
He accused the foreign party host of having "no respect for our country and our flag".
In a press statement, the Israeli embassy said it "was appalled to learn of the deplorable behaviour displayed by one of its junior staff members and expresses its sincere apologies". | Israel has apologised after a junior diplomat working at its embassy in Singapore reportedly used the country's flag as a tablecloth at a party. | 35204875 |
Blues manager Antonio Conte has identified France international Bakayoko as a player who can strengthen the Premier League champions' squad.
Talks have taken place and the transfer - which would be Chelsea's first of the summer - could be completed this week.
Bakayoko, 22, was part of the Monaco squad that reached the Champions League semi-finals last season.
He joined the club from Ligue 1 rivals Rennes in 2014 and made his France debut in a friendly defeat by Spain in March this year.
Juventus and Brazil wing-back Alex Sandro is also thought to be a target for Conte, and the Blues have been linked with re-signing Everton's Belgium striker Romelu Lukaku and Southampton and Netherlands defender Virgil van Dijk, who Liverpool apologised for approaching earlier this month.
In terms of outgoings, Chelsea forward Diego Costa has already revealed a text from Conte informing the Spain international he should find another club.
The future of Dutch defender Nathan Ake is still to be decided, despite reports linking him with a £20m move to Bournemouth. | Chelsea are close to signing midfielder Tiemoue Bakayoko from French champions Monaco. | 40405216 |
Liam Dawson's spin delayed the charge before Chris Cooke took them home.
Adam Wheater top-scored with 39 in the visitors' 141 with Shahid Afridi smashing 32 off 20 balls.
But the visitors fell away as Michael Hogan claimed four wickets, Dean Cosker bowled tightly, and Dale Steyn blew away the tail.
Donald's innings of 55 in 27 balls included eight fours and two sixes, improving on his previous best of 51 against Essex two days previously.
Glamorgan batsman Aneurin Donald told BBC Wales Sport:
"I hit them really well from the start, it's always nice to get off to a flier because it takes the pressure off you and having Colin hit them that well at the other end is always helpful.
"I should have been 70 not out but it's nice to be hitting it this well and hopefully I can really push on now.
"We did well to restrict them, the guys bowled really well especially Michael (Hogan) and nice to see Dale (Steyn) on the board."
Hamsphire captain James Vince told BBC Radio Solent:
"Against Kent we probably weren't at our best and tonight we're disappointed to be bowled out inside 20 overs.
"We want to be positive but we need to be smarter with bat and ball and hopefully we'll string some wins together.
"We were reasonably placed coming towards the end of the powerplay, but there was a lack of smartness in the middle overs. We had the odd partnership but nothing to put them on the back foot." | Extraordinary hitting by Aneurin Donald and Colin Ingram in a third-wicket stand of 94 in 8.3 overs steered Glamorgan to a 5-wicket victory. | 36440290 |
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The former five-weight world champion, 40, retired unbeaten in 2015 after 49 bouts, but will face McGregor, 28, in Las Vegas on 26 August.
The light-middleweight bout could earn both men as much as $100m (£78.4m).
"They asked for this fight. I was in retirement, but they wanted me back and I'm back," said American Mayweather.
Talking to Black Sports Online, Mayweather added: "McGregor is a tough competitor. People all around the world demanded this fight so I had to give them what they wanted to see."
Mayweather has not fought since beating Andre Berto in September 2015 and, against McGregor, could improve his career record to 50-0.
The UFC lightweight champion has never had a professional boxing match and some have described the bout as a "farce".
"He's very happy, I'm very happy and I can't wait," added Mayweather, who would not disclose how much each fighter was set to earn.
"You're supposed to stand behind your man. Stand behind the fighter that you believe in."
Former world champion Ricky Hatton has first-hand experience of fighting Mayweather after he was stopped by the American in the 10th round during their world welterweight bout in Las Vegas in 2007.
The Englishman, who says he is a fan of both sportsmen, expects a "12-round onslaught" by Mayweather, adding that he "can't get excited about this fight for one minute".
However, he believes boxing and UFC "have to take the blame" for a fight that has divided opinion.
"I can't get my head around why the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world and arguably the greatest of all time is fighting someone who has never had a boxing match in his life," Hatton told BBC Radio 5 live's Sportsweek.
"Look at the people Floyd Mayweather has beaten - Saul Alvarez couldn't lay a glove on him, Oscar de la Hoya couldn't sort him out - even me, I couldn't sort him out.
"It's going to be great entertainment, that's the most complimentary thing I can say about it." | Boxing legend Floyd Mayweather says he is "giving the people what they want" by coming out of retirement to fight Irish UFC champion Conor McGregor. | 40317934 |
Davies, 29, finished ahead of Englishman Tom Sykes and Northern Ireland's Jonathan Rea.
The Kawasaki pair had a compelling duel for second place with Ducati's Davies dominating the race.
The Welshman is 26 points behind series leader Rea who won the opening three races of three races of the season.
Sykes is three points behind Davies, who claimed his 11th victory in Superbikes.
Davies' win in the opening race of the weekend ended Kawasaki's winning start to the season.
Defending champion Rea now has 131 points, with Davies on 105 and Sykes on 102. | Welshman Chaz Davies moved into second place in the World Superbike championship after completing a double in Aragon. | 35954673 |
The 28-year-old former Derby County keeper, who played 22 times for City earlier this season, suffered ligament damage in an under-21 match on Monday.
As a result, teenager Max O'Leary has been recalled from his loan spell at non-league Kidderminster Harriers.
"I feel really sorry for him (Fielding)," head coach Lee Johnson told the club website.
"He's gone from being an ever-present in last year's success to his injury troubles which have thwarted his season this time around." | Bristol City goalkeeper Frank Fielding will miss the rest of the season after being sidelined with an ankle injury. | 36047794 |
Tubbs, 32, rejoined the Spitfires for a second spell in March and scored in their final league game of the season against Wrexham last Saturday.
David Pipe, Ryan Burge, Jack Smith, Jack Masterton, Connor Essam and Scott Wilson have also been released.
Loan signings Sam Matthews, Ben Close, Hakeem Odoffin, Joshua Barnes and Nick Hall have all returned to parent clubs. | Striker Matt Tubbs is among seven players released by National League club Eastleigh. | 39819718 |
He described the nature of much of the debate as "pathetic and childish".
Mr Jones said he thought Wales was still divided but said that could be overcome in the longer term.
The BBC is running a series of items on Monday taking the temperature across the UK in the wake of June's Brexit vote.
Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns confirmed the UK government's view that the current system of free migration to Britain from EU states would come to an end.
"That does not mean carrying on and calling it something different - Brexit means Brexit - and the consequence is that there will not be free movement of labour on the same basis as it works now," he said.
Mr Jones - who, like Mr Cairns, backed the unsuccessful Remain side in the referendum - told BBC Wales it was time to heal the divisions caused by the campaign.
He said: "We have to get away from this abusive politics that the UK and other countries have fallen into and get back to sensible discussion.
"I have fought elections, but I have never seen anything like this referendum campaign before.
"If that is the way that politics is going in the UK in the future, then we will become a very-bitterly divided society so we have to get back to logical, sensible discussion and not abuse and name-calling."
The first minister said it was inevitable that greater controls on immigration would have to be introduced by Prime Minister Theresa May.
He added: "Some people were concerned that they felt that immigrants would take their jobs, to put it bluntly, even though most of the jobs were in industries where it was difficult to recruit locally.
"But that is the way people saw it and we have to accept that.
"It is quite clear to me that unrestricted free movement of people would not be acceptable to many people in Wales."
Mr Jones repeated his call for access to the single market to be maintained in the negotiations but admitted there could be benefits from leaving the EU.
These include, he said, removing restrictions governing state aid for businesses and Cardiff airport, which is owned by the Welsh Government.
He also said his government would not be looking to make cuts to farming budgets with whatever system is introduced to replace EU subsidies, and he called for the Welsh Government to have greater flexibility in some business taxation to encourage firms to invest in areas, such as research and development.
"People are going to judge us on the way that Brexit pans out, as they will judge the UK government, and everyone who campaigned in that referendum, Mr Jones said.
"So I am fully aware of that, it's a big challenge, we know that, but it's a challenge we have to face."
Mr Cairns wants to create a new system to replace what he believes has been a failed EU model to provide aid for some of the most economically deprived communities in Wales.
Wales has received more than £4bn in aid from Brussels since 2000, with the money spent on projects to boost the economy in west Wales and the Valleys.
But Mr Cairns said many of areas which had received the money had voted to leave the EU, and a better system was needed.
Meanwhile Neil Hamilton, UKIP's group leader in the assembly, said Britain "can't compromise" on immigration control for the sake of continued tariff-free access to the EU's single market.
He told BBC Radio Wales he believed the UK would not need to make concessions, as German car manufacturers and other firms would still want to sell their goods to British customers.
"They're massive gainers out of the current system of free trade with Britain. Would they really want to put that at risk?" he asked on the Good Morning Wales programme.
In June, 854,572 (52.5%) voters in Wales chose to leave the EU, compared with 772,347 (47.5%) supporting Remain.
A poll for BBC 5Live released on Monday suggests six in 10 people across the UK feel optimistic about the future.
However, it also suggests one in four (26%) Britons have thought about leaving the UK and living elsewhere following the referendum.
This figure is higher among younger people. | First Minister Carwyn Jones has said Wales must get away from the abuse and bitterness that was a feature of the European referendum campaign. | 37258843 |
The increase is the largest seen in any census period since 1951, with migration given as the main factor.
While 73% of the population was born in Wales, 5% were born outside the UK, up from 1% in 2001.
The number of English-born people in Wales has also risen slightly over the past decade to 21%.
A total of 93,600 people born overseas moved to Wales between 2001 and 2011. However Pete Stokes, statistical design manager with the Office of National Statistics, said most "foreigners" in Wales were born in England.
He explained: "Out of a group of 20 people, 15 would be born in Wales, four in England and one elsewhere in the world."
He said the ethnic mix had not changed much since the previous survey. Wales is the least ethnically diverse area among the areas covered by the census, which also includes the English regions with 93% classing themselves as white, down from 96% in 2001.
Cardiff is the only local authority area where more than 10% of the population were born outside the UK. It also has the highest proportion of ethnic minority people at 20%.
A total of 1.36% of people living in Cardiff were born in India. Throughout Wales, 2.2% of people were of Asian origin, 0.6% of African, Caribbean or other black heritage and 1% of mixed ethnic origin.
Over 67,000 were from other EU countries including 12,000 from Ireland, and over 100,000 were from other parts of the world including Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
There were more women at 1.6m, against 1.5m men.
Nearly one in five, or 563,000 people, were over the age of 65, a higher proportion than in England.
All areas of the country saw population growth except for Blaenau Gwent, which is also the county where most Welsh-born people live.
Glen Watson, director general of the ONS said: "It points to a growing picture of diversity and change in Wales." | The population of Wales has risen by 5% to 3.1m from 2001 to 2011, figures from the latest census have shown. | 20680412 |
Leicester East MP Keith Vaz has written to the city council asking it to become the first in the country to run sugar-free canteens.
Mr Vaz said: "I think it is very important people understand that sugar is not good for their health."
Assistant mayor Vi Dempster said there was "always more that can be done" to reduce sugar in school meals.
Mr Vaz, a Labour MP and chairman of the Home Affairs committee, said: "We have sugar available quite freely in drinks and food in our schools and with the obesity rates that we have got it is very important that we act immediately.
"In the average vending machine, you will see hundreds of teaspoons of sugar masquerading as cans of drinks and sweets."
BBC Food
Mr Vaz, who has diabetes, said it made "economic sense" to ban sugar as it would "save a lot of money" treating people with obesity and type two diabetes.
Ms Dempster added: "I agree with Keith. It is an incredibly important issue, not just in terms of obesity and diabetes but also children's behaviour in the classroom and dental decay.
"I think it is reasonable to ban fizzy drinks and sweets but there is a lot of work already being done in schools and there is a lot more that can be done."
In 2010, a Surrey school banned students from drinking high-caffeine energy drinks.
Mr Vaz asked David Cameron during Prime Minister's questions earlier in January to join him in the "war on sugar" by giving up sugar and sugary drinks for one day.
Mr Cameron said he would accept the challenge, adding: "If I possibly can". | An East Midlands MP wants all schools in Leicester to ban sugar in its meals and vending machines. | 25843747 |
Storey, 39, became Great Britain's most successful female Paralympian at the Rio Games, winning her 14th gold medal.
Cundy, one year younger and like Storey an ex-swimmer, has seven Paralympic golds - four in cycling.
The Great Britain team will compete in both track and road World Championships this year.
The track event takes place in Los Angeles from 2-5 March while Pietermaritzburg, South Africa will host the road event from 31 August-3 September.
The 23-strong squad does not include dual-sport star Kadeena Cox, who has had her UK Sport funding suspended while she takes part in the Channel 4 winter sports show The Jump.
Other Rio gold medallists included are Megan Giglia, and the tandem pairings of Sophie Thornhill and Helen Scott, Steve Bate and Adam Duggleby, and Corrine Hall and Lora Fachie. Handcyclist Karen Darke also makes the squad, as do Louis Rolfe and Jon Allan Butterworth, who won team sprint gold alongside Cundy.
London 2012 rowing gold medallist David Smith remains on the squad as he continues his rehabilitation from surgery on a spinal cord tumour.
At the Games in Brazil, ParalympicsGB cyclists topped the medal table, winning 21 medals, including 12 golds.
Head coach Jon Norfolk, said: "The squad we've named is full of Paralympic and world champions as well as a number of riders who we believe have the potential to improve and become medal-competitive over the next four-year cycle."
Squad: James Ball, Steve Bate, Jon Allan Butterworth, Jody Cundy, Karen Darke, Hannah Dines, Adam Duggleby, Lora Fachie, Neil Fachie, Megan Giglia, Jon Gildea, Corrine Hall, Crystal Lane, Craig Maclean, Pete Mitchell, Simon Price, Louis Rolfe, Liz Saul, Helen Scott, Dave Smith, David Stone, Sarah Storey, Sophie Thornhill | Rio Paralympic gold medallists Sarah Storey and Jody Cundy have been named in the Great Britain Para-cycling squad for 2017. | 38746629 |
He wants to keep North Sea jobs and create tax revenue from oil and gas.
The main focus for anger was tax breaks for developing the oil and gas industry in the North Sea.
But green groups said it was irrational to seek more hydrocarbons in the week the government pledged to enshrine in law a commitment to zero emissions.
In a statement, Friends of the Earth said: "The Budget was full of 'next generation rhetoric', but tax breaks for the climate-wrecking oil and gas industry pose a real threat to the security of people, the economy and planet.
"It's almost as if the recent UN climate agreement in Paris never occurred. What happened in Paris appears to have stayed in Paris."
David Powell from the New Economics Foundation said: "If this was a Budget when we act now to avoid paying later, a Budget for the next generation, then where was the action on climate change?"
There was a mixed bag of announcements on energy and climate. It included: more support for a wealth fund for people living near shale gas sites; flood defence spending up £700m; freezing fuel duty; and tidying up a tangle of business taxes on energy - a measure welcomed by firms.
The Chancellor also followed the recommendation of his National Infrastructure Commission to herald a new chapter in energy, in which smart systems will store energy and use the internet to control energy demand.
"It's great that's going to translate into real action," said Richard Howard from the right-leaning think-tank Policy Exchange.
There was also relief among groups concerned about the climate that the Chancellor committed to a new round of auctions to supply energy from offshore wind and other less established renewables (possibly including tidal lagoons).
Sam Fankhauser from the LSE said: "This Budget will have a mixed impact on the fight against climate change. The new round of auctions is very welcome, although it is not clear if this will be sufficient to ensure the UK meets its targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the next ten years."
Others complain there is still no clarity for investors in renewables post-2020. Shadow Energy and Climate Change Secretary Lisa Nandy said: "Business leaders and investors have been crying out for more confidence over the government's energy strategy. Today the Chancellor failed to give it to them."
But criticism of the Budget came more for what was left out than what was put in. Policy Exchange had urged the Chancellor to adjust Stamp Duty to reward people who insulate their homes - insulation is essential to meet climate targets. But this plea was ignored - for now, at least.
And Mr Osborne's rejection of calls to raise fuel duty provoked Conservative commentator Tim Montgomerie to Tweet: "No sense in freezing fuel duty when oil prices are so low. Duty should usually move in opposite direction to cost of a barrel."
What critics called the Chancellor's low-key performance on climate came in a week of eye-catching climate news.
The month of February was shown by far by the hottest February on record - driven by El Nino with a contribution from climate change; global CO2 emissions were decoupled from economic growth for the second year in a row as nations turned to energy efficiency and renewables; and the world's biggest coal firm Peabody warned of bankruptcy as coal prices collapsed in the face of concerns about the climate.
Follow Roger on Twitter. | The Chancellor has been accused by campaigners of promising a Budget for the next generation whilst doing too little to combat climate change. | 35823014 |
Cancer charities argued the drug adds an average of six months to the lives of some women whose breast cancer has become inoperable.
Women in England, Wales and Ireland have already been refused access to the drug on cost grounds.
The Scottish Medicines Consortium also had concerns about cost effectiveness.
The SMC said it had to consider value for money and take account of the needs of all patients who need treatment, not just those affected by this medicine.
Earlier this year the SMC was reformed to give patients and clinicians a greater say on which new medicines are approved.
The drug approval body for England and Wales, NICE, ruled in August that Kadcyla was still too expensive to be approved for routine NHS use.
It led to claims by the manufacturer Roche that the system was "broken".
NICE generally approves treatments which cost no more than £30,000 per year of better-quality life.
In the case of Kadcyla, NICE said the quality-to-cost ratio had been calculated at £166,000.
The Irish equivalent of NICE and the SMC, the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics, has also ruled that Kadcyla is not cost-effective.
The only way women will be able to access it will be through a new Peer Approved Clinical System (PACS).
They will need the support of their consultant to argue that the drug offers them particular benefit over and above what has already been considered by the SMC.
Prof Jonathan Fox, chairman of the SMC, said the organisation was "disappointed" not to have been able to recommend Kadcyla, which is also known as trastuzumab emtansine.
He said it had "taken on board" the drug's effectiveness and applied as much "flexibility" as possible in its considerations. Ultimately, however, "the committee felt unable to accept it."
He said: "While the PACE process is a determining factor when we consider medicines like this, and was designed to increase access to such medicines, that access cannot come at any price - we have to consider value for money and take account of the needs of all patients who need treatment, not just those affected by the medicine under consideration. NHS Scotland does not have infinite resources.
"This is a devastating condition and we understand that this decision will be very disappointing for patients. Most of our committee members are practising clinicians who care for patients daily and the decision to not recommend a life-extending medicine is never taken lightly.
"Local NHS boards have processes in place to allow clinicians to prescribe medicines that are not accepted for routine use by the SMC. We would welcome a resubmission for trastuzumab emtansine that takes into account the issues raised by the SMC appraisal."
James Jopling, the Scotland director for Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: "Support for this drug has united the entire breast cancer community.
"Patients, families, carers, oncologists and all four breast cancer charities in Scotland have called for this medicine to be approved. In addition, over 1,800 members of the public have signed our petition calling for more medicines like Kadcyla to be made available in Scotland.
"So this is a deeply disappointing outcome and, though we recognise the very high cost of this medicine made it hard for the SMC to approve, it becomes more vital than ever that pharmaceutical companies do more to set the cost of new medicines at a price the NHS can afford."
He continued: "Access to drugs for people who really need them is an ongoing problem and Breakthrough is leading the call for a solution to be found. We are determined to stop breast cancer for good, and making sure every woman receives the treatment she needs is the first step."
Health Secretary Alex Neil said: "As happens currently, any patient with secondary breast cancer whose clinician believes that Kadycla will be of significant benefit can make a request to their health board to access the drug.
"There are already patients in Scotland being treated with Kadcyla, funded by the NHS, and this will continue with the additional funding pledged by the Scottish government.
"However this is clearly not the ideal situation for patients and clinicians in Scotland, and I hope that the manufacturer will resubmit Kadycla quickly and at a fair price." | The organisation which decides which medicines should be routinely available on the NHS in Scotland has decided not to approve breast cancer drug Kadcyla. | 29566614 |
Aston University's Prof David Bailey said he hoped firms would still support UK steel but warned Tata would be less attractive to buyers if it loses sales.
He added something had to be done soon to end the uncertainty.
Nissan is said to get 45% of its sheet steel from Port Talbot while Tata across south Wales supplies Vauxhall.
The two industries could not be experiencing more different fortunes at the moment.
While the car industry is booming, steel is at crisis point.
"I certainly hope that manufacturers and component suppliers in particular will stick with Tata in the short-term in the hope that this can be sorted out and we can save the British steel industry", Prof Bailey told BBC Wales.
However he said he was "pretty sure component manufacturers will be looking at other options" particularly sourcing replacement high quality steel from Europe.
Aberavon MP Stephen Kinnock urged Business Secretary Sajid Javid, to hold talks with Tata's customers to convince them to keep buying from the company.
Mr Javid responded in a House of Commons debate that he was holding discussions with firms but it would be wrong to go into details. | Uncertainty over Tata's future means parts of the car industry will look at options abroad for high quality steel, a leading economist has warned. | 36038357 |
It happened at Creggan Road shortly before 05:00 GMT on Wednesday morning.
The woman was taken to Altnagelvin hospital for wounds to her abdomen and bruising to her face. Her injuries are not believed to be life-threatening.
A 36-year-old man who was arrested by police has been bailed pending further enquiries. | A woman is being treated for stab wounds after being attacked in Derry. | 32732834 |
It would be fair to say that Sir Elton John is a bit of a sports fan.
"I love all sports and would say I'm a huge sports fan," the 68-year-old pop legend told me in between calls from world leaders and leaders of the line.
"I follow the football, tennis, Olympic sports like cycling, cricket, athletics, rugby and pretty much any sport on the BBC Sport pages!"
But John's interest in sport goes far beyond the internet, the remote control or seats in Vicarage Road's Sir Elton John Stand.
Inspired by London 2012, John set up Rocket Sports Management to "guide emerging sports stars through their careers, whatever the highs and lows".
Jason Kenny, Geraint Thomas and Laura Trott are among the leading cyclists on his books, and sprinter Richard Kilty and high jumper Isobel Pooley represent the world of athletics, but when John says "emerging sports stars" he really means it.
A long-term supporter of SportsAid, a national charity that has been helping aspiring athletes for nearly 40 years, John raised his game considerably when he put on a fund-raising show for the charity at Stoke Park Golf Club last summer.
The end product was £300,000 and the creation of the Elton John Sports Fund, a pot of cash to be shared among some of the most deserving young prospects across the 75 disciplines that SportsAid backs every year.
The pop prodigy, who had the first of his more than 50 global hits at 23, should be impressed with his first wave's progress, as three of the five selected in 2014 reached the final 10 of SportsAid's prestigious 2015 One-to-Watch Award, an annual competition that has been won in the past by diving's Tom Daley, heptathlete Morgan Lake and sprinter Jodie Williams.
The Elton-backed trio - sprinter James Arnott, triathlete Ben Dijkstra and tennis player Katie Swan - had spectacular years, particularly Arnott, who made the final three, but that does not mean the other two disappointed.
Rowing's Molly Harding won a silver medal in the women's quad at the Junior World Rowing Championships, and cyclist Fred Wright earned a bronze at the European Youth Olympic Festival. We are talking about some serious sporting talent here.
This year's winner, 16-year-old windsurfing wonder Emma Wilson, is a youth world champion already competing as a senior.
But we are also talking about teenagers; young athletes who have barely begun on the yellow brick road to stardom, let alone bid it farewell.
"I understand that it is vital for young people to get support and encouragement at this stage of their lives, especially when they have shown so much promise but face so many challenges and potential distractions," the Pinner-born, piano-playing philanthropist explained.
"We want to keep them in sport - they are fantastic role models and we should acknowledge this.
"Money is the biggest challenge these young athletes face - they receive no other income or support beyond their family and charities such as SportsAid, everything is done off their own back.
"Even when they pull on the GB vest at age-group level they are still paying for the privilege."
The impact of lottery funding on British sport is well documented: it has transformed our fortunes at Olympic and Paralympic level since 1996 and helped create a genuinely world-leading elite sports system.
But we also know we continue to lose talent before it reaches the level where lottery lolly kicks in. We also know that privately-educated athletes are disproportionately represented in our senior teams, and state-educated children often struggle to find good coaching, equipment and facilities.
A SportsAid study published in 2012 found that the tier of British sporting talent just below full lottery support spends about £6,400 a year on their training.
Grants from the Elton John Sports Fund, which is now backing 20 athletes, are worth £2,000 a year, double the standard SportsAid cheque of £1,000.
And there is no doubt that this investment bears fruit: two thirds of Team GB's athletes at London 2012 were former recipients of this support, combining for 47 Olympic and Paralympic gold medals.
Arnott, an engaging 18-year-old, has used his award to help fund his costs at Oaklands College, the Hertfordshire-based further education college that he moved to from Devon to be closer to his training group.
That move paid off earlier this year when he won 100m gold in the T46 category at the World Junior Games. A confident lad, Arnott takes the comparisons with London 2012 star Jonnie Peacock in his stride.
Dijkstra, only 16 but already at ease handling questions from nosey journalists, has just won the world junior duathlon title in Australia. His funding has enabled him to train with the elite athletes at Loughborough University. His progress has been staggering.
Swan can sing the same song, a runner-up at the Australian Open Juniors and a world ranking of five in the junior list.
"All the athletes we help have shown that they have great potential just by being nominated to SportsAid [which has given grants to 1,200 12- to 18-year-olds this year] in the first place," said John.
"It would be fantastic if they did go on to achieve Olympic or Paralympic success but wherever they end up, we are proud to have been part of their journey."
John, who has sold more than 300 million records during his career, understands that concept of a journey to the top better than most.
He could pick out tunes on the piano at four, won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music at 11, performed in pubs at 15 and wrote hit tunes for others at 20. These were necessary steps along the path to success, similar to those taken by future Olympians and Premier League heroes.
"Both music and sport take a lot of hard work and commitment without much recognition along the way, especially at the early stages," he explained.
"It is important in sport as much as music that we give a platform to people who show promise - the impact of that recognition can be huge, it tells them the sacrifices are worth it.
"I also once heard someone say: 'All musicians want to be sports stars and all sports stars want to be musicians.' I think there's an element of truth in that!" | In the last few weeks, he has played tennis with Andre Agassi and Martina Navratilova in Las Vegas, led the cheers for F1 champion Lewis Hamilton in Texas and been on the phone to congratulate Watford striker Troy Deeney on his first Premier League goal. | 34746342 |
The incident happened at about 16:30 on Saturday. No one was hurt.
Police said they were attempting to trace the operator of the remote aircraft, who was within the grounds of the 67m (220ft) high monument at the time.
Officers said the incident was an example of the risks of flying drones in crowded or built-up areas.
Insp Cheryle Cowan said: "While the use of drones is becoming more popular for members of the public when filming and photographing scenic areas or places of interest, it is essential that they are utilised responsibly so as not to cause alarm or injury to other members of the public.
"I would advise that drone operators familiarise themselves with all the appropriate legislation so as to ensure they adhere to existing aviation laws and regulations, and be aware of the areas in our community where drone activity may pose a particular sensitivity." | A drone smashed a window after crashing into the Wallace Monument in Stirling, it has emerged. | 34542583 |
The Kirkcaldy side twice came from behind to level but lost a late goal at Easter Road, James Keatings sealing a 3-2 home win with a late free-kick.
"We're going to have to be a lot more resolute," said Hughes.
"You cannot come to Easter Road and concede three goals and expect to win the game."
St Mirren - one point below Raith - host Hughes' side on Saturday when Ayr United, who are two points adrift at the bottom, welcome champions Hibs.
And, in the final week of fixtures, Raith host Ayr while St Mirren visit Hibs.
The team finishing bottom will be relegated to League One and the second bottom side will go into the play-offs with three sides from the division below.
"Right at this moment in time, I'll take a play-off place," Hughes told BBC Scotland. "We'll take our chances there.
"I think we can go to St Mirren and beat them. St Mirren are a much improved side since Christmas. Although we beat them 2-0 at our place [in March], I felt they were the better team and hopefully we can go and do that again on Saturday.
"It's nip and tuck."
Hughes was upset with the manner in which his side conceded at Easter Road, with Keatings netting from close range in the first half, Grant Holt scoring from a long ball in the second and Keatings converting a stoppage-time free-kick following Jordan Thompson's handball.
Declan McManus and Ryan Hardie struck for the visitors.
"That's been the story of the season, unfortunately," added Hughes, who has been in charge of Rovers for 11 games. "I felt the boys put an awful lot of effort in, kept coming back.
"I really feel for the boys, in terms of effort, commitment. We beat ourselves. We need to be street-wise, we need to be crafty.
"I always feel we've got a goal in us but we need to keep the back door shut and that starts from the front."
Fringe players impress for hosts
Hibs made 10 changes to the side that lost Saturday's Scottish Cup semi-final to Aberdeen, with 17-year-old Fraser Murray making his first league start.
"I thought we deserved it," said head coach Neil Lennon. "We've given poor goals away but we always looked a threat.
"I had plenty of experience mixed with youth and the younger ones did their chances no harm at all.
"There was nothing on the game for us, so we could play without pressure, a luxury we haven't been able to afford.
"The rest will have done the others the world of good and I'm sure they will be itching to get back and the lads who played tonight will be buoyant." | Raith Rovers manager John Hughes says he would "take a play-off place" after losing to Hibernian to remain a point above the Championship's bottom two. | 39727218 |
The country's environment ministry also announced an investigation into VW cars sold in China, after the German carmaker admitted installing software designed to cheat emissions tests.
VW has said that 11 million vehicles are affected worldwide.
The carmaker offered its "sincerest apologies" to its Chinese customers.
It is recalling 1,950 cars, mainly Tiguan models, all imported into China. This represents a small fraction of the total number of VWs imported by the country.
However, analysts said the recall comes at a bad time for the world's biggest carmaker.
"I have so far seen little impact on consumers' confidence and trust in the VW brand [in China], but we need to continue to monitor that," said Yale Zhang from Shanghai-based Automotive Foresight.
"Their sales are already weak this year thanks to the slowdown in China's general economy.
"If sales took a further beating from the current emissions scandal, that would further complicate their position globally following the scandal."
VW has already appointed a new chief executive and chairman after the revelations last month that its cars cheated emissions tests in the US.
The company has launched a thorough investigation into the scandal, but new chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch warned last week that answers would take "some time".
VW has set aside €6.5bn ($7.4bn; £4.8bn) to cover the costs of the scandal, but some experts believe the final bill could be much higher.
Shares in the company recovered slightly last week but are still down more than 20% since the scandal broke in the middle of September. | Volkswagen has said it is recalling almost 2,000 cars in China as the fallout from the diesel emissions scandal continues. | 34503141 |
The Railway Street drugs misuse service in Ballymena was partly paid for by the Department of Justice.
However, it is withdrawing funding after 14 years due to budget cuts.
The service has been independently assessed as a model of best practice in helping injecting drug users across the UK.
Justice Minister David Ford said the move was "regrettable but unavoidable".
"It is one of many difficult funding decisions I am currently having to make in order to balance the books," he said.
"In light of the financial constraints being imposed I have advised the Northern Trust that the Department of Justice share of the funding for this partnership project between the justice system and the health service would cease on 28 February 2015."
Oscar Donnelly, director of mental health and disability for the Northern Trust, said: "Unfortunately the withdrawal of two thirds of the funding for the scheme means that we will not be able to sustain it in its present form.
"The trust will need to review the way in which a significantly reduced service can be provided in the future." | A facility in County Antrim that works to reduce the harm caused by drugs will close early next year because of a lack of funding. | 29998563 |
Suphat Saquandeekul, who was deputy director of the office of intellectual property, was identified on security cameras lifting three paintings off the corridor walls of the Kyoto hotel.
The paintings, worth around $125 (£100), were later found in his bags.
In an apology released to the media, Mr Suphat said that he was drunk when he attempted the theft.
The 60-year-old, who was working for a body tasked with trying to roll back Thailand's reputation as a counterfeit hub, had been in the popular tourist city after attending meetings in Osaka.
"After I finished my mission in Japan I met with some university friends. We were drunk and I unconsciously and unintentionally committed an inappropriate act," he wrote in the letter.
It did not take long for the hotel to notice the missing pictures, and Mr Suphat quickly found himself under arrest - sending Thai diplomats scrambling to secure his release.
He was freed after he admitted his guilt and paid the hotel compensation.
But his hopes of retaining a job on his return were short-lived, and the resignation comes a week after the scandal broke - ending his 33-year career with the service. | A Thai official has resigned after he was caught stealing paintings from a hotel in Japan. | 38808516 |
Storms Desmond, Eva, Frank and Gertrude all caused major issues in the area, as did poor weather on 27 January.
A report to councillors said nearly 400 repair jobs eligible for support under the Bellwin Scheme had been identified.
Their cost is likely to exceed £3.5m. Scottish Borders Council is bidding for a further £925,000 from another scheme.
The Scottish Borders was hit by heavy rainfalls throughout the winter with Hawick, Jedburgh, Newcastleton and Peebles badly affected.
A lengthy list of repairs has been drawn up across the region and many of them have already been carried out.
Most of them should be funded by the Scottish government via the Bellwin Scheme.
However, SBC will need to fund the first £508,000 of works.
The local authority also hopes to get further capital funding from a separate government-backed compensation scheme.
It would be used to replace the Bowanhill Bridge near Teviothead and Newmill footbridge north of Jedburgh, and carry out embankment works on the Ettrick Water in Selkirk. | The latest estimate of the cost of repairing the damage caused by severe winter weather in the Borders has said it could exceed £3.5m. | 36607392 |
The 33-year-old will go up against Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt and South Africa's 400m star Wayde van Niekerk.
The women's award is between Ethiopia's 10,000m champion Almaz Ayana, Jamaican sprinter Elaine Thompson and hammer thrower Anita Wlodarczyk from Poland.
The awards will be presented in Monaco on 2 December.
The three athletes in each category were shortlisted from an original list of 10 announced last month following a vote of representatives from all sections of the sport and members of the public.
Farah secured a historic 'double double' by retaining both his 5,000m and 10,000m Olympic titles in Rio.
Bolt sealed the 'triple triple' in Rio, winning his third Olympic title in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay while Van Niekerk became the first man to run sub-10 seconds for the 100m, sub-20 for the 200m and sub-44 for the 400m, breaking Michael Johnson's 17-year world record on his way to Olympic gold.
Paula Radcliffe, in 2002, was the last British athlete to win one of the IAAF's end-of-year awards while the last Briton to win the men's award was triple jumper Jonathan Edwards in 1995, the year in which he jumped 18.29m - still the world record. | Great Britain's Olympic champion Mo Farah is one of three athletes still in contention for the men's IAAF World Athlete of the Year award. | 37927540 |
At risk are photographs, home videos and music collections as well as scans of documents such as passports, tax forms and other sources of personal data. In some cases, back-up files are being made available that, if downloaded and restored, could let attackers take over a victim's online life.
Security firms suggest that attackers have already found out about this easy-to-access source of saleable data and are starting to actively seek it out and share it.
Those at risk are people who use home data storage devices known as Network Attached Storage (NAS). Correctly configured, these devices act as a common data store accessible by any other device connecting to that home network.
However, many people have set them up incorrectly and have accidentally made this data accessible not just to their home network but to the internet at large. Visiting this data is as easy as visiting any other webpage.
To find out how many people are accidentally sharing their data online, the BBC turned to the Shodan search engine. While Google, Bing and others seek out data on the net, Shodan looks for devices.
In the past, security researchers have used Shodan to expose insecure and poorly protected computers controlling industrial plants, power plants, heating and ventilation systems and CCTV streams.
A search via Shodan turned up tens of thousands of NAS systems in UK homes.
Working out which ones of these are sharing personal data is difficult because British computer misuse laws do not allow the BBC to visit them to see which are happy to share data with anyone.
An idea of how many are exposed to the net can be gleaned by examining the information that Shodan collects about the NAS boxes. This gives a strong hint that many are making public huge amounts of private data.
Independent corroboration of the BBC's findings has been given by security firm Digital Shadows. Among other things, the firm helps large businesses find out how much information about them is being shared online. As part of this work, Digital Shadows carries out surveys that seek places where internal data leaks out on to the net.
Domestic NAS boxes are regular sources of these leaks, said James Chappell, chief technology officer at Digital Shadows.
"We've seen tens of thousands that are available online," said Mr Chappell. "We've also definitely seen an increase in the number of devices in the last six months.
"The most worrying part is that it's getting worse."
Mr Chappell has no doubt that a lot of the data available via these NAS boxes is deeply personal.
"For me, the most worrying part of this is that consumers are just trusting the device manufacturer to make smart choices about how they defend the security of their devices," he said. "They need to be aware that the manufacturer may not be as diligent as they hope."
Owners of NAS boxes should check to ensure that they are configured to surrender data only to devices within their home network, he said.
The default state of many of the devices is to share widely, he said, and often owners have to make a specific choice to restrict access.
There was evidence that attackers were starting to realise that home NAS boxes could be a good source of saleable data, said Mr Chappell.
The net scans that Digital Shadows carried out regularly revealed links to domestic NAS boxes on the Google index, he said.
"That means it will have to have been shared somewhere else to make it crop up on a search engine."
That "somewhere else" could well be a place where cyberthieves gathered or swapped data, he said.
Criminals were certainly starting to take more interest in home networking devices, said Craig Young, a researcher from Tripwire who has studied the security shortcomings of both NAS boxes and home routers.
"It does seem like large-scale attacks on these devices are coming more frequently," said Mr Young.
One such attack took place in February when Poland's Computer Emergency Response Team reported details of an attack on routers that installed snooping software on vulnerable devices. This software watched data traffic passing out of the device, grabbed any that related to online banking and passed it back to the gang behind the attack.
Unfortunately, he said, the poor security on many routers meant that success was almost guaranteed for attackers that targeted home hardware.
"Manufacturers could make them better but it would cost them development time and money," he said. "I have not seen any that do things like encrypt passwords and all are designed to use just rudimentary security controls."
Mr Young helped to organise a competition at the recent Defcon hacker conference that tried to see how well widely used home routers withstood attacks. All nine routers used in the contest were comprehensively compromised and the event found a series of hitherto unknown vulnerabilities in the software used to control them.
Similarly Jacob Holcomb from Independent Security Evaluators has found a large number of easy-to-exploit vulnerabilities in many popular NAS boxes. Many hand over data when hit by the most basic attacks, he said.
Getting known faults on routers fixed could be frustrating, said Mr Young.
"I've worked with several vendors and I'll report that there's an authentication bypass in Model X and after a bit of pushing I get that fixed on the model," he said.
"However," he added, "they then don't fix the same bug on other devices, even if the change to the firmware is the same for all of them."
Given this lackadaisical attitude, it was worth consumers taking a little time to protect themselves.
"They tend to have very common flaws that people really need to be paying more attention to," he said. "Change the IP address, change the default password, upgrade the firmware once in a while.
"It's really pretty straightforward," he said. | Thousands of Britons could be inadvertently sharing their digital secrets with anyone who knows where to click, suggests a BBC investigation. | 28707117 |
It is a remarkable achievement for the tiny island nation, which is located on an archipelago off the northwest coast of the continent.
The Blue Sharks have replaced giants Ivory Coast at the summit, with the African champions dropping down to second spot.
Cameroon also improved, moving into the top 10 at the expense of Guinea.
Top 10 African sides in Fifa's rankings for March
1. Cape Verde Islands
2. Ivory Coast
3. Algeria
4. Ghana
5. Tunisia
6. Senegal
7. Egypt
8. DR Congo
9. Congo
10. Cameroon | Cape Verde have moved to the top of the list of African sides in Fifa's world rankings for March. | 35718666 |
The PSNI have revealed that 383 drivers were arrested between 24 November and 3 January.
This represents a 4% decrease compared to the same period in 2015/16.
Nearly 11,000 drivers were breathalysed during that period - a 125% rise in the number of people tested.
Almost 300 other drivers received a warning after testing positive for alcohol, but within the legal limit.
Ass Ch Cons Alan Todd said the offenders ranged from teenagers to people in their 80s.
"One person was detected at over four times the drink-drive limit, with a reading of 149 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millimetres of breath.
"We've had people literally falling out of their cars and people detected throughout the day and night across the country.
"Nearly 400 people across Northern Ireland are now facing the stark reality of a court appearance where they will most likely lose their driving license for one or more years, be fined, and will have great difficulty in obtaining car insurance in the future.
"Many also risk losing their jobs or going to jail.
"The alternative consequences had they not been caught do not bear thinking about. Each one of these drink-drive detections has potentially saved lives." | The number of arrests for drink-driving over Christmas in Northern Ireland fell, despite police more than doubling the amount of tests. | 38644155 |
At least 67 tigers have died this year - many as a result of conflict with humans, including poachers, they say.
"There is no transparency in these matters," Theodore Baskaran, a former trustee of WWF-India, told the BBC.
India is home to 60% of the world's tigers but they face increasing habitat loss and demand for their body parts in China and other parts of Asia.
Senior officials of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) confirmed to the BBC that the bodies of 58 tigers had been recovered between January and June this year, as well as body parts from nine other tiger fatalities.
Karnataka state in the south recorded 14 deaths, more than any other, while the central state of Madhya Pradesh accounted for 13.
"Wildlife activists are alarmed mainly because of the secrecy surrounding the deaths. Also there is no co-ordination between researchers and the forest department," Theodore Baskaran said.
But NTCA authorities say each case is dealt with according to standard operating procedures. They said they were unable to divulge the causes for this year's tiger deaths until final reports from field officers had been received.
On current trends this year's mortality rate could surpass last year, when 120 deaths were recorded, the highest number since 2006. Tiger deaths have steadily gone up in India in recent years. In 2015 officials reported 80 tiger deaths, and 78 in the previous year.
It is thought India had about 100,000 tigers a century ago. Numbers had plummeted to fewer than 1,500 by the early years of this millennium.
Tigers are now on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list of endangered animals.
They are found in just 2% of India and encroachment by humans on their habitat - as well as poaching for body parts and trophy hunting - is a key factor in their decline.
Since 2006 conservation efforts have yielded significant results, however. India's tiger population rose from 1,706 to 2,226 during the period 2011-2016.
But conservationists say much more needs to be done.
Theodore Baskaran and other activists want forest officials to cultivate the goodwill of forest dwellers around sanctuaries.
"The digital camera revolution coupled with uncontrolled tourism inside tiger territory is a worrying trend," he said.
"As thousands of camera-toting tourists go closer and closer into their habitat, the big cats get used to human proximity. This helps poachers get close to the animals and kill them."
Tigers also face extensive health dangers from diseases such as canine distemper spread by stray dogs from villages close to sanctuaries, scientific studies show.
"The higher number of deaths in the current year so far is also due to natural mortality. Deaths due to poaching and accidents are preventable and those are the ones that worry us," Belinda Wright, executive director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI), told the BBC.
According to WPSI records, so far this year 17 tigers died due to infighting and 18 were reported to have been found dead, with cause of death unknown.
The group says 19 tigers died at the hands of poachers. She and other conservation activists are concerned about the growing number of tigers killed by electrocution and and other methods in the human-tiger conflict.
"Tiger numbers have increased, and this in turn will be reflected in the number of natural deaths. While conservation efforts have had an effect there are still improvements needed, which include improved intelligence and enforcement of laws," she says.
Human-tiger conflict poses a huge challenge to conservation efforts. For a tiger to survive it needs about 25,000 acres of forest land.
Shrinking forest leads to scarcity of prey and the tigers are forced to invade villages and hunt cattle on which many local communities depend for their livelihood.
In retaliation tigers are poisoned, killed or captured. | Wildlife activists have accused Indian authorities of a culture of secrecy around steadily rising tiger deaths. | 40579567 |
The 21-year-old, who is the daughter of trainer Aidan O'Brien, was injured when her mount Druids Cross slipped two furlongs out in the second race.
She was taken away in an air ambulance with fractures to her neck, back and cheeks, according to the Racing Post.
Druids Cross, a three-year-old trained by Ana's brother Joseph, was fatally injured.
O'Brien secured her first race win in 2013 at 16 and rode for her father in this year's English and Irish Derbys. | Irish jockey Ana O'Brien has been airlifted to hospital following a fall at Killarney on Tuesday night. | 40650858 |
Residents of the town of Barnaul in Siberia, tired of corruption scandals, put Barsik's name forward for mayor in an unofficial online poll.
The 18-month-old finished ahead of his human rivals, with more than 90% of the 5,400 votes cast.
But, sadly for his supporters, he is not formally registered as a candidate, so will not be allowed to take office.
Barsik is far from alone, however - he is only the latest animal to be backed for political office. Some have even succeeded.
The extravagantly-named cat from Kentucky is seeking the Democratic nomination for the 2016 US election. There are no reliable polls to indicate where he is polling behind Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
Limberbutt's campaign website says he "has a kind heart and fierce loyalty to America", backs affordable health care for all humans and cats, and supports increased space travel, especially for cats.
Saucisse - French for sausage - had already tasted fame thanks to appearances in his owner Serge Scotto's crime novels. But his career really took off in 1998, when he ran for mayor of Marseille as a protest candidate.
His campaign slogan translated as "For a more humane saus-iety, not a dog's life!" - and it seemed to work, as he gained 4.5% of the vote. He went on to compete in the 2002 presidential elections, but lost out to Jacques Chirac.
Sadly, Saucisse passed away in 2014 aged 16, but such was his notoriety, a park was named in his honour in Marseille.
It is quite something when a pig is one of the cleanest candidates on a ballot. Such was the case in Flint, Michigan, last month when nominees included two convicted criminals - among them one man who served 19 years in prison for murder.
"I think electing a mayor who was convicted of murder sends a bad message about our city," lawyer Michael Ewing said, when announcing the campaign to elect Giggles.
In the end, the mini-pig dropped out of the race. The convicted killer did not win either.
It is important to point out, should it not be obvious, that H'Angus is in fact a man - Stuart Drummond - dressed as a monkey.
H'Angus is the mascot of Hartlepool football club in the north-east of England, and was named mayor of the town in 2002 even though Mr Drummond initially ran as a joke.
Why a monkey? Folklore says a French ship was wrecked off Hartlepool in the Napoleonic Wars. A monkey found in the water was hanged by fishermen who feared it was a French spy.
Mr Drummond, under his real name, won two further elections. H'Angus, meanwhile, is still going strong. | When it comes to prominent election campaign slogans, the one for Barsik the Cat clearly struck a chord with voters: "Only mice don't vote for Barsik!" | 35110859 |
The region is now expected to grow by 5.8% this year and 6% in 2016, revised down from March's forecast of 6.3% for both years.
The bank said China's slowing growth would affect demand in Asian economies.
It expects the world's second largest economy to grow by 6.8% this year, below the government's forecast of 7%.
China's economy grew by 7.3% last year and the ADB expects its growth to slow even more next year to 6.7%.
Earlier this month, the International Monetary Fund flagged that slower Chinese growth posed a threat to the global economy, as it would reduce demand for commodities from other economies.
The US Federal Reserve held off raising interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade last week, in part due to concerns over the impact of the slowdown in China.
The Philippines-based ADB also highlighted that slowing growth in the another Asian powerhouse - India - would weigh heavily on the region.
It expects growth in India to slip to 7.4% this year from an earlier forecast of 7.8%, due to weaker external demand and slower reforms "holding back" India's economy.
"To counter the impacts of a US rate rise, monetary policy authorities in developing Asia will need to find a balance between stabilising the financial sector and stimulating domestic demand," the report said.
Policymakers in both China and India have cut interest rates several times this year, among other measures, in an attempt to boost lending and lift consumer demand. | The Asian Development Bank has lowered its growth forecasts for Asia's developing economies on the back of slowing growth in both China and India. | 34322098 |
The Kangleyuan home in Henan province was built with flammable material and had poorly designed fire escape routes, said the national work safety agency.
The fire on Monday night killed 38 and injured another six people.
The case has revived public concern in China about building safety and construction standards.
The State Administration for Work Safety said that initial investigations showed that the home "did not meet standards" in multiple areas.
It said it was constructed with steel boards stuffed with flammable material, fire escape routes were narrow, and fire and electrical safety management had "irregularities".
It added that the incident showed that local authorities' checks had failed and regulatory measures were inadequate.
The Southern Weekly newspaper quoted locals as saying such construction was common in the area, and called them "steel foam homes" as the buildings were often padded out with cheap foam for insulation.
Local media have run pictures showing insurance companies that set up booths at the site, with female marketing agents handing out brochures and canvassing for customers. Reports said the companies were also offering to help facilitate claims for families of the victims.
Meanwhile the top prosecution body in China, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, announced it would be joining local officials in the investigation.
It will be paying special attention to crimes including dereliction of duty, power abuse and self-seeking malpractice, according to Xinhua news agency.
At least 12 people have been detained in connection with the fire, including the home's legal representative.
President Xi Jinping had earlier this week ordered "all-out efforts" to care for the injured and bereaved relatives and to find out what had gone wrong. | A Chinese nursing home destroyed by a deadly fire was poorly constructed and top-level prosecutors have been sent to investigate, authorities say. | 32911115 |
In a two-hour private meeting Mr Obama sought to rally members of his party, as Republicans took their first steps to dismantle his signature bill.
Vice President-elect Mike Pence was also at Congress, where he told his party they would replace Obamacare.
The law has extended health coverage to an estimated 20 million Americans.
But the 2010 Affordable Care Act law has been hit by soaring premium costs and major insurers withdrawing from the scheme, leaving Americans with fewer choices for coverage.
After the outgoing president's rare visit to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings told reporters Mr Obama had "encouraged us to fight" to protect his flagship domestic policy accomplishment.
Some of those present told US media the president had also urged them to "stay strong" as Republicans prepare to take control of the White House and both chambers of Congress for the first time in a decade.
He spoke as Republicans in the Senate took the first step to begin demolishing Obamacare.
They voted by 51 to 48 to debate a budget resolution designed to starve the programme of funding.
President Obama is not prepared to give up on his healthcare reforms without a fight. His final visit to Congress is a reminder that in just 16 days' time, his fellow Democrats will hold very little political sway in this battle.
But publicly they've decided to talk tough. Congressman Gregory Meeks told me he knows Obamacare has its faults but it brings healthcare to millions who wouldn't otherwise have it. That's a key message Democrats are trying to publicise, but it is one they perhaps didn't make clearly enough during the election campaign.
They also know Republicans have a weak spot. Repealing Obamacare will be the easy part - they have the votes they need and the backing of a president-elect who made it a key campaign pledge.
However, so far no Republican has come forward with a clear replacement plan. Congressman Bruce Westerman told me they don't want to rip up and get rid of all of the reforms.
Democrats hope they can at least exploit this to delay any dismantling of the Affordable Care Act and in doing so preserve President Obama's key legislative achievement.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer warned that scrapping the law would throw the insurance marketplace into turmoil and - in a play on Mr Trump's campaign slogan - "Make America Sick Again".
But Vice-President-elect Mike Pence, after meeting fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill, said they would bring about a "smooth transition to a market-based healthcare reform system".
He said repealing and replacing Obamacare was "first order of business" for President-elect Donald Trump and Congress.
House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said Republicans - who have voted more than 50 times to try to repeal all or part of Obamacare - "have a plan" and "plenty of ideas."
But during two news conferences, Mr Ryan, Mr Pence and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell offered few details on their proposed replacement.
Read more
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said: "One of the most articulate Republicans on Capitol Hill is the speaker of the House.
"And he did a news conference today where he was unable to explain why Republicans have not put forward their replacement plan."
Mr Trump - who will be sworn in as president on 20 January - wrote earlier on Twitter that Republicans "must be careful in that the Dems own the failed ObamaCare disaster".
He predicted it would "fall of its own weight - be careful!"
The Obama administration said on Wednesday that 8.8 million Americans had enrolled in Obamacare for 2017, about 200,000 more than at the same time a year ago.
Mr Trump criticised the Affordable Care Act during his campaign, promising it would be replaced by something "much better and much less expensive".
But after meeting President Obama in the days following his November victory, he vowed to keep some popular elements of the law in place.
Mr Trump said he liked the rule barring insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions. | President Barack Obama has urged fellow Democrats to fight for his healthcare bill, as the incoming Trump team vowed to make a repeal of the law a priority. | 38503413 |
Cwmcarn Forest Drive in Caerphilly county closed to cars in 2014 as contractors cut down thousands of larch trees to prevent the spread of disease.
Natural Resources Wales, which is replanting 170,000 trees, can only reopen if it is "managed differently".
The Welsh Government acknowledged the concerns.
But officials said it "made sense" to await the results of a feasibility study due to be commissioned.
About 860 hectares (2,125 acres) of the site was covered with larch trees, which, like many across Europe, had succumbed to dieback disease, Phytophthora ramorum.
Contractors are half way through the felling operation to remove the affected trees to stop the spread of the disease, but will continue to cut down larch in other areas until 2020.
Special machinery and zip-lines have had to be employed to remove the trees from a challenging terrain.
Work is now underway to plant 170,000 new trees to replace those felled since 2014.
A mixture of species including oak, pine and conifers will replace the larch there were at Cwmcarn Forest Drive.
A mix of oak, pine and conifer species are now being planted in their place.
It is hoped different species, grown from seeds taken from the wider area, might be more resistant to climate change and other diseases.
Natural Resources Wales (NRW) said, while walking and mountain biking trails have re-opened, it does not have the budget to do the same with the area's scenic drive.
When it was last open, motorists were charged a fee to use the seven mile (11km) route with stunning views of the valley, but it ran at a loss and has remained closed since felling began in 2014.
Sally Tansey, from NRW, said a feasibility study to be commissioned this summer would look at how the wider area might be managed differently to bring in more money, which could subsidise the drive.
"For the first time we're actually looking in an open-book way at the assets that we've got, the assets that Caerphilly County Borough Council have got - they've got the visitor centre and camping sites, we've got the forest drive," she said.
"It's the first time we've looked at whether someone could make better use of those assets if somebody was to manage them all together."
Rob Southall, chairman of the Friends of Cwmcarn Forest Drive campaign group, said, while he understood NRW's financial position, the drive was important for older and disabled people to enjoy the "gorgeous scenery".
More than 750 people have signed an online petition and a further 300 on a paper petition calling for it to reopen by Easter 2018.
"A thousand people have put themselves forward to say 'we would like this open to the public' so let's get the Welsh Government to actually do something about it," he said.
A Welsh Government spokesman said management of the forest drive was a decision for Natural Resources Wales.
"We appreciate the local community's concerns but believe it makes sense to wait for the outcome of the work that NRW and Caerphilly CBC are undertaking," he added. | More than 1,000 people have called on the Welsh Government to intervene with funding to ensure a popular scenic drive reopens next year. | 39757593 |
The six family photographs were taken after the royals arrived in the Alps for a short holiday on Wednesday night.
They were taken the next day - when Prince George and Princess Charlotte played in the snow for the first time.
Kensington Palace said it had been a "very special and fun" family holiday.
The photographs include one of Prince William holding Princess Charlotte, while the duke and duchess are shown having a snowball fight in separate photographs.
A palace spokesman said: "This was their first holiday as a family of four and the first time either of the children had played in the snow. It was very special and fun short holiday for the family.
"The Duke and Duchess hope people enjoy the photos," the spokesman added.
Princess Charlotte was born in May last year, while Prince George is two.
By Peter Hunt, BBC royal correspondent
The timing of this royal winter break could be viewed as rather unfortunate.
It comes after Prince William has been accused by some newspapers of shirking royal engagements, with the Sun demanding: "Where's Willy?"
The answer, for a few days last week, was the French Alps with his children and his wife.
The pictures will delight those who support the royals and who are avid consumers of images of Prince George and Princess Charlotte. Such people will argue that everyone is entitled to downtime.
William's critics will continue to question whether he's reluctant to fully embrace his destiny. They insist he could do more in support of his soon-to-be 90-year-old grandmother, the Queen.
Defenders of the future king stress that he combines his work as a royal with his job as an air ambulance pilot and his role as a father.
Read more from Peter | The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have released a series of photographs of their trip to the French Alps - their first family holiday since the birth of Princess Charlotte. | 35744566 |
World champion Van Gerwen, 27, had set a new record of 44 televised games without defeat by beating James Wade.
That win and Peter Wright's loss to Phil Taylor left Van Gerwen one point clear at the top of the table.
But Van Gerwen then lost 7-5 to fellow Dutchman Van Barneveld, who missed double 12 for a nine-dart finish.
It was Van Gerwen's first defeat on television since losing to Taylor in the final of the Champions League of Darts in September and his new record passed the mark set by Taylor between November 2004 and July 2005.
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The defending Premier League champion was in action twice in Manchester, having missed round five in Exeter with a back injury.
Elsewhere, Belgium's Kim Huybrechts and Jelle Klaasen of the Netherlands were eliminated from the competition following defeats by Gary Anderson and Adrian Lewis respectively.
The pair will appear for the final time in Cardiff on 30 March, before the field is reduced to eight players.
Michael van Gerwen (Ned) 7-4 James Wade (Eng)
Kim Huybrechts (Bel) 2-7 Gary Anderson (Sco)
Peter Wright (Sco) 5-7 Phil Taylor (Eng)
Jelle Klaasen (Ned) 5-7 Adrian Lewis (Eng)
Raymond van Barneveld (Ned) 7-5 Michael van Gerwen (Ned) | Raymond van Barneveld ended Michael van Gerwen's record unbeaten run on television during an eventful Premier League round eight in Manchester. | 39326847 |
Atlanta Federal Reserve president Dennis Lockhart told the Wall Street Journal that it would take significant deterioration in the economy for him not to support a rise in September.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei index closed up 0.5% at 20,614.06 points.
The market was bolstered by construction shares after a rise in earnings at Kajima Corp.
However, shares in carmaker Toyota fell 2.4%, despite the carmaker reporting a 10% rise in quarterly profits.
In China, the Shanghai Composite closed 1.7% lower at 3,694.57, despite a survey indicating that activity in China's services sector expanded at its fastest pace in 11 months in July.
The Caixin/Markit services purchasing managers' index rose to 53.8 from June's 51.8 - also marking its 12th consecutive month of expansion. A reading above 50 indicates growth in the sector.
Hong Kong did not follow the downward lead from the mainland, though, and finished 0.5% higher at 24,522.29 points.
In South Korea, the Kospi index closed up 0.1% at 2,029.76, while in Australia the S&P/ASX 200 index ended down 0.4% at 5,674. | Asian shares were mixed on Wednesday as traders mulled chances of a US interest rate rise as soon as next month. | 33783348 |
Jason Cummings curled in a superb goal for Hibs in the 11th minute.
Hibs' Mark Oxley saved from James Tavernier as Rangers rallied but he was helpless when Darren McGregor deflected in Lee Wallace's shot.
Wallace and Rangers substitute Nathan Oduwa hit the woodwork before Paul Hanlon headed in a 73rd-minute winner.
The defeat ends Rangers' 100% win record in the Championship and takes Hibs' unbeaten record in all competitions to 11 games.
The game began at a frantic pace and the visiting fans were calling for a penalty after three minutes when Jason Holt fell to the ground under a challenge by Lewis Stevenson but, referee John Beaton had a long look at the incident before waving play on.
At the other end John McGinn dithered when he had a clear view of goal and allowed the ball to drift away without getting a shot away.
Hibs moved in front when Cummings collected the ball out on the right and, as the Rangers defence stood back and watched, the 20-year-old lashed in a stunning strike for his 11th goal of the campaign.
Oxley threw up an arm to deny a fizzing shot by Tavernier but Hibernian came close to adding a second when Marvin Bartley, who had replaced the injured Dylan McGeouch, set up Dominic Malonga.
However, his attempt at curling the ball into the top corner was a yard too high.
Rangers equalised within 90 seconds of the second half beginning when Wallace strode forward and banged a shot at goal that deflected past Oxley via the luckless McGregor.
Rangers looked the team more likely to score a second goal and only a wonderful one-handed save by Oxley kept out Martyn Waghorn's left-foot shot.
The rebound fell to Wallace who crashed a shot off the underside of the crossbar, with McGregor's headed deflection probably saving Rangers from taking the lead.
A delightful ball by McGinn gave Cummings a clear sight of goal after his classy first touch took him away from Rob Kiernan, but that skill was matched by the save from Wes Foderingham.
Nathan Oduwa replaced Danny Wilson as Rangers changed formation to a more conventional 4-4-2.
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And it almost paid dividends when Oduwa fired in a shot from the edge of the box that came back off the upright with Oxley scrambling along his line.
Hibernian regained the lead against the run of play when Hanlon took advantage of hesitancy in Rangers' defence to head in a McGinn corner from the right.
And although there were chances for both teams in the closing stages, there were no more goals and the home fans have renewed hope of catching Rangers in the Championship race. | Hibernian reduced the deficit at the top of the Scottish Championship to five points after victory over Rangers in a pulsating match at Easter Road. | 34630330 |
The 36-year-old, capped 129 times by England, has won eight league titles, nine FA Cups and one Uefa Women's Cup since her Gunners debut at the age of 16.
She made nine league appearances as Arsenal finished third in Women's Super League One last season.
The length of her contract has not been announced by the club.
Yankey was not included in Mark Sampson's squad for the SheBelieves Cup in the United States. | England midfielder Rachel Yankey has signed a new contract with Arsenal Ladies. | 35686319 |
Matt Taylor gave Rovers a second-half lead with a powerful header from Liam Lawrence's corner.
Lawrence turned from provider to scorer 22 minutes later as he struck home an exquisite 25-yard free-kick before Taylor netted a second header soon after following Chris Lines' corner.
Cristian Montano could have added a fourth, but Callum Preston saved well.
Rovers move up a place to third in the table on goal difference following Plymouth Argyle's 2-1 loss at Devon rivals Exeter City, while Crawley stay in 16th place.
Crawley Town boss Mark Yates told BBC Surrey:
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"We came to a team who are in form and have momentum with them and have got a goalscorer who has 25 now and we added to our own downfall conceding the goals we did.
"It was three set-pieces and we normally pride ourselves on being a decent set-piece side.
"I'm proud of the group and we've had so many things that have hindered us this year, for example the numbers, the training ground and I am not making excuses but it's been a tough year.
"I am just pleased after 40 games hopefully we are not near that bottom two and we haven't been in that bottom two all season." | Bristol Rovers moved back into the League Two play-off places with a comfortable win over Crawley Town. | 35902492 |
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