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GB, among the bottom set of seeds for the draw, will be based in Istanbul for the tournament, hosted jointly by Turkey, Finland, Israel and Romania.
It begins on 31 August, with the final scheduled for 17 September.
Joe Prunty's team, who failed to qualify in 2015, will be making their fourth appearance after competing in 2009, 2011 and 2013.
Rio 2016 silver medallists Serbia are among the favourites.
Great Britain's women missed out on a fourth Eurobasket finals appearance as they lost 71-52 to Italy at the weekend.
Find out how to get into basketball with our special guide. | Great Britain's men will face Russia, Serbia, Latvia, Turkey and Belgium in Group D of EuroBasket 2017. | 38069935 |
Beveren, from the outskirts of Antwerp and since dissolved, was the partner of the Abidjan-based academy of Jean Marc Guillou and a staging ground into Europe for the likes of the Toure brothers, Emmanuel Eboue, Boubacar Barry, Arthur Boka and Gervinho.
The academy moved a myriad of players to Belgium and that final against Brugge marked the high point in the African invasion.
Belgium has always been a popular destination for African footballers but never as prolific as the days of Beveren - until now.
KV Oostende, based on the coast in West Flanders, are this season competing with nine Africans from nine different countries.
Led by their Cameroonian captain Sebastien Siani, who is a 28-year-old defensive midfielder, the club have on their books for the current campaign:
"We are a big family. The whole squad get along well with each other and the Africans are an integral part of it all," Loemba told De Standaard newspaper.
Two wins and a draw from their opening three games have placed Oostende joint-top of the table in the early stages of the new Pro League campaign.
This is the first time Oostende have earned a third successive season in the top flight in Belgium and the outlook of the cub has changed from survival to now proving to be competitive.
"Last season we also started well but then had a spectacular fall. Now we need to get rid of those periods where we lack productivity and bring more consistency to our game," said coach Yves Vanderhaeghe in a separate interview.
Jali, who runs the Bafana Bafana engine room, is the club's star player after his move 18 months ago from Orlando Pirates.
And Musona, who arrived after failing to make the grade in the Bundesliga, has been among the early season goals and is also proving a fans' favourite.
But Jali does not like the limelight. He said: "I'm no star and I don't pay much attention to all that. The only thing that counts for me is my football. It doesn't matter I'm playing barefoot in the veld or in a stadium in front of 40,000."
Akpala is another with Bundesliga experience as Oostende have grown their club budget almost double in the last two years and have been able to offer more enticing deals. He left Brugge for Werder Bremen three years ago but did not make it in Germany and also lost his place in the Nigeria team.
Akpala arrived along with another new striker in Gohi Bi, who has taken a 40% pay cut from his time at Anderlecht to get regular game time.
Antwerp-born Lukaku is eligible to play for the Democratic Republic of Congo because that is where his parents hail from, even though he is a Belgian youth international.
He is attempting to kick-start his career after emerging through the youth ranks at Anderlecht but failing make the grade.
"He worked very hard in the pre-season and I think we've been able to add self belief to his game," says Vanderhaeghe of Lukaku's potential.
Lukaku, who "feels African" and hints a DR Congo call-up would be of interest, said: "I have to work more on my statistics, assists and goals. I've got to get the ball more and carry it forward."
Gabon goalkeeper Ovono has become exceedingly popular with fans for his efforts at attempting to speak the local Flemish dialect. A local pub recently created a cocktail in his honour, made up of chocolate gin, rum, banana and brown sugar. | Just over a decade ago, Igor Stepanovs was the odd man out when the Latvian centre-back started the 2004 Belgian Cup final for Beveren alongside 10 African team-mates in a match billed as 'Brugge against Ivory Coast'. | 33909819 |
Wills played companion Polly to William Hartnell's grandfatherly first Doctor and Patrick Troughton's scruffy second incarnation in 1966-67.
The show's producers decided to "regenerate" the lead role when Hartnell's health declined.
Saturday is the 50th anniversary of The Power of the Daleks, Troughton's debut.
The six-part adventure sees Troughton's time lord, and his Tardis companions, Polly and Ben (Michael Craze), do battle with the evil Daleks on the planet Vulcan.
To mark the anniversary, BBC Worldwide is releasing a black-and-white animated reconstruction of the "lost" story, based on surviving photographs and audio recordings.
Speaking at a screening of the first two episodes, Wills recalled how various actors - including Michael Horden and singer Tommy Steele - auditioned for the role of the new Doctor.
"We all knew Bill [William Hartnell] was going to leave at the end of the summer season, and then there were discussions about is that the end of the show or shall we have another actor," she said.
"When we heard it was Patrick, we knew that we had a chance.
"But we still didn't know if the audience would accept it and accept that the Doctor could change his body.
"And it was entirely up to Patrick that the audience did.
"In the animation you see how adorable he was, you couldn't resist him. And they didn't resist him.
"So luckily it was him and we're all here talking about it."
In this interview, Anneke Wills talks about about her memories of 1960s Doctor Who and what she think of Peter Capaldi's 12th Doctor.
This is the first time ever the Doctor changes his body.
For us at the time, it was a momentous moment.
Were we going to have a Bill Hartnell lookalike? Or someone totally different?
There were all these different names coming up. But also, as an actor, you were thinking: "I hope I'll be in work at the end of the summer break."
Bill had become very difficult to work with - we had to be very generous and kind and pick up his lines.
The thing about Patrick was that he had no ego. That was an astounding thing.
I think his performance in this story is the most astounding of all the Doctors - and I've watched them all.
We had two weeks of rehearsal so Patrick had extra time to get into the role.
He put on his Harpo Marx curly wig, and Michael Craze said: "If you're going to wear that, I'm not bloody working with you," and went off for a smoke.
I was worried we were wasting time, so I took a comb out of someone's pocket and combed his hair forward in a Beatles style and messed it up a bit.
There was a silence as Patrick looked in the mirror.
And then he said: "I like it."
We did that in those days. We never saw any of the work that we'd done. It was like rep theatre. You'd do a wonderful performance and then it's gone.
Now, looking back, it seems a terrible waste.
I love that Polly and Ben have been brought back [in animated form] because there's so little of us that survives.
I would love it if they would do The Smugglers [a swashbuckling Troughton story from 1966], next I'd love to see The Crusade [a 1965 first Doctor adventure starring Julian Glover as Richard the Lionheart], and Fury of the Deep [a second Doctor sea-monster story from 1968].
Wouldn't it be wonderful? I don't know any more than the fans. They always think that I've got secrets, but I haven't .
If anybody's got one in their cupboard bring it forth - now is the moment.
Someone should make a spy thriller about the search for the missing episodes of Doctor Who.
Polly was created as a proactive young woman and, in a way, that hasn't changed. However, I take exception when the companion slaps the Doctor. That makes me really angry.
That scares me to bits. All these wrinkles in high definition? I don't think so.
I talked to Peter Capaldi. I think he's astounding. He's luminous.
He asked me if there was a lot of pressure in the 1960s and I said we'd start rehearsals on a Monday, and he said: "You rehearse?"
Yes. Of course I'd take on the challenge. Maybe I could be in a wonderful mask.
The Power of the Daleks will be available on Saturday 5 November at 17:50 GMT on BBC Store, 50 years to the minute after it was first broadcast in 1966.
The first three minutes of episode one will also be streamed globally on Twitter.
Follow us on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, on Instagram at bbcnewsents, or if you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk. | Former Doctor Who actress Anneke Wills says Patrick Troughton's "adorable" performance was key to keeping the show going in the 1960s. | 37846580 |
Ward signed for Forest in 2015 on a free transfer after his contract with Derby County came to an end.
The Northern Ireland international has made a total of 37 appearances for Forest, scoring four goals.
But Ward has found his first team opportunities limited under Philippe Montanier, with just one league appearance this season.
Find all the latest football transfers on our dedicated page. | Nottingham Forest forward Jamie Ward has joined fellow Championship side Burton Albion on a season-long loan. | 37238943 |
The former deputy speaker of the House of Commons had a "reputation", Preston Crown Court was told.
The man said he dismissed the "drunken" incident and did not consider himself a victim, but agreed to make a statement when contacted by police last year.
Mr Evans, 56, denies one count of rape, two counts of indecent assault and six of sexual assault.
The charges relate to incidents involving seven men, between 2002 and 2013.
The alleged victim, who is openly gay, told the court that at first he thought Mr Evans was being tactile during the night out in 2002, but it was "not a sort of comedy squeeze".
He said at the time it was an "open secret" in Westminster that the politician was gay.
He told the jury they were out with friends when Mr Evans, then the shadow secretary of state for Wales, indecently assaulted him by putting his hand down his trousers at a pub called the Sanctuary on Greek Street in Soho.
"He had definitely been drinking, he was acting very drunk and I do remember he seemed to sober up quite quickly," he said.
Mark Heywood QC, prosecuting, asked the man when he became first aware of something untoward.
He said: "That some fingers had gone down my trousers. He had a reputation.
"I walked away rather than make a scene. I did not want him to think I was interested."
He told the court: "I was annoyed by it.
"I thought if I don't walk away I'm going to hit him."
The man said the MP for Ribble Valley in Lancashire then put his hand down his trousers again, prompting the witness, then aged 27, to tell a friend: "I'm going to punch him."
He told the court: "She said, 'You can't do that - the shadow secretary of state for Wales'."
The witness said at the time the politician "was my friend, and I certainly forgave him for it because he was drunk."
"I have almost forgotten it," he said.
He confirmed he had socialised with Mr Evans since but had never discussed the matter.
Under cross examination from Peter Wright QC, defending, he told the jury he considered the matter at the time "as like a big joke".
"When I heard he had been arrested I could not believe it," he said. "I saw him in a corridor and he looked really dreadful."
"Not in a million years," did he consider it would have resulted in him appearing in court, he said.
The court also heard from another man who was allegedly indecently assaulted at the Conservative Party conference in Blackpool, Lancashire in 2003.
The man, a parliamentary worker at the time, said the thought of complaining to the police when the alleged assault happened had never occurred to him.
Last year when questioned by detectives he said he did not wish to make a complaint and only gave a statement as a witness so that his account was "on the record".
"To be honest I didn't think they were any grounds to be charged," he said.
"I would not have believed that six months on I would be standing in a witness box."
The events were said to have taken place in the Number 10 conference bar at the Imperial Hotel in Blackpool in October 2003.
The witness told the court: "Mr Evans basically starting putting his hand on the top of my belt, on my waist line.
"After a couple of seconds I realised he was actually putting his hand across and putting his fingers down."
He said he was "very conscious" a journalist was nearby and quietly "batted" Evans's hand away.
The witness recalled speaking to a member of the Conservative Party Board about the incident who went over and moved Evans to a different group in the bar.
But within five minutes a "carbon copy" of the incident took place as Evans came over and "did the exact same thing again", he said.
He brought the matter to the attention of a prospective parliamentary candidate, now a MP, and a MEP, who led Evans to his room.
When he gave a statement to police, he said he considered that Evans's problem was with alcohol rather than with a "sexually aggressive personality".
He told the court: "At no point when looking back at it now did I see any malice or any sexual intent. It was an alcohol problem, as far as I see it."
He said he had not seen it as a police matter.
A month later when Michael Howard replaced Iain Duncan Smith as party leader, Mr Evans was removed as shadow secretary of state for Wales, the jury was told.
In the summer of 2009, Mr Evans tried to kiss another man he had met while drinking with others at the Strangers' Bar in the Houses of Parliament, jurors heard.
The man, then aged 21 or 22, told the court the MP called him over to a corridor area and pulled a curtain around him but he said "no" when Mr Evans tried to kiss him.
The court heard that when they returned to the group the witness told his friend who replied: "That's what Nigel can be like."
The man told police he did not believe Mr Evans had committed any offences.
Mr Evans resigned as deputy speaker after he was charged in September.
He has not returned to the Conservatives in the Commons and is representing his constituents as an independent.
The trial continues. | MP Nigel Evans put his hand down a man's trousers during a night out in London's Soho, a court has heard. | 26529960 |
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) report was released in July 2014 "with many words left out", a council spokesman said.
Following a unanimous vote, the council will write to Defra, asking for the report to be published in full "in the interests of transparency".
Defra said that was not possible.
A spokeswoman for the department said while the redacted draft paper was online, the full report was "an internal document" which would not be published.
Councillor Marcus Johnstone, who proposed the motion to ask for the Shale Gas Rural Economy Impacts report to be published in full, said it could be "a valuable source of information, but it was heavily redacted".
"Many people have concerns about the potential development of a shale gas industry, including the availability of relevant information about how the industry might affect the community they live in.
"The council will now formally ask the government to release the report in full, in the interests of transparency."
Fellow councillor Gina Dowding, who seconded the motion, said "a large amount of information has been left out of the published version and it appears that the omissions include some significant details".
The council is due to decide whether to grant energy firm Cuadrilla planning permission to frack at two sites in Lancashire in April.
Council planners recommended refusal in January, prompting Cuadrilla's successful request for a deferral until 30 April.
Fracking - or hydraulic fracturing - is a technique in which water and chemicals are pumped into shale rock at high pressure to extract gas. | A redacted government report on the shale gas industry's impact on rural economies should be published in full, Lancashire County Council has said. | 31649989 |
Relatives of the dead passengers will form part of the 1,500-strong congregation, along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Transport ministers from France and Spain are also expected to attend, as is Lufthansa chief Carsten Spohr.
Co-pilot Andreas Lubitz is accused of deliberately crashing the Germanwings Airbus on 24 March, killing 150 people.
A candle for each of the victims has been placed on the altar and flags will fly at half-mast across Germany.
Mourners will be invited to leave flowers on the stairways leading up to the cathedral and large screens have been erected for crowds gathered outside.
German President Joachim Gauck and Spain's Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz are also expected at the service, which begins at 12:00 (10:00 GMT).
It will be led by the Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki and the president of the Protestant Church of Westphalia, Annette Kurschus.
Read more stories of the victims
German pupils devastated by deaths of classmates
The Airbus 320 was travelling from Barcelona to Duesseldorf when it crashed with 144 passengers and six crew members on board.
Recordings retrieved from one of the plane's flight recorders appeared to show Andreas Lubitz locking the captain out of the cockpit, while he put the plane in to descent.
It later emerged he had a history of depression and was receiving treatment from neurologists and psychiatrists. He had been signed off from work a number of times, including on the day of the crash.
Some 72 Germans were on board the aircraft when it went down, along with 50 Spaniards and other passengers from around the world.
Investigators are still trying to formally identify all of the victims, whose remains were recovered from the crash site near the village of Le Vernet.
What happened in the last 30 minutes of Flight 4U 9525?
Who was Andreas Lubitz? | A memorial service for the victims of last month's Alps plane crash is to be held at Cologne Cathedral. | 32346252 |
Reigning Super Cup winners after clinching the 2015 Champions League, the Congolese qualify for this year's event as Confederation Cup winners.
The game will be played in Pretoria.
"This match could be history for South Africa, never mind Sundowns, so let's lift the trophy," Sundowns coach Pitso Mosimane told BBC Sport.
9 - Egypt
3 - DR Congo, Tunisia
2 - Ivory Coast, Morocco, Nigeria
1 - South Africa, Algeria, Ghana
Sundowns became the second South African side to win the Champions League when beating Egyptians Zamalek 3-1 in October's two-legged final.
Orlando Pirates were the first South African team to win the title, in 1995, and they went on to win the Super Cup as well.
Mosimane, who led Bafana Bafana shortly after the 2010 World Cup, believes his side faces a disadvantage given that the Congolese league has no restriction on the number of foreigners.
"They have an advantage in that they can play 11 foreigners in their (team)," added Mosimane, who was crowned African Coach of 2016.
"But I'm not saying that is why they won all the time.
"When you win the Champions League and you face Mazembe, you don't want to be making excuses. It's a big game and we have to play."
New Mazembe coach Thierry Froger, who was appointed on Monday, only met his players for the first time on Thursday, meaning assistant coaches Pamphile Mihayo Kazembe and David Mwakasu are likely to be in charge of the match.
"I am very happy to join a team whose exploits in Africa I have been able to follow," Frenchman Froger told Mazembe's official website.
"A team is strong when its players, supporters and directors are together. I think we can achieve beautiful things."
Mazembe three African Super Cup wins - in 2010, 2011 and 2016 - have all come on home soil in Lubumbashi.
In principle, the Super Cup is regularly played at the home of the African club champion although there is discretion to change this.
Like his club, Mazembe captain Joel Kimwaki is bidding to win the tournament for a fourth time.
Only Al Ahly have won the title more than three times, with the Egyptians claiming the trophy on six occasions. | African champions Mamelodi Sundowns will try to become the second South African side to win the Caf Super Cup when facing TP Mazembe on Saturday. | 39006949 |
South of Scotland Liberal Democrat MSP Jim Hume wants to introduce a members bills at the Scottish Parliament which would bring in a ban.
He has opened a public consultation on his proposals which he says would safeguard the rights of children.
Several health organisations back the ban but a smokers' campaign group said the law would be unenforceable.
The proposed ban is being supported by ASH Scotland and the British Lung Foundation.
The British Lung Foundation had previously urged Scottish politicians to do more to stop people smoking in cars when children are passengers.
In 2011, a Scottish study suggested air quality inside a smoker's car was comparable to industrial smog in cities such as Beijing or Moscow - even when the driver had windows open.
Research by the University of Aberdeen found that 7% of 11-year-olds experience smoking in cars.
Speaking after the launch of his consultation, Mr Hume said: "These proposals have already had an encouraging response from MSPs across the political parties and from people across Scotland.
"Seventeen per cent of children in the UK are legally exposed to passive smoking in a vehicle more than once a week.
"Banning smoking in cars whilst children are present is a further step in protecting children's rights and ensuring they have the healthiest start in life.
"With figures showing eight out of 10 Scots already support such a move, this is a conversation we need to have and an issue which we need to address.
"The time has come to follow the lead of countries like Canada and Australia where similar bans are operating successfully."
The consultation will run until August after which Mr Hume must get cross-party support to take the proposals further.
However, campaigners criticised the proposed bill.
Simon Clark, director of the smokers' group Forest, said: "We don't encourage adults to smoke in cars carrying children but legislation is disproportionate to the problem.
"Most smokers are sensible enough to know that lighting up in a car with children is inconsiderate at best and research suggests that only a tiny minority still do it.
"Education has to be better than yet another law that would be very difficult to enforce."
He added: "A ban on smoking in private vehicles would represent a major intrusion into people's private lives. What next, a ban on smoking in the home if children are present?"
In response, James Cant, head of the British Lung Foundation Scotland, pointed to a 2010 NHS study in England which found that about 18% of children aged 11 to 15 were exposed to smoke in cars.
He said: "NHS research shows that around one in five children are regularly exposed to cigarette smoke in the car, so any suggestion that this is just a minority problem stands in stark contrast to the evidence." | A bid to make smoking in vehicles when children are present illegal has been launched by an MSP. | 22684036 |
Photographer Fellipe Abreu and reporter Luiz Felipe Silva cycled down the steep road and chronicled the sheer drops and spectacular views.
Cyclists and their bikes are taken by bus to La Cumbre at a height of 4,700m (15,420ft).
From here, the peaks of nearby mountains such as the Huayaina Potosi, in the Cordillera Central, Bolivia's central mountain range, are clearly visible.
The route in the Andes near the city of La Paz has become a favourite with mountain bikers as for a stretch of 66km it is almost entirely downhill, descending a total of 3,500m.
In places it is so steep, cyclists can reach a maximum speed of more than 50km/h (31mph).
For the the first 31km, the road, officially known as Camino a los Yungas, is paved. The main danger here are the big lorries which regularly use it and, despite the hairpin bends, drive at high speed.
Further on, the road becomes little more than a dirt track.
This unpaved stretch is the one which gave the road its reputation of being one of the most dangerous in the world.
During the 1990s, an average of 300 people died on this road a year.
The worst single accident happened in the 1980s, when a bus plunged 300m, killing more than 100 people.
When a vehicle comes off the road here, the drops are sheer and deep, offering little chance of survival for the passengers.
Simple crosses mark the spots where people have died.
Heavy lorries leave little space for other road users and skid dangerously on the loose soil.
The road's reputation for danger predates these accidents, though.
Even in the 19th Century, when it was used to transport goods from the city of La Paz to the town of Coroico, merchants feared this stretch of road.
Highwaymen used the narrow path to ambush merchants and rob them of their goods, often killing them in the process.
The most infamous highwayman was Salvador Sea, who was captured and condemned to death by firing squad in 1870.
In 2007, a new road linking La Paz and Coroico was inaugurated. The new stretch is used for vehicles travelling uphill, while the old "death road" is used to travel downhill, making both roads less crowded. | A road in Bolivia widely known as "death road" for the high number of fatal accidents that have happened here has become a popular cycle route for mountain bikers with a good head for heights. | 30009313 |
After a campaign that started in March 2015, when the first candidates put their names forward, we're now just six weeks away from the election.
The first of three presidential debates takes place on Monday night - and there is plenty to look out for as the candidates edge ever closer to each other in the polls.
By Anthony Zurcher, BBC North America reporter:
The debates are the last, best chance for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to make their case to the nation.
Neither candidate will be able to command the attention of the American public the way they will in the three upcoming presidential debates. And no debate will have as large an audience, or do as much to shape public perceptions of the candidates, as this first one.
There's a good chance Monday night's affair will break the record of 80 million Americans who watched incumbent Jimmy Carter face-off against Ronald Reagan in 1980.
In an election cycle that's measured in months and even years, this debate gives Americans a real, unscripted opportunity to see how the would-be presidents might handle the intense stresses of the Oval Office. It's the mother of all job interviews.
There'll be six segments of about 15 minutes, each on a different topic. The moderator is NBC anchor Lester Holt; the venue is Hofstra University on Long Island, New York; the start time is 21:00 local time (01:00 GMT).
At the start of each segment, the two candidates will have two minutes each to respond, then they will respond to each other.
Three of the topics already announced, and selected by Holt, are: America's Direction; Achieving Prosperity and Securing America, which risk sounding more like the slogans of banks than debate topics.
Three more questions related to events in the news this week will also be scheduled.
(There are no breaks during the 90 minutes, so a strategic pre-debate bathroom visit is advised).
When you hear the following terms, cross them off and see how quickly you can fill in a row of three in any direction...
by BBC North America editor Jon Sopel
Someone once gave me great career advice on handling job interviews - think in terms of what is the question you have to answer. The interview panel will know your work, and have your CV - but what is the one area where they will need convincing?
And so it is in Monday's debate, except the selection board is a little bigger -the 200+ million US electorate.
For two candidates who are uniquely unpopular, they both have their own mountains to climb. Hillary Clinton's CV goes on for pages, so she doesn't need to unveil 15-point plans. Voters know she's got that. But trustworthiness? That's been more difficult. Try to be straightforward, don't be overly defensive or legalistic.
And Donald Trump? Well the CV is much more scant - so he needs to show that there is substance. We know what he wants to do - build a wall, bring back jobs, crush IS, renegotiate trade deals - but how is he going to do it? At the moment we have no idea.
Second time lucky for Clinton?
How Donald Trump had the last laugh
"Clinton has to be careful," Mr Trump's ghostwriter Tony Schwartz, who has advised her campaign, told the New York Times. "She could get everything right and still potentially lose the debates if she comes off as too condescending, too much of a know-it-all."
Mr Trump, on the other hand, needs to avoid rising to any bait dangled by his rival. His campaign has indicated we will see a calm, composed Mr Trump in the debates.
On one hand, there's Mrs Clinton, who has undergone intensive preparation for the debates.
On the other, there's Mr Trump, the former TV personality whose performances in the Republican primary debates helped propel him to the party's candidacy.
The Clinton campaign has been forensically poring over footage of Mr Trump's performances in those debates.
What they concluded, the New York Times reported last month, was that he could be baited into making mistakes, and could respond with unflattering aggression if questions are raised about his intelligence, net worth and business acumen in particular.
Mr Trump hasn't employed a stand-in for Mrs Clinton to rehearse the debates, and has reportedly not paid too much attention to briefing notes on policy.
Instead, reports say, he has relied heavily on advisers Rudy Giuliani (the former New York mayor) and Roger Ailes (the former Fox News chief) - all while playing golf and sharing hot dogs with them.
Last week, his campaign also sent a questionnaire to his supporters, asking them for their advice on what he should ask (and, for example, whether he should call Mrs Clinton "Crooked Hillary" on stage).
"You're going to see a very natural and normal guy - someone who is comfortable with who he is, not someone who's highly scripted or nervous," Mr Giuliani told the Washington Post.
Our man Anthony Zurcher has worked out where the candidates stand on key issues in relation to other world leaders.
"On refugees, for example, Donald Trump has been warning that the US policy of admitting refugees from certain regions - the Middle East or, more generally, Muslim nations - presents a serious threat to US national security. He's called for the US to suspend resettling refugees until "extreme vetting" procedures can be implemented. He asserts that nations in the Middle East must do more to create safe zones for those fleeing the violence.
"Hillary Clinton has called for an increase in the number of Syrian refugees resettled in the US from the current 10,000 annual mark to 65,000 - which, Mr Trump likes to point out, is a 550% increase. She cautions that the refugees should be "carefully vetted", but notes that current procedures already involve a multi-year application process and refugees don't know in which nation they will be settled."
Read more: Where the candidates stand
Just ask Matt Lauer.
Earlier this month, Lauer, Holt's NBC colleague, interviewed Mr Trump but did not pick up on his false statement saying he did not support the war in Iraq.
The backlash was brutal, and ensures the moderators of all the debates are under particular scrutiny this year. On top of that, Mr Trump has said the debates are rigged, should have no moderator and that Holt is a Democrat (he's actually a registered Republican).
Both candidates have provided plenty of work for fact-checkers during the campaign - in Mr Trump's case, he has repeatedly tried to deny the truth even when there's significant evidence to the contrary.
So trying to anticipate half-truths and non-truths, and knowing how and when to call them out, will be a thankless task.
At the very least, it should be entertaining. | This is it - the final stretch of the US presidential race. | 37432141 |
The 2015 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner, who returned from a year off the track last month to finish second to Cue Card in the Betfair Chase at Haydock, is said to be "fragile" and "not himself".
The Mark Bradstock-trained gelding underperformed in a gallop on Saturday.
Bradstock's wife and assistant Sara said: "I know every breath he takes, every step he takes, I know exactly how he is and he's just not feeling good."
Bradstock said on Twitter that next year's Gold Cup remains the priority for Coneygree. | Coneygree will miss the King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day. | 38358559 |
Ben Osborn put Forest ahead against the run of play, beating Ali Al-Habsi after being put through by Henri Lansbury.
The hosts dominated in the second half and, seven minutes after coming on, substitute Matej Vydra deflected home Oliver Norwood's long-range effort.
Reading secured victory thanks to a fierce 20-yard strike from Norwood.
Media playback is not supported on this device
Despite claiming a first league win in four league games against Forest, the Royals remain 13th in the table.
Forest have lost eight of their past 10 games, and taken only one point from four matches since Paul Williams replaced Dougie Freedman as manager.
Beaten 3-0 by Brentford on Saturday, they are 17th in the table, nine points above the relegation zone with six games remaining. | Reading extended their unbeaten home run in the Championship to eight matches as they came from behind to beat struggling Nottingham Forest. | 35914324 |
More than 250 emergency service personnel, as well as Network Rail and South Eastern Trains staff, were involved in the simulation in Bromley.
The train crash was created on a section of line between Sundridge Park and Bromely North stations.
Volunteers from the Railway Industry First Aid Association played the 100 casualties in need of rescue.
Richard Welch from London Fire Brigade said: "Whilst this scenario may appear worrying and rail crashes are extremely rare, exercises like this are a vital way of practising our skills and ensuring that we are ready should there ever be a major incident in the capital.
"Days like this are a chance for firefighters to practise search and rescue skills as well as testing how we work with other agencies in the event of a major incident." | A mock train and car crash have been staged in south London as part of a major training exercise. | 33217873 |
Anna Signeul's side can finish no worse than second in their Euro 2017 qualifying group and are now assured of one of the six best runners-up spots.
It means next week's final group game with Iceland will simply be to determine who finishes top.
The finals will be in the Netherlands next year, with the games played from 16 July to 6 August.
Scotland women's first internationally recognised match was a 3-2 defeat to England in November 1972.
Since then, they have tried and failed on 13 occasions to make it to a tournament finals - seven European Championships and six World Cups.
They reached the play-off stage in trying to qualify for the 2009 and 2013 Euro finals and the 2015 World Cup.
In the 2009 European Championship play-offs, they turned around a 3-2 home defeat to win 2-1 in Nalchik but went out on the away goals rule.
The current campaign started with a 3-0 win away to Slovenia followed by 7-0 and 10-0 home wins over Belarus and Macedonia, respectively.
Slovenia were beaten again, 3-1 in Scotland, before Signeul's team sustained their first Group 1 defeat by Iceland, 4-0.
However, Jo Love's goal gave the Scots a narrow win in Belarus to take them on to 18 points from seven matches. | Scotland women have qualified for their first major championship after Finland lost to Portugal. | 37363402 |
Contractors accidentally severed the pipe on Thursday, causing a leak which led to the evacuation of the nearby Premier Inn and Ashbridge Inn, Cwmbran.
It has now been stopped and the pub and hotel have reopened.
Avondale Road, Chapel Lane and Pontrhydyrun Road reopened at 16:00 BST.
A spokesman for Wales & West Utilities said engineers had worked through the night.
No gas supplies have been affected by the leak. | Roads which were closed while engineers repaired a damaged gas pipe in Torfaen have reopened. | 34496015 |
The IEA expects oil stocks to grow by two million barrels a day in the first quarter and 1.5 million barrels a day in the following three months.
In January, Brent crude hit a 13-year low of $27.67. It recovered a bit, but on Tuesday was down 7.2% at $30.50.
But that is still a long way from the $112 level reached in June 2014.
"If these numbers prove to be accurate, and with the market already awash in oil, it is very hard to see how oil prices can rise significantly in the short term," the IEA said.
Meanwhile demand for oil is expected to weaken. The IEA forecasts that demand growth will fall to 1.2 million barrels a day this year, from the 1.6 million barrels a day seen in 2015, the IEA said.
The think tank also questioned whether the recent rise in prices was a "false dawn" and concluded that a number of conditions increased the risk of weak oil prices.
These included doubts that Opec, the oil cartel, was in talks with other oil producing nations to reduce supply.
It also quashed speculation that Opec nations would cut output this year, stating that output from Iraq reached a new record in January. Iran has increased production ahead of sanctions being removed and preliminary data suggested that Saudi Arabia's shipments had increased. | A recent rise in oil prices is a "false dawn" and the oversupply of crude is set to worsen, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). | 35530123 |
The other last-four tie sees Juventus - in their first semi-final since 2003 - face Carlo Ancelotti's Real Madrid, the defending champions.
The first legs will be played on 5 and 6 May, with the return matches a week later.
In the Europa League, holders Sevilla face Fiorentina, while Rafael Benitez's Napoli are up against Ukraine's Dnipro.
Bayern boss Guardiola won 14 trophies as a manager - including the Champions League in 2009 and 2011 - during four years at Barcelona.
He has reached the Champions League semi-finals in each of his six seasons as a manager, four with Barca and now two with Bayern.
The Catalan said: "Everyone understands how special this game is for me, for [midfielder] Thiago and my staff.
"Barcelona was our life. Barcelona is my home.
"Barcelona are the best team at the moment. I am not surprised. He (Luis Enrique) has a lot of quality. He is a great guy and I am happy I will be facing him."
Ancelotti will also be reunited with one of his former clubs, with the Italian having managed the Turin side from 1999 to 2001.
The draw leaves open the possibility of a Barcelona v Real Madrid European Cup final, something which has never happened before. The arch-rivals are also battling it out for the Spanish league title this season.
Real Madrid reached the last four by beating city rivals Atletico - in a repeat of last season's final - thanks to Javier Hernandez's late goal.
Bayern Munich thrashed Porto 6-1 at home to overturn a first-leg deficit and progress 7-4 on aggregate.
Things were more straightforward for Barcelona, who beat Paris St-Germain 5-1 overall, and Juventus, who beat Monaco 1-0 over two legs.
This season's final will be played at Berlin's Olympic Stadium on Saturday, 6 June.
The Europa League draw leaves the possibility of an all-Serie A final. There have been four all-Italian Uefa Cup finals, but none since the tournament was rebranded in 2009.
The first legs of the semi-finals will be played on Thursday, 7 May with the return matches a week later.
The final is in Warsaw's National Stadium on Wednesday, 27 May. | Barcelona have been drawn against Pep Guardiola's Bayern Munich in the Champions League semi-finals. | 32443182 |
The instrument, known as the Large Underground Xenon, or Lux, detector, is a mile underground in a former mine in South Dakota, USA.
It searches for tiny particles which would improve scientists' understanding of dark matter.
Dark matter is the invisible material thought to make up 95% of the universe.
Dark matter has yet to be detected directly by scientists and has so far been observed only by its effects on gravity, which can be seen in the rotation of galaxies and the way light bends as it travels through space.
The upgrade increases the chances of the detector identifying sub-atomic particles called Wimps - weakly interacting massive particles - which scientists believe are the main component of dark matter.
A team of physicists, including scientists at Edinburgh University, have made Lux's ability to identify the lightest form of Wimps about 20 times more sensitive.
This has allowed them to study data collected during Lux's initial run in 2013 which previously had to be ignored.
Wimps are difficult to spot because they collide with normal matter only rarely, and their faint signals are drowned out by cosmic radiation from space.
Professor Alex Murphy, of Edinburgh University's school of physics and astronomy, said: "Since Lux's first run, we have developed several new calibration techniques and methods of analysis. We are now able to look for tell-tale signs of Wimps in data we previously had to ignore, increasing our chances of detecting dark matter."
Lux is housed deep underground where few cosmic rays can penetrate, and consists of a tank of liquid xenon surrounded by sensitive light detectors.
It is designed to spot collisions between Wimps and xenon atoms inside the detector.
Following a collision, the xenon atom emits a tiny flash of light, which is spotted by Lux's light sensors.
The upgrade was supported by the US Department for Energy and the National Science Foundation.
The Lux scientific collaborative involves 19 institutions in Europe and the US. | A sophisticated instrument that helps scientists gain new insights into the make-up of the universe has been upgraded by Edinburgh scientists. | 35092914 |
Our talk of dark times when the city smouldered seem out of place on this sunny day amid the greenery and sounds of laughter.
But the possibility of Brexit makes him think of a time when Berlin was a ruined city, his father's horrendous experience as a 15-year-old boy soldier and Germany's past.
"Being nationalistic is not a good thing. So if the value of the EU is damaged - and it is already fragile - and if Great Britain is out, the temptation is the German population will also consider 'what are the benefits? Why don't we do things on our own?'
"It gives you a very eerie feeling, how thin that layer of civilisation is. If you do things together with other countries in the EU it gives us a chance to come to a compromise. If we are not in the EU we will not look to compromise, but to win."
It is a reminder that the European Union means more emotionally to Germany, and many other members, than it ever can do to the UK.
It is ironic that if we do vote to leave the EU the internal politics of the institution and its member nations could matter more than ever before for the future of our country.
Talks have already started in Brussels about how to respond if we do vote to leave.
After initial bromides about building a stronger Europe they would wait for the UK Government to set out the terms it might want.
There might be a wait, if, as expected, the Conservative Party descends into civil war.
But the future might then hang on the reaction of the 27 remaining countries of the EU.
Leave campaigners constantly argue that because of the size of our economy the EU wouldn't raise trade barriers, and cut off their nose to spite their face.
Remain campaigners, on the other hand, warn that the rest of the EU wouldn't make it easy.
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In reality two main forces would be in play on the continent, competing with each other.
One is the instinct that it is indeed best for the European economy and European companies to have a smooth transition to an easy relationship. The other, that breaking up cannot appear pain-free when there are so many pressures on the EU.
What Berlin and Angela Merkel wants, does not always, automatically, become EU policy. But it has a powerful influence. That is why I went to Berlin.
When I meet the Christian Democrat MEP, Christian Ehler, he is wearing cuff links: one says "trust me", the other "I'm a politician" .
He can afford this wry gesture. He is not just a politician - he's also an industrialist, former MD of a multi-national biotech company.
He knows Mrs Merkel well, and has an important job in the European Union - coordinator for his party grouping on the industry committee.
He told me: "Politicians like to pretend they are in charge of everything. But it is not just a political decision."
The UK could get a good deal with minimal rules, he said, but it would have no say over the rules, and so wouldn't be integrated into the EU market: that could harm the British economy.
Alternatively, the EU could impose tough measures on the UK, but that could cause damage on all sides.
"Sorting it out would be a year-long nightmare, the economy (across the Eurozone) would go down by at least 3 to 5%."
Mr Ehler is frustrated. His boys at are at a British school, he has a flat in London and he travels there often and says that the economies are so linked via the EU that it would be difficult to disentangle.
"It is really complicated. It's an integrated economy. Take my constituency: one of the biggest employers is Rolls Royce, which is producing half of the engines for Airbus in Germany.
"Should we put the British out? Then my constituency is out."
Mr Ehler's committee has looked at what would happen to joint investments, such as this. His conclusion? It is a mess, a nightmare that "would have Putin laugh his butt off".
He reminds me that some of Germany's success is in part down to the structures the British put in place after the war, not least a system of industrial relations.
There is almost a sense of embarrassment at the way people almost seem to be flattering our awkward country.
But then there is a also widespread irritation that the British are more inclined to moan about being dominated by the EU than celebrate their leadership within it.
I hear several influential people argue that Germany needs the UK to push - against the French and others - for economic liberalisation.
Without the UK, Germany would be cast more firmly on one side of the debate, rather than as honest broker, which makes them feel more comfortable.
But this is mere detail to the fear that grips mainstream politicians all over Europe. The hard-right Front National will be fighting an election in France next year on the policy of a referendum on the EU.
Parties which question the European project are on the rise in Austria, Sweden, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Italy - just to mention the most obvious examples. Nationalistic governments in Hungary and Poland are happy to clash with Brussels.
The director of the German Marshall Fund's Europe programme Daniela Schwarzer tells me: "One motive (if the UK leaves) will be to not make others think this is an easy game - you have a referendum and you get what you want. There has to be a visible cost to leaving the European Union."
Germany - mindful of its dreadful past - has always preferred to exercise power through the EU, in concert with others. As the generations change this instinct becomes a little weaker.
The Greek crisis on one hand, and the migrant crisis on the other, has brought Germany's role into sharp focus, and underlined the fragility of the EU.
The rise of the right has been seen in Germany too. The Alternative for Germany (AFD) is only three years old but did well in regional elections.
Beatrix Von Storch, party vice chair and an MEP, tells me if the UK votes to leave it would be bad for Germany in one way - it would pick up the tab if our contributions disappeared.
But she adds: "It would be good if you leave just to show you can survive. We're told no one can live without the European Union - you cant trade, you can't travel, everything will break down and the UK will go bankrupt in a month or two.
"I think that's complete rubbish and I would like to see how it works and I think we will see it is possible to trade with EU without being part of it."
She says making life tough for Britain would be counter-productive.
"If they start to punish the UK this would strengthen all the movements that want to leave the EU, the movements we can see rising at the moment."
Artur Fischer says Brexit would inevitably lead to confusion.
At present he works two days a week in London, and pays 40% of his taxes in the UK. He doesn't know if that would continue. His board knows any deal with UK companies is currently covered by EU rules - they might not have that certainty in the future.
"Our industry would be against any trade barriers. They are against all trade barriers.
"But I'm pretty sure from a political point of view that after they left Britain would not have the benefits they currently have."
People may yearn for certainly in this debate - the reality is there can be none, because it depends on future moves and counter-moves.
If the UK does leave, the arguments I've been hearing in Berlin will rage across a continent. | The head of the Berlin Stock Exchange, Artur Fischer, looks on happily as children run around and splash in the swimming pool at Berlin's international club. | 36419849 |
The media operate in a hostile environment. Somalia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a journalist, says US-based Human Rights Watch.
The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists includes Somalia in its index of countries where the murders of journalists go unpunished. "Elusive armed insurgent groups have terrorised the media beyond the reach of Somalia's fragile law," it says.
Journalists and media outlets complain about intimidation at the hands of state security agencies.
Nevertheless, professionally-run media outlets have emerged - in particular, FM radios with no explicit factional links.
The TV and press sectors are weak and radio is the dominant medium. There are around 20 radio stations, but no national, domestic broadcaster.
Many listeners tune to Somali-language media based abroad, in particular the BBC Somali service. The BBC transmits on shortwave and on FM in Mogadishu (91.1), the Somaliland capital Hargeisa (89.0), and elsewhere.
Somali satellite channels are a significant part of the TV scene. Most of these are based in the UK.
Somalis abroad maintain an active online presence. But domestic web access is held back by poor infrastructure. There are more than 163,000 internet users (Internetlivestats.com, September 2014), representing 1.5 per cent of the population.
Social media use is on the rise. The most popular destinations are Twitter and Facebook. Islamists use social media to promote their aims while their opponents mount strong rebuttals.
In secessionist Somaliland and Puntland the authorities maintain a tight hold on broadcasting. | Somalia's disintegration is reflected in its fragmented and partisan media. | 14094550 |
Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, hopes to start testing a DNA vaccine by September.
About 100 Americans have been diagnosed with Zika after returning from affected countries.
Scientists at the institute helped develop a vaccine for Ebola.
They are now trying to do the same for Zika, with a special focus on pregnant women because of the strongly suspected link between the virus and babies being born with under-developed brains.
Dr Fauci said he's hoping human trials will start in America soon.
"We will have a vaccine ready to go into humans to test - not to distribute - but to test for safety and whether it induces a response that you can predict will be protective.
"That phase 1 trial I believe will likely start towards the end of this summer or early fall"
But phase 1 trials are only the start of a potentially lengthy process.
If the outbreak starts to wane, as happened in the advanced stages of the agency's Ebola vaccine trials, it will not be possible to conduct big enough studies to confirm how effective the vaccine is in at-risk populations.
The Zika vaccine in development uses synthesised genetic information from the virus, rather than live virus, to trigger an immune response in the body.
So if a person then becomes infected with the virus, their body is already primed to fight it.
Developing new vaccines can take decades. But scientists working at the labs in Maryland believe they can fast-track the process because they had already been working on a vaccine for West Nile virus, which is spread by the same Aedes aegypti mosquito.
Dr Barney Graham, deputy director of the National Institute of Health Vaccine Research Center, where the vaccine is being developed, said: "The challenge is that we don't know a lot about Zika, but we know a lot about other flaviviruses. Zika is one of the flaviviruses."
"Vaccines are generally not made quickly. We still don't have a vaccine for some viruses that have been around for 70 or 80 years."
But he added: "There are new technologies now. DNA vaccines can go quickly - we've done it before for West Nile, for H5N1 (bird flu) for Ebola and HIV."
The vaccine being developed at the NIH in Bethesda, just outside Washington DC, is one of two of the most advanced Zika vaccines in development.
The other is being developed by Bharat Biotech, an Indian company based in Hyderabad.
Dr Fauci said the American vaccine would focus on pregnant women, and women of childbearing age, with a longer-term goal of offering a vaccine to everyone, particularly if that link to microcephaly is confirmed.
He said the world had been in a similar situation in the early 1960s, when rubella was causing about 20,000 birth defects a year, after pregnant mothers became infected with the relatively mild German measles infection.
"As soon as we developed a rubella vaccine and started vaccinating everyone when they were children, the incidence of congenital rubella syndrome essentially disappeared.
"This is what we hope will happen with Zika."
However, it is already too late for the thousands of babies thought to be affected by this mysterious virus.
And despite the best efforts of scientists at the NIH, the very earliest a vaccine could be widely distributed is around 2018.
follow @tulipmazumdar on Twitter | A Zika vaccine could be ready for human trials later this year, according to the man in charge of the US government's research programme. | 35727047 |
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Fading light meant his tie against Adrian Mannarino was moved to Tuesday after Gilles Muller's win over Rafael Nadal finished late on Court One.
That match lasted almost five hours, with 28 games played in the fifth set.
"For a player to play a five to six-hour match, come back the next day and perform - it's not really what your body's looking for," said the Serb.
"Because John Isner and Nicolas Mahut made history [in 2010] with an 11-hour match. Is that a reason why we're keeping it?
"It is great drama, but that player has to go out tomorrow. It is for the spectator?
"If you are already getting to six-all in the fifth set, you might as well just decide it in a tie-break."
The US Open is the only one of the four Grand Slams to play tie-breaks in the final set.
World number four Djokovic, who eventually defeated his French opponent 6-2 7-6 (7-5) 6-4 to reach the quarter-finals, also said his match should have been moved to Centre Court which lay empty from 19:45 BST after Roger Federer saw off Grigor Dimitrov in three sets.
"I think it was a wrong decision not to play us last night," added the three-time champion. "The Centre Court has the roof and lights, we could have played till 23:00.
"We went to the referee's office before 20:00. There were security reasons. That was the only excuse. I just didn't see any logic in not playing us on the Centre Court." | Novak Djokovic says Wimbledon should introduce a final-set tie-break in order to help schedule matches. | 40575519 |
The former Everton and Manchester United boss remonstrated with officials over an offside decision and was ordered from the touchline.
He had to scale a pitch-side fence and once he found a seat, he accepted the offer of a crisp from a spectator.
Villarreal progressed 3-2 on aggregate after the second leg finished 2-2.
Trailing 1-0 from the first leg, Moyes's side fell further behind when Giovani dos Santos teed up Gerard Moreno to fire home the opener on 26 minutes.
Former Arsenal striker Carlos Vela gave the hosts hope just before half-time when he bundled in the rebound from close range after Sergio Asenjo had saved Imanol Agirretxe's headed effort.
However, former Barcelona and Tottenham Hotspur forward Dos Santos put the tie beyond doubt when he put Villarreal back in front 17 minutes from time.
Esteban Granero replied moments later to ensure Moyes remains unbeaten at home in his five games since taking charge. | Real Sociedad manager David Moyes was sent to the stands and his side were knocked out of the Copa del Rey at the last-16 stage against Villarreal. | 30818759 |
The metal was stripped from the south transept roof of All Saints' Church, East Meon overnight on Thursday.
The damage to the roof left has left rainwater pouring into the main aisle of the church.
The Rev Jane Ball said: "I feel devastated. Inside it's raining as much as it is outside. Pews and wood flooring are just getting wet."
Ms Ball said a baptism on Sunday would go ahead as planned. | Thieves have stolen a large amount of lead from a church roof in a Hampshire village. | 36557227 |
Driver Harry Clarke, 58, was unconscious when the vehicle veered out of control on 22 December 2014.
The inquiry has previously heard that Mr Clarke had a history of fainting and dizziness going back 40 years.
Glasgow City Council said he would not have been employed if it had known about his background.
Mr Clarke was taken on by the council in January 2011 to drive a minibus transporting disabled schoolchildren. At the time of his recruitment he had been suspended by his previous employer First Bus over a dispute about his timekeeping while driving buses, but the council was not aware of this.
On the ninth day of the fatal accident inquiry into the crash, Glasgow Sheriff Court also heard that Mr Clarke failed to disclose his medical history on a Bupa form for the council when he was promoted to driving heavier vehicles.
Dorothy Bain QC, representing the bereaved Morton family, questioned Geraldine Ham, a human resources manager at the council, over the authority's recruitment processes.
Talking the witness through various employment documents, the lawyer put it to her: "At the stage that Mr Clarke was employed by the council to transport children with special needs, we can see significant shortcomings in the council process for recruitment."
Ms Ham said the local authority tried to ensure that the necessary employment processes were in place.
Ms Bain said the inquiry had seen that where Mr Clarke "doesn't tell the council the truth, the recruitment process was not adequate in order to prevent his employment". The witness agreed.
The QC went on: "For that reason you would agree, I presume, that the recruitment process wasn't adequate?"
Ms Ham responded: "There's room for improvement, yes."
She also agreed that Mr Clarke would not have been given the job if the council had received full disclosure of his medical history.
And Ms Ham said he would have been suspended from driving and removed from duties had his medical history come to light.
The inquiry heard last week that Mr Clarke had suffered bouts of dizziness in 1976, fainted at work while a lorry driver in 1989 and suffered dizziness for months in 1994.
He is also reported to have fainted while at the wheel of a bus in 2010.
Solicitor advocate Ronald Conway, representing the Tait family, said: "I suspect at the end of this inquiry were are going to find out that Mr Clarke is not a monster, a monster of depravity, he's not a criminal mastermind, but he's a person who has lied repeatedly to find a job and get a job.
"There are lots of Harry Clarkes out there. Lots of fantasists and fabulists who lie to get what they want.
"How does the council deal with job applicants who may not tell the truth?"
He asked if there was anything to prevent the council from asking successful applicants for driving jobs to produce their medical records.
Ms Ham replied: "No, but they would have to give consent."
The HR manager was also cross-examined by Peter Gray QC on behalf of Glasgow City Council.
Mr Gray highlighted the issue of Mr Clarke's "exit form" from First Bus, which had no reference to absence issues or to his suspension, and judged him "suitable for re-engagement".
The inquiry was previously told that Mr Clarke's records showed he had been off work for almost a month after reportedly passing out at the wheel of a bus in April 2010.
Mr Gray put it to Ms Ham that any reference for Mr Clarke based on the First Bus exit form would have been "utterly misleading, inaccurate and untrue".
Ms Ham agreed that an inaccurate form "fundamentally undermines the recruitment process".
The Crown Office has already concluded that there will be no criminal prosecution over the crash, with senior lawyers deeming it a "tragic accident".
In a statement on Friday, the prosecution service said Mr Clarke was unconscious when the bin lorry veered out of control in Glasgow city centre "and therefore not in control of his actions".
The Crown Office statement said Mr Clarke did not "have the necessary criminal state of mind required for a criminal prosecution".
It also said that all the relevant evidence was known to the Crown counsel at the time the decision to take no proceedings was made.
Erin McQuade, 18, her grandparents Jack Sweeney, 68, and his 69-year-old wife Lorraine, all from Dumbarton, died in the incident in the city's Queen Street and George Square.
Stephenie Tait, 29, and Jacqueline Morton, 51, both from Glasgow, and Gillian Ewing, 52, from Edinburgh, were also killed when the truck mounted the pavement before crashing into the side of the Millennium Hotel.
A further 15 people were injured. | The inquiry into a bin lorry crash which killed six people in Glasgow has heard of "significant shortcomings" in the council recruitment processes. | 33757494 |
The ex-UK foreign secretary and former Deputy PM Nick Clegg are among those barred from entering the country.
The EU has imposed sanctions on Russia over the crisis in Ukraine.
"It shows we are making an impact because they wouldn't have reacted unless they felt very sore at what had happened," he told BBC Radio 5 live.
"Once sanctions were extended, it's had a major impact on the Russian economy."
The EU, which initially imposed the sanctions after Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea region in March 2014 and has subsequently extended them, has called the ban "totally arbitrary and unjustified" and said no explanation had been provided.
A Russian foreign ministry official would not confirm the names of those banned but did say that the ban was result of the European Union's sanctions against the country.
British intelligence and military chiefs, including MI5 director general Andrew Parker, former MI6 chief Sir John Sawers and chief of the defence staff General Sir Nicholas Houghton are reportedly also on the list.
Sir Malcolm said: "This has happened at a time when the oil price has collapsed and therefore a main source of revenue for Mr Putin has disappeared.
"That's pretty important when it comes to his attempts to build up his military might and to force his neighbours to do what they're told.
"I understand that they would like the sanctions removed, I want them removed and want to see good relations with Russia.
"It's very important that Russia, Britain and western Europe as a whole work amicably together but we can't ignore the fact that for the first time since the end of the Second World War, part of the borders of a European territory has been violated by a military attack and that is unacceptable."
Sir Malcolm, who was foreign secretary between 1995 and 1997 when Sir John Major was in Downing Street, added: "If there had to be such a ban I am rather proud to be on it - I'd be rather miffed if I wasn't.
"But I've got no immediate plans to go to Russia and haven't had to change my diary, let's put it that way!" | Russia's decision to ban 89 European officials, politicians and military leaders shows sanctions against it are working, Sir Malcolm Rifkind has said. | 32950052 |
Education in a school for the mentally disabled meant the pair were isolated from mainstream society - a bar to their integration, the judges found.
The Strasbourg court said their schooling amounted to discrimination.
For years many Roma children have been wrongly placed in remedial schools in Hungary and some of its neighbours.
Many Roma communities in Hungary and the neighbouring Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Serbia are blighted by poverty and a high degree of social segregation.
Istvan Horvath and Andras Kiss, from the town of Nyiregyhaza, were born in 1994 and 1992, respectively.
Ruling on their case, the court said the Hungarian school system had failed to provide the necessary safeguards for a disadvantaged minority.
The judgment said Hungarian courts had also acknowledged deficiencies in the way mental abilities were tested.
Hungary was ordered to pay the pair's legal costs of 4,500 euros (£3,848; $6,065). The applicants did not request damages from Hungary on grounds of discrimination.
The BBC's Nick Thorpe in Budapest says the conservative Fidesz government is putting money into teaching Roma culture and history - though some NGOs argue that integrating Roma is more important than building their cultural identity, which can be divisive.
Fidesz argues that it has developed a Roma strategy, aimed at improving Roma rights - something that the EU has long been urging.
Fidesz says Roma-majority schools in some villages are a fact of life, whereas the previous Socialist-led government favoured bussing Roma children to schools where they would have to mix with ethnic Magyars, our correspondent reports.
Hungary's Minister for Human Resources, Zoltan Balog, has said the country "cannot prosper without its Roma population - if the Roma lose, we lose too".
He said the "negative trend" of the majority against the Roma must be changed, at the same time as Roma themselves must shed their "victim mentality". Most Roma are unemployed and poor, he pointed out.
A Council of Europe report in 2009 criticised the over-representation of Roma children in Hungarian remedial schools, while acknowledging that Hungary had made efforts to address the problem.
The report said "the vast majority of children assessed as having a 'mild disability' could, in the view of many NGOs, be integrated relatively easily in the ordinary school system: many children are misdiagnosed due to a failure to take due account of cultural differences or of the impact of socio-economic disadvantage on the child's development". | Two ethnic Roma (Gypsy) men have won a discrimination case against Hungary at the European Court of Human Rights over their education at a remedial school. | 21247053 |
About 80 staff were turned away from Border Precision Engineering when they reported for work last Monday.
The Kelso firm went into liquidation after the loss of a major contract.
A support event has been organised by Partnership Action for Continuing Employment (PACE) and will be held in the Tait Hall on Tuesday.
It will run from 13:00 to 16:00 and a mixture of support agencies and training providers will be there.
It will also be attended by representatives from firms who might be able to offer jobs to some of the workers affected. | A support event has been organised to offer advice and assistance to workers affected by the collapse of a Borders engineering firm. | 33410514 |
With 60% of the votes counted, the Georgian Dream party has about 50%, the country's electoral commission says.
The opposition United National Movement (UNM) is in second place with about 27% of the votes.
Earlier, PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili claimed a "huge victory", but UNM leaders questioned that assessment.
Those statements were based on exit polls, which showed different results to the partial official ones.
More than 20 political parties competed for seats in the assembly in Saturday's elections seen as a test of stability for the former Soviet republic.
Many voters had been undecided on the eve of the elections, according to opinion polls, with Georgian Dream and the UNM neck-and-neck.
They were weary about the elections, as poverty, unemployment and debt continue to blight their lives, the BBC's Rayhan Demytrie in Tbilisi reports.
The exit polls also suggested that a pro-Russian party could enter parliament for the first time in Georgia's post-Soviet history.
The Alliance of Patriots needs to secure 5% of votes, a requirement to be represented in the 150-member parliament.
Georgia briefly went to war with Russia in 2008 and wants to join Nato and the EU.
In a region of predominantly authoritarian states, it is seen a post-Soviet success story with a multi-party democracy, our correspondent says.
Voter turnout was low, with just 51% of those eligible casting ballots according to the election commission.
Mr Kvirikashvili praised the election as "truly free and fair" but some procedural violations were reported by observers.
A car bombing targeting a UNM lawmaker earlier this week in central Tbilisi saw the party accuse authorities of creating "a climate of hatred" before the polls.
A polling station was attacked Saturday in Marneuli, south of Tbilisi by a large group of UNM supporters according to police.
Georgian Dream had contested the election claiming modest economic success stories over the past four years - including a trade deal with Europe.
The UNM, which brought Georgia international recognition for its reforms under its flamboyant leader and former President Mikheil Saakashvili, was voted out in 2012 following a prison abuse scandal.
It hoped that Georgians had grown tired of the ruling party and its billionaire founder Bidzina Ivanishvili, our correspondent adds.
Despite having officially left politics, Mr Ivanishvili is still widely considered to be the country's chief decision-maker. | The governing party in Georgia has claimed victory in parliamentary elections, as partial results give it a commanding lead. | 37593341 |
Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced, with many rescued from rising waters and housed in shelters.
Nepal has suffered the highest death toll with over 75 people killed this week in floods and landslides.
Hundreds die every year across the region during the monsoon season between June and September.
In Nepal the army has been evacuating hundreds of people from villages submerged by rising flood waters, with western parts of the country worst hit.
Interior ministry officials say they fear the death toll could rise as information comes in from remote areas.
A spokesman, Yadav Prasad Koirala, told BBC Nepali that at least 12 people were missing as search and rescue efforts continued.
Across the border in India's Bihar state, 22 people have died in heavy flooding and over 1.5 million people have been directly affected, with disaster response teams shifting many to safer places.
In the north-eastern tea growing state of Assam a further 1.6 million people have been affected with at least 16 people losing their lives and over 100,000 sheltering in 472 relief camps.
Vast areas of farmland and roads have been submerged along with several of the states' wild life sanctuaries where animals have sought safety on higher ground.
Several rivers, including the Brahmaputra, are flowing dangerously above their normal level or have burst their banks.
Downstream across the border in Bangladesh, the Kurigram and Jamalpur districts have taken the worst hit from the flooding.
The Bangladesh Disaster Management Bureau says that around 1.5 million people have been affected, more than a third of that number in Kurigram district alone.
The authorities have set up 70 shelter areas for those evacuated or fleeing. Eleven people have died in the last few days, the bureau says.
In Pakistan heavy rain and flash floods have killed at least 22 people in parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces, the county's Dawn newspaper reported.
At least 58 people died in northern Pakistan and India as a result of flash floods and landslides at the beginning of this month with Pakistan's Chitral district worst hit alongside India's Uttarakhand and Arunachal Pradesh states. | More than 100 people have been killed in monsoon floods in South Asia, as torrential rain caused chaos in several countries. | 36913429 |
John Jukes received six fractures to his eye socket during the mugging, in which he lost 3,000 euros (£2,190) he had recently withdrawn.
A 30-year-old has been charged with grievous bodily harm and robbery and is due to appear before magistrates.
More than £1,600 has been raised so far in a campaign to reimburse Mr Jukes before his trip to Greece. | A man has been charged after a 70-year-old cancer patient was attacked for his holiday cash in Cheltenham. | 32231683 |
The 27-year-old was player of the year in his first season at Molineux in 2013-14 when Jackett's side won the League One title.
But he has fallen out of favour this term and has not played since 8 March.
"He's disappointed that he hasn't been playing but he's professional and has worked hard in training," said Jackett.
"We've had discussions about his overall situation. He understands there has to be some type of summing up. That will be this week. We'll talk about it and we'll see what happens."
McDonald has been linked with a move to Scottish Championship winners Rangers. But Jackett insists it is the formation he has used in midfield that has led to McDonald's continued exclusion.
"We need to be able to work to a two," he said. "We need to play next year and have enough where we can have a second forward, a very offensive number 10, that's where I want to get to.
"How does that impact on my central midfield? I'm looking for the right pair.
"It depends very much depends on how the conversations go, how we shape our squad, exactly what we have to spend and where we need to improve."
Meanwhile, Wolves have released six players, as well as allowing their two loan players, striker Adam Le Fondre, and goalkeeper Emi Martinez to return to their respective clubs.
Martinez goes back to parent club Arsenal, while Wolves have opted not to take up an option to buy Le Fondre following the end of his own season-long loan.
Wingers Zeli Ismail and Razak Boukari, strikers Liam McAlinden and Bjorn Sigurdarson, midfielder Tommy Rowe, who has been out on loan at Doncaster, and reserve keeper Aaron McCarey have all been let go too. | Wolves head coach Kenny Jackett is to sit down with Kevin McDonald this week to discuss whether the midfielder has a future with the club next season. | 36248742 |
The XH558 bomber appeared over RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire, and Rutland Water after taking off from Robin Hood Airport near Doncaster.
It will make one final flight later this month before it is grounded for exhibitions.
The bomber is due to be grounded after engineering backers, including Rolls-Royce, withdrew support.
The plane also flew over Bruntingthorpe Airfield and East Midlands Airport, both in Leicestershire, and Newark in Nottinghamshire.
Bruntingthorpe was the Vulcan's first home after its RAF career and where the aircraft was restored over 14 years.
Paul Johnson, who was involved with the events at the airfield for the flypast, said: "The Victor bomber, the Vulcan's sister, was on the runway - so when the Vulcan flew over it there was a good photo opportunity for people."
Vulcans, which once operated from RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, saw action during the 1982 Falklands War.
The Leicestershire-based charity Vulcan to the Sky Trust, which helps maintain and operate the aircraft, said the last remaining model left service in 1993. | The UK's last flying Vulcan has flown over the East Midlands for a final flypast as part of its farewell tour. | 34495905 |
David Akers, 60, from Dorset, is accused of attacking the girl from Budmouth School in Weymouth, now known as Budmouth College, where he works.
Dorset Police said the allegations date back to 1995.
Mr Akers, from Weymouth, was released on conditional bail and is due to appear before Dorchester Crown Court on 12 August.
In a statement, Budmouth College said Mr Akers had not been at work since 14 December and an acting principal had taken over. | A headteacher has appeared in court charged with two indecent assaults on a former pupil aged under 16. | 36764588 |
A Californian judge ruled that people who sent emails to or received emails from Yahoo Mail users from 2 October 2011 can sue the company as a group, granting it class action status.
There is estimated to be over one million members in the privacy lawsuit.
Yahoo is accused of using the data to boost advertising revenue.
The non-Yahoo Mail users said the company intercepted and analysed their emails, along with attachments with the goal of creating "targeted advertising" for its 275 million mail subscribers.
Last year, nearly 80% of Yahoo's revenue came from its search and display advertising.
The judge also ruled that a group of holders of non-Yahoo accounts in California since 2 October 2012 may also sue as a group for privacy infringement.
The accusers sought an injunction banning Yahoo from allegedly spying on emails, along with damages.
In its defence, Yahoo argued that some of the plaintiffs continued to email Yahoo subscribers, despite being aware of Yahoo's activities and in doing so consented to Yahoo accessing their emails.
A class action lawsuit can make it easier for the group to receive larger damages and more wide-ranging resolutions at a lower cost. | Yahoo will face a US class action lawsuit for allegedly accessing the content of emails sent to its mail users from non-Yahoo Mail accounts. | 32910997 |
Police in southern Hyderabad city told BBC Hindi they want to know if Aradhana Samdariya was forced to fast.
Her parents have insisted she voluntarily fasted as prescribed in Jainism, one of the world's most ancient religions.
The case has sparked a debate about the practice of religious fasting in India.
Reports said Aradhana lived for 68 days on boiled water. Two days after she called off her fast last week, she was dead.
Experts believe it is possible for the human body to survive without food for up to two months.
A police spokesperson said a case had been registered against the parents after a child rights organisation filed a complaint.
"The parents - Laxmi Chand and Manshi Samdariya - have been booked under culpable homicide [causing death by negligence] and Juvenile Justice Act [cruelty against minors]," the spokesperson said.
The parents, wealthy jewellers based in Hyderabad, have denied that they forced their daughter to fast.
"She asked permission for upvaas [fast that involves renouncing food]. We asked her to stop after 51 days but she would not give up. Her fast was voluntary. No one forced her," Mr Samdariya said.
But social activists have rejected the family's claim.
"The entire nation should be ashamed that such a practice still exists. Her father's guru advised the family that if she fasted for 68 days, his business would be profitable," activist Achyut Rao told BBC Hindi.
"The girl was made to drink only water from sunrise to sunset. There was no salt or lemon or anything else."
Should Jains be given the choice to die?
Fasting fakir flummoxes physicians
How long can someone survive without food?
Mr Rao also criticised the family for taking out a funeral procession "to hail their daughter as a child saint".
"The shocking aspect is that the family is happy that she was the rare one to be taken away by God," he said.
Prolonged fasting is popular among Jains, who are a minority religious group in India.
Activists have often criticised another controversial practice called santhara, in which a Jain gives up food and water with the intention of preparing for death.
The death of the teenager has once again put the spotlight on such practices. Many people have taken to Twitter to express their outrage.
Fasting is not uncommon in other religions - Muslims go without food and water between sunrise and sunset during the holy month of Ramadan, Christians fast during Lent, Jews go without food during Yom Kippur and Hindus fast on various religious occasions. But none of these religions sanction fasting to starvation - and death.
However, Jain leaders have defended prolonged fasts.
"Pregnant women or those who are unwell should not fast. But there is no bar on children fasting. But how much they should fast ought to depend on their own individual capacity," Maharasa Ravinder Muniji, a Jain monk in Hyderabad, told the Firstpost website. | Indian police are investigating the parents of a 13-year-old girl who died last week after undertaking a religious fast for 68 days. | 37604951 |
Pardew became Palace boss on a three-and-a-half-year deal in January 2015.
He led the club to 10th in the Premier League last season, but the club have struggled in the second half of this campaign, slumping to 17th from fifth.
"Once we're safe hopefully I'll sign a new contract here, because I want to stay," said Pardew, who spent four years playing at the club from 1987.
Palace, who play Watford in the FA Cup semi-finals on 24 April, beat Norwich on Saturday for their first league win since late December. Back then they were just outside the Champions League spots.
Victory moved them 10 points clear of the relegation zone, and on Wednesday they host Everton, who are two points above them in 14th.
"We weren't expecting that run to go on as long as it went on," Pardew added.
"The first half of this season we got it right, but the second we haven't. We need to address that. The confidence levels, hopefully, have gone up, and our nervousness has disappeared." | Crystal Palace manager Alan Pardew says he hopes to begin discussions over a new contract at the end of the season. | 36028348 |
George Kerr, 57, carried out the attack on 22-year-old Greg Aitken in Ashton Lane in the city's west end on 12 September last year.
The High Court in Glasgow heard Kerr attacked Mr Aitken after he had an argument with another man, Colin Sly.
Kerr, who has been in custody since October, will be sentenced next month.
Kerr, from the city's Ruchill area, admitted assaulting Mr Aitken by throwing an unidentified noxious substance onto his face and eyes to his severe injury and permanent impairment.
The court heard that Mr Aitken regularly busked in Ashton Lane and in early September had an argument with beggar Colin Sly, who grabbed him round the clothing and neck.
Mr Aitken punched Mr Sly to get him off. Mr Sly then ran off.
On 12 September, at about 18:30, Mr Sly walked along Ashton Lane with Kerr and pointed out Mr Aitken saying: "That's him."
At the time Mr Sly had a cast on his arm and shouted at Mr Aitken, saying: "I'll get you in two months."
Mr Aitken took this to mean that Mr Sly intended to assault him once his cast was removed.
Two hours later Kerr walked up and threw a paper cup full of an alkaline liquid at Mr Aitken.
The court heard that a steward at a nearby pub threw water over him in a bid to wash away the noxious substance.
A friend then took him by taxi to the Western Infirmary where he was treated before being transferred to an eye specialist at Gartnavel Hospital.
Before the attack Mr Aitken's sight was perfect, now it is blurred, and he can only see things which are around four inches from his face.
He also has to wear sunglasses because daylight hurts his eyes, which are bloodshot and sore.
Following the attack, Kerr was identified from photographs and at an identification parade.
He initially denied any involvement but pleaded guilty to the attack when he appeared in court. | A man has admitted throwing an ammonia-like substance into the face of a student busker in Glasgow, causing chemical burns to his eyes. | 30684070 |
The PHA would not confirm whether it was the H1N1 strain formerly known as swine flu.
The PHA's website also states that seven people are being treated in intensive care units for the flu virus.
As in previous years, H1N1 is one of the strains circulating, but is covered by a free vaccination programme. | One person who was being treated in hospital in Northern Ireland for influenza or flu has died, the Public Health Agency (PHA) has said. | 35534217 |
The strikes hit an IS training camp in Sabratha, around 70km west of Tripoli.
US officials said it was "likely" that the strikes had killed senior Tunisian extremist, Noureddine Chouchane.
Chouchane has been linked to two attacks that took place in Tunisia last year, including an attack that killed 30 Britons.
The IS group has been active in Libya for over a year, and the US estimates it has up to 6,000 fighters there.
Libya remains in chaos more than four years after the overthrow of former leader Muammar Gaddafi, and is being fought over by a number of groups, including the self-styled IS.
Top IS leaders 'take refuge' in Libya
Tunisia attack: What we know
Control and crucifixions: Life in Libya under IS
The BBC understands that British bases were involved in the attack but that no British assets, such as warplanes, were involved.
The mayor of Sabratha put the death toll at 41, and said the majority of those killed were Tunisians.
US Defence Secretary Ash Carter last week said the US would continue to target militants in Libya.
"We always keep open the option to do things unilaterally," he told the BBC.
In November, a US strike in Derna reportedly killed Iraqi IS commander Abu Nabil, also known as Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al-Zubaydi, who was said to be the group's leader in Libya.
The US has launched several unilateral raids and operations in the country since it helped oust Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
The pre-dawn raid by US warplanes is the most significant military operation undertaken by the US in Libya this year. However, it is unlikely to have a major impact on the operations of so-called Islamic State.
The raid took place near the Tunisian border, far to the west of IS's centre of gravity which is in Sirte, in the centre of Libya's Mediterranean coastline.
There, and in other locations, IS is believed to have amassed up to 6,000 fighters, with more recruits streaming in each week from both Syria and sub-Saharan Africa.
Yet Washington will be looking to use the air strike as a deterrent, hoping to send a message to IS jihadists that even if it takes months to track down suspects it will eventually find them.
Talk of greater Western military involvement on the ground has been scaled back though, as Libya continues to struggle to find a national unity government that can overcome its profound security challenges.
Noureddine Chouchane is also believed to have been behind the attack on the Bardo Museum in Tunis last year, which left 19 people dead.
The gunmen in both the Sousse and Bardo attacks are believed to have trained in Libya, which shares a border with Tunisia. | US warplanes have carried out attacks on militants from the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Libya, killing at least 38 people. | 35613085 |
Ireland posted 104-6 from their 20 overs, a total China never did not threaten to overtake.
Captain Isobel Joyce hit an unbeaten 41 off 36 balls, while her China counterpart Huang Zhuo was her team's top scorer with an unbeaten 39.
Ireland play their final Group B against Zimbabwe on Tuesday.
A win would see the Irish avoiding tournament favourites Bangladesh in the semi-finals, with Scotland the likely semi-final opponents.
Zimbabwe beat the Netherlands by two runs on Sunday to maintain their 100% record.
In Group A, Bangladesh beat Scotland by eight wickets and Papua New Guinea secured a seven-wicket victory over the hosts Thailand. | Ireland made it two wins from two by beating China by 28 runs at the ICC Women's World Twenty20 qualifying tournament in Bangkok. | 34957469 |
Former Temple University employee Andrea Constand alleges the 79-year-old entertainer drugged and molested her.
The trial is tentatively set to begin on 5 June next year near Mr Cosby's home.
At least 50 women have accused Mr Cosby of sexual assault, and prosecutors want 13 of them to testify.
The former star of The Cosby Show faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
A lawyer for Mr Cosby welcomed the trial date, saying: "The time has come to shine a spotlight on the trampling of Mr Cosby's civil rights."
Once fondly known as America's Dad, Mr Cosby was the first African-American to host a primetime television programme.
Although many women have accused him of rape, he is only facing charges in this one case due to statutes of limitations.
Thirteen of his accusers may be allowed by the judge to take the stand because the state of Pennsylvania allows witnesses to give evidence of past acts that might display a "common scheme, plan, or design".
Prosecuting lawyers say these women could demonstrate Mr Cosby shows a pattern of behaviour that is consistent with Ms Constand's accusations.
In 2004 Ms Constand was 31 when she visited Mr Cosby's home seeking career advice after befriending him through Temple University, where he served on the board of trustees.
She said Mr Cosby gave her three blue pills which made her legs feel "like jelly" and that he then began to touch her inappropriately.
"I told him, 'I can't talk, Mr Cosby.' I started to panic," she said in a criminal complaint in December last year.
Mr Cosby has maintained all of his sexual encounters with women were consensual, and that Ms Constand never asked him to stop.
In 2006 Mr Cosby settled with Ms Constand after providing an undisclosed cash sum to her.
A criminal case opened this year following the election of a new county prosecutor who had made it a campaign promise to bring charges against the comedian. | A judge in Pennsylvania has set a trial date for Bill Cosby, who is accused of sexually assaulting a woman at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. | 37291000 |
The driver of the BMW was arrested after the vehicle hit the terrace of the cafe in Sept-Sorts, near La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, French media say.
An interior ministry spokesman told the BBC the driver was 32 and French.
While his actions are said to have been deliberate, the incident is not being treated as a terror attack.
He had, the spokesman said, tried to kill himself a few days ago. It appears he had no previous criminal record.
According to RTL radio, he told police had weapons in the car.
First reports gave the age of the dead girl as eight but later she was said to have been 13.
Her little brother is among those injured, police sources told AFP news agency.
The incident in Sept-Sorts, a small village 55km (34 miles) east of Paris, happened around 20:30 (18:30 GMT).
"Half of the car entered the restaurant and knocked down all the customers and staff in its way," a soldier was quoted as saying by Le Parisien newspaper.
France and a number of other countries have seen deadly vehicle attacks on civilians, notably in the French city of Nice on Bastille Day 2016 when 84 people were killed.
Last week, a man rammed a group of soldiers in Paris, injuring six of them, before being shot and injured by police as he tried to escape. | A car has crashed into a pizzeria in a village east of the French capital Paris, killing a girl and injuring 12 other people, four of them seriously. | 40930898 |
They issued separate appeals in the Journal du Dimanche (JDD) newspaper, as France remains in shock from the murder of a priest by Islamist extremists last week.
The 41 prominent Muslims and Mr Valls said a French Muslim foundation set up in 2005 must be relaunched.
Mr Valls's stance drew some criticism.
Two politicians in the right-wing opposition party The Republicans - Eric Ciotti and Christian Estrosi - accused Mr Valls of hypocrisy for failing to prevent the opening of a Saudi-funded mosque in Nice.
Mr Valls was booed at a commemoration in Nice on 18 July for the 84 people killed by a lorry which ploughed into a holiday crowd on the city's beachfront promenade. The Tunisian driver is believed to have been inspired by so-called Islamic State (IS).
There is widespread concern in Europe about the influence of Saudi Arabia's ultra-conservative Wahhabi version of Islam.
In his appeal in JDD (in French), Mr Valls said the French state must avoid "any paternalism" towards Islam, but "there is an urgent need to help Islam in France to rid itself of those who are undermining it from the inside".
"To do that, we have a duty to build a real pact with Islam in France, and give the foundation a central role."
He did not give details of what the foundation's role would be or how it would interact with mosques.
Mr Valls, a Socialist, warned that "if Islam doesn't help the Republic to fight those who challenge public freedoms, it will get harder for the Republic to guarantee this freedom of worship".
Separately, 41 prominent French Muslims issued a joint statement in JDD saying "we must speak up now because Islam has become a public issue and the current situation is intolerable".
The signatories included former ministerial advisers, entrepreneurs, lawyers, scientists and academics.
They deplored the spate of attacks by jihadists in France, including those in Paris last year, the Nice attack and the murder of an elderly priest in a church in a Rouen suburb.
"We Muslims were silent before because we understood that in France religion is a private matter," they said - a reference to the French state's strict secular policy.
"A Foundation for Islam in France was set up more than 10 years ago and now it is time to reactivate it," they said. "It has never worked properly... but now it should be empowered to collect donations."
They called for "a cultural battle against radical Islamism among the youth". It should include transparent funding of mosques, proper training and salaries for imams and theological work, they said.
In 2004 the French government said the country's imams must all learn French and widen their education because, it argued, a majority of them were from outside France.
How France is wrestling with jihadist terror
What we know about church attack
Tributes to Fr Jacques Hamel
The jihadists stalking the French Riviera
On Sunday two men were arrested over the murder of Father Jacques Hamel, 86, during a church service.
Farid K, 30, a cousin of attacker Abdel Malik Petitjean, was arrested on suspicion of "terrorist association".
The other man, Jean-Philippe Steven J, 20, was put under formal investigation for allegedly attempting to travel to Syria in June with Petitjean.
Petitjean and accomplice Adel Kermiche, both 19, were shot dead by police. | Dozens of prominent French Muslims and Prime Minister Manuel Valls have called for a national drive to promote mainstream Islam and combat the radicalisation of young Muslims. | 36939601 |
Nash, 86, and his 82-year-old wife Alicia were killed when their taxi crashed in New Jersey, they said.
The mathematician is renowned for his work in game theory, winning the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1994.
His breakthroughs in maths - and his struggles with schizophrenia - were the focus of the 2001 film.
Russell Crowe, who played him, tweeted: "Stunned... My heart goes out to John & Alicia & family. An amazing partnership. Beautiful minds, beautiful hearts."
The film's director, Ron Howard, also tweeted his tribute to the "brilliant" John Nash and his "remarkable" wife.
Alicia Nash helped care for her husband, and the two later became prominent mental health advocates.
The two were thrown from their vehicle, police said. Media reports said the couple may not have been wearing seatbelts when they crashed.
Their taxi driver, and a passenger in another car, were also injured.
Born in Bluefield, West Virginia, Nash first studied in Pittsburgh before moving to Princeton.
His recommendation letter contained just one line: "This man is a genius."
Nash married Alicia Larde in 1957, after publishing some of his breakthrough works in game theory, which is the mathematical study of decision-making.
But he developed severe schizophrenia soon after, and Alicia had him committed for psychiatric care several times. The couple divorced in 1962.
"I was disturbed in this way for a very long period of time, like 25 years," Nash said in an interview on the Nobel website.
The two stayed close, and his condition had begun to improve by the 1980s. They remarried in 2001.
The President of Princeton, Christopher Eisgruber, said he was "stunned and saddened" to hear of their deaths.
"John's remarkable achievements inspired generations of mathematicians, economists and scientists who were influenced by his brilliant, groundbreaking work in game theory," he said.
Even this week, Nash received the Abel Prize, another top honour in the field of mathematics.
Great new mathematical ideas have a balance to strike - they must be precise enough to allow detailed conclusions to be drawn, and yet sufficiently loose that they can be useful in a wide range of problems.
The Nash Equilibrium, for which he won a Nobel Prize, is just such an idea. It offered something truly new - the ability to analyse situations of conflict and co-operation and produce predictions about how people will behave.
Nash's famous equilibrium has grown to be perhaps the most important idea in economic analysis and has found application in fields as diverse as computing, evolutionary biology and artificial intelligence.
More recently it has been used in studies of corruption and also name-checked amidst the Greek financial crisis.
Nash and game theory, by John Moriarty, Manchester University | US mathematician John Nash, who inspired the Oscar-winning film A Beautiful Mind, has died in a car crash with his wife, police have said. | 32865248 |
Sales in the division rose 2.3% - well above expectations for about 0.5%.
The figures came on a bumper day for retail results, with trading updates from Tesco, John Lewis, Debenhams and Primark owner ABF.
Marks and Spencer's chief executive, Steve Rowe, said "better ranges, better availability and better prices" had helped sales to recover.
But growth was helped by the timing of Christmas this year, which meant there were extra shopping days.
Food sales were up by 0.6%. That compares with Tesco's food sales growth of 1.3%, while Sainsbury's food sales were down slightly.
Marks and Spencer: Good news finally?
Retail winners and losers this Christmas
'Super Thursday' Christmas trading updates
Tesco hails 'strong progress' as sales rise
M&S estimated that the timing of Christmas had added about 1.5% to the clothing and home sales growth and about 0.3% to food.
But Mr Rowe warned timing would be against them for the next trading update: "As we look forward, our Q4 [fourth quarter] reported numbers will be adversely affected by sale timing and a later Easter."
Marks & Spencer has turned out to be this year's surprise Christmas package.
In a festive season where most of our big retailers did better than expected, M&S stood out, finally shrugging off its clothing sales hoodoo.
Clothing sales have been in decline - and often sharp decline - for the last five years, with the exception of one positive quarter two years ago.
Over Christmas, however, like-for-like sales were up 2.3%, although the company was quick to point out that 1.5% of that was down to how Christmas fell, which meant there were five extra trading days compared to the relevant period a year earlier.
Even so, a 0.8% increase is not to be sneezed at, and is evidence perhaps that the back-to-basics reforms of chief executive Steve Rowe, which include hundreds of job losses at head office and the closure of most of the international stores, is having some effect.
More from Dominic
Analysts broadly welcomed the latest results. Bryan Roberts, global insight director at TCC Global, told the BBC: "It might be the sign of some green shoots in that part of the business."
The improved performance comes after a poor set of figures for Christmas 2015. Then, like-for-like sales in food rose 0.5%, while turnover from its clothing and homeware lines plunged by 5.8% because of "unseasonal conditions and availability".
On the same day as those figures were announced, M&S said that chief executive Marc Bolland was stepping down and Steve Rowe - then the director of general merchandise division - would replace him.
Mr Rowe has taken action, including cutting prices for nearly a third of the ranges and increasing staff numbers on the shop floors.
In September, Mr Rowe said more than 500 senior jobs would be cut, and, two months later, announced plans in November to close around 30 UK stores and convert 45 more into food-only shops.
The retailer also announced plans to close some of its overseas stores.
Among the key trading updates on Thursday, the John Lewis Partnership said like-for-like sales at its department stores had risen 2.7% over Christmas, while its Waitrose supermarket chain chalked up a 2.8% gain.
However, it warned that its staff bonus would be "significantly lower" this year because of the "challenging market outlook", adding that trading profit was "under pressure".
John Lewis staff are partners in the company and own the business. Last year, the bonus pool for its 91.500 staff totalled £145m, with an average payout of £1,585.
Supermarket giant Tesco reported a rise in Christmas sales, helped by strong demand for fresh food.
Christmas like-for-like sales grew 0.7% in the UK, and were up by 0.3% across the group as a whole.
Other updates from retailers revealed: | Marks and Spencer has reported a rise in Christmas clothing and homeware sales for the first time in two years. | 38593276 |
Prof Bob Steele has been appointed chairman of the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC).
The UK NSC advises Ministers and the health service in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Prof Steele said he was "honoured" to take up his new role.
The professor is one of the UK's leading authorities on cancer screening, which can detect the disease in its earliest stages.
His main interest is in colorectal cancer.
Prof Steele, who is head of cancer research at the university's school of medicine, said: "Screening is a vital component in our resources to tackle disease, and it is essential that it is employed responsibly by the NHS." | A Dundee University professor has been chosen to lead the national committee advising the Scottish and UK governments and NHS on medical screening policy. | 36684322 |
The Bastion Memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum, Staffordshire, bears the names of all 453 UK personnel who died in Afghanistan.
He told their family and friends during the service of dedication that it would be a "place of pilgrimage" for them.
Some 3,500 people, including Prime Minister David Cameron, attended.
Military representatives, military charities and organisations, the UK's Nato allies and other senior politicians were also present.
A one-minute silence was observed during the service in memory of those lost.
The memorial, which replicates the design of the original memorial wall in Camp Bastion, was blessed by the Archbishop of Canterbury at a commemoration service at St Paul's Cathedral in March.
Harry said it "reflected the spirit of the old one"
The prince laid a wreath of poppies, with the message: "The fathers, sons, daughters, brothers and sister named on this memorial, will forever be in our thoughts and prayers, as are those who miss them so dearly."
The sun glinted from the cross made of shell-casings that sits atop the memorial wall that once stood at the heart of Camp Bastion.
It is engraved with the names of the 453 British servicemen and women who died between 2001 and 2014.
Before laying a wreath, Prince Harry - himself a veteran of that war - spoke with feeling of the pain of loss, saying that each person who had lost a loved one would feel a different emotion: "grief, sorrow, loss, anger, or regret for that left unsaid."
For Jacqui Thompson, the widow of Senior Aircraftsman Gary Thompson, the oldest serviceman to be killed, the loss is still raw.
She visited the National Memorial Arboretum when the wall was being rebuilt here, and a locket she wore in Gary's memory is now embedded within it; a small comfort for the widow and five daughters that he left behind.
Rifleman William Aldridge was the youngest serviceman to die. He turned 18 just months before he was killed by a Taliban bomb in 2009.
Today, for the first time, his mother Lucy saw her son's name on the memorial.
The war itself may be over, but for the families who've lost their loved ones, the pain goes on, although here at the memorial wall, their names and their sacrifice will live on.
Harry said: "As we sit here amongst friends, we can take comfort in the knowledge that they gave their lives doing a job they loved, for a country they loved, and amongst mates who loved them dearly."
He added: "Once this ceremony is ended and all the trappings of the day have been cleared away, this will become a place of pilgrimage, a quiet space for remembrance just as it was in Camp Bastion, all those miles away."
Harry leaves the Army this month after a 10-year career, having action in Afghanistan twice - most recently in 2012, when he served as an Apache helicopter co-pilot and gunner.
See the full list of those who died in Afghanistan here.
The foundations of the memorial incorporates material from the original wall, with the brass plaques from the original memorial brought back from Afghanistan to be encased within the new granite structure.
It also features a cross made of shell casings from the original structure, Afghan pebble chippings and the last union flag to fly over the memorial at Camp Bastion.
140,000
UK troops served
£21.5bn
Total operational cost
453 UK troops killed
108 died in 2009 - the worst year
470 mentors staying on
UK forces were part of a US-led coalition which invaded Afghanistan and toppled the ruling Taliban in 2001, following the 9/11 attacks in the US.
At the peak of the 13-year campaign the UK military had 9,500 troops and 137 bases in Helmand Province.
The UK ended its operations in Afghanistan in October, while Nato finished its mission in December. | Prince Harry said those who lost their lives during the Afghanistan conflict will be "forever in our hearts" as he unveiled a memorial to their sacrifice. | 33085826 |
More than 45 firefighters were needed to contain the blaze, in Hillmans Fancy on Friday night, and prevent it from spreading to six oil tankers.
Firefighters initially used unmanned external jets to tackle the fire.
There are no reports of any injuries and the cause of the fire is being investigated.
Fire crews from Coleraine were supported by others from Portrush, Portstewart, Ballymoney and Kilrea during the operation. | A major fire has been put out at a car repair workshop next to an oil depot in Coleraine, County Londonderry. | 34626097 |
Welsh international Owain Fon Williams and his Inverness Caledonian Thistle team-mate Ali Sutherland have personal connections to children's units.
After falling seriously ill as a boy, Fon Williams spent three months in a Welsh children's unit and later Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool.
Sutherland's girlfriend Dawn Cowie was an inpatient at Raigmore's unit.
She is now a fundraising assistant with Archie Highland, a charity that supports sick children and their families across the north of Scotland.
Fon Williams, who has already got a head start on his team-mate in the facial hair growing stakes, and Sutherland are taking part in the charity's Beards for Bairns challenge.
The goalkeeper and striker will not shave for more than a month from Christmas Day until Burns Night on 25 January. | Two footballers are giving up shaving for a month to show support for Raigmore Hospital's children's unit. | 38220260 |
Phillip Harkins, 33, is alleged to have killed 22-year-old Joshua Hayes during a failed robbery in Florida in 1999.
He returned to Scotland after being released on bail in 2002 and was jailed the following year for killing a woman in a road crash in Greenock.
Harkins fought extradition attempts and his final appeal to the European Court of Human Rights has been turned down.
The 33-year-old allegedly shot Mr Hayes with an assault rifle during an attempted robbery in Jacksonville, Florida.
He denies any involvement, and campaigners on his behalf say there is no physical evidence linking him to the crime, and the case rests on testimony provided by a co-accused as part of a plea agreement.
Harkins returned to Scotland after being released on bail in 2002 and was involved in a car crash in his native Greenock, which claimed the life of 62-year-old Jean O'Neill.
He was jailed for five years at the High Court in Edinburgh in 2003 after he admitted causing death by dangerous driving.
While in custody, Harkins was transferred to Wandsworth Prison in London, while proceedings got under way to extradite him to the US.
After losing a succession of attempts to block his extradition, Harkins took his case to the European Court of Human Rights.
The case focused on Harkins' complaint that if he was extradited, he was at risk of the death penalty or a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.
In its unanimous ruling, the European Court said that "diplomatic assurances" from the United States that the death penalty would not be sought in Harkins' case "were clear and sufficient to remove any risk" that he could be sentenced to death if extradited.
The court also ruled that it would not be "grossly disproportionate" for Harkins to be given a mandatory life sentence.
It said that he had been over 18 years of age at the time of his alleged crime and had not been diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder.
The seven judges also found that the killing of Mr Hayes had been part of an attempted armed robbery and said this was "an aggravating factor".
The court also noted that Harkins had not yet been convicted and, even if he were, keeping him in prison might continue to be justified throughout his lifetime.
The judges said that even if that were the case, the Governor of Florida and the Florida Board of Executive Clemency could decide to reduce any sentence.
In a separate development, the European Court also turned down an appeal against extradition to the US from British national Joshua Edwards.
He is accused of having intentionally shot two people, killing one of them and injuring the other, who had allegedly made fun of his appearance.
As in the Harkins case, the European Court ruled that there would be no violation of Edwards' human rights if he was extradited to face trial. | A Scottish man who is wanted for murder in the United States has lost a nine-year legal battle to avoid extradition. | 16596596 |
It says a new contract-based law will replace the "kafala" system, ensuring greater flexibility and protection.
Human rights groups say the change leaves the system - which they describe as modern-day slavery - intact.
Qatar has imported hundreds of thousands of construction workers for the 2022 football World Cup.
Rights groups say many of them have died because of appalling working conditions.
Qatar says a new law is coming into effect on Tuesday.
"These new legislative changes, combined with ongoing enforcement and a commitment to systemic reform, not just in Qatar but also in countries of origin, will ensure workers' rights are respected across the entire labour pathway," the government said in a statement.
But Amnesty International says the measure will not lead to significant changes.
"This new law may get rid of the word 'sponsorship' but it leaves the same basic system intact," Amnesty's James Lynch said.
Rights groups say that migrant workers will still need employer's consent to return home.
Earlier this year, Amnesty accused Qatar of using forced labour to prepare for the 2022 World Cup.
Qatar said it was "concerned" by the allegations and would investigate. | Qatar is ending its labour sponsorship system that forces foreign workers to seek their employer's permission to change jobs or leave the country. | 38298393 |
Maxine Smith, leader of the SNP group on the local authority, said the charge paid by tourists worked well in other parts of Europe and the US.
She told BBC Radio Scotland it could be a few years before such taxation was introduced.
A tourist tax has previously been suggested for Edinburgh.
The SNP group, when it led Highland Council's administration, proposed that visitors staying in hotels, guest houses and bed and breakfasts could be asked for a contribution towards roads maintenance and waste services.
Ms Smith told BBC Radio Scotland the extra charge would not discourage tourists coming to Scotland.
She said: "If you look at what has happened in Europe and the States it doesn't put people off at all.
"In fact, when they know they are going to get better facilities and better attractions they are all for it."
A spokesperson for the Scottish government said: "The Scottish government has no plans for a bed tax or tourism levy." | A senior councillor at Highland Council has suggested a tax on hotel rooms would raise millions of pounds to improve facilities and attractions. | 35482243 |
He was speaking hours after the US and Arab allies launched their first air strikes against IS in Syria.
Activists say at least 70 IS militants and 50 other al-Qaeda-linked fighters were killed in the strikes.
US state department spokeswoman Jan Psaki said the US had warned Syria in advance "not to engage US aircraft".
But she added that Washington had not requested permission or given advance notice of the timing of the attacks.
President Obama confirmed that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Bahrain and Qatar had taken part in or supported the strikes.
He said the US was "proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with these nations".
The Pentagon said warplanes, drones and Tomahawk cruise missiles were used in the strikes.
IS has seized large areas of Syria and Iraq, and the US has launched nearly 200 air strikes in Iraq since August.
But Monday's strikes expanded the anti-IS campaign across the border into Syria for the first time.
The strikes targeted the group's main headquarters in its stronghold of Raqqa, north-eastern Syria, as well as training compounds, vehicles and storage facilities in several other areas.
They were organised in three separate waves with US fighter jets carrying out the first set, and Arab nations participating in the second and third, Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant General Bill Mayville told reporters.
Later on Tuesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry said the US would not "allow geography or borders" to prevent action against IS militants.
"We will hold them responsible for their grotesque atrocities," he said at the United Nations in New York, flanked by Iraq's president and foreign minister.
President Obama said al-Qaeda-linked militants, known as the Khorasan Group, were also targeted with air strikes in Syria.
US officials say the group had been plotting "imminent attacks" against the West, and had established a safe haven west of Aleppo.
As well as informing Syria's government of the impending strikes, the US reportedly told Iranian officials attacks were imminent, Reuters reports.
In other reaction:
The Pentagon set out three broad groups of targets arranged in an arc across northern Syria.
Those closest to the Mediterranean coast seem to have been hit largely by Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from warships - this is an area where Syrian government air defences may still have coverage.
In a briefing Lt Gen William Mayville noted that Syrian air defences were "passive", as he put it, during the course of the operation.
This suggests a conscious decision by Syrian commanders who perhaps feared that active scanning by their defences might draw down air attacks upon them.
The operation was notable for involving aircraft from Jordan and from Washington's Gulf allies. It also marked the first use in combat of one of the USAF's most modern aircraft, the F-22 Raptor.
This, the Pentagon is stressing, is just the start of "a sustained air campaign", the tempo of which, says a Pentagon spokesman, "will be dictated by facts on the ground".
US pundits question Syria air strikes
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, quoted by state media, said he supports any international efforts to combat "terrorism" in Syria.
Analysts say it is significant that countries with a Sunni majority, like Jordan and Saudi Arabia, are among those supporting US efforts against IS.
IS members are jihadists who adhere to an extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam and consider themselves the only true believers.
Who are Islamic State (IS)? | President Obama has hailed the support of Arab nations in air strikes on Islamic State (IS) militants, saying: "This is not America's fight alone." | 29333348 |
Newcastle host Liverpool on Sunday with Klopp's side having won seven of their last eight games in all competitions.
A win at St James' Park for Liverpool will also take them six points off top flight leaders Leicester.
"They are title contenders, in terms of the form they are in and the way they are going," said McClaren.
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Klopp took over from Brendan Rodgers in early October and Liverpool drew his first three games in charge.
But the German has improved his side's fortunes, suffering just one defeat, which came against Crystal Palace, and leading Liverpool to the semi-finals of the League Cup.
"Everyone comes into a club in different situations," said McClaren, whose side are second-from-bottom of the Premier League.
"I don't think anyone would dispute what Brendan had done. He had brought in some very talented players, and you have seen that Jurgen has taken that on."
McClaren spent a spell in Germany as manager of Wolfsburg and twice lost out in games against a Borussia Dortmund side managed by Klopp.
"What Dortmund had, I can see that in the Liverpool team," added McClaren. "It's coming and they demonstrated on Wednesday [in beating Southampton 6-1] what they are capable of doing.
"They have got good quality players who work very hard. He is doing a great job." | Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has turned the Reds into challengers for the Premier League title, according to Newcastle boss Steve McClaren. | 35017699 |
The 14-time major winner, who first moved into the top 100 in 1996 and then spent a cumulative record 683 weeks as world number one, has dropped to 104.
The 39-year-old American has not played since withdrawing from the Farmers Insurance Open on 6 February.
Woods has said he is "hopeful" of a return for the first major of the year, the Masters, starting on 9 April.
After withdrawing from February's event at Torrey Pines with back problems, Woods announced he would be taking an indefinite break from the sport, describing his performances this year as "unacceptable for tournament play".
Woods, who carded an 82 at the Phoenix Open in January - his worst round as a professional - added that he won't return until he can "compete at the highest level".
The last time Woods was outside the top 100 in the world was in September 1996 when he was ranked equal 221 and on his climb to the top.
The following week, he jumped to 75th by winning the Las Vegas Invitational as a 20-year-old for the first of his 79 PGA Tour victories.
Woods first become world number one after finishing 19th at the 1997 US Open. | Tiger Woods has dropped out of the world's top 100 golfers for the first time in his career. | 32112282 |
Her unlikely draft law has a simple aim, she says - to protect unborn children everywhere.
Which is why it wants all "emissions outside of a woman's vagina, or created outside of a health or medical facility" to carry a $100 (£81) fine.
If a man made such an emission it would "be considered an act against an unborn child".
If it sounds like something out of a dystopian novel, that is because it is meant to.
Jessica Farrar, a Democratic member of the Texas House of Representatives, submitted House Bill number 4260 last week. She knows it will never become law. Indeed, it is unlikely to make it far at all.
But she argues it is no more extreme than the restrictions put on women by the state of Texas when it comes to choosing whether or not to end their pregnancy.
The last straw for her came with the most recent in a string of proposed bills, which she saw as chipping away at women's rights.
The latest wanted to force women to choose whether to bury or cremate the embryonic remains of either a miscarriage or abortion.
During a hearing for the bill last August, state Senator Don Huffines said: "For far too long, Texas has allowed the most innocent among us to be thrown out with the daily waste."
Ms Farrar decided to put a different spin on this belief.
"It got me thinking, maybe what's good for the goose is good for the gander," Ms Farrar told the BBC. "If we are taking these measures because of the sanctity of life, well, we just cannot waste any seed."
But her critics were not impressed. "Plain stupid," said one on Twitter, saying that only a fertilised embryo needs protecting, and asking if she would also use the law on menstruating women.
"Life begins at conception," Mr Huffines had said.
Texas has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the US - even though the Supreme Court overturned a 2014 ban on drug-induced abortions after seven weeks last year.
The restrictions mean clinics providing abortions are few and far between. According to the Texas Tribune, there were 19 abortion clinics in June 2016, the vast majority of them concentrated in urban areas.
It has left 95% of counties within Texas's expansive borders without a clinic. In the 885km (550 miles) between San Antonio and El Paso - the same distance as between Penzance and Edinburgh - there are no abortion clinics.
Ms Farrar also speaks angrily of women forced to sit and listen to a lecture on the moral implications of abortion, and look at images of foetuses when they seek terminations. They also undergo an intrusive vaginal ultrasound to hear the baby's heartbeat, and receive warnings of abortion being linked to breast cancer, even though this claim has been disproved.
"It is clear this is about manipulation," said Ms Farrar, whose bill suggests a male equivalent for each step, including a "digital rectal exam".
"As if every woman has not thought about this [abortion]. The fact is, only she knows what has happened in her life," she said.
Texas-based group New Wave Feminists insists it wants to support women, but believes a foetus has rights too.
"Many would say that the foetus is actually the most vulnerable member of the human family and yet, because it is smaller, weaker, and can't tell us to stop, we've decided it's okay to dispose of it however we see fit," the organisation says.
Texan women are not alone in facing an increase in legislation over abortion.
Anti-abortion activists and their supporters have become emboldened as Donald Trump's White House shifts away from the pro-choice stance of the Obama years.
A slew of new restrictions has been proposed by lawmakers across the country. Among them, one which would force women in Oklahoma to get permission from their sexual partner to allow them to have an abortion.
The man who proposed that bill, which passed its first reading in February, described a pregnant woman as a "host" for her unborn child. The idea is something Ms Farrar fears in her own state.
"We are dealing with more measures being proposed which would treat the woman as an incubator," said the Houston native, who was first elected to the Texas House in 1994.
Already, the right to life of an unborn child overrules a do-not-resuscitate (DNR) order in Texas for women who are pregnant.
A DNR order would normally mean medical staff do not attempt to bring a patient back to life if they stop breathing or their heart stops, because of the damage already done to the patient.
Now, new proposed legislation would force women to carry an unviable foetus to term if it is discovered after 20 weeks, while another could even prevent a doctor telling a family of their baby's condition if he feels they may choose an abortion.
Elizabeth Graham, director of anti-abortion organisation, Texas Right to Life, defends preserving the life of the foetus.
"Current provisions singling out disabled preborn children for death are not only embarrassing for the state but morally unconscionable."
Ms Farrar argues that more pressing issues need to be addressed, like the fact Texas has the highest rate of maternal mortality in the developed world.
"I think the reason we are where we are is because people have tolerated these things," she added. "I'm hoping my bill will wake people up." | A female politician in Texas is taking an unusual swipe at what she sees as restrictive abortion laws by targeting men - more precisely male masturbation. | 39251655 |
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has announced "significant" pay rises for the top players.
We are proudly creating the first group of full-time women's professional cricketers
England's women won back-to-back Ashes series against Australia in 2013-14.
Captain Charlotte Edwards took to Twitter to react to the news, writing: "Today is a day I never thought I'd see in my time as a player!"
Former captain Clare Connor, who is now head of women's cricket, told BBC Sport: "Charlotte Edwards and I had to pay for our first England blazer to go on tour to India in 1995 and now 18 years on, what a fantastic day this is for the sport.
"I am incredibly proud of the backing the ECB give the women's game and it is a monumental day for our sport.
"Not a lot will change in how we offer contracts but the huge difference is the amount of money we're talking about.
"Players coming trough our pathway now have the opportunity to aim to play professional sport and for any woman that's an incredible dream."
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ECB chairman Giles Clarke called the team's success in the Ashes "a real bright spot" and said he hoped they would "become some of the best-paid sportswomen" in the country.
"These pay rises are significant and, as a result, we are proudly creating the first group of full-time women's professional cricketers," he said.
Increases to pay and investment will be funded by revenues from International Cricket Council events held in England.
An ECB statement said players involved in the recent Ashes success will receive bonuses.
The game's governing body has also committed to reviving inner-city cricket over the next 10 years and hopes to attract thousands of new players.
The "Eureka" study, conducted by the ECB and involving almost a million participants, shows that people in inner cities struggle to get access to grass pitches.
908,000 participants
1.7m people have played cricket in the last 12 months
375,000 people were involved in cricket matches in a single week last June
30% of cricketers are from an ethnic minority
31 is the average age of amateur players
93% of cricket players are male
50% of players think "playing in the right spirit" is the most important part of the game
A new London-based pilot scheme run by the ECB will build and renovate cricket grounds.
Minister for Sport Helen Grant welcomed the "significant financial commitment" into both the women's game and inner-city facilities.
She added: "Sport generally, and cricket specifically, appeals to people right across the country and it is excellent news that the ECB are acting to improve access and revive interest in cricket in our urban centres."
Shadow Minister for Sport Clive Efford said: "Cricket is showing the way to other sport governing bodies with their investment and by creating a professional team of elite women cricketers they will inspire a new generation young women to play in the future."
Clarke, meanwhile, praised the England women for their involvement in the "Chance to Shine" scheme, which encourages children at state schools to take up cricket. | England are to have their first full-time professional women's cricket team following major investment by the game's governing body. | 26171943 |
26 January 2016 Last updated at 11:15 GMT
Over the weekend more than a metre of snow fell in some parts causing lots of problems.
Giant panda Tian Tian lives at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington DC in America.
Take a look at him rolling around. | People living on the east coast of America might be trying to clean up after the big snow storm but giant panda Tian Tian still can't get enough of the white stuff. | 35407484 |
But the BBC has uncovered a large collection of images for an exclusive online documentary about the strange movie, as producer Richard Latto explains.
The Day the Clown Cried told the story of a fictional clown, Helmut Doork, who was thrown into prison and eventually used to entertain children and lead them into the concentration camp gas chambers.
Lewis - at the peak of his career after success in The Nutty Professor and the Bell Boy - wrote and directed the film, and was at first very passionate about the idea. But perhaps even he eventually found the subject matter too harrowing.
The film has never been released, with only a handful of people claiming to have seen anything from the production. Lewis himself avoids questions about it during interviews and public appearances.
For the BBC documentary The Story of Day the Clown Cried, presenter David Schneider went to hear the stories of people close to the production, including the late Lars Amble, who played a Nazi guard.
Amble remembers being asked to take part by Lewis: "He was staying in Stockholm in a hotel. He called me up, I went to his room and suddenly he says I know which part you are going to have, a very mean guy.
"He was a very professional actor and director. He gave us all confidence."
Jack Kotschack was one of the producers. His son Erik remembers the period well when his father was working on the production.
"He was very thrilled to do this, to be part of it. When they made a decision to shoot the scenes from the concentration camp in Sweden, my father was the guy who made it possible.
"Jerry Lewis was big at that time. It was a big story for Sweden. He was a person who took [control of] the room, a big character and actor."
But the production was beset with problems and Kotschack says the working relationship between his father and Lewis fell apart.
"He sent a telegram 'to the smallest man in town from Jerry Lewis to Jack'.
"In the beginning they were best of friends but in the end not so."
There are many people on the internet who have circulated alleged copies of the script, and even some who have attempted to re-enact the entire film online.
So what is the fascination with this project?
"This is a very interesting film because very few people have seen anything from it," says Jan Lumholdt, a film critic based in Sweden.
"He's a comedian and this is his most serious film ever. This gives it a very interesting energy and dynamic.
"I always felt that there are countless examples of great dark serious performers and dark work by comedians, there is a certain touch to it."
There have been many films about the Holocaust and it's often hard to come to terms with a fictional story set during this dark period in history. But Yael Fried, project manager of the Jewish Museum in Stockholm, is in favour of such projects.
"We need different ways and methods of understanding the Holocaust and fiction can help us with that," he says.
"You can use fictional characters in a real environment. I think you have to be careful and very clear that it's fiction."
It's rumoured by many that Lewis attempted to introduce moments of comedy into the production. The main character's name was seemingly changed from Karl Schmidt to Helmut Doork.
"As the child of a Holocaust survivor - my mother got out of Vienna in 1938 along with her playwright father and actress mother - the Holocaust was something that I have always been very aware of," says Schneider.
"As a comedian, I've always been fascinated by whether you can do comedy about such a difficult and taboo subject.
"I used to compere Jewish comedy gigs and I remember once getting a note passed to me backstage saying: 'We are a coach party of Auschwitz survivors come to see you. Please can you say hello to us during the gig?'
"And I just thought, what am I meant to do? Go on and shout: 'Hi, is there anybody from Auschwitz in the place tonight?'
"A lot of Jewish comedians found themselves exploring this area, just because it's so central to their identity."
The documentary also shares previously unseen archive footage of Lewis being interviewed on the set.
"Comedy is our safety valve, without it I think we would disappear, evaporate," he says.
"My philosophy of comedy is a man in trouble. There for the grace of God go I."
The Story of the Day the Clown Cried can be seen here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03dj9kr
It will also be available on the BBC's YouTube page and is due to be broadcast on BBC TV at a future date. | In the early 1970s Hollywood actor Jerry Lewis started working on a Holocaust film so bizarre he ended up hiding all the footage and to this day it has never been seen. | 35220719 |
The suspect, Dylann Roof, 21, was detained during a traffic stop in Shelby, North Carolina.
After a court appearance on Thursday, Mr Roof waived his right to extradition and was flown back to South Carolina.
Six women and three men, including the pastor, died in the attack. A hate crimes investigation has been launched.
Several churches in Charleston were full to overflowing on Thursday evening as prayer services were held. Some services were held outdoors.
Outside the Emanuel AME Church, where the attack took place, hundreds gathered in soaring heat to pay tribute.
"We really have to fight together to go on and to live a civilised life where race doesn't matter," said one woman, Martha Watson.
At a vigil for victim Sharonda Singleton, her teenage children told the BBC they had forgiven the killer and wanted to focus on moving on in a positive way.
Services were held in several other cities, including Miami, Detroit and Philadelphia.
In New York, services and protests took place, with placards including such messages as "Black Lives Matter" and "Stop killing black people".
Richard Price, executive assistant at the Harlem Church of Christ, said: "That someone would come and infiltrate that sacred space, one of the only spaces we ever really have, and to violate that space, and then to shoot the place up...
"This is a deep, deep-seated hurt that may never ever heal."
A prayer vigil was also held outside the US Capitol. Senate chaplain Barry Black said: "Our hearts ache because, in the future, people will feel fear in the house of God when they should feel peace and serenity."
US President Barack Obama said he and his wife had known several members of the Emanuel AME Church, including pastor, Clementa Pinckney.
Mr Obama called the church a "sacred place" in the history of Charleston and spoke of his confidence that the congregation and the community would "rise again".
He also raised the issue of gun ownership, saying: "At some point, we as a country have to reckon with the fact that this type of massacre does not happen in other advanced countries".
Presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said the US had to face "hard truths" on guns.
"How many innocent people in our country, from little children to church members to movie theatre attendees, how many people do we need to see cut down before we act?"
At the scene: BBC's Rajini Vaidyanathan
People are hurting in Charleston. But for the hundreds who packed into the gymnasium at the Goose Creek High School, it was also a reminder of the importance of love.
Sharonda Singleton coached the girls athletics team here. As her photo rested on an easel on the polished floors in the vast sports hall, her friends and family paid tribute.
Speaking for the first time since the deadly attack on the AME church where she worshipped, Sharonda's two children, Chris and Camryn, told me they forgive the man who killed her.
"We already forgive him and there's nothing but love from our side of the family," Chris told me.
Many will find this incomprehensible. Charleston is often called the Holy City for the number of churches it is home to, and the role religion plays here. For some, like Chris and Camryn, unwavering faith is the only way to turn such a devastating loss into something positive.
The police chief in Shelby said Dylann Roof was arrested after a tip-off from a local florist, Debbie Dills.
"At first I thought, nah, it couldn't be," Mrs Dills said. "I didn't want to overreact."
Mrs Dills trailed the suspect's Hyundai car while talking on the phone to police, who then pulled the car over near a supermarket.
Dalton Tyler, who said he was a friend of Mr Roof, told ABC News the suspect had spoken in support of racial segregation and had "said he wanted to start a civil war".
Mr Roof had attended a Bible study group for nearly an hour at the church before becoming aggressive and violent, Charleston's county coroner said.
Eight people died at the scene and one person died later in hospital. There were three survivors.
Along with Rev Pinckney, a 41-year-old father of two, the other victims have been named as Cynthia Hurd, 54; Tywanza Sanders, 26; Ms Singleton, 45; Myra Thompson, 59; Ethel Lance, 70; Susie Jackson, 87; the Rev Daniel Simmons Sr, 74; and DePayne Doctor.
Cynthia Taylor, a niece of Ms Jackson, said she had spoken to a survivor, Felecia Sanders, who said she had played dead as she lay on top of her granddaughter to protect her.
Police and officials were quick to call the attack a hate crime.
The Emanuel church is the oldest African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church in the US south. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King gave a speech there in April 1962.
Tensions have been heightened since the shooting two months ago of Walter Scott, an unarmed black man by a white police officer in North Charleston, which prompted angry protests.
The officer has since been charged with murder.
Rev Pinckney - who was also a Democratic state senator in South Carolina - had recently sponsored a bill to make body cameras mandatory for all the state's police officers. | Prayers have been held across the United States after the killing of nine people at a historic African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina. | 33195111 |
The 60-year-old woman picked up a first man in Lanark at about 22:00 on Saturday then collected his friend.
As they drove towards West Calder, she was threatened with a knife, told to pull over and assaulted.
When she awoke the men had gone and her jewellery was missing. Police are treating it as attempted murder.
The first man was picked up by the blue Peugeot Horizon private hire car on Hyndford Road in Lanark and the second was in Hope Street, opposite Lanark Fire Station.
The woman was forced stopped the taxi on the A704 at the junction for Pateshill Water Treatment.
Both men were described as having Eastern European accents, being of slim build and about 6ft tall.
The first man was wearing a black hooded top, dark trousers and dark gloves. The second wore an army-style khaki hoodie with the hood up.
Det Insp Stevie Bertram, of Livingston CID, said: "This has been an extremely traumatic ordeal for the victim and we're currently treating the attack on her as an attempted murder.
"As part of our investigation, we're urging anyone with information about this incident or the identities of the men to get in touch.
"Likewise, if you may have seen the men in the Lanark or West Calder areas please call us as soon as possible." | A female taxi driver was dragged from her car and fell unconscious in an attack and robbery by two passengers in West Lothian. | 38949187 |
NMW has started individual discussions with staff affected by proposals to scrap "premium payments".
It follows a breakdown in negotiations with the PCS union.
Staff who do not sign up to the new conditions could face being dismissed and offered their jobs on new terms.
NMW director general David Anderson said a failure to resolve the dispute meant the museum was using its reserves to cover costs.
He said: "I think we have to bring this to a conclusion.
"We have got staff coming to us asking if they can sign up to the offer that we are making. And in the broader context of the museum's finances, every month that goes by without resolution costs us a further £70,000 from our reserves.
"We simply cannot afford to continue to have the dispute running and we now need to bring it to a conclusion. If we don't do this, this puts the museum's finances at strategic risk."
As part of the deal to end extra payments for working weekends and bank holidays, NMW is offering staff a lump sum equivalent to two years' worth of premium payments.
600 staff
300 receive weekend premium payments
£4,000 lump sum offer equivalent to two years of weekend payments
-4.7% grant funding cut from Welsh Government, 2016/17
About 300 of the museum's staff receive the payments and 220 are PCS members.
The union is currently holding strikes at NMW sites every weekend and has been staging industrial action for more than two years.
PCS Wales said none of its members had so far agreed to the museum's offer and it was prepared to re-enter negotiations in order to settle the dispute.
"What we'd like is for the museum to enter back into discussions with us, be more open and transparent, give us more information and to settle this dispute, we need to see an improvement in the offer," said Shavanah Taj, PCS Wales secretary. | A long-running dispute over weekend payments to staff is putting the finances of National Museum Wales at risk, its boss has warned. | 36036975 |
Maalik, which had already been playing in cinemas, was declared "uncertified for the whole of Pakistan" by the ministry of information this week.
Previous bans on films have come from provincial censorship boards. In this case the creators say they don't know why the government itself intervened.
But the authorities' move reveals something about the current environment in Pakistan.
Maalik tells the story of a former special services commando hired to protect a corrupt feudal lord who has risen to become chief minister.
Everyone for different reasons.
The chief minister character (called saaeen - the Sindhi word to indicate a person of influence) is very similar, some say, to the present chief minister of Sindh province, including being of the same ethnicity. An unnamed ministry official told The Express Tribune the film had been banned because it shows a former chief minister as a man of corruption and opulence.
The current chief minister's daughter and parliamentarian Nafisa Shah said on Twitter: "Maalik' is an ill conceived film will only divide Pakistan&harm national unity. The filmmakers, financiers &even censors cannot be patriots."
The parts of the movie that show government officials are deeply divisive, with some saying it amounts to military propaganda - while others think it makes the civil government look like it's not serious about tackling terrorism.
Other complaints stem from a scene where the chief minister is shot by his guard, which has parallels to the real-life killing of Punjab governor Salman Taseer - which deeply divided the nation. Some think the film is promoting vigilantism.
It tells us that this film has touched a nerve with authorities with its depiction of politicians and ethnic stereotyping.
The strong reaction to this film on social media suggests that the film plays to the already divisive view of the civil-military dynamic in the country and is perceived to be deepening the divide.
Authorities in Pakistan are very concerned with how they are perceived, especially abroad. Whereas this might be considered an overreaction in some countries, it has become the go-to method for the authorities to ban content they deem offensive or controversial.
But others still feel no matter what the film depicts, banning it amounts to censorship.
Freedom of speech is already under pressure in Pakistan, with many journalists, analysts and commentators feeling that there are some topics, including religion and the military, that you just can't touch- and that leads to what some call a culture of self-censorship. | The Pakistani government has taken the rare step of directly banning a film, dividing public debate and sparking cries of censorship, reports BBC Urdu's Nosheen Abbas. | 36157115 |
Family members confirmed to local media that Obdulia Sanchez, 18, is the driver seen in the social media video.
The woman identified as Ms Sanchez is seen singing before the crash and then turns the camera on her sister to record her severe injuries.
She is suspected of driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
"Jacqueline, please wake up," the woman can be heard saying in the video as she films the victim's bloodied face.
"I f****** killed my sister, OK? I know I'm going to jail for life," she says after positioning the camera to film both herself and her sister.
Officials say Jacqueline Sanchez, 14, was thrown through the back windscreen of the 2003 Buick when Ms Sanchez over corrected after swerving nearly off the edge of the road.
The car then swerved to the opposite site of the road, crashed through a barbed wire fence and overturned in a field.
An unidentified teenage passenger was also ejected from the back seat, suffering a serious injury to her right leg.
Neither passenger was wearing a seatbelt, officials say.
"I killed my sister, but I don't care," the woman says in the video as the other passenger is seen trying to wave down cars along the rural road.
"This is the last thing I wanted to happen to us, but it just did."
The footage was originally posted on Instagram but a copy was recorded by a friend of a friend of Obdulia Sanchez and shared on a Facebook account.
Relatives told local media that Jacqueline was about to celebrate her Quinceanera, a Hispanic coming-of-age tradition celebrated on a girl's 15th birthday. | Police have arrested a woman who appears to have recorded an Instagram live video both during and after a car accident which killed her sister. | 40707764 |
The pair, both 24, have been given three-month contracts with the County Championship Division One side.
Thornton made his first-team debut in their One-Day Cup win over Northamptonshire on 27 April, while Spencer is yet to play for the county.
"They are two very different bowlers and good options for Ian Bell to have as captain." said coach Jim Troughton.
Warwickshire's sport director, Ashley Giles, had talked about bringing in "new blood" after they made an difficult start to the season.
Under first-team coach Troughton and skipper Bell, the Bears began the new Championship season with successive innings defeats, before a draw against Surrey halted their poor form.
The One-Day Cup victory against Northamptonshire was followed up by 50-over defeats by Durham and Leicestershire.
"Both these guys played a fair bit of second-team cricket for us last year," Troughton added.
"It's good to have them on board, especially with us having a couple of other guys coming back from long-term injuries." | Warwickshire have awarded professional contracts to seam bowlers Grant Thornton and Mitchell Spencer. | 39793397 |
Mullah Mohammad Rasool was chosen to lead the splinter group at a meeting of fighters in western Farah province.
The dissidents say new Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour hijacked the movement because of personal greed.
He was appointed in late July after the Taliban admitted that Mullah Omar had been dead for two years.
In recent months divisions in the Taliban have burst into the open - and correspondents say the split now appears entrenched.
This is believed to be the first formal split in the Afghan Taliban since their emergence in the mid-1990s. The divisions emerged after the death of Mullah Omar was confirmed in late July - many Taliban accused his successor, Mullah Mansour, of hiding the news.
Mullah Rasool says he and his supporters tried hard to convince Mullah Mansour to step down and let the new leader be appointed by consensus - but they say he refused.
At this stage it is not clear if the dissidents can rally mass support among Taliban fighters to be a real challenge to the leadership.
Mullah Mansour claims he has significant support from members of the Taliban leadership council. He has also bolstered his position with recent military victories - in particular in Kunduz, which briefly fell to the Taliban in September, the first provincial capital to do so since they were ousted in late 2001.
Read more
The BBC obtained video of the Farah meeting, at which Mullah Rasool, wearing glasses and a black turban, made a 13-minute speech to dozens of his heavily-armed followers.
He will have four deputies - Abdul Manan Niazi, Mansoor Dadullah and Shir Mohammad Akhundzada were appointed to deputise on military affairs and Mullah Baz Mohammad Haris was appointed his deputy for political affairs.
Under Taliban rule, Mullah Rasool was governor of Nimroz province. Reuters reports that he is not a religious scholar. | A breakaway Afghan Taliban faction has appointed its own leader, underlining deep divisions in the group following the death of founder Mullah Omar. | 34719314 |
Much of this work sits in storage in the Tate, in legal limbo, owing to one simple omission.
William's son, John, was found dead at his home in 1995. In the house was a letter from his lawyer encouraging him to make a will. He never did.
With no known blood relatives, John's estate - including hundreds of works by his father - is one of thousands which have landed on the desks of the Bona Vacantia division, part of the Government Legal Department.
It seems likely that no heirs will be found. Under the rules, the art should eventually be sold for the best price and the proceeds handed to the Treasury. The chancellor, George Osborne, might recognise the work - his parents once had a Roberts painting hanging over their fireplace.
Yet, the benefit for taxpayers is likely to be cultural, rather than financial, as the art is on loan to the Tate.
As for more than 15,000 other estates on the Bona Vacantia division's unclaimed estate list, their fate depends on whether anyone can prove they have a genuine inheritance claim.
Step into the 1910 room at Tate Britain in London, and the eighth work of art on the right is The Cinema by William Roberts.
It is the only work by Roberts that is on display in the free galleries of the Tate, but others are on show in galleries around the UK.
The story of his life's work is more accurately told in the unseen Tate collection.
A founder of the Vorticist art movement, he died in 1980 and his wife Sarah died in 1992. Her death led to an inheritance tax bill which was settled when 117 works were eventually allocated to the Tate collection in lieu of the tax.
When their only child John died, friends organised for about 550 of William's works, which had been in John's possession, to be stored at the Tate.
"John and his mother had hoped to set up a house museum [including these works], but they never managed to get the funding," said Michael Mitzman, a consultant at legal firm Mishcon de Reya.
"I nagged him [John] to write a will."
But he did not and 430 of these works form part of the estate which is being overseen by Bona Vacantia.
It will be held for another 10 years - some 30 years after John's death - to give any surviving members of the family the chance to make an inheritance claim.
In this case it is highly unlikely. Mr Mitzman could find no eligible relatives. The BBC's Heir Hunters programme drew a blank when searching for direct descendants.
Enter the William Roberts Society which foresaw the threat of these works being sold and the money ending up in the Treasury coffers.
It argued that the artwork that the Roberts family owned should be kept together for the benefit of the public and students. The government eventually agreed. One minister said the intention was to give this work to the Tate should no relatives come forward.
The risks of failing to write a will
Why do people disinherit their children?
The who's who of battles for wills, bodies and legacies
Artwork by an English cubist is not the only unusual asset on the books of estates being dealt with by the Bona Vacantia division.
One actor's estate includes royalties still being paid for re-runs of The Benny Hill Show and Hancock's Half Hour. The office was also asked, but declined, to get involved in one case from 1896, with an estate including shillings and a horse.
About 2,000 new unclaimed estates are referred to the division each year.
"The average estate is worth less than £4,000. These are not life-changing sums of money. But they are almost like a little lottery win [for eligible relatives]," says Melanie Hooper, head of the estates group in the Bona Vacantia division.
"Whether the size of the estate is £500 or £500,000 does not matter to us. It is the entitlement, not the amount, that matters."
The little-known Bona Vacantia division has a staff of 50, of whom 18 deal with estates.
Bona Vacantia means vacant goods and is the name given to ownerless property, which by law passes to the Crown.
The Treasury Solicitor acts for the Crown to administer the estates of people who die intestate (without a will) and without known kin (entitled blood relatives) and collect the assets of dissolved companies and other various ownerless goods in England and Wales.
Unclaimed estates are dealt with separately in two areas of England - the Duchy of Cornwall and the Duchy of Lancaster - by lawyers for Prince Charles and the Queen respectively.
In Scotland, unclaimed estates are dealt with by the Office of Queen's and Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer.
In Northern Ireland, the responsibility for dealing with them is that of the Crown Solicitor for Northern Ireland.
The division handled 4,332 estates in England and Wales in the year to the end of March 2015, accounts show. It collected income of £18.4m, and paid out £6.1m - most of which would have gone to relatives with claims on estates.
In an intriguing twist of law in England, cases in Cornwall and around the North West of England are administered by solicitors for Prince Charles and the Queen. Any funds that remain after an allowance for future claims and costs go to charity.
In the Duchy of Cornwall in 2014-15, some £215,000 was given to the Duke of Cornwall's Benevolent Fund which primarily supports environmental, conservation, wildlife and community projects.
Some £2.47m was given to the Duchy of Lancaster Jubilee Trust to fund charitable causes, particularly the maintenance of historic buildings on Duchy estates. This covers Lancashire, Merseyside, parts of Greater Manchester, parts of Cheshire and parts of Cumbria.
In the vast majority of cases, eligible descendants come forward to claim an estate, so how do they know they have an entitlement?
It used to be the case that estates were advertised in The Times and the local newspaper where the individual was born.
Now unclaimed estates in England and Wales are being added to an online list. This process is expected to be completed in September when it will include all unclaimed estates which have been recently referred, but not yet administered, and historic cases which have not yet been claimed by entitled relatives.
The list in Scotland includes the value of the unclaimed estates.
Relatives ranging from a husband, wife and civil partner to half uncles, aunts and cousins may have an entitlement claim when somebody dies without having made a will.
A touch of detective work by these individuals or solicitors can unearth their eligibility.
Others may receive a call out of the blue from a private genealogist, or heir hunter. This industry has grown from a dozen or so private firms to more than 100 now.
They tend to alert people that they might have a claim, and organise the paperwork involved before taking a cut of any successful payout.
The advantage for customers is that genealogists might have found a link to an estate of somebody whose name they do not recognise. It is their choice whether or not they want to use the private firm's services. They can look at the Bona Vacantia website for information before making a decision.
Various rules are involved in making a claim including:
In England and Wales, the value of an estate is only revealed to a successful claimant. It might only be £500. It might be much more.
Very occasionally, it might it include art worthy of hanging on the walls of the Tate. | The late William Roberts was described as a man of sturdy independence, a prolific artist who interpreted British families' working lives and leisure pursuits in paint and on paper. | 33705441 |
Volleyball will miss out on 2021 if Guernsey's bid to host is successful, as well as the 2019 Games in Gibraltar.
"We've got quite a few good juniors coming through the ranks," Jennifer Lindfield from the Guernsey Volleyball Association (GVA) told BBC Sport.
"They won't be able to play Island Games for four years which will mean we might struggle to keep them engaged."
Football, golf and cycling have all been reinstated for 2021 after also missing out in 2019, but Guernsey's organising committee felt that they did not have enough space on the island to house another team sport.
"I'm quite upset that I won't be able to play my sport at a home games in front of my friends and family," added Lindfield, who plays for Guernsey as well as acting as the GVA's secretary.
"But after hearing the reasons I totally understand it was a very hard decision and that volleyball just missed out.
"It's very frustrating, we'd love to have volleyball back in at home games."
And Lindfield says she has not ruled out the possibility of several islands coming together and holding their own event to replace their Island Games experience.
She continued: "It could be possible to make up a mini tournament, but we would have to speak to the other islands and come up with a plan of where we could play it.
"Hopefully the other islands are feeling the same as us and really wanting whoever gets 2023 to be able to put on a really good volleyball tournament so that those that have missed out for four years are able to go back and experience the great tournament that the Island Games is." | Axing Volleyball from the 2021 Island Games could see a generation of young players leave the sport in Guernsey. | 35762749 |
The contents of an ATM on Main Street in Limavady were stolen at around 05:00 BST this morning, police said.
Thieves broke into a charity shop to get access to the machine.
Police are appealing for anyone with information about the incidents to contact them on the non-emergency number 101. | A substantial sum of money has been stolen from a cash machine in County Londonderry. | 32353733 |
In a goalless first half, Yeni Ngbakoto shot straight at Adam Bogdan for QPR, while Wigan had Craig Morgan's far-post header disallowed for offside.
The winning goal came just minutes into the second half, when Nedum Onuoha lashed in after Jake Bidwell's free-kick was only half cleared.
Max Power fired wide and Will Grigg headed over for Wigan as QPR held on.
The first five minutes saw Ngbakoto almost put the visitors ahead, but his shot failed to trouble Bogdan in the Wigan goal, while Morgan's header was the best chance for the hosts in the opening period.
QPR went into the game on the back of defeats by Barnsley and Preston, but showed great resilience once they had taken the lead, epitomised by Alex Smithies' save at full stretch to deny Luke Garbutt.
Wigan had found the net at least once in their past 16 league outings, but despite those late efforts by Power and Grigg, it was QPR who took all three points.
QPR manager Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink:
"For us it was important we came here and made sure our platform and organisation was right.
"We also had to make sure we didn't give a lot away, and made it difficult for them. We knew how they wanted to play, and how dominant they can be.
"I think we pushed them all over the pitch, and at times we could have been better with the ball and calmer with the ball.
"Overall it was a very solid performance, it was a grinder, and at times a little bit nervous. That is normal away from home. We stayed together as a team and we ground out a good win."
Wigan manager Gary Caldwell:
"It's frustrating again. I thought we created opportunities, even more so towards the end of the game.
"We could have switched play better, we could have played in wide areas better, we know they're a team that plays narrow.
"Again we conceded a poor goal, and we have to learn that clean sheets are going to be the bedrock of our success this season. We have to stop conceding poor goals.
"There were a few positives, we created opportunities, the players gave me everything, they kept going. We just have to work hard and make sure we get the little things right that become big things in the game."
Match ends, Wigan Athletic 0, Queens Park Rangers 1.
Second Half ends, Wigan Athletic 0, Queens Park Rangers 1.
Corner, Wigan Athletic. Conceded by James Perch.
Attempt missed. Massimo Luongo (Queens Park Rangers) left footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses to the left. Assisted by Ariel Borysiuk.
Attempt missed. William Grigg (Wigan Athletic) header from the centre of the box is too high. Assisted by Michael Jacobs with a cross.
Foul by William Grigg (Wigan Athletic).
Grant Hall (Queens Park Rangers) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Offside, Wigan Athletic. Adam Bogdan tries a through ball, but Craig Davies is caught offside.
Attempt missed. Ariel Borysiuk (Queens Park Rangers) left footed shot from outside the box misses to the left. Assisted by Massimo Luongo.
Attempt missed. Max Power (Wigan Athletic) right footed shot from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the left. Assisted by Craig Morgan.
Attempt missed. Jordi Gómez (Wigan Athletic) left footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses to the left. Assisted by Max Power.
Attempt saved. Sebastian Polter (Queens Park Rangers) left footed shot from the left side of the box is saved in the top centre of the goal.
Substitution, Queens Park Rangers. Ariel Borysiuk replaces Tjaronn Chery.
Attempt missed. Tjaronn Chery (Queens Park Rangers) left footed shot from outside the box misses to the left following a set piece situation.
Craig Morgan (Wigan Athletic) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Foul by Craig Morgan (Wigan Athletic).
Tjaronn Chery (Queens Park Rangers) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Substitution, Wigan Athletic. Craig Davies replaces Luke Garbutt.
Foul by Yanic Wildschut (Wigan Athletic).
Karl Henry (Queens Park Rangers) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Yanic Wildschut (Wigan Athletic).
Nedum Onuoha (Queens Park Rangers) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Offside, Wigan Athletic. Jake Buxton tries a through ball, but William Grigg is caught offside.
Attempt missed. Luke Garbutt (Wigan Athletic) left footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses to the left from a direct free kick.
Yanic Wildschut (Wigan Athletic) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Karl Henry (Queens Park Rangers).
Substitution, Wigan Athletic. Jordi Gómez replaces Alex Gilbey.
Attempt missed. Yeni N'Gbakoto (Queens Park Rangers) right footed shot from outside the box is just a bit too high from a direct free kick.
Michael Jacobs (Wigan Athletic) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Foul by Michael Jacobs (Wigan Athletic).
Sebastian Polter (Queens Park Rangers) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Attempt blocked. Jordan Cousins (Queens Park Rangers) right footed shot from the left side of the box is blocked. Assisted by Tjaronn Chery.
Corner, Wigan Athletic. Conceded by Jordan Cousins.
Foul by Craig Morgan (Wigan Athletic).
Yeni N'Gbakoto (Queens Park Rangers) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Attempt missed. Max Power (Wigan Athletic) right footed shot from outside the box is high and wide to the right. Assisted by William Grigg.
Stephen Warnock (Wigan Athletic) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Sebastian Polter (Queens Park Rangers).
Attempt saved. Luke Garbutt (Wigan Athletic) left footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the bottom left corner. Assisted by Michael Jacobs with a cross.
Nick Powell (Wigan Athletic) wins a free kick in the defensive half. | Queens Park Rangers edged a tight match at Wigan to avoid a third straight Championship defeat. | 37138608 |
Myrtle Simpson, who is originally from Aldershot and now lives in the Cairngorms, has been recognised for achievements in the Arctic.
In the 1960s she became the first woman to ski across Greenland with four others on an unsupported expedition.
Her husband, Hugh, was awarded a Polar Medal more than 50 years ago.
The Simpsons are the only the second husband and wife to both be awarded the medal. Sir Ranulph Fiennes and his late wife Virginia were the first.
The medal is approved by The Queen and is given to those who have undertaken expeditions in extreme hardship.
Mrs Simpson has still to hear the date when she will receive the medal. She told BBC Radio Scotland she hoped it would not clash with her competing in a ski race against a 97-year-old fellow skier George Stewart.
The forthcoming Masters category race sees Mrs Simpson defending the title.
She said: "If I don't take part I'm never going to have the chance to win the trophy again."
The Polar Medal was first awarded in 1904 as a reward to those who took part in Captain Scott's first expedition to Antarctica.
Mrs Simpson, who is in her 80s and worked at Belford Hospital in Fort William after qualifying as a radiographer, went on her first expedition to the Arctic in the 1960s.
After becoming the first woman to ski across Greenland, she attempted to ski to the North Pole in 1969, getting further than any other woman had previously.
Her husband, her companion on all her Arctic expeditions, was awarded his own Polar Medal for his work in the Antarctic.
Mrs Simpson is an experienced climber and has completed routes in Scotland as well New Zealand, Peru and China.
She is also known as the "Mother of Scottish skiing" by playing a part in establishing Scotland's first ski centres, including CairnGorm near Aviemore.
In 2013, she became the sixth recipient of The Scottish Award for Excellence in Mountain Culture. The accolade was presented at the Fort William Mountain Festival. | A woman described as a legend of Scotland's climbing and skiing communities has been awarded the Polar Medal. | 38730043 |
17 January 2017 Last updated at 06:54 GMT
The RSPB are encouraging thousands of kids in the UK to spend an hour a day birdwatching.
They want kids to take note of what birds they see, and how many of them there are.
But what is so interesting about birdwatching? Jenny's been to meet some kids who took her under their wing... | A bird protection charity is calling for kids to help keep an eye out for our feathery friends. | 38640327 |
3 August 2017 Last updated at 16:06 BST
They want someone who can protect the Earth from pollution, and maybe even aliens!
It's a big responsibility and pays a lot of money.
Find out if you could be the next planet protector... | US space agency Nasa are looking for someone to be a planetary protection officer. | 40815487 |
Erickson Jacob, 44, of Henley-on-Thames was sentenced on Tuesday after being found guilty of three counts of sexual assault and one of causing a child to engage in sexual activity.
Jacob was acquitted of one count of sexually assaulting a child under 13 by the jury at Oxford Crown Court.
Det Con Sophie Holliss said the victims showed "bravery" in the case.
The 44-year-old was also issued with a sexual harm prevention order and placed on the sex offenders register. | A man who sexually assaulted three girls under age 13 between 2011 and 2012 has been jailed for eight years. | 40593456 |
Media playback is unsupported on your device
21 October 2014 Last updated at 13:35 BST
His comments came during questions to UK Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt in the House of Commons on Tuesday.
The Conservatives have joined the Daily Mail in criticising Labour's record on health in Wales.
The Welsh government has denied claims that thousands of patients in Wales were "desperately" seeking treatment in England.
Mr Davies asked Mr Hunt if any English patients had asked him for treatment in Wales. | Monmouth MP David Davies has attacked the Labour Welsh government's running of the NHS in Wales. | 29708977 |
The Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) said it received a referral on Thursday night after the death of a person in custody in Dundalk.
It said a GSOC team had been deployed and "inquiries are ongoing".
No further details were immediately available. | The death of a man at a police station in Dundalk, County Louth, is being investigated. | 40529122 |
Congress party spokesman Janardhan Dwivedi said Mrs Gandhi was "likely to be away for two to three weeks".
Earlier he said the surgery had already taken place and been successful, but he later corrected his statement.
Mrs Gandhi, 64, is seen as India's most powerful politician. She holds no official post, but many consider her the de facto head of the government.
The announcement has taken India by surprise. It is not clear where Mrs Gandhi has gone - the Press Trust of India, quoting Congress party sources, reports that she left for the US on Wednesday.
The BBC's Mark Dummett in Delhi says her absence comes at a critical time for the government as it deals with corruption scandals and high price rises.
India has some of the best medical facilities and doctors in the world and speculation is rife as to why Mrs Gandhi chose to go elsewhere for surgery.
Some reports suggest she may need specialist treatment not yet available in India, but these are unconfirmed.
Other people wonder whether Mrs Gandhi wants to avoid the inevitable media circus there would be, were she to attend a hospital in India.
Mr Dwivedi did not say what the operation was for, nor where it would take place.
"Sonia Gandhi has been recently diagnosed with a medical condition that requires surgery... She has travelled abroad and is likely to be away for two to three weeks," he told reporters.
Earlier the spokesman said that she had already had a successful operation in the US, but later corrected his mistake, saying it would take place in the next two to three days.
Mrs Gandhi has named a four-member team to run party affairs during her absence, he said. The team includes her son and MP Rahul Gandhi, who is tipped as a future prime minister.
Mrs Gandhi's absence from the opening session on Monday was remarked upon in the Indian media, but explained by a "viral infection" from which she was said to be suffering.
Italian-born Mrs Gandhi is the widow of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. She nominated Manmohan Singh to the prime minister's post in 2004 and is widely believed to be more powerful than him.
The powerful Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has ruled India for most of the time since the country gained independence from British colonial rule in 1947. | India's governing Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi is to have surgery abroad for an undisclosed medical condition. | 14398994 |
Dibble worked with Bluebirds boss Neil Warnock at Rotherham in 2015-16 and he is leaving the Millers to join Cardiff.
BBC Wales Sport has learned Margetson had been told by Cardiff his contract would not be renewed.
Margetson, 44, is joining Sam Allardyce, for whom he worked at West Ham United.
Allardyce also had Margetson on his England staff during his brief reign.
Having been appointed by the late Gary Speed in 2011, he helped Chris Coleman's backroom staff guide Wales into the 2016 European Championships where they reached the last four.
Palace say he will continue in his England capacity.
Cwmbran-born Dibble's career began at Cardiff in 1982
In a statement the Bluebirds said: "We'd like to welcome back Andy to the Bluebirds and thank Martyn for his contribution." | Cardiff City have brought in former goalkeeper Andy Dibble as goalkeeping coach after Martyn Margetson joined Crystal Palace. | 38594487 |
The data-sharing agreement, revealed by New Scientist, includes full names as well as patient histories.
Google says it will use the data to develop an early warning system for patients at risk of developing acute kidney injuries.
But critics have questioned why it needs the data of all patients to create such a specific app.
Under the data-sharing agreement, Google's artificial intelligence division DeepMind will have access to all of the data of patients from the Royal Free, Barnet and Chase Farm hospitals in London going back over the past five years and continuing until 2017.
It plans to use the data to develop an app known as Streams that will alert doctors when someone is at risk of developing acute kidney injury (AKI).
The data remains encrypted, meaning that Google employees should not be able to identify anyone, according to the Royal Free Trust.
It said that doctors from the Trust approached DeepMind about the development of the app.
In a statement, it said: "Our arrangement with DeepMind is the standard NHS information-sharing agreement set out by NHS England's corporate information governance department, and is the same as the other 1,500 agreements with third-party organisations that process NHS patient data.
"As with all information sharing agreements with non-NHS organisations, patients can opt out of any data-sharing system by contacting the trust's data protection officer."
Sam Smith, a co-ordinator of patient data campaign group MedConfidential, said: "The big question is why they want it. This a very rich data set. If you are someone who went to the A&E department, why is your data in this?"
Google said that it needed general data in order to identify patients who might be at risk of developing AKI.
AKI is a contributing factor in up to 20% of emergency hospital admissions, according to the NHS. It estimates that around a quarter of cases are preventable.
It is not clear how exactly Google will use the data to provide this early warning system but the BBC understands that no artificial intelligence will be used.
Dominic King, a senior scientist at Google DeepMind, said: "Access to timely and relevant clinical data is essential for doctors and nurses looking for signs of patient deterioration. This work focuses on acute kidney injuries that contribute to 40,000 deaths a year in the UK, many of which are preventable.
"The kidney specialists who have led this work are confident that the alerts our system generates will transform outcomes for their patients. For us to generate these alerts it is necessary for us to look at a range of tests taken at different time intervals."
Google has not ruled out the use of the data for other purposes but said it will only ever be used for improving healthcare and will never be linked to other Google accounts or products.
Google does have big ambitions in healthcare.
In 2013 it launched Calico, a firm set up to look at ways to tackle ageing while X, Google's research arm, launched Baseline in 2014 - an ambitious plan to map genetic information to gain a picture of what makes humans healthy. | Google has been given access to an estimated 1.6 million NHS patient records, it has been revealed. | 36191546 |
Some 23,000 people have been detained or arrested since the July coup, although the government has not said its move is to free up space for them.
The justice minister said those who had served half their sentence, rather than two-thirds, would be eligible.
Crimes such as murder and sex abuse would be excluded, he said.
It is clear that the post-coup clampdown has stretched the prison service to breaking point and extra capacity is urgently needed, the BBC's Mark Lowen reports from Istanbul.
Some 187,000 people were being held in Turkey's 364 prisons this year, according to figures published in March by Turkey's justice ministry (in Turkish). That figure was already 4,000 higher than the capacity and the recent detentions have placed the system under extra strain.
The government is not directly linking the decision on prison release to the post-coup clampdown - it would not accept there is a problem with prison overcrowding,
But when more than 23,000 people are under arrest or detention within a month, any country would struggle to cope. Turkey's prison population has more than trebled since the governing AK Party came to power in 2002, with reports of prisoners sleeping in shifts.
Capacity will be stretched even further with the new arrests.
Rights groups here believe political opponents are being rounded up under the pretext of backing the coup-plotters or the alleged mastermind, US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen. But the government insists that all those detained or investigated have proven links to the Gulen network.
The biggest purge in Turkey's modern history is straining the country. Judges and police are among those fired, so processing cases will be even harder. But the government says that the gravest attack the Turkish state has ever faced requires the sternest of responses.
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag emphasised the conditional release did not apply to anyone convicted of crimes committed since 1 July, which automatically disqualifies anyone arrested in the aftermath of the failed coup a fortnight later.
It was not an amnesty, he added.
Since the coup was put down, Turks have witnessed a purge of people in the military and public services suspected of supporting US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is accused of orchestrating the plot.
As well as thousands of detentions, 82,000 people have been dismissed or suspended from their jobs. Further dismissals were reported on Wednesday, affecting 2,360 police and dozens of civil servants and staff from the military and coast guard.
Some 240 people died resisting the coup on 15 and 16 July, as rebel parts of the military tried to seize control of Turkey, sending tanks into Ankara and Istanbul. | Turkey is to release conditionally 38,000 prisoners jailed before last month's failed coup, while its jails are crowded with new detainees. | 37103965 |
The project has seen the capacity of Allonby's wastewater treatment works doubled, United Utilities said.
A new underground storage tank has been created to capture more storm water and reduce sewer spills.
Ultraviolet equipment that kills bugs has raised the quality of the treated wastewater which is returned to the sea, the firm added.
Allonby, on the Solway coast, was rated "poor" in 2015 under European standards known as the revised Bathing Water Directive. | A £4.5m scheme to improve the quality of bathing water on the Cumbrian coast is up and running. | 36038257 |
A Facebook post describing attacks on Christopher Cooper's son and daughter drew worldwide attention earlier this year when it was shared 200,000 times.
Furness Magistrates' Court heard in the following weeks he then jabbed his finger towards the alleged bully's face outside North Walney Primary School.
Mr Cooper, of Walney, Cumbria, admitted a Section 5 public order offence.
District Judge Gerald Chalk said it was ironic that in complaining about bullying, Mr Cooper had used bullying behaviour himself.
Speaking outside court after the sentencing, Mr Cooper, 37, said the school and Cumbria Police had failed to act when he repeatedly raised concerns his children were being targeted.
"When you're let down by two institutions that are there to protect your children, then you're left with no option," he said.
In addition to the two-year restraining order, he was ordered to pay a £120 fine, £85 court costs and a £20 victim surcharge.
Supt Rob O'Connor said: "We understand Mr Cooper had his children's welfare as priority and that parents will sympathise with his desire to protect them.
"However, this case has shown that there is no excuse to take the law into your own hands."
In a statement in March, the school said it did not accept Mr Cooper's description of its actions.
It said: "Our understanding to date was that while he was understandably angry that incidents had occurred, he was satisfied with the actions of the school and the plans put in place." | A dad who confronted a 10-year-old boy he accused of bullying his children has been issued with a restraining order. | 36796875 |
Profits at Google parent Alphabet increased 28% year-on-year to to $5.4bn (£4.2bn), boosted by advertising on mobile phones and the popular YouTube video service.
Amazon profits climbed more than 40%, to $724m (£560.8m). It was its eighth quarter in a row of profit.
Microsoft also had a strong quarter, with profits up nearly 28%, while chipmaker Intel's profits rose 45%.
Amazon said its growth was propelled by sales for web services and retail subscriptions, such as Amazon Prime.
The firm highlighted its international activity, noting expansion in India, Mexico and the UK. But executives told investors that more spending on content, products and warehouses for distribution lies ahead.
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"Although Amazon's sales advanced by a respectable 23% over the quarter, the pace of growth at the online behemoth remains much slower than it was over most of the prior fiscal year," said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail.
"Some of this is the result of a less favourable exchange rate diluting contributions from the international business. However, some is also down to a more challenging demand environment in North America, which has limited spending uplifts on products within Amazon's core territory."
Microsoft was lifted by its cloud computing products, such as Azure, which were $4.8bn, up 28% compared with the previous year.
"Our results this quarter reflect the trust customers are placing in the Microsoft Cloud," said Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella.
"From large multinationals to small and medium businesses to non-profits all over the world, organisations are using Microsoft's cloud platforms to power their digital transformation."
Microsoft also received a boost from social network LinkedIn, which it bought for $26bn in June last year.
It contributed $975m in revenue in the quarter, $25m more than analysts had predicted.
Chipmaker Intel's profits rose 45% to $2.9bn, with revenue up 8%. The growth was driven by its memory division, which recently launched a new technology, with revenue up 55%. | Profits surged at four US tech giants in the first three months of the year. | 39740164 |
Anti-fracking protesters in Cheshire blocked Eddie Stobart's Orford depot's exit and walked slowly in front of lorries at Appleton Thorn.
They want to persuade the firm to stop supplying Cuadrilla's Preston New Road site at Little Plumpton, Lancashire.
An Eddie Stobart spokeswoman said one of its tankers had visited the site.
She said seven lorries had been unable to leave the depot on Hawleys Lane in Orford due to the protest, which began at about 03:00 BST.
Two protesters who chained themselves to a metal and plastic pipe and lay across the road were cut free by police.
The campaigners have not stated how long they plan to block the site but said they were taking direct action as a "last resort".
Cheshire Police said two men have been arrested on suspicion of aggravated trespass.
One protester, known only as Katrina, was "slow walking" in front of the lorries leaving Appleton Thorn.
She said: "Ultimately we would like Stobart to pull out of their contract with Cuadrilla.
"But if they don't, it would be like a warning shot to other suppliers and hopefully Stobart's will think twice about entering into a contract with fracking companies in future."
There were about 10 campaigners at each of the protest sites in Orford and Appleton Thorn.
The protests are part of a week of action targeting contractors working to supply Cuadrilla's Preston New Road site, which is being prepared for test drilling.
Protests have been held near the Little Plumpton site since Cuadrilla started work there on 5 January.
The government approved Cuadrilla's plans for horizontal hydraulic fracturing at the site in October last year.
A spokeswoman from campaign organisation Frack Free Lancashire said they felt they had been "bullied by the government".
"Lancashire County Council voted democratically to say no to fracking but then it was overturned by the government - so if that's not bullying, I don't know what is," she said.
Cuadrilla declined to comment. | Campaigners targeting companies that supply an energy firm's fracking site have stopped lorries from leaving a haulage company's depots. | 39444031 |
Islamophobia Awareness Month is run by organisation Muslim Engagement and Development (Mend).
Mend says the logo of a finger pointing upwards signifies the "oneness of God in Islamic prayer ritual".
However, in recent years it has also been used by so-called Islamic State militants in propaganda images.
Bedfordshire Police initially tweeted its support for the campaign using the logo before later removing the posts.
The force said: "It has come to our attention the pointing finger logo used to illustrate social media posts around Islamophobia Awareness Month is similar to that used by Isis.
"The logo was produced by a national charity and was used in good faith.
"As a consequence and to avoid offence, Bedfordshire Police has deleted these posts and will not tolerate Islamophobia or any other form of hatred or discrimination."
A spokesman for MEND said it was "surprised" Bedfordshire Police decided to stop using the #Iam logo for the campaign, which shows a finger on a hand pointing upwards.
He added the logo had been used since 2012 and signified the "oneness of God in Islamic prayer ritual" and the I in #Iam2016.
The organisation believes it was a "knee-jerk" reaction to some harassment and does not think anyone else has stopped using the logo.
It added it was "open to comments" and could "review" it. | Bedfordshire Police deleted social media posts about Islamophobia after it emerged a logo was similar to a hand gesture popular with Islamic militants. | 37999087 |
The match, organised by the Liverpool FC Foundation, will feature sides led by club captain Steven Gerrard and retired vice-captain Jamie Carragher.
Suarez, who left Anfield to join Barcelona for £75m last July, is among those who have agreed to play.
Fellow former Liverpool players Fernando Torres, Pepe Reina, Dirk Kuyt and Xabi Alonso will be involved too.
Chelsea captain John Terry, his team-mate Didier Drogba and former Arsenal striker Thierry Henry have also confirmed they will be involved.
The teams will be completed with Liverpool players not on international duty and academy prospects. The two managers have yet to be announced.
Suarez won all three English domestic player of the year awards last season, scoring 31 Premier League goals as Liverpool finished runners-up to Manchester City.
He left shortly after receiving a four-month suspension for biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini while playing for Uruguay in a World Cup match in Brazil in June.
Money raised will go towards a number of causes, including the club's foundation, which funds community programmes across the city.
Proceeds will also go towards Alder Hey's new children's Hospital in the Park project, the Wirral-based Claire's House children's hospice, youth charities Positive Futures and Cash for Kids, and Centre 56, which supports women and children who have suffered or are at risk of domestic abuse. | Former Liverpool striker Luis Suarez will return to Anfield to play in a charity match on 29 March. | 31754094 |
Thomas, 23, watched as his ball bounced once and flew into the hole on 13, helping him to a round of 66.
He leads on 12 under, one clear of Johnson (66) and two ahead of Rory McIlroy (70) and Phil Mickelson (68).
Jordan Spieth of the US made a bogey-free 63 to move to seven under par.
Johnson led for much of the day as overnight leader McIlroy failed to fire, but after five birdies the American slipped back with a bogey on 16, allowing Thomas to go past him.
Thomas came through the back nine in 31 shots, adding birdies at the 15th and 16th to ensure he will go out last alongside Johnson on the final day.
Mickelson finished the day on 10 under par after an extraordinary back nine, which saw him require three free drops in succession after a spectator picked up his ball on the 10th, and he then drove into the bushes on 11 and 12.
Playing partner McIlroy remained very much in contention after a back nine that produced one birdie and eight pars.
"It was hard to get any rhythm because Phil was here, there and everywhere, so I was waiting a lot," McIlroy said after his one-under-par round.
"It probably shouldn't have affected me but it did a little bit."
England's Westwood moved within a shot of the Northern Irishman thanks to a 66, while compatriots Tommy Fleetwood (66) and Tyrrell Hatton (68) are one further back on eight under.
McIlroy will return to world number one if he wins in Mexico and Johnson finishes worse than fourth on his own. | American Justin Thomas made a hole-in-one at the 13th on his way to taking the lead from world number one Dustin Johnson in round three of the World Golf Championships event in Mexico. | 39168545 |
1820 - Britain and local rulers sign a treaty to combat piracy along the Gulf coast. From this, and later agreements, the area becomes known as the Trucial Coast.
1892 - Deal between the Trucial States and Britain gives Britain control over foreign affairs and each emirate control over internal affairs.
1948 - Sheikh Saqr Bin-Muhammad al-Qasimi becomes Ruler of Ras al-Khaymah.
1950s - Oil is discovered.
1952 - The seven emirates form a Trucial Council.
1962 - Oil is exported for the first time from Abu Dhabi.
1966 August - Sheikh Zayed Bin-Sultan Al Nuhayyan takes over as Ruler of Abu Dhabi.
1968 - As independence looms, Bahrain and Qatar join the Trucial States. Differences cause the union to crumble in 1971.
1971 November - Iran occupies the islands of Greater and Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa.
1971 December - After independence from Britain, Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujayrah, Sharjah, and Umm al-Qaywayn come together as the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Sheikh Zayed Bin-Sultan Al Nuhayyan presides over the federation.
1971 - UAE joins the Arab League.
1972 - Ras al-Khaymah joins the federation.
1972 January - Sheikh Sultan Bin-Muhammad al-Qasimi becomes Ruler of Sharjah.
1972 February - Federal National Council (FNC) is created; it is a 40 member consultative body appointed by the seven rulers.
1974 September - Sheikh Hamad Bin-Muhammad Bin-Hamad al-Sharqi becomes Ruler of Fujayrah.
1981 February - Sheikh Rashid Bin-Ahmad al-Mualla becomes Ruler of Umm al-Qaywayn.
1981 May - UAE is a founding member of the Gulf Cooperation Council; its first summit is held in Abu Dhabi.
1981 September - Sheikh Humayd Bin-Rashid al-Nuaymi becomes Ruler of Ajman.
1986 October - Sheikh Zayed Bin-Sultan Al Nuhayyan is re-elected as UAE president - his fourth term.
1987 June - Attempted coup in Sharjah. Sheikh Sultan Bin-Muhammad al-Qasimi abdicates in favour of his brother after admitting financial mismanagement but is reinstated by the Supreme Council of Rulers.
1990 October - Sheikh Rashid Bin-Said Al Maktum dies and is succeeded by his son Sheikh Maktum Bin-Rashid Al Maktum as ruler of Dubai and UAE vice-president.
1991 - UAE forces join the allies against Iraq after the invasion of Kuwait.
1991 July - Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) collapses. Abu Dhabi's ruling family owns a 77.4% share.
1992 Iran angers the UAE by saying visitors to Abu Musa and Greater and Lesser Tunb must have Iranian visas.
1993 December - Abu Dhabi sues BCCI's executives for damages.
1994 June - 11 of the 12 former BCCI executives accused of fraud are given jail sentences and ordered to pay compensation.
1996 - Iran fuels the dispute over Abu Musa and Greater and Lesser Tunb by building an airport on Abu Musa and a power station on Greater Tunb.
1996 June - Two BCCI executives are cleared of fraud charges on appeal.
1998 - UAE restores diplomatic relations with Iraq; they were severed at the outbreak of the 1991 Gulf War.
1999 November - Gulf Cooperation Council backs the UAE in its dispute with Iran over Greater and Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa .
2001 June - President Sheikh Zayed pardons 6,000 prisoners.
2001 November - Government orders banks to freeze the assets of 62 organisations and individuals suspected by the US of funding terrorism.
2004 November - UAE President Sheikh Zayed Bin-Sultan Al Nahyan dies and is succeeded by his son, Sheikh Khalifa.
2005 December - Sheikh Khalifa announces plans for the UAE's first elections. Half of the members of the consultative Federal National Council will be elected by a limited number of citizens.
2006 January - Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid al-Maktoum, UAE PM and vice-president and ruler of Dubai, dies during a visit to Australia. He is succeeded by his brother, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum.
2006 March - Political storm in the US forces state-owned Dubai Ports World to relinquish control of terminals at six major American ports. Critics of the ports deal feared an increased risk of terrorist attack, saying the UAE was home to two of the 9/11 hijackers.
2006 March-June - Economic changes announced. They include bringing the days of the official weekend into line with Western nations, introducing laws to reduce the dependence on foreign workers and allowing labourers to form trade unions.
2006 16 December - First-ever national elections. A small number of hand-picked voters choose half of the members of the Federal National Council - an advisory body.
2007 April - UAE unveils a national development strategy aimed at making it a world leader.
2007 September - Dubai and Qatar become the two biggest shareholders of the London Stock Exchange, the world's third largest stock exchange.
2008 January - France and the UAE sign a deal allowing France to set up a permanent military base in the UAE's largest emirate, Abu Dhabi.
2008 July - The UAE cancels the entire debt owed to it by Iraq - a sum of almost $7bn.
2009 February - Dubai sold $10bn in bonds to the UAE in order to ease liquidity problems.
2009 March - Sulim Yamadayev, a rival of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, dies after an apparent assassination in Dubai.
2009 May - The UAE withdraws from plans for Gulf monetary union, dealing a blow to further economic integration in the region.
2009 November/December - Government-owned investment arm Dubai World requests a moratorium on debt repayments, prompting fears it might default on billions of dollars of debt held abroad. Abu Dhabi gives Dubai a $10bn handout - $4.1bn to bail out Dubai World.
2010 January - Burj Khalifa tower opens in Dubai as the world's tallest building and man-made structure.
Palestinian militant leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh is killed in a Dubai hotel, in a hit widely blamed on Israel.
2011 March - UAE joins international military operation in Libya.
2011 April - Five activists who signed an online petition calling for reforms are imprisoned. They are pardoned and released in November.
2012 April - The UAE recalls its ambassador to Iran after the Iranian president visits a Gulf island, Abu Musa, claimed by both countries.
A member of the ruling family in Ras al-Khaimah is put under house arrest after calling for political openness.
2012 July - The UAE begins operating a key overland oil pipeline which bypasses the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the strait at the mouth of the Gulf, a vital oil-trade route.
2012 November - Mindful of protests in nearby Bahrain, the UAE outlaws online mockery of its own government or attempts to organise public protests through social media. Since March it has detained more that 60 activists without charge - some of them supporters of the Islah Islamic group, which is aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood elsewhere in Arab countries.
2013 July - Sixty eight alleged members of Al-Islah are jailed on charges of planning to overthrow the government.
2013 November - Trial in UAE of Egyptians and Emiratis accused of starting a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is outlawed in the Gulf state.
2014 January - Sheikh Kalifa, president of the UAE Federal Council and Abu Dhabi's ruler, undergoes surgery after suffering a stroke.
2014 March - Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain withdraw their ambassadors to Qatar in protest at what they say is its interference in their internal affairs.
2014 July - The UAE announces plans to send an unmanned spacecraft to Mars in what would be the first space probe by an Arab or Islamic country.
2014 August - UAE intervenes in Libya, targetting Islamist militants with air strikes, US officials report.
2014 September - The UAE and four other Arab states take part in US-led air strikes on Islamic State militants in Syria.
2014 November - Amnesty International accuses UAE of carrying out an unprecedented clampdown on dissent since 2011.
UAE publishes its list ''terrorist organisations'', including dozens of Islamist groups and charities.
2014 March - The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain temporarily withdraw their ambassadors from Qatar after alleging that it has been meddling in their internal affairs.
2015 March - The UAE and four other GCC states take part in Saudi-led air strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen. | A chronology of key events: | 14704414 |
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The 31-year-old received the call on Saturday from Warren Gatland when Youngs withdrew after learning his brother Tom's wife is terminally ill.
"I've been a competitor all my life, that's one of my strengths," Laidlaw said.
"I want to start. It's making sure when I get an opportunity that I take it."
Laidlaw admitted his involvement with the Lions squad came under difficult circumstances, with Youngs pulling out to support his brother.
The Scot made his first start for Gloucester at the weekend after two outings off the bench following nine weeks out injured, but says he is close to 100% fitness and ready to take his chance in New Zealand.
"First and foremost, everybody's thoughts are with Tom, with Ben and the whole of the Youngs family," Laidlaw said.
"I never got the call until late on Saturday night, so it's a quick turnaround. I've got a few things going on, I'm moving clubs [to Clermont Auvergne], so the house is getting packed up as we speak. I was planning to move out today, so I'm pretty busy on that front. I'm delighted to be here and to get started.
"Because it's happened so quick and the logistics of getting down here, it's probably not [sunk in], but it will in the next few days. We've potentially got a few games left with Gloucester this season, so my focus will be on that and trying to win some silverware with them in the Challenge Cup final on Friday night, and potentially the play-offs as well. Then we'll look forward to the Lions.
"I'm well over 90% (fitness-wise) now and you don't want to be playing if you're not close to 100%, but nobody's ever quite 100% these days. I feel good and that's credit to the strength and conditioning team and the physios down at Gloucester."
Laidlaw joins Glasgow Warriors duo Stuart Hogg and Tommy Seymour in the Lions squad and says he is "delighted" to have added to the Scottish contingent travelling to New Zealand.
"You fly the Scottish flag, you're an ambassador for your country and for your team-mates when you come away on trips like this," Laidlaw said.
"I just caught up with Hoggy and Tommy this morning and the Scottish boys on the trip will put our best foot forward. They were pretty happy to see me, and I was with them, they're a couple of good boys.
"To work with different coaches is a great thing, you can always try to learn something new and clearly the coaches on this tour are vastly experienced. There are brilliant players throughout the squad as well, so you just try hard to work with everybody and get the best out of each other. For us to be successful, we will need that to happen." | Scotland scrum-half Greig Laidlaw is targeting a starting place with the Lions after being brought into the squad as a replacement for Ben Youngs. | 39847079 |
Denis Cheryshev, 24, gave Real the lead but the Russian should have been serving a one-game ban, say reports.
Newspaper AS has published a document showing he received three bookings in the domestic cup competition while on loan at Villarreal last season.
This first-leg tie was the first opportunity he had to serve the ban.
Real boss Rafael Benitez was manager of Valencia when they were disqualified from the Copa del Rey - the Spanish Cup - having played too many non-European Union players in a tie against Novelda in 2001.
Last season Osasuna were kicked out of the tournament for playing an ineligible player after Unai Garcia was selected in the win over Mirandes despite having been sent off the previous season.
Cadiz will have to report the situation to the Spanish Football Federation on Thursday.
The club's Twitter feed, said during the game: "The Board of Directors of @Cadiz-CF will meet at the end of the match."
Cheryshev was taken off moments after half-time as a double from Isco secured victory for the 19-time Copa del Rey winners, with Kike Marquez scoring a late goal for the hosts. | Real Madrid could face disqualification from the Copa del Rey after fielding an ineligible player in their fourth-round win over Cadiz, report Spanish media. | 34990505 |
James Collins scored on his home debut from a Joel Byrom free-kick, before John-Joe O'Toole doubled the lead when he deflected Ricky Holmes' shot into the back of the net.
Rod McDonald headed a third for the Cobblers and Alex Kenyon had a shot over the bar for the Shrimps.
Paul Mullin scored a consolation goal for Morecambe from a loose ball.
The Cobblers have now won five straight league matches, while Jim Bentley's Morecambe saw their four-game unbeaten streak ended as they fell to 14th. | Northampton Town earned a comfortable victory against Morecambe to move two points clear at the top of League Two. | 35330871 |
He tweeted he was "so excited" after the news was revealed on the Strictly Twitter account.
"As a fan of Strictly for years, I have always imagined myself on the show, but the timing has not been right... until now!" he said in a statement.
Yesterday former shadow chancellor Ed Balls was the first contestant confirmed for the next series.
Young performed on last year's series of Strictly - performing his track Joy.
The Brit-award-winning singer has released six albums and has an EP coming out this autumn.
The singer won the first series of Pop Idol in 2002 and his debut single Anything is Possible/Evergreen is still one of the 20 biggest selling singles of all time in the UK.
He appeared in the film Mrs Henderson presents alongside Dame Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins in 2005.
He has taken ballet lessons in the past and was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award in 2013 for best actor for his role in Cabaret the musical.
Earlier this year he appeared in the Great Sport Relief Bake Off.
Young had put out a series of cryptic tweets on Tuesday teasing the announcement.
Six hours before the announcement he tweeted: "Today is going to be exciting..." and then three hours later he tweeted: "Big news coming at 3pm - Can you guess?!" Fans were soon quick to guess his news and welcomed it on Twitter.
Strictly hosts Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman recently revealed that they already know who all the contestants are for the new series.
Winkleman said: "There's something for everyone... there's young, there's old, there's small, there's tall, there's cuddly, there's abrasive.
"Actually there's no abrasive ones, I miss the abrasive ones."
Ed Balls told Chris Evans on the BBC Radio 2 breakfast show that it was a "dream come true" to take part in the show but he was "scared to death". | Will Young is the second celebrity to be announced for this year's Strictly Come Dancing line-up. | 37024094 |
The club wants to know the identity of the corporation before paying £5.75m, which was due on 30 January.
Club president Hammam has been widely seen as Langston's representative.
"Court proceedings have been issued against Vincent Tan to pay an amount of £5.75 million plus interest," said Hammam in a statement.
"This amount is due to be paid by the club and Mr Tan legally and personally guaranteed payment in the event of non-payment by the club.
"This amount is the balance due under the Settlement Agreement with Langston as unfortunately Mr Tan and the club are now in default with the legally agreed payments.
"Legally the demand is from both the club and Mr Tan, but it is for Mr Tan to honour the guarantee he has given or to use his resources to allow the club to pay its debts.
"It is to be hoped that Mr Tan recognises and executes his legal responsibilities and in so doing avoids the Club itself being dragged into the legal proceedings."
Cardiff City and Tan have yet to comment.
Before Hammam's confirmation of the litigation, Cardiff chairman Mehmet Dalman explained why they have held back the payment.
"It is bad governance not knowing who is the owner of a debt we are trying to honour," said Dalman.
He added: "Right now I want to know who it is."
Dalman said former owner Hammam had told the club he was "not" a representative of Langston.
The original debt of £24m was in the form of loan notes issued by The Langston Corporation when Hammam was at the helm of the club.
In 2013 Cardiff and Langston announced "an amicable resolution" to the longstanding debt issue.
Hammam became life president of the club as part of the settlement and his representative Michael Filiou also took a seat on the board of directors.
"Michael Filiou represents Langston on the board, but he cannot tell us who he represents," said Dalman. | Former owner Sam Hammam says current backer Vincent Tan and Cardiff City are being sued over nearly £6m owed to creditors Langston. | 31040542 |
The information ministry said many of the dead and injured were villagers trying to collect spilled fuel.
The train was travelling from Mandalay to Myitkyina in the north, near the border with China.
No explanation has been given for the accident, but Burma's railways are in poor condition after years of neglect.
Officials told the BBC Burmese service that three wagons overturned and burst into flames.
There were seven wagons carrying petrol and two more of diesel, officials said.
The ministry posted images on its website of burnt-out wagons and what appeared to be charred bodies.
The train came off the rails near Kantbalu, a town some 500 miles (800km) north of the main city, Rangoon.
The number of people killed in the accident was unclear. The government said 25 people died and 62 people were injured.
But emergency officials told the BBC that more than 80 were wounded, and that 27 had been killed.
Two people died after being transferred to hospital, emergency officials said. | A train carrying petrol has derailed and burst into flames in northern Burma, killing at least 25 people and injuring dozens more. | 20272264 |
Duncan suffered a heart attack in July and died at a hospital in Los Angeles after failing to recover.
He was nominated for an Oscar in 2000 for his portrayal as convicted murderer John Coffey alongside Tom Hanks in The Green Mile.
Paying tribute to his co-star, Hanks described him as "magic".
"I am terribly saddened at the loss of Big Mike," said the actor. "He was the treasure we all discovered on the set of The Green Mile.
"He was a big love of man and his passing leaves us stunned," Hanks added.
A former bodyguard, the 6ft 4in (1.93m) Duncan was an imposing figure who played a wide variety of action roles and also voiced animated parts.
His versatility saw him team up with Bruce Willis to save the Earth in Armageddon, then play it for laughs in Will Ferrell's racing comedy Talladega Nights.
In recent years he was seen in US sitcom Two and a Half Men and could be heard in animated comedy Family Guy.
But he will be remembered primarily for his role as John Coffey a convicted murderer possessed of extraordinary healing powers, in the adaptation of Stephen King's novel The Green Mile.
His performance won him a nomination as best supporting actor and kick-started an acting career that only began once he gave up bodyguard work in his thirties.
The film's director Frank Darabont described Duncan as "one of the finest people I've ever had the privilege to work with or know".
"Michael was the gentlest of souls - an exemplar of decency, integrity and kindness," he said in a statement. "The sadness I feel is inexpressible."
Duncan, who was born in Chicago in 1957, died on Monday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
His fiancee, the reality TV personality Reverend Omarosa Manigault, asked for privacy until his funeral and memorial events were announced. | Actor Michael Clarke Duncan, who rose to prominence playing a death row inmate in acclaimed film The Green Mile, has died at the age of 54. | 19472267 |
Its history is rooted in celebrating African-Caribbean culture and community cohesion over the August bank holiday weekend.
But headlines in the run-up to this year's event have appeared to focus on crime and violence instead of calypso and costumes.
"Prior to Notting Hill Carnival, we're disrupting gang crime, drug supply, knife crime and offences that could impact the safety of the weekend," said the Met Police.
It revealed officers made 290 arrests, recovered 190 knives and 18 firearms and seized a kilogram of suspected heroin before the two-day event.
Fears have been expressed on social media people might take acid to the event and police have reportedly warned business owners to prepare for trouble.
Former Kensington MP Victoria Borick told LBC radio organisers need to tell revellers "don't bring your knives, don't bring your guns, don't bring your acid this year".
However, the focus on crime and violence has led to a social media backlash with many questioning whether the carnival is being unfairly portrayed.
"How many drugs did you lot seize in the run up to Glastonbury or we only doing tweets like this for black events?" grime artist Stormzy asked.
Those on the ground at the carnival say the atmosphere is "positive".
"After carnival you hear about all these madnesses, but we've never experienced or seen it because we don't have that sort of atmosphere," says Errol Smith, from King SSP Sound System - one of more than 30 that play at the carnival.
"It's peaceful - everyone jumping up and down and having fun. We've never had any issues or problems in the eight years we've been there. From where I've been, people are just enjoying themselves."
Carnival has experienced trouble over the years including a riot in 1976 and five deaths between 1987 and 2004.
At last year's event, police made 454 arrests - the highest for 10 years - with 90 being for possession of an offensive weapon, 17 for assault and 169 for drugs.
Two people suffered serious injuries after being stabbed.
The Metropolitan Police Federation has said its rank-and-file officers "dread" working at the carnival.
Speaking after last year's event, federation chairman Ken Marsh said the carnival was being "hijacked" by troublemakers intent on "turning it into a bank holiday battleground".
"Last year we had an officer stabbed. This year colleagues were assaulted, abused and spat at," he said. "Forty-three were injured - with eight needing hospital treatment. How can that be right? It's completely and utterly unacceptable."
Meanwhile, a report by the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee in January said the carnival posed a "real risk to public safety" due to violent crime and overcrowding.
Statistics for 2013-16 show the proportion of arrests at the Notting Hill Carnival was only half that at Glastonbury - one of the UK's other biggest outdoor events.
Notting Hill saw an average of 3.5 arrests for every 10,000 people who attended over those years. Glastonbury's corresponding figure was 7.4.
However, the data does not reveal whether the arrests were for low-level or more serious crimes.
George Ruddock, editor and managing director of black newspaper The Voice, says there is a "stigma" attached to the carnival.
"It's targeted because it's got its origin as being a black cultural event," he said.
"Fifty-one years later the police still think it's predominantly black people who will be there but surprise, surprise, it won't be. There will be a mixture of cultures there.
"I think if there's any kind of event which has predominantly black entertainment and attracts a crowd, there would still be this kind of focus."
Ben Wilson from the London School of Samba, which has been performing at the carnival for 34 years, says the stories which focus on crime at the event are "unfair".
"I think there are definitely racial undertones. It's not white people portrayed in these crimes. It is black gangs portrayed, and of course the carnival is next to many million-pound houses who would love to see us get out of town and go to a park."
Jo Jordan, 23, was attacked by a gang who stabbed him in the arm and stole his watch at the carnival last August.
Despite his injury, he believes the number of arrests at carnival represents "the small minority who go for the wrong reasons".
"It's a scary world we live in - I could be walking down the street and someone could try and rob me so you need to be careful. If I'm going to go [this year] I won't wear something expensive and attract attention.
"But there's still so much positive thing to gain from carnival, I feel like something needs to be done to stop the bad outweighing the good."
Lucy Knight, 46, from Shepherd's Bush, has been been to every carnival since she was 13.
"I can't say carnival doesn't have a problem because that would be to ignore the fact that when you have a million people in one area you're going to have crime rates and when you have people drinking and got people doing drugs there is going to be crime.
"But you have to look at the statistics when held against other festivals and events. If you look at any town on a Saturday night and you will find more crime there than carnival statistically speaking."
The carnival's organiser, London Notting Hill Carnival Enterprises Trust, says its focus is on "our community, our culture and having a celebration".
Trustee Kemi Sobers said: "There is this relentlessness on crime which we find is deeply unfortunate. If there was no crime in the wider society and there was crime at carnival then perhaps we focus on that.
"We do our utmost to ensure the safety and security of the million people that come to our event and try to stress policing yourself.
"We have 1,000 stewards there to help us and as back-up we have the Met Police as part of a range of emergency services that support our event.
"There are 10,000 narratives that you could extrapolate from carnival and its preparation this week. Some choose to concentrate on policing and crime and we choose to concentrate on our community." | For 50 years, jerk chicken, reggae, soca and sound systems, a touch of rain and a colourful parade have made up Notting Hill Carnival in west London. | 41023844 |
Rob Camm, 23, from Breadstone, Gloucestershire was paralysed from the neck down in a car crash in 2013.
He used voice recognition software to write essays and used head movements to control his mouse pointer.
Mr Camm will graduate in politics and philosophy at the University of Bristol on Friday afternoon.
"Before the accident, I had always been the type of person who wanted to be the best they can be," he said.
"Getting a first has made me feel that way again."
He said he "could not believe it" when he saw his result.
"I had to keep refreshing the student information page to be sure. Not many people get a first so I'm very proud of managing to do that.
"It's been good to get out of the house and have a purpose. Meeting people and socialising has been hard, but many things are possible with some planning."
Mr Camm will now study for a law conversion course at the University of Law in Bristol, and has recently moved to the city from his family home near Berkeley in Gloucestershire. | A man with tetraplegia who is graduating with a first class degree says his time at university has given him a purpose. | 40605793 |
Russia had agreed to ensure Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles were destroyed - and its failure to do this enabled the attack, he said.
The US fired 59 missiles at a Syrian airbase after the alleged attack.
Syria has denied using any chemical agents, and Russia says the US gave no evidence Syria has chemical weapons.
Russia is the Syrian government's main ally, and helped facilitate a 2013 agreement to destroy Syria's chemical arsenal.
The suspected chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun on Wednesday left 89 people dead.
Trump acts decisively in Syria: Now what?
Syria 'chemical attack': What we know
Why was Syria's Shayrat airbase bombed?
Speaking on CBS's Face The Nation, Mr Tillerson said there was no evidence to suggest Russia was part of the alleged chemical attack.
However, "whether Russia was complicit here or whether they were simply incompetent or whether they got outwitted" by the Syrian government, they had "failed in their commitment to the international community", he said.
Russia had agreed to "be the guarantor of the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles... the result of their failure has led to the killing of more children and innocents," Mr Tillerson added.
Mr Tillerson is set to meet his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, this week in Moscow.
The Russian government has denied that Syria carried out a chemical attack, saying that civilians on the ground were poisoned after Syrian planes struck a depot producing chemical weapons for rebels.
Western governments, rebel leaders and a weapons expert all criticised this claim, saying the evidence pointed to an attack by the Syrian government.
Following the suspected attack, US President Donald Trump launched air strikes against a Syrian government air base, and branded Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad a "dictator" who had "launched a horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians".
The Syrian government called the strikes "foolish and irresponsible", while Russia accused the US of "an act of aggression against a sovereign state delivered in violation of international law under a far-fetched pretext". | US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has criticised Russia, saying it had failed to prevent Syria from carrying out a chemical attack on a rebel-held town. | 39548388 |
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