document stringlengths 0 174k | summary stringlengths 1 399 | id stringlengths 8 8 |
|---|---|---|
However for Collins that means on his tip toes, in an Irish dancing class filled with young women.
Christina Deacy, who teaches at the Drake School of Irish Dance in Florida, says that Collins' footwork has improved a lot since joining.
"He can now dance in time with the music and his agility and upper body strength is getting better and better."
Collins was originally dismissive of the idea of Irish dancing, tweeting, "real sports are televised."
It was the daughter of his high school football coach who had enough of listening to him and convinced him to try it for himself.
"He came in and it was surprising for him how hard it was," said Christina.
"We were doing our stretches for the warm up and he had already broken into a sweat while the girls were moving around comfortably.
"We started on a reel which is quite fast and his footwork was good.
"His athletic background definitely helps him out."
Collins' training schedule is pretty hectic, but that didn't stop him attending the class three times a week and helping out at an event on St Patrick's Day.
On the field he is renowned for being the first freshman to start his career with three 100-yard performances since 2004 and holding the school record of 20 rushing touchdowns.
He was drafted by the NFL's Seattle Seahawks.
In the Drake School of Irish Dance however he is not only the beginner of the group, but the only male also and has adopted the nickname "Mitchell Findley" after the famous dancer Michael Flatley.
"The girls in the class love having him around because they want to impress him, so they are motivated to work harder.
"They love joking with him and we hope that once people see and read about this unorthodox footballer they will be inspired to join (Irish dancing) as well."
Improving his footwork was not Collins only motivation as he also wants to choreograph a new celebration routine for when he scores his next touchdown.
Collins told an American sports' website: "Something quick and fancy, so that when the fans see, they know it is Irish dancing… but at the same time, I want to add a little jazz to it."
Christina says that she and the girls are very curious to see this celebration and how he will add an element of Irish dancing to it.
Feeling inspired? Why not have a look at our guide about how to get into dance? | Like most athletes American footballer Alex Collins does his own workouts in order to stay sharp and fit. | 36197199 |
Sasa Damjanovic, 36, got six years and his partner Vera Vasic, 29, three years - the heaviest prison sentences to be handed down in France in such a case.
They claimed to have been outside the Stade de France on 13 November 2015 when the suicide bombers struck. In fact they had been at home in Antibes.
The November attacks killed 130 people.
The fraud by the couple from Antibes was exposed when they put in a claim for compensation for the Nice terror attack of 14 July this year. The Bastille Day attack killed 86 people on the Nice beachfront - victims of a lorry driver who smashed his huge vehicle into the crowd.
The court judgment in Grasse, near Nice and Antibes on the Cote d'Azur, said the penalty was intended to act as "an example".
The couple, who have two children, aged six and seven, admitted their crime in court.
The prosecutor, quoted by Nice-Matin news, said "as a citizen, man, woman, judge, how can you not be sickened by such behaviour?"
The couple have already spent the €60,000 - some of it on vehicles which they planned to re-sell. They told the court that they had sought the money to pay off debts.
A lawyer for the compensation fund said that by 30 November this year it had paid out €46.5m to 2,444 victims of the Paris attacks.
The jihadists, from so-called Islamic State (IS), injured hundreds of people, besides the 130 they killed in simultaneous attacks across Paris. | A French court has jailed a couple who fraudulently obtained €60,000 (£50,500) from a fund set up to help survivors of last year's jihadist attacks in Paris. | 38261497 |
They have used aerial equipment to tackle the blaze at Urban Forest Ltd in the Carnbane industrial estate.
The company recycles discarded wood into bedding material for animals.
Firefighters were alerted to the fire just after 06:30 BST on Saturday. Six fire appliances and two aerial appliances were deployed to the scene.
Group Commander Edward Carroll said fire crews were "confronted with a well-developed fire" when they arrived at the plant on Derryboy Road.
"In the early stages there was a considerable risk of the fire spreading but due to the prompt actions of the crews we were able to contain the fire to the building of origin," Mr Carroll said.
Newry and Armagh MP Mickey Brady described the incident as a "major fire".
In a tweet, the Sinn Féin MP thanked fire crews, saying their "prompt and professional action" had ensured the containment of the blaze. | More than 50 firefighters have been involved in tackling a large fire at a wood recycling plant in Newry, County Down. | 33122109 |
Dywedodd undeb UNSAIN bod sylwadau rhywiaethol wedi dod yn llawer rhy gyffredin i bobl sy'n ceisio gwasanaethu eu cymunedau.
Mae ymgeisydd Llafur yn Aberconwy, Emily Owen yn dweud ei bod wedi derbyn negeseuon gan ddynion yn dweud iddi ddadwisgo am eu pleidlais.
Mae'r Senedd wedi sefydlu tîm i gefnogi'r rheiny sy'n cael eu targedu.
Dywedodd Ms Owen ei bod wedi cael sioc gweld y negeseuon y mae hi wedi eu derbyn ar Facebook a Twitter ers iddi gyhoeddi ei bod yn ymgeisydd.
Daw chwe mis wedi i arweinydd Plaid Cymru, Leanne Wood ddweud ei bod wedi derbyn sylwadau "ffiaidd" ar-lein - gydag un dyn wedi'i garcharu am ddweud bod angen i rywun ei threisio, ac un arall wedi cael gorchymyn cymunedol am ddweud y dylai rhywun ei saethu.
Dywedodd UNSAIN bod Ms Owen a Ms Wood yn bell o fod yr unig rai i dderbyn negeseuon sarhaus, a'u bod wedi dechrau cynnig hyfforddiant am sut i ddelio â sefyllfaoedd o'r fath.
"Mae'n dod yn broblem enfawr - rhywiaethol, bwlio a phobl yn cael eu beirniadu am y ffordd y maen nhw'n edrych," meddai Jenny Griffin, sy'n rhedeg yr hyfforddiant newydd i UNSAIN.
"Mae'n bendant yn atal merched rhag ymgeisio - yn enwedig rhai gyda phlant, am nad ydyn nhw eisiau rhoi eu teuluoedd trwy hynny."
Ychwanegodd ymgeisydd Llafur yn Rhondda, Chris Bryant ei fod yn credu bod dynion hoyw a phobl o leiafrifoedd ethnig yn cael eu targedu hefyd.
"Rydw i'n ei dderbyn yn ddyddiol - rhegi, sylwadau homoffobig a chelwydd llwyr," meddai.
"Rwy'n 'nabod llawer o bobl sydd wedi ystyried gyrfa mewn gwleidyddiaeth ond sydd ddim eisiau rhoi eu hunain trwyddo - mae'r sylwadau'n ddiddiwedd."
Fe wnaeth ymgeisydd Plaid Cymru yn Nwyfor Meirionnydd, Liz Saville Roberts gyflwyno mesur i fynd i'r afael â negeseuon o'r fath yn ei gwaith fel Aelod Seneddol.
"Rwy'n meddwl y dylai gwefannau cymdeithasol fod yn gwneud mwy i fynd i'r afael â'r broblem," meddai.
"Mae ganddyn nhw gyfrifoldeb ac rwy'n teimlo nad oes digon o atebolrwydd."
Dywedodd y Ceidwadwyr eu bod yn cymryd negeseuon ar-lein o ddifrif, a'u bod yn "cefnogi ymgeiswyr ac ASau i ddelio â'r mater".
Ond ym marn yr Athro Matthew Williams o adran droseddeg Prifysgol Caerdydd, mae buddion cyfryngau cymdeithasol yn drech na'r agweddau negyddol.
"Dydw i ddim yn meddwl o reidrwydd bod problemau gyda gwefannau cymdeithasol yn atal pobl ifanc rhag dilyn gyrfa mewn gwleidyddiaeth, ac mewn nifer o ffyrdd mae'n fantais ar gyfer lledaenu eu neges," meddai.
"Ond mae'n rhaid defnyddio synnwyr cyffredin i osgoi'r perygl a'r targedu. Os oes 'na rywun yn derbyn negeseuon sarhaus, y peth cyntaf y dylen nhw ei wneud yw ffonio'r heddlu." | Mae negeseuon ar-lein sy'n targedu gwleidyddion yn atal rhai merched rhag ymgeisio mewn etholiadau, yn ôl undeb. | 39985201 |
Pipe, 33, a former Wales international, returns for a third spell with the Exiles after a loan deal last season.
Willmott, who had taken a job away from football after a spell in non-league, signed a new two-year deal.
Goalkeeper Joe Day and defender Mark O'Brien, who scored the goal that kept County up, also signed two year deals.
Meanwhile, forward Marlon Jackson has also agreed a one-year extension, alongside Pipe.
Media playback is not supported on this device
Willmott, 26, returns to the Exiles having been part of the side promoted to the Football League in 2013, however, he has failed to return to an EFL club since being released by the club the following summer.
He gave up on ever returning to the sport and had taken up a job as a maintenance man with a supermarket but then had spells with Ebbsfleet, Bishop's Stortford and Chelmsford.
"I went to Ebbsfleet, finished at Bishop's Stortford and then questioned myself, I didn't think it was for me to keep playing," he said.
"I spoke to my family, my dad said to give it another year, but halfway through last season I decided to get a job.
"I was learning to be a maintenance man on the job, then I got a text saying about coming back to Newport.
"I didn't even open the message, I just got straight on the phone to my agent and said 'get it sorted.'
"I knew where I wanted to go, I would have taken a pay cut to come back.
"I would have come back last year, I never wanted to leave here in the first place. I love the club."
Ask any football fan for a fact about Newport County and chances are you will receive a comment about the state of the pitch.
However, after the Welsh Rugby Union completed their takeover of Newport Gwent Dragons, including taking control of Rodney Parade, things look set to change.
County boss Mike Flynn told BBC Wales Sport that the communications he has received word the WRU will install a Desso pitch, the hybrid playing surface used at other dual-purpose grounds, such as the Liberty Stadium.
That is to ease the pressure on ground staff with County, the Dragons and Newport RFC all sharing a facility.
"I hope the pitch is the biggest news of all, I've just signed five players on the back of the pitch and they will be calling me a liar if it doesn't happen," he said.
"We've been told and it has been reported that the WRU are putting down a Desso pitch and that is fantastic news.
"It gives me a great platform to produce the football on the pitch to excite the crowd." | Newport County have re-signed two key players who helped them into the EFL after agreeing deals with David Pipe and Robbie Willmott. | 39963052 |
The woman, in her 20s, was left unconscious after the attack near Rope Walk on 25 February.
The two men are currently in custody at Martlesham Police Investigation Centre. They are due to be questioned later.
Suffolk Police returned to the Rope Walk area between 02:45 and 04:00 GMT on Saturday and spoke to people about the attack.
On Friday, police released CCTV footage of two people they wanted to trace. | Two men have been arrested on suspicion of rape in Ipswich after a woman was dragged into a car park and attacked. | 39171865 |
South Carolina schools were shut on Monday and several motorways were closed as rain continued to fall.
One weather station in Columbia - South Carolina's capital - recorded 17 inches (43cm) in as many hours on Sunday.
The torrential rains have been made worse by a weather system connected to Hurricane Joaquin in the Caribbean.
The storm is not expected to hit the eastern US, but the moisture associated with it is contributing to heavy rainfall.
"The flooding is unprecedented and historical," said Dr Marshall Shepherd, a meteorologist and director of the atmospheric sciences program at the University of Georgia.
Many of the victims have drowned after flood waters swept over their vehicles.
South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley urged residents to stay indoors.
"The water is not safe and a lot of areas across the state where you see this deep water, it's got bacteria in it. So, stay inside and don't get in there," she said.
President Barack Obama has declared a state of emergency in South Carolina. The move means state and local authorities can receive federal help to deal with the flooding.
"We have every ambulance in the county out responding to calls. People are being moved from their homes in boats," Georgetown County spokeswoman Jackie Broach told Reuters.
About 100 people were rescued from their cars on flooded roads on Saturday night.
In the historic city centre of Charleston, many streets have been closed and sandbags have been piled up to keep floodwaters out. | Nine people have been killed after "unprecedented" floods swept through the US states of North and South Carolina. | 34440842 |
Media playback is not supported on this device
The Nottinghamshire player, 34, has taken only seven wickets in this Ashes series defeat and has ruled himself out of the rest of the tour.
"This decision has been very difficult seeing as the England team has been my family for seven years now, but I feel it is the right time," he said.
Swann is sixth on the list of England wicket-takers with 255 in 60 Tests.
"I don't regret a single day of my career," he added. "Every high has been celebrated with verve and vigour and every low painfully accepted as a chance to learn and improve."
Swann's shock decision comes at the end of a week in which Australia secured an unassailable 3-0 series lead with two Tests to play and the player apologise for making comments on Facebook comparing his team's loss with rape.
Australia coach Darren Lehmann said: "It was a bit of a surprise. It's mid-tour, but obviously he's decided he's had enough.
A number of England players took to Twitter to praise Swann.
"Congrats on an amazing career mate you can be a very proud man," said England wicketkeeper Matt Prior on Twitter.
Fellow England and Nottinghamshire bowler Stuart Broad added: "A great friend and team-mate retired today. Been a pleasure to play and tour for Nottinghamshire and England."
Following the departure of batsman Jonathan Trott with a stress-related illness earlier in the tour, Swann's retirement further unsettles England ahead of the fourth Test, which starts in Melbourne on Boxing Day.
Media playback is not supported on this device
"I know I'm making the decision for the right reasons," added Swann.
"My body doesn't like playing five-day cricket any more and I don't feel I can justify my spot in the team in the latter stages of a game.
"As a spinner, that's when you need to come into your own.
"With two games to go in Australia and then a fiercely competitive summer against Sri Lanka and India, I feel that it is a great time for someone else to strap themselves in and hopefully enjoy the ride as much as I have."
Swann, first named in an England squad back in 1999-2000, made his Test debut in 2008 and took four wickets against India in Chennai.
He established a reputation for taking wickets in the first over of a spell and became the sixth-highest wicket-taker for his country.
"If anyone had been in any doubt after the Ashes were lost with those three thumping defeats, Graeme Swann's retirement confirms that this is the definitive end of the era for this England team.
"The question now, with this tour falling apart and a possible 5-0 'Pomwash' on the cards, is who might go next. Andy Flower? Kevin Pietersen?"
'Swann's farewell marks end of an era'
Despite struggling with elbow problems in recent years, Swann played in three Ashes series victories and helped England become the number one Test side in the world in 2011.
He also took 104 wickets in 79 one-day internationals after making his debut against South Africa in Bloemfontein in 2000 at the age of 20 and spent a spell as the top-ranked ODI bowler in 2011.
In addition, he helped England clinch their first major global world title at the 2010 World Twenty20 in the Caribbean.
"My personal highlights include the three Ashes victories, which I will cherish for the rest of my life, and the World T20 victory in the West Indies, which ranks as my limited overs highlight," he added.
"I have met, played with and against, and become friends with some magnificent people throughout my journey and feel truly privileged to have been given these opportunities."
Former England captain Michael Vaughan said Swann had quit "too soon". adding: "Spinners of his quality are a rare breed. Of all the England players over the last 20 years, he is the one the team will miss the most."
BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew described Swann as a "true character" who had made a "massive contribution" to England.
Agnew said: "The general feeling was that this might be Swann's last tour, but this is unexpected. England's greatest challenge is replacing the man who was the lynchpin to their four-man attack."
England team director Andy Flower paid tribute to Swann's "outstanding contribution" to the team.
"His commitment, competitive spirit and sense of humour have been recognised and admired by team-mates and supporters alike," he said. "He has played a big part in England's success over the last five years."
England bowler Tim Bresnan said Swann's retirement will be a relief to some batsmen around the world.
"I will miss your constant put downs and abuse of my mental capacity," Bresnan said on Twitter. "Also, many batsmen around the world have just exhaled a huge sigh of relief due to your constant challenge of the stumps and prodigious spin."
England batsman Johnny Bairstow added: "Congratulations on a fantastic career. Thank you for the laughs, memories and smiles. Good luck mate, you are going to be missed."
"Going to miss you a lot," said England bowler Steve Finn. "Hope the next chapter is as exciting."
Do you think Swann has made the right decision? Have your say on the BBC Sport Facebook page. | England off-spinner Graeme Swann has announced his retirement from international and first-class cricket. | 25481772 |
The Lincolnshire Chalk Streams Partnership received the money from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to help take its work into the community.
The group, which includes the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust and Environment Agency, launched in 2003.
Project officer, Ruth Craig, said events would be held to "educate" people about looking after the stream.
The stream, which runs through the Lincolnshire Wolds, is home to several threatened plant and animal species.
Ms Craig said the money would also go towards improvements work as well as running community events over the next three years.
Chalk streams are rare habitats with many under threat because of the growing demand for clear water and silt entering from fields and roads.
Head of HLF East Midlands, Vanessa Harber, said: "This project is a perfect way of raising awareness about their importance and involving an army of volunteers to help protect them for the future." | A project to conserve and protect a Lincolnshire chalk stream has been given a £45,000 cash boost. | 33498051 |
The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague said the amount of damages would be decided at a later date.
Russia did not take part in the hearings and it is not clear whether it will comply with the ruling.
The Russian authorities confiscated the Dutch-flagged Arctic Sunrise in September 2013.
The ship and 30 people on board were detained after activists from the Greenpeace campaign group tried to scale a Russian oil rig.
The court found that Russia had breached its obligations under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
It said the Netherlands was "entitled to compensation (with interest) for material damage to the Arctic Sunrise".
Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders welcomed the ruling, saying it "makes clear that the Netherlands - as the flag state - had the right to stand up for the ship's crew".
"The Netherlands sees freedom of expression and the right to demonstrate as public goods that are worth defending," Mr Koenders went on.
The detainees - known as the Arctic 30 - were initially charged with piracy, but the charges were later reduced to hooliganism.
They were released on bail in November 2013 and the charges were later dropped after an amnesty law was passed. | An international court has ordered to Russia to pay damages to the Netherlands over its seizure of a ship protesting against oil drilling. | 34045493 |
The 31-year-old joined the Bantams from Blackpool in July 2015 after a successful loan spell.
The former Middlesbrough man made 28 league appearances last season as the Valley Parade side finished fifth before losing to Millwall in the League One play-off final.
German back-up goalkeeper Rouven Sattelmaier, 29, has also signed a one-year deal with Stuart McCall's side.
They start the season with a home game against Blackpool on Saturday, 5 August. | Bradford City full-back Tony McMahon has signed a new one-year deal. | 40483504 |
IS militants have been using the sprawling site as a command base since taking control of the city in May.
Some reports suggested Iraqi forces had retaken control of the complex.
The Iraqi military launched an operation this month to push IS out of Anbar province, large swathes of which are controlled by the militants.
The operation to retake the university complex was supported by US air strikes against IS positions around Ramadi.
A number of buildings in and around the complex were badly damaged or destroyed, Athal al-Fahdawi, a provincial councilman, told Associated Press.
The university is 5km (3 miles) south of Ramadi, which is the capital of Anbar province.
Recapturing the complex from IS would be a significant boost to the Iraqi forces' efforts to reclaim the city.
Sabah al-Noamani, a spokesman for Iraq's counter-terrorism forces, said the university was a "significant stronghold and a key command base" used by IS to co-ordinate attacks around Ramadi.
He said government forces were attempting to separate the university from nearby districts to cut supply routes for retreating militants.
IS seized parts of Ramadi, which is only 100km (60 miles) west of the capital Baghdad, along with the nearby city of Falluja and much of Anbar in January 2014.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told the BBC in May that the city could be retaken from IS "in days" but the militants still control most of it.
Anbar province, which is predominantly Sunni, covers a vast stretch of the country west from Baghdad to the Syrian border, and contains key roads that link Iraq to both Syria and Jordan.
A US-led coalition has been carrying out air strikes in Iraq and neighbouring Syria since August 2014 in an attempt to push back IS. | Iraqi forces have launched an attack against the Islamic State-controlled University of Anbar complex in the city of Ramadi, US officials said. | 33669345 |
Media playback is not supported on this device
The Italian cited both Manchester clubs after Man Utd spent a world-record £89m on midfielder Paul Pogba and Man City spent £47.5m on defender John Stones.
Chelsea are top, four points clear of Tottenham and have an 11-point lead over City and 12 points over United with six games remaining.
"It's important to understand it's not always who spends more wins," he said.
"This season isn't the only season both Manchester clubs have spent a lot of money. Look at the past."
The Blues were third in Premier League spending summer after spending £123m on players including midfielder N'Golo Kante and defender David Luiz. Manchester City topped the list on £175m, while Manchester United parted with around £150m. Tottenham were fourth after spending around £70m.
Conte described the market as "crazy" after the Premier League transfer spending record was broken with six days of the summer transfer window remaining.
He says his approach is about evolution, rather than revolution, adding: "(We want) to build, also, slowly slowly to become a real power."
Chelsea are also chasing a league and FA Cup double in his first season in charge - the Blues will play Arsenal in the showpiece final at Wembley on 27 May.
Asked if clinching the Premier League would be his best achievement, Conte, who led Italian side Juventus to three successive Serie A titles, said: "Yes, for sure. For me, for the players, for the club.
"To win in England these days is not easy. Now, it's a good season. To become a great or fantastic season there is only one way: to try to win."
Conte also rejected Cesc Fabregas' call for Eden Hazard to be more selfish, after the midfielder said his team-mate could reach the level of Lionel Messi if he was "selfish" and showed greater "killer instinct".
"In my team, I don't want selfish players. I prefer to lose a game than to have a selfish player," the Italian said.
"The first target for every great champion is to play for the team and to put your talent into the team. The best players in the world don't exist without a team. I don't think Messi is a selfish player.
Media playback is not supported on this device
"For me, it's sad to listen to this. I don't want my club to buy me a selfish player one day. Never. No."
Chelsea, who have suffered two defeats in four Premier League matches, will face Southampton at home on Tuesday night.
Defender Gary Cahill is Chelsea's only doubt after he missed the cup semi-final with gastroenteritis, but Conte said the England international has returned to training and could feature. | Spending the most money on players does not guarantee Premier League success, says Chelsea manager Antonio Conte. | 39697156 |
The bodies of a Spanish man and a Polish woman were found on Saturday at the Dome du Gouter peak, at an altitude of 4,400m.
The pair were found on the slopes of the mountain between Italy and France, near the Gouter refuge.
Their deaths come just days after nine climbers were found killed during an avalanche on the nearby slopes of Mont Maudit.
According to Italian news sources, the pair were part of a larger group of eight climbers who set out to climb the mountain earlier on Saturday and got caught in a storm. Their six fellow climbers were rescued by Italian alpine rescue teams.
All are currently being treated for exposure in hospital in the Italian mountain town of Aosta.
The bodies of the pair who died on Saturday were found on the French side of the border.
In Thursday's incident, which local authorities said was the deadliest avalanche in recent memory, nine climbers died on Mont Maudit.
Mont Maudit is the massif's third-highest peak, rising to 4,465m (14,650ft) and is considered one of the more difficult, though popular, paths to the summit of Mont Blanc, western Europe's highest peak.
Three of those killed were from the UK, three from Germany, two from Spain and one from Switzerland. Twelve other climbers were injured.
Among those who died was 55-year-old Roger Payne, was one of Britain's most respected climbers and a former general-secretary of the British Mountaineering Council (BMC).. | Two young climbers have been found frozen to death on Mont Blanc. | 18848985 |
The Hammers moved to the venue at the start of the season, but there have been unsavoury incidents involving their fans at the past three matches.
The club confirmed that 10 fans were ejected from the stadium during the 4-2 defeat by Watford on Saturday.
West Ham have also requested more experienced stewards.
Stewarding at the stadium is provided by LS185.
At the first Premier League match at the venue - against Bournemouth last month - some fans arrived with tickets for seats that did not exist, while fighting broke out between rival supporters outside the stadium.
Some of the disturbances are believed to be over persistent standing during matches and West Ham confirmed they had received seven complaints about standing following Saturday's game against Watford.
"E20 confirmed that immediate action is being taken on the issues raised," said a West Ham club statement.
"The club will work tirelessly with them to ensure London Stadium continues to be the inclusive and family-friendly environment that all parties have worked so hard to achieve.
"This includes a more robust and secure line of segregation between the home and visiting fans as specified by the club. We have been assured this will be in place ahead of the next match."
The Hammers have also appealed to supporters to report any incidents to the club.
Analysis - BBC sports editor Dan Roan:
"A blame game is now developing over the violent scenes at West Ham's new home.
"The club says the stadium's owners and matchday operator need to bolster policing, stewarding & segregation.
"However, it has also been suggested that West Ham could have done more to plan segregated family and singing sections, rather than prioritising the sale of season tickets, with the mix of traditional supporters and thousands of new fans thought to have led to tension." | West Ham have asked E20, which owns the club's London Stadium home, to ensure there is a police presence in the ground after recent trouble. | 37343996 |
The famously black-clad country singer wrote a song about the prison, and also played a historic series of concerts for inmates there in the 1960s.
Aphonopelma johnnycashi is among 14 new tarantula species from the southern US which have been described by biologists in the journal ZooKeys.
Their study completely rewrites the family tree of the Aphonopelma genus.
One of dozens of tarantula genera, this group was previously considered to include more than 50 separate species.
As part of his PhD research at Auburn University in Alabama, Chris Hamilton carefully whittled that down to 29. He eliminated a lot of double-counting, but also defined 14 species that were entirely new to science.
"We really tried to clean the taxonomy up," said Dr Hamilton, now a postdoctoral researcher at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
"The only way we could do that was by looking at over 3,000 specimens, both from the wild and from natural history collections.
"A lot of previous names got eliminated. But there were 14 that were genuinely unique and new."
It is a telling example of the biodiversity to be found - sometimes literally - in our own backyards, he added.
"A lot of people think of new species as coming from areas of the Earth that not many humans have been to before... but that's really frankly not the case."
In particular, existing collections are a precious resource for scientists who want to study life's family tree.
"The majority of species, described or undescribed, have probably already been collected," Dr Hamilton told BBC News. "They're sitting on shelves waiting to be discovered."
Aphonopelma johnnycashi, however, was found roaming the wilds of California.
"It's found along the foothills of the western Sierra Nevada mountains, and one of the places that's there is Folsom Prison," Dr Hamilton explained - and it wasn't a giant imaginative leap from there to the species' new moniker.
"It's a perfect name. It fits the spider - it's found around Folsom and the males are predominantly all black, so it fits his image.
"I have a Johnny Cash tattoo so I was very happy that it worked out that way."
Dr Hamilton thinks that one reason the species had not been previously recognised is its similarity to other species of tarantula, such as Aphonopelma iodius which is common in the Mojave desert further south.
"They look fairly similar, particularly the females. The males, because they're more black, they're a little bit different.
"But if you were just looking at specimens that had been collected, and they were in a jar on a shelf, they would look pretty similar."
So wild collecting of johnnycashii males, before their dark hairs could fade in jars of preservative, was key.
"Then once we looked at the genomics and looked at some of the ecological constraints, we could see this species was pretty unique and independent from the others that it's closely related to," Dr Hamilton said.
Follow Jonathan on Twitter | A new species of black tarantula that lives near Folsom Prison, California, has been named after Johnny Cash. | 35473946 |
Controversial new welfare reforms mean women can only claim tax credits for their first two children.
Among a series of exemptions are children who are born as a result of "non-consensual conception".
The British Medical Association said it would support doctors who refused to take part in the assessment process.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has insisted that rape victims would not be denied child tax credits.
It has said rape victims would not have to describe the details to members of its staff.
Instead, a healthcare professional, social worker or an approved rape charity could give evidence on their behalf.
However, the BMA is concerned that the new regulations raise ethical and professional problems for doctors.
Its UK council considered the role of doctors in the process and ratified a motion which "highlighted the terrible ordeal" of affected women.
Dr Peter Bennie, the chairman of BMA Scotland, said: "This legislation has been pushed through without thorough consultation with relevant stakeholders such as the BMA, and yet the regulations present significant ethical and professional challenges for doctors.
"The 'rape clause' is fundamentally damaging for women - forcing them to disclose rape and abuse at a time and in a manner not of their choosing, at pain of financial penalty.
"In addition to the likely negative impact on the woman and the doctor-patient relationship, there is also the impact on individual children, who may have been conceived through coercion or rape, to consider.
"This is an ill-conceived piece of legislation and I encourage doctors to consider very carefully whether to participate in this process or not."
The move was welcomed by SNP MP Alison Thewliss, who has led a campaign calling for the "rape clause" to be scrapped.
She said: "It is a strong message to the UK government and a clear stand against the damaging and immoral rape clause which forces women to disclose rape and abuse to avoid a financial penalty.
"The SNP have led the campaign against the Tories' two child-policy and the abhorrent rape clause right from the moment it was announced in George Osborne's July Budget in 2015.
"It was the SNP who questioned it time and time again, led debates against it and gathered opposition across civil society. We will continue to call for the two-child policy and the rape clause to be scrapped in this new Parliament of minorities.
"The two-child restriction on tax credits has been opposed by many organisations as being damaging to family incomes, particularly those who are working in low-paid jobs.
"The UK government now needs to listen to the BMA as well as many other organisations who are calling out the rape clause for what it really is - absolutely shameful."
Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale said: "Forcing rape victims to fill out a form acknowledging their child is the result of rape is one of the most vile policies ever introduced by a Tory government, and that is saying something.
"Labour's government-in-waiting in Westminster would do what any decent government would and bring this abhorrent policy to an end." | The UK's largest doctors' union has heaped criticism on the Westminster government, describing the so-called "rape clause" as "shameful". | 40606218 |
Astana rider Aru attacked with 2.3km to go on the final 6km climb up La Planche des Belles Filles and could not be caught by defending champion Froome.
Irishman Dan Martin (Quick-Step Floors) was second, 16 seconds adrift as Froome finished third, four seconds back.
Froome, 32, leads Welshman Thomas by 12 seconds in the general classification.
He was unable to repeat his first Tour stage win in 2012 on La Planche des Belles Filles, a mountain climb that has featured on the Tour twice before.
On both occasions, the rider with the yellow jersey at the end of the stage (Bradley Wiggins in 2012 and Vincenzo Nibali in 2014) went on to win the title.
Italian national champion Aru is up to third, 14 seconds behind Froome, and also takes the King of the Mountain's polka dot jersey.
The 27-year-old has Grand Tour form, having won the Vuelta a Espana in 2015 and being runner-up in the Giro d'Italia earlier that year.
Thomas, who had led the race since winning stage one's individual time trial, knew he was likely to lose the yellow jersey on stage five - a 160.5km race from Vittel - saying before it started that his priority lay with helping his team leader.
He duly paced Froome, along with Michal Kwiatkowski and Mikel Landa, on the final climb which featured sections at 13% and averaged 8.5% before eventually being left behind as the favourites for the overall win upped their tempo.
"It's an amazing feeling to be back in yellow but the race is far from over, it's just beginning for me," said Froome, who is chasing a third successive Tour title, and fourth in five years.
"As a team we're in a great position with first and second and that gives us great confidence and options going forward.
"Today went really well, although if anything, I made a bit of a mistake in letting Aru go clear. He showed in the Criterium du Dauphine (Tour warm-up race) he was in great form and today confirmed that."
Froome will be buoyed by the fact he put more time between himself and the majority of his rivals, with Richie Porte, two time winner Alberto Contador, and two-time runner-up Nairo Quintana all finishing behind him.
An elite group of eight riders, including Belgium's former world champion Philippe Gilbert, broke clear as the race left Vittel and they quickly built a lead of more than three minutes.
That prompted the BMC Racing team to set the pace in the peloton because their leader Porte had earmarked the stage as one he could win.
The Australian lost more than 30 seconds to Froome on the opening time trial and had hoped to claw some of that back with 10 bonus seconds on offer to the stage winner.
However, his team-mates quickly disappeared on the final ascent, leaving Porte to follow other riders.
He kept pace with Froome on the upper slopes of the mountain, which touched 20% on one section, and crossed the line just behind to be awarded the same finishing time.
However, he lost another four seconds - the bonus on offer for third place.
Bury-born Simon Yates showed his rising class with a solid ride for sixth on the stage to make it three British riders in the top six.
The Orica-Scott climber tried to set off in pursuit of Aru and although he later conceded he "did not have the legs", the 24-year-old finished just two seconds behind another of the race favourites Romain Bardet of France.
His efforts saw him take possession of the white jersey, which is awarded to the quickest rider aged 25 or under.
Simon's twin brother Adam won the classification last year, on his way to finishing fourth overall.
Thursday's stage is a 216km race from Vesoul with a sprint finish expected on the wide boulevards of Troyes.
Stage five result:
1. Fabio Aru (Ita/Astana) 3hrs 44mins 06secs
2. Daniel Martin (Ire/Quick-Step) +16secs
3. Chris Froome (GB/Team Sky) +20secs
4. Richie Porte (Aus/BMC Racing) Same time
5. Romain Bardet (Fra/AG2R) +24secs
6. Simon Yates (GB/Orica) +26secs
7. Rigoberto Uran (Col/Cannondale) Same time
8. Alberto Contador (Spa/Trek)
9. Nairo Quintana (Col/Movistar) +34secs
10. Geraint Thomas (GB/Team Sky) +40secs
General classification after stage five:
1. Chris Froome (GB/Team Sky) 18hrs 38mins 59secs
2. Geraint Thomas (GB/Team Sky) +12secs
3. Fabio Aru (Ita/Astana) +14secs
4. Daniel Martin (Ire/Quick-Step) +25secs
5. Richie Porte (Aus/BMC Racing) +39secs
6. Simon Yates (GB/Orica) +43secs
7. Romain Bardet (Fra/AG2R) +47secs
8. Alberto Contador (Spa/Trek) +52secs
9. Nairo Quintana (Col/Movistar) +54secs
10. Rafal Majka (Pol/BORA) +1min 01secs | Britain's Chris Froome took the yellow jersey from Team Sky team-mate Geraint Thomas as Italy's Fabio Aru won the fifth stage of the Tour de France. | 40510336 |
Craig Disley and Danny East both went close for the visitors in a largely uneventful first half.
Sam Habergham had to be alert to clear a threatening Grimsby attack after the break, while Sean Marks shot over the bar for the Iron.
Disley went closest in the final minutes, rising to meet Richard Tait's cross, but his header hit the bar.
Grimsby Town manager Paul Hurst told BBC Radio Humberside:
Media playback is not supported on this device
"It wasn't the prettiest of games. It very rarely is in truth when you come here.
"With the injuries we've picked up as well I'm happy with a clean sheet.
"We're in October, I don't think we've particularly had a bad spell of weather and we were hoping the pitch would be a bit better than it was." | Grimsby Town extended their unbeaten league run to nine games as they drew away at Braintree Town. | 34431831 |
Gary Marshall has now been charged with the kidnapping of Kevin Conway, rather than his murder, Craigavon Magistrates Court was told on Friday.
Mr Conway, 30, was found with gunshot wounds at Soldierstown Road, Aghalee, County Antrim. The killing was widely blamed on the IRA.
Mr Marshall, 45, from Ennis Green in Lurgan, was released on continuing bail
Having been kidnapped from his Lurgan home, the body of Mr Conway, a married father of four was found on farmland on 17 February, 1998, his head hooded, hands tied behind his back and shot through the head.
Detectives arrested Mr Marshall in Birmingham last December after carrying out a review of the original RUC murder investigation and the court has previously heard that he could allegedly be connected to the execution by soil and forensic fibre evidence.
A defence solicitor has previously said that Mr Marshall "vehemently denies" any involvement in the murder.
A judge said he would fix a special day for a preliminary investigation into the new charge when the case is next before the court in January next year. | A man accused of a 1998 republican murder has had the charge against him dropped. | 30449236 |
Police and wildlife officials went door to door late at night to tell residents a deadly cobra had apparently escaped from a home in Ocala.
The snake's owner, who is licensed to keep venomous animals, called police after it leapt out from its cage.
Owner Brian Purdy thinks one of his pet lizards may have eaten the snake.
Mr Purdy told officers that one of his large venomous pet lizards had an unusually large stomach, and that he would have a vet take an X-ray to see if the tan and yellow suphan monocled cobra is inside, the Ocala Star Banner reports.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission say the snake escaped from its cage around 21:00 local time on Monday night while Mr Purdy was away from home.
Another man, who was shadowing Mr Purdy in order to receive his Venomous Reptile Permit, had been attempting to remove the snake from its enclosure when it jumped out at him and escaped into the sealed room.
Officials have alerted neighbours, but officials think the cold-blooded snake would not have gone far from the home due to cold weather.
The two-foot long (61cm) cobra is one of the world's deadliest snake species, but will only attack humans if it is startled, experts say. | Florida officials are searching for a highly venomous snake that escaped from its enclosure on Monday night, and has not been seen since. | 39274806 |
At Titanic Slipways in Belfast a 'monster mash' took place.
The theme was 'carnival rock' and it ended with the largest fireworks display in the city.
Meanwhile, in Londonderry, a large crowd attended the annual street carnival and fireworks display. | Thousands of people attended Halloween celebrations in Northern Ireland on Saturday evening. | 34688558 |
Defoe, 32, met a Steven Fletcher header to thump a looping shot into the top corner from 22 yards as Sunderland won for the first time in nine games.
His third goal for the club gave recently appointed boss Dick Advocaat a first win as Sunderland moved to 15th.
Newcastle rarely threatened as they slumped to a fourth straight loss.
Newcastle's recent record in the derby is nothing short of disastrous and their latest defeat will have done nothing to enhance caretaker-manager John Carver's seemingly slim prospects of getting the job on a permanent basis.
Carver, a Geordie, had promised no lack of effort and enthusiasm from his side in their effort to avoid a winless run in the fixture now extending back seven matches to August 2011.
But that was about all they did produce, not having a shot on target until the 78th minute as Advocaat was allowed to make the perfect start at the Stadium of Light.
Media playback is not supported on this device
Like his two predecessors - Gus Poyet and Paolo Di Canio - the Dutchman was able to celebrate a win over Newcastle in his second match in charge.
The contrast from Sunderland's last home game could hardly have been greater when a 4-0 defeat by Aston Villa cost Poyet his job.
Advocaat has been appointed until the end of the season with a brief to lead the Black Cats to safety and their supporters, who had walked out in droves in Poyet's final match as manager, will now believe they can do it after they moved three points clear of the relegation places.
Media playback is not supported on this device
Defoe's goal - his second at the Stadium of Light since the former England striker signed for Sunderland from Toronto FC in January - gave the Black Cats only their second win in 14 Premier League wins since they won at St James' Park just before Christmas.
His sublime effort was Sunderland's second goal in seven league games and reduced the striker to tears as the emotion and importance of the moment hit home.
The goal lit up an otherwise uninspired first half in which Defoe had failed to make the most of an earlier opportunity set up by Fletcher and Connor Wickham sent a deflected header against the outside of a post.
But Sunderland deserved their win which could have been more emphatic had they pressed home their superiority after the break.
The tireless Fletcher fluffed a chance to volley home Jordi Gomez's cross and then shot over.
Patrick van Aanholt also sliced a shot wide and Seb Larsson curled a free-kick past the post before picking up a 10th yellow card of the season to earn a two-match ban.
Newcastle finally tested goalkeeper Costel Pantilimon through Remy Cabella's shot on the turn but saw their last chance of an equaliser disappear three minutes from time when Ayoze Perez volleyed over from a corner. | Jermain Defoe's stunning first-half volley gave Sunderland a fifth successive derby win over Newcastle to ease their relegation fears. | 32103959 |
He said news stories raising fears about blackouts should stop.
His optimism is based on the government's latest auction of capacity for power generation, which starts later today.
Firms will bid for subsidies to provide back-up power when needed.
The stand-by plants will run for a few days a year during extreme conditions.
Much of the back-up will be provided by old gas and coal plants that would otherwise be scrapped. Funded by the bill-payer, they will offer a sort of power insurance policy.
Mr Holliday told BBC News: "It's time for the headline of Blackout Britain to end - it's simply wrong. We've been talking about blackouts for 15 years every time it gets cold, but it's a scare story.
"The lights haven't gone out yet and thanks to the measures the government is putting in place this week they definitely won't go out in future. The UK has one of the most stable supplies of electricity in Europe."
The head of the Energy Intensive Users Group (EIUG), which represents companies that use a lot of energy, Jeremy Nicholson, has previously voiced fears about energy security but agrees the capacity auctions will secure supplies.
He told BBC News: "The power industry makes a lot of noise about tight generating margins but somehow manages to provide plenty of capacity when it's needed.
"The capacity issue is sorted now - frankly it should have happened 5-10 years ago. Our bigger concern now is the possibility that when margins are tight, the price will shoot through the roof."
A spokesman for Energy UK, the body that represents power generators, was also confident about security of supply, saying: "We fully support the Capacity Market and we believe it will keep the lights on in Great Britain."
The capacity auctions were originally due to supply back-up from 2018, but the government brought the scheme forward to cover next winter.
Successful bidders in the auctions will receive a payment for keeping power stations available between November and February whether or not they are generating.
Coal, gas and nuclear stations can bid for the availability payment, along with demand reduction suppliers and interconnectors. National Grid juggles what's needed and when.
The capacity auction is expected to cost £2-3bn a year.
A government spokesman said securing capacity to back up intermittent forms of energy like solar and wind might cost about £7 per year per household at first, shrinking to £2 over the long term. He said power shortages resulting in price spikes would be much more expensive.
Generating margins were forecast to be tight for this winter, but there has been no problem, despite a long cold windless spell during which wind energy has produced around 1% of electricity demand. The highest daily percentage of wind power was over 20%.
Mr Holliday, who was chief executive of National Grid until July 2016, forecasts that all future talk of blackouts will be made redundant by a revolution in flexible electricity, with customers using power when it is cheapest.
One current weapon at National Grid's disposal is a contract for flexible supply with firms which don't manufacture continuously.
The firms get compensated if they are asked to stop consuming power for a while during, say, a windless spell.
Stories in the media have reported this as risky for UK Plc. But the EIUG disagrees.
Mr Nicholson told BBC News: "Clearly firms can benefit from being incentivised to turn down their energy use if it doesn't affect their production. Firms needing continuous production don't turn off their power."
Follow Roger on Twitter. | The UK has enough energy capacity to meet demand - even on the coldest days when demand is highest, says Steve Holliday, the man who ran National Grid for a decade. | 38791572 |
Carberry was forced to take a break from the game when diagnosed with blood clots on his lung in November 2010.
The 35-year-old ex-England Test opener, who has scored 411 Division One runs so far this season, had been complaining of feeling unwell after matches.
"He has been feeling gradually worse," coach Dale Benkenstein told BBC Sport.
"We're all holding thumbs everything is alright. He seems fine, but it's just a peace of mind with the condition he has and has been coping with throughout his career.
"He's had some complications and he just wants to find out what's wrong."
Hampshire have struggled this season and are currently bottom of County Championship Division One and the T20 Blast South Group.
Benkenstein is hopeful Carberry will return for the side's T20 matches against Glamorgan on Thursday and at Sussex on Friday.
"If we get some answers and everything is okay, he'll be available to play those games and the rest of the season," the South African told BBC Radio Solent.
"There are just a couple of concerns, so we just want to be sure there's not anything more than just not feeling well."
Meanwhile, Lancashire bowler Gavin Griffiths has joined Hampshire on loan and is set to feature in their next two T20 Blast fixtures.
Griffiths, 22, took 2-23 in last season's final as Lancashire beat Northants at Edgbaston. He made his debut earlier the same day in a semi-final win against Hampshire.
"We're a bit short on the bowling front with recent injuries to players like Ryan McLaren," Benkenstein said.
"Gavin gives us another option during a busy month of the season where our priorities are now four-day and 50-over cricket.
"He's potentially got a lot to get out of his time with us." | Hampshire batsman Michael Carberry is to see a specialist after missing his side's County Championship match against Warwickshire through illness. | 36773819 |
Almost a quarter of a century after he left the Daily Mirror to work for Tony Blair, Campbell will write regular columns and, like all editors-at-large, become an ambassador for the product, I have learned.
He will also commission pieces.
It was Campbell who persuaded Blair to write a high-profile front-page story for the paper.
Campbell already has a regular slot, whether a column or interview, in GQ magazine and also the International Business Times.
The most interesting thing about this story isn't what it says about Campbell, who chose the paper to serialise his recent memoirs, but about the growing confidence, impact and viability of the so-called pop-up paper for the 48% of Britons who voted Remain.
The paper's editor, Matt Kelly, is winning plaudits all over the place for turning a frankly quirky experiment after last year's referendum into a print product whose subscriber base is growing as it approaches its first birthday.
Kelly won special recognition at last week's Press Awards (full disclosure: I was one of the many judges involved in the awards).
Kelly, who looks like Al Capone after a stint with Slimming World, and talks in a thick Scouse accent (he grew up in Formby) that doesn't smack of metropolitan elite, is also chief content officer of Archant, the family-owned publisher founded in 1845.
Latest circulation figures for The New European suggest it sells more than 20,000 copies. Its 48 pages are put together by a staff of about five in Norwich.
I suspect Campbell's 370,000 followers on Twitter will be hearing plenty more about The New European.
He and Kelly both know that if even one in 100 of them took out a subscription, that would be transformative for this brave little title. | Alastair Campbell is returning to British newspapers as editor-at-large of The New European. | 39351694 |
Rivers suffered a cardiac arrest while undergoing a procedure to examine her throat at the Yorkville Endoscopy centre in August 2014.
The legal claim alleges doctors were not adequately trained and performed unauthorised procedures on the star.
Rivers' family is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
In November, state health investigators said the clinic failed to follow standard protocols while treating Rivers, who died a week later.
The Department of Health cited multiple errors, including failing to detect the comedian's deteriorating vital signs during the procedure, but negligence was not suspected.
The New York medical examiner's office ruled Rivers died of brain damage due to lack of oxygen during the procedure.
The death was classified as a "therapeutic complication", meaning it was a known risk.
'Outrageous behaviour'
However Melissa Rivers claims doctors mishandled the endoscopy and performed another procedure - carried out by specialist Gwen Korovin who was not cleared to work at the clinic - without consent.
During the second procedure, gastroenterologist Dr Lawrence Cohen and Ms Korovin took pictures on their mobile phones of themselves with the sedated comedian. Ms Korovin later said she thought Rivers would have wanted to see the images. Dr Cohen has since resigned.
The legal claim alleges staff were not properly trained to detect Rivers' deteriorating vital signs or deal with the type of emergency airway obstruction she suffered before going into cardiac arrest.
It also claims Ms Korovin left the room at this point because she knew she was not permitted to be there and "wanted to avoid getting caught".
Melissa Rivers said filing the lawsuit was one of the most difficult decisions she had to make.
"What ultimately guided me was my unwavering belief that no family should ever have to go through what my mother, Cooper and I have been through," she said, referring to her son.
"The level of medical mismanagement, incompetency, disrespect and outrageous behaviour is shocking and frankly, almost incomprehensible."
The Yorkville Endoscopy centre said it was not appropriate to comment on the legal action.
"The Rivers family has, as it has always had, our deepest sympathies and condolences," it said. | Joan Rivers' daughter has filed a malpractice claim against the New York medical clinic that treated her mother days before she died. | 30999728 |
The DR Congo side were eliminated from Africa's premier club competition on Wednesday, losing 3-1 on aggregate to Wydad Casablanca.
Now they must try to salvage some pride by coming through a play-off to reach the group stage of the second tier competition.
Tunisians Stade Gabesien stand in their way over two legs, to be played on 6-8 May and 17-18 May.
Also dropping down to the Confederation Cup play-offs are the competition's reigning champions Etoile du Sahel. The Tunisians lost on penalties to Enyimba in their Champions League tie, also on Wednesday.
Etoile, the only to win all five Confederation of African Football club competitions, had fought back to win the second leg 3-0 only to fail in the shootout.
TP Mazemebe and Etoile and six other other Champions League round-of-16 losers make up half of the play-off field.
The other eight teams in the draw survived a three-round Confederation Cup elimination process.
Tunisian teams have dominated the 13-year-old competition with CS Sfaxien lifting the trophy three times and Etoile twice. Moroccan clubs have been the second most successful in the Confederation Cup.
Confederation Cup play-offs draw:
MO Bejaia (Algeria) vs Esperance (Tunisia)
Stade Malien (Mali) vs FUS Rabat (Morocco)
Etoile du Sahel (Tunisia) vs CF Mounana (Gabon)
TP Mazembe (DR Congo) vs Stade Gabesien (Tunisia)
Ahli Tripoli (Libya) vs Misr Makassa (Egypt)
El Merreikh (Sudan) vs Kawkab (Morocco)
Young Africans (Tanzania) vs Sagrada Esperanca (Angola)
Mamelodi Sundowns (South Africa) vs Medeama (Ghana) | Champions League holders TP Mazembe must quickly come to terms with their drop down to the Confederation Cup and prepare themselves to face Stade Gabesien. | 36104258 |
Mae rhai busnesau yn dweud nad oes digon wedi cael ei wneud i'w paratoi ar gyfer y digwyddiad chwaraeon mwyaf yng Nghymru.
Mae'r llinell wedi'i sefydlu gan dîm o berchnogion busnes am eu bod yn poeni nad yw llawer o fusnesau wedi cysylltu â'r cyngor.
Ond yn ôl llefarydd ar ran Cyngor Caerdydd mae pob cwmni wedi cael ymweliad a gwybodaeth am y trefniadau.
Mae disgwyl i gannoedd o filoedd o gefnogwyr ymweld â Chaerdydd wrth i dimau Real Madrid ac Juventus wynebu ei gilydd yn Stadiwm Principality.
Bydd nifer fawr o ffyrdd ar gau am resymau diogelwch ac er mwyn rheoli maint y dorf.
Dyw pob busnes yn y brifddinas ddim yn credu y byddant yn elwa.
"Ry'n yn gweld hynny o hyd ar ddiwrnodau rygbi," meddai Tim Corrigan, perchennog caffi Milk and Sugar.
"Busnesau gwahanol sy'n elwa o ddigwyddiadau mawr - bariau, tai bwyta a gwestai fel arfer."
Gofid Kharl Pitman, sy'n rhedeg y Bierkeller, yw y bydd hi'n anodd i'w staff gyrraedd a mynd adref o'r gwaith er mae'n cydnabod bod disgwyl i'w fusnes elwa.
Mae e'n dweud y gallai y grwpiau sy'n arwain masnachwyr ac arweinyddion busnes fod wedi gwneud rhagor.
"Mae yna fforwm y trwyddedwyr, er enghraifft sy'n cwrdd bob deufis. Dylai'r fforwm fod wedi arwain at weithgaredd a fyddai'n annog busnesau i gyfarfod a rhannu newyddion y cyngor."
Mae busnesau eraill, fel cadwyn trin gwallt y Lazarou Brothers, wedi addasu a'r bwriad yw dechrau ymgyrch cyfryngau cymdeithasol a fydd yn targedu pobl a fydd yn ymweld â'r brifddinas.
Mae'r gwestai wedi cael eu llogi ers wythnosau ac mae diddordeb mawr wedi bod ar wefannau cynnig llety.
"Mae'r llety'n llawn," meddai Nigel Read o gwmni asiantaeth dai Sea Breeze ym Mhenarth.
"Mae'n amser da i'r cwmni ond dyw'r Cyngor ddim wedi rhoi cyngor na chefnogaeth i ni."
Rhif y linell gymorth sydd wedi'i sefydlu i helpu busnesau yw 02920 107700. Y nod medd un o'r sefydlwyr Cindy Williams yw "cyfathrebu, deall a gwneud pethau yn haws."
Ychwanegodd: "Dros yr wythnosau diwethaf rydym wedi bod yn bryderus am y nifer o fusnesau sydd eto i gysylltu â Chyngor Caerdydd.
"Ry'm yn credu nad yw nifer wedi cael gwybodaeth - ac fe allai hynny arwain at gamgymeriadau costus neu fethu elwa ar y sefyllfa.
"Bydd y llinell gymorth yn rhoi cymorth arbenigol a chyngor cyfoes."
Dywedodd llefarydd ar ran Cyngor Caerdydd bod swyddogion wedi bod yn ymweld â busnesau ar draws y ddinas ers mis Mawrth.
"Yn ystod ein cyfarfodydd," meddai, "rydym wedi gweithio'n galed er mwyn sicrhau bod busnesau yn elwa'n llawn o'r digwyddiad a phan yn bosib ry'n wedi ceisio cwrdd a gofynion diogelwch busnesau.
Os yw busnesau dal yn teimlo eu bod angen gwybodaeth angenrheidiol awgrymwn eu bod yn cysylltu â highwaysnetworkmanagement@cardiff.gov.uk
Hefyd mae'r wybodaeth ddiweddara i'w chael ar wefan Caerdydd 2017. | Mae llinell gymorth 24 awr newydd agor i fusnesau Caerdydd ar drothwy gêm fawr Cynghrair y Pencampwyr. | 40071958 |
The 5.2cm (two inch) coin was taken to the auction house in Dorchester, Dorset, by its owner who was unaware of its significance.
The Declaration Pound, which dates from 1643, was described by auctioneers as "extremely rare".
It was struck in Oxford, a year after the English Civil War broke out, at a new mint created to launch an official currency under Royalist control.
Duke's Auctioneers had expected the coin to fetch £50,000.
It had been handed down through several generations to the current owner, who said she did not know where it had originally come from.
The coin marks Charles I's attempts to regain his failing power from the Parliamentarians led by Oliver Cromwell.
A legend inscribed on the back of the coin in Latin reads: "Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered".
It is seen as a declaration of the king's power and his belief in absolute monarchy.
According to the National Archives, £1 in 1640 would have been worth £85.80 in 2005. | A rare solid silver £1 coin has sold at auction for £46,000. | 31848168 |
Public Health England (PHE) said the majority of cases of the cryptosporidium bug confirmed since the beginning of June were in Wiltshire.
Other cases have been identified in Gloucestershire, South Gloucestershire, Somerset, Cornwall, Devon and Dorset.
The Oasis leisure centre swimming pool in Swindon remains closed after a number of cases were linked to it.
PHE said there had now been 34 cases confirmed in the Swindon Borough Council area, 27 in Wiltshire Council's area and 31 in Gloucestershire.
A total of 131 cases in the rest of the South West include 23 in Somerset, 20 in Devon and 19 in Bristol.
An investigation into the source of the predominantly waterborne disease is continuing, a spokesperson said.
Dr Toyin Ejidokun, from PHE South West, said "appropriate control measures" were being taken to help prevent further cases.
"Cryptosporidiosis is predominantly a waterborne disease and infection can be caused by drinking contaminated water or swallowing contaminated water in swimming pools or streams.
"It can also be acquired by animal and human contact."
She added that the anyone could get cryptosporidiosis, but it is "most common in young children aged between one and five years".
"We have had confirmed reports of Cryptosporidium infection amongst a number of people who visited the Oasis swimming pool in Swindon earlier this summer.
"The swimming pool is one of a number of possible exposures that we are exploring.
"At this point, there is no confirmed source of exposure." | An outbreak of a sickness and diarrhoea bug in the South West of England has widened to 223 cases. | 37189213 |
Yvette Cooper said the upcoming vote should be a "huge opportunity" for the party to move forward.
Liz Kendall, Andy Burnham and Jeremy Corbyn are the other contenders.
Ms Cooper also said First Minister Carwyn Jones should be given a "stronger voice" in the party in Wales.
Speaking to BBC Radio Wales' Sunday Supplement programme, she said: "This should be a huge opportunity. The danger not just for the Labour party but the whole country is if we turn our back on winning the next election."
She added: "There are so many people in Wales who depend on a Labour government."
Ms Cooper called the leadership vote an opportunity to "come together" and have "radical ideas for the future but also to be credible".
She also said Labour should have more shadow cabinet meetings in Wales, champion more devolution and a UK constitutional convention.
The result of the leadership contest is due on 12 September. | There is a "danger" for Welsh people who depend on a Labour government if the party turns its back on winning the next election, a leadership candidate has said. | 34101872 |
Ansaru was formed in January 2012, though it rose to prominence only about six months later through the release of a video in which it vowed to attack Westerners in defence of Muslims worldwide.
"For the first time, we are glad to announce to the public the formation of this group that has genuine basis," said a statement issued by the group in January 2012 and quoted in local media.
"We will have [a] dispassionate look into everything, to encourage what is good and see to its spread and to discourage evil and try to eliminate it."
Its full Arabic name, Jama'atu Ansarul Muslimina Fi Biladis Sudan, means: "Vanguards for the Protection of Muslims in Black Africa".
This suggests that it has a wider regional agenda, with the UK listing Ansaru as a "terrorist group" linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
Just two months after it was formed, the UK said the militant group had killed a Briton and an Italian taken hostage in the north-western state of Sokoto after a failed attempt to rescue them.
Then in December 2012, it abducted French national Francis Colump, 63, following an attack on a well-guarded compound in the northern town of Rimi, about 25km (15 miles) from Katsina city.
About 30 Ansaru gunmen used dynamite to force their way into the compound, seizing Mr Colump who, officials, said, was working on a wind power project.
It carried out a similar attack in February 2013, capturing seven foreign nationals from a housing compound owned by the Lebanese construction company Setraco.
It said the attack was to avenge "transgressions" by European nations in Mali and Afghanistan, where Western forces are battling Islamist insurgents.
On Saturday, it released a video saying it had killed the "Christian" hostages because the UK and Nigerian forces were planning an operation to rescue them - an allegation the UK denied.
It has also carried out attacks on Nigerian targets.
In January 2013, Ansaru said it had carried out an attack which killed two Nigerian soldiers as they prepared to deploy to Mali.
The group said it targeted the troops because the Nigerian military was joining the French-led military campaign to "demolish the Islamic empire of Mali".
French journal Jeune Afrique-L'Intelligent says Ansaru is led by the little-known Abu Ussamata al-Ansary.
It quoted a statement by him as saying that the Nigerian government was "incapable of defending Muslims in inter-religious violence with Christians".
The group also said it was fighting to reclaim "the lost dignity of Muslims of black Africa" and the creation of an Islamic caliphate from Niger to Cameroon and northern Nigeria.
Analysts believe it is an off-shoot of Boko Haram, which launched an insurgency in 2009 to create an Islamic state in Nigeria, rather than across the region.
"To some, the sect headed by Ansary is seen as one that will compliment the 'struggle' by the Boko Haram sect under Imam Abubakar Shekau but to many it is an indication that all is not well with the leadership of the Boko Haram sect and that there has been conflict about its ideology and its understanding of Islam," wrote journalist Tukur Mamu in Nigeria's Desert Herald newspaper last year.
"Hence, the decision to form a new group."
According to Nigeria's Standard newspaper, Ansaru has denounced Boko Haram's style of operation as "inhuman to the Muslim ummah [nation]", an apparent reference to killing of innocent Nigerians - Christian and Muslim - through bombings and assassinations.
"Islam forbids killing of innocent people, including non-Muslims. This is our belief and we stand for it," Mr al-Ansary said in the video released last year.
But Mr al-Ansary added that non-Muslims can be killed "in self-defence or if they attack Muslims", which seems to explain the killing of Nigerian soldiers to be deployed to Mali.
However, analysts say it does not justify the killing of civilian hostages - unless Ansaru holds them accountable for the actions of Western governments in countries such as Mali, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Analysts believe that Nigeria's government will find it more difficult to end the Islamist insurgency now that two groups are operating.
The government is said to be working with counter-terrorism experts from several countries - including the US and UK - in an attempt to neutralise the threat posed by Boko Haram and Ansaru, amid fears that they could worsen instability across West and central Africa. | Nigeria's militant Islamist group Ansaru has proved to be a formidable threat during its short existence, using dynamite to penetrate heavily-fortified compounds and taking foreigners hostage - seven of whom it said it had killed on Saturday. | 21510767 |
Tipuric suffered a heavy blow to the head as he fell from a line-out in Wales' 67-14 Six Nations win over Italy on 19 March.
Ospreys backs coach Gruff Rees said: "We're not even putting any thought process around when the next game for Justin can be.
"It may be we just sit tight and see the season out and get to the summer."
Rees described the incident on 19 March in which Tipuric was injured as a "hefty blow".
The 2013 British and Irish Lion started for Wales as captain Sam Warburton had been concussed in the defeat by England seven days earlier.
Tipuric went on to miss Ospreys' 25-16 Pro12 defeat by Scarlets last Saturday and he will be absent when the Swansea-based team visit Newport Gwent Dragons on Friday, 1 April.
Rees added: "He was in the office last Friday and he had a tough old week of it in terms of just being inactive at home and really not being comfortable getting out and about.
"And we're not putting any pressure on him having to do anything but sitting on the sofa."
Rees added: "You've got to be really wary and sit back and look at the long-term betterment of these players."
Wales lock colleague Alun Wyn Jones is also on the Ospreys sidelines as he recovers from a heel problem.
No matter what part Jones and Tipuric play in the rest of Ospreys' season, Wales hope they are fit to face New Zealand down under in three Tests in June. | Ospreys could be without Wales and Lions flanker Justin Tipuric for the rest of the 2015-16 season. | 35924188 |
In his first interview since that moment two weeks ago, the man who thought he was about to be chancellor told me about his "sense of loss" after his party's failure and a personal defeat which he describes as "a symbol of the vibrancy of our democracy".
Ed Balls was in reflective mood when we spoke - looking back at what he'd achieved as much as forward to what might be next.
"I think one of the really important things in life is to think about what you've done rather than fixate on what you might not have done," he said.
"So in those 20 years, I helped keep us out of the euro, I helped Britain to have an independent Bank of England, to raise education leaving age to 18, Sure Start, the national minimum wage, changing the health service - these are all good things.
"We didn't get everything right. We did some good things and I'm proud of what I've done and the decisions I've made."
When he lost his seat he thought back to the day he was first elected and gave his rather startled Tory successor a word or two of advice on how she should handle her victory speech and the waiting media.
Balls told me that it was not until the early hours of Friday that he knew he'd lost.
I asked what his emotions were at that moment, if there were tears.
He replied: "I've been around for a long time so I've seen wrenching political change and I've seen people be surprised by outcomes... a year ago, two years ago it was a really hard thing for us to do to win this election.
"Five years ago coming out of government after the financial crisis, I think many people thought it was an impossibility.
"In the final weeks we fought a good campaign and we were neck and neck in the poll. I think we thought there was a chance. But I think over the course of that night, as the results came in, we knew that chance had alluded us and it wasn't anger or tears, more a dawning disappointment and sense of loss."
Balls is not yet ready to to step back into Westminster - we spoke overlooking the City of London - but is he ready to accept the blame for what went wrong for him and his party?
When I asked him whether "Ed Balls was one of the reasons Labour was unelectable?" he replied: "Of course. I mean Ed Miliband said straight after the election he took responsibility but all of us have to bear our share of responsibility.
"Ed was the leader I backed him as shadow chancellor 100%. In the end he didn't persuade people he could be the prime minister but I didn't persuade people I could be the chancellor either.
"I have to take that on the chin. People will analyse for weeks and months what happened and that's something that still feels too early for me.
"I'm not going to start giving you a verdict or a judgement. That's something I might do in future, might come back to. Not now. It's for others to go for the instant commentary and work out the next steps for Labour and the country.
"It is though pretty clear who he blames for one vital mistake made by his party - the failure to woo business.
"I think I wanted to be more pro-business but I also backed Ed Miliband 100 per cent. He was the leader, I was the shadow chancellor. We both worked very hard and in the end neither he or I persuaded people and we need to take our responsibility for that. It's not all on him it's on all of us."
It was Ed Balls though who was Gordon Brown's key economic adviser in the run up to the Great Crash and there's one question which has haunted him and his party - Did Labour spend too much in government? Why did Britain enter that crisis with a budget deficit and not a surplus ?
"Before 2007 it is a matter of record that we had a low level of national debt because of the decisions we had made but also we had a small deficit.
"People will now say that that small deficit should have had a small surplus. The reality is that would have made a small difference, not a big difference, that couldn't have made a difference to the global financial crisis, which was a huge failure in our banking system and a failure of regulation which I have taken on the chin for the last ten years. In the end though we didn't convince people of that argument, but i am afraid those are the facts."
Just as he leave frontline politics his wife - Yvette Cooper - is stepping forward to take over as the next Labour leader.
He told me she is "brilliant and people will get a chance to see what she stands for" but he insisted that "I am not playing a role in her campaign" except "whilst she is busy I can do more to help family."
Asked whether whether he worries that she is applying for the toughest job in British politics he said: "You have to take your calling when it comes."
What though of his future - ever since he was a student Balls has had politics in his blood - is he really going to walk away from it now?
"I'm not going to be dashing back" to front-line politics, Balls says, before swiftly adding but "never say never".
He was, he told me, embarking on "a new chapter, outside of politics. No by-elections, not back in parliament, that is how it feels at the moment. Outside of politics is where I am going next."
What, though ,of rumours that he fancies an appearance on Strictly Come Dancing - a prospect his wife has described as "truly terrifying"?
Despite running three marathons he told me "I'm not sure if I'm equipped for Strictly" - a non-denial denial if ever I heard one.
What he will talk about is his desire to spend more time "cooking, running, playing the piano" and using "real time to stand back and think", to write about economics.
I very much suspect we have not seen the last Ed Balls moment.
Here is the full transcript of the interview:
Ed Balls: Clearly I've got more time on my hands than I've had for the past 20 years, it's only been a couple of weeks, it's flown by. I've had hundred of letters and emails from Labour voters and Tory voters - I've been replying to them. I've been trying to get fit again, get back to piano practice, my oldest daughter is doing the GCSE now, with Yvette very busy at the moment there's a bit more time for me to spend with the family and also outside of the day to day there's a bit more space. I've been thinking about and writing about economics for 20 years and there's really big issues out there, what's happening to secular stagnation, is the financial system sound - the development challenge which is pushing migrants into Europe - these are things where for the first time there's real time to stand back and think and write a bit, that's what I'm doing.
Nick Robinson: That sounds like there's a book coming or a series of lectures, we've not heard the end of Ed Balls on economics?
EB: It's a new chapter for me, and it's a big change. I think .. you never know what's going to be happening in the future, I'm not going to be standing for a by-election …and while you never say never I think for me the reality is the next phase for me is going to be outside of politics, but there's ways in which you can make a difference in the world outside of Parliament and that's something I'd like to do - who knows if there'll be a chance to be in public service again in the future, but for me now .. out of politics is where it is.
NR: But politics has been in your blood since you left University, people will find it hard to imagine after those five years..maybe.. after a breather you won't be back.
EB: I came into politics to make a difference, and that's what I've tried to do in my life. And I think one of the really important things in life is to think about what you've done rather than fixate on what you might not have done. So in those 20 years I helped keep us out of the Euro, I helped Britain to have an independent Bank of England, to raise education leaving age to 18, Sure Start, the national minimum wage, changing the health service - these are all good things. We didn't get everything right, we did some good things and I'm proud of what I've done and the decisions I've made. But it is a different chapter for me now, and there's big issues out there in the world that I'd like to think about to write about to get involved in. I don't know where it's going to take me but it's new and a change and I'm still fairly young. I'm looking forward to it, it's exciting.
NR: So just to clarify no by-elections?
EB: No by-elections.
NR: No House of Lords?
EB: Out of politics is how I'm thinking of things at the moment.
NR: Not running a think tank?
EB: Look you never say never about anything 'cos who knows what's going to happen - it's only been a couple of weeks, but I think the reality for me now is that I want to make a difference to the world outside of politics - that's how I'm thinking about things - I'm not going to dashing back.
NR: The big question everybody says I have to ask you is Strictly. Are you going to take to the ballroom floor?
EB: Three marathons means I am fit but am I really fit enough for Strictly? When you look at it, the people who on Strictly, they tend to be half my age and to have played international sport or been to stage school or on the stage.
" am not sure if I am quite equipped for Strictly.
NR: Vince Cable, Ann Widdecombe did it, surely Ed Balls can do it?
EB: (sounding uncertain): Errrr.., OK, OK.
NR: Let me take you back two weeks ago - many people thought you were about to be chancellor of the exchequer, did you - even on Thursday night?
EB: We knew it was really close, and before that exit poll all the opinion polls said the election was on a knife edge....I'm not sure if it was more than 50% but I thought it was a real possibility. So to go from that through the exit poll, that swing to the conservatives through to losing my seat in seven hours. In 2010 I held on, I think in 2015 the Tories were as surprised as I was by what happened in my constituency and in seats across the country, so it was a big change...
NR: So within the space of a day, you went from thinking I might be standing outside No11 to being redundant?
EB: Politics is a brutal business and it is tough, as Robin Day famously said us politicians can be here today and gone today, and that's what happens. But in the end the reason is because we live a democracy and in a democracy the people decide. And however tough it is for us individual politicians - especially if you're fighting a marginal seat like mine - you can be here today and gone tomorrow and that is democracy. So in the end, although was hard for me, I am a symbol of the vibrancy of our democracy. And that's something I think people are proud of, and celebrate, and although hard for me ... it shows the kind of country we live in.
NR: You were also a symbol too of Labour's defeat, some people said it was like the Portillo moment for the Tories. Does that hurt that there were people saying 'Yes! Ed Balls has gone?'
EB: The thing which hurts is the fact the millions of people who voted for us, and many thousands of people who worked to campaign for a Labour govt were disappointed because we didn't succeed, and we didn't convince people that we were the right people to be in govt. And as I said on the night, such big issues for our country - whether we stay in the European Union, whether we can hold our union together, the depth of public spending cuts George Osborne is planning and the risk to the national heath service and I can't now change that course and that direction. In that sense there are very many people who wanted us to succeed and we didn't and my disappointment is much much more about the result about what happened to the government than anything to do with my, that is really secondary. That is how I felt in those moments, when I found out my result, I already knew what was happening in the country - and that was a much bigger deal.
Repeat of last question due to plane noise.
EB: There are very many millions of people who voted for Labour, many thousands who worked hard for a Labour govt because they wanted us to win. And the disappointment is that we didn't convince enough people that we could be the next govt, that they could trust in us. And it means that on those big issues facing our country whether we can save our national health service , whether we can keep our union together, whether or not we can keep Britain in the European Union and reform Europe. We now can't chart that course. And for me that disappointment is much much bigger than anything personally that happened to me - I knew for hours that night what was happening in the country. And by the time it came to my speech, what happened in the country was a much much bigger sense of sorrow than anything personal, that wasn't the issue for me.
NR: You knew for hours that you might lose but not days, when did you first realise that you might lose?
EB: I didn't know that I was actually going to lose my seat until the returning officer gave us the result at 7.30 in the morning, so I had hours of uncertainty …I think the point where I knew that things were not turning out the way in which we hoped, when we knew .. was not the exit poll, it was probably results from Wrexham and Nuneaton and Swindon North about 1 in the morning which showed a swing from Labour to the Conservatives. My seat was a very marginal seat, in 2010 we just held on. I always knew if Tories had a majority I was probably a goner but the reason I travelled seven and a half thousand of miles and went to 45 seats because I was fighting to win but only when it dawned in those hours after 1 in the morning that … actually things had not gone the way anybody had expected and the conservatives might get to a majority it was that point where I started to think well maybe my seat might go as well. By then though, it was clear that Labour wasn't going to be the govt and that was a much bigger deal for me.
NR: And your emotion when you realised that - shock, anger, tears?
EB: I've been around for a long time so I've seen wrenching political change and I've seen people be surprised by outcomes... a year ago, two years ago it was a really hard thing for us to do to win this election. Five years ago coming out of government after the financial crisis I think many people thought it was an impossibility. In the final weeks we fought a good campaign and we were neck and neck in the polls I think we thought there was a chance. But I think over the course of that night as the results came in we knew that chance had alluded us and it wasn't anger or tears more a dawning disappointment and sense of loss.
NR: A loss for what might have been?
EB: Yeah of course because look we worked so hard for so long to try and win people's trust to convince people and there were so many people relying on us to do so and even now, since the election many more people come up to me to say we're really sorry or this is how we felt and you can feel that sense of disappointment and that's hard because I wanted to win.
NR: You must ask yourself again and again why and - this is hard question - do you ever look at yourself and think maybe Ed Balls was one of the reasons Labour was unelectable?
EB: Of course. I mean Ed Miliband said straight after the election he took responsibility but all of us have to bear our share of responsibility. Ed was the leader I backed him as shadow chancellor 100% in the end he didn't persuade people he could be the Prime Minister but I didn't persuade people I could be the Chancellor either. I have to take that on the chin. People will analyse for weeks and months what happened and that's something that still feels too early for me. I'm not going to start giving you a verdict or a judgement. That's something I might do in future, might come back to. Not now. It's for others to go for the instant commentary and work out the next steps for Labour and the country.
NR: You know what they say - were you just too associated with the past? In the end is the election that was still about the great crash? Ed Balls, Ed Miliband, Gordon Brown - they're all the lot that got us into the mess.
EB: There was a global financial crisis. I think Labour made important decision during that period to stop Britain & the world going into depression. But in the end we didn't convince people of that argument and we didn't convince people we were the right people to take the country forward and in the end that's why we lost. And you know the why , the analysis of that is something that will now happen and we can all contribute to that in the future, but for me it feels too early to start making judgements about that. But I know in the end we didn't win because we didn't convince enough people that we were the better alternative for the future and that's our failure.
NR: There was one question you know that was asked again and again about the past. Labour spending. Not did spending cause the crash. But did spending too much mean that you weren't prepared for the after effects of the crash?
EB: Before 2007 it is a matter of record that we had a low level of national debt because of the decisions we had made but also we had a small deficit. People will now say that that small deficit should have had a small surplus. The reality is that would have made a small difference, not a big difference, that couldn't have made a difference to the global financial crisis, which was a huge failure in our banking system and a failure of regulation which I have taken on the chin for the last ten years. In the end though we didn't convince people of that argument, but I am afraid those are the facts.
NR: So you may have to go back and say 'more spending control might have been better.'?
EB: I think it would not have made a difference to the financial crisis at all.
NR: But to your credibility? To the sense that people thought you were capable of controlling the public finances?
EB: We were very, very disciplined in our approach to public spending after 2010. Unlike other parties we didn't make unfunded commitments.
NR: it was before though wasn't it?
EB: We had an absolutely disciplined approach in this parliament. before 2007, we had low national debt, we hadn't joined the euro, we'd made the bank independent, we had shed a number of jobs in the civil service through the Gershon Review, there was a small deficit, people will say there should have been a small surplus, i think that would have made a small difference, not a big difference.
NR: There might be some who look at you and say, 'even now, he's not willing to learn.'
EB: I think It is for me to think and reflect in the coming months and we can talk about these things, at the moment it is for the leadership candidates in the labour party to set out their positions and it is not really sensible for me to do a running commentary on the past. i always argued for what i thought was right, i have always been consistent, one of things that you learn in politics is that every day when you make a decision, a difficult decision in government or a decision in opposition about what you say, you have at the end of the day to go to bed thinking that was the right call, because you'll live with that for the rest of your life and i have always sought to do that in everything I've done.
NR: You say you backed Ed Miliband 100%. There were issues - there are in any government or shadow government where you had your disagreements - are there any you want to reflect now? You argued about Labour's attitude to business, You had your doubts about the energy price freeze. Are those lessons you want the party to learn?
EB: I think I wanted to be more pro business but I also backed Ed Miliband 100 per cent. He was the leader I was the shadow chancellor we both worked very hard and in the end neither he or I persuaded people and we need to take our responsibility for that. It's not all on him it's on all of us.
NR: But things like the energy price freeze spooked business didn't they?
EB: People are going to stand back and analyse all those things in the months and years to come. I'm not going to rush to judgements. What I'm going to say to you is I accept my responsibility with Ed and with the whole shadow cabinet for the decisions we took and in the end we didn't convince enough people,
NR: you were fighting a Northern seat against the Tories and against UKIP. you were always one of those who said take the issue of Europe and immigration seriously - some lessons for the future?
EB: I think those were big and important issues and I talked a great deal in my constituency about those matters. And as did Labour in the run up to the election, and they're going to be big defining issues of this Parliament as well. In my constituency what happened was a collapse in the Lib Dem vote and more of those voters went to the Conservatives than we were expecting. In the end Nick Clegg had spent five years in a coalition telling Lib Dems it was better to be with the Tories and in the end I think you reap what you sow.
NR: You'd mentioned the leadership contest - lots of candidates. Presumably you're struggling to think who to support?
EB: I'm going to be supporting and voting for Yvette of course. I think she's brilliant and people will have a chance to see more of what she is and what she stands for and what she can do in the coming weeks. I'm not going to play any part in her campaign, that's her campaign and her ideas and it's not for me. I've got the opportunity at a time what there's other stuff going on in our lives and for our children, to stand back while she's busy do more for rest of family and that's what I'm going to do but I'll be voting for her like many other Labour members in September.
NR: You'll be cooking?
EB: Bit of cooking of course. A bit of running. A bit of piano. And just making sure...politics is a tough world and families need support and I think one of the things I certainly learnt from my time in Government and when the children were younger you have to try harder to get the balance right. Since 2010 I always made sure I went to parents evening and we went to the school performances and were there to help kids with homework. I think it's important to get that balance in life.
In the end when people's careers... when something happens you don't expect. I think probably people look back, and too often regret they spent too much time away from things that were important to them and that's something I've been conscious not to let happen in our lives.
NR: Given that do you worry for Yvette- the woman you love? People say leader of opposition is the worst job in politics and it now lasts 5 years before you have a got at an election - does that worry you?
EB: In the end it's really important what happens in the next five years, I want Labour party to come out united and more determined. And I want that to happen. We've learnt some lessons but also we've shown a unity and a vision. We've got a number of great leadership candidates and a really talented shadow cabinet. Having people who can lead and set out a vision is so important, not just for Labour but for the country, and I think in politics you have to take your calling when it comes and that's what she's doing.
NR: This is the moment for her?
EB: Yep.
NR: She is not Mrs Ed Balls - she's always been Yvette Cooper and I'm sure that's important to you and her. Does that give her the freedom to say the last shadow chancellor didn't quite get that right?
EB: Of course and I think over many years she's never been shy of telling me when I got things wrong and me the same with her. She's her own person and has her own talents and her own backers and campaign and her own views and I'm sure she will set them out and she can do that in as forthright a way as she wants and that's fine as far as I'm concerned.
NR: When you reflect do you think people have had caricature view of Ed Balls and maybe you'll get the chance to show something a bit different?
EB: I think it's really hard in politics for people to see the real you because everything is mediated through the newspaper column and through the prism your opponents can often set up, and in the end you have to have confidence in yourself and who you are and what your values are and why you do what you do, and you need people to see that and over time I think they do. I've had lots of emails and letters from Conservatives following election night and after my speech to say they were sorry I had lost. In life I guess you always wish you could make those speeches earlier but that's not the way it is.
NR: Is there one lesson in this short fortnight you've already learnt that you think; that's something I now understand for the future?
EB: The lesson I've learned are you've always got to be proud of what you've done and enjoy what you're doing rather than fixate on what might be in the future. I've never had a grand plan for my career but nor have I ever felt disappointed that i haven't done something i wanted to do. I've learnt to enjoy what I'm doing and be proud of what I've done. I think you've also got to make sure in politics you are always thinking about those other sides to your life outside the day to day, and you've always got to know every day that when you make a decision you're doing so for the right reasons and you can that day feel comfortable that in the in months and years to come when people look back and say was that right, that you can be judged knowing with integrity you made the right call and I've always sought to do that.
NR: This interview isn't the mark of a return to politics but it isn't the mark of never again, no return to politics?
EB: I've been in politics in Whitehall and Westminster for 20 years because I wanted to try and make a difference to our country and the world. You never say never but for me it's a new chapter, outside of politics, but it doesn't mean you stop wanting to make a difference. I always wanted to be in public service that was always more important to me than wealth or the trappings of power so who knows? if there's the chance to do something good again that helps people I will take that. But no by-elections. Out of politics. Not back in parliament - that's how it feels at the moment.
NR: Not back in parliament ever or not till the next election?
EB: You never say never.
NR: Wait and see?
EB: Outside of politics is where I'm going next. | Were you up for that Ed Balls moment - the symbol of Labour's crushing electoral defeat, the trigger for wild Tory celebrations and Labour despair? | 32852570 |
A cursory search on YouTube showed him the reason for their concern.
A doctored clip of Holocaust film Schindler's List called "What John Donahoe's doing to eBay" had superimposed his name on to a Nazi guard shooting a Jewish prisoner. The prisoner had been labelled as an eBay seller.
This incident happened in 2008, just a few months after he'd taken the helm and announced dramatic changes to both the charges the online auction site made for listing items and its feedback system for customers and sellers.
"I thought, 'Oh my god this is personal.' That was like one of those gut check moments - is this worth it? It wasn't perfectly obvious at that moment."
Six years on it's easy to say it was worth it. The changes Mr Donahoe made have shifted eBay from being an online auction marketplace to a full blown e-commerce operation.
Last year 73% of the items on its website were sold at a fixed price, rather than via auction.
And over the past five years, its shares have surged by 441%, compared with the Nasdaq's 213% rise over the same period.
Mr Donahoe says if he could go back to 2008, he would have tried to communicate his vision more clearly, but he would still make those changes because that was his job.
"There is always a new normal because the pace of technology innovation is changing and consumer behaviour is changing. So our leaders have to be comfortable that their job is to continuously drive change."
It is not only tech firm bosses that face this reality. The biggest part of any chief executive's role is to ensure that their firm is able to thrive or at least survive, regardless of external circumstances.
Any change, such as a downturn in the economy or a structural change in the industry in which it operates, means the firm will have to respond and perhaps shift, at least to some degree, how it operates.
In the case of US healthcare services firm Cardinal Health, the entire industry was changing due to a significant demographic shift with the older population expanding rapidly, and sharp growth in some health issues such as obesity.
Five years ago, the firm decided to sell off a significant and lucrative part of its medical products business, leaving it with what at the time was perceived as the less profitable parts of the business - largely medical services and some products.
Chief executive George Barrett was brought in to lead the firm just ahead of the sale, and had to drive the shift which he admits was "difficult".
"We had to reinvent our perspective and say look, this service business can be innovative, can drive high growth and can be extraordinarily valuable in a system going through a big change."
But it also had to tell investors that as a result of the change, profits would be down in the first year, before growing again.
Despite a tough initial period, Mr Barrett says being so upfront about the changes and communicating their impact clearly helped.
"Getting through that difficult time was easier because people felt that we were taking the actions we needed to take, we weren't going to wait... we were going to move aggressively."
Four years of consistent profits growth and shareholder returns have also helped appease investors.
At Cardinal Health, making such a dramatic change obviously paid off, but it can be hard to judge how quickly to implement change.
After listing on the stock market, Chinese entrepreneur Wang Chuanfu decided to make a dramatic change to BYD (short for Build Your Dreams) - the firm he founded originally to make batteries for mobile phones. He used the funds from going public to expand its remit to making electric cars.
Suddenly instead of selling to companies, it had to start selling to consumers - a completely different proposition.
Mr Wang said initially he moved too fast, opening too many distribution centres, many of which made a loss.
Getting its rate of expansion right took three years to fix, but the firm, which now counts Warren Buffett as an investor, has continued to grow and says it plans to bring four of its models to the US by the end of 2015.
"It was a good path, [I] just had to persevere through it," he says.
This feature is based on interviews by leadership expert Steve Tappin for the BBC's CEO Guru series, produced by Neil Koenig and Evy Barry. | EBay chief executive John Donahoe knew something was up when his firm's security team advised him not to attend a conference for sellers on safety grounds. | 27018112 |
Police said Michael Carter from Salford was involved in a row about football with two men on King Street West and was hit once in the face.
The 49-year-old hit his head on the pavement during the attack on 31 August, and died in hospital on 10 September.
A 20-year-old man from Urmston is being questioned on suspicion of murder
A second man, aged 19 and from Stretford, was arrested on suspicion of affray.
A post-mortem examination concluded that Mr Carter died from a head injury. | A man has been arrested on suspicion of murder over the apparent one-punch killing of a man in Manchester. | 29231315 |
His spokesman told the BBC Mr Machar was now at rebel military headquarters in the eastern town of Pagak.
He is expected in the capital Juba next week to resume the post of vice-president as part of last year's deal.
The deadly civil conflict erupted in 2013 after President Salva Kiir accused Mr Machar of plotting a coup.
Since then thousands of people have died and more than two million have been displaced.
Mr Machar's spokesman told the BBC on Tuesday that the rebel leader was in Pagak, near the border with Ethiopia.
He is expected in Juba on Monday, while his deputy leader Alfred Ladu Gore is already in the capital.
Last week, more than 1,300 rebel troops were flown to Juba as part of the terms of the peace deal signed in August 2015.
These forces are deployed to provide security for Mr Machar, who said he would not come to take up his new position until these security measures were put into place.
Peace agreements between both sides have broken down repeatedly over the years, so there is still expected to be mistrust within this new government, the BBC's Africa security correspondent Tomi Oladipo reports.
But the people of South Sudan have seen enough calamity and can only hope this transitional government gets things right this time, our correspondent adds.
The peace agreement was signed amid a threat of sanctions from the United Nations.
Fighting was supposed to stop immediately - but there have been frequent violations.
President Kiir and Mr Machar also agreed to share out ministerial positions. The agreement returns the government to where it was before the war broke out.
The UN and African Union have accused both sides of carrying out atrocities - an AU-backed report in January alleged that 50 civilians had suffocated after government troops locked them in a shipping container.
South Sudan is the world's youngest country and one of the least developed. It split from Sudan in 2011. | South Sudan's rebel leader Riek Machar has returned to the country for the first time in more than two years - as part of a peace deal. | 36031415 |
In the two weeks ending on 23 January, 28,000 people died, the Office for National Statistics figures show.
Over the previous five years, the average number of deaths for the same period stood at about 21,000.
Experts say flu could be the driving force, although the precise causes will not be known for some time.
Prof John Newton, chief knowledge officer at Public Health England (PHE), which monitors death rates, said there had been a substantial increase in the numbers since Christmas.
Although it was less apparent from the raw data, PHE's own analysis has found that - even taking the season into account - deaths among elderly people have now been significantly elevated for six weeks.
The death rate has risen by 3,700 people a week since early December. Of that more than 3,000 are accounted for by over-75s.
The usual key causes of excess winter deaths are cold weather, influenza and gastrointestinal infection.
Estimating exactly which has done what, however, will take some time.
There is evidence, however, that flu may be a crucial driver of this year's elevated deaths.
According to PHE statistics, both GPs and hospitals are spending much more time dealing with flu than they did last year, despite a similar vaccination rate among the key target groups.
Furthermore, the H3N2 sub-type - a prevalent flu virus at the moment - takes a particular strain on elderly people.
An important role for this virus is therefore consistent with a higher death rate among the elderly, who have been encouraged to get vaccinated.
This year, the proportion of vulnerable people who were vaccinated was the same as last year.
Prof Newton said PHE tries to anticipate sub-types of the virus that will be circulating to ensure it can be vaccinated against.
"This year, it is the right type," he said.
"But there can be [mutation] so that the circulating type might not be as well matched at the end of the flu season as it was at the beginning."
One explanation that senior civil servants in the Department of Health have suggested is that the death rate may also be higher because of last year's mild winter.
An unusually large number of frail people may have survived last year, but are succumbing to the flu and cold this year.
The forces that are driving the higher death rates would certainly have contributed to the problems facing A&E units, which have struggled under their heavy case loads.
But Prof Newton said the problems both in A&Es and social care are unlikely to have contributed materially to the higher death rates, noting the chronology of the surge.
"People might think perhaps that some of these deaths are the result of a failure of health care or social care. There's very little evidence of that," he added. | The current death rate in England and Wales is running about one-third higher than its normal rate for this time of year, official statistics show. | 31124320 |
The employees are thought to include local staff and three Australians.
Australian media report that a "co-ordinated police operation" targeted marketing activities of Crown, owned by billionaire James Packer.
The people held are reportedly from the sales and marketing division and include a senior executive.
The 15 non-Australian employees detained are understood to be local employees at Chinese cities including Beijing and Shanghai.
Casino gambling is illegal in China, except in the former Portuguese colony of Macau.
Crown Resorts has interests there. For years it has skirted the question of how to advertise these gambling resorts in the rest of China by merely advertising the areas they are in.
"Crown believes that a number of our employees in China are being questioned by local authorities," a company spokeswoman said. "At this time we can provide no further details."
It is not known whether any of the 18 arrested people have been charged with anything.
Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade issued a statement saying: "The Australian Government is aware of reports of the possible detention of a number of Crown International Group employees across China, including three Australians.
"Consular officials are seeking to confirm these reports with the relevant Chinese authorities."
A corruption crackdown initiated by Chinese President Xi Jinping has made many people, particularly government officials, wary of being seen with too much cash, and revenue in Macau's casinos fell by more than a third last year. | Australian officials say they are investigating reports that 18 employees of Australian-based gambling firm Crown Resorts have been detained in China. | 37666246 |
Thomas was shortlisted for ex-Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson's 'most influential leader' award of 2015.
A "new approach," to community sport will be among Thomas' priorities.
The Welsh Government wants people to "become hooked on sport for life".
Skates said: "We want to break down the barriers to participation in sport and physical activity and create opportunities for people of all ages and abilities."
A Welsh Government statement said Thomas has more than 30 years experience working in community development, strategic leadership and sport inclusion roles, "often in socially disadvantaged areas".
Skates added: "I am confident Paul's qualities, experience and commitment will help the Welsh Government deliver a more physically active and successful sporting nation."
Thomas said: "Having grown up in the south Wales valleys and played sport most of my life I am certain of the benefits sport and physical activity can have on people's health and wellbeing."
McAllister's time as chair was due to end in January, 2016 at the end of her second three-year term.
But four applicants were deemed unsuitable and she remains in place until the end of March when Thomas will take charge. | The Welsh Government has appointed Dr Paul Thomas as successor to Laura McAllister as chair of Sport Wales, deputy minister for culture, sport and tourism Ken Skates has announced. | 35873242 |
We understand the government is preparing to push ahead with plans to relax the Sunday trading laws, even though it was facing almost certain defeat in parliament over the issue just a few months ago.
The official line is that ministers are currently considering the results of a consultation, but we've been told that the intention is to get the law changed sometime this year.
Ministers believe they can win round many of those who've expressed concern. They won't just argue about the economic benefits of shops staying open for longer, they will also argue that longer trading hours on a Sunday could save struggling high streets.
Under the new proposals being drawn up by Local Government Minister Brandon Lewis, it will be left to local councils to decide whether to allow shops to stay open for longer on a Sunday.
Mr Lewis believes that it would allow councils to favour areas which struggle to attract shoppers and he points to his own constituency of Great Yarmouth.
Already some on Great Yarmouth Borough Council are talking about attracting people into the town centre and sea front by allowing shops there to stay open much later, while popular out of town business parks would not necessarily be afforded the same privilege.
"If we had this power this could be a shot in the arm to local businesses and allow them to compete with the big boys," the Conservative leader of Great Yarmouth council Graham Plant said.
The town centre manager Jonathan Newman said: "Shopping in a town centre which has longer hours could be a draw for shoppers rather than a retail park with shorter hours.
"But all the shops would have to coordinate their hours or else the public would just get confused."
Campaigners opposed to longer opening hours question if the move would really benefit the high street, pointing out that under the existing law smaller traders are allowed to open for longer.
"The only people who would benefit from this would be the large retailers," Adam Swierawski from Keep Sunday Special said.
He points to research by his organisation which found 91% of shop workers and 67% of the general public who were questioned don't want to see any extension of Sunday trading.
But others can see the benefits.
Chloe Smith, the MP for Norwich North, said that three quarters of businesses in the city would like to see longer hours.
"I think ultimately this comes down to choice," she said.
"People lead very busy lives and you need flexibility to get the family shop and other shopping done when you can."
Ministers point out that Sunday is now the busiest day of the week for shopping, thanks to the internet.
They believe high street stores are being held back, they also believe a relaxation of the laws would be popular with shoppers.
That's why they're determined to see this happen. | Could we be shopping for longer on a Sunday by the end of this year? | 35286199 |
Harvey William Davidson, 29, is accused of taking money from machines at Whinlatter and Grizedale. The charges relate to incidents between October 2013 and June 2014.
The £10,412 belonged to the Forestry Commission, Carlisle Crown Court heard.
Mr Davidson, of Portland Square, Workington, was released on bail and will stand trial in August. | A man has denied stealing more than £10,000 from car parking machines at forest parks in Cumbria. | 36174410 |
The man, in his 50s, crashed off Corn Du, near Pen y Fan, at about 15:20 BST on Thursday.
Rescue teams were called and treated him for suspected spinal and pelvic injuries, Brecon Mountain Rescue Team (MRT) said.
He was then flown to Cardiff's University Hospital of Wales.
Central Beacons and Western Beacons rescue teams were also involved, along with a helicopter from the Maritime Coastguard Agency.
Brecon MRT team leader Mark Jones praised passers-by who helped the injured man.
"In this instance having help from passers-by was critical," he said.
"Those members of the public that helped this gentleman were calm and professional and were able to help his breathing difficulties without compromising any spinal injuries that he may have suffered until mountain rescuers were on scene." | A man has been airlifted to hospital after a paragliding crash in the Brecon Beacons. | 37382171 |
Kenneth O'Brien's torso was found on 16 January in the canal near Ardclough in Kildare.
The cause of Mr O'Brien's death has still be determined, but RTE are reporting that gardaí believe he may have been shot.
The 33-year-old Dublin man had recently returned to Ireland from Australia.
On Sunday, gardaí found bags containing suspected human limbs in the Grand Canal at Sallins, Co Kildare.
They are still awaiting the results of DNA tests to confirm the identity of remains.
On Tuesday, the Garda Underwater Unit resumed searches on the Grand Canal.
The unit has already recovered a motorised component for a power tool which may have been used in the dismemberment of Mr O'Brien's body.
The area has been sealed-off as crime scene since Sunday.
Boating has been restricted along the Royal and Grand canals until Sunday while the searches continue.
Gardaí have searched five crime scenes, identified by information supplied from the public.
They believe the brutality of the murder and the dispersal of the remains over such a large area points to the involvement of an organised crime gang. | Irish police investigating the murder of a man, whose remains found in a canal, believe he was been shot before his body was dismembered. | 35413548 |
Jordan Begley, 23, died in hospital two hours after he was shot by a police officer with the stun gun at his home in Gorton, Manchester, in July 2013.
His mother Dorothy called police after a row escalated with neighbours.
Manchester Civil Courts of Justice heard Mr Begley threatened to stab a neighbour as the 999 call was made.
Hugh Davies QC, representing PC Terence Donnelly, who is said to have shot the stun gun, and four other officers involved in the incident, read part of the transcript from Mrs Begley's 999 call to the court.
She had barred Jordan from leaving the house they shared after he had been accused of stealing a handbag by a neighbour amid threats of revenge.
Her son, who was a heavy drinker and used cocaine, was heard protesting his innocence and shouting at his neighbour, saying he will get a "knife right in his face".
Mrs Begley told the call handler: "There's going to be murder."
Mr Davies said: "He was a threat to other people with the knife in the mood he was in."
She replied: "If I let him go out he probably would have used it."
The court heard when police arrived Mr Begley was calm at first but became "extremely agitated" and swore at officers to get out of "his house".
Mr Davies reminded the jury Mrs Begley previously said as she left the house her son had a look on his face that said, 'mum help me' as the officer pointed the Taser at him.
Asked why she did not help, Mrs Begley said she did not think they would Taser him "because he was not doing anything" and he "did nothing that deserved being Tasered".
Mr Begley was Tasered from a distance of 70cm (27ins) then hit with "distraction strikes" as police restrained and handcuffed him, the inquest has heard. He was not armed.
Mr Begley then become unwell and was admitted to hospital, where he died.
The inquest continues. | A mother warned a 999 call handler her son had a "violent nature" before he was Tasered and died, an inquest has heard. | 32994840 |
The man, said to be a non-swimmer, was found hanging on to the car's aerial after a collision with a parked car in Mill Road, Rumburgh in the early hours.
Police said the man, who was driving a blue Vauxhall Corsa, gave a negative breath test.
Witness Roger Davis said the car was in his garden pond and it took about two hours to get the motorist out.
He said: "I didn't hear much as I was fast asleep, but then there were three fire engines, the ambulance and the police outside my house.
"The chap was clinging to the roof of the car, they got him off and pulled the car out. He couldn't swim - and the pond is about 12 foot deep at the moment.
"I think the chap went to hospital with hypothermia, he was clinging to the roof and holding on to the car's aerial. It was interesting to say the least.
"I think he'd swerved to avoid a deer, that's what the police said."
Fire crews were called at 03:10 GMT and an ambulance took the man to the James Paget Hospital at 04:36 GMT.
Stuart Hostler, watch commander at Halesworth fire station, said: "He was a very lucky chap.
"When we got there he had already got out of the car and was holding on to the aerial for dear life.
"He was showing signs that he was very cold and he was up to his waist in the water."
The East of England Ambulance Service said the man got out of his car by himself and was conscious and alert when they arrived. | A motorist was rescued after being found clinging to the roof of his car in a 12ft-deep (3.7m) pond. | 32083869 |
The Law and Justice Party say it will make the judicial system more effective and able to fight against corruption.
But critics say it is a threat to the rule of law, placing control of the judiciary in the hands of politicians.
Donald Tusk, European Council President and former Polish prime minister, said the changes are "backward".
In a statement released after the vote, Mr Tusk said he had asked Poland's President Andrzej Duda for a meeting to discuss the changes, which he warned went against European values and risked marginalising the country.
The bill, which will now go to the upper house on Friday after being passed by 235 votes to 192, will see all Supreme Court judges forced into retirement.
The decision on whether or not they can have their jobs back will, on the face of it, be the president's, but in reality he will be acting on the advice of the justice minister.
The National Judiciary Council, which currently nominates both common and Supreme Court judges and consists of judges selected by professional legal bodies, will now be chosen by parliament - but its member judges will require at least three fifths of representatives to back them in order to be selected.
Last week, the ruling Law and Justice party pushed through parliament plans for MPs and the justice minister to have the power to appoint judges.
Then President Duda, a former member of the right-wing, populist ruling party, proposed a compromise to make it harder for a single ruling party to change the make-up of the 15-member National Council of the Judiciary.
Some critics were won over but others feared the compromise did not go far enough - especially as it is likely the ruling party may be able to get the support of smaller parties it often sees eye-to-eye with.
After Thursday's vote, Grzegorz Schetyna, leader of Poland's largest opposition party, Civic Platform, called it the day judicial independence died, while political analyst Stanislaw Mocek warned news agency AFP that subjecting "the judiciary to political power.... paves the way for a non-democratic system in Poland".
Thousands of people have also taken to the streets to protest the bill in recent weeks.
Adam Easton, BBC News, Warsaw, Poland
Most Poles agree that the courts need reform, in fact an opinion poll in May found 63% said so. For many, Polish courts operate too slowly and sometimes deliver questionable verdicts. In its election manifesto Law and Justice promised to reform the courts. But is this the reform so many people want?
Not even rock star turned politician Pawel Kukiz, who leads the Kukiz '15 party and who said he could not vote against the bill, thinks so. "This is not reform, it's just changing the personnel," he said before the vote.
Certainly many Poles feel the reforms give Law and Justice the tools to destroy judicial independence and appoint judges sympathetic to the party. They are the ones taking to the streets every evening in cities across the country to join candle-lit protests and appeal to the president to veto the legislation. Unlike previous demonstrations they are less obviously party political and perhaps as a result, it seems more young people are turning up.
The European Commission has issued Poland's government with a stern warning, complaining that its plans "collectively would abolish any remaining judicial independence and put the judiciary under full political control of the government". Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans even threatened the "nuclear option" of withdrawing Poland's voting rights in EU meetings. That has never been used before.
After the vote, Mr Tusk released an impassioned statement, saying the recent moves "transport us - in the political sense - in time and in space: backwards and eastwards".
He argued a solution must be found "which is acceptable to the Polish public, to the parliamentary majority and to the opposition, to the President and to the European Union".
But Hungary's Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto warned the commission should not "act like a political body", adding: "We stand by Poland, and we call on the European Commission not to overstep its authority." | Poland's lower house of parliament has voted through controversial new reforms which will see all Supreme Court judges removed and replaced. | 40670790 |
For years, Syria's actors and musicians have been one of its most precious exports, proving a hit with audiences across the Arab world, and making Syria something of a centre for television and music production.
Syria's soap operas are especially popular, and are beamed into homes across the region.
Since the anti-government unrest erupted in March, relatively few Syrian celebrities have shown their opposition to the government's crackdown by appearing in protests and speaking out in interviews.
Those who have dared to speak out, however, have put themselves at risk of arrest and even violent retribution.
In August, the prominent cartoonist Ali Farzat had his fingers broken - reportedly by security forces personnel - after he published cartoons mocking the president.
The composer Malek Jandali said the next month that his parents, who live in Syria, were beaten by supporters of the government after he dedicated a song to protesters at a US concert.
And Fadwa Sulayman, an actress from President Assad's ruling Alawite sect, was filmed alongside protesters in November in the restive central city of Homs. It was not long, however, before she was forced to go into hiding.
Prominent figures who live abroad, and are not subject to the scrutiny of the notorious security services, have been more able to criticise the government.
The pop star Asala Nasri comes from a family of distinguished Syrian musicians, and her voice is known across the Arab world.
In May, she said: "Even if the government oppressed one person out of a thousand, then… we [artists] would follow the people".
While the principled stand of a few artists has grabbed headlines, the reality is that the majority of Syria's artistic community has kept quiet about the protests, and many have even come out publicly to back Mr Assad.
Sulaf Fawakherji, who has acted in some of Syria's best loved dramas, has spoken out to state her support for the president.
In a TV interview, she said she wanted Mr Assad to stay in power because "the government, especially President Bashar Assad, has been very supportive of Syrian artists".
But she added that this was not the only reason she supported the government, pointing to what she called "important reforms" over the past 10 years.
Perhaps the biggest shock came when the actor Duraid Lahham voiced his support for the president.
Lahham is known in the Arab world for playing roles in films satirising authoritarian regimes.
However, Mr Assad's most ardent celebrity fan is the actress Raghda, who has starred alongside Lahham in several films.
Speaking on television in Egypt, she claimed that she had supported the protests which forced President Hosni Mubarak to step down in February, but that she did not back those taking place against the government in Syria, arguing that the situation in her country was different.
Raghda recently told a Kuwaiti newspaper that she would support "the devil, or any Arab dictator who makes a stand against Nato and Israel and the USA".
Celebrity support for President Assad has sparked a backlash on social media websites.
Opponents of Mr Assad have set up a Facebook page called the "Syrian List of Shame", which names and criticises public figures who have pledged their support for the government.
The page has attracted more than 30,000 members since it was set up and is growing in popularity.
The page's owners post photographs of the public figures featured on the list, insulting and taunting them for opposing the protests.
A similar page has been set up for neighbouring Lebanon, where a number of public figures have expressed sympathies for the Syrian government.
Although more and more of Syria's artistic elite are speaking out to support protests, they are still outnumbered by those who are guarding their silence.
It is possible that if the government's position becomes weaker and Syria's opposition gains more ground, more singers and actors will take a stance, but for the moment it seems most are biding their time to see what happens.
BBC Monitoring selects and translates news from radio, television, press, news agencies and the internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages. It is based in Caversham, UK, and has several bureaux abroad. | The uprising in Syria has divided the county's thriving artistic community, with a handful of musicians, actors and directors coming out in support of protesters calling for the fall of President Bashar al-Assad. | 16284426 |
Singles wins for Heather Watson and Johanna Konta, and a doubles victory for Jocelyn Rae and Laura Robson, gave Britain a 3-0 win in Group C.
They go on to face Latvia on Thursday and Turkey on Friday, with the group winners earning a play-off against the Group B winners on Saturday.
The winners of that tie will progress to a World Group II play-off in April.
Britain are seeded third among the 14 nations in Tallinn and first in their group, and Portugal were unable to overcome the gap in rankings.
Watson, the world number 72, began with a 57-minute 6-1 6-1 win over Ines Murta, ranked 546th.
World number 10 Konta then saw off 246th-ranked Michelle Larcher de Brito 6-2 6-4 to clinch the tie.
Rae and Robson beat De Brito and Murta 6-2 6-3 in the concluding doubles match.
"I'm really happy to have got the match under my belt," said Konta. "It was a high-level match, and it got better and better as the match went on. She made me work for it in the end and I'm really happy to have come through for the team.
"We'll try to come back stronger every day."
Asked about new captain Anne Keothavong, who replaced Judy Murray in the role at the end of last year, Konta added: "I think she is doing a tremendous job of bringing us together as a team.
"It's always a tricky one because we spend most of the year as individuals, so for her to do such a good job with us, it says a lot about her.
"We've got lots of team bonding in the evenings, lots of funny things going on."
Watson added: "It's my first match since the Aussie Open so I'm really happy with the way I played and also to get the first win under the belt for GB.
"It was great having Annie there and she'll continue to do a great job. So far I've really been enjoying the trip with her as captain."
Britain are likely to face the toughest test of the group stage on Thursday when they take on Latvia, led by world number 35 Jelena Ostapenko, who beat Turkey 2-1 in Wednesday's other Group C tie.
Unlike the men's Davis Cup, which has a World Group of 16 nations, the Fed Cup divides its top teams into two groups of eight - World Group I and World Group II.
The 91 nations outside the top tiers are divided into three regional zones and Britain have one chance per year to escape - a format that hugely frustrated former captain Judy Murray.
The Europe/Africa Group I event, which this year takes place in Estonia, sees 14 teams divided into groups, with Poland, Croatia, Britain and Serbia the seeded nations.
Four group winners will progress to promotion play-offs on Saturday, and two nations will then qualify for World Group II play-offs in April - which could see Britain given a home Fed Cup tie for the first time since 1993.
They fell at the same stage in 2012 and 2013 - away ties in Sweden and Argentina - under the captaincy of Murray. | Great Britain made a winning start to their Fed Cup campaign with victory over Portugal in Tallinn, Estonia. | 38907104 |
Media playback is not supported on this device
Every race, practice and qualifier will be live on BBC Radio 5 live or sports extra and the BBC Sport website.
An extensive digital offering will even let audiences decide how they watch.
"Our top-class team will get audiences as close as possible to the starting grid, paddock, pit-lane and track," said Ben Gallop, the BBC's head of F1.
Reigning champion Lewis Hamilton will again write an exclusive column for the BBC Sport website.
He will preview every grand prix weekend and share his thoughts on his ongoing performance throughout the season.
Hamilton told BBC Sport: "I hope it gives some insight into my life, which is pretty different to most people's, and shows just how much work I put into being the best F1 driver I can be."
The Malaysian Grand Prix on 29 March is the first of the 10 live races on BBC television this year, including the British Grand Prix at Silverstone on 5 July.
The climax of the 2015 season in Abu Dhabi, which last year saw 6.5m people tuning in on BBC1 to watch Hamilton beat Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg to the drivers' championship, will also be live on BBC television.
Coverage of qualifying and races from the grands prix not live on television will be shown in the popular extended highlights programmes.
Presenter Suzi Perry will again lead the television team alongside chief analyst Eddie Jordan and co-commentator and expert pundit David Coulthard.
Lead commentator Ben Edwards will take fans around the track, with reporters Lee McKenzie and Tom Clarkson bringing all the news from the pit lane and ex-driver Allan McNish providing additional analysis.
New for 2015, Perry will also present Formula 1 Rewind, which will be repeated on the BBC Sport website and BBC iPlayer.
Formula 1 commentary legend Murray Walker will delve into the BBC archive to recount the classic grands prix of the past.
Media playback is not supported on this device
Correspondent and commentator James Allen will lead the radio coverage on BBC Radio 5 live and 5 live sports extra with McNish as co-commentator and Jennie Gow as pit-lane reporter.
The F1 homepage of the BBC Sport website last year attracted an average of 3.3m UK visitors each week, an increase of more than 50% on 2013, and this year's digital offering is even stronger.
Live television races, Radio 5 live audio from every session, text coverage, expert analysis and opinion and the best of social media will come together at the BBC live commentary page.
On live race weekends fans will control how they watch the action with five different video options to choose from in addition to the network TV coverage.
There is the pit-lane camera, a driver tracker, a stream of on-board cameras and TV images accompanied by Radio 5 live commentary. A highlights package will also be available to watch after every race.
You can keep in touch on the move through the BBC Sport app, where you can now sign up for alerts on the result of every track session through the season.
Audiences can access the BBC's coverage by visiting BBC Sport's digital platforms on any device, and via the BBC Sport app. | BBC Sport is offering extensive coverage of the 2015 Formula 1 season with 10 races live on television and highlights of all others. | 31735303 |
Gavin Moore, who was 40, died in hospital after the collision with a car on the Newtownards Road in Conlig.
Two other riders from the North Down Cycle Club (NDCC) were injured in the incident.
Mr Moore's funeral took place on Saturday at the Hamilton Road Presbyterian Church in Bangor.
A 59-year-old man arrested at the scene of the crash has been released on bail.
Police have appealed for anyone travelling in the area at the time to contact them with any information about the collision. | Hundreds of cyclists rode behind the coffin of a rider who was killed in a crash in County Down on Tuesday. | 40619840 |
Media playback is not supported on this device
The Scotland assistant was responding to an idea put forward by Fifa president Gianni Infantino to expand the finals from 32 to 48 teams.
"I'd be a fan of any format that gets us to a World Cup," said McGhee.
"The format this time round is pretty difficult and it was shown in the Euros that teams like Iceland can make a fantastic contribution."
Europe will be represented at the 2018 World Cup finals by hosts Russia, the winners of nine qualifying groups and the winners of four play-offs involving the eight best group runners-up.
But Infantino has suggested that more teams could be allowed to qualify in future finals, with 32 teams playing in a preliminary knockout round and the winners progressing to the initial group stage as it is now.
McGhee praised this year's expanded European Championship finals and the role played by smaller nations like Wales, who reached the semi-finals.
"Not just the teams but the supporters of these teams made it a spectacle," he said.
"I know the Tartan Army would anyway and, if there is a route to make it more manageable to get there, I am up for that."
Scotland host Lithuania on Saturday in their second Group F qualifier and McGhee expects the visitors to be a bigger attacking threat than Malta, who his side beat 5-1 away in the opening game.
"Their style is such that I don't think they are a team that are going to come and just sit in against us," he said of the side who have former Hearts striker Edgaras Jankauskas as head coach.
"They are quite prepared to come and get at us a little bit, so I think it is a game that will be a little bit more end-to-end.
"I don't think it will be a game where we are playing possession football at the edge of their box.
"I expect it to be an exciting game. It is going to be much more of a British-style game than many of these games are."
Scotland have faced Lithuania eight times, losing only once and drawing three times.
However, McGhee said: "I think, if we are favourites, it is only because we are at home.
"We've still got to prove that we are better than them.
"We've got to prepare as if this is going to be the hardest game in the entire section." | Mark McGhee would be in favour of an expanded World Cup finals if it is easier for Scotland to qualify. | 37553822 |
The publication of the Native Woodland Survey of Scotland has renewed debate over whether to cull deer.
Researchers said ancient woodland was being lost due to "excessive browsing and grazing", mainly by deer.
The findings of an inquiry into deer control by a Holyrood committee are due to be revealed later this week.
The report from Forestry Commission Scotland said 22.5% (311,153 ha) of Scotland's forests was native woodland. That equates to 4% of the land area of Scotland.
It said 42% of the country's native woodlands were in the Highlands.
In total, 46% of native woodland was said to be in a "satisfactory" condition for biodiversity. Researchers also found that over the past 40 years, a "significant" amount of ancient woodland in the uplands had been lost.
They identified deer as the most widespread threat to native woodland health and regeneration.
Mike Daniels, head of land and science at the John Muir Trust, said: "This report confirms what most people who live in, work in or visit Scotland's countryside know - that overgrazing by excessive deer numbers is seriously damaging our native woodlands.
"We urgently need to move from a voluntary system of deer management to a sensible, regulated approach before we lose any more of our precious native woodland heritage."
Estimates suggest there are more than 750,000 deer in Scotland. The native red and roe deer are by far the most common but there are also smaller populations of Sika and fallow deer.
Claims from conservationists that the red deer population has trebled in the past 50 years are disputed by land managers, who argue the impact of Scotland's 6.6 million sheep should not be overlooked.
They say there are 2.5 million breeding ewes on the open deer range, mainly in the Highlands.
Richard Cooke, chairman of the Association of Deer Management Groups and the Lowland Deer Network Scotland said: "This new piece of work, which we have not yet had time to study, will be extremely helpful in focusing deer management on areas where there are specific issues in relation to deer and native woodlands.
"We do believe, however, that there has been a significant turnaround in the last 30 years in the impacts of deer on native woodland and it is too easy to blame deer at every turn when other factors, for example grazing from other herbivores and now widespread tree disease, are also taking their toll."
The Scottish government said it was working to balance the needs of sporting estates, which rely on income from deer stalking, with the need to protect the environment.
Speaking at the launch of the Native Woodland Survey, the environment minister, Paul Wheelhouse told BBC Scotland: "We do very much value the rural jobs which are provided by sporting estates but we also have to manage the environment with great sensitivity.
"There's a number of different drivers for deer management and we need to take a more rounded view of what's required and make sure we get as much collaboration and voluntary action as possible." | Deer represent the biggest threat to Scotland's native woodlands, according to an eight-year study by Forestry Commission scientists. | 26025523 |
The 22-year-old made his debut for Saints as a centre in March 2012, but has also played in the second row and loose forward.
He was part of the St Helens side which won the Grand Final last year, and will move to Exeter in November.
"We are looking at different types of players having different abilities in our team," said Chiefs boss Rob Baxter.
"We are aware that the switchover from league to union isn't going to be straightforward.
"He has taken a chance moving to union because he has a well-established league career. He knows there will be a bit of transition time and he'll probably have a period on loan somewhere, but he is very open to those ideas."
Jones has made 64 appearances for Saints and featured in their win over Wigan last week.
"I can't explain how excited I am about the move," he said. "It's a new challenge for me and my family, but it's one that we're all really looking forward to.
"Exeter are a great club, they've just come off the back of a fantastic season, and having watched them a few times on the TV, I like the style of rugby they play and the way they go about things.
"Hopefully I can go down there, add a bit to the squad using my experience from playing Super League and look to make my mark as quickly as possible." | Exeter Chiefs have signed St Helens rugby league player Josh Jones on a two-year contract. | 33161927 |
The tablet app is free, but must be paired with a new version of the publisher's add-on Traptanium Portal base to access the whole game.
As with other titles in the series, extra content and powers are unlocked by placing Skylanders toys on the base.
The US publisher pioneered the "toys-to-life" genre in 2011.
Since then, the franchise's games and figurines have generated more than $2bn (£1.2bn) worth of sales.
But the company is now facing growing competition from Disney's Infinity game, which is about to release Marvel playsets featuring characters that appeared in its Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy movies.
Lego and Nintendo have also announced plans to release their own "smart toys", which will interact with their respective video game franchises.
Activision said the iPad, Android and Kindle Fire versions of Skylanders Trap Team would offer the same contents and level of graphics found on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game when they are all released in October.
"This looks like a really smart move, both in terms of strengthening the Skylanders brand against rivals and also for the way it targets the young market that is predominantly gaming on tablet devices," commented Guy Cocker, a video games writer for Wired and T3 magazines.
"It's good that existing toys work with the tablets, but having to buy another portal is asking quite a lot of parents who've probably already bought other versions.
"Skylanders is a great game, but I worry about how much it costs parents over time."
Skylanders figurines feature radio-frequency identification chips in their stands, which allow them to interact with the portal, which acts as a RFID reader/writer.
In addition to unlocking in-game content, the figurines can also be used to store data. This allows players to save progress, take the toy to a friend's home, and then continue playing using a separate device.
The tablet version of the portal connects to the touchscreen computers via Bluetooth, unlike the console versions that use a USB cable or special dongle.
The new base also includes a detachable games pad designed for the size of a child's hands to allow them precision control.
But the title can also be played using touch controls that appear on the tablets' screens when the game pad is turned off.
The portal will be sold as part of a starter pack costing £65 that also includes two Skylanders toys and two "traps", which can be used to capture in-game enemies that can subsequently be played with.
A further two characters are built into the app, so that it can be used even when not connected to the base.
However, parents are likely to come under pressure to buy more figurines to open up extra areas in the game and add powers.
Skylanders Trap Team introduces more than 50 new playable characters bringing the total to more than 225, each costing £9 or more.
The toys have proved to be a valuable commodity to Activision.
The California-based company announced in February that it had sold 175 million figures.
Earlier this month, it boasted that its Swap Force line-up of Skylanders characters were outselling Hasbro's Transformers and Star Wars toys as well as all other ranges of action figures in North America.
Extending the series to tablets offers the firm the opportunity to boost sales further.
"We know we have a huge audience of kids that are gaming almost exclusively on tablets," Paul Reiche, president and co-founder of Toys for Bob - the studio that developed the game - told the BBC.
"I feel like this is a legitimate audience for us to address. We really wanted to make sure that we could invest and give a complete 'triple-A' [big budget] choice that is one-to-one with our consoles."
This is not, however, the first Skylanders game for mobile devices.
Activision has released three prior titles that allowed players to unlock content by typing in a code included in the toys' packaging, paying in-app fees or using an earlier Bluetooth portal for iOS devices that Activision says is incompatible with the forthcoming release.
However, these games were more shallow than the console releases and were marketed as spin-offs.
One industry watcher noted that this was the first time players would not need a console to play one of the series' core titles.
"It might be considerably more expensive than a normal tablet game - with the starter pack price - but it could be seen as a bargain by parents who now don't have to buy a new games console for their kid," said Rik Henderson, senior editor at the tech reviews site Pocket-lint.
"It's portable too, so could keep younger kids entertained on holidays. And because [most tablets have] HDMI or screen mirroring technologies, they can also play the game on a big screen anyway." | Activision has announced that for the first time it is releasing one of the main games in its Skylanders series for tablets as well as consoles. | 28743481 |
Jane Waruguru's husband was among those allegedly present at key meetings which form part of the prosecution case at the International Criminal Court.
Those meetings - allegedly hatched at State House in 2007 and 2008 - involved a criminal gang called the Mungiki. Jane's husband, Maina Diambo, was their second in command at the time.
"I saw big, large amounts of money," she recalls. "One day I came and I saw him washing guns and I was not used to seeing those things in my house."
His erratic behaviour, his coming and going, aroused her suspicions, but she says she knew her "place" as a wife and her husband gave little away.
"I used to ask him: 'What is going on?' He told me: "You just shut up you wait... if you want to eat well, stay well, you just let me work."
It is alleged that the Mungiki gang was hired by senior figures in government, to execute a counter-offensive in the towns of Nakuru and Naivasha in early 2008.
Their mission was to avenge the first wave of attacks that had targeted members of President Mwai Kibaki's Kikuyu community, after disputed polls triggered inter ethnic-violence on an unprecedented scale.
But once the "job" given to Diambo's men had been completed, Jane sensed something was up.
Her husband was coming and going from their home, keeping strange hours, being collected in different cars. He was clearly agitated by it all, telling her: "I have done some things, they are tormenting my mind, and you are just asking me questions."
Diambo disappeared a month later. He is now presumed dead. A man who claims to be one of the last who spoke to him alleges he was due to collect cash at a meeting spot in Nairobi when he went missing.
It is hard to independently verify Jane's extraordinary claims, but she is among dozens of women whose husbands have just vanished.
Paul Muite, a lawyer who represents many of these women, claims Diambo's disappearance matches those of other missing men:
"Each one of them was involved in the post-election violence in Naivasha and Nakuru... they all disappeared without trace," he says. He claims the disappearances bear "all the hallmarks of an extra judicial killing" but his allegations will have to be tested in court.
What is clear is that alleged tampering with witnesses or those who may offer important leads about Kenya's violent past, is worrying the chief prosecutor at International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague.
In a candid interview with the BBC, Fatou Bensouda has expressed her alarm at "attempts to interfere with the witnesses".
Investigations in Kenya are proving to be "quite a challenge" she confesses and though she stops short of apportioning blame. She warns of "attempts to publish the names of witnesses or perceived witnesses in the media or on the internet".
And she says that those who tell us their stories "deserve to be protected, not only by the court but by Kenyans themselves".
The lawyers for Uhuru Kenyatta, a presidential hopeful, and one of the four accused who deny the charges levelled by the ICC, has called for the trial to be postponed.
They say a key witness has recanted his testimony linking Mr Kenyatta to an organised crime gang.
Talk of witnesses disappearing and plots hatched in secret may sound like the stuff of fiction but Kenyans have been burdened with a history of impunity that reformers are now trying to address.
One of the champions of change is Kenya's Chief Justice Willy Mutunga. A human rights lawyer and former exile he has been in the job for a year.
Despite his informal style, bodyguards shadow him everywhere he goes.
He is an optimist and believes that "Kenyans will emerge from these elections more united".
The country has ushered in a new constitution, and other institutional changes designed to break the stranglehold of ethnic chauvinism that has tainted politics for the past half century.
In previous elections, the key to success for politicians was to campaign along ethnic grounds and stack courts with pliant judges.
So the big test is whether election disputes are taken to the newly reformed courts, rather than out onto the streets this time.
"If any disputes are not brought before the Supreme Court, then the public confidence in this institution will be dented," Mr Mutunga says. "And I don't know whether that damage will be repairable."
For millions of Kenyans so much rides on this election. Little wonder then that it is being dubbed a milestone that could radically alter the way politics is done here in future. | As Kenya prepares for elections on 4 March and a month later a historic trial at The Hague over the violence that followed the disputed 2007 elections, the BBC's Karen Allen has heard powerful testimony about alleged disappearances of potential witnesses. | 21382339 |
The story published on 20 January 1853 chronicles the kidnapping and enslavement of a free black man named Solomon Northup.
In the piece Northup's name was misspelled twice, as Northrop and Northrup.
The error was discovered after a digital copy circulated in recent days.
Rebecca Skloot, author of the best-selling non-fiction book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, brought the initial error to light, tweeting a link to the story on Monday.
The correction was published in Tuesday's New York Times.
12 Years a Slave won three Academy Awards on Sunday: Best Picture, Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) and Best Actress in a Supporting Role by Lupita Nyong'o. | The New York Times has published a correction to an article published 161 years ago on the case portrayed in the Oscar-winning film 12 Years a Slave. | 26443440 |
Van Houten has been denied parole 19 times before over the 1969 deaths of Leno La Bianca and his wife Rosemary.
Governor Jerry Brown will now decide whether to release Van Houten.
A former homecoming queen, Van Houten was the youngest Manson follower to be convicted of murder.
She has been seen as the most sympathetic of Charles Manson's followers.
"She's been ready for this for a long time,'' said her lawyer Rich Pfeiffer, after the parole board made its recommendation.
"It really should have happened a long time ago."
Prosecutors at the time likened Manson to a cult leader and said he controlled his followers using drugs and other means.
Van Houten, then 19, held down Rosemary La Bianca while someone else stabbed her and she later admitted she stabbed the woman after she was dead.
"I don't let myself off the hook. I don't find parts in any of this that makes me feel the slightest bit good about myself," she said on Thursday.
Since her conviction, Van Houten, now 66, completed college degrees and demonstrated exemplary behaviour.
"The only violent thing she has ever done in her entire life was this crime and that was under the control of Charles Manson," Van Houten's lawyer, Rich Pfeiffer told the Associated Press before the hearing.
"She is just not a public safety risk, and when you are not a public safety risk, the law says you shall be released."
The La Bianca killings came a day after other followers of Charles Manson carried out the grisly murder of actress Sharon Tate and four others.
Manson, who directed but did not take part in the murders, thought the killings would start a race war, called "Helter Skelter" after a Beatles song.
Tate's sister, Debra has fought against the release of Manson and his followers including Van Houten, although Van Houten was not involved in the Tate murders.
Debra Tate said Van Houten did not show remorse for years. | Leslie Van Houten, a former follower of Charles Manson, has been recommended for parole after spending more than 40 years in prison for the brutal murders of a California grocer and his wife. | 36050661 |
Under current rules all that is needed for a strike is a simple majority of those that take part in a ballot.
But the Trade Union Bill would impose a minimum 50% turnout - and public sector strikes would need the backing of at least 40% of those eligible to vote.
All four Labour leadership contenders have criticised the proposals.
David Cameron and Harriet Harman clashed over the issue at Prime Minister's Questions, with the Labour leader accusing the government of "attacking the right of working people to have a say on their pay and conditions".
But the prime minister said Labour's opposition showed it was "utterly in hock" to the trade unions. The public, he argued, were behind Conservative efforts to ensure strikes were only called as "a last resort" and "to sort this out for working families".
The Trade Union Bill, which began its journey into law by being presented into the Commons on Wednesday, represents the biggest shake-up in the rules on industrial action in 30 years.
The new laws would force unions to give employers 14 days notice of strike action and allow them to bring in agency staff to cover for striking workers.
The legislation could also cut the amount of money unions have to mount campaigns - or donate to parties such as Labour - with members actively having to "opt in" to pay the so-called political levy, which is currently automatic unless members opt-out.
But proposals to ban picket lines of more than six people appear to have been dropped. It will be made an offence not to have a named individual supervising a picket line.
The legislation also includes efforts to tackle "intimidation" of non-striking workers.
These are some of the most sweeping and radical union reforms since the 1980s. The unions fear it will make effective industrial action pretty much impossible - and say it's unnecessary as the level of strikes is almost at its lowest ever.
But ministers argue that in the wake of strikes on London Underground, for example, where people have been severely inconvenienced, they need to find a fresh balance and look again at the power of the trade unions.
What is notable is that when Margaret Thatcher introduced her reforms, it was on back of a wave of industrial discontent. Today, unions are much diminished and tamed beasts which has promoted accusations from the unions and the Labour Party that this is all partisan politics designed to nobble them.
Analysis: How new laws will affect Labour funding
A number of unions involved with the last major day of nationwide strike action in July 2014 would have fallen foul of the 50% turnout rule.
The PCS Union, which represents civil service workers, has never achieved such a turnout on a national ballot.
NHS strikes in October 2014 would also have fallen short, with turnouts below 50% from unions including Unison and the GMB.
Business Secretary Sajid Javid said: "Trade unions have a constructive role to play in representing their members' interests but our one nation government will balance their rights with those of working people and business.
"These changes are being introduced so that strikes only happen when a clear majority of those entitled to vote have done so and all other possibilities have been explored."
But TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said the Bill would "make it almost impossible for workers to exercise what is their democratic right and civil liberty".
Ms O'Grady said the changes would enable employers to "stick two fingers up" to workers by bringing in agency staff to break any strikes - and people standing on picket lines would be "subject to arrest".
She told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme it would "load the dice" against key public sector workers such as nurses and be "poisonous for industrial relations in the UK".
Mick Whelan, general secretary of the train drivers' union Aslef, said the move "smacks of Germany in the 1930s" and accused the government of trying to "neuter the unions".
Meanwhile, Unite - UK's biggest trade union - has deleted the words "so far as may be lawful" from its constitution.
General secretary Len McCluskey said: "Unite is not going to see itself rendered toothless by passively submitting to unjust laws. If the Tories wish to put trade unionism beyond the law, then they must take the consequences."
The proposals are being opposed by each of the four MPs bidding to replace Ed Miliband as Labour leader.
Liz Kendall said the measures were a "blatant political attack" by the Tories and said she would reverse them if she became prime minister.
Andy Burnham said the government was "waging a campaign of demonisation against the unions" while Yvette Cooper said Labour should try to prevent the "divisive and damaging measures from coming into force".
Jeremy Corbyn said he would repeal what he called a "naked attack on all working people" if he led a Labour government.
Employers' organisation the CBI backed the introduction of strike ballot thresholds. Director general Katja Hall said it was "an important, but fair, step to ensure that strikes have the clear support of the workforce".
Adam Marshall, policy and external affairs executive director at the British Chambers of Commerce, said the right to strike "must be exercised with the greatest restraint".
Consultations on the 40% strike ballot threshold for key public sectors, picketing rules, and use of agency workers will be open until September.
The Conservatives had wanted to introduce the reforms during the coalition government but the move was blocked by the Liberal Democrats.
The bill was not debated at its first reading stage, which was its official introduction to Parliament. | Ministers have defended plans to tighten the rules on strike ballots after unions said they would make legal strikes "almost impossible". | 33529248 |
Cheating during exams is not new in India and despite being illegal has flourished in most parts of the country for so long that it has almost become endemic.
The increasingly inventive methods of cheating have evolved over the years to take advantage of modern technology and even social media.
This has prompted the examinations board to issue a strict set of guidelines, including a dress code for the students re-appearing for the pre-medical exam.
Here are five ingenious ways in which Indians cheat during examinations:
It was discovered that many who were caught cheating during the recently-cancelled examination had come wearing micro-Bluetooth devices and mobile SIM cards that had been stitched to their shirts.
Over the past few years, a number of candidates have also been caught using micro earphones, stitched button-hole cameras and micro earplugs.
The devices are used to transmit questions outside the examination hall to professionals who then relay back the answers.
Pens that can scan question papers and transmit the images outside using micro-Bluetooth devices are also becoming must-have gadgets for ambitious exam-takers.
And they are easily available online. One website, in fact, advertises the products as "Spy exam cheating devices particularly made for clearing tough exams".
The increasing pace of technological development and easy availability of such devices has meant that authorities are struggling to keep up with - and crack down - on the latest methods of cheating.
Mass copying is probably the most rampant form of cheating in India.
Only recently, shocking images of mass copying emerged from the northern state of Bihar.
Hundreds of students are caught cheating in groups across the country every year, but a proper law to deal with this phenomenon is yet to be enacted.
The problem is believed to be the worst in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan.
Many students smuggle in textbooks and notes into the examination centres despite tight security - and parents and friends have been photographed scaling the walls of test centres to pass on answers during secondary school examinations.
It is not uncommon in India to find newspaper headlines saying "3 solvers for bank exam arrested".
In a country where limited government jobs cannot accommodate the hundreds and thousands of students who graduate every year, clearing competitive examinations becomes extremely crucial.
This has driven a lot of aspiring students into the arms of professionals who have either coached students, or cleared the examination themselves.
These services are, however, both expensive and elaborate.
The process begins at the point of submitting the application.
The solver generally applies along with the candidate and ensures that they are not seated very far apart.
The answer sheets are secretly exchanged before the end of the exam.
Another method used by professional solvers is to forge identity cards and appear in place of their clients.
The practice of bribing examiners and members of evaluation panels has gained more traction in recent years thanks to the increasing number of candidates and the rise of greater purchasing power.
In a scam involving the Madhya Pradesh professional examination, at least eight senior officials were arrested last year on charges of accepting bribes.
A BBC investigation in Uttar Pradesh state noted that bribery in universities was such an accepted practice that "there's even a whole subset of the youth population who are brokers between desperate students and avaricious administrators".
Mobile phone cameras and social networks are among the latest tools used by examination takers to cheat.
How it works is pretty simple - someone breaks into the examination centre lockers, takes pictures of the question paper and circulates it on social media.
In fact, an examination in Uttar Pradesh involving more than 450,000 examinees was cancelled after a leaked question paper went viral on the WhatsApp messenger service.
Similar leaks have been reported from the prestigious Delhi University as well as in some south Indian colleges.
Instances of email hacking to get university entrance question papers have also prompted authorities to invest more on data protection. | A massive medical school admissions examination scandal in Madhya Pradesh and a Supreme Court ruling that ordered 600,000 students to re-appear for a pre-medical exam have brought large-scale cheating into the public spotlight. | 33307552 |
The Swans have rejected a £40m offer from Everton for the Iceland midfielder, who they value at £50m, while Leicester have also had a bid turned down this summer.
Sigurdsson did not travel with Swansea for their tour of the United States.
The 27-year-old has since returned to first-team training. | Gylfi Sigurdsson has been left out of Swansea's squad for Saturday's friendly at Birmingham City "due to the current transfer speculation surrounding him". | 40750209 |
The ONS has published data covering the effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in 2014.
The figures show the average household in NI paid £12,000 in taxes and received £13,000 in direct and indirect benefits.
Average earnings are £25,540 giving a final household income of £26,500.
The UK average final income is just under £32,000 and the highest average is in London at almost £39,000.
The figures also show that on average Northern Ireland households pay the second lowest amount in direct taxes, such as income tax, at £5,458.
However, they pay the second highest amount in indirect taxes, such as VAT, at £6,501.
Northern Ireland households are not, on average, the largest recipients of direct benefits - four other regions have higher average benefit incomes. | Northern Ireland households have, on average, the lowest incomes of any UK region, figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggest. | 33307614 |
1 October 2014 Last updated at 13:10 BST
The ''Unleashed by Petco Surf Dog Competition'' included races for extra-large, large and medium sized dogs.
The pooches were judged on their surfing skills, the length of their surf and their confidence.
The winners of the owner and dog joint surf were Bono, a chocolate Labrador Retriever and his owner, Ivan. | Sporty dogs have taken part in a surf competition in California in the US. | 29446083 |
The political temperature was a scorcher too. I flew into the Iraqi capital with then US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, who was making his last trip to try to convince Iraq's leaders to keep some American troops on the ground.
All the troops went home.
Three years on, American warplanes are back in the skies above Iraq, and British jets are joining Iraq's new US-led coalition to tackle the major threat posed by fighters from the Islamic State militant group.
And Iraq's politics haven't lost their heat either.
"We don't need an American dog to fight a Daesh cat," the white-turbaned, black-robed Sheikh Aws al-Kafaji tells me with a sarcastic grin.
The leader of the Al-Abbas Brigade, one of Iraq's powerful Shia militias, recently launched a recruitment drive to enlist Shias, as well as Sunnis, to take on IS fighters they call by their more derogatory Arabic title.
"The solution is to give support to the Islamic resistance and open the skies to Iraqi air strikes and make the army work with the resistance," the sheikh explains as he sits, flanked by bodyguards, in front of shelves lined with books, bullet casings and a gun.
"We will fight and finish them as we did the American invasion when we made them withdraw in shame," he insists confidently.
And yet, the lightning advance by IS fighters in June set alarm bells ringing in Baghdad and many other capitals near and far.
Despite six weeks of US led air strikes as well as bombardment by Iraqi forces, IS still holds on to a quarter of Iraqi territory.
"This must not become a political football inside Iraq between those who want international support and those who don't," insists MP Ahmed Chalabi, the controversial politician who played a key role in providing the discredited intelligence behind the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
Now he's back in the political fray, tipped as a possible interior minister in Iraq's still embryonic "inclusive" government that's regarded as a sine qua non for success on the battlefield.
"It is no longer a matter of luxury. The Iraqi state is facing, for the first time, an existential threat," he tells me in his elegant Baghdad residence.
"The government must do a better job convincing everyone in Iraq that international support is required."
Similar sentiments are expressed by another prominent Iraqi MP who played a key role advising Western militaries after Saddam Hussein was toppled.
"We would love the international alliance to support Iraq but on our own conditions," asserts Mowaffaq al-Rubaie.
"We need air strikes to loosen the targets, we need intelligence sharing, capacity building, delivery of weapons, but we don't need boots on the ground."
"Occupation forces have left through the door," he points out, adding, "we don't want them to come back through the window".
Black-shirted young men belonging to the newly formed Saraya al-Salaam or "Peace Brigades" of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, manned their own informal checkpoints on a Shia holy day last week as tens of thousands of pilgrims made their way to the Kadhimiya shrine under heavy security.
The new brigade was ostensibly established to defend Shia holy sites from the Islamic State fighters but many suspect another power play by the mercurial firebrand cleric and his feared Mehdi Army.
"We are ready to defend dear Iraq without the occupiers," Sheikh Ali insists to me before he and a gaggle of young men standing under a flyover to escape the midday heat break into religious chanting.
There's no doubting their fervour, but the fight is another matter.
Local residents in the Kadhimiya suburb say 15-20 mortars landed in the neighbourhood over the past week, and a massive car bomb exploded at a checkpoint controlled by Iraqi security forces.
I ask one of the many soldiers also on the streets that day about Islamic State fighters. He draws a circle in the air with his hand to indicate they are all around Baghdad.
"They are 26 kilometres from where we are sitting," Ahmed Chalabi later tells me in his house in a Kadhimiya neighbourhood.
Defeating Islamic State fighters across Iraq will take both military and political battles.
On the military front, Iraq needs a much better equipped, trained and motivated army.
On the political front, the new government still needs to win over influential Sunni tribal leaders who were angered and alienated by the sectarian approach of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
The tribes played an essential role seven years ago in what was called the "Sawa" or "Awakening" campaign against al-Qaeda forces when US forces were on the ground in large numbers.
"We need a second Awakening which is a surge of ideas, not just a surge of troops," al Rubaie says.
But there is no consensus on what ideas can save Iraq now.
A demonstration is planned this week at Baghdad's Tahrir Square in support of former Prime Minister Maliki, who was pushed aside under pressure from Washington, among others, in moves eventually supported by his main ally, Iran.
Protest organisers accuse the new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, of failing to protect Shias.
Protests were held in the same central square last week by Moqtada al-Sadr supporters against the US-led intervention.
Tahrir or "liberation" squares across the Middle East became famous three years ago for the uprisings that were known then as the "Arab Spring".
Now, in still sweltering 36C autumn temperatures, Iraq's political temperature is hotting up. | The last time I came to Baghdad, it was its hottest day on record - a blistering 51C in August 2011. | 29397744 |
The announcement came after mass graves and more than 30 bodies were found in the south over the past week.
The victims were thought to be migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh who paid smugglers to get them across Thailand.
The military junta has given local authorities until the end of next week to eradicate camps used by smugglers.
But Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who ordered the operation, also said the problem was "from abroad and not from us".
"To solve it we must look to the source because we are merely a transit country," he said.
Last week, authorities uncovered a mass grave containing 26 bodies in the southern province of Songkhla, and since then have found more human remains and several other sites suspected to be former human trafficking camps.
The area is on a route regularly used by Rohingya Muslims fleeing persecution in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.
Analysis: Jonathan Head, BBC News, South East Asia correspondent
So is the Thai government serious this time about tackling trafficking? The transfer of around 50 officers, mainly from the police, suggests that perhaps it is. Eighteen arrest warrants have been issued. But it is early days still, and there have been false dawns before.
Human trafficking was one of the first problems to confront Gen Prayuth after he seized power a year ago. Within a month the US, following years of warnings, had downgraded Thailand to the lowest level on its annual report on trafficking. The general promised immediate action. But it never came.
When the annual "sailing season" began in October, and boatloads of Rohingyas and Bangladeshi migrants began arriving on Thailand's Andaman coast, a few dedicated officials tried to stop the flow, organising their own raids and roadblocks, sending information about camps and traffickers back to Bangkok. They got little support.
Many of the bodies dug up over the past week were in a camp I was told about by a police officer six months ago. He said powerful vested interests barred him from shutting the camp down.
This problem is the responsibility of many Thai governments. But had Gen Prayuth acted last year, as he promised, some of those being exhumed from jungle graves might be alive today.
Rights groups have long said that Thai officials are both actively and passively complicit in the trade.
Three Thai local officials and a Burmese national have been arrested on suspicion of human trafficking in connection with the recently discovered mass graves, and police are looking for another four people.
Thai police chief Gen Somyot Poompanmuang said on Thursday: "We have transferred over 50 police officers over this issue because commanders in local areas know who has been involved in what."
Several of those transferred are believed to be senior personnel.
In remarks reported by Reuters, the general added that in the past "there were no sincere efforts to solve this problem". | Thai authorities say more than 50 officers have been transferred from their posts over suspected links to human traffickers. | 32620820 |
Lecturers and students have translated essays about free speech and are publishing them as a free e-book.
Caroline Warman, associate professor in French, says she wants the texts to be used in debates about freedom.
She says marchers after the attacks in Paris carried quotes by Voltaire.
Dr Warman has headed a group of more than 100 students and staff at Oxford who have translated quotes and essays by French and other European writers.
It is an intellectual response challenging the ideas behind the "intolerable" attack at the office of the satirical magazine last year, which killed 12 people.
As a riposte to last year's attack by Islamist extremists, French academics produced a collection of essays called Tolerance.
The Oxford academics have produced their own version in English, drawing on 18th Century writers and philosophers.
Dr Warman, from Jesus College, Oxford, says Voltaire's "pithy slogans about free speech and religious tolerance" were used after the attacks as a way for people to "reiterate their values and express their grief".
"His face appeared on posters and banners in marches and vigils throughout France."
Dr Warman says that 18th Century authors, writing about persecution, the boundaries of liberty and freedom of expression, have great resonance in the modern era.
As well as Voltaire, the collection includes pieces by Diderot, Montesquieu and Rousseau, on topics such as slavery, religious intolerance and the rights of individuals, in essays including Free thinking, Universal Tolerance and the satirical On the horrible danger of reading.
It also includes Italian writer Cesare Beccaria, who said: "Freedom disappears the instant laws make it possible in certain circumstances for man to stop being a person and become a thing."
Dr Warman wants such writers to be brought to a wider public and to use them to debate issues raised by the Charlie Hebdo attacks, such as "What are the limits of free speech? Why is tolerance important? Why is respect for others important? Why is exploitation unacceptable?"
She says these texts can provide a better appreciation of "our European heritage... which can help us understand the problems the world faces today". | Academics at Oxford University are using Voltaire and other historical defenders of free speech to mark the first anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris. | 35242876 |
Thousands were evacuated and large areas left without power as Typhoon Soudelor barrelled through Fujian and Zhejiang provinces on Saturday.
Some counties saw 70cm (27 inches) of rain in 24 hours, the heaviest for 120 years, said state media.
The typhoon earlier swept across Taiwan, leaving at least six people dead and several missing.
Half-a-million people were still without power on the island on Sunday, the Taiwan Power Co said.
Soudelor has now weakened to a tropical storm as it heads inland.
Fujian raised its typhoon alert to the highest level in anticipation of the storm, with at least 163,000 people evacuated to higher ground. There were reports of more evacuations in neighbouring Zhejiang.
In Fujian's main city, Fuzhou, more than 10,000 trees were blown down and there was widespread flooding.
Rail services and flights were cancelled and schools and offices closed.
Twelve people were killed as heavy downpours caused mudslides in rural areas of Wenzhou municipality, in the south of Zhejiang province, Xinhua news agency reported.
Another two people were killed in nearby Lishui, and four people were reported missing, said Xinhua.
The news agency said 1.58 million people had been affected across the region, and that damages to crops and housing was estimated to be some 4bn yuan (£416m; $644m).
Soudelor made landfall in Taiwan earlier on Saturday, with winds of more than 230km/h (142mph), ripping up trees tearing down billboards and triggering landslides.
Among the victims were an eight-year-old girl and her mother who were swept out to sea.
A firefighter was reportedly killed after being hit by a drunk driver as he tried to move a fallen tree. | At least 14 people have died in south-eastern China after a powerful typhoon caused floods and mudslides. | 33841002 |
Prof John Grattan, acting vice-chancellor of Aberystwyth University, said about half of those pulled out the day after the Brexit vote.
Other Welsh institutions said uncertainty could affect student numbers and finances.
The Welsh Government said students are still welcome in Wales.
"I won't hide it from you that Brexit poses a challenge to the university," Prof Grattan told students during one of the graduation ceremonies this week.
"Over 100 European students have withdrawn their applications to us at this point, 50 by the end of Friday on Brexit day.
"That's a stunning impact on our finances. There are 120,000 European students at British universities."
Other Welsh universities have also told BBC Cymru Fyw that uncertainty following the decision to leave the European Union could affect student numbers and finances.
For many universities, EU and international students are a large part of their income.
Aberystwyth had 800 students from EU countries in 2014/15 and 600 international students from outside the EU.
A spokesman added: "Unfortunately, news reports abroad have led to articles disseminating the message that EU citizens are no longer welcome in the UK.
"Because of this all UK universities have said that prospective students that had accepted firm offers are now withdrawing them, and we are no exception."
Meanwhile Bangor, Cardiff, Cardiff Metropolitan and the University of South Wales have all told BBC Cymru Fyw they cannot confirm how many students have withdrawn from courses beginning in September following Brexit.
"We are working hard to placate concerns of those students who are beginning courses with us in September and we have been in touch with them in order to assure them that there will be no changes to tuition fees or student loans," said a University of South Wales spokesman.
Bangor University added the uncertainty surrounding Brexit could affect "a number of things including student movement and funding" but that "immigration status and relevant fee status" would not change while the UK remained a member of the EU.
Swansea and Glyndwr universities said none of their prospective students had withdrawn from any courses yet following the referendum result.
Welsh Government Education Secretary Kirsty Williams said Welsh universities would continue to do their best to recruit students from around the world despite concerns surrounding Brexit.
"I want to be clear that students and staff from across the European Union are still welcome in Wales." | More than 100 prospective European students have withdrawn applications to study at a Welsh university following the European referendum result. | 36799951 |
The murder inquiry was launched on Friday after officers were called to The Blossoms public house in Holyhead.
The 46-year-old victim died at the scene, despite the efforts of emergency services.
A 24-year-old local man was arrested on the roof of another nearby pub after several hours of negotiation.
The incident led to parts of the Anglesey town being closed to traffic, and residents told to stay in their homes and businesses.
Officers confirmed that they had been granted another 36 hours on Saturday evening to question a man on suspicion of murder, following an assault at The Blossoms pub.
"North Wales Police can confirm that no other persons are being sought in connection with the investigation," added a statement.
Floral tributes to the victim continue to be laid near the pub at Rhos y Gaer Terrace in the town.
The landlord of a neighbouring pub, the Dublin Packet, paid tribute to him, describing him as a "lovely man".
"The best man you'd ever meet in the world," said Owen Maguire.
"I've only known him four weeks, five weeks of being here but in that time he has made me welcome, I can guarantee that.
"My heart goes out to them - the family is a gorgeous family."
Police have yet to name the dead man, but said his family was being supported by a liaison officer as inquiries continue in the area.
They have also renewed an appeal for any witnesses near the pub on Friday afternoon to contact them on 101. | Police have been given more time to quiz a suspect held after a roof top stand-off following the death of a man at an Anglesey pub. | 30468630 |
The companies in Istanbul targeted by prosecutors are suspected of channelling funds to the movement of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.
The cleric is accused of organising the botched coup.
His followers are alleged to have set up a parallel state.
The co-ordinated raids, backed up by riot police, took place in the Uskudar and Umraniye districts of eastern Istanbul, Anadolu news agency said.
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.
Since then Turks have witnessed a purge of the military and public services. An estimated 26,000 people have been detained and 82,000 dismissed or suspended. On Monday, police raided three Istanbul court houses searching for 173 judicial officials.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed earlier this month to root out businesses, schools and charities linked to Fethullah Gulen, which he labelled "nests of terrorism". But, he said, it was in the business world that the roots of Gulenism were strongest.
"We will cut off all business links, all revenues of Gulen-linked business. We are not going to show anyone any mercy," he said.
"It was a night of horror - but we weren't scared for our lives, we were scared for our nation," says Ravza Kavakci Kan, an MP with the governing AK Party, as we tour the destruction in parliament.
"But this was the day we would defend our democracy. It brought the Turkish people together in solidarity. It was our liberation war."
Mr Gulen, 75, lives in self-imposed exile in the US state of Pennsylvania and denies involvement in the botched coup, however the Turkish authorities are seeking his extradition.
One factor that may dissuade the US authorities from extraditing him is that the Turkish parliament is expected to consider bringing back the death penalty. If they do, Mr Erdogan has said he will not stand in the MPs' way.
Any purge of business in Turkey risks alienating foreign investors. Ratings agency S&P downgraded its credit rating for Turkey last month and Germany's trade association warned against new investment in the country.
However, Turkish officials say they are optimistic that an improvement in relations with Russia will boost direct investment.
Turkish authorities have already targeted high-profile businesses as part of the coup investigation.
Three executives at Boydak Holding, one of Turkish largest conglomerates, were detained as part of the crackdown. The group has firms in energy and finance as well as furniture. | Turkish police have raided 44 companies and are seeking the arrest of 120 company executives, as part of the investigation into last month's failed coup, state media report. | 37093411 |
The Ulster Unionist served as culture minister between 1999 and 2002, then health minister from 2007 until 2011.
He said he regards his time in charge of the health department as one of the highlights of his career.
However, he is concerned about how the health service will be funded in the future. | The former minister Michael McGimpsey is standing down from the Northern Ireland Assembly after representing South Belfast for the last 18 years. | 35433783 |
How old fashioned, the internet cried.
Only, now it seems he is not alone.
A surprise poll for the New York Times has discovered more than half of women agree with him - as well as 45% of men.
And as for a drink? Forget about it. Just 29% of women think that would be appropriate in a one-on-one situation.
However, the poll - conducted by Morning Consult, surveying almost 5,300 people - found the numbers shift considerably according to your politics: the more liberal your views, the more likely you were to mix with a member of the opposite sex, one on one.
Just 62% of Republicans found it acceptable, compared to 71% of Democrats.
Similar divides can also be seen according to religion - the more devout you are, the less appropriate you view it - and to education: 24% of male respondents of who did not reach college think it is inappropriate to have a one-on-one working meeting with a woman, compared with 18% who got a bachelor's degree or higher.
Michael, US: Simply ask yourself: would you want your partner to go out for dinner alone with someone else? Most likely the answer is no. Hence, then why should you? It's simply being wise and not naive.
Sandra, US: Not entirely sure why people don't understand that you can have a platonic, working or otherwise relationship with a member of the opposite sex without sexual overtones. To my way of thinking it demeans woman in terms of woman thinking men are only interested in their bodies... If you can't trust your partner or yourself out of sight the problem is you.
Stephen, Australia: I totally agree with Mike Pence. He's protecting his marriage and his reputation. It is not sexist, it is wise. In an era where people look to the Kardashians for their moral standards Mike Pence's policy, in this area at least, is commendable.
Emily, US: These archaic views are just another example of why we shouldn't have been surprised at a Trump/Pence victory last November.
Mario, South Africa: Men who are not sure about their self-control should indeed dine and drink alone. Perhaps dinner and a drink with their mothers should be permitted, but I am not so sure about sisters and daughters after reading some comments uttered by Donald Trump.
Vince, UK: Really? How very Victorian of them. Are they scared they might end up doing something they shouldn't. I can't believe in the 21st century some people think this is an issue.
Sarah, US: I'm a 52-year-old, white, college educated, atheist, left-wing, married woman ... and there's no way I would have a one-on-one meal/drink with a man who was not my husband. Not even a Starbucks.
M.H., Canada: I would definitely lunch or have dinner alone with a man whom I knew and trusted and with whom I had a lot in common. I am also a year away from being 90 and find it hard to believe that there is anything wrong with this. | Many eyebrows were raised when it emerged US Vice-President Mike Pence would not dine alone with a woman who was not his wife. | 40473553 |
Natalie McGarry was caught up in a probe after concerns were raised by Women for Independence.
The Glasgow East MP said her decision was done "in the best interests of the party", but she maintained she had done "nothing wrong".
Ms McGarry is the second of the new May intake to resign from the SNP.
In September, MP Michelle Thomson - who won her Edinburgh West seat along with 55 other SNP candidates at this year's general election - also withdrew from the party after she became the subject of a Police Scotland investigation into alleged irregularities with property deals.
Speaking after Ms McGarry resigned the whip, First Minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon told BBC Scotland there were no issues with the party's vetting process.
She said: "I would rather not be in a position where an MP has to stand aside temporarily in order to have an investigation, but I think that's the right thing to have done.
"Natalie McGarry is entitled to the presumption of innocence. She is asserting, vigorously, that she has done nothing wrong. She is entitled to that presumption and I will certainly accord her it."
Ms McGarry was one of the founding members of Women for Independence, which played a leading role in the independence campaign and has continued to campaign since.
The group said it had been examining its finances relating to a period between 2014 and its formal constitution as an organisation in March 2015, after senior staff raised concerns over apparent discrepancies between donations made to the group and its expenditure.
Scottish Labour had called for Ms Sturgeon to suspend Ms McGarry from the party, with MSP Jackie Baillie saying the probe could potentially "cast genuine doubt" over her election.
Earlier in the day, the first minister said she wanted more information about the basis or substance of the "very serious allegations" before taking any action.
At teatime, solicitor Aamer Anwar issued a statement on behalf of Ms McGarry saying his client had withdrawn from the whip which would see her automatically suspended from the party.
He said: "She has taken this step in the best interests of the party and the constituents of the East End who voted for her.
"She maintains she has done nothing wrong but is conscious that the events of the last 48 hours are distracting from the job she was elected to do on behalf of the SNP.
"She has a proud record as a principled activist and is determined to clear her name."
Mr Anwar said he had instructed forensic accountants to study the case and assist Police Scotland in their investigation. He also released emails from police saying they were attempting to establish whether there was "criminality involved" in the case.
A spokesman for the SNP said: "Natalie McGarry MP has today indicated that she will temporarily be removing herself from the SNP whip at Westminster, which as a result will see her membership of the Scottish National Party suspended while the matter is investigated.
"She now hopes that the investigation can proceed as quickly as possible, is clear that there has been no wrongdoing on her part, and will not be commenting further until the matter is resolved."
Ms Baillie, who had earlier written to the first minister urging her to suspend Ms McGarry, welcomed the news.
She said: "It is disappointing that as leader of the SNP, Nicola Sturgeon did not act earlier. Now we need to know who knew what, and when, in the SNP about these allegations."
Scottish Conservative deputy leader Jackson Carlaw added: "The SNP is all over the place with this - first Nicola Sturgeon dithers and takes no action, then hours later Natalie McGarry takes it upon herself to resign the whip." | An MP has withdrawn from the SNP whip amid a police investigation over apparent discrepancies in an independence campaign fund. | 34914067 |
Nigel Farage said 300 public meetings had already been planned in "village halls, working men's clubs and arenas".
Speaking at the launch of UKIP's referendum campaign, he said he would welcome a Jeremy Corbyn victory in the Labour leadership contest.
He said the political left was "waking up to what the EU is".
The in/out referendum on the UK's EU membership will take place by 2017.
Mr Farage said he was planning to go "on tour" around the country from now until the referendum.
He said 12 regional co-ordinators had been appointed and party activists would be doing the "old-fashioned thing of putting leaflets through doors".
UKIP's campaign will be separate from the two existing groups vying for designation as official leaders of the leave campaign.
But Mr Farage said he would "work with anybody".
"We will share a platform with anybody. We will do whatever it takes," he said.
"We want our country back. We do not want to stay members of the European Union. We recognise that we won't win this referendum unless we get significant numbers from the centre left of politics to vote to leave the EU as well."
Mr Farage said that while he did not agree with Mr Corbyn on "almost everything", a win for the veteran left-winger would ensure a "proper debate about the European Union".
"I think the left of British politics is waking up to what the EU is," he said. "They have seen Greece trampled upon, they see a transatlantic trade treaty which they are worried could threaten the viability of the NHS."
While there was "genuine concern" that Britain was "shovelling £55m a day into a club whose accounts had not been signed off", he said, immigration was likely to be the dominant issue during the campaign.
He also said the immigration debate was currently focused on the migrant crisis in Europe and he accused Germany in particular of giving "huge incentives for people to come to the European Union by whatever means".
"The EU has got this wrong. Anybody that comes, from whatever background and virtually for whatever reason, can claim to be a refugee," he said.
"If the European Union wants to help genuine refugees, they need to establish offshore centres and process people correctly, rather than inviting what has now turned into a headlong rush."
Meanwhile, Prime Minister David Cameron has announced that the UK will take "thousands more" refugees from camps on the borders of war-torn Syria, as well as providing an additional £100m in aid for those fleeing the conflict. | UKIP's campaign for Britain to leave the EU will "get outside the confines of Westminster" and "reach real people", its leader has said. | 34155586 |
The PM said she would make it easier to deport foreign terror suspects and "restrict the freedom and movements" of those that present a threat.
Labour said it was "not the message that we should be sending".
Security has dominated the final days of the general election campaign after the terror attacks in London and Manchester.
Rival parties have been criticising the Tories over police cuts.
Speaking after the London attack, Mrs May said "enough is enough" and that "things need to change" in the terror fight.
Addressing activists in Slough on Tuesday evening, she did not make any specific new policy proposals but said: "I mean longer prison sentences for those convicted of terrorist offences.
"I mean making it easier for the authorities to deport foreign terrorist suspects back to their own countries.
"And I mean doing more to restrict the freedom and movements of terrorist suspects when we have enough evidence to know they are a threat, but not enough evidence to prosecute them in full in court.
"And if our human rights laws get in the way of doing it, we will change the law so we can do it."
In an interview with The Sun, Mrs May said she would also consider extending the time suspects can be held without charge to 28 days, after it was reduced to 14 days in 2011 under the coalition.
"We said there may be circumstances where it is necessary to do this.
"I will listen to what they [the police and security services] think is necessary for us to do," she said.
Analysis by the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg
Sources suggest if elected on Friday, Theresa May might consider ideas of curfews, controls on who people can visit and suspects' access to communications.
More controversially, she made it plain tonight that if that means the government would have to change the laws on human rights, she is prepared to do so.
Labour has immediately cried foul, claiming another manifesto U-turn, at almost the last minute of the campaign.
Tory sources deny that flatly, saying they would not pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights but instead, seek fresh derogations - essentially legal opt-outs.
Theresa May's team say she is not, at this late stage, making up last-minute policy, but that the terror risk has changed so fast since the start of the election, that she wanted to make clear that if re-elected she is prepared to toughen the law.
Read more from Laura
The Conservative manifesto committed to remaining in the European Convention on Human Rights - which is separate to the EU - for the whole of the next Parliament.
Conservative sources said they would not withdraw from the ECHR but would seek opt-outs called "derogations" from certain aspects.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the right response was to "halt the Conservative cuts and invest in our police and security services and protect our democratic values, including the Human Rights Act."
And Shadow Attorney General Baroness Chakrabarti said the PM had "been banging on about her dislike for human rights for a very long time".
She told Newsnight Labour's commitment was to deal with terror suspects within the rule of law and the human rights framework.
"Our biggest concern is about resources," she said.
Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron accused the prime minister of launching a "nuclear arms race" in terror laws.
"All she would do is reduce freedom, not terrorism," he said. | Theresa May has said she will change human rights laws if they "get in the way" of tackling suspected terrorists. | 40181444 |
Television replays showed Du Plessis, 29, rubbing the ball over a zip on his trousers on day three of South Africa's second Test against Pakistan in Dubai.
Du Plessis pleaded guilty to an ICC Code of Conduct offence relating to "changing the condition of the ball".
The umpires were forced to change the ball, and applied a five-run penalty.
South Africa went on to win the Test by an innings and 92 runs to tie the series 1-1.
Match referee David Boon confirmed the decision to fine Du Plessis, who bowls leg-spin, in an ICC statement for breaching Law 42.3 of the Laws of Cricket,
Boon said: "I am satisfied that the player's actions warranted the umpires applying the ICC Test Match Playing Conditions.
"It is unfair for anyone to rub the ball on the ground for any reason, to interfere with any of the seams or the surface of the ball, to use any implement, or to take any other action whatsoever which is likely to alter the condition of the ball, except as permitted in (a) above."
Law 42 - Fair and unfair play
"That includes the laying of a charge under the ICC Code of Conduct against Mr du Plessis in respect of changing the condition of the ball.
"After discussions with Mr du Plessis, he has elected not to contest that charge.
"I am also satisfied that this was not part of a deliberate and/or prolonged attempt to unfairly manipulate the condition of the ball, and that the imposition of a fine of 50% of his match fee is appropriate considering the circumstances."
The last time a five-run penalty was issued for ball tampering was during the 2006 Oval Test between England and Pakistan, when the tourists were adjudged the guilty party.
Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq reacted angrily and decided not to continue the Test in protest.
Australian umpire Darrell Hair duly awarded the game to England - the only forfeited match in Test history.
This month, the ICC amended its laws regarding the condition of balls, saying "if a player responsible can be identified" the ball will be changed, a five-run penalty will be awarded and the player responsible will be reported.
Altering the condition of the ball is a level two offence under the ICC's Code of Conduct, which carries a penalty of 50-100% of their match fee and/or suspension from one Test or two one-day internationals for a first offence. | The International Cricket Council has fined South African all-rounder Faf du Plessis 50% of his match fee for ball tampering against Pakistan. | 24682635 |
Police took the wounded to hospital. The blast took place close to Parachinar near the Afghan border.
Kurram is a tribal area with a history of sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni Muslims, but it is so far unclear who is behind this latest attack.
Several Taliban-affiliated groups are known to be active in the region. | At least seven people died and three were wounded when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Kurram in north-west Pakistan on Tuesday, officials say. | 27676341 |
Although Penny has a part-time job with a charity, her husband Rich has been struggling to find work as a chef.
Their rent, at £900 a month, has become unaffordable.
But much to their surprise, they have found that they are not entitled to Housing Benefit payments, which might have helped them stay in their four-bedroom home.
"We've been thinking of going to a small one-bedroom flat. That's what we'd have to move in to," says Penny.
Now it's being claimed that millions of working renters could find themselves in a similar position.
A report out this week warned there are large gaps in the Housing Benefit safety net - leaving the majority of Britain's 7.7 million renters at risk of losing their homes, should their income drop significantly.
More than five million working adults would not qualify for full Housing Benefit if they lost their job, according to the report by Royal London insurance.
The benefit is also known as Local Housing Allowance (LHA) for those renting in the private sector.
The report identifies four groups who are particularly vulnerable:
"Unless they are able to resume paid work quickly, 5.5 million working renters would be at risk of not being able to pay the rent, and having to move to cheaper accommodation," said Steve Webb, director of policy at Royal London, and a former pensions minister.
Use this calculator to find out
Penny and Rich fit into three of the "at risk" groups above.
Penny's part-time income counts against them when it comes to their entitlement.
They have three grown-up children who are no longer living at home, so they are classed as having three spare bedrooms. Again this reduces their entitlement.
And they rent in a relatively expensive area. Their Housing Benefit is worked out on the basis of the cheapest rents in Bristol. So they lose out further.
Only this week a committee of MPs urged the government to ensure that Housing Benefit "more closely reflects market rents".
"We're not trying to scrounge the system," says Penny.
"Nevertheless it would be nice to feel that because we've paid into the system, we could have some support back when we're going through difficult times.
"A lot of other people are in the same situation."
Shelter: Many families could not pay a month's rent if they lost their job
In response, the government said it was doing all it could to protect those who need help.
"We continue to spend around £90bn a year on working age benefits, including unemployment and sickness benefits, to ensure a strong safety net for the most vulnerable," said a spokesperson for the Department of Communities and Local Government.
It said it was also working to produce a bigger private rented sector, including homes provided by companies.
Lee Healey, the managing director of IncomeMAX, advises people experiencing a shortfall in Housing Benefit to apply for so-called Discretionary Housing Payments.
These are financed by the government, which has given local authorities extra cash to mitigate the impact of benefit changes, such as the spare room subsidy and Universal Credit.
"There is a system of Discretionary Housing Payments available to vulnerable renters, but there is no guaranteed entitlement to them, and you have to apply," he says.
"Despite the pitfalls, it is still extremely important to apply for Housing Benefit - or the rent element of Universal Credit - and Discretionary Housing Payments if you need help with your rent." | Penny and Rich Baker, who live near Bristol, have decided they have no choice but to move to a smaller house. | 37119403 |
President Hollande of France, who hosted the summit, said regional powers had pledged to share intelligence and co-ordinate action against the group.
Last month it abducted 223 schoolgirls in north-eastern Nigeria, where it is based. Fresh attacks were reported in Nigeria and Cameroon overnight.
Thousands of people have been killed by Boko Haram in recent years.
The Paris summit brought together President Francois Hollande, Nigeria's Goodluck Jonathan, and their counterparts from Benin, Cameroon, Niger and Chad.
Afterwards, Mr Hollande said participants had agreed on a "global and regional action plan".
He said this involved "co-ordinating intelligence, sharing information... border surveillance, a military presence notably around Lake Chad and the capacity to intervene in case of danger".
Cameroon's President Paul Biya said: "We are here to declare war on Boko Haram". Idriss Deby of Chad said it would be "total war".
Earlier, Mr Hollande called Boko Haram a "major threat to West and Central Africa", and said it had links with al-Qaeda's North-African arm and "other terrorist organisations".
BBC's International Development Correspondent Mark Doyle says the group is an international threat, drawing fighters from not just Nigeria but also from neighbouring Niger, Cameroon and Chad.
In the latest violence, suspected Boko Haram militants attacked a camp run by a Chinese engineering company in the far north of Cameroon, near Nigeria's north-eastern border.
Ten Chinese workers are believed to have been abducted. One Cameroonian soldier was killed, officials say.
In Nigeria itself, 11 people were reported killed in a separate attack on a village a few hours' drive from the Cameroonian border.
A relative of one of the victims said a woman and a child were among the dead.
Representatives from the UK, US and EU also took part in the Paris meeting.
Before it began, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said regional powers needed to co-operate better when it came to cross-border intelligence.
Boko Haram has some of its bases in the Mandara mountain range that straddles the border. But the long frontier has been disputed in at least two places in recent years.
The abducted schoolgirls, who include Christians and Muslims, were seized on 14 April in the north-east Nigerian town of Chibok in Borno state.
Mr Jonathan was due on Friday to visit the town but the trip was cancelled for security reasons.
Boko Haram released a video earlier this week showing more than 100 of the girls and offering an exchange for prisoners.
President Jonathan has ruled out negotiations over their possible release, officials say. | African leaders meeting in Paris have agreed to wage "war" on Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamic militants. | 27451966 |
After rain had washed out day four, the Windies began on 20-1, chasing 244 to win and square the two-Test series.
Darren Bravo hit two sixes but fell for 61 as spinner Rangana Herath took two wickets in an over to leave them 125-6.
Spin trio Herath (4-56), Milinda Siriwardana (3-25) and Dilruwan Perera (1-37) prevailed as the Windies collapsed to 171 all out.
It was Sri Lanka's first series win in 2015 in any of the three formats.
The match had moved on apace after 11 wickets fell on each of the first two days before West Indies opener Kraigg Brathwaite proved an unlikely demon bowler, capturing a six-wicket haul on day three with his part-time off-spin.
Torrential rain at the P Sara Oval prevented any play on Sunday, but just as England were enduring a trial by spin against Pakistan in Dubai, Sri Lanka's three-pronged spin attack took all nine remaining Windies wickets on the final day as they were bowled out with 41 overs to spare.
Sri Lanka won the first Test in Galle by an innings. The sides now meet in three one-day internationals and two Twenty20 internationals. | Sri Lanka's spinners conjured a 72-run victory over West Indies in the second Test in Colombo to take the series 2-0. | 34635170 |
"I stayed at home for a month," explains the 26-year-old American actress. "I was excited to see what would come up if I tuned out for a while. I meditate twice a day so I'm very comfortable with silence and the chatter in my head."
Adapted by Emma Donoghue from her own best-selling novel, Room tells the harrowing story of Ma (Larson), a young mother held captive with her five-year-old son Jack (Jacob Tremblay) in 10-by-10-foot space with only a skylight and no windows.
Larson's performance has been tipped as a potential Oscar winner since Room had its first film festival screenings in autumn 2015.
So what did go through her head during her self-imposed exile?
"I reminisced a lot about my past - on certain regrets or moments missed. I figured it was a process that Ma had gone through before Jack came along."
As well as meeting psychologists to gain insight into the trauma of captivity, Larson wrote three diaries as Ma aged 10, 14 and 17 to help her get into character.
"It was stream of consciousness a lot of the time. I'd get really into it and get stuck in a 10-year-old mind for hours at a time," she says.
"I wanted to create this very full back story for her of what her hopes and dreams were and what her fears were. It might be about body image issues or fights she had with her mum or the boy she had a crush on - the typical growing pains."
After a month writing them and making collages, Larson handed them over to the film's production designer and then didn't see them again until she arrived on set.
The actual set of Room was almost as claustrophobic as it looks in the film.
As Irish director Lenny Abrahamson explains: "The camera lens was always inside the space on a very elaborately constructed set.
"Half the time I was either in the bath or under the sink or on a ladder looking down from above - and very occasionally outside the room watching on a monitor.
"We managed to get most people out so we could shoot with three or four people in there and give the actors some room."
But Abrahamson's biggest challenge was finding a child actor who could play a five-year-old boy raised in captivity.
The audition process led him to Jacob Tremblay, who was just seven when filming began in 2014. As many critics have noted, he and Larson have a remarkable on-screen chemistry as son and mother.
"We had three weeks to bond - for movie-making that's a pretty long rehearsal period," says Larson. "We really got on, we hung out a bunch. We built the toys that you see in Room and spent a couple of hours every day improvising in Room. I'd come over before he went to bed and we'd play with Lego together."
Larson says Tremblay, now nine, has been enjoying all the attention he's been getting at film awards and festivals.
"Sometimes we have to go to fancy parties and he says that all he can see are legs," she recalls. "I worried about him getting tired so I suggested we could have a code word if he didn't want to talk any more - but he said 'nah, I like talking to people, it just gets hard for me after my bedtime'."
With all the Oscar buzz around her performance, Larson is keeping a level head.
"It's like having conversations about your fantasy wedding but you don't even have a boyfriend," she laughs.
"But the cool thing about is that it's the highest form of recognition you can get in my profession so for people to talk like that is the biggest compliment. If that happens, it's something I'll deal with, but no use in worrying about it right now."
Room is released in the UK on 15 January | When preparing for her role as a woman held prisoner in a shed in the film Room, Brie Larson decided to isolate herself from the outside world. | 35150720 |
Journal entries record that he used "scalding fomentations of camomile flowers" to ease a stomach complaint.
This spring some of the world-renowned writer's favourite herbal remedies will be uncovered in a special foraging expedition.
It is part of a programme of events for two south of Scotland nature festivals, uniting to promote "wild food".
Organisers of the Dumfries and Galloway Wild Spring Festival and the Scottish Borders Nature Festival want to help festival goers safely experience the burgeoning revival in foraged food.
From April to June, they will be hosting events where people can learn more about the conservation of local food at its source.
Professional forager Ali Murfitt will lead the exploration of Abbotsford, which was once home of Sir Walter Scott, where there are now more than 200 species of flora.
She said: "Foraging inspired and helps people to love the nature on their doorsteps.
"It highlights how much wild land, habitat and plants we have lost (and are continuing to lose) and how important it is to get involved and support habitat restoration and conservation.
"If native trees are chopped down or ecological habitats destroyed, we lose and important and sustainable source of delicious and healthy gourmet ingredients, which are greatly valued by some of the UK's top chefs and mixologists."
The Dumfries and Galloway festival will run from 3 April until 5 May, while the Borders events will be held between 14 May and 13 June. | Almost 200 years ago Sir Walter Scott relied on herbs found near his home in Borders to counter health problems. | 32090098 |
British Transport Police say the "shocking" assaults happened between Newquay and Plymouth on 12 August.
The first man, who was wearing a novelty shark hat, started tickling the girl after she refused a kiss, so she moved seat.
A second man then kissed and touched the girl inappropriately, police say.
The victim had been to the Boardmasters music festival and had been travelling home when she was attacked.
Police say the incidents happened between 20:45 and 21:00 BST.
Investigating officer Det Con Matt Grieve, said: "This was a deeply upsetting and shocking incident for this young woman and we are urgently seeking witnesses".
The first offender is described as a white man with pale skin, ginger hair, and wearing a white shirt with a palm tree on it. He had blue shorts on and was wearing a novelty shark hat.
The second offender is a white man, with pronounced sideburns, and wearing a white polo shirt. He gave his name as Lance, according to police. | A 17-year-old girl was sexually assaulted twice - by two different men - on a train as she travelled home from a music festival. | 41001782 |
More than 60 members of the GMB union had voted for a series of 24-hour walkouts from the beginning of July in a row over pay grades.
But both sides in the dispute have now agreed to further talks on Thursday.
The union says its members have been carrying out work above their grades for which they have not been paid.
The Sellafield site employs more than 10,000 people and is in the process of being decommissioned.
Chris Jukes, GMB senior organiser, said: "The bottom line is management have made an offer which has already been rejected by our members and it will take an improved offer to settle this matter, which has been unresolved for several years.
"We have agreed to Sellafield's request for more time so management can reflect on their offer."
Sellafield Ltd, which operates the site, said it was "carefully considering" its position.
A spokesman added: "In the meantime the Sellafield site continues to operate safely and securely, as normal." | Planned strike action by firefighters at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria has been shelved pending further talks. | 40474418 |
Dubliner Shiels won the Open race on his Cookstown BE Racing Suzuki and followed it up by taking victory in the feature event of the meeting.
Dunlop, 30, triumphed in the two Supersport 600cc races, aboard the CD Racing Yamaha.
Malachi Mitchell-Thomas came home first in the Supertwins and Magherafelt rider Paul Jordan enjoyed 125cc success.
The opening Supersport race, carried over from Friday, was reduced to five laps after Bolton man Mitchell-Thomas slipped off while holding second place, bringing the red flags out.
Dunlop added to his victory at Tandragee last week by taking the chequered flag from Manxman Dan Kneen, with Derek McGee from Mullingar third.
The Ballymoney man repeated the feat in race two, with McGee getting the better of Mar-Train Yamaha pilot Kneen to occupy the runner-up spot.
Sheils saw off the challenge of McGee in the Open race, with new road racing sensation Mitchell-Thomas completing the rostrum positions.
The 33-year-old former Irish champion made it a double by finishing ahead of team-mate Mitchell-Thomas in the main race of the day, with Kneen coming with a late charge to take third.
McGee, Dunlop and Waterford rider McCormack made up the top six. | Derek Sheils and William Dunlop shared the top honours at the Cookstown 100, taking two wins apiece. | 36178183 |
The ex-Tory PM said claims by Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and Iain Duncan Smith did not bear factual scrutiny and warned about the tone of some exit campaigners' rhetoric on immigration.
Vote Leave said Sir John was "wrong".
Justice minister Dominic Raab said immigration was a serious issue and Vote Leave was handling it responsibly.
But he added: "Let's debate the substance and not engage in name-calling."
Employment minister Priti Patel, who is backing a vote to leave the EU, said Sir John was a "respected former prime minister" but it would be the public - not politicians - who would decide the outcome of the referendum.
The UK votes on whether to stay in or leave the European Union on 23 June.
David Cameron is campaigning for a Remain vote, as is most of his cabinet, but the party is deeply split over the issue, with many of its MPs supporting an exit.
In a hard-hitting speech in Oxford, Sir John - whose seven years in Number 10 were dominated by internal party rows over Europe - said the Remain side must "debunk myths" about immigration, sovereignty and the economy if it was to prevail.
He claimed that economic facts were simply "brushed aside" by Vote Leave and that those who favoured an EU exit were propagating "absurd falsehoods".
This issue looks at the costs of membership and what the UK receives from the EU.
"There is no shortage of their exaggerations," said Sir John, citing the cost of being in Europe as a "clear example".
"(UKIP leader) Nigel Farage, Iain Duncan Smith and Boris Johnson all put it at £20bn a year - it's even on Boris's battle bus; Michael Gove is more modest at £18bn (£350m a week), all of which, they tell us - if only we could be free of Europe - would be spent on the health service and our hospitals.
But he said their figures were "wrong" and said they should apologise for "peddling a clear cut untruth".
Sir John also dismissed arguments made by Leave campaigners, including Mr Johnson, that an EU exit would boost Britain's sovereignty.
"We should not forget that - in well over 90% of the votes cast in Brussels - the UK wins," he said.
"The caricature that we are repeatedly voted down in Europe is ill-informed nonsense."
The former prime minister also took issue with some of the Leave campaign's rhetoric on immigration.
He claimed senior Tories were "morphing" into UKIP by pandering to immigration fears and warned it risked creating "long-term divisions" in society.
He singled out for criticism claims made by pro-exit campaigners - including Mr Gove - that EU expansion would open Britain's borders up to another 88 million people.
"I assume this distortion of reality was intended to lead the British people into believing that almost the entire population of possible new entrants will wish to relocate to the UK.
"If so, this is pure demagoguery. I hope that - when the heat of the referendum is behind us - the proponents of such mischief making will be embarrassed and ashamed at how they have misused this issue," he said.
This issue covers immigration and free movement within Europe.
Sir John said he did not want to "silence" debate on immigration, as it was a "legitimate" issue - but he warned that "care honesty and balance" was needed to avoid "raising fears or fuelling prejudice".
Pro-exit justice minister Mr Raab said people cared about the "pressure" immigration puts on wages and public service, adding: "I think we're trying to handle a very serious issue responsibly."
He pointed to data published by the Office for National Statistics on Thursday showed a "massive under-estimate" in the amount of EU immigration into the UK, and said: "If Sir John Major or anyone else campaigning to stay in the EU wants to make the case that that's just the price we've got to pay then he can make that argument.
"But let's have the debate on the substance, not name-calling."
Meanwhile, Conservative MP Peter Lilley, a former minister under Sir John, also said Vote Leave had got the tone right on immigration and suggested Sir John was "inventing a straw man".
"He was saying there is misuse of the issue - and that certainly would be wrong - but he didn't give any examples of this misuse," Mr Lilley added.
Conservative David Davis said it was "grossly unfair" to dismiss concerns about immigration as "UKIP".
"Sir John is right to warn that debates on immigration must not slip into xenophobia. But there are also great dangers from ignoring the very real concerns of the voters, and dismissing them as divisive and prejudiced," he said. | Sir John Major has launched an attack on senior Conservatives in the Vote Leave campaign, accusing them of exaggerating arguments to exit the EU. | 36284234 |
The Yamaha rider finished ahead of team-mate Jorge Lorenzo with Honda's Dani Pedrosa in third.
Championship leader Marc Marquez suffered an early crash and finished down the field in 15th. His overall lead was reduced to 74 points from 89.
Rossi's win at Misano was the Italian's 81st career victory and took his MotoGP points total beyond 5,000.
British riders Bradley Smith and Cal Crutchlow finished seventh and ninth respectively.
The Misano circuit is located near nine-times world champion Rossi's home town of Tavullia.
His last win came at Assen in the Netherlands in June last year and the victory saw an end to Honda's 100% winning record this season.
"It's a really great win and with Marquez in such amazing form it's not like it happens often," said Rossi.
"It was the right moment and I took advantage of it, thanks to a Yamaha which was better than the Honda."
Rossi, 35, had qualified third on the grid, behind Spain's Lorenzo and Italy's Andrea Iannone, with Marquez starting from the second row for the first time this season as he looked for his 12th win in 13 races.
Marquez and Rossi battled from the start, until the young Spaniard fell on lap 10.
He lost control of his bike with 19 laps to go with the machine slipping out from beneath him under braking.
"Winning was the main aim of the season and I did," Rossi added.
"I knew I could do it and I continued to push and believe in it always, regardless of everything.
"I kept telling myself that it would happen one day - that Marquez wouldn't be at 100% and I had to be ready."
The next race is in Aragon, Spain, on 28 September.
San Marino MotoGP result:
1. Valentino Rossi (Ita) Yamaha 44'14.586secs
2. Jorge Lorenzo (Spa) Yamaha +1.578
3. Dani Pedrosa (Spa) Honda +4.276
4. Andrea Dovizioso (Ita) Ducati +5.510
5. Andrea Iannone (Ita) Ducati +11.771
6. Pol Espargaro (Spa) Yamaha +18.999
7. Bradley Smith (GB) Yamaha +23.100
8. Alvaro Bautista (Spa) Honda +36.458
9. Cal Crutchlow (GB) Ducati +38.480
10. Yonny Hernandez (Col) Ducati +45.878 | Valentino Rossi won his first MotoGP in 15 months with victory at his home track in San Marino. | 29197067 |
Mr Anwar, who lives in Glasgow, said he received the threats after calling for unity within Scotland's Muslim community.
He said he was taking the threats from "fanatics" extremely seriously.
Last Thursday Mr Anwar chaired an event he organised at Hampden Park calling for unity and condemning violence and extremism.
He said it was first time Ahmadiya, Sunni Imam and Pakistani Christians had been on same platform together.
His comments were made in the wake of the killing of Glasgow shopkeeper Asad Shah, 40, and recent terror attacks in Brussels and Lahore.
Mr Anwar said: "Having been a campaigner for human rights for over 25 years, I have grown used to the bile and hatred directed at me, sadly that is par for the course.
"On occasion when I have had my life seriously threatened, I have informed the police but have always chosen to keep it private.
"On this occasion I could no longer remain silent, because of a small minority who believe they can silence me by creating a climate of fear."
The lawyer said that over the last few weeks "abuse and hatred" had been whipped up on social media, and he had received calls in the middle of the night.
"I hold these people directly responsible for creating an atmosphere which has given some the confidence to make threats to my life," he said.
"With a young family I could be forgiven if I had chosen to shut up and walk away. The pressure from the community, friends and family to protect myself from the fanatics has been enormous.
"It is a terrifying and deeply lonely place to be when you say goodbye to your children and wonder if it is for the last time, but the death of Asad Shah should be a wake-up call to our community that we must not be silenced.
"Our so-called community leaders must do much more, they have avoided tackling hatred to preserve their status and that is deeply shameful and hypocritical."
A spokesman for Police Scotland said: "We can confirm that police are investigating these threats and our inquiries are continuing."
Mr Anwar has taken on a number of high-profile cases including representing the families of Fife man Sheku Bayoh, who died in police custody, and murdered Indian waiter Surjit Singh Chhokar. | Police are investigating death threats made against human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar. | 35954510 |
Three-year-old Ben Craggs died after a concrete bollard toppled onto him at the Ingliston showground in June 2008.
Roderick Evans told Edinburgh Sheriff Court the bollards were checked three days earlier.
The Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland denies eight charges under health and safety laws.
Ben was at the show on 19 June 2008, with his parents, Jonathan and Dawn Craggs, from Sedgefield, County Durham, when he fell and grabbed a rope connecting two of the bollards, one of which overturned, striking him on the head.
He died in the Royal Hospital for Sick Children from his injuries.
The society, Mr Evans said, had inherited the bollards from a company, Spook Erections, which had run Sunday markets at the showground until 2005.
The society had appointed Royal Bank of Scotland Mentore Services as health and safety consultants, and SEP Ltd to control the car parks at the showground.
Mr Evans said: "In my opinion while the ultimate health and safety responsibility remained with the society, it was entitled to rely on SEP to raise any health and safety concerns about car parking, including the use of the bollards".
"In my opinion the bollards, used in conjunction with the rope, did not expose the public to a reasonably foreseeable risk of injury."
Mr Evans added: "In my opinion the society took all reasonable measures to reduce risks to persons using the north car park."
He said that prior to the accident the bollards may have been moved to facilitate the parking of a horse box trailer.
"Bollards 11 and 12 were most probably moved and the tension of the rope was altered and made tighter. This must have had a detrimental effect," he said.
"It made it less stable if someone pulled on the rope. This could not have been reasonably foreseen."
It is alleged the society failed to ensure moveable concrete bollards at the showground were stabilised by clamping and, as a consequence, Ben fell and seized hold of a rope connecting two of the bollards causing one to overturn and strike him on the head
Other charges allege:
• the society failed to take action about defects in health and safety arrangements which were drawn to its attention by health and safety consultants.
•that it employed a person as a health and safety co-ordinator who did not have sufficient competence or qualifications and did not provide him with training to undertake the job.
•it failed to identify the risks of the bollards overturning, exposing employees of contractors and members of the public to risk of severe injury and death.
The trial before Sheriff Paul Arthurson QC continues. | A health and safety expert has told a jury The Royal Highland Show could not reasonably have foreseen the accident which caused the death of a boy. | 30316211 |
Allen Pembroke, 61, from Chelmsford, Essex, helped a badly wounded woman at the resort in Sousse last Friday.
Cheryl Mellor, 55, was lying injured. Her husband Stephen died trying to shield her from gunfire.
Mr Pembroke said he and his wife were still in shock over the "harrowing" attack, in which 30 Britons died.
A minute's silence will be held across the UK at midday to remember the 38 victims of the attack.
Mr Pembroke was on the beach with his wife when the attack started, and the couple fled to their hotel room.
But he said he had to follow his "gut reaction" and go back outside to help those injured.
"I immediately saw quite a few bodies among the sunbeds. The beach was covered with blood," he said.
He came to the aid of Mrs Mellor, who was lying face down in the sand.
"Her hand was two or three inches from her wrist - she was semi-conscious.
"She'd also been shot in her left leg. I secured it as best I could with the towels. I checked her husband's pulse but he'd gone."
Mr Pembroke said he had seen a second man with a gun approaching the beach on a speedboat but could not be sure if he was "friend or foe".
"I believe the beach could have been more secure. There'd been a terror incident in March and they should have upgraded security in that knowledge," he said.
Although he returned to work earlier this week, Mr Pembroke said he was "probably in shock".
"I'm trying not to think about it. Thankfully while I'm at work I'm absorbed with that.
"But when I lay down at night in the quiet, the slightest noise and I feel alert and awake. But time will heal that." | A man who ran to the aid of Tunisia beach attack victims said he hoped to get some closure following the national minute's silence for those who died. | 33378235 |
The find was made on Wednesday afternoon at an estate office in the village.
Police and archaeologists were called in to examine the remains. Police Scotland said it was believed the bones had been there for "number of years".
Local residents said the building where the discovery was made could be 200 years old.
A police spokesperson said: "A member of the public has contacted police after finding what they believed to be a human skull within a building at the Applecross Estate.
"The find is believed to be historic.
"It is likely to have been there for a number of years and there do not appear to be any suspicious circumstances." | A human skull and other bones have been found during renovation work to a property in Applecross in Wester Ross. | 33477809 |
Media playback is not supported on this device
Having failed to inspire in three previous qualifiers, a new-look side were rejuvenated with Alex Greenwood's angled finish earning an early goal.
Carney's penalty and Rachel Daly's debut goal sealed a 3-0 half-time lead.
Ellen White and Izzy Christiansen made it 5-0 before Carney scored twice from close range against the poor visitors.
Serbia, who played their last qualifier in November and are 41 places below England at 45 in the world rankings, looked unfit and barely got into the England half, let alone carved out a chance.
But after four goals in their last six matches, Mark Sampson's Lionesses rediscovered their goalscoring touch and entertained a 5,503 crowd at Wycombe's Adams Park with an added pace to their passing and movement.
The victory puts them within a point of Group Seven leaders Belgium, with England having a game in hand, and should they beat Serbia again on Tuesday it will guarantee a runners-up spot in the group.
Eight group winners and six runners-up will earn a place at Euro 2017 in the Netherlands next summer. The other two group runners-up will go into a play-off for the last remaining place at the finals.
Daly made her England debut after some impressive displays in the United States for Houston Dash, and the Harrogate-born striker was one of several new faces in the side.
Both the 24-year-old and White started instead of regular strikers Eniola Aluko and Toni Duggan, who were left out of the squad, and both grasped their opportunities.
Notts County striker White was making her first start since England's World Cup third-place play-off win against Germany last July and wasted little time in making her mark by hitting the post early on and winning Carney's first-half penalty.
She then selflessly set up Daly, who made no mistake from close range, and capitalised on poor Serbian defending to score her first goal since 2013.
Christiansen also offered added industriousness in midfield after returning from an ankle injury to score her second England goal.
And Nikita Parris, who replaced Daly to also make her England debut, almost scored with her first touch before causing havoc as the scoreline became embarrassing for the visitors.
Having scored 52 goals in their 10 qualifying games for last year's World Cup, England have been through a lean spell recently, managing just three goals in their last three Euro 2017 qualifiers after beating Estonia 8-0 last September.
After Greenwood found the bottom corner for England's best goal from Fara Williams' cute pass, Carney helped end that run, albeit a little untidily, as two of her three goals were bundled home in the second half.
As the Serbian defence failed to clear a corner, the Chelsea midfielder poked in from a yard out and then took advantage of an attempted Serbian clearance as it fortuitously cannoned into the net off her foot.
Her smile afterwards told how little she knew about the goal, but her display and an improved performance brought back the cheer to the England side after a difficult period over the winter.
It also showed that Sampson has plenty of options with which to find the right blend in his squad as he attempts to lead England to next year's European Championship in the Netherlands.
Head coach Mark Sampson: "It was a pleasing performance. It is important to be clinical in front of goal and credit to the players. This week their attitude has been exceptional and they deserved this performance. You can feel it when we get the preparation right, so we are really pleased.
"It is important to score goals but it was another clean sheet as well. We stayed solid and organised and showed inventiveness in final third and also I have to say a special mention to the two debutants."
Midfielder Karen Carney: "It was special but I didn't really know much about two of the goals! I think we played really well and it was a good thing to get the Lionesses back on the map.
"I think we have found our rhythm of game well so we are excited for the next game."
England travel to Serbia on Tuesday for the away fixture, and a victory would take them above leaders Belgium and guarantee at least second place in the group. | Karen Carney scored a hat-trick as England put the spring back into their European Championship qualifying campaign with an easy win over Serbia. | 36431672 |
Three were killed, three captured, and one, armed forces commander Abdul Haris Nasution, escaped, although his five-year-old daughter was fatally wounded by gunfire.
The three captured generals were taken to the main airbase in south Jakarta and killed, their mutilated bodies stuffed down a well.
This incident profoundly changed the course of Indonesian modern history, leading to one of the worst mass killings of the 20th Century, wiping out the world's third largest Communist Party, and bringing to power a general who ruled for three decades and brought the country firmly into the US orbit during the Cold War.
Yet 50 years later, these events remain poorly understood in Indonesia, with the real actors behind the move against the generals and their motives still unclear.
The shadow of what followed hangs over Indonesian society even today, with millions of families scarred by the trauma of massacres and brutal imprisonment, or by the guilt of having taken part.
I was based in Jakarta as the BBC correspondent in the last two-and-a-half years of the long rule of President Suharto, the general who emerged as the victor of the 1965 events.
Every year, TV channels would show films depicting the official version of those events, and ceremonies would be held by the well on the airbase, now known as lubang buaya or crocodile hole.
This narrative had the attempted coup led by the Indonesian Communist Party, or PKI. It portrays the party cadres as depraved and vicious, inflicting dreadful suffering on the six generals and one lieutenant who were killed.
But more than that, this Suharto doctrine painted communism as an evil, atheistic force that could sweep back over Indonesia if people were insufficiently vigilant - and of course, it justified the continued rule by his authoritarian New Order.
I knew quite a lot about those events, having worked for years for an Indonesian human rights group in London.
But under Suharto it was impossible to talk freely about them. In rural villages in Java I would occasionally be shown where the killings of suspected communists had taken place.
Younger Indonesians would ask their parents for me, but get only silence in response.
Rivalries between the Indonesian military and the Communist Party came to a head when six generals were killed in an overnight attack by soldiers allegedly sympathetic to the communists
A group of officers led by a colonel in President Sukarno's palace guard was accused of trying to launch a coup
General Suharto led bloody anti-communist purges in which hundreds of thousands of suspected leftists were killed
Many more were detained and imprisoned without trial
Gen Suharto was handed emergency powers by President Sukarno in 1966 and took over as president the following year, ruling Indonesia for 31 years
More from the BBC's Witness programme
I knew a few people whose lives had been blighted by the 1965 upheavals - unable to study at university, because a grandmother had been tainted by association with a communist group; unable to get a proper job because of once being imprisoned as a tapol, or political detainee.
Until 1995, former prisoners - and there had been 100,000 of them, held in appalling conditions, without trial, between 1965 and 1979 - had their national identity cards marked with the letters ET for ex-tapol.
To this day in Indonesia, ex-tapols complain about discrimination.
The fall of Suharto in a sudden burst of people power in 1998 lifted the pervasive fear, which had silenced all discussion of the 1965 events until then.
It has allowed survivors of the killing fields to learn for the first time that the official version they were fed was, in fact, largely propaganda.
Back in 1965, Indonesia was in a state of high tension. Its embryonic parliamentary system had been replaced in 1959 by the single leadership of the country's mercurial founding president Sukarno.
Rebellions and attempted coups had been put down; the country was in a constant state of near conflict; it had fought for, and won control of Dutch-administered New Guinea. Its troops were fighting British forces protecting the newly created federation of Malaysia.
Sukarno railed against US-led imperialism, and took Indonesia out of the UN. The economy was near to collapse.
In this ferment, the PKI, with three million members and perhaps 20 million sympathisers, pushed for more influence, while increasing its power in populous Java by promoting land redistribution, sometimes violently, usually at the expense of orthodox Muslim landowners.
The army, by then enjoying US training and a prominent role in state industry, saw the party as a threat, especially its efforts to win converts in the ranks. With Sukarno's health failing, a showdown seemed inevitable.
But the attempted putsch against the top generals was feeble and poorly planned.
Led by middle-ranking leftist officers, it had the support of only a few military units. The PKI leader, DN Aidit, was involved in the planning, but the most important role was played by a mysterious agent called Sjam Kamaruzaman, who headed a little-known PKI unit, the Special Bureau, which aimed to infiltrate the ranks of the armed forces.
But most of the party was ignorant of the plot, and unprepared to take advantage of it.
Inexplicably, the plotters ignored Gen Suharto, who commanded the important Kostrad strategic reserve unit.
After Suharto's resignation in 1998, the only surviving plotter, Colonel Latief, explained that he had informed Suharto of their plans days before, and understood him to be on their side. It was a disastrous miscalculation.
Suharto led a swift and efficient counter-coup, dispersing the plotters within 24 hours. The PKI leaders were rounded up, some of them, like Aidit, summarily executed, others put through tribunals that saw many more executed later.
The army took control of the media, whipping up anger against the PKI.
And then the killings began. Within four months, at least 500,000 had died.
In 2001, I interviewed a man in the East Java town of Pasuruan, who took part in the killings.
We would march them down to the pier, he said, club them to death, and roll their bodies into the sea. They did not resist, and he spoke of hundreds dying at that spot.
Like most of the inhabitants of that part of Java, he was a devout supporter of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), a traditionalist Muslim movement with tens of millions of followers.
They saw the PKI as godless rivals and were easily prompted to violence against its supporters. Later the charismatic leader of NU, Abdurrahman Wahid, a reformist Muslim who became president in 1999, used to tell me his knowledge of the terrible bloodshed carried out by NU followers in 1965 was the main reason he dared not back moves to unseat Suharto, for fear of further communal violence.
But we also now know that the mass killings usually started only after the arrival of military special forces, dispatched by Suharto to enforce his regime's authority. The army played a central role.
Those forces were lead by Colonel Sarwo Edhie, who happened to be the father-in-law of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the fourth president after Suharto, who stepped down only in 2014.
All of which helps to explain why, 17 years after the fall of Suharto, there is still no real debate about the events of 1965.
The military, which remains a powerful institution, has much to lose by having its murky role publicly discussed.
Millions of people who took part in the killings do not want to talk about them.
And the decades of intense demonisation of the PKI make it very hard for its sympathisers to speak out.
The astonishing twin films made recently by American director Joshua Oppenheimer, in which perpetrators and victims re-live their roles and their memories of the 1965 killings, have for the first time brought those events wider global attention.
They have been shown in Indonesia, and provoked reactions ranging from anger to bewilderment and, among a few Indonesians, curiosity to know more.
In some areas, family members have started excavating known mass graves in search of human remains.
A "people's tribunal" has been set up by activists in the Netherlands to document the human rights abuses of that period.
Indonesia's president, Joko Widodo, has promised a state-sponsored inquest, but has so far done little, and has refused to apologise to the victims on behalf of the state.
With every year, fewer of those who witnessed the terrible massacres are alive and able to testify.
Time is running out for a full accounting of the horrors of that time, and a chance to settle the ghosts of Indonesia's unhappy history. | In the early hours of 1 October 1965, seven military units moved through the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, heading to the homes of seven of the most senior generals in the army. | 34390969 |
Abdul Hakim Belhaj alleges that former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and MI6 were complicit in arranging his and his wife's rendition from China in 2004.
The High Court had ruled the case could not be heard in the UK courts because it could damage foreign relationships.
But appeal judges said the claims were so "grave" a court should hear them.
Mr Belhaj, now a politician in Libya, said: "My wife and I are gratified by the judges' decision to give us our day in court," adding their alleged torture was "as fresh and as painful for us as if it happened yesterday".
His lawyer Sapna Malik said it was "very significant step forward" to the case being heard in England.
Mr Straw, who has previously denied being aware of the rendition, and the government, have been given leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Foreign Office said it was considering whether to make an application. The case would not be heard until after any appeal.
Dominic Casciani, BBC home affairs correspondent
This judgement is a major blow for the government. The three judges have demanded that a light be shone into dark corners of the state's work - and not for the first time. Time and again the Court of Appeal has said allegations of wrongdoing, linked to security and intelligence, must be examined if the rule of law is to be upheld.
The key factors in this decision are clear: The judges say that international law and practice demands that alleged human rights abuses be examined. They say that it becomes even more important to do so given that claims are made against serving or former British officials.
Another reason they give is that unless an English court looks at the claims, the truth may never come out - and that is a denial of justice for both sides.
And most embarrassingly for ministers - they brush aside claims that allowing Mr Belhaj to sue would damage international relations.
Rendition involves sending a person from one country to another for imprisonment and interrogation, possibly by methods such as torture, that would be illegal in the country doing the rendering.
Mr Belhaj, former leader of an Islamist group which fought the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, claims British intelligence provided information that facilitated his rendition, along with his pregnant wife Fatima Boudchar.
Last year, Mr Justice Simon ruled at the High Court that the case against Mr Straw and Sir Mark Allen, ex-head of counter-terrorism at MI6, should be thrown out.
The government had argued an English court could not adjudicate on claims of rendition and torture in Libya, even though UK officials allegedly knew about them.
The judge said that because most of the claims related to officials in China, Malaysia, Thailand and Libya they were "non-justiciable" in the UK.
But on Thursday, appeal court judges said the proceedings were not barred by state immunity.
One of the judges, Lord Dyson, said: "There is a compelling public interest in the investigation by the English courts of these very grave allegations.
"The stark reality is that unless the English courts are able to exercise jurisdiction in this case, these very grave allegations against the executive will never be subjected to judicial investigation."
Mr Belhaj was jailed for six years after he returned to Libya. Mrs Boudchar was also imprisoned, but released shortly before giving birth.
The couple have refused so far failed to reach a settlement with the UK government, saying they want it to admit what they say happened.
In March last year, Mr Belhaj offered to settle the case with a token payment of £1 from Mr Straw and the government, an apology and an admission of liability - but this was rejected.
Cori Crider, a director at human rights charity Reprieve, which also represents the family, said: "The government so fears this case going to trial that they have stalled for years by throwing up a parade of scarecrows - claiming, for example, that the United States would be angered if Mr and Mrs Belhaj had their day in court in Britain.
"The court was right: embarrassment is no reason to throw torture victims out of court."
A statement issued by human rights organisations Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists, Justice and Redress said: "We welcome the decision of the Court of Appeal which now enables the very serious contention that UK authorities and officials were directly implicated in the 'extraordinary rendition' of the claimants to be properly assessed by courts in the UK." | A Libyan man can sue the UK government over claims he was illegally sent back to Libya and tortured, the Court of Appeal has ruled. | 29831112 |
Owner UK Coal said it would oversee the rundown of the Kellingley mine before the site was redeveloped.
Unions said it was a "very sad day" for the country as well as the industry.
The last 450 miners at the pit are to receive severance packages at 12 weeks of average pay.
Keith Poulson, 55, branch secretary for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), said: "It has been like being a convicted prisoner on death row.
"We can basically hear the governor coming down the corridor and he's about to put the key in the cell door to take you to meet your fate."
Mr Poulson said the workers' morale was "absolutely rock bottom, to be thrown on the industrial scrapheap".
"Since it was announced, I feel like somebody's stuck a pin in me and I'm eventually deflating. I feel completely let down," he said.
Neil Townend, 51, said: "There's a few lads shedding tears, just getting all emotional. It's a bit sad really. I've been here 30 years, I don't know what to expect now, got to get another job."
Stephen Walker, 50, who has worked at Kellingley since 1988, said: "I never thought I'd see this day come but it has, and times move on, and we have to now, and that's that."
"We've lost an entire industry, we've lost a way of life."
Nigel Kemp, a miner who has worked at the pit for 32 years, said he would be part of the team capping the shafts his father had sunk in 1959.
He said: "Everything I've had in my life has come from this mine here.
"I wish my dad was here today, because he'd have a lot to say about it. What's happened here is absolutely a travesty."
Mr Kemp said he could hear the miners singing Tom Jones's Delilah on their last journey to the coal face.
The National Union of Mineworkers, which used to have more than 500,000 members, is left with just 100 following the closure of Kellingley.
Miners' memories of Kellingley
Mining machines buried in last deep pit
Phil Whitehurst, national officer of the GMB union, said: "The final 450 miners, the last in a long line stretching back for generations, are having to search for new jobs before the shafts that lead down to 30 million tons of untouched coal are sealed with concrete.
"This is a very sad day as our proud industrial heritage is destroyed [by the government]."
In 2014 Michael Fallon, Conservative MP and the then business minister, said: "There is no value-for-money case for a level of investment that would keep the deep mines open beyond this managed wind-down period to autumn 2015."
Official figures from the Department for Energy and Climate Change show the UK imported more coal than it produced for the first time in 2001 - a trend repeated every year since 2003.
In 2003 the UK produced 28.28m tonnes and imported 31.89m The graph below shows how output and imports have changed, with the big dip in 1984 due to the miners' strike.
Miners at Kellingley are expected to join a march planned to take place on Saturday at nearby Knottingley, West Yorkshire, to mark the closure.
Seventeen miners have lost their lives at the 58-hectare site since production began in April 1965.
A memorial to the dead miners is being transferred from the colliery to the National Coal Mining Museum in Wakefield.
Photographers meet Kellingley staff at their Christmas party
Updates on this story and more from around the region
Known locally as the Big K, the largest deep pit in Europe was hailed as the new generation of coal mining and could bring up to 900 tonnes an hour to the surface.
At its height, Kellingley employed more than 2,000 workers. At the same time, up to 500,000 people were working in the coal industry nationally.
Analysis
Danni Hewson, BBC Look North Business Correspondent
The cold truth is that the way our economy works made the closure of our last coal mines inevitable.
No matter the murmurings of an ideological campaign, market forces are the main axe wielder here.
The US's dash for shale created a glut of cheap imports that Kellingley coal simply couldn't compete against.
But, of course, that's not the whole story. Environmentally, coal could only have had a long-term future if we'd developed and perfected Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), and plans for that were shelved earlier this year. And that's where it does get interesting.
The current government is pushing shale as the potential stop gap, but the industry-backed Task Force on Shale has said gas, like coal, has no real longevity without CCS.
And so the wheel goes round, the UK is perusing a relationship with gas, other countries are still flirting with King Coal - both fossil fuels. All seem to agree that relying on renewables alone is still a somewhat distant dream. | Miners at a North Yorkshire colliery have finished their final shifts as the closure of the pit brings an end to centuries of deep coal mining in Britain. | 35124077 |
Clearly pulling out at the last minute has considerably angered the organisers the Amaury Sport Organisation. It does not look professional and it could damage London's reputation for hosting sporting events.
But there other factors at play.
The first is cities and towns have to pay for the privilege to host the Tour.
Yorkshire in 2014 paid £10m mainly through local councils, with central government putting in another £10m.
TfL has paid £6m to host the finish of the Tour's third stage.
The controversial point for London was this money came out of the cycling safety budget and that angered cycling campaigners.
Also the Tour was supported by the then transport commissioner Sir Peter Hendy, who has now left TfL to join Network Rail.
City Hall was never that keen on the Tour and thought the money could be better spent elsewhere.
Plus, a spending review looms where transport budgets will be cut.
I am told the cost for the London Grand Depart in 2017 would have been roughly £35m, and some of that money would have again come out of the cycling safety budget.
City Hall does not seem to have been convinced by the economic benefits.
Critics will also say an event planned for 2017 is not a priority for the mayor of London who leaves his post next summer.
All of this means politics and money eventually scuppered Le Tour in London in 2017, and it seems very unlikely it will return any time soon. | Lots of people do not understand why Transport for London (TfL) has decided against hosting the Grand Depart of the Tour de France in 2017. | 34389824 |
Cardiff council said it had ordered a pre-decorated 40m - or 131ft - "tree-shaped structure" from China for outside Cardiff Castle.
But when the centre piece, costing £10,000 a year, went up on Friday night it was revealed to be just 40ft.
The authority apologised to anyone who had been expecting "a bigger tree".
A council spokeswoman confirmed the tree was 40ft not the 40m that had been advertised.
"The person who told us the tree was 40m high has since revealed he believes he is 18ft tall," she said.
"We apologise to everyone who was expecting a bigger tree and are cutting the person responsible down to size."
Cardiff council had been criticised for not having a tree up in time for the Christmas lights switch-on as it was being shipped from China.
Costing £30,000 over a three year lease from UK-based company MK Illuminations, the structure arrived in Wales with all the golden baubles pre-attached.
But the authority says the tree will save the tax payer £5,000 a year compared to previous "tree installations". | When the Christmas tree at centre stage of Cardiff's festive celebrations went up - it did not quite measure up to expectations. | 38124254 |
Mevlut Cavusoglu gave no further details about the inquiry into the murder of 39 people at the Reina club.
Jihadist group Islamic State (IS) has said it was behind the nightclub attack in which dozens more were hurt.
A number of suspects have been arrested in the western city of Izmir.
The police operation on Wednesday was said to have targeted families who had recently travelled to Izmir from Konya, a central city where the main suspect was said to have stayed for several weeks before the attack.
Turkish authorities released images of the main suspect on Tuesday but later discounted reports that he was a 28-year-old Kyrgyz national who had flown home from Istanbul.
Turkey is under growing pressure while the gunman remains on the loose. Checkpoints were set up in Istanbul on Wednesday as officers checked cars and taxis. Police arrested 12 people in raids in the city on Tuesday.
Turkish media have run images of a suspect, saying the pictures were handed out by the police. But the police have given no official details.
In a sign of mounting anger in Istanbul, a video posted on social media showed a man being physically attacked on the Asian side of the city on Wednesday as people shouted: "It's him" and "it's the Reina attacker." The man was punched, knocked to the ground and taken to a local police station before being released.
EU affairs minister Omer Celik said the attacker had clearly had training in the Middle East, and had managed to evade police by not using technology and steering clear of "all modern intelligence techniques".
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in his first public comments about the attack, vowed that the jihadist would not succeed in dividing Turks. "In Turkey, no-one's way of life is under any threat. Those who claim this have to prove it. It is my duty to protect everyone's rights,'' he said.
The Reina nightclub, which sits on the banks of the Bosphorus, is one of Istanbul's most fashionable venues - popular with foreigners and often frequented by singers and sports stars.
The gunman is said to have arrived by taxi before rushing through the entrance with a long-barrelled gun he had taken from the boot of the car.
He fired randomly at people in an assault lasting seven minutes, and then fled during the chaos.
Turkey extended its state of emergency for another three months on Tuesday. It was implemented following a failed coup in July which was blamed on a movement loyal to US-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen.
However, Turkey's big cities have also been targeted by IS and by Kurdish militants.
IS was blamed for an attack last June on Istanbul's Ataturk airport, in which more than 40 people were killed. Police are investigating whether the nightclub suspect belongs to the same cell.
Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said on Monday that the nightclub attack was a "message" against Turkey's operations in Syria but that they would not be affected.
Turkey launched a military operation in Syria in August to push back IS and Kurdish forces. | Turkey's foreign minister says officials know the identity of a gunman who carried out the Istanbul nightclub attack on New Year's Eve but he has stopped short of naming him. | 38505498 |
Exeter Crown Court heard Connor Cain, 19, was left for dead after the attack in the city in April 2016 but survived.
While treating his wounds in hospital, doctors found more than £3,000 worth of drugs concealed in his rectum.
One of the attackers boasted on Facebook afterwards, writing: "Ha, ha, ha. I stabbed the kid and the blade snapped so I could not pull it out."
The seven men, who are from Liverpool and Devon, received sentences ranging from one year in jail, suspended for two years, to 15 years' imprisonment.
Cain was jailed for three-and-a-half years last July for possession of Class A drugs with intent to supply.
The court heard he was blinded by pepper spray before being attacked by at least four men who were wearing masks or hoods.
Cain suffered severe injuries including a four-inch deep chest wound.
After the attack, Matthew Henney boasted about what he had done on Facebook by sending messages to two girls he knew in Liverpool saying: "There was only the handle left.
"He was only a little London muppet. He should not have tried to start. I warned him."
The court heard the assault was due to a rivalry between a group of drug dealers from Liverpool who had been operating around Devon and Cornwall.
Judge Mr Justice Sweeney told the offenders: "The events in the flat must have been entirely terrifying. He suffered terrible injuries which would have been fatal if he had not received immediate treatment. It was good fortune that he did not die."
"There was pre-planning and a significant degree of premeditation. You were all involved in Class A drugs gang which decided to see off opposition on what you considered to be your turf." | Seven members of a drugs gang have been sentenced after a rival gang member was stabbed 18 times as he slept. | 40463149 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.