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Mohamed Abdeslam was speaking to French BFMTV after meeting Salah in his Belgian prison cell where he is awaiting extradition to France.
"There would have been more victims had I done it," Salah told him. "Luckily, I couldn't go through with it."
The gun and bomb attacks on a concert hall, a stadium, restaurants and bars on 13 November 2015 killed 130 people.
Abdeslam, 26, was arrested last month in Brussels four days before bomb attacks in Brussels killed 32 people.
Police believe the same militant network was behind attacks in both cities.
The French national, born in Belgium, had apparently been hiding in the Belgian capital for more than four months.
After his arrest, Abdeslam was initially questioned over his alleged role in the Paris attacks.
But after the suicide bombings in the Belgian capital, he chose to exercise his right to silence.
After meeting him in the Bruges prison, Mohamed Abdeslam said his brother had told him he wanted to co-operate with French authorities because he "is accountable to the French, but not to the Belgians" - a reference to the Belgian attacks.
However, Belgian authorities say Abdeslam has links to at least two of the Brussels bombers.
His fingerprints were found in a flat rented by Khalid el-Bakraoui, who blew himself up on the Brussels metro station on 22 March.
Investigators say Najim Laachraoui, named as one of the two Brussels airport bombers, was stopped by police in a car with Abdeslam on the Hungarian border with Austria in September.
Both the Paris and Brussels attacks have been claimed by so-called Islamic State. | Surviving Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam chose not to blow himself up to save lives, his brother says. | 35948009 |
Claudio Ranieri's side are one of eight seeded teams in the draw, which is scheduled to take place at 17:00 BST.
Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Paris St-Germain and Juventus are also seeded and will not face Leicester.
Arsenal, Tottenham, Manchester City cannot be drawn with Leicester but Scottish champions Celtic could be.
Celtic qualified for the group stage by beating Israel's Hapoel Beer Sheva 5-4 on aggregate.
The other seeded sides are Portuguese league winners Benfica and Russian champions CSKA Moscow.
Leicester produced one of the great sporting shocks to win last season's Premier League title and qualify for the Champions League for the first time.
The Foxes' last involvement in European football saw them knocked out in the first round of the Uefa Cup by Red Star Belgrade in 2000.
They could potentially be drawn in a group with last season's beaten finalists Atletico Madrid of Spain, Dutch champions PSV Eindhoven and Turkish league winners Besiktas.
Manchester City, who lost to champions Real Madrid in the semi-finals last season, qualified for the group stages thanks to a 6-0 aggregate win over Romania's Steaua Bucharest on Wednesday.
Pot 1: Real Madrid (Spain), Barcelona (Spain), Leicester City (England), Bayern Munich (Germany), Juventus (Italy), Benfica (Portugal), Paris Saint-Germain (France), CSKA Moscow (Russia).
Pot 2: Atletico Madrid (Spain), Borussia Dortmund (Germany), Arsenal (England), Manchester City (England), Sevilla (Spain), Porto (Portugal), Napoli (Italy), Bayer Leverkusen (Germany)
Pot 3: Basel (Switzerland), Tottenham Hotspur (England), Dynamo Kiev (Ukraine), Lyon (France), PSV Eindhoven (Netherlands), Sporting Lisbon (Portugal), Club Brugge (Belgium), Borussia Monchengladbach (Germany)
Pot 4: Celtic (Scotland), Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia), Monaco (France), Besiktas (Turkey), Legia Warsaw (Poland), Ludogorets Razgrad (Bulgaria), FC Copenhagen (Denmark), Rostov (Russia)
Take part in our new Premier League Predictor game, which allows you to create leagues with friends.
Subscribe to the BBC Sport newsletter to get our pick of news, features and video sent to your inbox. | Leicester City will find out who their first ever Champions League opponents will be when the draw for the group stage takes place on Thursday. | 37172376 |
The abuse doesn't involve intimate sexual contact and was reported to have taken place in Dublin and the midlands.
An alleged female victim reportedly told gardai that the minister abused her while in his previous profession.
The investigation is being carried out by the Garda National Protection Services Unit.
Its officer have interviewed others over the last six months who say they had similar experiences with the former politician.
He has yet to be interviewed and given a chance to respond to the allegations made against him.
The Irish Independent newspaper reports that all those who have made complaints are from the Dublin area.
The Garda press office says it is not making any comment in relation to individual investigations. | Gardai (Irish police) are investigating allegations that a former government minister sexually abused under-age boys and girls in the 1980s. | 34787684 |
As they surged past shouting "Long live Fidel and Raul!" and "Down with imperialism!", a dancing choir sang songs from the revolution and President Raul Castro smiled and waved in greeting.
A huge poster on the wall of the National Library vowed that Cuba would never return to capitalism; workers carried banners proclaiming "Socialism or death!" or waved images of Lenin and Che Guevara.
They were familiar scenes on this Communist-run island, a highly organised annual show of support.
But Cuba is in the midst of major changes - cutting state employment and subsidies - making this an uncertain time for workers.
In a bid to ensure the system here survives, the government is attempting an urgent overhaul of the struggling, centrally-planned economy.
As a banner across Revolution Square put it, it is a drive to "preserve and perfect socialism".
The plan is to reduce the bloated state payroll by around 20%, or a million workers, and cut costs.
So far, a limited amount of private business has been permitted to absorb them.
More than 370,000 licences have been issued for everything from watch repairers to privately-run restaurants as workers abandon state salaries of around $20 a month, and strike out in business alone.
But earlier this month, a senior official indicated that bigger change was afoot.
"Within four or five years, between 40% and 45% of GDP will result from non-state production," Esteban Lazo told the Havana city government.
Today, the figure is around 5%.
The next stages might include an expansion of the co-operative system beyond agriculture to light industry. Highly educated - but low-paid - young Cubans hope the categories for self-employment will expand, to include professions like law or architecture.
For the moment it's the private restaurant sector that's most popular, offering the most potential for profit. But there are difficulties, including restrictions on advertising.
So one new entrepreneur decided to get creative this May Day.
"Whether we're state employees or not, we're still workers and marching on 1 May is a habit here," explained Sergio Alba Marin, owner of Pachanga cafe.
So the businessman handed staff bright red T-shirts and caps emblazoned with his logo, and they all joined the workers' parade.
Banner held high, they marched alongside a giant fake cigar representing the state firm Cohiba and a cage full of live hens, brought by workers at a state research institute.
"Of course it's an advert. We want people to see we're there, that we're present," Mr Alba said of his own efforts. "There are no TV adverts here, but we do what we can."
Meanwhile, in the still-vast state sector, Cuba is on efficiency drive.
"We must increase productivity at work, discipline and quality," trade union leader Salvador Valdes Mesa instructed workers in his May Day speech.
"We must make clear that making savings is a key source of funds," the unionist added.
In a sign of that policy in practice, this year's May Day parade was a scaled-down affair. There were fewer fixed stands and posters, and fewer workers too - meaning less state spending bringing them to the square.
In fact, the whole event was over in what locals called record time. The last worker had filed out of Revolution Square by 09:15, well under two hours after it all started. | Tens of thousands of workers marched through Revolution Square in Havana in Cuba's traditional May Day celebration. | 17916076 |
After running extensive tests on 2,354 elite athletes, he discovered six had potentially fatal disorders that disqualified them from taking part.
His early findings were presented at a European Society of Cardiology meeting.
But the British Heart Foundation (BHF) says screening is not yet precise enough to be offered routinely.
Heart screening is designed to pick up abnormalities that could leave people at risk of sudden death.
This is rare - but according to the BHF it is more common in athletes than the general population. Figures suggest one or two in 100,000 athletes die in this way each year.
No-one knows why this increased risk exists, though some suggest extensive exercise can sometimes put strain on heart muscles, causing them to enlarge.
But predicting which athletes will be affected is not easy.
Dr Paulo Adami from the Institute of Sport Medicine and Science of the Italian Olympic Committee, studied athletes shortlisted for the Olympic games between 2004 and 2014.
Tests included ECG tests (recordings the electrical activity of their hearts) both at rest and while doing exercise and ultrasound scans of their hearts.
They picked up worrying signs in 300 athletes.
And after further investigations they found six with potentially life-threatening conditions which meant they could no longer compete.
Some 165 were allowed to continue their careers with annual checks.
But more than 100 individuals identified as at risk on the initial set of tests were dismissed as having spurious results or changes that were unlikely to lead to problems later.
Dr Adami said: "We cannot take it for granted that elite athletes are healthy.
"This study demonstrates that a more accurate assessment is necessary for elite professional athletes than for members of the general population, in view of the intensity and stress on their cardiovascular system.
"We suggest that our model of screening is applied to all elite athletes, regardless of the sport they practise."
Dr Michael Knapton at the British Heart Foundation is hopeful that screening will one day be very useful for athletes.
But for now he argues it is not reliable enough to be offered widely.
He said: "We would have to screen an awful lot of people to save one life and in most of those people it might do more harm than good.
"We could end up stopping ambitious young athletes from following their careers and worry them for no reason.
"We might also falsely reassure people that they are fine when they are not."
But he says the case is different for people known to be at high risk - for example families with genetic conditions that predispose them to sudden death.
For these individuals the BHF supports tailored assessments by the NHS.
Some organisations already offer screening to all young people and athletes.
And the BHF says more people need to be aware of what to do if someone has a cardiac arrest in a public space.
CPR - cardiopulmonary resuscitation - involving chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth can help restart the heart in some cases.
Meanwhile the UK national screening committee is reviewing the evolving evidence behind cardiac screening. | Olympic athletes should have tailored heart screening to check for life-threatening conditions before they can compete, a leading Italian doctor says. | 32753907 |
Sinn Féin and Alliance have previously questioned James Brokenshire's impartiality as a talks chair.
They pointed to a newspaper article in which he expressed his concern about the focus of legacy investigations.
Mr Brokenshire suggested inquiries into killings were "disproportionately" focused on the police and the army.
However, Mr Nesbitt told the BBC's Inside Politics programme that the Stormont Assembly had "tried international chairs in the past with no success".
The Ulster Unionist leader said that as Northern Ireland was part of the UK and he expected any further negotiations to be chaired by its secretary of state.
On the issue of legacy, Mr Nesbitt favours the reinstatement of the disbanded PSNI Historical Enquiries Team.
He does not agree with introducing a statute of limitations to prevent soldiers being prosecuted in relation to troubles incidents - a policy favoured by the DUP.
The Ulster Unionist leader said that if someone has broken the law, they should be made accountable.
However, he argued that "75-year-old military veterans should not be treated punitively but shown compassion, mercy and balance".
Mr Nesbitt told Inside Politics that he does not support the introduction of an Irish language act.
He described Irish as a "beautiful language" and insisted he bore no ill will towards anyone who wanted to learn speak or celebrate Irish.
He said he regarded recent comments from DUP leader Arlene Foster on the Irish language as "intemperate".
But he said he was not persuaded of the need for legislation and pointed to the provisions already made for an Irish language strategy, adding that other issues, such as tackling poverty, should have a higher priority.
The DUP has claimed the Ulster Unionists are not running enough candidates to be the biggest party in a future assembly.
However, Mr Nesbitt said he was running to be in government, not in opposition, and claimed that he had "crunched the numbers" and was running just enough candidates, at 24, to be the lead party.
The Ulster Unionist leader said he enjoyed a good chemistry with SDLP leader Colum Eastwood, despite their differences on issues like future joint British Irish authority over Northern Ireland.
Asked if Ulster Unionist voters should give their second preferences to the SDLP or other unionists, Mr Nesbitt would only say they should vote for any candidate they trust to do the right thing for their community, constituency and country. | Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt expects the secretary of state to chair any all-party talks which are held after next month's assembly election. | 38934547 |
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir is being held on charges of arson, bombings and vandalism.
His arrest comes as opposition leader Khaleda Zia was confined by police to her offices for a fourth day.
The unrest comes on the first anniversary of disputed elections.
The vote - boycotted by the opposition who said it would be rigged - was won by the ruling Awami League.
Mr Alamgir was arrested as he tried to leave the National Press Club in Dhaka, where he said he was forced to stay overnight on Monday after it had been surrounded by pro-government supporters.
Witnesses say that his car was commandeered by police officers who drove it to their headquarters.
Speaking just before his arrest he warned that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government was turning the country into a "vast prison".
He repeated calls for the opposition to enforce a nationwide transport blockade.
The government for its part has warned that Ms Zia could face murder charges over an arson attack it says was carried out by BNP supporters which left three people fighting for their lives.
The authorities have also detained the chairman of a private television channel after it carried a speech by Khaleda Zia's son from self-imposed exile in London.
Security forces say they want to stop violence and are preventing Ms Zia from leaving her party offices in Dhaka to give her "enhanced security".
Ms Zia and her arch rival, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, have both frequently called for general strikes and blockades while in opposition.
Thousands of riot police have been patrolling almost deserted streets in the capital where there were isolated clashes between opposition supporters and police on Tuesday. Authorities have cancelled most bus, rail and ferry services into the city to prevent mass rallies.
Violence broke out in various parts of the country on Monday, and four anti-government protesters were killed.
The opposition are angry that Sheikh Hasina, who has been in power since 2009, refused to stand aside to make way for a neutral caretaker administration to oversee the 2014 election.
Dozens of BNP workers have disappeared since last year's election, with human rights groups blaming the government. The government has denied the claims.
The two women leaders have alternated in power for most of the last two decades when the army was not in government. | Police in Bangladesh have arrested the deputy leader of the main opposition party, as tensions rise over its calls for nationwide protests and blockades. | 30694808 |
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29 September 2015 Last updated at 18:35 BST
Janice McAleese, who headed the Northern Ireland Events Company (NIEC), fabricated documents to cover-up losses of £1.5m.
BBC News NI's business correspondent, Julian O'Neill, reports. | The Northern Ireland Audit Office has said the conduct of the former chief executive of a Stormont-funded company is the worst it has seen from a senior public official. | 34389742 |
The man allegedly grabbed Alfia Barnett's handbag as she stood on the doorstep of her home in Highbury Street, Peterborough, before making off on a bicycle.
The pensioner was left with minor injuries after the incident, which happened on 13 July at about 11:45 BST.
Cambridgeshire police are continuing to question the man. | A man has been arrested after an 84-year-old woman was robbed of 50p. | 40667059 |
A 17-year-old girl was assaulted in Sherrington Road Park at about 22:00 BST on 17 June.
Dara Abdullah, of Surrey Road, Ipswich, has been charged with one count of rape and two counts of assault by penetration.
The 39-year-old will appear before South East Suffolk Magistrates' Court later. | A man has been charged with rape after a teenager was attacked in a park in Ipswich. | 33284700 |
9 August 2016 Last updated at 09:14 BST
Some of the robots did fall flat on their faces but they still managed to break the record for the most robots dancing all at the same time.
Each of the 1,007 robots were controlled by just one mobile phone and had to dance for a whole minute.
Pictures from Guinness World Records. | More than a thousand robots have been dancing at a festival in China and better still they've danced their way to a world record. | 37019774 |
This will mostly be funded with £650m per year from stopping free lunches currently offered to all infant pupils.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies says this will still mean 2% to 3% real-term cuts in per pupil spending, because of rising costs and pupil numbers.
Labour and Liberal Democrats have also promised extra school funding.
Conservative education manifesto plans
The Conservatives' plan would protect schools from losing out in cash terms when a new funding formula is introduced - which has been estimated as requiring about £350m per year.
But the Institute for Fiscal Studies says this will not match rising pressures on school budgets: "No school will see a cash-terms cut in spending per pupil, but most will see a real-terms cut."
The move on school funding follows a campaign by head teachers over cash shortages - with the National Audit Office saying that schools faced a £3bn funding gap.
Head teachers' leaders accused the Conservatives of "sleight of hand" over the funding proposals - saying that what is being offered is not enough to "counteract the rising costs which are hitting schools".
The additional funding will mostly be drawn from scrapping free hot lunches for all infant pupils, a policy introduced by the coalition government as a way of improving health, and used by about two million children.
There had been a budget of about £1bn to launch the free meals in 2014 - including the cost of installing kitchens.
The National Association of Head Teachers said it was a "poor policy decision" to scrap a project that has "yet to be evaluated".
School meals for infant pupils will be means tested again, under the Conservative proposals, with those on low incomes not having to pay.
But there will be a free breakfast for all primary pupils, expected to cost about £60m.
Pupil premium payments, providing extra support for disadvantaged pupils, will also be protected.
Labour has proposed that all pupils in primary school should have a free meal - to be funded by adding VAT to private school fees.
The rest of the extra school funding, proposed in the Conservative manifesto, will be drawn from savings elsewhere.
Changes at the Student Loans Company, which arranges university loans and repayments, are meant to save £200m; a further £160m will be saved by "departmental efficiencies" and £10m from the levy on sugary drinks.
"We have protected and increased school funding to the highest level on record but we accept there is more we can do," said a Conservative spokesman.
"This extra money means no child will lose out."
As well as the commitment on funding, the Conservative manifesto reiterates plans to create a new generation of grammar schools.
But there are no indications of the scale of such a project or how many new selective schools might be opened.
There is also a response to teacher recruitment problems - with a proposal that teachers would not have to pay back their tuition fees while they were in teaching.
There will also be pressure on universities to support academies, with this becoming a requirement for charging higher fees.
Independent schools are also being urged to become involved with academies, with the threat of changes to their tax status.
There are also plans for a specialist maths school to be created in every big city.
Labour's shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, said: "The Tories would take away infant free school meals in order to plug the massive holes left by their cuts in school budgets.
"Under a Tory government schools would still face cuts which will mean fewer teachers, cuts to the school day and a smaller curriculum. Only Labour will ensure schools have the money they need."
Lib Dem education spokeswoman Sarah Olney said: "Margaret Thatcher was know as the 'milk snatcher'. Theresa May will go down as the lunch snatcher."
The Conservative proposals, on top of existing planned budget increases, would mean that by 2021-22 the core schools budget would have risen by £4bn.
Labour has pledged to invest more than £20bn in schools in England by 2022, as part of a package of education pledges, saying it would protect real terms schools funding and cut class sizes for five, six and seven-year olds.
The Lib Dems have proposed spending £7bn over the same period to protect per pupil spending. | The Conservatives have promised an extra £1bn per year to tackle school funding shortages in England in their election manifesto. | 39959961 |
The complex trade is increasing pressure on non-renewable groundwater, mainly used for irrigating crops such as rice, wheat and cotton.
Pakistan, the US and India are the countries exporting the most food grown with unsustainable water.
Researchers say that without action, food supplies will be threatened.
Around 43% of the water used to irrigate crops around the world comes from underground aquifers, as opposed to rivers and lakes. Many of these sources are being used up quicker than they can be refilled from rainfall.
Back in 2000, experts believed that non-renewable resources sustained 20% of global irrigation. In the 10 years to 2010, this increased by more than a fifth.
While scientists have long known about the depletion of groundwater, this new study sets out to understand how supplies are impacted by the booming international trade in food and crops.
The vast majority of the world's populations live in countries that source nearly all their staple crop imports from nations who deplete significant amounts of groundwater to irrigate these foodstuffs.
The researchers found that some 11% of the non-renewable groundwater used for irrigation is embedded in the the global food trade. Two-thirds of this are accounted for by Pakistan, the US and India.
Over the decade from the year 2000, the use of non-renewable groundwater has doubled in China and increased significantly in India and the US. The crops using the biggest amounts of this water are wheat, rice, sugar crops, cotton and maize.
However, the web of responsibility is a complex one.
The US, Mexico, Iran, Saudi Arabia and China are among the top 10 users of unsustainable water in agriculture. However, they are also among the top importers of crops grown with these dwindling resources.
So, Iran, for example, mainly imports rice from Pakistan irrigated by the Upper Ganges and Lower Indus aquifers. These water sources have extraction rates up to 50 times higher than required for sustainable use. Iran in turn exports perennial crops irrigated by the Persian aquifer that has been extracted at a mere 20 times the rate that is sustainable.
"The depletion rate is alarming - we have these clusters of countries that are at risk both from domestic production and imports," said lead author Dr Carole Dalin from University College London.
"If the reserve of water runs out the price of food will be affected and it will affect almost all the world's population."
Many developed countries are aware of issues in the depletion of groundwater and have put measures in place, such as urban water restrictions in California during the recent years of drought. However, in developing nations, the mechanisms to restrict water may not exist.
"Pakistan for instance is quite complex," said Dr Dalin. "They can make good money out of exporting rice, but the framework is not really there to account for the impact on the environment. It is true that eventually it will affect the production there."
The researchers argue that while governments need to have greater awareness about the impacts of production on water resources, consumers in richer countries should also think about water when considering the foods that they buy.
"The products that consumers buy at a supermarket may have very different environmental impacts depending on where they are produced and how they are irrigated," said co-author Yoshihide Wada, from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
"In order to help consumers make more sustainable choices about their food, producers should consider adding water labels that make these impacts clear."
The paper has been published in the journal Nature.
Follow Matt on Twitter and on Facebook. | The global market for foodstuffs is depleting water sources in many parts of the world quicker than they can naturally be refilled. | 39431680 |
Four locations between Perth and Inverness will be resurfaced as part of a £1.2m Transport Scotland investment.
The first work will begin at the A9 Drumochter southbound carriageway for two weeks.
Bear Scotland said the 10mph convoy system will be in place at the locations during working hours for the safety of road workers and motorists.
The work at Drumochter will be carried out on a 1km stretch of road between Mondays and Fridays.
Resurfacing will take place overnight for two weeks on a 1km section of road at Newmill, near Luncarty, from 19 June.
Work between 07:00 and 19:00 will also be carried out on 500m sections of road at Ballinluig for two weeks from 27 June and at Badacreamh from 11 July.
Eddie Ross from Bear Scotland, which maintains the route, said the work would "greatly improve" the condition and safety of the route.
He said: "We've taken steps to minimise disruption as much as possible by avoiding working at weekends at all four sites, and carrying out work overnight at Newmill where the route is single-carriageway." | Six weeks of repair work on the A9 which will see traffic reduced to 10mph in places will begin on 13 June. | 36478110 |
He was also a nuclear scientist, environmentalist, and father of four.
Nemtsov founded a number of opposition movements after leaving the Russian parliament in 2003 and he had served as the co-chair of the opposition Republican Party of Russia - People's Freedom Party since 2012.
He was a prominent and vocal critic of Mr Putin, denouncing him for Russia's part in the Ukraine crisis, its worsening economic situation, and the alleged corruption surrounding preparations for the Sochi Olympic Games in 2014.
Nemtsov was also a leading member of liberal movement Solidarnost. Along with fellow opposition figures Alexei Navalny and Garry Kasparov, a former chess grandmaster, Nemtsov played a prominent part in the large-scale opposition marches in Moscow that followed Russia's controversial 2011 election.
He was arrested for taking part in the protests and was detained in late 2011 for 15 days.
Despite being a prominent opposition member, he did not always see eye-to-eye with Russia's fractured liberal opposition. In 2011, recordings emerged of him calling opposition supporters "hamsters" and "scared penguins" - but his minor transgressions did not cause major rifts.
Nemtsov first ran for office in 1989, unsuccessfully, before eventually being elected to Russia's parliament in 1990. He stood by Boris Yeltsin when attacks came on his presidency in 1991 and Yeltsin rewarded his loyalty with the post of regional governor of Nizhny Novgorod.
He was young and eloquent, fluent in English, and media-savvy, and Nizhny Novgorod, bristling with military industries, became a showcase for foreign investment in Russia.
Nemtsov quickly became one of Russia's most prominent politicians, and observers speculated that Yeltsin was grooming the young regional governor as his successor.
In 1997, Yeltsin made him deputy prime minister in charge of economic reform. But Nemtsov came to regret the move, which heralded the beginning of his political decline.
Any presidential ambitions came to an end with the August 1998 economic crisis, which also cost him his job in government.
In 1999, Nemtsov founded the Union of Right Forces (SPS), along with fellow liberals Anatoly Chubais and Yegor Gaidar. Initially the party seemed moderately successful, gaining about 10% in the election that December and forming an influential faction in the Russian parliament.
But in the next few years the SPS attitude to Russia's new President, Vladimir Putin, evolved from conditional support to open opposition - and the party lost supporters.
In the 2003 election, the SPS failed to reach the 5% threshold needed to enter parliament. Nemtsov resigned as SPS leader and pursued a business career, while making futile attempts to reunite Russian liberals, left in total disarray by the election catastrophe.
He became a prominent face of the opposition once again in 2011, but he had fallen out of the limelight over the past few years.
Still, although he was no longer considered part of mainstream politics in Russia, his killing has shocked many across the country. An opposition rally planned for Sunday is still set to go ahead, but Nemtsov's death will undoubtedly be seen as a warning to Mr Putin's critics.
Mr Kasparov said bloodshed was inevitable in President Putin's "atmosphere of hatred and violence". The message is clear, he added: "Oppose Putin and your life is worth little." | Boris Nemtsov, who has been shot dead in Moscow at the age of 55, was a charismatic figure within Russian politics, a liberal reformer who rose to prominence under Boris Yeltsin and became a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin. | 31669498 |
Manager Tommy Wright told BBC Scotland that the 34-year-old had triggered a clause in his previous deal.
MacLean, who joined the Saints in 2012, has scored 10 goals in 27 appearances in this campaign.
Wright added that a new deal for midfielder Danny Swanson was a "high priority", with contract talks also ongoing with full-back Brian Easton.
Last week, Joe Shaughnessy, David Wotherspoon and Richard Foster all signed two-year extensions.
Easton, 28, and Swanson, 30, are both on terms that expire in the summer.
"It's difficult for us, with the wages we pay, to attract that extra bit of quality that can make a difference to us," said Wright.
"Danny is a high priority for me and hopefully the chairman can get him re-signed. Then we can look at the summer and build again by bringing one or two in."
The Perth club are on course for a sixth consecutive top-six finish and Wright would love to start his fifth season in charge with his fourth European campaign.
"With Rangers coming back into the league and Aberdeen and Hearts strengthening it was always going to be tough," he said with his side sitting fifth, 10 points ahead of Motherwell, Ross County and Kilmarnock.
"For us to be only three points behind Hearts at this stage of the season is a tremendous achievement. Once again, we are fighting at the right end of the table.
"We maximise what we've got and it's full credit to the players."
Scotland's Uefa coefficient has slipped from 23rd to 25th, meaning all three Europa League entrants will, for the first time, begin qualifying in the first round at the end of June.
Saints have never been beyond the third qualifying round and Wright says clubs are hindered by such timing.
"Some of the Irish teams have reached the group stage recently," he said. "I'm not an advocate of summer football but it probably would help in that respect.
"It's such a quick turnaround getting ready for a new season. That's the biggest thing holding Scottish clubs back.
"The overall experience is brilliant for the club though, for me as a manager, for the players and for the supporters."
Wright was angered by the penalty Celtic were awarded at McDiarmid Park on Sunday and felt his side were denied two spot-kicks in a 5-2 loss to the Premiership leaders.
He has since discussed the matter with referee Craig Thomson in a telephone call.
"It was a sore one but mistakes happen in football," he said.
"The penalty decisions were game changers but, ultimately, it's gone for me on Monday morning.
"I was pleased Craig rang me and what was said will remain between the two of us. I'm not one for holding grudges.
"I'm all for looking at ways of helping our referees, be that with full-time officials or extra officials. I'm not a big fan of TMOs (television match officials) but that might be something we look at further down the line. But they all cost money and that's probably the biggest factor." | St Johnstone striker Steven MacLean has signed a contract extension to remain at McDiarmid Park for next season. | 38901182 |
Det Con Michael Stokes, 35, from Glynneath, and Stephen Phillips, 47, of Swansea, deny taking cash found in a safe in Swansea in 2011.
The jury has already been directed to find a third officer not guilty of theft.
The trial has been held at Cardiff Crown Court.
The hearing, which began at the beginning of the month, was told the cash was taken during or after houses were searched four years ago.
No action was taken against the occupants, so a cheque was written for Joedyn Luben, but he complained that the amount was less than that seized.
Giving evidence, Mr Phillips, a former detective sergeant, denied he and a colleague took the cash when they were counting it.
And Mr Stokes told jurors he was only joking when he told a colleague he had taken money. | A jury has retired to consider verdicts in the trial of a detective and his former colleague who are accused of stealing £30,000 in a police raid. | 34934538 |
Carol-Anne Norman and her sister set up a camera in their father's home to monitor the care he was being given.
She claims care workers neglected and humiliated her 85-year-old father, who has dementia.
The CPS said there was insufficient evidence to prove any criminal offence had been committed.
Mrs Norman set up the cameras almost a year ago after she suspected her father's medication was being delayed.
One of the incidents it captured showed her father wandering the landing with his trousers and incontinence pad around his knees.
After she showed the tapes to the police, several care workers were interviewed.
The CPS said in a statement that after reviewing the evidence, there was insufficient evidence to prove any criminal offence had been committed.
"While the behaviour might be considered an unacceptable way to treat vulnerable people, it did not cross the line into criminal activity," the spokesman said.
Mrs Norman said the family thought the law was not protecting vulnerable people.
"No one's looking at these carers working in private homes," she said.
"We need cameras in people's homes to check what these carers are doing."
The case was discussed at a meeting of Bristol City Council's Adult Safeguarding Board on Wednesday night.
In a statement, the authority said: "We have taken action to address the general concerns raised by this case with the care agencies involved.
"Now the police investigations have concluded, we will work with the providers on any further specific issues raised."
Mrs Norman's father is now in a private residential home. | No charges will be brought against care workers who were under investigation in Bristol, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has said. | 19002787 |
Michelle Jane Grey, 42, from Bensham, was found by officers at 20:30 GMT on Friday at an address in Hillfield Street.
Carl Anderson, of Hillfield Street, has been charged with murder, Northumbria Police said.
The 41-year-old is due to appear before Gateshead Magistrates' Court later. | A man has been charged with murder after a woman was found dead in Gateshead. | 30588684 |
Jay Nava, 27, stabbed Natasha Wake 11 times in the chest and neck at her home in Bournemouth in October.
He then fell asleep beside her body, which he later hid in a cupboard.
A judge at Winchester Crown Court said Nava, from Plymouth, should serve a minimum of 21 years for his "frenzied and violent outburst".
The trial heard the pair had argued while drinking at Miss Wake's home in Harley Gardens on the evening of 1 October.
The dispute may have been provoked by her discovery that Nava had been investigated by the police for an alleged sexual assault on another woman, the jury was told.
Later a child in the house heard a "scream" and came downstairs to find Nava with a knife and Miss Wake lying on the floor covered by a blanket.
He told the girl it was a "game" and sent her to bed.
Nava told the jury he could not remember stabbing Miss Wake, but admitted he scrubbed the walls, wrapped the 26-year-old in a duvet and hid her in a cupboard.
The following morning Nava phoned his mother in Australia and confessed to the killing.
Later that day, police found the former Commando gunner at Hengistbury Head, Dorset, and resuscitated him when he attempted to take his own life as officers approached.
A defence psychiatrist told the jury Nava's ability to control his behaviour was "substantially impaired" by an "underlying narcissistic personality disorder".
In a victim impact statement read to the court, Miss Wake's mother, Shelley Powell, said she was "haunted by Natasha's last few moments".
Ms Powell said: "I knew her fears - that she would not live to see her children grow up."
Passing sentence, Judge Jane Miller QC said Miss Wake's family had seen her go from "infatuated to scared" of Nava because of his "controlling and jealous behaviour". | A former soldier has been jailed for life for murdering his on-off girlfriend while three children slept upstairs. | 39515694 |
Today, the story of Robert the Robot is little known, even in the Northamptonshire town where he was once a celebrity.
Yet in the 1930s, his fame reached as far as Czechoslovakia and the United States, where he even featured in Time magazine.
And the reason he came to be?
"Someone bet me £5 I could not make a robot in three weeks," inventor Charles Lawson, who had a radio shop, told a newspaper at the time.
"I won."
The electrical engineer's creation first hit headlines in the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph, which proclaimed: "Kettering robot 'enjoys' smoke."
The article from March 1939 proclaimed the android could do "practically everything that a human being can do", even crediting him with the "ability of mind reading".
"You may pick up a card from a pack and the robot will tell you the card you have chosen," it read.
"It has a sense of humour too, for when Mr Lawson was bending down to examine its leg he received a slap on the face."
So how did he function? Frustratingly, it is not entirely clear.
The only remaining evidence for his existence are a selection of photographs and Robert himself disappeared from view after World War Two.
Mr Lawson's son David, an 84-year-old retired farmer, remembers "wires and gears, a maze of chains and electronics" inside the robot's 10ft-tall frame.
He said his father had built a prototype in 1938, which he had installed in Kettering's Temperance Hall.
The robot had a microphone and speaker in its head and hidden assistants would surprise the unsuspecting people walking past.
"They (the assistants) would be looking down at people passing by and suddenly say something about someone's pink hat," he said.
His father then moved on to the more advanced Robert, who could move his arms and hands.
"It used to light its own cigarettes. It even directed the traffic in Kettering," David Lawson said.
"It even used to tell fortunes and he took it to the seaside, including trips to Blackpool. [My father] got obsessed with it."
Robert was one of the first robots seen in the UK. The very term robot was less than 20 years old, having been coined by Czech writer Karel Capek in his 1920 play RUR.
The first British robot is believed to have been constructed in 1928 and was called Eric. He was subsequently rebuilt and is on display at the Science Museum in London.
Noel Sharkey, professor of robotics at Sheffield University and head judge on BBC Two's Robot Wars, said it was most likely Robert was a similar construction to Elektro, a robot made by US power company Westinghouse in 1937 for the New York World's Fair in 1939.
"As is claimed for the Charles Lawson robot, it could walk, talk, smoke and count," he said.
"The robot relied on a combination of motors, photoelectric cells, telephone relays and a record player to perform 26 pre-programmed routines, each one initiated by voice commands from a human co-star.
"Smoking was done using automated bellows which were also a feature of 19th Century automatons.
"Remember that this type of robot did not have access to a computer and so talking was done using a triggering mechanism for a record player playing old 78 RPM bakelite records."
Science fiction was in vogue in the 1930s - serials such as Flash Gordon were popular in the cinemas - and Robert became a huge media sensation, drawing the attention of English newspapers.
His story was then syndicated abroad where it was eagerly reported by the foreign press.
The entry in one Czech newspaper, under the headline Robot Friend of the Children, read: "In the English town of Kettering a robot often appears in the streets, it strides, sits down, smoke and speaks.
"The steel servant is an invention of C. Lawson, once an electric tramway employee. The robot has a sound apparatus in its head.
"Every move of the robot is followed, chiefly by the crowd of young folk, especially when he is on point duty."
Mr Lawson tried to capitalise on Robert's fame, exhibiting him around the country. His son said he eventually sold him to a pier showman in Blackpool shortly before the start of World War Two.
Despite several attempts to trace him, Robert's whereabouts remain unknown. But it seems possible he enjoyed a post-war career as a seaside attraction before disappearing into obscurity.
Tony Sharkey, head of local history at Blackpool library, said robots often appeared in sideshows during the 1950s, including one from South Africa called Magna.
"From images I've seen it appears to have been very different [to Robert]. The show included illusions and the robot would mind read and tell people what they were wearing."
Mr Lawson sold his shop in the 1960s and retired, but although he was "quiet man" he would talk to people about his robots if asked.
He died in 2002 in Kettering, aged 96.
"It is only recently when I've thought about the complexity of the robot that I realised how clever he was," his son said. | More than 80 years ago, a robot could be found in the unlikely surroundings of Kettering, directing traffic and smoking a cigarette. | 39057312 |
Lai Sai-ming, who captained the Sea Smooth in the 2012 collision, was also found guilty of endangering the safety of others at sea.
The skipper of the other boat involved was acquitted of manslaughter.
Chow Chi-wai - captain of the Lamma IV, which half-sank - was also found guilty of endangering the safety of others.
The crash was Hong Kong's worst maritime accident since 1971.
Lai, 56, was convicted on all 39 counts of manslaughter by seven of the nine members of the jury at the Hong Kong court after nearly 35 hours of deliberations, reported the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
He could face life in prison when sentenced - which his lawyer says will take place on Monday, AFP news agency reported.
Chow, 58, was acquitted by eight to one of the manslaughter charges but found guilty of one count of endangering the safety of others at sea.
Both captains pleaded not guilty at the hearing, which went on for more than 60 days.
Chow's lawyers, the SCMP reports, had argued that his efforts to avert the collision were thwarted by the more manoeuvrable catamaran skippered by Lai.
They asserted that the Lamma IV had turned right three times by about 50 degrees in accordance with international rules, while the Sea Smooth violated the rules and turned left by 21 degrees.
The accident happened on 1 October, China's National Day, when the Lamma IV was carrying employees of Hong Kong Electric and their families - including children, several of whom died in the tragedy - to watch a firework display.
The Sea Smooth was a Hong Kong and Kowloon Ferry passenger vessel.
An inquiry following the collision found safety standards on the Lamma IV - which partially capsized - had not been properly enforced and there had been a "litany of errors".
1. Hong Kong Electric boat departs power plant for firework display in Victoria Harbour
2. Ferry departs Hong Kong island on regular route to Lamma Island
3. Collision occurs north of Lamma Island. Damaged ferry continues to port at Yung Shue Wan. Lamma IV sinks. | The captain of a ferry involved in one of Hong Kong's worst sea disasters has been convicted of manslaughter over the 39 people who died. | 31468706 |
Andronicos Sideras, 54, has been accused of deliberately mixing up the meats before they were sold in 2012.
Mr Sideras was one of the owners of meat company and sausage manufacturer Dinos & Sons.
The businessman, from Southgate, north London, denies conspiracy to defraud between 1 January and 30 November 2012.
Prosecutor Jonathan Polnay said alarm bells were raised after Dinos "messed things up" when assembling an order.
A surprise inspection was triggered when the wrong size of shipment was sent to a company called Rangeland in Newry, Northern Ireland, in 2012, Inner London Crown Court was told.
The 12-pallet load was analysed and four of them contained horse.
Mr Polnay said: "Some of them were found to contain significant amounts of horsemeat; roughly about a third contained horse."
It is alleged Mr Sideras mixed meat in this way before it was sold on to manufacturers making products for "a vast range of well-known companies".
Mr Sideras's fingerprints were found on "fake" labels, the court heard.
Mr Polnay added: "The final piece of the jigsaw is that when the meat was analysed, three horse ID chips were found in some of it."
The chips were roughly the size of a 1cm grain of rice - two of which were Polish and one Irish.
It is alleged Danish-owned company Flexi Foods would buy horsemeat and beef from suppliers across Europe and then deliver to Dinos & Sons in Tottenham, north London.
Mr Polnay said the fraud could not have worked or taken place without the "connivance" of Mr Sideras.
He said: "The meticulous records kept by FlexiFoods caused their undoing. They also provide compelling evidence of the guilt of this defendant."
He told the court that two men, Ulrik Nielsen, 58, the owner of FlexiFoods, and his "right-hand man", Alex Beech, 44, have already pleaded guilty to the same charge.
The trial continues. | A plot to pass horsemeat off as beef fell apart after horse identification chips were found in the meat by inspectors, a court has been told. | 40559740 |
Highlands Fashion Week will officially launch its Bring Back The Cape (BBTC) project on its website on 4 December.
Describing it as an "exclusive" and "secret" project, the organisers have said that they hope to revamp the clothing that is usually worn with a kilt and "make it current".
For hundreds of people across the world, the cape as worn by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous fictional sleuth, continues to have great appeal.
How the popular image of Sherlock Holmes' look came about is a curious case.
The illustrated monthly magazine, The Strand, printed many of Conan Doyle's mysteries in the 1890s, with the author's words accompanied by engravings by talented Finchley-based artist Sidney Paget.
According to The Sherlock Holmes Society of London, it was Paget who gave the detective his "now iconic image" - the "hawk-like features, deerstalker cap and Inverness cape".
Paget produced 201 Sherlock Holmes's illustrations between 1891 and 1893 and a further 155 between 1901 and 1904.
But Paget had been sent the commission for the artwork by mistake.
Pinacotheca Holmesiana, a website dedicated to Sherlock stories and illustrations, said the job was meant for his younger brother Walter.
Walter still managed to put his stamp on the sleuth. He modelled for his brother's illustrations for the magazine.
Decades later, in television adaptations of the stories, the cape and cap continued to be a key part of Sherlock's wardrobe.
More recent TV portrayals, such as BBC's Sherlock and CBS series Elementary, have since restyled the detective.
In Sherlock, Benedict Cumberbatch's character wears a Belstaff Milford Coat - a heavy, wool tweed overcoat first made in the 1920s and inspired by the late 19th Century great coat.
Yet the image of Holmes in an Inverness cape of more than 120 years ago endures.
Mister Antony (Inverness Cape Specialists) in Newton Mearns, near Glasgow, makes Inverness raincapes in various waterproof fabrics for pipe bands all over the world.
About 90% of the business's work is concerned with manufacturing this garment for pipers and drummers.
In 2003, the firm developed a new waterproof cape called the Bandspec Raincape. The company worked with Robert Mathieson, at the time pipe major with Shotts and Dykehead Caledonia Pipe Band, on the new design.
Mister Antony is also one of the few business that makes and supplies traditional wool and Harris Tweed Inverness capes to "professional, discerning" customers.
The patterns on offer include stony blue fleck, grey herringbone and brown and tan houndstooth.
Antony Mistofsky, who has run the firm for 32 years and whose family has been making waterproof clothing for more than 100 years, said the custom-made items represented "a specialised, niche market".
He said: "It would be fair to say that they are not a big selling item.
"We sell hundreds and not thousands of them. They can cost upwards from £600 depending on what the customer wants."
Mr Mistofsky added: "We export them all over the world. Sixty to 70% of the woollen capes are exported, mainly to the USA.
"The customers who want these items are mainly professional individuals - lawyers and doctors, a High Court judge - and they buy either to wear with a kilt or as an alternative to a heavy overcoat."
A few of those buying the woollen capes also have a keen interest in Sherlock Holmes, he said.
Other Inverness Cape enthusiasts include fans of steampunk, a genre that mixes Victorian-style clothing with science-fiction technology and draws inspiration from writers such as HG Wells. Various online retailers offer the capes in colours suited to steampunk aficionados.
Highlands Fashion Week's BBTC project, meanwhile, is timely.
Last month, Museum of London opened the exhibition Sherlock Holmes: The Man Who Never Lived and Will Never Die.
It features displays of Conan Doyle manuscripts, copies of The Strand and some of the 27 surviving original drawings Paget did for the magazine stories.
The museum also commissioned a new tweed of a design and colour inspired by the trademark deerstalker and cape.
Alex Werner, head of history collections at the museum, said: "Sherlock Holmes is a global icon indelibly linked with London, so it is fitting that we are able to host this major celebration of Conan Doyle's creation at the Museum of London.
"This exhibition is really about gaining a deeper appreciation of the stories and it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see such a diverse collection of Sherlock Holmes artefacts and material under one roof."
The museum exhibition runs until April next year, while Highlands Fashion Week takes place in Inverness next month. | The organisers of a Scottish fashion event have announced plans to reinvigorate interest in the Inverness cape, a sleeveless tweed overcoat made famous by Sherlock Holmes. | 29879309 |
Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Comrade Duch, said the four were killed because they had trespassed into Cambodia.
He said "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea had personally instructed him to execute the four.
Duch is serving a life sentence for his role in running a notorious prison where thousands of inmates were killed.
He is now testifying against two deputies of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot.
A UN tribunal is trying to uncover the truth behind the "Killing Fields" atrocities, in which at least 1.8 million Cambodians were killed between 1975 and 1979.
In his evidence on Thursday, Duch said the four Westerners included two Americans.
All were killed at a school that became a torture centre, he said.
It is thought that at least 15,000 men, women and children deemed enemies of the regime were tortured and then executed while Duch was the commander of Tuol Sleng prison, which became part of the notorious "killing fields" outside Phnom Penh.
Duch said the foreigners - whose identities are unknown - were killed because they had trespassed into Cambodian waters.
"They were interrogated and smashed [as] per instructions," he told the court.
"They had to be burnt to ashes so there is no evidence that foreigners were smashed by us."
Duch has insisted that he was only following orders from senior Khmer Rouge leaders, including Nuon Chea, to execute prisoners.
Most Khmer Rouge victims died from starvation, torture, exhaustion or disease in labour camps, with many beaten to death during country-wide mass executions.
Nuon Chea and former head of state Khieu Samphan - both in their 80s and in poor health - are being prosecuted at the UN-backed court for war crimes and genocide. They were sentenced to life imprisonment in 2014 for crimes against humanity.
The complex case against them was divided to ensure they were punished while still alive. Two of their co-defendants, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith, are dead. Pol Pot himself died in 1998.
Correspondents say that there is little optimism the tribunal will be able to bring justice and closure to the time of genocide, because the decade-old process has been fraught with delays, political interference and funding problems. | A former leader of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime has admitted murdering four unidentified Westerners in the 1970s and burning their bodies. | 36491837 |
They've been using special cameras to look deep underwater off the coast of eastern Australia, around 4,000m below the surface.
At this depth, there's huge pressure, no light and it's extremely cold so animals there have evolved and found different ways to survive.
Chief scientist Tim O'Hara says it's "the most unexplored environment on Earth".
His team say that around one-third of what they've found are new species.
The faceless fish doesn't have any eyes, you can't see its nose, and its mouth is found underneath its body.
It has been recorded once before, in 1873, by the pioneering scientific crew of HMS Challenger off Papua New Guinea. | An international team of scientists on a deep sea research voyage have found some rather strange creatures, including a "faceless" fish. | 40107105 |
Immigration has undeniably played an important role in shaping many parts of modern Britain. London, for instance, is now one of the most diverse cities on the planet, a place where scores of languages can be heard on the streets.
It began in the decades after the World War Two, with largely Commonwealth workers filling labour shortages. The NHS is the most obvious sector of society that is reliant on immigration: around a third of its workforce was born abroad. Today's immigrants are, generally speaking, young and mobile workers or students, and increasing numbers of them come from other parts of the European Union.
But the big unanswered question about migration is whether its forces have a wider positive or negative impact on the economy and society.
Do foreign workers price home-grown labour out of the market place? Does their arrival mean that society, government and business avoids difficult decisions about how to deal with unemployment, benefits systems and low-skills?
What role does fast-changing immigration play in key decision about planning for health, education, housing and other services?
On the government's preferred measure, 298,000 more people came to live in the UK than left in the year ending September 2014.
The figures show that the most likely reason for someone to come to the UK is to work or study. While asylum seekers arrived in large numbers a decade or so ago, they form a small part of the overall picture today. This is almost 200,000 over the target the prime minister set when he came to power.
Overall, there were almost one million people either moving in or out of the UK over the course of the year.
624,000
immigrants in year to Sept 2014
327,000
emigrants over the same 12 months
251,000 came from inside EU
74% were workers or students
82,000 were returning UK citizens
The figures may be affected one way or another by specific policies but they are also part of a historic shift in how the industrialised open economies of the world operate. Wherever there are free market places, there is movement of people. The UK is not alone in experiencing these changes - and indeed helped to create them by backing the European free market 25 years ago.
Nobody knows for sure how many migrants there are because the UK still hasn't got a single and reliable method to count them in and out. In turn, that means it's very difficult to find hard data to support or dismiss claims of the effects they have on society, allegations of benefit tourism and, hardest of all, estimate the number of immigrants living here illegally.
Most politicians in England are unlikely to talk about why most politicians in Scotland want more immigration.
"The UK is definitely one of the most attractive destinations in Europe. It is quite a flexible labour market and has far more jobs at the low end of the economy which makes it easy for migrants to find and get a job compared with a country like Germany" - Madeleine Sumption, Director of Migration Observatory, University of Oxford
"We will, in the next 25 years, have to build the equivalent of ten cities the size of Birmingham. This would place enormous stress on our already creaking infrastructure and on our environment and it would also change the nature of British society for ever. We must not sleep walk into one of the most significant changes in a thousand years of our island's history" - Sir Andrew Green, Migrationwatch UK | Immigration is one of the top subjects of public debate in the 2015 general election - but amid all the arguments and controversy, what do we know for sure about what is going on? | 31422193 |
So far, no single piece of evidence has been made public proving that the Trump campaign joined with Russia to steal the US presidency - nothing.
But the FBI Director, James Comey, told a hushed committee room in Congress last week that this is precisely what his agents are investigating.
Stop to let that thought reverberate for a moment.
"Investigation is not proof," said the president's spokesman.
Trump's supporters are entitled to ask why - with the FBI's powers to subpoena witnesses and threaten charges of obstructing justice - nothing damning has emerged.
Perhaps there is nothing to find. But some former senior officials say it is because of failings in the inquiry, of which more later.
The roadmap for the investigation, publicly acknowledged now for the first time, comes from Christopher Steele, once of Britain's secret intelligence service MI6.
He wrote a series of reports for political opponents of Donald Trump about Trump and Russia.
Steele's "dossier", as the material came to be known, contains a number of highly contested claims.
At one point he wrote: "A leading Russian diplomat, Mikhail KULAGIN, had been withdrawn from Washington at short notice because Moscow feared his heavy involvement in the US presidential election operation… would be exposed in the media there."
There was no diplomat called Kulagin in the Russian embassy; there was a Kalugin.
One of Trump's allies, Roger Stone, said to me of Steele, scornfully: "If 007 wants to be taken seriously, he ought to learn how to spell."
The Russian Foreign Ministry said Kalugin was head of the embassy's economics section.
He had gone home in August 2016 at the end of a six-year posting.
The man himself emailed journalists to complain about a "stream of lies and fake news about my person".
If anyone looks like a harmless economist, rather than a tough, arrogant KGB man, it is the bland-faced Kalugin.
But sources I know and trust have told me the US government identified Kalugin as a spy while he was still at the embassy.
It is not clear if the American intelligence agencies already believed this when they got Steele's report on the "diplomat", as early as May 2016.
But it is a judgment they made using their own methods, outside the dossier.
A retired member of a US intelligence agency told me that Kalugin was being kept under surveillance before he left the US.
In addition, State Department staff who dealt with Russia did not come across Kalugin, as would have been expected with a simple diplomat.
"Nobody had met him," one former official said. "It's classic. Just classic [of Russian intelligence]."
Last month, the McClatchy news website said he was under "scrutiny" by the FBI as he left the US. They did not report, as my sources say, that he was a member of one of Russia's spying organisations, the SVR or GRU.
Steele's work remains fiercely controversial, to some a "dodgy dossier" concocted by President Trump's enemies.
But on this vitally important point - Kalugin's status as a "spy under diplomatic cover" - people who saw the intelligence agree with the dossier, adding weight to Steele's other claims.
But then they knew him already.
I understand - from former officials - that from 2013-16, Steele gave the US government extensive information on Russia and Ukraine.
This was work done for private clients, but which Steele wanted the US authorities to see.
One former senior official who saw these reports told me: "It was found to be of value by the people whose job it was to look at Russia every day.
"They said things like, 'How can he get this so quickly? This fits exactly with what we have.' It was validated many times."
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Another who dealt with this material in government said: "Sometimes he would get spun by somebody. [But] it was always 80% there."
None of these reports touched on the nature of Trump's relationship with Russia.
But last June, Steele began sending pages of what would later be called his dossier.
In light of his earlier work, the US intelligence community saw him as "credible" (their highest praise).
The FBI thought the same; they had worked with Steele going back to his days in MI6.
He flew to Rome in August to talk to the FBI.
Then in early October, he came to the US and was extensively debriefed by them, over a week.
He gave the FBI the names of some of his informants, the so-called "key" to the dossier.
But the CIA never interviewed him, and never sought to.
This comes from several people who are in a position to know.
They are alarmed at how the investigation is going, and worry it is being fumbled.
One said: "The FBI doesn't know about Russia, the CIA knows about Russia.
"Any sources Steele has in Russia, the FBI doesn't know how to evaluate.
"The Agency does… Who's running this thing from Moscow? The FBI just aren't capable on that side, of even understanding what Chris has."
Another reflected growing frustration with the inquiry among some who served in the Obama administration: "We used to call them the Feebs. They would make the simple cases, but never see, let alone understand and go after, the bigger picture."
(My editors have asked me to explain, for readers outside North America, that feeb is slang for someone feeble-minded, used above as a contraction of the initials FBI.)
I understand that Steele himself did not ask to brief the CIA because he had a long-standing relationship with the FBI.
The Russia people at the CIA had moved on and he felt he did not have the personal contacts he would need.
The CIA and the FBI would not comment on any of this. But the FBI is said to have a large presence at the US embassy in Moscow and has long experience of investigating Russian organised crime in the US.
The FBI director, Comey, also said in his testimony to Congress: "This investigation began in late July, so for counter-intelligence investigation that's a fairly short period of time."
Several sources have told me that late last year Steele himself grew increasingly disillusioned with the FBI's progress.
"He really thought that what he had would sway the election," said one.
So in October, pages from his reports were seen by a few journalists, including me.
Most news organisations that got this material decided it was not solid enough to publish.
In early December, the whole thing, 35 pages, was sent to Senator John McCain, who pressed the FBI director to investigate exhaustively.
The following month, the intelligence agencies briefed both then-President Barack Obama and Trump about the dossier - and the entire contents were published by Buzzfeed.
In the report, Steele spoke of an "established operational liaison between the TRUMP team and the Kremlin… an intelligence exchange had been running between them for at least 8 years."
Members of the Obama administration believe, based on analysis they saw from the intelligence community, that the information exchange claimed by Steele continued into the election.
"This is a three-headed operation," said one former official, setting out the case, based on the intelligence: Firstly, hackers steal damaging emails from senior Democrats. Secondly, the stories based on this hacked information appear on Twitter and Facebook, posted by thousands of automated "bots", then on Russia's English-language outlets, RT and Sputnik, then right-wing US "news" sites such as Infowars and Breitbart, then Fox and the mainstream media. Thirdly, Russia downloads the online voter rolls.
The voter rolls are said to fit into this because of "microtargeting". Using email, Facebook and Twitter, political advertising can be tailored very precisely: individual messaging for individual voters.
"You are stealing the stuff and pushing it back into the US body politic," said the former official, "you know where to target that stuff when you're pushing it back."
This would take co-operation with the Trump campaign, it is claimed.
"If you need to ensure that white women in Pennsylvania don't vote or independents get pissed in Michigan so they stay home: that's voter suppression. You can figure what your target demographics and locations are from the voter rolls. Then you can use that to target your bot."
This is the "big picture" some accuse the FBI of failing to see.
It is, so far, all allegation - and not just the parts concerning Donald Trump and his people.
For instance, the US intelligence agencies said last October that the voter rolls had been "scanned and probed" from a server in Russia.
But the Russian government was never shown to have been responsible.
There are either a series of coincidences or there is a conspiracy of such reach and sophistication that it may take years to unravel.
"I hear a lot of people comparing this to Watergate," said Congressman Eric Swalwell, a Democrat who sits on the House Intelligence Committee.
"Let me just tell you, the complexity of this case is unlike anything we've ever seen.
"Watergate doesn't even come close. That was a burglary in the Metro section of the Washington Post.
"It doesn't have the international waypoints [of this]. Russia's M.O. is to avoid attribution. This investigation is going to take time."
In his testimony, the FBI director gave away nothing of the details of the inquiry. As I wrote in January, it is being done by a "counter-intelligence taskforce" that includes the CIA, with the FBI leading.
I wrote then that the secret US intelligence court had granted an order, a so-called Fisa warrant, to intercept the electronic records of two Russian banks.
The White House cited this report several times as evidence for President Trump's tweets that "Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower… This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!"
It isn't.
Since Watergate, no president can simply order the CIA or FBI to tap someone's phone.
I wrote that: "Neither Trump nor his associates are named in the Fisa order."
If they were, the court would have to see "probable cause" that they were agents of a foreign power.
It is possible that the communications of Trump associates were picked up in monitoring of foreign entities, such as the Russian banks, so-called "incidental collection".
This is presumably what the White House spokesman, Sean Spicer, is talking about when he asks Congress to investigate an "abuse of power" by the Obama administration.
Comey was careful in his testimony to say the investigation was into "co-ordination" rather than collusion.
"Collusion is not a term, a legal term of art," he said, "and it's one I haven't used here today, as we're investigating to see whether there was any co-ordination…"
"Explicit or implicit coordination?" a Congressman asked.
"Knowing or unknowing," Comey replied.
The investigation, then, is into a range of possibilities: at one end, unwitting co-operation with Russia by members of the Trump campaign; at the other conscious "co-ordination".
Hillary Clinton's former campaign manager, Robby Mook, said that if Trump's aides knew of Russia's plans, there should be charges of treason.
Trump's enemies ask us to believe that some of his people were either traitors or dupes.
The president himself has another version of events: there was no "co-ordination"; the whole thing is a monstrous lie created by the Obama administration, fed by the intelligence community and amplified by the "dishonest" media, billowing black clouds of smoke but no fire.
When the dossier was released, he tweeted: "Are we living in Nazi Germany?"
These two stories cannot be reconciled.
With each new drip of information, option three - the chance that this is all a giant mistake, an improbable series of coincidences - seems further out of reach.
Increasingly, the American people are being asked to choose between two unpalatable versions of events: abuse of power by one president or treason that put another in the White House.
It cannot be both. | The BBC has learned that US officials "verified" a key claim in a report about Kremlin involvement in Donald Trump's election - that a Russian diplomat in Washington was in fact a spy. | 39435786 |
The seven electric-hybrid double decker vehicles will cover the Kirriemuir, Forfar and Brechin 20 and 21 routes to and from Dundee.
The Scottish government's Scottish Green Bus Fund has contributed £300,000 towards the cost of the vehicles, which include free wi-fi access.
Stagecoach introduced 18 electric hybrid buses in 2015, which run on the 73 route between Dundee and Arbroath.
Jon Oakey, Stagecoach East Scotland acting general manager said: "We're committed to improving public transport in Angus and Dundee so I'm delighted to be introducing our latest investment for the area.
"These new vehicles will complement our existing 18 electric-hybrid buses already in the area, helping reduce our environmental impact and hopefully encourage more customers to opt for our greener, smarter travel." | Stagecoach has launched its new £2.1m fleet of buses in Dundee and Angus. | 39655709 |
Scotland's first minister was speaking as she called for a "short pause" in the Brexit process so consensus can be built on the best way forward.
She wants membership of the European single market and the customs union to be at the heart of the process.
But Prime Minister Theresa May has insisted the UK will be leaving both.
The UK government has also previously rejected Ms Sturgeon's calls for the Scottish government to be involved in the Brexit talks, and for Scotland to keep its single market membership even if the rest of the UK leaves.
Responding to Ms Sturgeon's call, a spokesman for the prime minister said: "We gave a commitment right at the very outset of this process to consult with the devolved administrations and that remains the case."
He went on to say "there would be no change" to the government's plans.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn confirmed on Sunday that his party - like Mrs May - was also committed to leaving the EU and pulling out of the single market, while seeking a "jobs-first Brexit".
But some senior Conservatives - including Chancellor Philip Hammond and the party's Scottish leader, Ruth Davidson - have called for the economy to be prioritised over immigration control.
Ms Davidson, who met Mrs May in Downing Street on Monday, wants a new approach that would build cross-party support for an "open Brexit".
Formal talks between the UK and EU are due to begin on 19 June - although there have been suggestions they could be delayed by a few days.
Ms Sturgeon argued that the instability caused by last week's election result meant the UK's approach to the negotiations had to change.
Speaking as she met her party's MPs at Westminster, Ms Sturgeon said the approach Ms May was taking to Brexit "simply cannot stand" after the Conservatives lost their Commons majority in the election.
She said: "I'm calling today for a process that is opened up to include more voices, all parties and all four nations of the UK and an approach that has continued membership of the single market at its heart.
"The prime minister has got to recognise that she asked for a strengthened mandate for a hard Brexit, and voters across the UK refused to give her that, and she cannot simply carry one as if nothing has changed.
"The Tory cabal kicking up a hard Brexit approach is dead in the water."
Ms Sturgeon also questioned whether the prime minister could form a functioning government, adding: "The idea that the UK led by this prime minister and this government can just blunder into negotiations starting one week today, I just don't think it's a credible proposition."
Mrs May is currently attempting to secure a deal that would see the Democratic Unionist Party support her minority government, which has confirmed that next week's Queen's Speech could be delayed.
Ms Sturgeon's proposals for Brexit include the involvement of the UK's devolved governments in the negotiations, and the re-establishment of the Joint Ministerial Committee (JMC) on EU Negotiations.
She also wants a cross-party advisory group to be set up, including representatives from the devolved administrations, to agree a new position for the UK and oversee the Brexit negotiations.
The SNP won 35 seats in the general election, down 21 on the 56 MPs it returned in 2015 but still enough to give the party a majority of the seats in Scotland.
Among the SNP MPs to lose their seat was the party's Westminster leader Angus Robertson. Stewart Hosie has been confirmed as its acting leader in the Commons with a new permanent leader due to be selected this week and announced on Wednesday evening.
Tommy Sheppard, Joanna Cherry, Ian Blackford and Drew Hendry are all standing as candidates.
The UK government's rejection of a special Brexit deal for Scotland prompted Ms Sturgeon to demand a second independence referendum when the Brexit process was formally triggered in March.
The first minister has since admitted the issue of another referendum was a factor in last Thursday's vote, and stated the party would reflect on its plans amid calls for it to be taken off the table.
She has turned her focus to the UK's Brexit approach as other political leaders, including Ms Davidson and Scottish Secretary David Mundell, called for more consensus on Brexit.
Speaking on Saturday, Ms Davidson said: 'I want to ensure that we can look again at issues like Brexit, which we know we are now going to have to get cross-party support for, and move to a consensus within the country about what it means and what we seek to achieve as we leave."
She has previously said she wants the UK to have the "largest amount of access" to the single market after Brexit.
And there have been suggestions she will use the influence of her party's new Scottish MPs to push for what she describes as an "open Brexit" that prioritises the economy over curbing immigration.
Mr Mundell told BBC Scotland that he had always believed it would be possible to build a consensus, particularly in Scotland, for what the Brexit negotiations should achieve. | Nicola Sturgeon has claimed any plans for a so-called hard Brexit are "dead in the water" following the election result. | 40245650 |
Thomasina Bennett, from Belper, had Alzheimer's Disease and was staying at Milford House Care Home in April 2012.
Derby Crown Court heard there were no industry-wide regulations on the fastening of wardrobes to walls in care homes.
Milford House Partnership denies two health and safety at work charges.
A jury was also told personal activity monitors - used in Mrs Bennett's room and elsewhere in the care home - were "systematically unsafe".
Mrs Bennett's daughter previously told the court her mother's monitor had not gone off before she was found.
Giving evidence for the defence, group business manager Pierre Falleth added no regulations existed for the use of such monitors for residents at risk if they got out of bed.
"It was awful what happened, but we could not foresee it," Mr Falleth said.
He told the court he warned other care providers after the accident, contacting them as chairman of the Derbyshire Care Providers Association.
He said: "What happened was incredibly awful. A lot of people were extremely distressed by it and we didn't want it to happen to anybody else."
At a meeting of care providers, Mr Falleth said he spoke to national providers as well as smaller groups.
"I can tell you that nobody had secured wardrobes and none of them had come across this before," Mr Falleth said.
After Mrs Bennett's death, Milford House Partnership fastened all wardrobes to walls and introduced checks on personal activity monitors.
Gerald Hudson, 72, from Ambergate, trading as Milford House Partnership, which runs three care homes, denies both charges brought under the Health and Safety Act.
He does not have to appear in the dock or attend court as the charges are brought against the partnership.
The trial continues. | A care home manager has told a court he could not have foreseen an accident which led to the death of an elderly woman who was found under a wardrobe. | 35788722 |
It was thought the intricately-painted porcelain wucai fish vase might be sold for up to £1,800, but instead it went for £810,000.
Auctioneers, Fellows, in the Jewellery Quarter, said the sum broke their house records, thanks to two rival bidders.
The original guide price for the vase came from the vendor, the auction house said.
More updates on this story and others in Birmingham and the Black Country
One bidder flew in from Japan for the auction and there were a "multitude" of telephone bids with people competing online from outside the UK, including from China and Japan.
Fellows said the item was initially believed to be a 20th Century copy of a vase fashioned during the reign of Emperor Jiajing of the Chinese Ming dynasty who ruled from 1521 to 1567, hence the initial estimate of its price.
Mark Huddleston, senior specialist, said he was "delighted" with the sale and predicting the final price "became impossible".
"This vase was consigned via a Chinese client.
"Initial research when cataloguing had pointed to a number of historic precedents sold in the tens and hundreds of thousands.
"We examined the decoration to the collar and felt that it lacked sophistication of these early pieces.
"Whilst we dealt with a number of condition inquiries before the sale, little could have prepared us for the result." | A Chinese vase has sold for 450 times what it was estimated to fetch at an auction house in Birmingham. | 39107355 |
Joan Porter, 85, lives in sheltered accommodation in Bearsden, East Dunbartonshire.
But 40 years ago, she wrote down the stories she used to tell her children when they were small.
Now the same stories are to be published for the first time - and can sit on the book shelves of her seven great-grandchildren.
The series is being published after her daughter Arlene Harrison found the stories in one of her mother's cupboards.
She agreed with the rest of her family to send them off to a publisher and see what happened.
Arlene said: "We grew up in Kilberry - surrounded by countryside. Mum used to make up stories for us, and then she started telling the stories to the children in her playgroup and started to write them down. Everyone always encouraged her to get them published, but she wouldn't.
"She said she was too busy and didn't think anyone would be interested. She was always too busy running about caring for the family to ever fulfil her own ambition."
But now, Joan has - the first two books in the series are to be released in October.
"When I first told her we had sent her books off, she kept asking me not to make a big fuss of it and said that no-one would be interested in her ramblings.
"She still can't believe that her writings are being made into children's books. It's got her talking about writing more. It's a lovely legacy to leave.
"She really is wonderful - she never lets her dementia stop her doing anything. She is proof that being a pensioner and having dementia shouldn't get in the way of fulfilling your dreams." | A great-grandmother who has Alzheimer's is to become a first-time author. | 37318693 |
Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin said further research on the environmental impact was needed.
A decision had previously been promised by the end of this year.
Business groups reacted with dismay at the news, with one group describing it as "gutless", but opponents welcomed the extra focus on the environment.
"The case for aviation expansion is clear - but it's vitally important we get the decision right so that it will benefit generations to come," said Mr McLoughlin.
"We will undertake more work on environmental impacts, including air quality, noise and carbon."
An independent report on airport expansion by Sir Howard Davies in July backed a plan to build a third runway at Heathrow.
But he said that the new runway should come with severe restrictions to reduce the environmental and noise effects, and did not completely rule out another runway at Gatwick or doubling an existing runway at Heathrow.
This latest development means these two other options are still on the table and opponents argue the delay weakens Heathrow's position.
Building a third runway at Heathrow
Extending an existing runway at Heathrow
Second runway at Gatwick Airport
Read live updates here
Heathrow Airport: Why the renewed delay?
The government's Heathrow problem
The politics of Heathrow expansion
Gatwick described the delay as a "defining moment" in the airport expansion debate.
"We are glad that the government recognises that more work on environmental impact needs to be done," said its chief executive Stewart Wingate.
"Air quality, for example, is a public health priority and obviously the legal safeguards around it cannot be wished away," he added.
And Heathrow Hub, the group behind the proposal for extending a runway at Heathrow, said the delay "seemed sensible".
But Heathrow Airport said it had "full confidence" its plans could meet "tough environmental conditions" and would now "move into the delivery phase".
Plenty of business and union leaders will be frustrated at yet another delay to the airports' decision.
But the government says it needs more time to pick a winner.
Ministers want another six months to drill down into the impact any new runway will have on air quality and the people who'll live under the flight path.
A cynic might point out it helps them out of a political hole. Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith said he would resign and force a by-election if they picked Heathrow. But he'll be tied up with the London mayoral election, which is to be held on 5 May 2016.
Still, ministers do need to get this decision legally watertight.
Campaigners around Heathrow have already told me they plan to take any expansion plans to court, and they think the impact of a bigger airport on local traffic pollution is their best chance of winning.
Business groups reacted with anger at the delay. They argue that a lack of space at airports is damaging the economy.
"Business leaders will be tearing their hair out at the news that, yet again, a decision on expanding the UK's airport capacity has been delayed," said Simon Walker from the Institute of Directors.
"Of course this is difficult choice, which is the reason the government set up the Airports Commission to make a recommendation balancing economic needs, environmental concerns and the impact on local residents," he continued.
"We have to ask now, what was the point of the Commission if the government still fails to act?"
Meanwhile the business lobby group, the CBI said the decision was "deeply disappointing" and the British Chambers of Commerce described it as "gutless".
But London Mayor Boris Johnson, a vociferous opponent of a third runway, said the Heathrow campaign was now officially grounded.
"The wheels are falling off the Heathrow fuselage and I think that, now the government has hit the pause button, they will begin to understand with ever greater clarity that, due to the environmental impacts, the legal obstacles and the cost to the public purse, this bird will never fly," he said.
Conservative MP and London mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith, who threatened to resign if the government picked Heathrow, said: "We can't afford more dithering over aviation capacity.
"Gatwick stands ready to deliver it sooner, at a lower public expense and without the damaging impact of Heathrow expansion."
The delay means no decision will be made before next year's London mayoral election, to be held on 5 May.
Labour's mayoral candidate, MP Sadiq Khan, told the BBC the delay was "bad news for London's businesses".
"What we should be doing is agreeing to a new runway at Gatwick Airport. Say no to Heathrow... This dithering and delay will mean problems in relation to growth," he added.
Friends of the Earth was also among those who applauded the decision, saying it was "clear you can't build a new runway and tackle London's toxic air pollution at the same time". | A decision on whether to build a third runway at Heathrow Airport has been delayed until at least next summer, the government has confirmed. | 35062739 |
The 17-year-old suspect opened fire at Tocqueville high school, in Grasse, at about 12:40 local time (11:40 GMT).
More people were injured in the ensuing panic.
Anti-terrorist commandos from the elite Raid force were sent to the scene.
The suspect, who was reportedly armed with a rifle, two handguns and two hand grenades, was arrested "very quickly" after launching the attack.
Education Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem told reporters on Thursday afternoon the suspect was "fragile".
"It was a crazy act by a youth who is unstable and fascinated by guns," she said, going on to praise the headmaster's actions during the attack as "heroic".
According to Ms Vallaud-Belkacem, the headteacher tried to reason with the gunman, seemingly stopping the rampage in its tracks.
"We missed out on the worst," she said.
A student had earlier told local newspaper Nice Matin how the headteacher, named by the newspaper as Herve Pizzinat, had remained "cool", continuing to try to calm the suspect down even after he had been shot in the arm.
"He kept trying to bring him back to reason," the student said.
One student reported hearing four gunshots, while others described the panic in the moments after the attack began. Ten students were treated for shock or minor injuries caused as they tried to flee the shooter, according to the education secretary.
No-one was critically hurt. The headteacher had gunshot wounds, while the students were being treated for buckshot wounds.
Initial conflicting reports suggested there may have been a second shooter, but it appears this is not the case, although earlier on Thursday interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said they had not ruled it out entirely and were still "searching for a possible second perpetrator".
The local prosecutor has confirmed the shooting had "no link" to terrorism. Instead, it is thought the student had bad relations with his classmates.
However, President Francois Hollande said France should remain "vigilant" and stay under a state of emergency.
Grasse, the capital of France's perfume industry, is about 44km (27 miles) from the city of Nice, where a lorry attack in July killed 86 people.
France remains under a state of emergency after a string of deadly attacks in the past 18 months. | A school shooting, which left three students and a headteacher wounded, appears to have been a "crazy act" carried out by a teenager obsessed with firearms, France's education minister has said. | 39292755 |
Dyfed-Powys Police were called to Mwnt at 19:50 BST on Friday after reports of a car going through a field and over the edge.
Mr Chilton's body was recovered from his car at the base of the cliff at Ty Gwyn Caravan Park.
An inquest has been opened and adjourned. | A man who died after his car plunged over a cliff in Ceredigion has been named as Gary Christopher Chilton, 42, from Manchester. | 36590062 |
The 47-year-old was on a practice run for a race in an electric car for Amazon Prime show The Grand Tour.
Mr Hammond "climbed out of the car himself before the vehicle burst into flames", the show said in a statement.
Co-host Jeremy Clarkson tweeted that it was the "most frightening" accident he had ever seen but said Mr Hammond, who fractured a knee, was "mostly OK".
The show's statement said Mr Hammond had been involved in a "serious crash" after completing the Hemberg Hill Climb in Switzerland, where a race takes place on Sunday.
He had been driving a "Rimac Concept One, an electric super car built in Croatia, during filming for The Grand Tour Season 2 on Amazon Prime, but very fortunately suffered no serious injury".
Mr Hammond was "conscious and talking" after the crash, the show said, and had been flown to hospital in St Gallen "to be checked over".
"Nobody else was in the car or involved in the accident, and we'd like to thank the paramedics on site for their swift response.
"The cause of the crash is unknown and is being investigated," the statement added.
The Hemburg organisers said the official race would take place as planned on Sunday.
A statement said: "The vehicle left the track and landed in the meadow."
They added that rescuers had been "very fast" to reach the scene.
The crash comes 11 years after Mr Hammond nearly died when he lost control of a Vampire dragster while filming for Top Gear.
He was in a coma for two weeks after the accident at Elvington Airfield, near York.
Mr Hammond, who had been driving at speeds of up to 288mph (463km/h), suffered brain injuries but made a full recovery.
A "catastrophic disintegration" of the jet car's front tyre, probably caused by an object like a nail, caused the crash, a BBC report later concluded.
In early March 2017, Mr Hammond said he had fallen off a motorbike "many times" while filming an episode of The Grand Tour in Mozambique and "banged my head".
But he also said he was "fine", although Mr Clarkson told the Sun newspaper that Mr Hammond had "hurt himself quite badly". | Former Top Gear host Richard Hammond has been flown to hospital after a crash while filming in Switzerland. | 40234865 |
The trio will set off at 15:12 BST on Thursday, with Knox aiming to improve on missing the cut in his Augusta National debut last year.
Sandy Lyle plays alongside English amateur Scott Gregory and Sean O'Hair.
England's Danny Willett begins his Masters defence alongside Matt Kuchar and Australian amateur Curtis Luck.
Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy plays alongside Spain's Jon Rahm and Japan's Hideto Tanihara at 18:41, while world number one Dustin Johnson is in the final group with two-time winner Bubba Watson and Jimmy Walker at 19:03.
The 31-year-old Knox, ranked No 23 in the world, has won twice on the PGA Tour and in 2015 became the first Scot to win a World Golf Championship.
Knox and 1988 champion Lyle are the only Scots in the field, which contains a record 11 Englishman. | Scotland's Russell Knox will play the opening two rounds of the US Masters with Japan's Hideki Matsuyama and America's Rickie Fowler. | 39497222 |
The so-called Norway model has been privately floated as a possibility as the Scottish government seeks ways to maintain Scotland's links with the EU.
BBC Scotland's political editor Brian Taylor said the plan could give EU citizens the right to work in Scotland.
But it could only happen if the UK and European institutions agreed.
The idea emerged as a leaked memo about Brexit claimed splits in the UK cabinet mean there is still no overall plan for leaving the EU.
But Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said it was not a government memo, and he rejected its contents.
A UK government source said the document was an unsolicited pitch for work from a consultancy firm.
The Scottish government has said it will publish plans aimed at protecting Scotland's place in Europe in the coming weeks.
The EEA includes the existing EU states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
Membership of the EEA allows Norway to have full access to the single market, with the country obliged to make a financial contribution to the EU budget and to accept the majority of EU laws.
Norwegians also have free movement across the EU, with EU citizens free to live and work in Norway too, but the country is not part of the customs union, so it is able to set tariffs for other countries.
Norway is exempt from EU rules on agriculture, fisheries, justice and home affairs - but the downside is that Norwegians have no say over how the rules of the single market are created.
Supporters of Scotland attempting to secure EEA membership say it would allow people from EU and EEA countries to work in Scotland even if they faced constraints elsewhere in the UK.
They argue that people employed in Scotland are already identified by a distinct tax code because of Holyrood's new tax powers.
But the UK government might take some convincing if ministers feared it could lead to back door access to the wider UK through Scotland.
Let me emphasise a point I have been making all day. This is not, currently, a Scottish government proposal. It has not been endorsed by ministers. It is an option in the mix - but one with influential backing.
Problems? Plenty. Firstly, EEA members are currently all autonomous states, not devolved territories like Scotland.
Secondly, the UK - as the EU member state - would have to give prior approval to such a plan, even if it caught the interest of European institutions.
And, thirdly, UK ministers may take some persuading if they fear that EU/EEA citizens could gain access to the wider UK, through Scotland, post Brexit.
Read more from Brian
Scottish Conservative finance spokesman Murdo Fraser said the SNP "know full well the EU would not allow Scotland to have a separate deal in the first place when the precedent that would set would go directly against the interests of some member states."
He added: "If the SNP's plan is to back a 'Norway-style' deal for Scotland, separate to the rest of the UK, that would erect a hard border between us and England, our largest market and nearest neighbour.
"And as legal experts have made clear, it would also mean having no say whatsoever in the EU regulations which would still apply to us.
"One of Nicola Sturgeon's grandly-titled 'five tests' was to ensure Scotland had a say in shaping the single market, not just being subject to its rules. So this plan would not just be bad for Scotland, it would even break her own test."
Labour's shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme that the UK should not be "divided" over its approach to EU membership.
He said: "In different constituencies, different regions, there were different views, but the overall view unfortunately was to withdraw from the EU.
"Let's work together constructively to get the best deal possible. What we need to do is make sure the Scottish government is working with the UK government overall."
It comes Holyrood prepares to debate a Scottish government motion urging MSPs to back Scotland staying within the European single market.
The motion calls on Scotland's place in the single market to be "fully protected", and calls for clarity from the UK government on its proposals to leave the EU, including whether it will seek continued membership of the single market.
Speaking ahead of the debate, SNP MSP Bruce Crawford said the UK government was "mired in confusion" over questions such as whether the UK and Scotland should be in the single market.
He added: "Every area of Scotland voted to remain in the EU and today's debate is an opportunity for the Tories and all other parties to reject a hard Brexit and stand up for Scotland.
"At this crucial stage while the UK government is still working out its negotiating position, this is the time to make Scotland's voice heard and challenge head-on those who want to lead us out of the single market, with all the costs to Scottish jobs and the economy."
Meanwhile, a report prepared for Holyrood's economy committee has estimated that Scotland could face further cuts in a Brexit "growth shock".
Economic think-tank IPPR Scotland said that if UK Chancellor Phillip Hammond uses public spending cuts to plug the whole of the £25bn UK budget gap per year by 2019/20 projected by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), it would cause a further £1.3bn cut to Scottish funds.
The scenario was one of three modelled by the think-tank, which also examined the impact of Westminster using public spending to deal with half or quarter of the budget gap - found to cause £670m and £330m further cuts to the Scottish settlement.
IPPR Scotland director Russell Gunson said: "Any further cuts to day-to-day spending in the rest of the UK could mean cuts for Scotland's budgets too, on top of very significant cuts already planned over the coming years." | Scotland could attempt to become a member of the European Economic Area (EEA) when the UK leaves the EU, BBC Scotland has learned. | 37976004 |
Steve Horler produces organic beef on his 55-acre at New Leaf Farm in Bathampton, near Bath.
Mr Horler said: "I'm angry really, we'd never heard anything from the council beforehand."
Bath and North East Somerset Council has apologised but added the plans were in the public consultation stage.
If the park and ride west of Mill Lane was built, it would use up 25 acres of land at New Leaf Farm.
Mr Horler added: "We had no letters, no warning whatsoever. We didn't even know they were interested in building a 1,400-space car park on our land and we haven't heard anything since.
"My father was distraught because he's just retired and he's built up the business for me to take over as his son."
Conservative council leader Tim Warren has apologised saying he believed letters had been sent out to affected landowners.
Mr Warren added: "There are huge transport issues and we have to do something about this, which is why we've gone out to consultation on this park and ride."
Legally the council could enforce the sale of the land by a compulsory purchase order, but Mr Warren said this was "not a line we would like to take".
The Conservative MP for Bath, Ben Howlett, has also given his backing for the farmer's land, Site B, to be used as a park and ride.
Mr Howlett said: "This is an issue that has been dragging on for such a long period of time - there are three sites, whittled down from seven sites.
"I personally like Site B, I hope more people will put their views forward in the consultation."
The consultation runs for another fortnight. | A farmer has spoken of his shock after discovering in his local newspaper of his land being earmarked for a park and ride site. | 34473010 |
The Bluebirds were second from bottom when former boss Paul Trollope was sacked in October.
Under current manager Neil Warnock, Cardiff have climbed up to 13th place with three games left in the campaign.
"We were right down there at the start of the season so I think we've come a long way," said Peltier.
"If we finish in the top half, it just makes you think what could have been if we'd started off properly. We would have been right up there."
Asked if he was envious of the clubs competing for promotion, Peltier said: "Yeah, definitely. You're always looking to see the results and who's in and who's not in. It's going right down to the wire at both ends."
Peltier returned from an ankle injury to make his first appearance since January as Cardiff beat Nottingham Forest on Easter Monday.
The 30-year-old, who played for 64 minutes against Forest before being substituted, had initially feared his season was over.
"The plan was to get through it and get it sorted at the end of the season, but against Preston [in January] my ankle just locked up, and I thought 'enough is enough'," said Peltier.
"I went to see the surgeon and he operated on it straight away. It was quite a big operation so I was glad to get it sorted. I feel good and I'm just looking to get myself back fit.
"I was due to be out for the season, but I've come back quite quick. The gaffer's been telling me not to push it, but I've been wanting to come back in the squad. If I'd have left it, it would have been a long time from when I'd been injured until pre-season, so I didn't want to be out that long."
With little to play for between now and the end of the season, Warnock has repeatedly said in recent weeks he is already planning for the next campaign.
Despite being described by his manager as one of the best right-backs in the Championship, Peltier is not taking his place in the squad for granted.
"I wouldn't say fine - you never know in football do you? Everyone's fighting for places and I think competition in the team is very good," he added.
"It will just make us stronger, there's a good team spirit in the dressing room and there's no jealousy or anything like that. It will be good to get some fresh faces in and see what happens." | Cardiff City defender Lee Peltier says their strong second half to the season shows they can compete with the leading teams in the Championship. | 39626989 |
The 51-year-old jockey is enjoying another comeback in Britain and Ireland after a spell in the United States.
Across The Stars is owned by Saeed Suhail, for whom Fallon won the Derby on the Stoute-trained Kris Kin in 2003.
In other Derby news, top Irish trainer Aidan O'Brien indicated he is likely to run four horses - US Army Ranger, Port Douglas, Deauville and Idaho.
US Army Ranger heads the betting for the Classic on 4 June along with Dante Stakes winner Wings Of Desire, the mount of Frankie Dettori for trainer John Gosden.
The Dettori-Gosden partnership won last year with Golden Horn, and the trainer was pleased with his leading 2016 contender's workout at Epsom on Tuesday morning.
"The horse did it nicely. We had not come here to do a flat-out piece of work, we came here to learn about the track," said Gosden.
Dettori added: "To compare him to Golden Horn is a bit unfair. With Golden Horn I had sleepless nights, with this one I just hope for the best."
READ MORE: How Dettori came back from exile
As for Fallon, Suhail's racing manager Bruce Raymond said the owner was pleased to have the six-time champion jockey riding for him.
"It's good to have him and to reunite the winning combination of the three of them," said Raymond
Fallon has won the Derby three times - on Oath (1999) for Henry Cecil, plus Kris Kin and Light Shift (2004) for Stoute.
This will be his 12th ride in the race - his last when seventh on the Godolphin-owned True Story two years ago.
Across The Stars has won one of his four starts and was most recently seen when finishing third in the Lingfield Derby Trial after a slightly troubled passage.
Stoute is also due to saddle the well-touted Ulysses, a son of Epsom Classic winners Galileo and Light Shift, and impressive winner of a maiden race at Newbury on only his third start, on 13 May.
Andrea Atzeni has been booked to ride for the Newmarket trainer, who has five Derby winners to his name including Shergar (1981) and Workforce (2010).
"He's a real well-balanced, good-actioned athlete with an Epsom pedigree," said Stoute of Ulysses.
"He's more mature [than Across The Stars], ready for it and I'm certainly very hopeful of his chance."
Ulysses, and US Army Ranger, will bid to become the first Derby winner to begin with the letter U. The victors since the first running in 1780 have represented 23 letters of the alphabet, with X and Z also yet to pass the post first.
Approximate Derby odds (24 May, 11:30 BST)
7-2 US Army Ranger, Wings Of Desire 7-1 Cloth Of Stars, 8-1 Ulysses, 10-1 Deauville, Moonlight Magic, 16-1 Port Douglas, Massaat, 25-1 Bar | Kieren Fallon is set to ride Across The Stars for old ally Sir Michael Stoute in the Derby at Epsom next month. | 36367647 |
Maria van der Hoeven says most people think that China is frantically building coal-fired power stations.
The reality, she says, is that China is spending as much as the US and Europe put together on clean power.
She says its coal-fired power stations are state of the art - and should be copied in other developing countries.
Maria van der Hoeven told BBC News: "People think about China in a way more representative of previous decades.
"They are now the largest wind power market in the world. They have increased their power generation from renewables from really nothing 10 years ago - and now it's 25%. These are very important signals that China is moving into the right direction."
Her organisation - the rich countries' energy think-tank - says in 2014 that China spent more than $80bn in new renewables generating capacity; higher than the EU ($46bn); Japan ($37bn) and the USA ($34bn).
China's commitment to renewables has benefited the rest of the world by creating a mass market that prompted a 70% reduction in the cost of solar panels in recent years.
The country is also building 50 new nuclear power stations and creating economies of scale in nuclear too, the IEA says, at a time when the industry is moribund in Europe.
Ms van der Hoeven's comments come in the week that China is expected formally to declare its climate change pledge in preparation for the UN climate summit in Paris in December.
Last year the nation reported that its emissions had fallen by 1% as coal use slumped.
Ms van der Hoeven said China was still investing heavily in coal-fired power plants, but that the power stations were highly efficient and enabled old inefficient plants to be retired.
This was an example to some other developing nations that still used much less efficient technology, she added.
The IEA says if other nations can be persuaded to use better technology to improve performance by just a few percentage points, it would equal the entire carbon reductions effort from the EU.
But despite its admiration for China's achievement, the IEA is still critical of what it says is the nation's lack of transparency on data.
And it says that because of China's vast size and its growing wealth, the country's emissions are expected by 2030 to be two and a half times higher than the next bigger emitter, the US.
Follow Roger on Twitter @rharrabin | China should be given more credit for its investment in clean electricity, the head of the International Energy Agency says. | 33143176 |
A mock terror attack will begin at The Trafford Centre in Greater Manchester when it is closed between midnight and 06:00 BST on Tuesday.
The three-day exercise will continue in locations including Redbank Community Home in Newton-le-Willows on Wednesday.
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said it would "test the emergency response to a major terrorist incident".
The simulation - codenamed Winchester Accord - has been in the planning since December, a spokeswoman said.
Assistant Chief Constable Rebekah Sutcliffe warned that "residents in the area may hear loud noises and see emergency services activity around Trafford Centre during the exercise and I can reassure people that there is no cause for concern".
"However, I would still urge people to contact police if they do have any concerns or want to report anything and are not sure if it is linked to the exercise."
She said the simulation, which is part of a national programme, was "not linked to any specific terror threat or attack".
In 1996, an IRA bomb exploded outside the Arndale shopping centre in Manchester.
A total of 212 people were injured when the 1,500kg explosive was detonated in a parked lorry.
Similar counter-terrorism exercises have been carried out in London and Glasgow. | A major counter-terrorism exercise is due to be staged in one of England's largest shopping centres. | 36227143 |
North Wales Fire and Rescue Service said the blaze on Victoria Pier in Colwyn Bay started due to hot metal work being carried out by contractors.
About 10 firefighters used cherry pickers to reach the fire, which broke at about 16:30 BST on Friday.
A crew remained on-site overnight as the tide restricted access and they could not be sure the fire was out.
Part of the 116-year-old structure, which was already closed to the public for safety reasons, collapsed into the sea last month.
It was further hit by Storm Doris three weeks later.
Work to demolish the damaged parts of the pier, which has been closed since 2008, began earlier this month.
The remainder of the seaward section is to be redeveloped into a shortened boardwalk with plans to restore its 1930s Art Deco pavilion also being looked at.
Conwy council voted to demolish the structure in 2013 and a report at the time said restoring the pier would cost more than £15m.
But demolition was refused by the Welsh Government in 2015. | A fire at a disused Grade II-listed pier in Conwy county was accidental, the fire service has said. | 39241533 |
She told the BBC that Labour must do its job of holding the government to account while avoiding "scapegoating".
She was speaking after ex-chancellor Alistair Darling became the latest figure to attack the party's direction under former leader Ed Miliband.
He said the party had "no economic strategy" and had failed to defend its record in government properly.
Ed Miliband stood down on Friday after Labour failed to regain power, ending up with 26 fewer seats than in 2010.
On Sunday, Liz Kendall became the first candidate to confirm she was entering the race to succeed him and others - including potentially Chuka Umunna, Tristram Hunt, Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper - are expected to enter the fray in the coming days.
However, both Dan Jarvis and David Lammy have ruled themselves out of the contest.
In other Labour news:
Harriet Harman said the party had suffered a "very bad" defeat and she had commissioned research into its performance in different parts of the countries so the post-mortem could "be based on the actual facts rather than anecdotes".
Ms Harman, who will address members of the Parliamentary Labour Party later at its first meeting since the election, urged the party to pull together and refrain from recriminations.
In recent days, leading Blairites such as Lord Hutton and Lord Mandelson have questioned the party's direction under Mr Miliband, suggesting he had made a "terrible mistake" in moving away from the territory occupied by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
But Ms Harman said the party should not "jump to conclusions" about why it had done so badly.
"We have to have a proper analysis rather than scapegoating and 'blame gaming'," she told BBC Breakfast. "It is my responsibility to make sure we have a debate which is illuminated by the facts rathern than people just grinding axes".
She added: "At the same time we need to be electing a new leader and we are doing that under new rules because Ed Miliband changed the rules."
While she was temporary leader, Ms Harman said she would make sure the government was held to account for the "whole load of promises" it had made during the election campaign.
"We are not going to go away and let them do whatever they want. It is a very important role".
Labour election rules
MPs wishing to stand as leader and deputy leader have to be nominated by 15% of their colleagues in the Parliamentary Labour Party to be eligible to stand.
As Labour now has 232 MPs, this means prospective candidates must get at least 35 signatures.
Under rules agreed last year, all Labour Party members, registered supporters and affiliated supporters - including union members - will be allowed a maximum of one vote each on a one member, one vote system.
When the election is held, they will be asked to rank candidates in order of preference.
If no candidate gets 50% of all votes cast, the votes will be added up and the candidate with the fewest votes eliminated. Their second preference votes will then be redistributed until one candidate has 50% of all votes cast.
Who's in the running to replace Ed Miliband?
Mr Darling, who did not contest the election, suggested that Labour was in a worse position than when it lost the 1992 election.
"We did not have an economic policy," he told the BBC. "We didn't repudiate the criticisms the Tories were making of when we were in government.
"They were occasions when we almost said we didn't do any good in 13 years, which is absolute rubbish.
"You've got to have confidence about what you did in the past just as the courage to admit where you got things wrong - but we just didn't look compelling and convincing."
Mr Darling said he favoured a long leadership contest so the party could determine not only who would take it forward but what it should be arguing for against a majority Tory government.
"An awful lot of people being talked about now were only elected five years ago and you've got to see where they stand."
Mr Jarvis, who served in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan before resigning his commission and entering politics in 2011, had been touted as a possible leadership contenders by some of his fellow MPs.
However, in an article for the Times, he confirmed he would not be putting his name forward.
"I'm ready to serve in that rebuilding process as part of the Labour team. But I can't do that as leader at this moment," he wrote.
Mr Jarvis, whose first wife died in 2010 and who has a young family, said it was "not the right time" for him or them.
"My eldest kids had a very tough time when they lost their mum and I don't want them to lose their dad. I need some space for them, my wife and our youngest child right now, and I wouldn't have it as Leader of the Opposition."
But he said Labour, had to "move out of the comfort zone of critiquing the Tories" and offer an alternative.
Labour, he suggested, had to reconnect with the public, pointing out that, excluding London, "more people have walked on the moon than the number of Labour MPs elected across the South West, South East and East of England".
He also said Labour was facing increasing challenges in its traditional northern heartlands.
"Labour began this Parliament leading the debate about devolving power away from Westminster. It ended it having allowed George Osborne to steal our clothing with talk of a Northern Powerhouse." | Acting Labour leader Harriet Harman has said there should be "no blame game" in the wake of its election defeat. | 32686769 |
Andy Logins, 56, of Stiles Road in Arnold, was charged as part of inquiries into historical child abuse at children's homes in the county.
The offences allegedly took place in 1984 against three victims at Beechwood children's home, where he was a registered social worker.
Mr Logins is due to appear before Nottingham magistrates on 28 April.
He is also charged with injuring a 16-year-old boy.
Operation Daybreak was set up to investigate allegations of abuse at former children's homes across the county between the 1960s and 2000.
Charges facing Logins: | A man has been charged with several sex offences including raping two girls at a children's home in Nottinghamshire. | 32073057 |
As a presenter in regional news for London and the South East of England, I used to receive green ink postcards of protest whenever I referred to Southall as being in west London. The author - and, unhelpfully Royal Mail - insisted it was in Middlesex, a county abolished 40 years ago in belated acknowledgement of London's growth.
The same is true to the east, in Romford where people insist they're in Essex, and in Bromley where they'll tell you, my aunt included, that it's not London but Kent.
To be fair, it can be confusing. Surrey, for instance, continues to be administered from County Hall in Kingston, even though that is now a London borough.
If some Londoners are not exactly proud of belonging, many outside are downright hostile. They dislike the way London seems to dominate politics, media and the economy.
It's hard to argue that house prices elsewhere in the UK haven't been distorted by the capital. In my native Devon, demand has been stoked by people selling up in London and heading west.
A report by Knight Frank, the real estate consultancy, said that in the two years to June 2013, some 49% of prime new-build in central London was sold to people not residing in the UK.
In 2013 it was estimated that in property terms London's top 10 boroughs were worth more than all of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales combined.
According to The London Plan, the mayor's development strategy, the UK's capital city generates about 17% of the country's wealth (more than £565bn).
It's not a popular thing to say, but tax receipts help subsidise less prosperous parts of the UK. The Centre for Economic and Business Research suggests London makes a net contribution to the Treasury of £34bn. (To which the riposte is that we might be able to generate more of the country's wealth outside of London and the South East of England if the capital didn't lure away so much of the talent born elsewhere in the UK).
Little wonder, then, that being elected mayor of London has, for the last 16 years, been regarded as a passport to influence. The four previous London elections have been more talked about nationally than any other local council election, and not merely because the national media is concentrated in London.
Last week in the lift, I bumped into a former colleague. Probably the best political journalist on the London beat, he was lamenting covering his fifth mayoral election.
One factor, of course, is the absence of Ken or Boris. Sadiq (Khan) and Zac (Goldsmith) lack the name recognition and headline-grabbing appeal of their predecessors as Labour and Conservative candidate.
London mayoral election: The contenders
How do you define a Londoner?
Celebrity doesn't equate to effectiveness, of course, but it gets you noticed and that tends to force central government to respond.
Ever since I first interviewed Rudy Giuliani as he signed Halloween pumpkins during his 1997 re-election bid, I've been visiting New York and following politics there, a city where no vote-raising photo opportunity is ignored.
New Yorkers are savvy enough to know that the most colourful mayors aren't always the most effective.
Michael Bloomberg, who's just abandoned plans to run for the White House, achieved results in an uncharismatic, un-showy way.
In the early 1990s, David Dinkins was more capable than people thought at the time, but sandwiched between the mayoralties of Ed Koch and Rudy Giuliani, his was destined to be forgotten.
London, though, has its problems. It needs a gobby, headline-grabbing mayor because in such a centralised political system, it's the only way to get anything done.
Even then, and even if the incumbent government's politics are more or less the same, that's no guarantee of success.
Ken Livingstone, whilst technically an independent in his first term, had a constructive relationship with Tony Blair, but the public-private partnership (PPP) financing model for the Underground was imposed despite the mayor's opposition because Gordon Brown's Treasury wanted it to be.
The chaos and failure that followed had been widely predicted, but the mayor of London's electoral mandate to do something different counted for nothing.
City mayors in the United States can be dull yet still effective because real political power is dispersed; Washington's political reach is nothing like as powerful as Whitehall's.
So the London mayor has limited power; and more than a decade after city-wide government was restored (having been removed in 1986 with the abolition of the Greater London Council, successor to the London County Council), neither Ken Livingstone or Boris Johnson was able to do much to close the gap between London's rich and its poor.
The New Policy Institute estimates that 27% of Londoners live in poverty after housing costs are taken into account, compared with 20% in the rest of England.
Still, the political parties are fighting for all their worth to secure the lease on City Hall. A Conservative peer in London, who knows a thing or two about elections in the capital, told me he doubts Zac Goldsmith will be taking up residence there.
The disadvantage he is under is not of his making. In the last 20 years, London has become an increasingly Labour city.
The trend pre-dates Tony Blair's 1997 landslide, a point when the Conservatives were so unpopular that it also opened up an opportunity for the Liberal Democrats to establish themselves in London, a city where they had tended to be electorally weak.
David Cameron's success elsewhere in England at last year's general election wasn't matched in London, despite Labour's failure to snatch some of the Tories' most marginal seats.
It isn't the marginal seats, though, that suggest Labour is dug in; it's the way it has held on to a swathe of seats in outer north and west London that in the days of previous Conservative governments would have been Tory.
The mayoral election, though, isn't like a Westminster election. Voters rank the candidates in order of preference.
So far, no one has won outright by being the first choice of Londoners. In 2012, Boris Johnson's lead over Ken Livingstone in the first round was less than four percentage points; he edged ahead by being the second choice of voters whose preferred candidate had been eliminated.
Supporters of the Lib Dems, Greens and UKIP may well make Zac Goldsmith their second preference after their own party mayoral candidate (he's socially liberal, environmentally aware, and eurosceptic) but that still may not be enough to counteract Labour's "get the vote out" operation. Even with Mayor Boris on the ballot paper, turnout in 2012 was only 38%.
Labour may be running City Hall for the next four years up until the general election, giving the party a useful power base. Yet the party would be unwise to read too much into that.
London's political value is set to diminish. The reduction in the number of parliamentary constituencies, as well as making the number of voters more equal between them, means that London will elect 68 MPs at the 2020 general election, not 73.
Five fewer may not sound like much, but for a Labour Party scrabbling to assemble a parliamentary majority, it just might make all the difference.
Come 2020, there could be another group of people joining the chorus of London-haters: Labour supporters elsewhere in the UK. | One of the things I've learnt over the last 25 years as a journalist is that a lot of people really hate London - even some of those who live in it. | 35806702 |
Discount retailer Target saw its shares fall more than 5% after it reported a decline in sales over Christmas and warned that future profits would be lower than expected.
The key Dow Jones index was 22 points or 0.11% lower at 19,804 at the close
The dollar recovered ground after it fell on Tuesday.
The broader S&P 500 was 0.18% higher at 2,271, helped by gains in financials following comments by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen that it "makes sense" to gradually lift interest rates
The Nasdaq was marginally higher, up 0.31% at 5,555.
Goldman Sachs reported a jump in profits to $2.15bn, but its share price slid by a small margin.
Citigroup also benefited from what is being termed the "Trump rally" - a boost to business and growth expectations because the future president is expected to increase spending on infrastructure and lighten regulation for banks.
Citigroup shares finished 1.7% lower. But bank shares are already trading significantly higher since November's election.
Retailers Macy's and Kohl's also saw their share prices slide as they warned of a worse than expected outlook. | US share indexes closed flat on Wednesday despite strong results from Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. | 38661016 |
Mark Chung, who officers have advised the public not to approach, was reported missing from Castle Huntly at 10:00 on 3 October.
Police described him as being of Asian appearance and speaking with a Merseyside accent.
They said he was known to have connections in both Glasgow and Merseyside.
Chung is described as being 5ft 9in tall, of stocky build and has a shaved head.
When last seen he was wearing glasses, a grey sweatshirt, grey jogging bottoms and black and grey trainers. | Police have issued a renewed appeal to trace a man who absconded from an open jail near Dundee two weeks ago. | 37726885 |
All surviving US presidents and British prime ministers are on the guest list, as well as a representative of the Reagan family.
Ronald Reagan's widow Nancy is understood to be too frail to travel.
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev will also not be attending owing to health problems, his spokesman has said.
It has also been confirmed that neither George HW Bush, Mr Reagan's vice-president who succeeded him in the White House nor his son George W Bush, US President between 2001 and 2009, will be attending.
The guest list for the event was drawn up by Lady Thatcher's family with the assistance of the government and the Conservative Party.
More than 2,000 invitations will be sent out, with most set to be dispatched on Friday.
The Queen and Prince Philip are already confirmed for the ceremony, which will take place in St Paul's Cathedral, London.
It will be the first funeral of a British politician the Queen has attended since that of Sir Winston Churchill in 1965.
Who is going to the funeral?
The cathedral has a capacity of 2,300 and is expected to be full on the day.
All surviving members of Lady Thatcher's cabinets will be invited, as will the current cabinet and Labour leader Ed Miliband.
Other invited guests from around the globe include former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and a representative of Nelson Mandela.
A spokesman for Mrs Reagan said she was "heartbroken" about Lady Thatcher's death but was no longer able to make such trips and a family friend, Fred Ryan, would be representing her at the funeral.
Guests from the world of entertainment who have already confirmed their attendance include BBC Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson, Welsh singer Dame Shirley Bassey, broadcaster Sir Terry Wogan, Lord Lloyd-Webber and Sir Tim Rice.
Author Frederick Forsyth, a longstanding supporter of the Conservative Party, has also been invited, as have actresses Joan Collins and June Whitfield.
Veteran journalists Sir David Frost and Sir Trevor McDonald will be attending, alongside British fashion accessories designer Anya Hindmarch and the Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu.
Former Labour prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have confirmed their attendance, as has Alex Salmond, First Minister of Scotland, and FW de Klerk, the South African president who oversaw the end of apartheid.
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has not been invited, but the country's ambassador to Britain has. Downing Street says this is in keeping with diplomatic protocol for such occasions.
Lord Kinnock, who was Labour leader for most of Lady Thatcher's time in Downing Street and was defeated by her at the 1987 election, will not be present because of a commitment to attend the funeral of a former local councillor in Wales.
More than 700 armed forces personnel will line the route of the procession from Westminster to St Paul's, including three bands whose drums will be covered in black cloth.
A gun salute will be fired from the Tower of London and the coffin will be carried into St Paul's by service personnel from regiments and ships closely associated with the Falklands campaign.
Prime Minister David Cameron said he believed it was right that Lady Thatcher was being given a ceremonial funeral with full military honours.
"I think people would find us a pretty extraordinary country if we didn't properly commemorate with dignity, with seriousness, but with also some fanfare... the passing of this extraordinary woman," he said.
By Louise StewartPolitical correspondent, BBC News
The list of those invited to Lady Thatcher's funeral reads like a who's who of the past four decades.
Two former Labour Prime ministers - Tony Blair and Gordon Brown - will attend but Lady Thatcher's old adversary Lord Kinnock will not.
The Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has not been invited - the Argentine Ambassador has instead.
It is no secret that Jeremy Clarkson is part of David Cameron's "Chipping Norton set" but perhaps less well known he had links with Lady Thatcher.
He too has been invited along with a smattering of entertainment greats including Dame Shirley Bassey and Lord Lloyd-Webber.
There is no confirmation yet of the cost of holding what may not be a state funeral but certainly looks like one.
But Mr Cameron believes the nation supports plans to mourn someone he has described as "an extraordinary leader"
"I think not only in Britain would people say, 'You are not doing this properly', but I think the rest of the world would think we were completely wrong."
Mr Cameron has previously welcomed suggestions as to how Lady Thatcher could be commemorated.
The Mayor of London's office, Westminster Council and the government are understood to be looking at a variety of central London sites, including Parliament Square, as a potential site for a new statue.
The Metropolitan Police said they were working to ensure the day of the funeral passed off safely, amid concerns that some people may use it as an opportunity to protest.
On the day of Lady Thatcher's death, there were small gatherings in various parts of the UK, notably in Glasgow, Bristol and London, with those taking part saying they were celebrating her death.
Met commander Christine Jones urged anyone wishing to demonstrate at the funeral to talk to the police.
"The right to protest is one that must be upheld," she said.
"However, we will work to do that whilst balancing the rights of those who wish to pay their respects and those who wish to travel about London as usual."
Meanwhile, the Foreign Office has said "an administrative error" led to inaccurate guidance being issued to diplomatic staff in embassies around the world after it was reported they had been told to wear mourning clothes on the day of the funeral.
They were later told it was unnecessary.
Lady Thatcher, who won three successive general elections, died "peacefully" on Monday after suffering a stroke while staying at the Ritz hotel in central London. | Downing Street has released an initial list of invitations to Baroness Thatcher's funeral next Wednesday. | 22103866 |
The images show a foreign man and woman walking alongside uniformed officers on the island of Gili Trawangan, with cardboard signs around their necks.
The signs read: "I am thieve [sic]. Don't do what I did...!!!"
The practice of parading those deemed to have committed crimes on the Gili Islands has gone on for many years although its exact origins are unclear.
After pictures of the incident appeared on social media, including an official Facebook page for the tiny islands, a number of questions have been asked about this unusual ritual.
The head of West Nusa Tenggara province tourism office, Lalu Muhamad Fauzal, told the BBC that the practice of parading those considered to have committed crimes on the islands came out of an agreement between locals and police on the mainland.
Most such walks happen on Gili Trawangan, the largest and most developed of the three Gili Islands, off the coast of Lombok, about 40km (25 miles) east of Bali.
Unlike Bali which attracts many tourists from around the world, the Gili Islands are much smaller and considered largely safe and peaceful. One circuit of the Trawangan is only about 7km (4.3 miles).
The police do not have a permanent presence on the tiny islands of Gili Trawangan, Gili Meno or Gili Air. Instead, private security officers guard the islands, with support from mainland police when necessary. Most of the guards in the latest parade appear to be private, although at least one appears to be wearing a police uniform.
"Since there is no police enforcement on our little tropical paradise island, we have our own rules for thieves. If someone gets caught stealing, he or she has to parade around the island," Karina, from the island's Facebook page, told the BBC. "Later on the person will get banned from the island and is not allowed to return for a few years."
"It is to make people aware that they cannot visit a foreign country and take what they want without consequences," she added, echoing a widespread sentiment on the islands that the practice is both fair and effective.
"I never heard that someone was accused wrongly for a walk of shame".
Mr Fauzal agreed the parades could take credit for the island's low crime rate and their reputation for being far more peaceful than nearby Bali.
He added that most of those paraded are locals, although some are foreign tourists who were drunk or "forced to steal purses" as they had run out of money.
It is not clear whether there is any formal legal basis for the parades, but as the accused generally avoid more serious sanction, some observers have suggested that embarrassment and a ban from the islands is preferable to a court battle and the possibility of a fine or worse.
Oji Nuria Manggala, who witnessed the parade, told the BBC that the guards accompanying the foreigners said the pair had been caught on security camera stealing a bike, and could not deny it.
However, it has not been possible to identify the pair to confirm the allegations or whether they had any opportunity to mount a defence.
The island's seemingly unsophisticated form of justice has surprised some with its deliberate lack of concern for the privacy of the accused, and clear legal process.
While locals the BBC spoke to did not share any doubts about the parade, others have suggested that even the innocent might be tempted to opt for public humiliation rather than face formal charges under the Indonesian justice system, which is sometimes criticised for corruption and a lack of transparency.
Reporting by BBC Indonesian's Endang Nurdin and the BBC's Simeon Paterson. | Last week photos surfaced of two unidentified Western tourists being paraded around an Indonesian island in a "walk of shame" for alleged theft. | 38325452 |
Premier League champions Chelsea have been linked with a move for the 26-year-old Brazil international.
Juve signed Sandro for 26m euros (£23m) from Porto in 2015.
Chief executive Giuseppe Marotta said: "If a player decides to leave... then at the end of the day he has to go."
Sandro has won back-to-back league and cup doubles at Juventus and played in the side that lost in the Champions League final to Real Madrid.
Juve have already agreed to let right-back Dani Alves, a target for Manchester City, leave after one season in Turin. | Juventus say they have received a "substantial offer" for Alex Sandro and will not prevent the left-back from leaving the club if he wants to. | 40366009 |
The girl was attacked on disused land off St Michael's Street on 11 April.
The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had earlier pleaded guilty to one count of rape and one of attempted rape.
At a hearing at Shrewsbury Crown Court, he was told he would spend four years in custody.
The Ministry of Justice said a Youth Justice Board would decide whether that sentence would be spent in a Young Offender Institution, a secure training facility or a secure children's home.
Det Ch Insp Neil Jamieson, who led the investigation for West Mercia Police, described it as an "extremely disturbing case".
He said the boy had lured the girl to an isolated spot by asking her to help search for something he claimed to have lost.
"It quickly became apparent that her assailant was also fairly young, probably someone of secondary school age," he said.
"He was a dangerous individual and fortunately, was identified and arrested before posing any further risk to the public. It also allowed for the effective recovery of vital evidence".
Mr Jamieson praised members of the public who responded to appeals.
"Our prime suspect was caught on CCTV cameras carrying a fishing rod and fishing tackle box which made him conspicuous and we received a number of calls from people who had seen him at the relevant time," he said.
"We also established he had been in the area for some time prior to the assault which was carried out in daylight off one of the busiest approaches in and out of Shrewsbury." | A 15-year-old boy has been sentenced to four years for raping a 10-year-old girl in Shrewsbury town centre. | 28757393 |
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The visually impaired athlete, 28, won T13 100m and 200m gold at both the Beijing and London Paralympics but was reclassified as a T12 athlete in 2014.
However, Smyth has been reinstated to T13 competition following further tests before the IPC World Championships, which start in Doha on Thursday.
The T13 category will only have a 100m in Rio, with T12 having both sprints.
The International Paralympic Committee opted in 2013 to drop the T13 200m, but Smyth's subsequent reclassification to T12 put him in line to double up again in Rio.
A statement from the IPC on Wednesday said that Smyth's classification status was found to be "borderline" when he was tested before last year's IPC European Championships in Swansea.
"All of the results of the assessment placed him in the T12 class," it said. "He was however placed under review status.
"The review was conducted this week and his results were again borderline but all were in the T13 class so he was moved back.
"Vision impairment tests can be influenced by a number of environmental characteristics.
"As last year's result came as a surprise to all concerned, the IPC acknowledges that in retrospect it should have asked Smyth to undergo a second classification at that time."
Smyth's latest classification removes any uncertainty over his status, with no further review scheduled until 2019.
The county Londonderry athlete, who narrowly missed out on qualifying for the London Olympics, has mixed feelings.
"It was a surprise to me last year that I had been moved to a T12 and was difficult to deal with, so I'm pleased that my status as a T13 has been clarified," said Smyth, who has the degenerative condition Stargardt disease, which limits his vision to the outlines of shapes.
"However it is disappointing that I definitely won't have the chance to defend two of my Paralympic titles in Rio as the T13 200m has been removed from the list of medal events by the IPC.
"At least I can put all my energies in the 100m and continue to try to run faster and bridge the gap between Paralympic and able-bodied sport."
Smyth, who won double T13 gold at the last IPC World Championships in Lyon two years ago, will only be competing in the 100m in Doha, with the opening heats on Friday.
Immediately after Saturday's 100m final, Smyth will travel home to be with wife Elise, who is due to give birth to the couple's first child on Sunday.
Despite the imminent new arrival, Smyth says he is fully focused on retaining his world 100m title.
"Whether I run T12 or T13, I will still want to achieve what I want to achieve - winning gold here and going on to hopefully compete at next year's Olympics and Paralympics," he said.
"This is a big event for me to set a platform for next year.
"Over the last month or two I have been building on each race and my last race before coming out here was my quickest so hopefully I can go and run quicker here." | Irish Paralympic champion Jason Smyth will only be able to run in one event at next year's Rio Games. | 34594996 |
Simon Brown is travelling to Illinois with the Blind Veterans UK charity to share best practice methods with their American counterparts.
The travelling group will meet with 11 veterans of the US Operation Iraqi Freedom injured during the Iraq war.
Mr Brown, from Morley, was blinded in 2006 during a rescue mission in Basra.
Mr Brown, 37, was a corporal in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers when he was shot in the face by a sniper, the bullet destroying his left eye and damaging his right eye.
Back in the UK his cheekbones and nose had to be reconstructed using titanium, his jaw broken and remoulded and a prosthetic eye fitted.
He is one of six members of Blind Veterans UK taking part in the week-long trip to the Department of Veterans Affairs' Central Blind Rehabilitation Center, near Chicago.
Speaking about his American counterparts, he said: "We've been fighting together since World War One and if we can fight together we can get better together."
He added: "We will be sitting through a normal week of their rehabilitation programme and our role will be about giving feedback about any changes that could be made and things that we thought were good.
"In the UK we are very strong on the emotional side of support and they are very much more about practical support in America.
"That's what we're taking out there, that more personal touch."
The trip is the sixth organised between Blind Veterans UK and the Blinded Veterans Association.
Mr Brown, who works as a communication and engagement officer for Blind Veterans UK , said the support the organisations offer is vital to helping service men and women recover.
"It's given me my life back," he said. "They took me from a coma to full-time work in the space of six years. For people like me the support they offer is a lifeline." | An Iraq-war veteran who lost his eyesight when he was shot by a sniper has flown to the US to meet blind and visually-impaired service personnel. | 36563703 |
Henry Ayabowei, known as Henry Esin, was found collapsed near a Bangor nightclub in the early hours of Saturday.
The 27-year-old, from Llangefni, Anglesey, was taken to hospital, but died on Sunday morning.
A man who was arrested has now been charged and will appear before Llandudno magistrates on Wednesday.
Mr Ayabowei played football for a number of clubs on Anglesey and was described as a "true gentleman in every sense" by Llanfairpwll football club.
Floral tributes to Mr Ayabowei have been left outside the Peep nightclub, close to the Brick Street-High Street junction where he was found.
A post-mortem examination was also expected to be carried out on Tuesday, with family liaison officers supporting Mr Ayabowei's family. | A 26-year-old man has been charged with the murder of a father-of-two in Gwynedd. | 39491138 |
The "register to vote" site crashed on 7 June last year just before the deadline for people to sign up to vote.
The UK government and electoral administrators blamed a surge in demand after a TV debate.
But MPs on the parliamentary Public Administration Committee say a foreign cyber attack could not be ruled out.
The suggestion came in their report at the end of their inquiry into Lessons learned from the EU Referendum.
The report, and published evidence with the report, does not appear to quote anyone saying that the voter registration site had been targeted.
And the Cabinet Office, who commissioned its own report into the website crash, said: "We have been very clear about the cause of the website outage in June 2016. It was due to a spike in users just before the registration deadline.
"There is no evidence to suggest malign intervention. We conducted a full review into the outage and have applied the lessons learned. We will ensure these are applied for all future polls and online services."
The website crashed at about 10.15pm on 7 June, 2016,, shortly after a televised debate and amid social media campaigns to get people to register to vote ahead of the midnight deadline. Official figures suggest 525.000 people applied to register to vote that day.
The Public Administration Committee's chairman, Leave-supporting Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin, told BBC News there was "circumstantial", rather than "hard and fast" evidence the registration site had been targeted.
He said the committee's report had included the possibility that the crash "may have been caused by a DDoS (distributed denial of service attack) using botnets" in its report "on advice".
"The government were clearly very reluctant to delve into this," he said.
"We took quite deep advice on this from various places and it's not unreasonable, given there's quite a lot of this going on in other countries, that this could have happened in this case," he added.
After the website crash the then Prime Minister David Cameron extended the deadline by 48 hours for registering to vote in the referendum - 430,000 people applied to register to vote during that extension period.
According to evidence submitted to the committee from the Association of Electoral Administrators the electoral registration system "could not cope with the demand... and any contingency measures were wholly inadequate".
It says: "This concern had been raised on a number of occasions... reassurances had been given that what actually occurred could never happen."
That foreign parties might have tried to crash a government website in the lead up to a key poll is a serious suggestion, but does it hold much weight? Cybersecurity experts are sceptical.
"I think there's lots of conjecture," says Ollie Whitehouse at NCC Group. "It appears to be one committee's opinion but with no supporting evidence."
He also pointed out that government websites were known to suffer during periods of unusually high demand, though their robustness had improved in recent years.
The wording of the report is, indeed, "very vague", notes John Graham-Cumming at networking firm Cloudflare. In order to really know what happened, traffic to the website prior to the downtime would have to be analysed.
That is only possible if adequate records have been kept, Mr Graham-Cumming adds.
"Most websites don't store very detailed information," he notes. But if logs show traffic from a large number of sources around the world, that might indicate that a botnet - a system of enslaved computers - was used to attack the site. "That could be interesting," he says.
In its report the committee has also criticised Mr Cameron's "questionable" motives for calling a referendum in the first place, saying it had been done to "call the bluff" of his critics and shut down "unwelcome" debate.
It urged future governments to think carefully before promising nationwide votes on controversial issues, particularly if they are not prepared to implement an outcome they do not like.
"There was no proper planning for a Leave vote so the EU referendum opened up much new controversy and left the prime minister's credibility destroyed," the report says.
It said that civil servants should be required to prepare for both possible outcomes in future referendums - such as a second vote on Scottish independence - something they had been prevented from doing in the run-up to the Brexit vote.
The committee called on the government to set up a new Cyber Security Centre to monitor and contain potential attacks on UK elections and referendums - particularly foreign attempts to influence public opinion and disrupt the democratic process.
"The US and UK understanding of 'cyber' is predominantly technical and computer-network based," said the report.
"For example, Russia and China use a cognitive approach based on understanding of mass psychology and of how to exploit individuals.
"The implications of this different understanding of cyber-attack, as purely technical or as reaching beyond the digital to influence public opinion, for the interference in elections and referendums are clear," the report added. | A voter registration site that crashed in the run-up to last year's EU referendum could have been targeted by a foreign cyber attack, MPs say. | 39564289 |
His words "will be read at the Nobel banquet in Stockholm" on 10 December as he is unable to attend the event, according to the Swedish Academy.
The US musician became the literature laureate in October, but initially failed to acknowledge the award.
He was called "impolite and arrogant" by a member of the academy, who said he failed to return their phone calls.
Two weeks after the award was announced, on 29 October, the singer phoned the academy's permanent secretary, Sara Danius, to say: "I appreciate the honour so much. The news about the Nobel prize left me speechless."
Separately, he told the Telegraph the honour was "hard to believe", adding: "Whoever dreams about something like that?"
The academy has yet to reveal who will deliver Dylan's speech.
Patti Smith will cover his 1962 protest song A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall at the ceremony.
Dylan was awarded the Nobel prize "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition", the academy said.
Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk. | Bob Dylan has written a speech to be delivered at the Nobel Prize ceremony later this week, organisers have said. | 38209520 |
Most of them have taken shelter with friends and relatives.
More than 4,000 homes have been flooded and at least 50 totally destroyed after heavy rainfall caused rivers to break their banks.
President Danilo Medina has extended the state of emergency from four to eight provinces in the Caribbean nation.
The military rescued 13 people who were left stranded in Los Naranjos, in the north-east of the country.
Forecasters say heavy rain is expected to continue on Tuesday, although the weather front is expected to move away from the worst affected area later in the day.
More rains are expected for the weekend.
People living along rivers or on hillsides have been told to be extra vigilant and beware of flash floods and landslides.
The flooding comes less than two months after Hurricane Matthew swept over the island of Hispaniola, which the Dominican Republic and Haiti share. | Floods in the Dominican Republic have displaced more than 20,000 people, officials say. | 37988308 |
An amendment to the Immigration Bill to let the children come to Britain was adopted by 306 votes to 204 - a majority of 102.
Labour's Lord Dubs, who came to the UK as a child refugee, said it would save children from exploitation and abuse.
But the government said the amendment would not target those most in need.
Home Office minister Lord Bates said the government was concentrating its efforts on helping Syrian refugees before they reach Europe and insisted no other country was doing more than the UK.
Campaigners, including charity Save the Children, have been calling for the government to accept 3,000 children from Europe into the UK, but ministers have warned that it could spur more refugees to risk "lethal" journeys.
Ministers may seek to overturn the defeat - the latest in a string of votes the government has lost in the Lords this Parliament - when the bill returns to the Commons.
Arguing for the UK to take in 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees, Lord Dubs said it would protect children from exploitation, people trafficking and abuse.
The peer - who arrived in the UK as a refugee on the Kindertransport which helped children escape from the Nazis during World War Two - said the UK needed to show the same compassion.
"I would like other children who are in a desperate situation to be offered safety in this country and be given the same opportunities that I had," he told peers.
His amendment - which would require ministers to allow the children to come to the UK as soon as possible after the bill became law - attracted cross-party support.
"We could do it in 1930s, why can't we do it now?" said crossbench peer Baroness Neuberger, while fellow crossbencher Lord Alton of Liverpool warned that refusing to help the children would leave a "lasting stain" on Britain's reputation.
"This is a small, but beautiful thing that we can do," added the Bishop of Chelmsford, the Rt Rev Stephen Cottrell.
Meanwhile, a call to exclude children above the age of 12 from the scheme came from former Conservative Chancellor Lord Lawson of Blaby.
Home Office minister Lord Bates said on behalf of the government: "We have a principled objection. That the people most at risk are in the region."
"I question whether it (the amendment) identifies, or provides help, for the right people. We believe we should not be doing anything that encourages one child to make that perilous journey," he added.
Lord Bates said 51% of the 1,000 Syrian refugees resettled in the UK - as part of the government's pledge to take in 20,000 by 2020 - had been children.
He also said there was a shortage of foster carers and that it was hard to place refugee families with local authorities.
But the government's argument was not supported by the majority of the House, which voted by a margin of 102 to accept the amendment. | The government has been defeated in the House of Lords after peers voted to accept 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees into the UK from Europe. | 35865508 |
Those in favour of hunting won just over half the votes cast in the keenly-contested vote.
Campaigners for the ban have conceded defeat.
There were jubilant scenes in the counting hall as the pro-hunt activists celebrated victory, which was achieved by only 2,200 votes.
The BBC's Mario Cacciottolo in a tweet says that hunters' association head Joe Perici Calascione is "ecstatic" about the outcome of the vote and has described hunting as an integral part of Maltese tradition.
Opponents of hunting say it will now be an "uphill struggle" to stop annual spring shooting of turtle doves and quail.
The issue has led to disagreements between conservationists and those who say a Maltese tradition is at stake.
Critics accuse hunters of killing scores of birds - they say that turtle dove numbers have declined 77% since 1980 - and encroaching on the island's open spaces.
They argued that the hunting season is abused by some hunters through the illegal shooting of protected species during a crucial migration period as birds fly over Malta into Europe.
About 340,000 people were eligible to vote in the referendum, which was held in response to a voters' petition for a ban on the hunting of birds between 14 April to 30 April.
The margin of victory was tiny - 50.44% to 49.56%.
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat who supported the hunters warned that existing laws would be rigidly applied and anyone who violated them would be punished.
The Times of Malta said that the "Yes" campaign successfully argued that a "No" victory could result in other pastimes, such as fireworks and motorsports, also being banned in referendums.
The paper says that hunting enthusiasts also succeeded in using the "pulling power" of Mr Muscat while simultaneously ensuring that their campaign was "characterised by an absence of images of shotguns and dead birds".
A second hunting season in autumn was not included in the referendum.
Malta is the only EU country that allows recreational spring hunting. | Malta has narrowly rejected proposals to ban controversial spring hunting, during which migrating birds are shot before they can breed. | 32274233 |
The South Korean led by two approaching the final three holes in Kuala Lumpur but double-bogeyed the 16th and 18th.
The 37-year-old Fraser took the title with a three-under 68 for a two-shot win and his first European Tour title since April 2010
Lee finished joint second alongside Miguel Tabuena of the Philippines.
"It's unbelievable, six years since my last title," said Fraser, who had gone 119 tournaments without a win. "My kids keep saying to me every time I walk out the door, 'dad, can you bring home a trophy?' And I say, 'I'll try, I'll try'.
"This time I get to take one home and they can take it to school for show and tell, which is going to be pretty cool. That's the main reason I wanted to win." | Australian Marcus Fraser took advantage of Soomin Lee's dramatic late collapse to claim the inaugural Maybank Championship Malaysia. | 35624730 |
The race, along Hadrian's Wall, starts at Carlisle Castle and ends at Newcastle's Quayside.
Its 69 mile (111km) route includes off-road and on-road terrain, and passes a number of tourist attractions such as Lanercost Priory and the market town of Hexham.
Organiser Jim Mee said it was "not for the faint-hearted".
Mr Mee, who is taking part in the race, said: "It's 69 miles across Hadrian's Wall country, which is pretty lumpy in the middle, so it's some undertaking.
"People see these crazy challenges out there in fantastic places and think 'yeah, I'd like a pop at that'." | Up to 1,000 people have set off on what organisers have described as the UK's largest non-stop ultra-marathon. | 33206324 |
The computers were loaded with footage linked to 31 investigations, the Information Commissioner's Office said.
They were taken as footage was being edited for use in criminal proceedings.
Many of the cases involved sexual and violent offences, and some related to historical allegations against a high-profile individual, the ICO added.
Stephen Eckersley, head of enforcement at the ICO, said the CPS had been "complacent".
The CPS said it had strengthened arrangements to prevent further incidents.
The computers were being kept in a residential flat in Manchester, which was being used as a studio, when it was burgled in September 2014.
Although the machines were password protected, the ICO said the data was not encrypted and the flat had insufficient security.
Mr Eckersley said: "Handling videos of police interviews containing highly sensitive personal data is central to what the CPS does.
"The CPS was aware of the graphic and distressing nature of the personal data contained in the videos, but was complacent in protecting that information."
The laptops were recovered after eight days and the burglar apprehended, the ICO said. It said it was not aware of anyone else accessing the material.
A CPS spokesperson said the incident was a matter of "real regret".
The spokesperson added: "It is vital that victims of crime feel confident that breaches like this will not happen and, following a full review after this incident, we have strengthened the arrangements for the safe and secure handling of sensitive material."
The probe also found the CPS had used the same film company since 2002.
DVDs which were not encrypted were delivered using a courier firm. In urgent cases, an editor would collect DVDs from the CPS and take them to the studio using public transport.
The ICO found this was an ongoing contravention of the Data Protection Act. | The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has been fined £200,000 by the information watchdog after the theft of laptops containing videos of police interviews. | 34718932 |
Robert Fielding, from Aylesbury, said he accidentally pushed it into his ear canal after it flew at him while he was reading his tablet computer in bed.
He went to A&E, but it was so far inside he had to wait another 48 hours until specialists could remove it at another hospital.
The 1cm moth now sits on his bookshelf.
Mr Fielding described the "horrible sensation" he experienced while the moth was in his ear.
"It was right by my ear drum so it was making such a loud noise," he said.
"It was a horrible sensation. It was like an annoying tickle, but it was so spontaneous. I was jumping and twitching all the time.
"I certainly kept the taxi driver amused on the way to hospital."
The 43-year-old said when nurses first inspected the ear they could see a leg moving, but after a few hours the noises stopped and it was presumed the moth had died.
However, he had to wait a further two days until it could be removed by specialists in Oxford earlier this month.
"It made me feel quite ill and it affected my balance, so I had to miss my cousin's wedding," Mr Fielding said.
"It was really painful and there was a horrible 'pop' as it came out in one go.
"My kids found it amusing - as soon as I brought it home my son grabbed it and took it round to all his friend's houses to show them." | A moth got stuck inside a man's ear for two days and now takes pride of place on a bookshelf at his home. | 28939053 |
And the public is being invited to join the audience and ask their questions on a variety of issues.
The first of the special debates, focusing on tax and spending, will take place on Tuesday, 5 April, at the BBC's Pacific Quay headquarters.
Further programmes are scheduled to take place in April and will examine health, the environment and housing.
The first programme, which will be broadcast at 22:30 on BBC Two Scotland, will be hosted by Shelley Jofre
5 April - Tax and spending
12 April - Health
19 April - Energy and Environment
26 April - Housing | BBC Scotland's 2016 programme will be putting politicians under the spotlight ahead of the Holyrood election. | 35917545 |
His party has announced it is changing name from En Marche to La Republique En Marche (Republic on the Move).
It must pick candidates quickly ahead of parliamentary elections on 11 and 18 June. It wants to be the biggest party but at the moment has no seats at all.
Mr Macron beat the far right's Marine Le Pen by 66.1% to 33.9% on Sunday.
But a low turnout and a record number of spoiled or blank votes showed disillusionment among many, particularly on the far left, at the choice they were given.
Read more:
Ms Le Pen has also signalled there will be a change to her National Front party. There are suggestions from its officials, too, that it will change its name. But she has vowed to lead the "new force" into the parliamentary elections.
Emmanuel Macron inherits one of the most powerful positions in Europe, and all the symbolism that comes with it.
This morning at the Arc de Triomphe, he showed no sign of being awed by his new job.
He walked alongside the outgoing President, François Hollande, as the two laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
They then shook hands with veterans. Mr Macron appeared to take longer to make his way through one receiving line, stopping to talk to elderly men, leaving Mr Hollande to wait for him at the end.
Emmanuel Macron now becomes France's youngest leader since Napoleon Bonaparte, whose battles are commemorated at the Arc de Triomphe. The new president will hope that his own fights are less bloody.
He faces two main problems - a complete lack of representation in parliament and a deeply divided country.
Although Mr Macron won support, sometimes grudgingly, from the established Socialists and Republicans, much of it stemmed from the need to beat Ms Le Pen. The conservative Republicans in particular will be looking for a strong showing in the parliamentary polls.
Polls released shortly after Mr Macron's victory suggested he and his allies in the centrist Modem party would come out top in the first round on 11 June, with 24%-26% of the vote.
Both the Republicans and National Front would have about 22%, the far-left France Unbowed 13%-15% and the Socialists, still smarting from François Hollande's unpopularity, 9%.
But the first-past-the-post system means it is difficult to gauge seat numbers. The National Front only has two seats and despite its candidate's performance in the presidential election, one poll suggested it might only get 15-25 in the 577 seat parliament.
Such uncertainty means Mr Macron might well be faced with a serious amount of horse trading to find allies to buy into his manifesto.
Another opinion poll in Le Figaro on Monday suggested many French people think this no bad thing.
The Kantar Sofres-OnePoint study suggested only 34% of those interviewed hoped the new head of state would have a majority in parliament.
The BBC's Lucy Williamson says Mr Macron's experience as economy minister has taught him that building cross-party consensus for each individual issue can be draining and dispiriting. Much will depend on whether his party can form a stable coalition.
It is part of the move to widen support, party secretary general Richard Ferrand said, adding that Mr Macron had now stepped down as party leader given his accession to the presidency.
Mr Macron intends to field candidates in all seats and has said half of them will be newcomers to politics - to try to introduce new blood. Half will be from Modem or defectors from other parties.
The idea is that the candidates will not have to give up their party affiliations but will need to run under the Republique En Marche banner.
He has now spoken on the phone to US President Donald Trump. The pair agreed to meet during the gathering of Nato leaders in Brussels on 25 May.
The US statement on the call was fairly routine, noting the "long and robust history of co-operation" between the nations, although a Macron spokesman told CNN the president-elect had pointedly said he would defend the Paris climate change accord, amid growing concern Mr Trump might pull the US out.
An earlier statement from the Macron team said he had also spoken to the leaders of Germany, the UK, Turkey and Canada.
Tuesday 9 May: Mr Macron will mark the EU's Europe Day, the annual celebration of peace and unity in Europe. Much of his victory speeches on Sunday focused on the need for a strong Europe
10 May: Marks France's Slavery Remembrance Day, then in the afternoon attends the funeral of Corinne Erhel, the legislator who collapsed and died while speaking at a Macron rally last Friday. Official election results are published
14 May: President François Hollande formally hands over power to Mr Macron, who will start to announce his ministers, including a PM. He says he has made his choice for the post. It could be a woman, with one name touted that of former economy minister, Christine Lagarde
15-19 May: Mr Macron must finalise candidates for his party in the parliamentary election
11 and 18 June: Parliamentary election held over two rounds. All 577 seats are being contested in a first-past-the-post system
Officials have suggested there will be a new name - also to broaden support.
Despite Marine Le Pen's efforts to refocus the party, it has continued to suffer from its past extremist associations under her father Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Nicolas Bay, party secretary-general, told the Associated Press: "The National Front is a tool that will evolve to be more efficient, bring even more people together after the number of voters we reached last night."
Ms Le Pen hailed a "historic result" but admitted the need for "profound transformation" before the parliamentary elections. She said she would stay to lead an opposition of "patriots" against "globalists". | Emmanuel Macron took his first steps as France's president-elect on Monday but faces a tough task establishing a team that can govern effectively. | 39847944 |
Morgan, 30, was one of several players not to feature in the series decider and Vaughan says ticket prices should reflect the team which is put out.
Vaughan said on BBC Radio 5 live: "Why, as England captain, would he rest?
"Are the fans happy to pay, arrive at the venue and see an England team without some of their stars?"
Notable England absentees from the game in Cardiff included regulars Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root, Moeen Ali and Ben Stokes.
Vaughan, 42, was speaking on the Tuffers and Vaughan Cricket Show, alongside former England spinner Phil Tufnell.
He said too many players were rested and the captain should have featured.
"What doesn't sit with me was that seven or eight players of high quality weren't playing," said Vaughan. "Two or three I get.
"The England captain sitting in the dugout, doing the commentary, I don't get it. I expect my captain to go out and play."
Vaughan, who played 82 Tests for England and captained them to the 2005 Ashes, said the national team should focus on winning trophies before resting players.
"Yes, build the squad, but you haven't won anything yet. It's a big squad, it's getting very complicated," he said.
"They failed in the Champions Trophy, where they were expected to win, they were the favourites. We talk about rest and rotation far too early and we're not winning enough."
Despite resting key players, England were comfortable winners with 29-year-old debutant Dawid Malan impressing with a quickfire 78.
Acknowledging the success of Malan and the win, Vaughan said it was unfair on the fans who expected to see the star players that would have been "on the billboard and posters advertising the game" when tickets for the Cardiff match went on sale.
Vaughan suggested categorising ticket prices for different series, depending on the opposition.
"I have a problem with these bilateral series because they're becoming less and less relevant," he said.
"If England are playing Australia they play their best team so you pay top dollar, Category A.
"There might be a Category B where you pay a certain price because players will be rested.
"There might be a Category C for something like this T20 series, which was after the Champions Trophy and before the Test series against South Africa. Maybe the ticket price should have been a lot lower. "
England will next play South Africa in a four-match Test series, beginning at Lords on 6 July. | England captain Eoin Morgan was wrong to rest himself for the 19-run Twenty20 win over South Africa on Sunday, says former skipper Michael Vaughan. | 40412660 |
Jack Taylor drove a tipper truck in the crash that killed Steven Davidson-Hackett in Exeter on 23 June, 2012.
He was given a £1,500 fine and a one-year driving ban by Exeter Crown Court for taking a vehicle without consent and drink-driving.
Ray Davidson-Hackett described the sentence as "a total disgrace, a total let-down".
He said: "My son's life is worth 1,500 quid. The courts have let us down, the CPS have let us down, and the legal system has let us down."
In 2013 Taylor, from Plymouth-based 42 Commando, pleaded guilty to causing the death of 20-year-old Mr Davidson-Hackett, but the Supreme Court later ruled that Taylor's drink-driving did not cause the accident and this charge and a charge of aggravated vehicle taking were not applicable.
The 28-year-old pleaded guilty to taking a vehicle without consent and drink-driving.
Judge Graham Cottle said Steven Davidson-Hackett's family and friends would understandably "feel let down by the criminal justice system" and he had "the greatest sympathy" for them.
Taylor had an alcohol level of 110 milligrams in 100 millilitres of blood - more than the legal limit of 80 milligrams - when his truck collided with the moped rider on his drive home from work.
Taylor had been driving at less than the 30mph speed limit when he collided with Mr Davidson-Hackett's 100cc scooter on a blind bend in the single track road, the court heard.
Mr Davidson-Hackett suffered fatal injuries as he went under the wheels of the truck and was dragged along the road and died in hospital later. | The father of a moped rider killed in a crash with a drink-driver says he feels betrayed by the justice system. | 36194929 |
The Wales Air Ambulance (WAA) has launched its new H145 aircraft, which can fly in the night as the "charity moves closer" to 24-hour service.
It is the first of three new custom-built helicopters to be introduced by the air ambulance service in 2017.
The helicopter, based in Llanelli, will provide cover for south Wales.
"With continued fundraising, this new aircraft will support our aim to progress to a 24-hour operation, so we can help anyone in their most difficult hour - whether that's day or night, " said WAA chief executive Angela Hughes.
Operations manager Mark Winter added: "The cockpit is set up for night vision technology. We have a weather radar, additional lights underneath and a 'tracker light' on the front, which is like a giant torch and incredibly powerful. These new features will make a difference to the work we can do after dark."
The new aircraft, which replaces the old eight-year-old EC135 model, can fly up to 150mph (241km/h), has extra room for treatments and can fly longer without refuelling.
It has a high-speed internet connection to "enable crews to communicate vital information to hospitals directly from our medical equipment while en route".
"The H145 is a significantly more advanced machine, meaning we can do so much more for the people we help," added Mr Winter.
"We fly to missions where time really matters, so a more powerful aircraft helps to keep us within the golden hour." | Wales' most critically ill will be helped by a new quicker helicopter to ensure patients are transferred to hospital within the "golden hour". | 39525413 |
Until a late-race car problem forced him to retire, the Spaniard was on course to secure an unlikely point for a team that, even some insiders will admit privately, is in crisis at the start of the 2017 Formula 1 season.
Pre-season testing had gone so badly for McLaren that it looked like they would struggle not to be on the back of the grid. After some hasty work on reliability by Honda and improvements to the car, Alonso qualified 13th.
For much of the race in Melbourne, he was in 10th place, valiantly holding off Esteban Ocon's Force India, which had a 27km/h advantage on the straight. McLaren racing director Eric Boullier described Alonso's drive as "prodigiously impressive".
The same could be said of many of his races in an under-powered McLaren over the last two years - such as his fifth places in Monaco and the USA last year, or his drive to seventh from last on the grid in Belgium. Results that helped McLaren secure sixth place in the championship.
In two separate news conferences over the weekend, Lewis Hamilton expressed his regret that Alonso was not racing at the front, saying he "deserved it", as one of the best drivers on the grid.
As Hamilton said: "It would be great to have Fernando up there but it doesn't look like it is going to happen any time soon."
Indeed it doesn't. While Alonso's achievements at Albert Park amount to positive progress in the context of McLaren-Honda's dire pre-season, they are a long way from the ambitions of this once-great team and its still-great number one driver.
This was the year the McLaren-Honda alliance was supposed to finally hit its stride after two difficult seasons. Alonso spent much of last year saying how the change in regulations gave McLaren a chance to close the gap on Mercedes, and Honda promised it would make a big step forward with its engine.
Even as recently as the launch of the McLaren car in late February, Honda F1 boss Yusuke Hasegawa was expressing his hope that the redesigned Honda engine would match the performance of Mercedes' 2016 power-unit by the start of the season.
It has not worked out that way. Pre-season testing was beset by difficulties, Honda getting through at least five engines in the course of eight days. Alonso said the engine had "no power and no reliability".
There were several problems, but a couple of fundamental ones: a major vibration that was either breaking the engine, or damaging ancillaries enough to make it shut down; and less power than last year's engine. Informed estimates put its deficit to the new Mercedes engine at somewhere between 120-160bhp.
The vibration problem is severe enough that Honda should, in one way, be applauded for the progress it made in enabling Alonso, at least, to run a pretty much normal weekend. The same could not be said for his new team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne, but that's another story.
But while the engine ran relatively reliably, it still badly lacked performance, and it is clear that patience is running out, the partnership close to breaking point.
While expressing the need for improvement, Alonso was mostly sanguine about the situation in his public appearances over the course of the weekend. But there were still glimpses behind the mask.
He sat stony faced in the team's post-qualifying news conference, until the question of how he motivated himself to go through another season like this was brought up. Where's your head at, he was asked?
"I expect a big change in the team, a big reaction," he said. "We will not be 13th all season. Or I will not be."
The message was clear. Sort it out, or I'm off.
The big question is what happens next. BBC Sport revealed two weeks ago that McLaren had made an initial approach to Mercedes about a potential engine supply in the wake of the problems in testing. This despite a "multi-year contract" with Honda.
It was notable at the Australian Grand Prix that when asked about this development, McLaren racing director Eric Boullier neither denied it, nor made any attempt to play down the potential of the team splitting with Honda.
"Obviously we are looking at every option to recover and catch up," Boullier said, "because we are definitely not in the position that we were expecting to be and we want to be."
Hasegawa admitted: "We are having a strong pressure from the team and from the drivers. We try to keep improving."
Self-evidently, McLaren's decision to talk to Mercedes, even if only briefly, means the team's senior management are considering whether they should try to get out of their contract with Honda. Which means they must have doubts about whether the Japanese motor giant will ever be able to provide a competitive engine during the life of their partnership.
Honda contribute something in the region of $70m a year and free engines to McLaren - close to a net $90-100m when the cost of buying a customer engine is added. Asked how it felt about the team talking to a rival, Hasegawa said: "This is just a rumour."
Challenged that it was a fact, he said: "I don't know. I don't care about that. The thing we have to do is keep concentrating."
On the subject of potentially changing engines, Boullier said: "I am not going to comment on these kind of discussions. It is a private discussion we have with Honda to recover, considering all options.
"We are responsible for McLaren and Hasegawa-san is responsible for Honda. As partners we try to help each other and support each other because the key secret is to be as integrated as possible."
His answer did little to diminish the belief that McLaren are at least considering trying to find a way out of their contract with Honda.
The question is why they would think that was a good idea.
On the face of it, it sounds like one. On a simplistic level, it would seem logical that if a Mercedes engine was plugged into a McLaren, the car would be much more competitive.
Boullier claimed during winter testing that McLaren would win if it had a Mercedes engine. On a simple calculation of the minimum power deficit, a Mercedes engine might potentially make the McLaren in the region of two seconds quicker. Alonso was 3.2 seconds off the pace in qualifying.
So changing might - at best - put McLaren about sixth or so on the grid. But there are wider considerations than that.
For a start, where would the missing money come from? McLaren are run by very rich men - the Bahraini royal family is a 50% shareholder and 25% shareholder Mansour Ojjeh is a billionaire.
They could easily fund the shortfall if they wanted to - but that situation is sustainable for only so long.
McLaren's new executive director Zak Brown is the best sponsor-finder in the paddock. But in a difficult market, finding income worth $70m a year for a team struggling to score a point, even if he can sell it on the idea of switching to Mercedes is not going to be easy.
Beyond that, customer Mercedes engines is not a long-term strategy. Red Bull buck the trend, but it is widely accepted in F1 that if a team wants to win the title, it has to have a works engine partnership. And no other Mercedes customer team are close to the factory outfit's performance, despite the regulatory requirement to provide identical engines.
That's because F1 cars are complex pieces of machinery. The Mercedes car is designed around the Mercedes engine, which is built after conversations between the two arms of the team. The customers get what they are given and do not have the same opportunity for integration.
Then there is the question of how McLaren would get out of its Honda contract. Honda is showing no signs of wanting to quit. It sees F1 as a long-term project.
If McLaren sought a way out, Honda might acquiesce. But the company would be highly unlikely to pay any money in the form of compensation. It might even take offence, and sue McLaren. A case Honda has vastly more resources to fight than the team.
Once out of its Honda contract, McLaren would then need to look for another works engine partner. Yet not only are no other car companies expressing an interest in F1, but any approached would surely look at the way McLaren have treated Honda and wonder whether they were a team with which it was wise to get involved.
The perceived risk in persevering with Honda is that it might never manage to produce a competitive engine, and that by the time it realises this and pulls out of F1, McLaren will be in such dire straits that the company would be on its knees.
But McLaren already have a relatively limited sponsor portfolio, with Honda providing the bulk of their income beyond official prize money. And if Honda did quit in, say, three years' time, the rules mean that one of the remaining engine companies would be obliged to supply McLaren then - so it is arguable they would be no worse off than they are now.
The alternative ending is that McLaren use this situation as an opportunity.
They can hope that their public flirting with Mercedes wakes Honda up to the need to do a better job. They could apologise privately, express their commitment to the partnership's success, and offer to work ever more closely together with Honda reach the standards required. And they could redouble their collective efforts to making it so.
Whether Alonso would hang around in that scenario is another question. But, brilliant though he is as a grand prix driver, McLaren have much bigger problems than that right now.
The Bahrainis, Ojjeh and Brown have some serious thinking to do. And any decision they make requires wisdom and long-term strategy, not short-term tactical opportunism. | Not for the first time time, McLaren-Honda had reason to be grateful to Fernando Alonso at the Australian Grand Prix. | 39403617 |
Horticulturalists from around the world are displaying their designs at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea, London.
The launch of the show, opening to the public on Tuesday, comes as its organisers warn nearly a quarter of the UK's front gardens are now paved over.
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) is urging householders to buck the trend by growing more plants.
Among the gardens being exhibited to special guests in Monday is one created for Sentebale, the charity co-founded by Prince Harry which helps children in Lesotho.
Designer Matt Keightley, who created a southern-African theme for the charity after designing a garden for Help the Heroes at last year's show, said: "It is such a privilege being part of the show.
"It was last year, and nothing has changed in that respect. I'm hoping the Queen will like it - that would be the icing on the cake."
Some 165,000 people are expected to visit the show over five days and for the first time they will be able to view the work of an amateur gardener.
Nurse Sean Murray, from Ashington, Northumberland, who won the BBC's Great Chelsea Garden Challenge, has designed a display for the main avenue at the show.
His front garden incorporates both plants and a parking space, to highlight the RHS's campaign, Greening Grey Britain.
It comes after a survey for the RHS showed that 24% of front gardens are now entirely paved, concreted or gravelled. More than a quarter, 28% of the 1,492 polled, said there was no greenery at all in their front gardens.
RHS principal horticultural advisor Leigh Hunt said: "All gardens are important - vegetation provides so many benefits, preventing flooding, providing homes for wildlife, keeping cities cool in summer, insulating homes in winter."
Joe Swift, BBC presenter of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, said: "We can all make our streets greener and better places to live and take action against this growing concrete jungle.
"We've made this conversion to grey one garden at a time and now, today, there are 7.24 million front gardens that are mostly paved.
"It's time to get gardening. We can all make a difference: from window boxes to tree planting, let's join the RHS and greening grey Britain." | The Queen is set to be among the first to visit the gardens at this year's Chelsea Flower Show later. | 32776296 |
Weeks after details of the US Prism programme first leaked, some of the details of what it entails have been confirmed but others have yet to be clarified, and may not do so for years to come.
What is Prism?
A surveillance system launched in 2007 by the US National Security Agency (NSA).
A leaked Powerpoint presentation, dated April 2013, states that it allows the organisation to "receive" emails, video clips, photos, voice and video calls, social networking details, logins and other data held by a range of US internet firms.
One of the slides names the companies as: Microsoft and its Skype division; Google and its YouTube division; Yahoo; Facebook, AOL, Apple and PalTalk - a lesser known chat service owned by AVM Software.
The presentation says the programme costs $20m (£13m) a year to run and is designed to overcome earlier "constraints" in the NSA's counterterrorism data collection efforts.
Details of the initiative were first published by the Guardian and the Washington Post newspapers on 6 June.
Late that day the US director of national intelligence confirmed the initiative's existence and declassified some information about it.
James Clapper said that there were "strict, court-imposed restrictions" on how the data was handled and that only a "very small fraction" of the information was ever reviewed as most of it was not "responsive" to anti-terrorism efforts.
A 1978 law - the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act (Fisa) - had set out the conditions under which a special three-judge court would authorise electronic surveillance if people were believed to be engaged in espionage or planning an attack against the US on behalf of a foreign power.
Following the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration secretly gave the NSA permission to bypass the court and carry out warrantless surveillance of al-Qaeda suspects and others.
After this emerged in 2005, Congress voted to both offer immunity to the firms that had co-operated with the NSA's requests and to make amendments to Fisa.
The relaxation to the rules, introduced in 2008, meant officials could now obtain court orders without having to identify each individual target or detail the specific types of communications they intended to monitor so long as they convinced the court their purpose was to gather "foreign intelligence information".
In addition they no longer had to confirm both the sender and receiver of the messages were outside the US, but now only had to show it was "reasonable" to believe one of the parties was outside the country.
Details of the programme were leaked by Edward Snowden, a 30-year-old who had formerly worked as a technical assistant to the US Central Intelligence Agency.
He has since been charged in the US with theft of government property, unauthorised communication of national defence information and wilful communication of classified communications intelligence.
Mr Snowden initially moved to Hong Kong, but its government says he left the city voluntarily on 23 June. There have been conflicting media reports about where he has gone.
Officials say that Prism cannot be used to "intentionally target any US citizen, any other US person, or anyone located within the United States".
According to the Washington Post, the NSA identifies suspect communications using search terms designed to give it a 51% confidence rating that the target is foreign.
The paper says the queries are then checked by the FBI to ensure no US citizen is named as a target.
Once this is done and a suspect identified, it says that anyone that person has contacted or been contacted by can also become subject for review and then, in turn, everyone in the inbox and outbox of this extended group may also be targeted.
On 20 June the Guardian published a document spelling out the precautions the NSA is supposed to take to minimise the risk of inadvertently examining data about US citizens and residents.
It says that if officials discover details about US persons they should either pass them onto domestic law enforcement or destroy them "at the earliest practicable point". The exception to this is if the data is encrypted.
But some experts have questioned whether such safeguards are effective.
"The only way you can be reasonably be sure that somebody is a resident of a particular country from their email is to go and read all of their stuff," says Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at the University of Cambridge's Computer Laboratory.
"The NSA appears to be claiming magical powers for itself with claims it can search automatically through large numbers of webmail inboxes and pull out the right material, because even the webmail companies have said in most cases they can't figure out the nationality, residence and domicile of a user without getting a person to look through their stuff."
Even assuming the NSA checks are adequate, that still leaves overseas residents who use services provided by the named tech companies as potential targets.
President Barack Obama has sought to offer reassurance by saying US security services are not "rifling through the ordinary emails" of German, French or other citizens, but are rather following a "circumscribed, narrow system".
One of the leaked slides says that "collection [of data was] directly from the servers" of the US tech firms.
Initial reports suggested that the NSA did in fact extract the data via special equipment they had installed on the companies' computers which acted as a "back door".
However, the tech firms issued statements denying that they provided "direct access".
The New York Times then suggested that the companies had created the digital equivalent of "locked mailboxes" - secure areas on their networks onto which they copied the requested files for the agency to inspect.
However, Google later denied this in an interview with Wired magazine.
It said it had complied with court-ordered requests by either sending data over secure FTP (file transfer protocol) - an encrypted transmission sent from its computers to the authorities' - or by physically handing over the information "in person".
The other tech firms have not been as specific.
Although several of the tech firms involved said they had never heard of Prism before the newspaper reports, they have provided limited information about how they handle national security requests.
Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo and Facebook have all published figures giving a rough indication of the total number of requests they have received from law enforcement agencies over a period of time.
However, they say they are not able to provide a figure for Fisa-related requests alone as this data remains classified.
By contrast, Google declines to provide an aggregated figure saying this would mark a "step back" for its users.
The firm already sub-divides the different kinds of government requests it receives into different groups - including the number of national security-related letters received from the FBI.
Its figures do not include requests from the NSA. It says to do so would involve "lumping together" the Fisa requests with those related to other cases which it says would be less transparent.
Security researcher Ashkan Soltani has posted a blog saying there are still five key unanswered questions about Prism:
NSA director Keith Alexander says that his agency's communication surveillance programmes have helped prevent more than 50 "potential terrorist events" since 9/11.
He adds that at least 10 of those had been set to take place in the US, but says that some details need to remain classified to ensure the efforts remained effective.
President Obama adds that: "You can't have 100% security, and also then have 100% privacy and zero inconvenience."
The Guardian says it has obtained official documents that state "special programmes for GCHQ exist for focused Prism processing" - suggesting that spies at the UK's Government Communications Headquarters are making use of data sourced from the US tech firms.
The newspaper says that in the year to May 2012, the British agency was able to generate 197 intelligence reports as a result. These would normally be passed on to the MI5 and MI6 intelligence agencies, it says.
Foreign Secretary William Hague says that law-abiding citizens have "nothing to be worried about".
The Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg adds that there are "exacting checks and balances in the way in which all intelligence agencies access information".
But Labour's shadow defence secretary Douglas Alexander says the government needs to be more open about the subject.
Professor Alan Woodward, a cybersecurity consultant who has worked for the UK government, suggests at the very least it should put limits on how long the information can be stored.
"Regimes do change and you don't want your data to be misused by any future government," he says.
"The key to that is how long the data is kept for. The reassurance needs to be that the data is not kept for any more than a reasonable amount of time - perhaps a couple of years."
Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee says it will receive a full report on the matter from GCHQ shortly and will then decide what action to take.
The EU's justice commissioner, Viviane Reding, says she has concerns that firms complying with Prism-related requests might be handing over data in breach of European citizens' data privacy rights.
As a consequence the US has agreed to set up a joint working group to examine the issue.
China's government says it is "gravely concerned" by other recently disclosed US "cyber attacks" on its citizens. The country's official news agency, Xinhua, says the affair proves the US is the "biggest villain in our age" while the South China Morning Post accuses Washington of "hypocrisy".
However, Russian President Vladimir Putin says that this kind of surveillance is "becoming a global phenomenon" and a practical way to fight terrorism.
Freedom Watch, a Florida-based activist group, is suing various government agencies and the tech companies involved, claiming that Prism violates the US constitution.
But the White House says that the programme is legal under the Fisa amendments first passed by Congress in 2008 and then renewed in 2012. These are not due to expire until 2017.
There have, however, been suggestions that US firms could face lawsuits in the EU for complying with the requests.
The UK's Information Commissioner's Office has issued a statement saying: "Aspects of US law under which companies can be compelled to provide information to US agencies potentially conflict with European data-protection law, including the UK's own Data Protection Act."
Finland's communications minister Pia Viitanen has also raised concerns.
However, researchers at the University of Amsterdam suggest that national security exemptions mean the firms have a valid legal defence.
Far from it.
The Guardian has published details of another Fisa-sanctioned programme which demanded US phone network provider Verizon hand over phone records belonging to millions of its customers to the NSA. The US director of national intelligence says this was limited to "telephony metadata" including the numbers dialled and length of calls but not the contents of the conversations. Even so, the American Civil Liberties Association has filed a lawsuit against the government claiming it was in breach of the US Constitution.
The leaked Powerpoint slides also point to a separate effort to collect "communications on fibre cables and infrastructure as data flows past", in other words as it travels across the internet. The Guardian has reported that GCHQ is doing something similar as part of a project codenamed Tempora, and says the agency is storing collected data for up to 30 days. Germany's justice minister describes the claims as "nightmarish".
And Reuters has reported that the US government is now the biggest buyer of malware, noting that the NSA declines to comment on its own role in buying such tools because of the "sensitivity" of the topic.
Richard Cox - a security specialist who previously worked in the UK's telecoms industry - warns the appearance of being over-zealous could prove self-defeating.
"Trust is vital - if the intelligence agencies appear to be overstepping the bounds of trust then there will be distrust," he says.
"We need greater oversight of the mechanisms being used so that we know they are being used in accordance with the law and so that we don't have to restrict officials' capabilities which might harm our security."
Several websites have published advice on how to avoid Prism's reach. Suggestions include:
But the University of Cambridge's Prof Anderson says the NSA can still overcome such measures.
"It won't break the encryption, but will put malware on your phone or laptop," he says.
"If you come to the attention of the NSA it will simply compromise the end devices."
Security consultant Prof Woodward agrees a certain amount of paranoia is justified, but adds that concerns need to be put in context.
"You should assume other countries are trying to spy on you - that's what they do," he says.
"Because of the way the internet has developed much of it is based in the States, so Americans have a prime opportunity.
"One of the comforts that the British have about the Americans and vice-versa is that we've been working hand-in-glove since 1946 sharing the material.
"But this doesn't mean the British intelligence services can get round local legislation and go to the Americans for information they've gathered on a UK citizen.
"That is still illegal. If they want information collected by an ally they still have to go through the legal process." | It has been described by its critics as a spying scandal and by its supporters as a justified and effective effort to head off the threat of terrorist attacks. | 23027764 |
A study found those that produced food were the ones most likely to deliver "win-win" scenarios.
Urban green spaces managed by local people were more likely to be preserved for future generations, they added.
The scientists have created an "allotment of the future" as part of Manchester's City of Science festival.
"The production of food and the degree to which sites were cultivated for food was catalytic for the overall benefits from ecosystem services," explained Matthew Dennis from the University of Salford's Ecosystem and Environment Research Centre.
"It was a nice way of looking at it, that the more effort to cultivate an area for food, the more overall benefits are gained from the site."
Dr Dennis highlighted some of characteristics of successful "collectively managed spaces".
"We are talking about have some sort of leadership, such as a community champion or a gatekeeper," he told BBC News.
"Very often the sites are secure, they are established, and they have regular opening times. People then know that they can go there, be safe, and have a sense of ownership.
"There have been examples of greening or growing things in much more public spaces - inside parks or on road verges for example - but they tend not to do very well as there is not that sense of ownership or place, the community is not able to get a sense of pride from it.
"It is strange really because once you put a fence around something, give it a name and a shed, then it belongs to the community and it thrives. This is what I have found anecdotally rather than statistically."
Research has shown that green urban sites such as allotments, community garden, or cemeteries, can make a major contribution to sustaining urban biodiversity. They offer insect-friendly habitats, which improves pollination for plant species, and attract predators such as birds etc.
This biological diversity also makes the space more appealing for people, said Dr Dennis, and reinforces the value of the area to the wider community.
Allotments have long been a part of the urban landscape, from wartime "dig for victory" campaigns to post-war austerity and rationing. The activity has seen a surge in recent years as people have looked to reconnect with their food. Many local authorities now have waiting list of people wanting to get their hands dirty.
Since the UK's first city farm opened its gates in 1972, the movement has been growing steadily with more than 120 city and school farms, and in excess of 1,000 community gardens. These are ones listed by the charitable Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens.
However, the emergence of urbanisation and a growing awareness of the merits of food and nutrition security has led to a new form of growth in the city.
Another researcher from the University of Salford, Michael Hardman, is looking at the rise of urban agriculture - large-scale urban commercial farms.
He said the development of urban agriculture was displaying the hallmarks of a movement that extended it beyond a "foodie fad".
"Only a few years ago, you had people involved in allotments and community gardens but a lot of the projects that are starting now are more than just a fad or just for recreation, there are serious business models behind some of these," he told BBC News.
"In Salford, they are building an urban farm in the middle of a huge regeneration development and that is going to have more of a commercial focus."
Dr Hardman cited a string of other examples of commercial urban farm ventures in North-West England, ranging from Liverpool to Stockport.
"It is almost becoming mainstream. We are seeing more and more local authorities, such as Brighton, buying into the idea and embedding it into the planning processes."
Global estimates show that we now live in an urban world, with the majority of people living in cities rather than in rural locations. By the middle of this century, 60% of all humans are projected to call towns and cities home.
This means that urban areas are going to have to play their part in terms of delivering food and nutrition security. However, Dr Hardman says there is no expectation that it will replace rural agriculture.
"One of the main challenges is finance," he observed. "While it is relatively easy to set up a community garden or allotment, the large-scale urban agriculture - the things that make a real difference, such as urban farms or things that embrace the more technical aspects, funding is very scarce.
"Our research has shown that a lot of the urban farming projects around the UK are relying on grants or they are working with charities, so they are always looking for the next application to put in a bid somewhere else.
"Others are just self-funded, so they are relying on volunteers all the time. It is not a rosy picture at all at the moment.
He suggested: "What we need is more businesses and more innovative people to get on board and push the practice forward as much as possible."
As part of the City of Science festival in Manchester, researchers have been inviting people to consider how the "allotment of the future" will look.
"We have got everything down there, from conventional growing all the way through to hydroponics, which are quite quirky systems that allows you to grow in smaller spaces," Dr Hardman explained, "as well as showing how it is possible to grow mushrooms in used coffee granules."
Follow Mark on Twitter. | The establishment of community gardens in inner city areas can boost social and ecological sustainability, suggest researchers. | 36913655 |
Police said the man was struck by a small, dark car in the town's Moor Road just after 19:00 on Wednesday.
He is being treated for head injuries at the Queen Elizabeth University hospital in Glasgow. His condition has been described as serious but stable.
Police want to trace the driver of the car and have appealed for anyone who witnessed the crash to contact them. | A 26-year-old man has been seriously injured in a hit-and-run incident in Milngavie, East Dunbartonshire. | 35830996 |
Saturday's 2-0 win at home to Rochdale, their first in two months, followed three draws and they are now four points off safety in League One.
"Experiences like this will only make it a better experience for the young lads," Haber told BBC Radio Stoke.
"A lot of them are growing in maturity as the season goes on."
Having spent most of the season at the bottom of the table, Crewe now have the psychological tonic of seeing two others teams beneath them.
They need to climb two more places by season's end on 8 May to complete a third successive escape.
Haber admitted that a lesson learned from the last time they had found themselves two goals up, when they led 3-1 at half-time at Swindon last month, but lost 4-3, helped them against Rochdale.
"We thought back to Swindon," he said. "We've played some good stuff this season but at end of games we've switched off and given away a lot of points.
"We've given things away too often. We've not been good at closing games out. It's not so much about having ability, it's about having grit and playing smart. In sport, you have to grow up fast."
Crewe's ultimately comfortable victory was the first time they have scored more than once in a home league game since a 3-3 draw with Bury way back in August.
Brad Inman's fifth goal in as many games made him the club's joint top scorer alongside Ryan Colclough, who departed for Wigan Athletic on deadline day.
Next best is Haber, whose opener against Rochdale was his first league goal of the season at Gresty Road.
Apart from a goal he scored in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy, all his other strikes this season had been in away games.
On top of an upturn in results, Crewe have received a major off-field boost with club captain Harry Davis, the Alex manager's son, returning to training for the first time since injuring his knee at Walsall in September.
The 24-year-old now has a chance of being back in the side by the end of February.
"We'll have to take things steady with Harry and build up his fitness," said his father, Steve. "He has been out a few months and will need time. But we are confident he's on course to be available towards the end of the month." | Crewe Alexandra striker Marcus Haber says that the threat of relegation from League One is helping the club's young players grow up fast. | 35503290 |
Honiton-based Bale Group, which runs 55 lorries and employs 120 people, said it would save £25,000 a year in fuel.
Widening the road would provide an alternative route to using the M5 and M4 but campaigners say the plan would be devastating for the environment.
The views of businesses will be presented to the government later in September.
The A303 is one of the most direct routes from London and the South East to Devon and Cornwall, but single carriageway sections, including around Stonehenge, suffer from bottlenecks.
Traffic also builds up after accidents on the alternative M5 route into the South West.
Tony Bale, managing director of Bale Group, said: "We get two or three miles per gallon better fuel consumption by going on a dual carriageway than we do by going on the normal A roads, especially the A303 because you have traffic jams and everything else that goes with it.
"The cost to us is about £25,000 a year extra if we go that way.
"That's not very good for the environment, your carbon footprint or anything."
Environmental campaigner Andrew Bell said rail should be improved and a wider road would threaten the Blackdown Hills.
He said: "It's utter madness. This is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and to put a dual carriageway through it would be devastating for the environment."
Conservative MEP Giles Chichester is backing proposals by Somerset County Council to dual the road.
He said: "Dualling the A303 all the way to Cornwall would improve the environment. If you make traffic smooth running there are less fumes."
The A303 is 92 miles (148km) long and runs through five counties.
The proposals, which also include upgrades to the A358 and A30, are being developed by a multi-agency task group consisting of Highways Agency representatives and county council officials from Wiltshire, Somerset, Cornwall, Devon and Dorset. | A Devon haulage firm has backed calls to dual the entire A303 from Exeter to London. | 19443347 |
The Taliban said they were behind the blast, which also injured two US soldiers and a contractor.
US officials said the troops were meeting a local Afghan leader when they were targeted by a fighter riding a motorbike rigged with explosives.
Attacks on foreign troops have risen in recent months as forces have withdrawn.
Nato formally ended its combat operations last year, but 9,800 US troops remain in Afghanistan.
US Defence Secretary Ash Carter said the bombing was "a painful reminder of the dangers our troops face every day in Afghanistan".
The attack happened in a village close to Bagram airbase in Afghanistan.
To date, 16 US service members have been killed in combat this year, but most of those deaths were due to aircraft crashes, according to the Pentagon.
In October, a helicopter crash killed six US service members in Jalalabad.
"We're deeply saddened by this loss," Brig Gen Wilson Shoffner said in a news release. "Our heartfelt sympathies go out to the families and friends of those affected in this tragic incident, especially during this holiday season."
The incident is under investigation, according to the release.
In southern Afghanistan, reports suggest that Taliban militants are getting close to taking Sangin, a strategically important town.
The Taliban have said they controlled most of the town, with the main administrative building abandoned.
The attack comes after US President Barack Obama has reversed his policy in Afghanistan, announcing that up to 10,000 service members will remain in Afghanistan by the end of his presidency.
Three Afghan police were also wounded in the bombing.
A few days ago, there were suicide attacks on the Kandahar air base in southern Afghanistan, and on a Spanish embassy property in Kabul. | A suicide bombing in Afghanistan has killed six US service members in one of the deadliest attacks on American forces this year, US officials say. | 35156575 |
Reports by Syrian state media and an opposition monitoring body spoke of hundreds of people being killed and abducted.
However the activists told the BBC there had been no killings or abductions on a large scale.
The IS attack took place on a government-held area on Saturday.
The focus of the reports is the village of Baghiliya, on the north-western outskirts of Deir al-Zour.
Large parts of the city have been besieged by IS for the past year.
At least 135 people were killed in the attack on Deir al-Zour, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights - the biggest organisation tracking developments on the ground - reported earlier.
Syrian state media put the toll even higher, saying about 300 civilians had died.
One activist told BBC regional analyst Sebastian Usher that IS went into Baghiliya - an area of farms - with lists of pro-government fighters.
Around 20 were arrested and some killed, he said.
Some families were rounded up by IS and taken away to another area.
However this was not on anything like the scale suggested by the Observatory of 400 family members being abducted.
Syrian government forces backed by Russian airstrikes are reported ot have mounted a counter-offensive.
The UN recently warned of "sharply deteriorating" conditions in parts of Deir al-Zour, one of a number of towns under siege as a result of Syria's five-year civil war.
What's happening in Syria?
More than 250,000 Syrians have lost their lives in almost five years of conflict, which began with anti-government protests before escalating into a brutal civil war. More than 11 million others have been forced from their homes as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and rebels opposed to his rule battle each other - as well as jihadist militants from Islamic State.
Why are civilians under siege?
All parties to the conflict are using siege warfare, encircling populated areas, preventing civilians from leaving and blocking humanitarian access in an attempt to force opponents to surrender. Shortages of food, water, medicine, electricity and fuel have led to malnutrition and deaths among vulnerable groups.
Where are the sieges?
Government forces are besieging various locations in the eastern Ghouta area, outside Damascus, as well as the capital's western suburb of Darayya and the nearby mountain towns of Zabadani and Madaya. Rebel forces have encircled the villages of Foah and Kefraya in the northern province of Idlib, while IS militants are besieging government-held areas in the eastern city of Deir al-Zour. | Syrian rebel activists have disputed accounts of mass casualties and abductions in an attack on the eastern city of Deir al-Zour by Islamic State. | 35337440 |
Emergency services were called to the scene at about 11:00, when a green Vauxhall Corsa left the northbound carriageway.
A man in his 20s and a woman in her 30s have been taken to Ninewells Hospital in Dundee. The extent of their injuries is not yet known.
Crash investigations are under way and Police Scotland appealed for witnesses. | A man and woman have been injured after a car crashed off the A90 road near Stracathro on Sunday morning. | 35516874 |
Yet for several hours, that is what pro-government media outlets and even the current president's handpicked successor, Daniel Scioli, were doing.
"Scioli wins," read the rolling red electronic strap on the television screens in the packed media annex at the Front for Victory movement's headquarters in Buenos Aires.
Four hours after the polling stations had closed, Mr Scioli took to the stage, thanked his loyal supporters and set out his programme for government. Only indirectly and very subtly did he refer to the possibility that he might not have secured a clear first-round win and there might be the need for a run-off vote.
Two hours later, Mr Scioli had failed to return to the stage - as party officials had promised he would. With no exit polls or official results, there were whispers and rumours that things might be "going south" for the government.
The results, when they finally came, had everyone in shock.
Mr Scioli and his centre-right opponent, Mauricio Macri, were neck and neck.
The powerful Peronist party machine that dominates Argentine politics from the smallest provinces to the presidential Casa Rosada (Pink Palace) had been humbled.
The party faithful, who at the start of the evening had been in typically boisterous mood, were rolling up their huge banners and trudging out of the hall. Some were even in tears, fearful that this was the end of their progressive utopian dream.
Yes, they knew that their beloved Cristina - as the sitting President, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, is popularly known - had to stand down after eight years in power.
But through her chosen successor, Mr Scioli, the project of popular but expensive welfare programmes and interventionist politics that define the "Kirchnerist" government would surely continue.
The future course for Argentina looks much more uncertain today.
Not only did the ruling party fail to dominate the presidential vote, they also lost their congressional majority and - arguably as hurtful as anything else - the polemical government minister Anibal Fernandez, one of President Fernandez's top allies, failed in his bid to become governor of Argentina's most important province, Buenos Aires.
Divisions within the Peronist party are already being laid bare.
Some of those close to President Fernandez, the ultra loyal Campora movement, have always been lukewarm about Mr Scioli's ability to step into her shoes. They were suspicious, in particular, about his commitment to continue her radical but divisive style of government.
Others within the wider party argue it was that combative but divisive style of politics, personified by President Fernandez, that led to the meltdown.
As one newspaper headline succinctly but correctly put in the morning after the night before: "Two countries."
As the banners were falling to the floor at the governing party rally, across town at Mr Macri's Cambiemos (Let's Change) headquarters they were blowing up balloons, dancing on stage and promising a bright, very different Argentina.
Politicians are, of course, full of promises and some of the slogans in this election have been particularly bland and uninspiring, but Mr Macri and his movement have tapped into a deep dissatisfaction that opinion polls and overconfident government ministers missed or ignored.
Mr Macri, the former mayor of Buenos Aires, appealed for independent and undecided voters to back him in November's second round, saying that Argentina had clearly voted for change.
He will be painted, in these interceding weeks, as a charlatan who wants to slash government spending and abandon the expensive welfare programmes that are so popular with many of Argentina's Peronist-supporting working classes.
But he also recognises that the country is in desperate need of reform.
Inflation is running at worryingly high levels, the Central Bank coffers are almost empty and relations with the important agricultural sector are at an all time low.
Mr Scioli may indeed recover to become the next president of Argentina, with the help of the party machine and the votes of those who supported the independent Peronist candidate Sergio Massa in the first round.
But this is a changed country.
Whoever occupies the Casa Rosada in December, when President Fernandez returns to her Patagonian ranch, will need to be a bridge builder - one who can mend fences between conflicting sectors of Argentine society as well as rebuilding the country's reputation overseas. | Only the most ardent, committed and perhaps blinkered of governing Peronist party supporters could interpret Sunday night's elections in Argentina as a victory. | 34635937 |
The grainy nature of the footage, which subsequently went viral, suggests this was a spontaneous, off-the-cuff moment captured on a mobile phone - but Mr Abbott's relaxed demeanour and willingness to take on the "manly" challenge set by a group of younger men is likely to have left his image managers smiling.
Appearing down to earth and at ease with the voters they encounter seems to be regarded as the elixir of modern, (still) male-dominated politics in many countries. The process began in the television age and has now been sharpened by an internet age in which videos and photos are posted, shared and re-shared at warp speed.
Appearing out of touch, on the other hand, is regarded as political Kryptonite.
Mr Abbott is not the first Australian politician whose timed beer-drinking exploits have become part of his public image.
Former Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke went so far as to describe his downing of two-and-a-half pints (1.4 litres) of ale in 11 seconds while a student at Oxford University as something that "was to endear me to some of my fellow Australians more than anything else I ever achieved".
For David Briggs, of Australian polling and research organisation Galaxy International, there is an upside to politicians like Tony Abbott being seen as a "normal bloke".
"It certainly beats being written off as an arrogant tosser," he says frankly.
But this effect is hard to read when examining opinion polls, Mr Briggs says, as perceptions of parliamentary leaders do not change dramatically in the short term.
However, polling evidence suggests that the revelation in 2007 that then Australian opposition leader Kevin Rudd had visited a strip club during a visit to the US actually worked in his favour.
"Some suggested this confirmed he suffered poor judgement and was not a suitable prime minister," says Mr Briggs. "However, our poll conducted at the time confirmed that to the overwhelming majority of Australian voters, this incident simply demonstrated that he was a normal bloke.
"This view was shared by both men and women... with his reputation as a normal bloke enhanced, he went on to win a federal election a few months later."
But then this can also work the other way. To the despair of their image-makers, some politicians' attempts to forge a bond with ordinary folk often come to grief.
Former UK opposition leader William Hague's claim to have drunk 14 pints of beer a day in his younger days was mocked at the time, as was then Prime Minister Tony Blair's apparent adoption of "estuary English" while appearing on a popular TV chat show.
More recently in the UK, footage of Labour leader Ed Miliband eating a bacon sandwich was seen as reinforcing his slightly geeky image, while Prime Minister David Cameron's attempts to avoid this pitfall by eating a hotdog with a knife and fork provoked further criticism of his alleged aloofness.
By contrast, UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage's fondness for a pint of beer and a cigarette - a key part of this former stockbroker's image package - has become his trademark.
In the US, then Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's attempt in 2012 to reach out to the people of Detroit - the city at the heart of the US car industry - by telling an audience there that his wife owned a "couple of Cadillacs" hardly burnished his man-of-the people credentials.
But then neither did Barack Obama's attempt to reach out to regular voters by taking up ten-pin bowling during his first successful campaign to become president in 2008.
Still in the US, many political observers cite George W Bush as a good example of a politician successfully connecting with crucial undecided voters.
He won the 2000 and 2004 presidential polls partly because - the argument goes - he was better able to convince the average American that he was quite like them and would be more fun to have a night out with than the stiffer, more intellectual Al Gore and John Kerry.
This was despite Mr Bush's impeccable establishment credentials as the scion of an oil-wealthy Texas family, whose father had been head of the CIA before becoming vice-president and then president.
Indeed, the younger Bush once joked to a wealthy audience at a (pre-financial crisis) charity dinner: "This is an impressive crowd. The haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite. I call you my base."
A counterpoint can be found in the political scene in Israel, where for decades the "uniform" of Israeli male politicians was casual dress - usually the short-sleeved, open-necked shirt paired with shorts or casual trousers favoured by Israel's founding father and first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.
It is unclear whether this reflected the straight-talking informality of a new state founded in war, a practical response to the local climate - or an attempt by the politicians to sell themselves as leadership material by appearing ordinary yet dynamic.
In her novel Love and Betrayal, author Pamela Schieber refers to most Israeli politicians of the 1960s and 70s as looking "like they had just jumped off the kibbutz tractor".
But this trend has been largely abandoned in the following decades, with many Israeli politicians - including the most successful one of the modern era, Benjamin Netanyahu - now favouring the bankers' uniform of sharp suits and bright ties for public appearances.
For Nick Wood, chief executive of the public relations firm Media Intelligence Partners and a former adviser to UK Conservative leaders William Hague and Iain Duncan-Smith, authenticity is all.
"People don't expect their prime ministers to be just like them, they are not so naive as to believe that - and nor do they want that. What they want is empathy, a feeling for what life is like for ordinary people.
"As long as politicians are doing something that fits with who they are, is part of their persona, it works. Faked stunts just don't work." | Footage of Tony Abbott downing a beer in short order at the weekend to the cheers of young sportsmen in a Sydney pub has polarised opinion in Australia, with some commending the prime minister for showing he is a "regular bloke" and others shaking their heads at what they regard as overly macho, unstatesmanlike behaviour. | 32395803 |
Mr Adams was among a number of politicians to greet the prince at a reception at National University of Ireland Galway.
It was the first meeting in the Republic of Ireland between Sinn Féin's leadership and a Royal Family member.
Mr Adams and his colleague Martin McGuinness also had a private meeting with Prince Charles.
That meeting took place after the handshake and was in a private room. It lasted between 15 and 20 minutes.
Afterwards, Mr Adams said: "We did discuss the need for the entire process to move forward, particularly in regard to those who have suffered, those who have been bereaved."
He added: "Both he and we expressed our regret for what happened from 1968 onwards.
"We were of a common mind and the fact that the meeting took place, it obviously was a big thing for him to do and a big thing for us to do."
However, not everyone welcomed the meeting and the prince's visit.
As Mr Adams was meeting Prince Charles, one of his party's MP's, Paul Maskey, was attending a protest over Parachute Regiment shootings in the Ballymurphy area of west Belfast in the early 1970s.
"Sinn Féin have long supported the Ballymurphy families and will continue to do so," Mr Maskey said.
"Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and other Sinn Féin representatives met today with Prince Charles. This is part of a larger process of peace and reconciliation and moving society forward."
A protest involving about 40 people was held in Londonderry opposing the visit. It included some relatives of those who were killed by paratroops on Bloody Sunday.
John Teggart's father, Danny, was one of 10 people killed by soldiers in Ballymurphy, west Belfast, in 1971.
"Prince Charles represents the Parachute Regiment who, for many years, murdered innocent civilians in Belfast, including my father," he said.
"I am totally opposed to him coming to Belfast and to the north in general."
Victims campaigner Alan McBride, whose wife Sharon was killed in the IRA Shankill Road bombing in 1993, said the families of some of the victims would find the handshake difficult to watch.
"At the end of the day, it is just a handshake and I long for the day when these things don't have the sort of significance that they have at present, because of our history and the conflict and all of that," he said.
"But we're not there yet, and particularly for families that lost people, these can be very emotional and traumatic days."
Mr McBride said he had heard interviews with some of the Ballymurphy families that he felt illustrated "a lot of hurt there, just underneath the surface".
In a speech at the university, Prince Charles paid tribute to the "magic about Ireland that is totally unique".
"Having first had the great joy of coming to Ireland 20 years ago now, for the first time in 1995, then again in 2002, each time I have been so overwhelmed and so deeply touched by the extraordinary kindness, the welcome, the enthusiasm and indeed the fun of being in Ireland," the prince said.
He said of the Irish people: "You raise our spirits in so many ways."
He also joked that he was "a little too old to be able to learn some of the steps from the Irish dancing routine" performed for the Royal couple after their arrival.
Following the visit to the university, Prince Charles visited Galway's Marine Institute and the Burren area of County Clare, while Camilla attended a number of events in Galway city centre.
The couple are to attend a private dinner with Irish President Michael D Higgins and his wife Sabina at Lough Cutra in County Galway on Tuesday night.
Prince Charles, who is a pioneer in organic and sustainable farming, visited the farm of Patrick Nagle near Corofin in the Burren. He also met Brendan Dunford of the Burren Life project, which has helped farmers to work successfully in the unique landscape.
He met members of the Burren Beo Trust, which has been spearheading an educational project about the Burren in schools for the past decade.
The Duchess of Cornwall visited the Druid Theatre in Galway, watching a short performance of the opening scene of "Richard II".
In 2012, Sinn Féin's deputy leader Martin McGuinness met the Queen in Belfast in his role as Northern Ireland's deputy first minister.
The handshake between the Queen and the former IRA commander, at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast, was considered historic.
However, he was not the first party member to meet British royalty.
In May 2011, Michael Browne, the Sinn Féin mayor of Cashel shook hands with the Queen in County Tipperary.
The meeting had not been approved by the Sinn Féin leadership.
During his own trip Charles, joined by the Duchess of Cornwall, will visit the village of Mullaghmore in County Sligo - where his great-uncle, Earl Mountbatten, was killed by an IRA bomb in 1979.
A handshake - an everyday action for so many of us - is invested with so much more when it's in the context of the evolving and improving relationship between Britain and Ireland.
This one was once unthinkable. It lasted some 12 seconds.
The heir to the throne was carrying that most English of things - a cup of tea. Gerry Adams was furnished with a firm and lingering grasp.
After the show of togetherness for public consumption, there followed an equally significant, but unrecorded, private meeting.
After his political contribution, Prince Charles will make a personal journey to Mullaghmore where his godfather and confidant Lord Mountbatten was murdered by the IRA.
That will be on Wednesday. Today, Prince Charles has, in the words of a speech on Ireland he once delivered, become a subject of the two countries' shared history and not its prisoner.
Read more from Peter | Prince Charles has met Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams at the start of his four-day visit to Ireland. | 32786393 |
Dyna rybudd Swyddog Ymchwil Rhieni dros Addysg Gymraeg (RhAG), sy'n dweud na ddylai'r gweinidog sydd â chyfrifoldeb am yr iaith dderbyn y cynlluniau fel y maen nhw.
Mewn llythyr at Alun Davies, sydd wedi cael cefnogaeth drawsbleidiol, mae'r mudiad yn dweud bod y cynlluniau presennol yn "ddi-uchelgais" a bod angen iddyn nhw fod yn rhai "blaengar a mentrus".
Dywedodd llefarydd ar ran Cymdeithas Llywodraeth Leol Cymru bod cynghorau yn "cymryd eu cyfrifoldebau o ddifrif ynglŷn â chynlluniau strategol addysg Gymraeg, ac maen nhw wedi ymrwymo'n llawn i'r polisi hwn".
Dywedodd Llywodraeth Cymru fod Gweinidog y Gymraeg wedi gwneud yn glir ei fod yn disgwyl cynlluniau cryf ac uchelgeisiol, ac y bydd yn "herio unrhyw gynlluniau nad ydynt yn ddigon uchelgeisiol".
Yn ôl Heini Gruffudd, Swyddog Ymchwil RhAG, mae "gwahaniaeth mawr rhwng uchelgais y cynlluniau ac uchelgais y llywodraeth" ar gyfer 2017-2020.
Mae'n dweud bod awdurdodau lleol i fod nodi yn eu strategaethau sut maen nhw am weld twf, rhoi gwybod i rieni am fanteision addysg Gymraeg a sicrhau bod digon o lefydd mewn ysgolion os yw'r ysgol o fewn trothwy o 10% i fod yn llawn.
Ond dyw hyn ddim wedi digwydd, meddai Mr Gruffudd wrth BBC Cymru Fyw: "Yr hyn 'dyn ni wedi gweld yw bod y rhan fwyaf o siroedd fel pe baen nhw wedi anwybyddu cyngor Alun Davies.
"Felly 'dyn ni'n gofyn i Alun Davies beidio derbyn y cynlluniau fel maen nhw ac i ail lunio yn arbennig yr adran cynyddu niferoedd plant saith oed sydd mewn addysg Gymraeg."
Dau gynllun gan gynghorau sydd yn foddhaol, meddai RhAG - sef cynlluniau Sir Benfro a Gwynedd - ond mae'r llythyr yn dweud bod y mwyafrif yn "annelwig" a nifer yn "ddisgrifiadol - yn disgrifio'r hyn sydd wedi digwydd - yn hytrach nag yn ddatblygiadol".
Mae RhAG hefyd yn dweud bod y ffordd y mae rhai cynghorau yn mesur y galw yn wahanol i'r canllaw sy'n cael ei osod gan y llywodraeth.
Dywedodd Mr Gruffudd mai'r canllaw yw gofyn i rieni os ydyn nhw eisiau i'w plant gael addysg Gymraeg, ond mai'r hyn sydd yn digwydd mewn rhai siroedd yw eu bod yn gofyn i ba ysgol maen nhw eisiau i'w plant fynychu.
"Mewn sefyllfa fel yna bydd rhan fwyaf o rieni yn nodi'r ysgol leol Saesneg," meddai.
"Felly maen nhw'n cymysgu'r galw gan drio cael gwybod i ba ysgol Saesneg y bydden nhw am fynd, yn hytrach na ydyn nhw am gael addysg Gymraeg. Mae'r holl broses yn gymysglyd."
Mae'n awgrymu bod "diogi" ymhlith y swyddogion cyngor a bod newid y cynlluniau am gymryd ymdrech ac ymroddiad.
"Falle bod angen i'r gweinidog, o ddifrif fel petai, ddweud tipyn bach o'r drefn wrth y siroedd iddyn nhw symud tipyn yn fwy cyflym nag y maen nhw," meddai Mr Gruffudd.
Dywedodd Llywodraeth Cymdeithas Leol Cymru bod cynghorau yn "cefnogi uchelgais a thargedau Llywodraeth Cymru er lles y Gymraeg" er bod y sefyllfa ariannol yn heriol.
Mae'r llefarydd hefyd yn dweud mai mater i awdurdodau unigol yw'r cynlluniau a'u bod yn ystyried yr "amgylchiadau lleol" a'r "pwysau unigol" yn y sir honno.
"O safbwynt strategol, fodd bynnag, mae byd llywodraeth leol wedi ymrwymo i gydweithio â Llywodraeth Cymru er mwyn gwireddu'r uchelgais sy'n gyffredin iddyn nhw.
"Bydd WLGA yn trafod y cynlluniau gyda Llywodraeth Cymru ac Alun Davies AC, Gweinidog Dysgu Gydol Oes a'r Gymraeg, cyn bo hir gan geisio gofalu y bydd cynlluniau o'r fath yn cyd-fynd â Rhaglen Ysgolion yr 21ain Ganrif, proses llunio'r cwricwlwm newydd a tharged Llywodraeth Cymru y dylai fod miliwn o Gymry Cymraeg erbyn 2050."
Dywedodd llefarydd ar ran Llywodraeth Cymru: "Mae gan awdurdodau lleol ddyletswydd statudol i baratoi Cynlluniau Strategol Cymraeg mewn Addysg, a'u cyflwyno i Weinidogion Cymru eu hystyried. Yn y cynlluniau hyn, rhaid i awdurdodau lleol osod targedau heriol ar gyfer datblygu addysg cyfrwng Cymraeg yn eu hardaloedd.
"Rhaid i'r cynlluniau hefyd nodi camau gweithredu ar gyfer sicrhau cymaint o gyfleoedd â phosib i bobl allu manteisio ar addysg cyfrwng Cymraeg, a hynny ar draws yr holl gyfnodau addysgol.
"Gall Gweinidogion gymeradwyo cynlluniau, eu haddasu ac yna'u cymeradwyo, neu gallant eu gwrthod a pharatoi cynllun newydd ar gyfer awdurdod. Ni allwn wneud sylw am strategaethau unigol.
"Fodd bynnag, mae Gweinidog y Gymraeg wedi dweud yn glir ei fod yn disgwyl cynlluniau cryf ac uchelgeisiol ac y bydd yn herio unrhyw gynlluniau nad ydynt yn ddigon uchelgeisiol." | Ni fydd targed y llywodraeth o gyrraedd miliwn o siaradwyr Cymraeg erbyn 2050 yn cael ei gyrraedd oni bai bod cynlluniau drafft cynghorau sir ar addysg Gymraeg yn cael eu newid. | 38768805 |
The £460m project will also see most platforms on the network altered to meet the new train's lower floors.
The new trains will have a sliding step which extends out to cut out the gap between the train and the platform.
Members of the RMT union, which represents rail staff, protested over fears safety could be compromised.
The trains, which are due to be in place by 2020, will be driver-operated with no guards on board meaning 220 guard and management posts will cease to exist.
The existing Merseyrail fleet, originally designed in the 1950s, is almost 40 years old.
Merseytravel said the safety features of the new train have been designed in response to the death of 16-year-old Georgia Varley, who died in 2011 after falling into the gap between a train and platform.
The rail accident report following her death said Merseyrail should look at equipment and methods that reduce the likelihood of a person falling through the platform-edge gap.
The new trains will have sensors allowing doors to reopen if, for example, a passenger's bag or child's finger gets stuck in them.
The doors will also be illuminated with a traffic light system to make clear to passengers when it is safe to board.
Members of the RMT and Aslef unions lobbied the meeting of Liverpool City Region's Merseytravel committee on Friday.
The RMT claimed the trains would be less safe because drivers would not be able to see all the passengers while they are boarding and could not provide security during journeys.
Currently, drivers cannot see the whole platform when the doors are closed.
The new trains will feature cameras enabling the driver to see the entire length of the train and there will be a speaker system to allow the driver to communicate directly with passengers, Merseytravel said.
John Tilley, RMT regional organiser, said it was "not about safety or customer service - it's all about money".
"We've got an agreement with them that the guards' role is protected on the trains and we expect that to be honoured, new trains or not. We have an absolute red line over this," he said.
Merseytravel said there would be no compulsory redundancies. There will be 63 new on board customer service roles created but they will not be on every train.
Aside from the flashy new trains, which will cut journey times, increase capacity and in future possibly see Skelmersdale on the Merseyrail network, the headline news here is the removal of guards from the trains.
The unions representing staff working on the railway have been anticipating the move towards driver-operated trains for several months.
They're furious at the decision - and they'll be lobbying Merseyside's MPs hard.
It's awkward for the members of the city region combined authority - they all lead Labour councils and some have union backgrounds themselves, most notably chair of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (LCRCA) Joe Anderson.
He and his colleagues must be torn between doing the best for the city region's infrastructure and rail passengers and protecting the jobs of those guards who are facing an uncertain future.
The trains will be longer than the existing fleet and able to carry more passengers - 486 in contrast to 303 currently - but there will be seven fewer.
Merseytravel said journey times will be reduced because these trains can accelerate and brake faster than the existing trains, giving the example of a journey between Hunts Cross and Southport, which will be 10 minutes quicker.
Funding the project will be complex and determining a financial package has been a key part of the project to date, Merseyrail said.
It envisaged borrowing about 50% of the "direct procurement" cost from the European Investment Bank with further borrowing from the Bank of England's Public Works Loan Board.
In addition, the LCRCA and Merseytravel have "significant reserves" available which will be used "primarily for financing transitional costs and to manage the cost of improving the infrastructure and power supply."
The LCRCA has a £60m reserve while Merseytravel has been building reserves for more than five years with new trains in mind.
The train operator is promising that the trains will be more reliable and faster allowing it to operate a slightly smaller fleet.
In future the aspiration is to extend the network to Skelmersdale, Warrington and Wrexham. | Merseyside's rail network is to be upgraded with a new fleet of 52 trains which will not need guards on board to operate the doors. | 38334262 |
A woman journalist filed a police complaint against the account after a series of tweets about her and Congress party vice president Rahul Gandhi.
Swati Chaturvedi wrote about her decision saying, "I decided that I will do, what we as the media, keep prescribing to others ??? take action."
Lutyens Insider has since deleted the tweets and changed the account name.
Ms Chaturvedi who tweets under the handle @bainjal took action after Lutyens Insider alleged that she had an affair with Mr Gandhi.
She has received a groundswell of social media support for her decision to tackle the account head on.
Among her cheerleaders are prominent Indian women journalists like NDTV's Barkha Dutt and Times of India's consulting editor Sagarika Ghose.
Former Chief Minister of the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, also tweeted in support.
The action against Lutyens Insider also generated much discussion among India's Twitter community, including from other anonymous accounts.
Indian media reported that following the police complaint, the name of the handle was changed to @gregoryzackim, with the only indication that it was the same handle being that it had retained its 40.6k followers.
These include a number of prominent journalists and editors, as well as Delhi's Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
A new Lutyens Insider account has also surfaced on Twitter, but with significantly fewer followers (115) and tweets (15).
Lutyens Insider is one among a series of Lutyens-themed anonymous gossip accounts which tweet out unverified information about India's power elite.
These accounts created a massive buzz in India's social media space, and their tweets are often re-tweeted dozens of times.
However some journalists have been apprehensive about their content.
Madhu Trehan, editor of media website newslaundry.com, told the BBC in November 2014: "There is an unwritten rule in Indian journalism that we stay away from politicians' personal lives. But what these accounts are doing is just gossip. They are posting just anything."
The names of the other accounts are Lutyens Masala and Lutyens Spice.
Lutyens is an area in India's capital which was designed by British architect Edwin Lutyens in the 1920s. It houses India's parliament, central administrative blocks and the presidential palace.
There has been much speculation over who runs the accounts, but no one has come forward and claimed ownership.
With Ms Chaturvedi asserting that Delhi police are "hot on the trail" of the owner of the handle, India may soon find out. | One of India's most popular anonymous Twitter accounts, Lutyens Insider, is in trouble. | 33091703 |
About 40,000 users downloaded Firechat last week, compared with 6,600 over the previous few months, the company says.
The internet has been blocked in some Iraqi provinces, as authorities seek to prevent militants from communicating.
Access to social media sites has also been severely restricted.
Firechat allows users to take part in group chats with between two and 10,000 people, without the need for an internet connection.
Using a technology known as "mesh networking", messages can be sent to people within the immediate vicinity, as long as they too have the app installed. However, discussions are not private, and can be seen by anyone in the area.
The software is available for both Android and iOS devices, and has a range of roughly 70m (230ft). However, if enough people use the app, messages can travel over far greater distances, hopping between intermediary devices in a chain-like effect.
The app was heavily used in Taiwan earlier this year, when protesting students intent on occupying the parliament were faced with the threat of internet restrictions and limited cell coverage.
Firechat does not have access to the content of the messages.
Over the past couple of weeks, Iraqis attempting to visit social media sites have been greeted by a message saying the Ministry of Communications has barred access.
The government has also ordered the internet to be completely shut down in some provinces, where Isis militants are active.
The move was taken after Islamist insurgents used Twitter to post a graphic image of a beheaded man, and to spread propaganda messages.
Firechat, which was launched three months ago by Californian firm Open Garden, says the app's popularity in Iraq is now second only to the US.
A spokesperson for the company said the number of users in Iraq might have been underestimated, as many were using virtual private networks (VPNs), which disguise activity, to access the app.
Psiphon, a system which allows users to circumvent internet censorship, told the BBC it had seen a "huge influx" in the numbers of those using its service in Iraq. | Iraqis have been turning to an app which allows group messages to be sent between phones, without the need for an internet connection, in an effort to circumnavigate government restrictions. | 27994309 |
Mr Comey is among officials who will remain in their positions under the new administration, according to a Justice Department memo.
Hillary Clinton blamed her election loss on the FBI reopening an inquiry into her emails 11 days before voting.
FBI directors serve 10-year terms and Mr Comey was appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2013.
The president's decision to keep the FBI director in his job was announced in a conference call by Mr Comey to the bureau's special agents last week, the New York Times reports.
The choice has yet to be officially confirmed by the Trump administration.
On Sunday at the White House, Mr Trump met Mr Comey at an event for law enforcement officials.
"Oh, there's Jim, he's become more famous than me," the president said before embracing the FBI chief.
The agency is currently investigating ties between Mr Trump's associates - including his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort - and the Russian government.
The Justice Department's inspector general, which oversees the FBI, is meanwhile investigating Mr Comey over his handling of the Clinton emails inquiry.
Republicans, including Mr Trump, had also criticised Mr Comey for failing to prosecute the Democratic candidate, who kept a private email server at her home.
The FBI director had called Mrs Clinton's handling of classified information "extremely careless". | Embattled FBI Director James Comey will stay in his current role, reportedly at the request of President Donald Trump. | 38737737 |
John Cridland, director general of the employers' group, says England's exam system is narrow and out of date.
He proposes a system in which the most important exams would be A-levels, including both academic and vocational subjects, taken at the age of 18.
Ministers are pushing for all pupils to take a core group of academic GCSEs.
"By the end of this parliament, I want to see the date for the last GCSEs circled in the secretary of state's diary," said Mr Cridland, who warns of a "false choice" between academic and vocational lessons.
In a speech at the annual Festival of Education at Wellington College, Mr Cridland will set out an employers' blueprint for improving schools.
He says that for too long "we've just pretended" to have an exam system that values vocational education, when in practice, exams have operated as stepping stones towards a university degree.
Mr Cridland argues that GCSEs have been made an irrelevance when pupils stay in education or training until the age of 18.
In having such major exams at the age of 16, he says: "We have to face the uncomfortable truth that - internationally - we're the oddballs."
"GCSEs are past their sell-by date and should be retired."
He says that the only purpose they serve now is to allow measurement of schools through league tables.
The proposal to scrap GCSEs comes as ministers are pushing for an even greater emphasis on academic GCSEs, with plans for all pupils to have to take core academic subjects.
This announcement "misses the point that we need curriculum reform, not just exam reform", says the CBI chief.
"The government must make a start on a full review of 14-to-18 education by the end of the summer."
Mr Cridland describes the current vocational education as a "restricted, unloved range of options" and "a social and economic own goal".
"Non-academic routes should be rigorous and different to academic ones, but not second best."
The lack of a strong vocational education at the moment means that many pupils are poorly served, he says, as not all children are suited to a narrowly academic approach.
For employers, it can mean that they have to carry out "remedial" work with young recruits to get them ready for the workplace.
From the perspective of employers, he says the school system needs to teach skills beyond academic lessons, such as character and resilience.
"Debates about schools structure and exam reform are sterile if they aren't linked to outcomes for young people. And that is a missing link in our system."
He also called for an Ofsted system that recognises innovation, rather than an excessive focus on data. "Rebel head teachers succeed in spite of the system, not because of it," he says.
Mr Cridland also wants more engagement from business in education.
The lack of good quality careers education remains a major problem, he says, and he argues that businesses should play a bigger part in making links between school and employment.
"Schools shouldn't be places where businesspeople drop their kids at the beginning of the day like they drop off their dry-cleaning," he says.
The Department for Education said: "A rigorous academic curriculum until age 16 is the best way to ensure that every child succeeds, regardless of their background, and allows us to be ambitious for everyone, to keep options open and horizons broad."
A department spokeswoman said A-levels had been reformed "to ensure they are equipping young people with the skills and knowledge for higher education and the world of work". | The head of the CBI says a date must be set in the next five years to scrap GCSEs and introduce an exam system with equal status for vocational subjects. | 33190028 |
Kynren depicts 2,000 years of English history in 90 minutes, utilising 1,000 volunteers on a specially-built site in Bishop Auckland.
It is part of a £100m redevelopment of the town spearheaded by former investment banker Jonathan Ruffer.
It is thought the 15 summer shows have generated about £4.5m for the area.
Kynren was inspired by one of France's biggest tourist attractions, the Puy du Fou, and features marauding Vikings, sword-wielding knights and dancing coal miners.
The opening season ended on Saturday with organisers promising the event will return "bigger and better" in 2017, with an additional 500 volunteers.
Anne-Isabelle Daulon, chief executive of Eleven Arches, the charity that produced Kynren, said: "We are thrilled that so many people of all ages and from far and wide have enjoyed the show.
"The scale of our ambition was audacious, if not daunting, and we believe we have pulled off something quite incredible - not just the quality of the show itself, but the positive impact it has had on the community." | A £30m open-air historical show in County Durham has attracted more than 100,000 visitors in its first season, organisers have revealed. | 37417380 |
The 21-year-old, from Ramsgate, was held by police after the young woman's remains were found in Broadstairs, Kent, on Sunday.
Officers had been called to the Port of Ramsgate to reports of a person in the sea.
Kent Police said the man had been bailed until 24 June. | A man arrested on suspicion of murder after the body of a teenage girl was pulled from the sea has been released on bail. | 36188481 |
But one of them, Donald Trump, has landed himself in some big trouble after comments he made about women 11 years ago were released.
In the past Donald Trump has used words like "pig", "fat" and "ugly" to describe women he disagreed with.
Now a 2005 video has come out, in which he said even worse things about women.
Since the recording was made public, Donald Trump has released a video statement where he apologised for the comments.
But Hillary Clinton has said that Trump should not be president after what he has said.
She says that his words will have a negative effect on women and girls.
People in Donald Trump's own party have said they strongly disagree with the things he has said. Some of them have said they will no longer be supporting him in the election.
The president of the United States is one of the most powerful and important jobs in the world, and the winner of this year's election will take over from current president Barack Obama.
These big presidential debates are shown on TV to try to help people make their mind up about who they want to vote for in the election. | A big debate takes place in America on Sunday night between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the two people trying to become the next US president. | 37600079 |
A gunman was killed at the scene. Police were initially searching for two additional "potential" gunman but one has since been ruled out.
Shots were reported at 08:20 local time (12:20 GMT), and authorities have sealed off a swathe of south-east Washington DC.
President Barack Obama said he mourned "yet another mass shooting".
Police responded to reports of two additional suspects in the shooting at Washington Navy Yard, but have since cleared one of them, a white male in a tan short-sleeve military-style outfit.
A black male, 40-50 years of age and wearing olive kit and seen carrying a long gun, was still being sought.
Washington Police Chief Cathy Lanier said 12 people were deceased. Washington Mayor Vincent Gray said four people were wounded in the shooting.
One police officer was shot in the legs and other police officers were injured in other ways.
At least three people including the shot police officer were brought to Washington Hospital Center by helicopter with "severe" gunshot wounds, said chief medical officer Janis Orlowski.
A female civilian was shot in the head and hand, and another woman was being treated for a shoulder wound, she said.
All three were in critical condition but their chances for survival were "very good", Dr Orlowski said.
Authorities said no motive was yet known for the shooting.
The FBI has taken control of the scene and the investigation, Ms Lanier said.
Security around the US Capitol was bolstered following news of the shooting. The US Senate adjourned for the day earlier than scheduled.
The shooting occurred at a building on the Navy Yard campus that serves as the headquarters for the Naval Sea Systems Command, which engineers, purchases, builds and maintains ships and submarines for the Navy.
Eyewitness Patricia Ward reported hearing at least seven shots from inside a cafeteria on Monday morning.
"It just happened so fast… I just ran," she said.
'Unimaginable violence'
Cmdr Tim Jirus was on the fourth floor of the building when he heard shots, he said.
"It sounded like a cap gun as opposed to a real gun," he said. "I feel very lucky to be alive. Someone standing there talking to me got shot. I didn't."
The Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department has instructed family members to reunite at the car park of a nearby baseball stadium.
President Barack Obama has been briefed on the matter by senior aides and has directed federal agencies to co-ordinate their response and investigation efforts.
At the White House, Mr Obama said he mourned "yet another mass shooting" and sent his thoughts and prayers to the victims.
"These are men and women going to work and doing their job," he said. "They know the dangers of serving abroad, but today they face the unimaginable violence that they wouldn't have expected here at home."
The Washington Navy Yard is the US Navy's oldest shore installation, first opened in the early 19th Century, according to the Navy. | At least 12 people have been killed and at least four injured in a shooting at a naval installation in Washington DC. | 24111481 |
Dr Robert Lewis, 51, was convicted in November of four charges of indecent assault against three victims between 1999 and 2003.
He was struck off after being convicted of the offences at his first trial.
The former doctor, of Northbridge Street, Shefford, was cleared of eight counts on Friday.
Luton Crown Court heard Lewis carried out the assaults on the three women at the Larksfield Surgery at Stotfold, near Hitchin.
He used the "veneer" of genuine examinations to act inappropriately against the women who wanted to join Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire ambulance service, jurors were told.
The women all said he used both hands to squeeze, fondle or grope their breasts. One said he also put his hand inside her underwear during a hernia examination.
Dr Lewis said the examinations were all carried out in a "decent and honest manner".
His barrister Paul Jarvis said Lewis had "treated thousand if not tens of thousands of patients" and was "not a wicked man".
Judge Kay said: "Every time a doctor is convicted of offences likes these it harms the public trust in the profession.
"These young women were desperate to get a job with ambulance service. They wouldn't complain as one put so as not to rock the boat."
In total, Lewis was acquitted of 39 of the 43 charges he faced.
He must also register as a sex offender for ten years. | A GP who molested young women recruits to the ambulance service during breast and hernia examinations has been jailed for two and a half years. | 37505472 |
The 32-year-old from Brecon will be making his first international appearance since winning gold at the Rio Paralympics in September.
He will be joined in Slovenia by Paul Davies and Tom Matthews.
"I had a long break after Rio. Training has been going well and I'm reasonably happy," said Rob Davies.
Rob Davies did win the class 1 title at the British Para Table Tennis National Championships in April, but said he is excited to get back on the international stage at the Slovenian tournament which begins on 6 May.
He continued: "The Slovenia Open is always a strong competition so I know it will be tough. My main goal for this year is the European Championships in September and that is what I am working towards."
Paul Davies, 50, from North Cornelly, won Paralympic bronze in London 2012 and reached the quarter-finals in Rio following a long absence with injury whilst Aberdare's Matthews has had his own injury woes.
He missed most of 2016 after breaking his leg, but since his return he took bronze at the Italian Open in March.
Meanwhile Swansea's Paul Karabardak, men's class 6 gold medallist in the Italian Open, is still recovering from a foot injury and will miss the Slovenia Open.
Find out how to get into table tennis with our special guide. | Paralympic table tennis gold medallist Rob Davies is one of three Welsh players in a 15-strong British squad that will compete in the Slovenia Open | 39784487 |
The six, including three university professors, are accused of using the technology to benefit universities and companies controlled by Beijing.
One of the group, Tianjin University professor Hao Zhang, has been arrested but the rest are believed to be in China.
Alleged Chinese economic espionage has long been a concern in Washington.
According to a US Justice Department indictment, the scheme began more than a decade ago.
Prosecutors say Mr Zhang and another Tianjin University professor, Wei Pang, plotted together to steal FBAR technology from their US employers, which enable mobile phones and other devices to filter unwanted signals.
The pair and others allegedly then set up a company at Tianjin to manufacture FBARs using the stolen technology.
"The defendants leveraged their access to and knowledge of sensitive US technologies to illegally obtain and share US trade secrets with [the Chinese government] for economic advantage," said John Carlin, the Assistant Attorney General for National Security.
"Economic espionage imposes great costs on American businesses, weakens the global marketplace and ultimately harms US interests worldwide."
If convicted the six face long jail sentences, but the BBC's Barbara Plett says it is difficult to see how the bulk of the group will be prosecuted. | The US has charged six Chinese nationals over the alleged theft of technology used in mobile phones. | 32805227 |
Luton Crown Court was shown footage of the attack at The Nags Head in Dunstable last May after the man allegedly called Mr Dixon a "fatso".
Mr Dixon, 53, who lives in the town, denies causing actual bodily harm.
The court was told Mr Dixon will be claiming he struck out in a "pre-emptive strike" in self defence.
The attack by the former footballer, who also played for Luton Town, Southampton and Reading, was captured on the pub's CCTV at 12:40 BST on 15 May 2014.
In the footage, Mr Dixon is seen punching 38-year-old father-of-two Ben Scoble in the face, sending him to the ground.
He is then shown bending over the alleged victim, from east London, and delivering more punches and kicks.
Mr Dixon then removed an empty pint glass that was still in Mr Scoble's hand and placed it on the bar before walking out.
It is alleged the brawl occurred after Mr Scoble swore at Mr Dixon and refused to leave his seat where the ex-striker and his girlfriend were previously sitting.
The jury was told Mr Scoble suffered a cut lip and two of his front teeth were loosened.
Simon Stirling, prosecuting, said Mr Dixon told police he had continued to hit the other man "to make sure he stayed down and no longer presented a threat to him".
Earlier in the night, it was claimed Mr Scoble approached Mr Dixon in the pub's lavatory and said: "You're a drug dealer, have you got any drugs?".
He told the court he had no recollection of it and denied swearing at Mr Dixon.
The trial continues. | Former Chelsea and England centre forward Kerry Dixon knocked a drinker off a bar stool and punched and kicked him on the ground, a court has heard. | 33075621 |
The defendants were detained after secret filming by BBC Panorama at Winterbourne View, near Bristol.
They face 38 charges of either neglect or ill-treatment of people with severe learning difficulties.
Judge Neil Ford QC, the Recorder of Bristol, said the sentencing hearing could last up to five days.
Earlier the court dealt only with Wayne Rogers, 31, of Kingswood, the most senior support worker to be charged.
Rogers has already pleaded guilty to nine charges of ill treating five patients. He is currently in jail after asking for his bail to be cancelled.
In court, Rogers' barrister Giles Nelson said his client accepted there was no excuse for his conduct and that an "atmosphere of conflict had spread like a disease".
He said Rogers had pleaded guilty "at the earliest possible opportunity" and said his client "genuinely does not recognise himself" on the footage shown to the court.
"He knows he will be perceived as someone behaving in a grotesque way. He accepts there is no excuse for his conduct," he said.
During five weeks spent filming undercover, a Panorama reporter captured footage of some of the hospital's most vulnerable patients being repeatedly pinned down, slapped, dragged into showers while fully clothed, taunted and teased.
A serious case review published in August condemned the hospital's owner Castlebeck for putting profits before care.
Castlebeck said the criticisms in the report were being "actively addressed".
The other 10 defendants are:
Michael Ezenagu, 29, from Shepherds Bush, west London; Alison Dove, 24, of Kingswood; Graham Doyle, 25, of Patchway; Jason Gardiner, 44, of Hartcliffe; Daniel Brake, 27, of Downend; Holly Laura Draper, 23, of Mangotsfield; Charlotte Justine Cotterell, 21, from Yate and Neil Ferguson, 27, of Emerson Green have all admitted ill-treating patients in their care.
Sooaklingum Appoo, 58, of Downend, and Kelvin Fore, 33, from Middlesbrough, pleaded guilty to wilfully neglecting patients in their care.
Dove requested to remain in custody but the remaining nine defendants were released on bail by Judge Neil Ford QC, the Recorder of Bristol.
The sentencing hearing was adjourned until tomorrow. | The sentencing of 11 care workers who admitted maltreating patients at a private hospital has begun at Bristol Crown Court. | 20028814 |
One man was killed and two other people were hurt in the incident.
The attacker got out of his car armed with a knife. He was shot, injured and arrested by police.
He is being held on suspicion of murder and attempted murder, but police say there is no evidence of terrorism.
The attacker, described by police as being "without a migration background", drove what is thought to be a rental car into pedestrians in one of the city's central squares, injuring three people.
One of them, a 73-year-old German man, later died in hospital.
The attacker then left the car but was tracked down, shot and seriously injured by police.
He was questioned on Sunday in hospital after undergoing surgery but did not comment on the accusations against him, officials said.
The two injured people were a 32-year-old Austrian national and a 29-year-old Bosnian woman, police said. Their injuries were said to be minor.
An attack in December by a Tunisian Islamist who drove a lorry into a Berlin Christmas market, killing 12 people and injuring 49, has heightened security fears in Germany. | Investigators are trying to establish the motives of a 35-year-old German man who drove a car into a group of pedestrians in the city of Heidelberg on Saturday. | 39097411 |
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