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40,796,425 | Media playback is not supported on this device
Bolt, an eight-time Olympic champion and icon of world sport, will retire after this month's World Championships.
The Jamaican, 30, will run in the 100m and 4x100m at the Worlds, which begin in London on Friday.
"Hopefully athletes will see what's going on and what they need to do to help the sport move forward," he said.
Referring to the McLaren report, which uncovered evidence of a Russian state-sponsored doping programme, he added: "Personally I think we were at rock bottom. After the scandal on Russia I don't think it gets any worse than that.
"Over the years we're doing a better job, it's getting clean and we're catching up to a lot of athletes. There's an understanding that if you cheat you will get caught. Over time the sport will get better.
"I said a couple of years ago it had to get really bad, when there's nowhere else to go but up. Doping is always a bad thing and it's never pleasant because you put in the hard work and the sport starts going forward and then you have other guys bringing it back, it's hard.
"It's going in the right direction so hopefully it will continue in that direction."
The men's World 100m final is on Saturday, 5 August, while the men's 4x100m relay race - which will mark the end of Bolt's career - is on the following Saturday.
Bolt has won 100m, 200m and 4x100m gold at the past three Olympic Games - Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio 2016.
However, his unprecedented 'triple triple' of nine gold medals was downgraded to eight after Jamaican team-mate Nesta Carter, who was part of the quartet that won the 4x100m in Beijing, tested positive for a banned substance. Carter has appealed against the decision.
Nevertheless, Bolt's exploits remain unprecedented and he also holds the world record in the 100m (9.58 seconds) and 200m (19.19).
Asked if he still believes he is the fastest in the world, the Jamaican replied: "Yeah, without a doubt.
"The last race I ran was a 9.95, so that shows I am going in the right direction. After the two rounds leading up to the 100m final, which always help me, it's all about who keeps their nerve.
"I have been here many times. I know I am ready."
Asked in an interview with BBC Sport whether he believes his world records will be broken, he replied: "I hope they're not. No athlete would ever wish for that - I want to brag to my kids when they're in their 20s: 'See, I'm still the best!
"There is no-one around now, in this era, who can do it. No. Maybe in a couple of years, 10 years, but my records are safe for now."
Bolt was also asked which of the current stars of track and field could potentially replace him as the pre-eminent force in the sport.
He named South African 25-year-old Wayde van Niekerk, who will be competing in the 400m and 200m in London.
"Wayde van Niekerk is proving he is a world star. He has broken the 400m world record, he ran the fastest 300m ever, and now he's doing the 200m also. For me, he's proving that he can step up to the plate," said Bolt.
"I'm watching him, we've had discussions and he's a cool person but I've told him to open up his personality a little bit because he's really laid back."
Bolt says he will miss the "thrill" of being on the track but that it is time for him to slow down and enjoy himself.
"The energy when you first walk out on the track and the people go crazy, that's what I'll miss the most," he said.
He might manage to replace the buzz of competing with one of his hobbies, though.
"I ride quad bikes, that's an adrenaline rush," he said.
"But I think it's time for me to slow down a little, relax a little bit. Enjoy myself as much as possible."
He says he does not think he will re-consider his retirement as he has nothing left to prove - and of his legacy added that he wanted to be considered among the greatest sports figures of all time.
"I just want to be one of the greats," he said.
"Whenever there's a conversation about the greatest sports stars, I want to be part of that conversation. I want people to say: 'Yeah, Usain Bolt was one of the greatest'."
Asked if it was his mind or body saying 'enough', he replied: "It's the body, definitely.
"Over the years, I've got more niggling injuries than anything else, simple little things, but it's just because I'm getting older. The pounding means my body's just deteriorating now, so for me it's just time to go."
Media playback is not supported on this device | Usain Bolt says athletes who dope must "stop or the sport will die" as he prepares to race for the final time in his illustrious career. |
35,508,045 | Team Katusha's Eduard Vorganov tested positive for meldonium in an out-of-competition test last month.
Meldonium is used in Latvia and other eastern European countries to treat serious heart problems and aid the circulation of oxygen.
The 33-year-old joined the team in 2010 and was the Russian road race champion in 2012.
He finished 19th at the Tour de France in the same year.
Vorganov's Italian team-mate Luca Paolini failed a test for cocaine at last year's Tour and under UCI rules Katusha could now be banned from competition for 15-45 days.
Under the guidelines, if two riders and/or staff within a team commit a breach of the rules within a period of 12 months, the team shall be suspended from participation in any international event.
The team issued a statement regarding Vorganov in which it insisted: "This substance has never been used by the team in any form and was not provided to the rider by the team.
"Eduard Vorganov has been suspended from all team activities, effective immediately.
"In the event that Eduard Vorganov took this product on his own initiative we will conduct an investigation, as such conduct is in breach of the team's strict medical and anti-doping internal rules." | A leading cycling team could face a suspension after one of its riders failed a test for a banned substance. |
38,101,368 | In its second estimate of the health of the economy, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) also says business investment grew by more than expected.
That was up 0.9% following the Brexit vote, against the second quarter, although it was down on last year.
There will be a third estimate of the figures in December.
"Investment by businesses held up well in the immediate aftermath of the EU referendum, though it's likely most of those investment decisions were taken before polling day," Darren Morgan, an ONS statistician, said.
"That, coupled with growing consumer spending fuelled by rising household income, and a strong performance in the dominant service industries, kept the economy expanding broadly in line with its historic average."
The figures cover the period from July to the end of September and the ONS said the growth in gross domestic product suggested limited effect so far from the EU referendum at the end of June.
However, it is expected that the effects of the Brexit vote and the fall in sterling will begin to feed through in the coming months.
The Office for Budget Responsibility, which provides independent economic forecasts and analysis, said on Wednesday that it expected the economy to grow by 1.4% in 2017, down from the 2.2% it predicted in March. It cut its forecast for growth in 2018 to 1.7%, down from 2.1%.
The "near-term strength of the economy after the Brexit vote is unlikely to persist", said Samuel Tombs chief UK economist with Pantheon Macroeconomics.
"The outlook for stagnation in real incomes next year, as inflation rockets, points to a sharp slowdown in consumer spending growth ahead," Mr Tombs added.
The British economy continued to grow following the vote to leave the EU and so has business investment, although there had been fears that both would be hit immediately by the decision to leave the EU.
It is the huge services sector that kept the economy growing. Services increased by 0.8%, driven by a continued strong performance on the British High Street as sales continue to boom. But all the others sectors of the economy, manufacturing, agriculture and construction, are contracting.
It is however the business investment figures which are the most encouraging. They show investment is continuing to grow, despite fears that businesses would slam on the brakes following the Brexit vote, if only temporarily, because they were uncertain about what the future holds.
The ONS says business investment held up well after the vote to leave the EU, although it also added that most decisions on investment in this period were probably taken before the referendum result was known. | The UK economy grew by 0.5% in the third quarter, official figures have confirmed, helped by export growth and stronger consumer spending. |
31,080,129 | Glenn Maxwell starred with bat and ball for the hosts, scoring 95 and taking 4-46, and Mitchell Johnson took 3-27 on his international return.
England had Australia 60-4 but the hosts recovered to post 278-8.
Johnson swept through England's top order and Maxwell's off-spinners did the rest as England were 166 all out.
England have now lost 13 of their last 15 one-day internationals against Australia in Australia and have only two warm-up games before they face them again in their World Cup opener on 14 February.
Captain Eoin Morgan still has several puzzles to solve, not least his own patchy form with the bat - the left-hander made 121 in the tri-series opener in Sydney but has posted scores of 0, 2 and 0 since.
The hosts were 0-1 after James Anderson dismissed Aaron Finch with the third ball of the innings and David Warner followed in the seventh over, deflecting a lifting ball from Anderson to point.
Stuart Broad did for George Bailey, the under-pressure Tasmanian fending a short ball to short-leg to leave Australia tottering on 46-3.
In-form Steve Smith batted confidently for his 40 but was stumped by Jos Buttler at the second attempt after coming down the pitch to Moeen Ali.
But Maxwell and Mitchell Marsh put on 141 for the fifth wicket, the former demonstrating his full array of strokes and bringing up his ninth one-day international fifty with a reverse pull for four.
Maxwell hit four boundaries in one Chris Woakes over before falling to Broad in the next, while Marsh was run out for 60 soon after.
James Faulkner hit four sixes - including three in one Woakes over - to race to an unbeaten, 24-ball fifty and transform what would have been a below-par total into a testing target.
Anderson was again the pick of England's bowlers with 2-38 while Woakes's bowling figures of 0-89 from 10 overs were the fourth worst for England in ODI history.
England's openers made a confident start before Ian Bell nicked a fine delivery from Josh Hazlewood and wicketkeeper Brad Haddin snaffled a brilliant one-handed catch.
Enter Johnson, who took 37 wickets in Australia's Ashes whitewash of England last winter but had played no international cricket in 2015.
James Taylor never looked settled before skewing Johnson to gully, where Maxwell took an excellent catch diving low to his left.
And when Moeen fended a wicked Johnson bouncer to second slip and Morgan shouldered arms to a straight delivery next ball, England were in disarray on 46-4.
Faulkner picked up his 50th ODI wicket when he had Joe Root lbw with his first delivery, but the Tasmanian all-rounder was forced to leave the field soon after with a side injury.
Buttler looked in fine form before reverse-sweeping off-spinner Maxwell to substitute fielder Pat Cummings and Woakes was gone next ball, offering up a simple caught and bowled.
Broad played some big shots before holing out to deep mid-wicket, Ravi Bopara became Maxwell's fourth victim when he holed out to extra-cover and Hazlewood bowled Steve Finn to wrap up the win. | England were thrashed in their last competitive match before the World Cup, crumbling to a 112-run defeat in the tri-series final in Perth. |
21,608,747 | Between 2009 and 2011, it bought £1.5bn worth of raw materials and consumable supplies - like uniforms and ammunition - more than it used, a report from the Public Accounts Committee found.
But the committee said it was "cautiously encouraged" that the MoD was "now starting to get a grip".
The government has pledged "to reverse decades of lax inventory management".
The committee said the MoD did not always dispose of items it no longer needed. More than £4.2bn worth of non-explosive supplies had not moved for at least two years, it said.
The MPs also said they were "disappointed" that the MoD had failed to improve its management of supplies, despite criticism from the National Audit Office dating as far back as 1991.
Committee member Richard Bacon said: "It is unacceptable that the Ministry of Defence is wasting significant amounts of public money buying equipment and supplies that it doesn't need.
"It is particularly galling at a time when funding is tight and when one considers that the National Audit Office has been warning about these issues for over 20 years."
The report said: "The MoD purchases, holds and uses more than 710 million items of 900,000 different types, from bullets and missiles to medical supplies, clothing and spare parts for vehicles, ships and aircraft.
"Project teams within the department can order as much consumable stock as they think they might ever need because they are only billed for it when they use it."
There were therefore "no incentives in place to prevent over-ordering", it concluded.
The MoD plans to introduce controls to reduce spending on inventory by £300m in 2012-13 and £500m each year by 2015.
It also intends to reduce the volume of stock held by 35% in order to make room for equipment returning from Afghanistan and Germany in central depots, some of which are already at 90% capacity.
Defence Equipment Minister Philip Dunne said: "Support for military operations is, and must continue to be, our first priority.
"Appropriate reserves of equipment are essential to be able to deploy our armed forces at short notice and sustain them on operations around the world."
He added: "I am determined to reverse decades of lax inventory management to ensure that MoD assets are managed much more efficiently in the future.
"Considerable progress has been made since 2010; the size and value of our holdings are now heading in the right direction and we plan to spend almost £2bn less on inventory over the next four years."
But shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy said: "Ministers seem to be cutting kit we need while ordering equipment we'll never use. Ministers should be cutting from the backroom not the frontline.
"Continued waste is unacceptable at a time of deep defence cuts and government failure to balance the books.
"There must be persistent prudence to ensure every penny piece is spent wisely.
"We need real reform to MoD budgeting. The government must respond by getting a grip of the inventory management system." | The Ministry of Defence has bought billions of pounds worth of equipment that it does not need, MPs have said. |
35,209,329 | 1 January 2016 Last updated at 12:21 GMT
The boys, aged six and 10, were taken from Hemming Way on the Britwell estate at around 07:00 GMT on New Year's Eve.
The pair were ordered into a white van and driven around for several minutes.
Two people, possibly an adult and a child, seen walking in the area near the time of the kidnap are being asked to contact police.
Police said the boys were later allowed out of the van and were able to run back home uninjured. | Police investigating the kidnap of two young boys by three masked men from their home in Slough have released CCTV footage of two potential witnesses. |
38,394,697 | For foreign correspondents, it tends to be a conflict or catastrophe. Politicos deal in shock resignations or revelations. For us in the arts unit, it is award ceremonies - and celebrity deaths.
An instant obit of a once great, but now late, talent is what programme editors demand from us.
And you can be as Boy Scoutish as you like in your preparations, but the artistic life - and death - isn't about pleasing the establishment: creative souls do things their own way.
So, I was not entirely awake on Monday 11 January 2016 when my phone rang around 6.55am. It was a producer at the Today programme.
Had I heard the news, he asked? M…maybe - I hedged. What news? David Bowie is dead, he said.
Oh no! Oh no for lots of reasons. Firstly, it was awful news. I loved David Bowie; couldn't imagine him dead. He was still making great records. He wasn't particularly old, and now - well - he was no longer here.
And then, oh no - I had to make sense of his incredible life, without much time to pause for thought. Six minutes later, I was on-air talking to Today's Nick Robinson.
I got home late from work that night, put Heroes on and thought… sad day, but thankfully rare - a once-a-year occasion at worst.
But three days later came another call from another producer. Had I heard the news…?
Oh dear. Alan Rickman was fine actor whom one generation fell for Truly, Madly, Deeply, in 1990, and a new generation got to know and eventually love as Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films.
By the time news emerged of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies's death on 14 March, we had already paid our tributes to Pierre Boulez, Harper Lee and Sir George Martin. All titanic figures, but at least they had led full lives.
And then on 31 March, another shock.
Dame Zaha Hadid had died. I had interviewed the Bagdad-born British architect just a few weeks before, when she appeared as hale and hearty and feisty as ever.
She was frustrated with her adopted country, rightly so. Her fellow Brits had been sniffy and slow in recognising her brilliance - and now she was gone, still in her prime, before amends could be made.
2016 was beginning to feel like a weird year. A sense compounded three weeks later with the announcement of Victoria Wood's death.
That was a blow, too. We adored her. She was great. Always funny, jokes on the money; and never mean. We need such towering talents in our lives, not scythed down by the Grim Reaper. But he wasn't done yet.
The very next day, at around 3pm our time, social media stories started bubbling up speculating that Prince had died at his Paisley Park estate. Now, come on! Don't be silly. Don't be true. Don't be dead.
But he was.
At this point, articles started to appear asking if arts deaths were at an all-time high. Columnists wrote think pieces explaining to us that it was all to do with our obsession with celebrity in a post-Warholian media age.
Meanwhile, the man in charge of obituaries at the BBC noted his services had been called upon far more frequently in the first third of 2016 than in the same months of the past five years.
It had been an extraordinary period. It has been an extraordinary year - with a sting in its tail.
On 11 November at 1:15am - a call from a producer on the Today Programme. Had I heard the news?
"Who's dead?" I said.
"Leonard Cohen," came his reply.
I knew he was frail and unwell, but there is something about truly great, unique artists - which he was - that you hope can circumnavigate that realities of live and death.
That pop's longstanding poet-in-residence had succumbed while still making fine work seemed unfair, to us and to him. He knew better:
If you are the dealer
I'm out of the game
If you are the healer
It means I'm broken and lame
If thine is the glory
Mine must be the shame
You want it darker
We kill the flame
You Want it Darker by Leonard Cohen (2016)
And so we went into the festive season. Surely Death was done?
Sadly not. In fact, he indulged in a Christmas rush with many unpleasant surprises to unpack.
The news about Status Quo's Rick Parfitt broke on Christmas Eve. George Michael was found dead on Christmas Day. And then, the following day Richard Adams passed away. So did Carrie Fisher, and her mother - Debbie Reynolds - 24 hours later.
I think it is fair to say 2016 was a most unusual year.
Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected]. | Each specialism within journalism has its area of breaking news. |
29,327,590 | The Higher Education Careers Service Unit (Hecsu) analysed the destinations of 256,350 new graduates six months after they left university.
Some 7.3% were unemployed in January 2014, down from 8.5% in January 2013 and the lowest level since 2008.
The figures are a "fascinating example" of how quickly the graduate jobs market can change, says Hecsu's Charlie Ball.
The deputy director of research said students should "bear this in mind when deciding which subject to study".
The report says that although new graduates are likely to "bounce around or can't find what they are after immediately", the size of the survey makes it a "reliable snapshot" of how they are faring as a group.
The figures, published jointly with the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services, suggest 70% of new graduates were in employment by January 2014.
The researchers suggest better employment prospects have resulted in fewer graduates in further study - some 12.4% of the total, down from 13% the year before.
Some 5.6% were combining work and study, leaving 7.3% unemployed and 4.7% listed as "other".
The figures also suggest more graduates were in professional and managerial work - 66.3% of new graduates, compared with 64.9% the previous year.
Fewer were working as retail, catering, waiting and bar staff - down to 13% of the total from 13.7% the previous year.
Graduate employment in recession-hit sectors such as science has picked up slightly but many with science and technology degrees still find themselves in other jobs, say the researchers.
The numbers of new graduates employed as science professionals in January 2014 were still quite small, just over 2,000, but the researchers say this represents an increase of almost a quarter (22.4%) on the figures for 2013.
"There are significant increases in employment across all sectors and the turn in fortune is spreading beyond the South East with graduates in cities such as Birmingham and Manchester doing particularly well," said Dr Ball.
"If you are located away from the major cities and are yet to feel the upturn, there's a good chance it will reach you in the months to come, assuming there are no further shocks to the economy - although there are no absolute guarantees."
He said it was encouraging that more graduates were finding work in the science, technology and engineering and construction sectors but cautioned that the story was a complex one "of demand and supply".
"It is vital that students seek careers advice early and take work experience to better inform their decisions and prepare for employment. | There has been a big fall in graduate unemployment in the UK, the latest figures suggest. |
29,420,184 | The rise includes people lured to the country after meeting people via online dating or job recruitment sites.
Romania remains the most likely country of origin for victims, followed by Poland and the UK.
The NCA says trafficking does not have to involve crossing international borders.
Investigators say the rise is partly down to better reporting, including an increase in the number of children feared to be victims of sexual exploitation gangs.
Overall, the agency says there has been a 22% jump in the number of identified suspected victims of trafficking between 2012 and 2013.
The 2,744 suspected victims, thought to be the tip of the iceberg, include 602 children.
The NCA says there has been a surge in reports of sexually exploited children - from 38 to 128 - in the wake of high-profile abuses cases in Rotherham and elsewhere.
Investigators also found cases of adults forced into prostitution, labour exploitation, domestic servitude, or compelled to commit crimes such as making false benefit claims.
More than half of the Romanians in the figures were being exploited for sex, according to the NCA’s annual intelligence assessment.
People from Poland were the most likely victims of labour exploitation - forced to work in agriculture, construction, factories and car washes.
Almost all of the 55 children who were being used to make false benefit claims originated from Slovakia, the report says.
The NCA says victims were being trafficked from Eastern Europe on the expectation of legitimate work which never materialised.
In some cases women travelled to the UK with men who they thought were their boyfriends - only to be coerced into prostitution.
Some victims had initially responded to online dating sites or job adverts.
The NCA report adds: “There is limited information available to suggest that traffickers mark potential victims with tattoos, with various symbols signifying ownership or to show that a victim is over 18.
“Information also suggests that victims may be marked with numbers, but the meaning of these numbers is not known.
"Various sources indicate that tattoos are used globally to mark victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation by traffickers and pimps, but the extent to which this is used in the UK is not known.”
Liam Vernon, head of the NCA’s human trafficking team, says: "Put very simply, you brand cattle - and that's how traffickers view people, as a commodity to buy and sell.
“Human trafficking for the purposes of exploitation is an insidious and complex crime and much of the exploitation is hidden from view.”
Mr Vernon says trafficking has "nothing to do with crossing borders", and any recruitment for prostitution, forced labour, slavery or servitude is exploitation.
Speaking about the British victims, he adds: "With UK girls, we see them groomed, we see them recruited, we see them moved around, we see them kept by gangs for sexual exploitation, gratification, or financial gain.
"For UK men, we see that happen, recruited by abduction, fear, controlled, for purpose of slavery, for purpose of labour."
The government’s Modern Slavery Bill is currently before Parliament and expected to become law before the 2015 general election.
Ministers say it simplifies complex laws on exploitation and increases the maximum sentence to life.
The bill also proposes to ensure victims cannot be prosecuted for most offences committed while being controlled - and receive reparations from their abusers.
Labour says it will create a "specific offence of serious exploitation".
It says this will make prosecutions easier and prevent the "undercutting of local workers and responsible businesses by the exploitation of low-skilled workers from Europe". | The number of people trafficked for slavery or other exploitation in the UK has risen sharply to more than 2,700, the National Crime Agency (NCA) says. |
37,628,883 | Sgt Louise Lucas, 41, died when she stepped into the path of a single decker bus in March 2015.
Civil engineer Mark Thomas told the Swansea inquest on Wednesday the road had designated crossings and markings.
Following Sgt Lucas' death temporary railings were put up.
Acting Coroner Colin Phillips asked whether the risk of pedestrians looking the wrong way while crossing the unconventional layout of Kingsway had been identified during previous audits.
Mr Thomas replied: "Yes."
He said: "A measured approach was taken and a number of considerations were taken on board.
"I consider the fact that we incorporated designated signalling points for pedestrians to be an appropriate response to safety concerns raised in the audit."
Asked whether Sgt Lucas's death would have been prevented had railing along the central reservation already been in place, Mr Thomas replied: "No, sir."
Mr Thomas added there is evidence pedestrians "continue to cross the Kingsway using the central reservation" and not the designated crossing points despite the introduction of guard rails since the incident.
On Tuesday the inquest heard evidence from Sgt Lucas's best friend Karen Williams who said she would not have seen the bus coming. | Installing rails along the central reservation of Swansea's Kingsway may not have prevented the death of a police officer who was hit by a bus, an inquest has heard. |
40,369,801 | Officials said it was operating, but at a reduced capacity, after diesel fuel was sent from Egypt.
Engineers hope to restore it to full working order within days.
The plant was shut down in April amid an escalating power struggle between Hamas, which governs Gaza, and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.
The closure worsened the already lengthy blackouts which Gaza's two million inhabitants have been experiencing.
Despite the plant's partial resumption, residents will continue to receive four hours of electricity followed by about 14 hours off.
On Thursday, a day after lorries brought a million litres (220,000 gallons) of diesel into Gaza from Egypt, engineers partly restarted the plant.
A spokesman for the Gaza Electricity Distribution Company (Gedco), Mohammed Thabet, told the BBC that two of the four generators were now operating
He added that the other two generators would hopefully be operational before the festival of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Islamic month of Ramadan.
The power plant is now generating 45MW - 30% of the 148MW of electricity available in the Strip. Israel is providing 80MW and Egypt another 23MW.
Gaza has long suffered from chronic power cuts, says the BBC's Yolande Knell in Jerusalem.
But, our correspondent adds, recent decisions made in Ramallah by the Palestinian Authority, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, to put pressure on the Hamas government in Gaza have led to a worsening energy crisis.
Hamas stopped buying fuel for the power plant from the PA after the PA scrapped a tax exemption, doubling the price.
And this week Israel - which considers Hamas a terrorist organisation and does not deal directly with it - began reducing the electricity it supplies to Gaza after President Abbas said he would no longer pay Israel the full amount for it.
Mr Abbas had warned in mid-April that he would take "unprecedented steps" to "end the division" between Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
In 2006, Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections and reinforced its power in Gaza the following year when it ousted Mr Abbas' Fatah faction from the territory.
The rival groups agreed to the creation of a unity government in 2014, but it never got off the ground in Gaza.
Last week, the United Nations warned that a further increase in the length of blackouts was likely to lead to a "total collapse of basic services, including critical functions in health, water and sanitation sectors". | The Gaza Strip's only power plant has resumed work, temporarily preventing a worsening of the energy crisis in the Palestinian coastal territory. |
22,507,128 | Media playback is not supported on this device
Source: Opta
The club said he "had failed to achieve any of the club's targets, with the exception of qualification for next season's Champions League".
Assistant Brian Kidd will take charge for the final two games of the season and a tour to America in late May.
Malaga's Chilean coach Manuel Pellegrini has been strongly tipped to replace Mancini.
On Sunday night, 59-year-old Pellegrini, who spent one season in charge at Real Madrid in 2009-10, insisted there
"I deny here and now being the new coach of Manchester City," he said after Malaga's goalless Primera Division draw with Sevilla. "I haven't signed any agreement with anybody."
In a statement, City thanked 48-year-old Mancini for the job he had done since joining the club in December 2009.
But the club said the failure to hit "stated targets" and the need to "develop a holistic approach to all aspects of football at the club" prompted the sacking.
A dictionary definition of holistic means thinking about the whole of something and not just certain parts. It is understood City are referring to all aspects of the club - for example the youth system and first team - pulling in the same direction.
"Roberto's record speaks for itself, he secured the love and respect of fans," said chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak. "He has done as he promised and delivered silverware and success."
City added it was "a difficult decision" to part with Mancini, explaining it was "the outcome of a planned end of season review process that has been brought forward in light of recent speculation".
A replacement for Mark Hughes, Italian Mancini was in charge for three-and-a-half years, winning the FA Cup in 2011 and City's first top-flight league title for 44 years in 2012 - a year to the day before his sacking.
In with the club.
But this term, City are a distant second to champions Manchester United, went out of the Champions League in the group stages and lost the FA Cup final to Wigan.
Source: Opta
Mancini was critical of Manchester City officials for failing to deny the newspaper reports that surfaced on the morning of Saturday's FA Cup final stating he would be sacked and replaced by Pellegrini.
City were beaten by Ben Watson's 90th-minute header at Wembley as Wigan, struggling to avoid relegation from the Premier League in 18th place, became the lowest-ranked team to win the FA Cup since West Ham in 1980.
City thrashed rivals United 6-1 at Old Trafford in October 2011 en route to their first Premier League title and beat them again on their home ground this season.
But Sir Alex Ferguson's team wrapped up their 20th league crown last month with four matches remaining.
Mancini's record in the Champions League has come under particular scrutiny.
He reached the quarter-finals with Inter Milan, but City have been eliminated in the group stages of both their campaigns during his reign.
Mancini's sacking means the Premier League's major trophy winners from 2011-12 have now all been sacked. League Cup-winner Kenny Dalglish was dismissed by Liverpool last May, and FA Cup and Champions League-winner Roberto Di Matteo by Chelsea in November. In addition, Championship-winner Brian McDermott was sacked by Reading in March.
Having finished third in their group last season, behind Bayern Munich and Napoli, they again failed to qualify for the knockout stages this term.
They failed to win any of their six matches in a formidable group that also contained Borussia Dortmund, Real Madrid and Ajax.
Their tally of three points was the lowest by an English side in the group stage of the competition.
City have two games remaining in the Premier League this season.
They face Reading at the Madejski Stadium on Tuesday before finishing their campaign at home to Norwich on Sunday and then travelling to America to play Chelsea in St Louis on Thursday 23 May and New York on Saturday 25 May. | Roberto Mancini has been sacked as Manchester City manager a year to the day since winning the Premier League. |
36,837,435 | Fierce Beer began as a home-brewing sized business working out of premises in the city's Great Western Road and selling products to local bars.
A limited company since April this year, it has set up a micro-brewery in Kirkhill Industrial Estate.
Owners Dave Grant and David McHardy used redundancy pay-offs from their other jobs to help fund the business.
Investors have also come on board to help finance the brewery, which is the only registered brewery in Aberdeen.
Before the official launch this week, the brewery had been in operation for two months and in that time produced more than 20,000 litres of beer.
With business development manager Louise Grant, the owners are producing eight beers which they are selling across the UK.
Mr McHardy said: "We have both been passionate about brewing ever since we purchased our first home brewing kits a few years ago.
"When I met Dave on a brewing course in England, it was clear to me then that we would be working in the brewing industry together very soon.
"Launching Fierce to the public has been extremely exciting, and we carried out a lot of research initially, investigating the best local ingredients and the most effective way to bottle our beers, all of which has been really important."
He added: "We have managed to gain the support of a number of larger craft beer breweries and businesses which has been incredible, and I am looking forward to seeing how the company progresses over the next few months." | Aberdeen's only micro-brewery has officially launched following £250,000 of investment in its new headquarters. |
34,614,556 | The Yorkshire Dales will be extended to the north and west and the Lakes to the east and south.
The changes, which take effect next August, bring the boundaries of the two parks close to either side of the M6.
The move was announced by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
Elizabeth Truss, Secretary of State for Environment, said the parks were part of the UK's "national identity".
"I am delighted to be able to announce this extension which will join these two unique National Parks and protect even more space for generations to come," she added.
The move will see the Yorkshire Dales grow by nearly 24% and Lake District by 3%.
Lake District:
Plans include extending an area in the east from Birkbeck Fells Common to Whinfell Common and;
An area in the south from Helsington Barrows to Sizergh Fell, an area north of Sizergh Castle and part of the Lyth Valley
Yorkshire Dales:
The north is set to include parts of the Orton Fells, the northern Howgill Fells, Wild Boar Fell and Mallerstang
The west is set to extend to Barbon, Middleton, Casterton and Leck Fells, the River Lune, and part of Firbank Fell and other fells to the west of the River Lune.
The Country Land and Business Association (CLA) criticised the extension, saying it ignored the views of farmers and landowners.
Dorothy Fairburn, CLA North Regional Director, said: "We share the ambitions of boosting rural growth and caring for our landscapes, but we are clear that the flexibility for change - which is critical for a modern, working countryside - should not be stifled.
"We are disappointed that the public inquiry and the secretary of state appear to have ignored the views of many of our members who own and manage over 100,000 acres of land affected by this decision, and who also run many rurally-based businesses, some of which are involved in the visitor economy."
Plans to extend both national parks were first mooted by Natural England in 2009.
A public inquiry was launched in 2013 after five local authorities objected.
After hearing more than 3,000 objections and representations, it was recommended the extensions be approved.
It is hoped the move will boost rural tourism in the area and potentially add millions to the £4bn already generated by visitors to the parks. | The Lake District and Yorkshire Dales national parks are to be extended by 188 square miles - an area bigger than the Isle of Wight. |
34,476,378 | Media playback is not supported on this device
You can now create a My Sport page on any device - this page becomes your one-stop shop with news, live coverage and stats tailored to your interests.
My Sport is available now for users in the UK, and will be available soon for international users of BBC Sport online.
The key benefits of My Sport are:
As an example, choosing from more than 300 available topics, you might opt to follow Swansea City, Premier League football, the Wales national team, Scarlets rugby union team, cycling and Get Inspired articles.
By adding these topics to a My Sport page, all the latest news, live coverage and reports for these sports and teams would be available in one place, as will football scores. This builds on the existing push alerts offering, with alerts available for football, cricket, rugby union and league and formula 1.
In the near future we will be offering even more topics to pick from, and easier ways to follow your My Sport topics from the new Sport homepage.
We have a blog post which outlines more information about My Sport.
What is My Sport?
My Sport is a new page in BBC Sport where you can easily keep up to date with the latest news and scores for the sports and teams you love. It will let you follow more than 300 sport topics, including competitions, and teams. You can add as many as you like to create your own My Sport page. We'll be looking to add more features in future too.
What happens when I add topics?
When you add a topic, it will be added to your own My Sport page, where you can read the latest stories and scores just from your topics. It will also show you the latest fixtures and results for any football team you follow. You can even reorder topics, to see your favourite stories at the top of My Sport.
Why do I need to sign in?
Sign in to get the most out of BBC Sport. It's quick, free and easy to create a BBC iD account. By signing in, your preferences & My Sport page will be available across devices running the app. This means you can keep up to date with the topics you love on a phone or a tablet and, in the near future, on a computer too. Read more about about BBC iD.
What happens to my quick links?
Your quick links will remain in the menu when you update the app. They will appear under "My Sport". When you sign into the app, your quick links will be used to create a personal My Sport page with stories and results that most interest you. To edit your menu and My Sport page you will have to sign into the app. | Whoever you support, whichever sports you follow, you can now get all the sport that matters to you on one page. |
33,469,464 | In 2008 and again in 2012 a liberal coalition of minorities, college-educated whites and single women gave Barack Obama more than enough votes to comfortably win the presidency. Can it hold fast after he exits the stage next year?
A two-term presidency can paper over a host of fissures within a political movement. The longer a party stays in power, the more competing interests are liable to grow dissatisfied with their share of the governing pie.
Sometimes the centre holds. In 1988, for instance, George HW Bush rode to power on the strength of the Ronald Reagan governing coalition. By 1992, however, the foundation had given way, as fiscal and social conservatives revolted, ushering in eight years of Democratic rule and pushing the Republican Party farther to the right.
At the Netroots Nation conference of left-wing activists in Phoenix, Arizona, last week, the fault lines within today's Democratic Party were on full display. And while Mrs Clinton was more than a thousand miles away, honouring "prior commitments" in Iowa and Arkansas, the events that transpired in the desert this weekend should give her pause.
There's no question, for instance, that the enthusiasm and support for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders' insurgent presidential campaign is real. He's climbed in polls over the past few weeks, and on Saturday night 11,000 turned out to hear the firebrand socialist give one of his 60-minute stem-winders.
On the menu was a heavy dose of liberal red meat - including condemnation of the "billionaire class" and calls for higher taxes on the wealthy, expanding government-run healthcare programmes, raising the minimum wage and tuition-free college education.
"Bernie Sanders stands up for what's just and right," says conference attendee Jean Devine of Phoenix. "He's for the Democratic ideals of equality for all people and for the rich not being able to buy elections."
While in Arizona, campaign supporters hoisted banners and toasted their man at a local nightclub with cleverly named cocktails like "Weekend at Bernie's" and "Vermont Treehugger" (with maple syrup-infused whiskey).
There was a point in time when Mrs Clinton was the cool Democrat. She had her own internet meme. She was near universally beloved by party faithful. Now, however - at least among the rank and file at Netroots Nation - Mr Sanders is the candidate of the hour.
The Vermont senator has given voice to the frustration and anger that some on the left feel over the current state of US politics. They helped elect Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, but their goal of enacting a full progressive agenda seems to them far from realised.
"Bernie's looking pretty good," says Hanna Roditi of Connecticut. "He's the only one who doesn't cater to corporations. The policies that he supports have more to do with people's needs."
The most common adjectives used to describe Mrs Clinton in Phoenix, on the other hand, were "calculating," "cautious" and "corporate".
"I won't vote for her," Roditi says, adding that if Mr Sanders doesn't win the Democratic nomination she'll write in his name on the general election ballot.
The establishment - whether in the government or the Democratic Party - was a source of anger time and again at the conference. During a Thursday afternoon panel discussion, EJ Juarez, director of Progress Majority Washington - singled out Democratic campaign managers in particular for betraying their party's progressive ideals.
"We ceded a lot of the soul of our values off to contractors who don't often adopt the equity principles we talk about," he said. "They aren't talking the same language."
On Friday morning Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, a champion of the left, used her keynote address to rail against an "insider Washington" that ignores the liberal priorities of the nation at large - on issues like gun control, income inequality and tighter Wall Street controls.
"The American people are progressive, and our day is coming," she said.
After calling out the financial behemoth Citigroup by name, she said the US government - even during the Obama administration - has been dominated by Wall Street insiders. She then offered some advice for candidates seeking the presidency.
"I think that anyone running for that job - anyone who wants the power to make every key economic appointment and every key nomination - should say loud and clear we don't run this country for Wall Street and mega-corporations, we run it for people," she said to cheers.
It was likely a barb aimed at Mrs Clinton - who has been criticised by some on the left for being in the thrall of big-money donors - and set the stage for the Saturday's presidential town hall forum featuring Mr Sanders and fellow candidate Martin O'Malley.
A funny thing happened on the way to the forum, however - evidence of yet another frayed fibre in the Democratic electoral quilt.
Mr O'Malley took the stage first, and about 20 minutes into his question-and-answer session a group of several dozen protesters from the group Black Lives Matter interrupted the proceedings with chants, songs and shouts.
Tia Oso, leader of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, commandeered a microphone and asked the former Baltimore mayor what he would do to "begin to dismantle structural racism in the United States".
Mr O'Malley was met by boos when he said: "Black lives matter. White lives matter. All lives matter." (He would later apologise, saying he did not want to "disrespect" the passion and commitment of the protesters.)
The demonstrations continued for Mr Sanders. At one point the senator snapped: "If you don't want me to be here, that's OK. I don't want to outscream people". He would later cancel previously scheduled afternoon meetings with conference attendees, including one with the Black Lives Matter group.
By evening, however, the Bernie show was back. The Phoenix conference centre was packed with the campaign loyalists in a display of grass-roots support outpacing even the 10,000 who turned out just weeks earlier in Madison, Wisconsin.
Unlike that Mid-west liberal bastion, however, Arizona is decidedly conservative - an indication that the senator is drawing power across the country.
The true-believing left does have a history of rallying behind unvarnished candidates like Mr Sanders, however, and they have met with limited success. Paul Tsongas in 1992, Bill Bradley in 2000 and Howard Dean in 2004 are but a few of the men who failed to translate big crowds and energetic support into primary victories.
Mrs Clinton must hope that the Sanders campaign meets with a similar fate - and when it does, that progressive loyalists like conference attendee Pam Miles of Huntsville, Alabama return to the fold.
"Bernie Sanders says everything that I feel," Miles says. "He's a dynamo, he is a truth-teller, he speaks truth to power. I love Bernie."
She adds, however, that she'll be happy to back Mrs Clinton if she gets the nomination. She says she's keen to avoid the kind of intra-party discord that marred the Clinton-Obama battles of 2008.
"In '08 it was absolutely horrible," she says. "It broke friendships, it hurt feelings. I'm not going to do that this time."
As for the Black Lives Matters activists who became the surprise story of Phoenix, Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post asked Mrs Clinton how she would have responded to the protesters during a Facebook question-and-answer session on Monday.
"Black lives matter. Everyone in this country should stand firmly behind that," she replied. "We need to acknowledge some hard truths about race and justice in this country, and one of those hard truths is that that racial inequality is not merely a symptom of economic inequality. Black people across America still experience racism every day."
She went on to recommend body cameras for US police officers, sentencing reform, voting rights and early childhood education.
Unlike her Democratic competitors, Mrs Clinton had the luxury of time to respond to this latest challenge. Whether it will be enough to weather what could be a coming storm, however, remains to be seen. | Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may be the prohibitive favourite to win the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, but that doesn't mean the political ground beneath her feet is solid. |
39,821,465 | Illustrator Dan Peterson drew the scenes at the count for seats in the Cardiff north area at Llanishen Leisure Centre on Thursday night.
The Cardiff Metropolitan lecturer created the sketches to explain what happens during local elections.
"People need to be more aware of what happens, in some cases voter turn-out was only 30-odd per cent," he said.
Mr Peterson was a war artist in Afghanistan in 2011 and worked as an illustrator with the Royal Navy in 2015.
He plans to sketch more scenes at the general election next month.
He said: "It's a difficult atmosphere to describe, it's quite unusual.
"I didn't realise there was so much scrutiny involved, I'm impressed with the efficiency of it.
"It's a lot calmer than you think and people are quite friendly towards each other even though there's a rivalry between them," he added.
You can follow our live election results here. | A university lecturer has used his artwork to capture the atmosphere of the local election count. |
32,749,377 | As many as 10,000 spectators were evacuated from the arena in Mannheim, in south-west Germany.
Reports say model Heidi Klum and judges on the show were the first to leave the arena, before the audience were removed.
Police say they received a bomb threat from an anonymous female caller.
They investigated a suspicious suitcase but later said no bomb had been found.
The show was interrupted at about 21:30 local time on Thursday (20:30 BST), with technical problems blamed.
Shortly afterwards, broadcaster ProSieben said it would not be airing the programme, which is one of Germany's most popular shows.
Police said the audience left the SAP Arena calmly. But ARD television reported that many left their jackets and bags behind.
Klum, who hosts the show, later tweeted (in German): "Dear GNT fans, the evening has not ended as I would have wished! Safety comes first!"
Newspaper Bild said Klum, her daughter Leni and the show's judges had been taken to an undisclosed location outside the venue.
Four young women were competing in the finale of the 10th series of Germany's Next Topmodel, based on model Tyra Banks' America's Next Top Model.
Klum said the producers would announce the name of the winner in the next few days. | The live final of a reality television show, Germany's Next Topmodel, was taken off air after a bomb scare at the venue where it was being filmed. |
29,566,377 | The survey, carried out on behalf of the BBC by polling company Populus, marks the start of the first day of the company's renewed four-year franchise.
The franchise, run by Govia, covers Kent, and parts of Sussex and London.
Neville James, who commutes from Ebbsfleet, said it was costing him £2 a minute to use the service.
"I have to stand on the train... frequently they're cancelled," he told BBC Radio Kent.
The survey also found 70% of people were satisfied with the experience of using Southeastern.
It was carried out by Populus and sampled 1,000 commuters. It found:
Tunbridge Wells MP Greg Clark said: "Across the whole region... people feel the biggest problem is the sheer value for money.
"If you're paying £4,000 a year that is a huge sum of money and you quite rightly expect a good service for that.
"People are right to be critical when they're paying a fortune and things go wrong."
David Statham, managing director of Southeastern, said: "It's important we address those things that have come up through your survey and the national passenger survey and we start to deliver on things that passengers think are really important - better information, better train services, better punctuality and an upgrade of our stations and our train fleet."
Annual season ticket prices to London terminals vary, depending on which part of Kent a commuter is travelling from, and whether they choose to use the high-speed service.
From Deal it could cost up to £5,996, while from Sevenoaks a passenger would have to pay up to £3,252. The prices would be higher if travel on the underground was required.
Richard Dean, Southeastern's train service director, said fares were mandated by the Department for Transport, and it would be unaffordable to set them any lower.
He said: "The reality is that the profit that Govia can make out of the franchise is capped.
"Obviously if we make more profit we give it back to the government, if we make less profit then we effectively go out of business... we are capped at a very low level of profit."
Mr Dean explained that the government's objective was "to get taxpayers to pay less and fare-payers to pay more for using the trains, and it does mean that fares have gone up". | Nearly half of commuters believe that Southeastern trains does not offer "good value for money", a BBC survey has found. |
36,684,331 | Kevin McLean allegedly forced his way into Agnes Widdis's home in Dundee on 12 February.
Prosecutors at Dundee Sheriff Court allege he seized his grandmother by the arm and robbed her of £50 in cash.
A further allegation states that on the same day Mr McLean, 31, was in possession of two knives in Dundee's South Ward Road.
Mr McLean pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Sheriff Alastair Brown continued the case until 8 July for further investigations to be made. | A man is to stand trial accused of assaulting and robbing his 85-year-old grandmother in her home. |
32,402,777 | He was Labour's Defence Secretary under Harold Wilson and oversaw one of the most comprehensive reviews of the strength of the armed services since the Second World War.
And he was James Callaghan's uncompromising Secretary of State for Northern Ireland where he took on the IRA at the height of its powers.
All this was a long way from Roy Mason's upbringing in the pit village of Carlton just outside Barnsley where he left school with no qualifications and went down his local pit as an apprentice at the age of 14.
In an interview with the BBC in 2007 to mark him being awarded the Freedom of Barnsley: "I wasn't thinking about politics then- just getting on with life like everybody else and that meant going down the pit".
The young Mason was clearly a bright lad. He became an underground fitter, passed his qualifications for the highly responsible and skilled job of an underground foreman - a "pit deputy"- and became an activist in the National Union of Mineworkers.
"It was at that time that I had the ambition of becoming an MP," he said in that 2007 interview. "For me I thought I could make a difference."
By the time he won a by-election in 1953 to take his home-town seat he had taken a university degree through his trade union and married his wife Marjorie.
Many years later he told me how his win at the polls happened so quickly that he had to borrow £50 from his father-in-law to keep him and Marjorie going for the first month in London.
He told me he got off the train holding a suitcase in one hand, his wife in the other and with no more than a fiver in his pocket.
He was then summoned to meet his first party leader, Clement Attlee.
"I was not a particularly young man. I was 28, but this was really a daunting prospect. He gave me two bits of advice - specialise and keep away from the bars. I have followed that advice ever since."
His talents had been spotted by Harold Wilson who made him a minister of trade in his first cabinet and then later a member of his cabinet as postmaster general.
He really came to the fore as defence secretary. His review of the size, funding and organisation of the armed forces provoked an outrage from the military but was seen by many commentators as part of a long overdue modernisation process.
It was his time as Northern Ireland Secretary from 1976 that put him at the heart of the storm. He is credited as being the first minister to take on the IRA and was totally uncompromising in his approach.
Martin McGuinness, a senior IRA member at the time and later elected to become the joint Northern Ireland First Minister after the peace process has described Roy Mason as probably the province's most reactionary 20th Century British politician.
His time in Belfast meant that Roy Mason had a permanent armed police bodyguard wherever they went even decades after he left office.
He never moved from the semi-detached house in Barnsley where he and Marjory brought up their two daughters. He was elevated to the Peerage as Lord Mason of Barnsley.
Yet he said in 2007 that probably the proudest moment of his long and distinguished career was to receive the freedom of his home town. | Lord Mason of Barnsley was one of the most influential politicians of the 1970s but never forgot his roots as a mineworker who became the MP for his home town. |
34,977,544 | On Monday morning zookeepers found one Humboldt penguin lying dead in its cage and two others missing, police spokesman Marco Mueller said.
It is the latest in a string of mysterious incidents at Dortmund Zoo.
Last month a sea lion was found dead with a smashed skull. In August three pygmy marmosets were stolen.
Mr Mueller says it is not clear whether the incidents are linked.
Police are trying to determine whether the penguins were targeted by thieves.
A post-mortem examination is being carried out on the dead bird, the zoo said.
Security at the zoo has been stepped up. | Police in the German city of Dortmund are investigating the death of one penguin and the disappearance of two others from the local zoo. |
40,763,150 | Callum Brown, from Ayr, lost both his legs in a bomb blast in Afghanistan six years ago.
He has been treated at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, but claimed staff told him future treatment would need to take place in Scotland.
Mr Brown told the Daily Record it was due to a funding row.
In his letter to Tobias Ellwood, Keith Brown said: "This is no way to treat a veteran who has served in the British Army and who has given so much for his country."
Former lance corporal Callum Brown has been receiving care at the Birmingham hospital, which has dedicated and specialised facilities for military casualties.
He was airlifted there from Afghanistan in 2011 and now receives treatment at the hospital as an out-patient.
But on his last visit he said he was told the hospital could no longer treat him and that he would have to receive future treatment in Scotland.
He told the Daily Record it was a "massive injustice" and added: "A senior member of staff told me that he was ashamed to say that they could no longer treat me there.
"He said it was because the English NHS would no longer foot the bill for me there since I wasn't from England."
Mr Brown, who served with 2 Scots, the Royal Highland Fusiliers, said he still suffers constant pain and is concerned he will not have access to the same medication and specialists in Scotland.
Mr Brown said that while he had "huge respect" for the NHS in Scotland, the service simply did not have the specialists to treat him.
He said of the English team that looked after him: "I would not be here without them. I have paid my taxes for years so why shouldn't I continue to get my treatment and medication down there?"
NHS sources told the BBC Scotland news website that in cases where a patient receiving treatment in England was living in another part of the UK, hospitals had to apply for funding from that country.
A statement from the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust said it had arranged two more follow-up appointments to "determine the effectiveness of Mr Brown's latest cycle of treatment".
"If he needs further treatment within the trust, we would need to seek pre-approved funding from NHS Scotland," it added.
Dr Alison Graham, medical director at NHS Ayrshire & Arran said the health board was "committed to funding and supporting Mr Brown's ongoing treatment, be that in Scotland or elsewhere".
She added: "We are in discussion with University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust regarding this."
Scottish Veterans Minister Mr Brown has raised concerns to Mr Ellwood about how information about the funding of Callum Brown's treatment was communicated to him.
He said: "Our injured veterans expect and must be able to receive the best possible healthcare that is available, regardless of where it is delivered.
"They should certainly not be told that their healthcare can no longer be provided at a particular location due to funding arrangements."
He said that both NHS Scotland and NHS England had long-established guidance in place, which sets out who is responsible for the cost of patients' healthcare when they need to cross borders for treatment.
He added: "NHS healthcare providers on both sides of the border should be able to agree funding arrangements between themselves without the need to involve patients in such decisions.
"NHS Ayrshire and Arran - Mr Brown's local NHS board - recognises the brave service given by Mr Brown through his duties in the armed forces and will continue to fund and support Mr Brown's ongoing treatment, be that in Scotland or elsewhere.
"I trust that you will now take any necessary action to remind NHS England of the responsible commissioner arrangements so that there is no repeat of this distressing incident for Mr Brown, or for other veterans who require NHS healthcare after sustaining serious injuries while serving their country."
He added that "no member of the Armed Forces, Service family member or veteran in Scotland should face disadvantage when accessing services and support". | Scotland's veterans minister has written to his UK counterpart to complain about the treatment of a Scots soldier at a hospital in England. |
38,737,190 | Finance Minister Máirtín Ó Muilleoir said the judge would be "unflinching in his pursuit of the truth and scrupulous in his analysis of the evidence".
Sir Patrick will be supported by two panel members and, if needed, assessors from outside Northern Ireland.
He would begin gathering papers on 1 February, said Mr Ó Muilleoir.
"By getting to the truth of the RHI scandal, this inquiry team will... go some way to rebuilding the shattered public confidence in the institutions," he said.
The inquiry is expected to report its findings within six months.
The RHI scheme was intended to increase the creation of heat from renewable sources.
However, businesses have been receiving more in subsidies than they are paying for renewable fuel and the scheme became majorly oversubscribed.
The fallout from the scandal surrounding the scheme, which is approximately £490m over budget, resulted in the resignation of Sinn Fein's deputy first minister, Martin McGuinness, the collapse of Stormont's institutions and the calling of snap elections on 2 March.
Earlier on Tuesday, a judge issued an interim injunction preventing the publication of hundreds of names of RHI claimants.
The finance minister told the Assembly the areas the inquiry will investigate will be wide-ranging, including:
Mr Ó Muilleoir said the inquiry would have the power to compel witnesses and evidence.
He also said that the inquiry would be in public and hopefully televised, but that Sir Patrick had decided there would be no public hearings before the election.
"Rest assured every stone will be turned and there will be no dark corners where the light won't shine, " he added.
He said Sir Patrick would have absolute control over the scope and execution of the Inquiry, which would be entirely independent.
No decision has yet been made on the venue for the inquiry, and no details were given on its anticipated cost. | Retired appeal court judge Sir Patrick Coghlin will chair a public inquiry into the botched energy scheme that could cost taxpayers £490m. |
35,835,006 | Lawmakers lambasted Mr Snyder for his handling of the crisis, which he has said was an administrative failure.
The US Environmental Protection Agency is also being blamed for not addressing the crisis quickly enough.
Pipes in Flint began leaching lead after the city switched its water supply to save money.
Mr Snyder has called the crisis "a massive error of bureaucracy" and rejected calls for him to resign, most notably from Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
He has said switching water suppliers, which happened when the city's finances were under state control, was not about saving money.
The water from Flint River stripped lead from the pipes and contaminated the supply. Lead exposure can cause learning disabilities and behavioural problems in children.
Flint is a majority-African American city where over 40% of the residents live in poverty.
The situation in Flint "really reeks of environmental discrimination", representative Robin Kelly said.
Another representative, Elijah Cummings, told Mr Snyder he was responsible for the contamination of the city's water supply and that he would likely be subject to criminal charges if he was running a business.
"The governor's fingerprints are all over this crisis," said Mr Cummings.
Multiple lawmakers called for him to resign at the hearing, at which Mr Snyder called the water crisis "a terrible tragedy" and "the humbling experience of [his] life".
Also appearing was Environmental Protection Agency director Gina McCarthy, who said the responsibility ultimately fell on Michigan state officials, and that they did not communicate the scope of the problem well enough.
But representative Jason Chaffetz told Ms McCarthy she should resign and that she and her agency "failed".
Ms McCarthy denied this, saying "the crisis we're seeing was the result of a state-appointed emergency manager deciding that the city would stop purchasing treated drinking water and instead switch to an untreated source to save money".
She admitted the EPA could have "pushed more" to check on the situation in Flint, but said the problem was not her agency's fault.
Mr Snyder has called on Congress to approve a bill $220 million (£152 million) bill to repair and replace the lead-contaminated pipes in Flint, along with other cities. The bill is currently on hold. | Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is testifying before Congress on the Flint water crisis, which has left residents without clean drinking water. |
37,199,383 | Ciarán Maxwell, from Larne, County Antrim, was detained in Somerset on Wednesday by the Metropolitan Police Service's Counter Terrorism Command.
The 30 year old is suspected of preparing for acts of terrorism.
A warrant for further detention was granted to the Met by Westminster Magistrates' Court on Friday.
It means that he can now be held in custody until 12:20 BST on Wednesday 31 August.
Mr Maxwell was taken to a West Country police station immediately after his arrest.
However, a Met spokesman said the royal marine was transferred to a London police station on Thursday.
His arrest is understood to be connected to the discovery of two arms dumps near Larne earlier this year.
The weapons discovered are thought to be linked to dissident republican paramilitaries.
Searches in Devon connected to the arrest are still ongoing. | Detectives who arrested a serving royal marine in a Northern Ireland-related terrorism investigation have been given a further five days to question him. |
30,368,077 | The 22-year-old was getting into his car at Ulsterville Gardens at about 19:00 GMT on Saturday when the men demanded his keys and money.
When he refused, they attacked him then ran off empty-handed. He was treated in hospital for head and facial injuries.
A short time later, three men aged 20, 22 and 25 were arrested nearby at Donegall Avenue in the Village area.
Police have appealed for information. | A man has been assaulted by a gang of men attempting to steal his car in south Belfast. |
39,668,066 | The Battle of Messines Ridge in Belgium was the first occasion that soldiers from the 36th Ulster Division and 16th Irish Division were in battle together.
Both had fought at the Battle of the Somme but at different stages.
The ceremony will take place in Messines on 7 June.
The Northern Ireland Office said the ceremony would take place at the Island of Ireland Peace Park.
The battle was a notable victory for the Allies and involved the deployment of 19 huge mines which exploded beneath the ridge, killing as many as 10,000 soldiers.
Secretary of State James Brokenshire said: "We have seen all too well how history can divide, but our ambitious goal throughout this decade of centenaries is to seek to use history to bring us together, and to build on the political progress that has been made throughout these islands.
"This shared ceremony is an opportunity to remember the service and sacrifice of those who fought at Messines Ridge, as well as to further strengthen the important relationships that exists between the United Kingdom and Ireland."
Irish Foreign Minister Charlie Flanagan said: "Those from the island of Ireland were brought together by diverse motivations but they shared a common purpose as soldiers and, caught up in the grim realities of war, no doubt a common desire: to survive and return home."
The event will be ticketed. Those interested in attending should visit the UK government website or the website for the Department of Foreign Affairs in the Republic.
More than 200,000 Irishmen fought on behalf of Britain in World War One, including both unionists who wanted Ireland to remain a part of Britain and nationalists who wanted to protect Home Rule, in which Britain had agreed to devolve some parliamentary powers to Dublin. | The UK and Ireland will hold a shared commemoration ceremony to mark a major World War One battle in which nationalist and unionist soldiers fought together side-by-side. |
29,234,086 | Two men, pilot Grant Jordan and Al Ryan, both in their 50s, are in a serious but stable condition in hospital after the light aircraft crashed in Vinoy Park, St Petersburg.
A 17-year-old girl and another man had minor injuries, according to the St Petersburg Police Department.
The group from the Ulster Flying Club were on a trip to the US.
They were flying to Key West in a hired Piper PA28 Cherokee plane.
The plane reportedly lost power on approach to an airport. It is thought the engine failed and the undercarriage clipped a tree, according to John Hughes, the chairman of Ulster Flying Club.
The pilot's wife, Susan Clarke from County Down, is preparing to fly to the US. She told the BBC she had spoken to her husband on the phone and his injuries were not life-threatening.
Ms Clarke said Mr Jordan had several broken bones, none of which required surgery.
Chairman of Ulster Flying Club, John Hughes had been in contact with all four following the crash.
"Allegedly what happened is the engine stopped on the approach over the town and he [Mr Jordan] did an excellent job and got the aircraft into a small park just on the line of the approach to the main airfield," he said.
"He appears to have done an excellent job, but on the last part of the approach into the field from the witness statements that I've heard, the aircraft clipped a couple of trees which upset his final attempt to get into this park, but he still got in.
"The aircraft was substantially in one piece which explains why one of the passengers was able to walk away.
"They've been lucky in that if this had happened and they hadn't had the competence to do it [land] then things could have turned out worse." | Three people from Northern Ireland and one from the Republic have been hurt in a Florida plane crash on Monday. |
39,152,651 | The £215m capital funding has to be spent on increasing school capacity and boosting access for these pupils to good schools.
It may be spent on specialised classrooms and facilities, but not on general day-to-day school budgets.
The news comes as many schools complain of general funding shortfalls.
Minister for vulnerable children and families, Edward Timpson, said the government wanted to ensure all children have equal opportunities regardless of their background and any challenges they may face.
"We've already made the biggest changes for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities in a generation, but we want to go further and build on that success.
"Our multi-million pound investment will enable local councils to build new classrooms and improve facilities for pupils, ensuring that no child is left behind," he added.
Councils will be expected to consult local parents, carers, schools, and others on how their funding should be used and publish a short plan showing how they will spend the money.
Every local authority, except Isles of Scilly and City of London, will get at least £500,000 to be spent over three years from 2018.
Malcolm Trobe, Interim General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said heads would be very pleased with any government spending on education, particularly when it is aimed at helping young people with the greatest needs.
But he added: "Unfortunately, however, this is a drop in the ocean compared to what is needed.
"Schools will have to make £3bn of savings to their annual running costs by 2020, which will have a huge impact on the curriculum they are able to offer and the support they are able to give young people, because they will have far less staff.
"In addition, the National Audit Office recently reported that it would cost an estimated £6.7 billion to return all school buildings to satisfactory or better condition." | Schools in England are to receive a cash boost to help improve facilities for children with special educational needs and disabilities. |
38,539,097 | The Iron's victory over a Cobblers side watched from the stand by newly appointed boss Justin Edinburgh closed the gap at the top to just one point after Sheffield United went down 4-1 at Walsall.
A tepid opening period came to life when Kevin Van Veen twice went close, heading wide from close range before seeing Adam Smith save his low drive from the edge of the box.
Cobblers created a couple of openings, Matt Taylor being denied by Luke Daniels who then thwarted Marc Richards.
But Scunthorpe broke the deadlock in the 21st minute when Stephen Dawson's cross was headed home by Van Veen from close range.
John-Joe O'Toole fired wide and Hoskins was denied again by Daniels. But Cobblers equalised three minutes before the interval when Alex Revell headed home Taylor's near-post cross.
After the restart, Van Veen fired wide before Cobblers got on top and Zander Diamond twice went close. From Taylor's cross, Diamond saw his header thump the upright before heading over from close range.
But Scunthorpe also had a couple of decent chances as the half progressed, Van Veen firing over before Morris hit the bar from a free-kick with Smith well beaten and Craig Davies headed over for the visitors.
Scunthorpe had the better late chances, as Harry Toffolo headed over, Smith denied Duane Holmes and when the ball ran loose Morris volleyed over. But the visitors won it in the 83rd minute when Diamond's clearing header only fell to Morris on the edge of the box and he curled into the top corner.
Report supplied by the Press Association.
Match ends, Northampton Town 1, Scunthorpe United 2.
Second Half ends, Northampton Town 1, Scunthorpe United 2.
Attempt missed. Sam Hoskins (Northampton Town) right footed shot from the centre of the box is just a bit too high.
Attempt blocked. Jak McCourt (Northampton Town) right footed shot from the left side of the box is blocked.
Corner, Northampton Town. Conceded by Jordan Clarke.
Zander Diamond (Northampton Town) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Ivan Toney (Scunthorpe United).
Alex Revell (Northampton Town) is shown the yellow card for hand ball.
Hand ball by Alex Revell (Northampton Town).
Substitution, Scunthorpe United. Matt Crooks replaces Duane Holmes.
Duane Holmes (Scunthorpe United) is shown the yellow card for excessive celebration.
Goal! Northampton Town 1, Scunthorpe United 2. Josh Morris (Scunthorpe United) left footed shot from outside the box to the top right corner.
Attempt saved. Duane Holmes (Scunthorpe United) left footed shot from outside the box is saved in the top centre of the goal.
Attempt saved. Marc Richards (Northampton Town) right footed shot from long range on the right is saved in the top right corner.
Corner, Northampton Town. Conceded by Luke Daniels.
Substitution, Scunthorpe United. Ivan Toney replaces Kevin van Veen.
Substitution, Northampton Town. Jak McCourt replaces Hiram Boateng.
Corner, Northampton Town. Conceded by Murray Wallace.
Attempt missed. Josh Morris (Scunthorpe United) right footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses the top left corner.
Attempt saved. Duane Holmes (Scunthorpe United) left footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the centre of the goal.
Foul by Alex Revell (Northampton Town).
Charlie Goode (Scunthorpe United) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Attempt missed. Harry Toffolo (Scunthorpe United) header from the centre of the box is high and wide to the left.
Corner, Scunthorpe United. Conceded by Zander Diamond.
Attempt blocked. Harry Toffolo (Scunthorpe United) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked.
Alex Revell (Northampton Town) wins a free kick on the right wing.
Foul by Murray Wallace (Scunthorpe United).
Attempt missed. Craig Davies (Scunthorpe United) header from the centre of the box is just a bit too high.
Josh Morris (Scunthorpe United) hits the bar with a left footed shot from outside the box from a direct free kick.
Hand ball by David Buchanan (Northampton Town).
Foul by John-Joe O'Toole (Northampton Town).
Sam Mantom (Scunthorpe United) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Attempt missed. Kevin van Veen (Scunthorpe United) right footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses the top right corner.
Attempt blocked. Alex Revell (Northampton Town) right footed shot from very close range is blocked.
Substitution, Scunthorpe United. Craig Davies replaces Tom Hopper.
Attempt missed. Zander Diamond (Northampton Town) header from the right side of the six yard box is just a bit too high.
David Buchanan (Northampton Town) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Foul by Duane Holmes (Scunthorpe United).
Kevin van Veen (Scunthorpe United) is shown the yellow card.
John-Joe O'Toole (Northampton Town) is shown the yellow card. | Josh Morris grabbed the late winner as second-placed Scunthorpe beat League One strugglers Northampton at Sixfields. |
37,173,410 | The incident happened near the village of Eddleston at about 13:00 on Sunday.
The man fell from a Vespa scooter and was taken to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for treatment.
Police said they believed a black car may have been involved in the incident and appealed for anyone who was in the area to contact them. | A man has been seriously injured after falling from his scooter in the Scottish Borders. |
40,834,642 | Millwall, who won May's League One play-off final, went ahead courtesy of Saville's first goal for the Lions.
But just past the hour mark, Portuguese winger Morais levelled the scores from a free-kick just outside the box.
The result meant that both Millwall and League One runners-up Bolton still await their first Championship wins.
Lions goalscorer Saville, who made his loan move from Wolves to the London club permanent over the summer, converted a neat one-two with Steve Morison for the opener.
Morison could have doubled the home side's lead, but his improvised hook-shot was cleared off the line by Mark Beevers.
Bolton rescued a point when Morais' free-kick from 20 yards proved too good for Millwall keeper Jordan Archer.
Millwall manager Neil Harris:
"I thought we were the better team. I thought we had the most chances, got our noses in front.
"I'm disappointed not to win the game. That's two games in a row where I think we've been the better team in this division and we've only got one point from it.
"However, saying that, I'm really pleased for my players that we get our first point on the board."
Bolton manager Phil Parkinson:
"I'm delighted with our own performance on the day.
"Millwall's a tough place to come, especially their first (home) game back in the Championship. We always knew it was going to be difficult.
"With the key players we lost to injury last week, I thought we stood strong as a team and apart from one slack moment to give them the goal I thought some of our defending and players putting their bodies on the line was top class."
Match ends, Millwall 1, Bolton Wanderers 1.
Second Half ends, Millwall 1, Bolton Wanderers 1.
Corner, Millwall. Conceded by Mark Howard.
Attempt saved. Shaun Williams (Millwall) left footed shot from outside the box is saved in the bottom left corner.
Jem Karacan (Bolton Wanderers) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Fred Onyedinma (Millwall) wins a free kick on the right wing.
Foul by Jem Karacan (Bolton Wanderers).
Foul by James Meredith (Millwall).
Aaron Wilbraham (Bolton Wanderers) wins a free kick on the right wing.
Conor McLaughlin (Millwall) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Aaron Wilbraham (Bolton Wanderers).
Offside, Millwall. James Meredith tries a through ball, but Shaun Hutchinson is caught offside.
Attempt blocked. Jed Wallace (Millwall) left footed shot from outside the box is blocked.
Andrew Taylor (Bolton Wanderers) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Tom Elliott (Millwall) wins a free kick on the right wing.
Foul by Andrew Taylor (Bolton Wanderers).
Attempt blocked. Steve Morison (Millwall) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Jed Wallace with a cross.
Conor McLaughlin (Millwall) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Foul by Conor McLaughlin (Millwall).
Jem Karacan (Bolton Wanderers) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Substitution, Bolton Wanderers. Aaron Wilbraham replaces Gary Madine.
Substitution, Millwall. Tom Elliott replaces Lee Gregory.
Fred Onyedinma (Millwall) wins a free kick on the right wing.
Foul by Mark Beevers (Bolton Wanderers).
Attempt missed. Jed Wallace (Millwall) right footed shot from outside the box is high and wide to the right.
Foul by George Saville (Millwall).
Josh Cullen (Bolton Wanderers) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Substitution, Millwall. Fred Onyedinma replaces Shane Ferguson.
Offside, Millwall. Lee Gregory tries a through ball, but Jed Wallace is caught offside.
Lee Gregory (Millwall) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Josh Cullen (Bolton Wanderers).
Foul by Steve Morison (Millwall).
Mark Beevers (Bolton Wanderers) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Shaun Williams (Millwall) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Adam Armstrong (Bolton Wanderers).
Substitution, Bolton Wanderers. Adam Armstrong replaces Adam Le Fondre.
Shaun Hutchinson (Millwall) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Foul by Shaun Hutchinson (Millwall).
Jem Karacan (Bolton Wanderers) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Attempt blocked. Shaun Hutchinson (Millwall) header from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Shaun Williams with a cross. | Newly promoted Millwall and Bolton shared the points after a Filipe Morais free-kick cancelled out George Saville's opener at The Den. |
40,381,825 | Jon Platt was convicted of failing to secure his child's regular attendance.
He lost an earlier legal challenge at the Supreme Court in April, despite winning previous legal battles in a case brought by Isle of Wight Council.
Platt was given a 12-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay £2,000.
The case - over a £120 fine - returned to Isle of Wight Magistrates' Court earlier where Paul Greatorex QC, for Platt, had argued the prosecution should not continue and was an "abuse of process".
He suggested none of the documents published by the council or the primary school on attendance made it clear when a penalty notice would be given.
"It's completely vague, it does not give the guidance that parents are entitled to expect," he said.
Mr Platt told the court he did not believe he had seen a number of documents from the school setting out changes to absence rules.
He said a form from the school, when he applied for the seven-day absence in 2015, had noted that attendance of between 90% and 95% was satisfactory, which his child fell into.
Truancy prosecutions in England in 2015
Source: PA
But Ben Rich, counsel for Isle of Wight Council, said giving clear guidance did not mean spelling out every consequence of any action.
He argued the school was not required to make sure that every letter sent home was read, and that the council's code of conduct had made it clear that a penalty notice could be issued for a term-time holiday.
Giving the judgment, magistrate Jeannie Walker said: "The circumstances of this case fall squarely into that breach of school rules."
The case has cost taxpayers £140,000. | A father who fought a long-running legal battle after taking his daughter on a term-time holiday to Disney World Florida has been found guilty over the unauthorised trip. |
36,722,585 | Mrs Leadsom has made her experience in the City a key part of her campaign to be the next leader and prime minister.
Allies of the energy minister have said she is a victim of a concerted effort to rubbish a "stellar" career.
Mrs Leadsom, who was a leading Brexit campaigner, came second in the first round of voting in the leadership race.
Mrs Leadsom, a former economic secretary to the Treasury, will battle it out with fellow Brexit backer Justice Secretary Michael Gove on Thursday to join Home Secretary Theresa May on the ballot to succeed David Cameron.
Liam Fox and Stephen Crabb withdrew from the leadership race after the first round, and gave Mrs May their backing.
By John Pienaar, deputy political editor
Energy minister Andrea Leadsom's claim to have been a financial high-flier is under intense scrutiny.
Team Leadsom has made much of her background in banking. One friendly MP described her as having managed "hundreds of people and billions of pounds".
But the Times newspaper described her credentials as a senior banker as having been "politely but firmly undermined".
Robert Stephens, formerly of the investment firm Invesco Perpetual, had said "she didn't manage any teams, large or small and certainly did not manage any funds".
Ms Leadsom's CV also lists the post of Project Director at Barclays. "Director" was a managerial title, not a boardroom one.
A campaign helper told me she'd been unfairly attacked, but also admitted her experience may have been "bigged up" - exaggerated, in other words - by the MP who'd boasted of her high-powered background.
Mrs Leadsom's campaign has responded to a report in the Times - which claimed her career had been exaggerated - by publishing a summary of her CV setting out her various banking roles, including senior roles at Barclays and Invesco Perpetual.
Defence Minister Penny Mordaunt - one of Mrs Leadsom's backers - claimed there was a "concerted effort" being made to cast doubt on the leadership hopeful's background before entering parliament, and said she was the "strongest candidate on the economy".
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mrs Mordaunt also dismissed the suggestion some of Mrs May's supporters could back Mr Gove in the next round of voting in an effort to prevent Mrs Leadsom's name being on the final shortlist of two presented to members.
"I would say to all my colleagues on Thursday, if you are voting for a candidate who you do not think is the best person to lead this country, you are doing something wrong," she said.
Despite her clear lead in the first round of voting by Tory MPs, Mrs May - who supported the campaign to stay in the EU - said she did not want the contest to be a "coronation".
"I have been clear from the start. The party and the country deserve an open, honest, robust debate - and the next leader needs to have won a mandate to lead.
"So there should be no deals, no tactical voting, and no coronation," she said.
Mrs Leadsom and Mr Gove both say the next PM must have campaigned for Leave.
Mrs May got 165 of 329 votes cast by Tory MPs on Tuesday. Mrs Leadsom came second with 66 and Mr Gove got 48.
Given the margin of Mrs May's lead, she is almost certain to feature on the two-person ballot to be put to the around 150,000 Conservative members, with the eventual outcome due on 9 September.
But former Conservative chairman Grant Shapps called for the process to be accelerated, saying it should be finished by the end of July.
Mr Shapps has written to MPs seeking their backing, saying it was a "matter of concern for the country", and also plans a petition.
Mr Gove's supporters insist he can be trusted despite his dramatic 11th hour decision to turn on ally Boris Johnson and launch his own campaign.
Culture Minister Ed Vaizey told Today the U-turn had "caused Michael some difficulty" but said colleagues would "trust a man who was prepared to make that decision", claiming his was the campaign "building the momentum". | Conservative leadership candidate Andrea Leadsom has published details of her CV, after claims her previous roles in financial services were exaggerated. |
38,364,847 | Ross McNab is alleged to have carried out a raid on the Dunkeld branch of the Bank of Scotland on 29 November.
Mr McNab appeared from custody at Perth Sheriff Court and denied robbing bank teller James MacKinnon while he was working in the branch.
The charge against Mr McNab alleges that he robbed the bank of £65.
He will face trial in March next year. | A 28-year-old man has appeared in court accused of carrying out a bank robbery in Dunkeld and making off with £65. |
30,938,989 | The force made the decision after a survey found the "overwhelming majority" of staff wanted to do away with the helmets.
The "custodian" will still be worn on ceremonial occasions, like funerals and Remembrance Day parades.
West Yorkshire is the second force to make the change after Thames Valley did so five years ago.
Supt Keith Gilert said peaked caps had become "more appropriate" and "more in keeping" than traditional helmets.
First used by the Metropolitan Police in 1863, the "custodian" helmet was based on the spiked Pickelhaube worn by the Prussian army.
Nick Smart, chairman of the West Yorkshire Police Federation, welcomed the change in headwear.
"Helmets fall off heads, they're cumbersome and a lot of the time they weren't getting used," he said.
"Officers in cars would chuck them on the back seat and not put them on to deal with an incident." | West Yorkshire Police is getting rid of the traditional police helmet in favour of peaked caps. |
34,155,092 | Tring School, in Hertfordshire, said it had "explicitly and repeatedly" made clear its dress code to pupils and parents.
Head teacher Sue Collings said the school was "very proud" of its "values, achievements and aspirations".
Parents criticised the move on social media, and one said her daughter felt "humiliated".
"She's now at the point at which she says she feels humiliated in front of all her friends, she doesn't want to go in on Monday," she told BBC Three Counties Radio.
Another parent said: "My daughter has been sent home again because of the length of her skirt. "
In a statement, Ms Collings said: "In our communications we stated that students who were incorrectly dressed will be told to improve their uniform to the necessary standard before attending lessons.
"If students were able to immediately go home and then return in the correct uniform they would be welcomed into lessons today.
"If students could not go home, or didn't have the correct clothes, then they would be supervised in school and they would be expected to acquire the correct uniform over the weekend before going to lessons on Monday.
"The school has stated our expectations and consequences explicitly and repeatedly."
The school's dress code on the website states: "Skirts must be black, knee length and be of a pleated design." | More than 100 girls were sent home from school after their skirts were deemed too short by staff. |
35,936,425 | The 24-year-old was charged for an incident in his side's 1-1 Championship draw with Fulham on 23 February.
It is understood the bite was on Cottagers defender Fernando Amorebieta.
The Football Association said in a statement: "[This] was considered a non-standard case given the seriousness and both unusual and violent nature of the misconduct."
Doukara, who denied the charge, has also been fined £5,000.
Leeds United said that they were "disappointed with the outcome and the length of the ban" but would not be commenting further until the full written judgement has been released.
The ban means Doukara will be unavailable until the final game of the season.
Barcelona forward Luis Suarez has served three bans for biting during his career.
The Uruguay striker was banned for nine international matches and suspended from all football activity for four months for biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini during the 2014 World Cup.
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Dagenham & Redbridge midfielder Joss Labadie has been banned for biting twice in the past three years.
He was handed a 10-match suspension for a bite while with Torquay in 2014 before being given a six-month ban after biting a Stevenage player while playing for the Daggers last March. | Leeds United striker Souleymane Doukara has been banned for eight matches for biting an opponent. |
34,589,201 | Mr Biden is considering running for president and accounts depicting him as hesitant to attack Bin Laden have been seen as a political liability.
"Mr President, my suggestion is, don't go," Mr Biden told congressmen in 2012, according to ABC News.
But on Tuesday Mr Biden said he told President Obama privately to proceed.
"As we walked out of the room and walked upstairs, I said - I told him my opinion that I thought he should go, but follow his own instincts," Mr Biden said at an event in Washington.
"I never... say what I think finally until I go up in the Oval [Office] with him alone," he added.
In May 2011, Mr Obama authorised the operation. US special forces shot and killed Bin Laden at a compound near Islamabad.
Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time, has said publicly that she supported the raid.
Bin Laden was widely believed to have been behind the bombings of US embassies in East Africa, the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000 and the 2001 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.
In recent months, supporters have encouraged Mr Biden to challenge Mrs Clinton for the Democratic nomination.
However, Mr Biden, 72, has questioned whether he has the "emotional energy" to run after the death of his son Beau in May.
Others say by entering the race so late Mr Biden may not be able to rally enough financial support to mount an effective campaign.
After a strong performance in the first Democratic presidential debate last week, Mrs Clinton has seen her poll number rebound after a summer which saw her support wane.
Mrs Clinton maintains healthy leads in most early voting states even after factoring Mr Biden into the race.
Mr Biden expects to decide within days because deadlines to appear on the ballot in key states are fast approaching.
The former Delaware senator failed in his bids for the White House in 1988 and 2008 before becoming Mr Obama's running mate. | US Vice-President Joe Biden has said he supported carrying out the operation that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, a change from previous accounts. |
38,046,127 | Media playback is not supported on this device
They ended 2016 unbeaten under new coach Mal Meninga, have reclaimed the Four Nations title following Sunday's emphatic victory over New Zealand and they have returned to the top of the world rankings.
Just 12 months before they attempt to retain their World Cup crown down under, they look a formidable outfit.
They are a team which will "take some stopping", in the words of former Great Britain international Jonathan Davies.
After a decidedly one-sided Four Nations, can anyone realistically stop Meninga's team?
New Zealand coach David Kidwell said after Sunday's 34-8 defeat at Anfield that there were "possibly two or three immortals" in the spine of the Australia team.
He was talking about the half-back pairing of Johnathan Thurston and man of the series Cooper Cronk, and of captain and hooker Cameron Smith.
When asked about Kidwell's comment, Meninga added that he thought centre Greg Inglis could be considered in that category as well.
Their craft, composure and game management has been evident over the last few weeks and no other national team can compete with their combined skill and experience in so many crucial positions.
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As former England international Jon Wilkin said: "The most impressive thing about this Australian side is the rugby league brains they've got.
"In rugby league and rugby union, we're obsessed with producing athletes. These guys are good athletes but it's their rugby league brains that are so impressive."
Some wondered whether the Australian pack would be able to compete with England and New Zealand, but they more than held their own and laid a platform for their back division to exploit.
The Australians built pressure superbly, completed their sets, kicked clinically to pin down each of their opponents - and eventually wore them down.
We saw that at London Stadium, where England at one point led 6-2 - the only time the Kangaroos were behind on the tour - but lost 36-18.
"If I was a coach of any professional team, I would be cutting videos of Australia to show how to get key decisions right," said former Australia international Kurt Gidley on the BBC.
Rugby Football League chairman Brian Barwick said in his programme notes for Sunday's final that England had "much to build on" and that their Australian coach Wayne Bennett knows what is "needed to take them to the next step".
But after a Four Nations that saw England defeated by both Australia and New Zealand, fans could be forgiven for wondering if their team are as far away as ever from threatening the dominance of the top two.
Following England's elimination, new coach Wayne Bennett said his players do not "realise how good they are".
England had Sam Burgess back in their ranks following his return from rugby union, as well as top performers in the Australian National Rugby League such as James Graham and Josh Hodgson, and the best from Super League.
But they spilled the ball or conceded penalties at crucial moments on numerous occasions - and some people wondered whether the team had gone backwards after a morale-boosting 2-1 series win over the Kiwis last year.
"I'm not so sure England have gone backwards," said former Great Britain coach Brian Noble. "The fact we used three different half-back pairings leads me to believe Wayne Bennett was looking at the whole squad.
"We've got some fabulous players and there are 10 or 11 of those playing in the NRL, so they shouldn't worry about intensity or belief."
Davies suggested that it is not all "doom and gloom", arguing that England have one of the best forward packs in the world.
In the long term, it may well be that England simply need a bigger talent pool to pick from if they are to compete with the best on a regular basis.
"One thing we can do is come up with a long-term plan," added Wilkin. "It feels like every year we're talking about the same issues, about having more competitive games and high-intensity games to match the NRL.
"This conversation has been going on for 15 years. We need more junior players, and we need to put that in a cohesive plan for five or 10 years."
Read more: 'England need direction and composure'
The Kiwis might want to look back a little for some inspiration.
Back in 2013, New Zealand were hammered 34-2 in the World Cup final at Old Trafford. The following year, they defeated Australia twice as they won the Four Nations title under coach Stephen Kearney.
As Kearney's successor, Kidwell certainly had a difficult start in his first major tournament in charge of the Kiwis. They were scratchy in a 17-16 win over England, were held by Scotland and were hammered in the final.
"They will need to go back to the drawing board," said former Kiwi international and BBC pundit Robbie Hunter-Paul. "New Zealand are in the process of building again. They have a new coach who needs to put his own stamp on the team. It is a development phase."
Kidwell and his skipper Jesse Bromwich looked stunned as they answered questions after Sunday's match.
A former Kiwi international who played for numerous NRL clubs, Kidwell believes he has learned a lot about what he must do to make his team competitive next year.
"I have told the boys that we have got to get back our belief," he said. "That starts with hard work and doing the little things in games that really count.
"We made seven errors in the first 20 minutes against Australia and that is a tough way to try to win a football game."
Noble is adamant that they can be a threat next year.
He said: "They've had a disappointing tournament, that's all. They won't be far away for the World Cup."
They will need half-back Shaun Johnson to sparkle, they will need their powerful ball-playing forwards to find their form and they will need to find a resolve and discipline largely absent during this Four Nations.
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Nobody expects Scotland to win the World Cup next year but when analysing who triumphed in the the Four Nations it would be foolish not to mention the Bravehearts.
OK, so they got off to an awful start against Australia, losing 54-12, but they took the lead against England and battled to a famous and memorable draw against the Kiwis in Workington.
That draw ensured they became the first team outside the big three to take something from a match at the Four Nations.
"Any neutral fan can see how well we've done," said Scotland coach Steve McCormack.
Nobody would argue with that... but the jury is still out on how to stop the formidable Aussies. | It's been a year of unchecked success for Australia's rugby league team. |
38,433,522 | The Reds took a deserved lead when Daniel Sturridge flicked in a header after Dejan Lovren's mishit shot.
Sunderland equalised six minutes later as Defoe scored from the spot following Ragnar Klavan's trip on Didier Ndong, before Sadio Mane put the visitors back ahead with a close-range finish.
However, Mane then handled in his own 18-yard box and Defoe converted the penalty to snatch an unlikely point.
The result leaves Liverpool five points behind Premier League leaders Chelsea, who play their game in hand on Wednesday at Tottenham (20:00 GMT kick-off).
However, Reds boss Jurgen Klopp will surely see it as two points dropped after his side led twice, had 71% of the possession and had 15 shots on target.
Only an inspired performance from Black Cats keeper Vito Mannone denied Liverpool further goals, before Mane, playing his last game before representing Senegal at the Africa Cup of Nations, needlessly stuck out an arm to block Seb Larsson's free-kick, costing his side dearly.
To make things worse for Liverpool, Sturridge, who scored only his second Premier League goal of the season, limped off late on with what appeared to be a foot injury after he clashed with Papy Djilobodji.
The England international was only making his fifth league start of the campaign, has also suffered calf and hip injuries this season and was limping badly at the final whistle.
Reds club captain Jordan Henderson missed the game at the Stadium of Light with a heel injury and Klopp could be without three influential players for the trip to Manchester United in 13 days' time.
Sunderland boss David Moyes described his side's performance in their 4-1 loss at Burnley on Saturday as "dire" and had demanded better.
He will surely have been delighted with the response. His team battled hard, gave everything, defended deep in numbers and showed their fighting spirit when Liverpool looked like they might run away with the match.
Sunderland remain in the bottom three, but Moyes will be encouraged by the point as the Black Cats look to extend their 10-year Premier League stay.
However, like Klopp, Moyes faces a battle to juggle his squad. Sunderland's lengthy injury list includes first-choice goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, defender Lamine Kone, midfielders Lee Cattermole and Steven Pienaar and strikers Duncan Watmore and Victor Anichebe.
Midfielders Didier Ndong (Gabon) and Wahbi Khazri (Tunisia) are also set to play at the Africa Cup of Nations in January to provide further problems for Moyes.
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Sunderland manager Moyes said: "I expect them to get results, but I'm really pleased after the few days we've had. We didn't play well (against Burnley) and what they have done is show how well they can do.
"I thought we did quite well, matched Liverpool's energy for long periods of the game and deserved a draw. We had big chances as well.
"I never thought we were out of it. The important thing was to not concede a third goal. In the end we got a deserved penalty.
"Towards the end of the season we are going to have to pick up a lot of results. Today was a tough draw and we have to make sure we win at home - that's key."
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Liverpool boss Klopp said: "I am not able to explain it because I don't know exactly what I saw. My team were fighting but I wasn't sure if they could do it.
"We can play better but I'm not sure if you can play better with that (two-day) break."
On Sunderland's second penalty, the German added: "There was no foul before the free-kick for the second penalty. You need a little bit of luck, but Sunderland worked hard too and maybe they deserved it."
Both sides are next in action in the third round of the FA Cup. Sunderland entertain fellow Premier League side Burnley on Saturday (15:00), one week after losing 4-1 to the Clarets in an away league match.
Liverpool take on League Two high-flyers Plymouth Argyle on 8 January (13:30), before playing at Southampton on 11 January in the first leg of their EFL Cup semi-final (19:45).
Sunderland next play in the Premier League on 14 January with a home game against Stoke (15:00), with Liverpool away at Manchester United at 16:00 the following day.
Match ends, Sunderland 2, Liverpool 2.
Second Half ends, Sunderland 2, Liverpool 2.
Offside, Liverpool. Lucas Leiva tries a through ball, but Divock Origi is caught offside.
Attempt saved. Roberto Firmino (Liverpool) header from the centre of the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by Alberto Moreno with a cross.
Corner, Liverpool. Conceded by Donald Love.
Attempt saved. Adam Lallana (Liverpool) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the bottom left corner.
Sadio Mané (Liverpool) wins a free kick on the right wing.
Foul by Fabio Borini (Sunderland).
Delay over. They are ready to continue.
Delay in match Papy Djilobodji (Sunderland) because of an injury.
Divock Origi (Liverpool) wins a free kick on the right wing.
Foul by Papy Djilobodji (Sunderland).
Attempt saved. Ragnar Klavan (Liverpool) header from the centre of the box is saved in the top right corner. Assisted by Alberto Moreno with a cross.
Divock Origi (Liverpool) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Didier Ndong (Sunderland).
Attempt saved. Roberto Firmino (Liverpool) left footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the top centre of the goal. Assisted by Sadio Mané.
Goal! Sunderland 2, Liverpool 2. Jermain Defoe (Sunderland) converts the penalty with a right footed shot to the bottom left corner.
Adam Lallana (Liverpool) is shown the yellow card.
Sadio Mané (Liverpool) is shown the yellow card for hand ball.
Penalty conceded by Sadio Mané (Liverpool) with a hand ball in the penalty area.
Attempt blocked. Sebastian Larsson (Sunderland) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked.
Foul by Lucas Leiva (Liverpool).
Jermain Defoe (Sunderland) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Delay over. They are ready to continue.
Substitution, Liverpool. Lucas Leiva replaces Daniel Sturridge because of an injury.
Delay in match Daniel Sturridge (Liverpool) because of an injury.
Substitution, Sunderland. Wahbi Khazri replaces Adnan Januzaj.
Foul by Sadio Mané (Liverpool).
Fabio Borini (Sunderland) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Substitution, Liverpool. Divock Origi replaces Georginio Wijnaldum.
Goal! Sunderland 1, Liverpool 2. Sadio Mané (Liverpool) right footed shot from very close range to the centre of the goal following a corner.
Corner, Liverpool. Conceded by Vito Mannone.
Attempt saved. Daniel Sturridge (Liverpool) right footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by Adam Lallana.
Hand ball by Emre Can (Liverpool).
Foul by Sadio Mané (Liverpool).
Patrick van Aanholt (Sunderland) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Georginio Wijnaldum (Liverpool) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Jermain Defoe (Sunderland).
Attempt saved. Roberto Firmino (Liverpool) right footed shot from the left side of the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by Georginio Wijnaldum.
Substitution, Sunderland. Javier Manquillo replaces Jack Rodwell. | Jermain Defoe scored two penalties as Sunderland twice came from behind to earn a point against second-placed Liverpool. |
36,901,897 | Representatives of Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist faiths spoke after meeting President Hollande.
On Wednesday evening Mr Hollande went on to attend a mass for the priest in Paris's Notre Dame Cathedral.
Fr Jacques Hamel died while conducting a service in his church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, a suburb of Rouen.
The killing came 12 days after the attack in Nice in which 84 people died.
Only one of the two attackers has been named. Adel Kermiche, 19, had twice tried to reach Syria to fight with the self-styled Islamic State group (IS).
Friends recall 'brainwashed' Kermiche
What we know about church attack
France responds with calls for peace and understanding
Tributes to Fr Jacques Hamel
Airline's concerns over France as destination
Muslim leader Dalil Boubakeur, rector of Paris's Grand Mosque, said the leaders "deeply desire that our places of worship are the subject of greater [security] focus, a sustained focus", as even "the most humble place of worship" can be subject to an attack.
Mr Boubakeur expressed "profound sorrow" on behalf of French Muslims at the attack, which he described as a "blasphemous sacrilege".
The Archbishop of Paris, Andre Vingt-Trois, praised the harmonious relations between France's religions.
"We must not let ourselves get pulled in to Daesh's political games," he said, using a pejorative term for IS, saying it wanted "to set children of the same family against each other".
President Francois Hollande has also been chairing meetings of his security and defence council and his cabinet.
On Tuesday Mr Hollande appealed for "unity" as he warned that the war against terrorism "will be long".
"Our democracy is the target, and it will be our shield. Let us stand together. We will win this war," he said.
According to Le Monde (in French), the prosecutor's office had asked for Kermiche to remain in detention but this was overruled by a judge. She ordered that he be released to house arrest with an electronic tag ensuring that he remained at home, except on weekday mornings.
This meant that on Tuesday morning he was free to leave the family home and head to the church.
He and his fellow attacker slit Father Hamel's throat before being killed by police.
One of four people taken hostage suffered severe knife wounds, prosecutor Francois Molins said.
'I am a priest': Solidarity after church attack
Germans 'full of fear' over attacks
What drives individuals to commit mass killings?
In an editorial, Le Monde says it will no longer feature photographs of those behind attacks such as the one in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray.
It was doing so "to avoid giving posthumous credit" to those responsible, while adding that the intention of killing Father Hamel was to provoke "the blind vengeance that would place the entire country under the empire of hatred".
The move was repeated by the broadcaster BFM.
Elsewhere, Le Figaro's editorial accuses IS of continuing "to pursue its sinister plan: to turn the world into a bloody theatre of war" and calls on the French government to resort to "all military, police and judicial means to ensure the safety of our citizens - whether they believe in heaven or not".
The Catholic daily La Croix also declares that "responding to hatred with hatred would mean that evil has triumphed", while the left-of-centre Liberation maintains that "the war that Islamic State is waging against us is not a war against France, it is a war against freedom."
France is still reeling from the Bastille Day attack in Nice earlier this month, when a lorry was driven into celebrating crowds by Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, killing more than 80 people.
That was followed by four violent incidents in a week in neighbouring Germany, two of which are linked to IS.
IS used its news agency to claim the attack in Normandy - thought to be its first on a church in the West.
Christians in Iraq and Syria have long been targeted by the group, with reports of forced conversions and killings.
Syria's beleaguered Christians
Iraq's oldest Christian monastery destroyed
The president of Normandy's regional council, Herve Morin, called for France to learn lessons from the countries hardest hit by terrorism. "We need to Israelise our security," the former French defence minister told Le Figaro. | French religious leaders have called for more security at places of worship following the murder of an elderly priest in Normandy on Tuesday. |
40,934,283 | Ms Harris, who was reportedly the first licensed female African American road racer in the US, was killed on Monday morning in Vancouver, Canada.
Eyewitnesses said she had lost control of the bike, jumped a kerb and crashed into a building.
Deadpool 2 star Ryan Reynolds said he was "heartbroken, shocked and devastated" at her death.
Production on the film has been temporarily halted.
Local media say Ms Harris had successfully practised the stunt several times before the fatal accident.
Ms Harris has previously been described as a pioneer encouraging more women and African Americans to enter professional road racing.
Black Girls Ride Magazine said in 2015 that she was "leading the pack in more ways than one".
"I am everything people never saw in this sport," Ms Harris told the magazine, adding that the high costs of road racing were a barrier, and most of her competitors were young, affluent white men.
During her first race, she said: "I was alone for most of the day, scared and in tears. I had no-one to talk to, and I didn't know what I needed."
"Sisters on the track are few and far in between. I want to show them that there's more for them to be exposed to. I want to get kids interested through experience."
According to her online profile, Ms Harris had been racing professionally since 2012.
Deadpool 2 was said to be her first film as a stunt performer.
On the FAQ section of her website, Ms Harris said that when it came to crashing, she was "not quite scared, but it crosses my mind at times, but a racer can't let it stop us".
She said that "everything takes time", and encouraged readers to "face your fears". | The stuntwoman who died in a motorcycle accident while filming Deadpool 2 has been identified as Joi SJ Harris. |
32,426,016 | Italy hopes its EU partners will on Thursday support an initiative to get a military mandate to destroy traffickers' vessels before they use them. The exact details are still unclear but a mandate from the EU - possibly also the UN - would be needed.
A British government source told us that all options were on the table.
Other proposals to be debated also include significantly boosting the EU's maritime patrol to help rescue migrants.
Not quite on a par with Italy's former search and rescue programme but still a huge change.
Libya, too, will be high on the discussion agenda. Italy says 90% of the immigrants washing up on its shores come by boat from there.
It also worries about the organisation calling itself Islamic State, operating so close to Libya's maritime border. There are fears IS could pose a huge security risk for Europe. In the past, it has explicitly threatened Italy.
Add into the mix a German-backed plan to spread migrants out more equally amongst EU countries - an extremely divisive issue - and you can see that the emergency summit will be a challenging one for its participants.
But it's all or nothing according to Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. He's demanding a fully comprehensive political - and financial - solution to the migrant crisis, rather than an emotional response by the EU and its member countries.
Italians want their government to put the rest of the EU under pressure. They feel that they are struggling to cope, between their country's steep economic downturn on the one hand and what their media have dubbed "a migrant invasion" on the other.
Anti-immigrant populist politicians here in Italy as elsewhere in Europe are gaining ground on the back of the debate.
That's why so many European governments have, until now, silently looked the other way when it comes to the perils of migrants at sea. They feared that tackling the issue could cost them domestically.
But Europe is now waking up to the realisation that this is a problem for the continent as a whole.
Most migrants arriving in Italy or Greece don't want to stay there, preferring to slip invisibly over national borders until they reach richer destinations like Germany, Sweden or the UK.
Germany had 200,000 asylum applications last year alone. In 2015 the numbers are expected to rise even further.
The face of Europe is changing. Too fast for some.
This is decision time but also a moment for soul searching.
Some kind of common document will certainly emerge at the end of today's summit. The real test will be to see if those plans are then implemented.
Europe made bold declarations on immigration just under two years ago, also following dreadful loss of life in the Mediterranean.
The plans were similar to a number of proposals now being discussed.
Yet here we are again. | "The most macabre travel agents in history" is how Italy's Interior Minister Angelino Alfano describes the people smugglers who charge migrants sums they can ill-afford to cross the Mediterranean in unsafe boats. |
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Two years earlier, Phil Mickelson had delivered a shocking and devastating critique of his captain and the American Ryder Cup set-up. The contrast in mood and sentiment this time around could not have been greater.
America's journey towards regaining the trophy after eight long years in European hands began with that fractious news conference immediately after Tom Watson's team suffered heavy defeat at Gleneagles.
In the immediate aftermath of the United States' 17-11 victory at Hazeltine, Mickelson joked: "The pressure started when some dumb ass opened his mouth two years ago in the media centre."
Back then, Mickelson was heavily criticised for insulting a golfing legend.
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But the fallout helped create a more cohesive, collected and motivated team than those that had lost eight of the previous 10 Ryder Cups. Captained for the second time by Davis Love, the US were able to take full advantage against a relatively weak European line-up.
Darren Clarke's side were always going to be up against it, because this match coincided with a period of generational change. There were six first-timers in a team missing stalwarts such as Ian Poulter, Graeme McDowell and Luke Donald.
As we saw at Gleneagles in 2014, heavy defeats can spawn rancour and recrimination, but despite being comprehensively outplayed there was, quite rightly, none from the European side.
They were due a defeat, and the Americans were able to exploit home advantage; riding the wave of raucous support and making the most of a soft course set-up.
For Europe to have won, Clarke would have needed to gamble on giving his rookies more responsibility. He was a naturally cautious leader whose instincts pushed him towards making the most of the more experienced players in his team.
Few argued with his wildcard selections at the time they were made, though I always felt Lee Westwood would be playing under immense pressure having failed to qualify automatically.
In his 10th Ryder Cup, the Englishman did not add to his extraordinary tally of 23 points, which leaves him behind only Colin Montgomerie (23.5), Bernhard Langer (24) and Sir Nick Faldo (25) in the all-time European list.
Westwood's putting capitulation late in the Saturday afternoon fourballs proved a pivotal moment. It was sad to see from someone who has been at the heart of so much European success.
This felt as though it was one Ryder Cup too many for Westwood. Fellow wildcard Martin Kaymer was also disappointing, his lone point coming in a singles match against Matt Kuchar that came too late to affect the overall outcome.
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With hindsight, Clarke should have kept together the irrepressible Spaniards Sergio Garcia and Rafa Cabrera Bello on Saturday afternoon.
But at the point he had to submit his pairings, they were four down to Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed.
That is why Cabrera Bello was benched. However, he and Garcia were playing well despite the large deficit in a match they ultimately halved. Had Clarke kept the Spanish duo together, those pivotal Saturday fourballs might have maintained European momentum.
The Northern Irishman should also have made more use of Chris Wood, Matthew Fitzpatrick and Andy Sullivan.
Wood was outstanding in his one foursomes with Justin Rose, Fitzpatrick was given little chance to shine and Sullivan sat out until the singles after defeat with Rory McIlroy in Friday's opening foursomes.
Such sparing use of the English rookies reinforced the notion they needed to be protected. Yet look at the way Thomas Pieters responded to being asked to play all five matches. The Belgian wildcard collected four points, a record on a European debut.
Of course, it is easy to make these calls after the event and overall Clarke did a decent job as captain.
In the build-up to the match, his dignified and decisive response to the ill-timed and ill-advised article on US fan behaviour by Danny Willett's brother Peter helped limit the damage.
There were a few Americans in the crowd who lived down to PJ Willett's assessment - several "basement-dwelling irritants" among the huge galleries that swarmed over Hazeltine.
But the insults that flew in the direction of European stars such as McIlroy, Garcia and, of course, PJ's Masters-winning sibling were largely isolated incidents.
For the most part, the home support was passionately raucous and generated the most intense atmosphere I have experienced on a golf course. When you have such large numbers of people whipped into such a frenzy, there will always be a few who will take it too far.
It goes with the territory, but to have golf played and showcased in such an extraordinarily passionate environment can only be good for the growth of the game.
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America's triumph will heighten the sense of anticipation for the next Ryder Cup, in Paris in 2018.
Many of Europe's team in Minnesota will retain their places and will be stronger for this experience. The next skipper - probably Thomas Bjorn - is unlikely to have nearly as many debutants.
The US, meanwhile, have set their own blueprint for success.
"We need to build on this," said Mickelson. "Otherwise, it's all for nought. We created a very solid foundation this year.
"With the input that Davis Love had, and each vice-captain - Tom Lehman, Jim Furyk, Steve Stricker, Tiger Woods and Bubba Watson; all brought integral parts to the success of this foundation, and it's important we build on that.
"For us to go to Europe and try to win the cup is a whole different feat.
"That's going to require a whole different level of play, of solidarity, of fortitude and we are going to have to build on this if we want to try to retain the cup."
And with that, his captain popped the champagne bottle and Mickelson shut up, a happy man. | Amid smiles and laughter, it took a popped champagne bottle to shut him up. |
18,305,445 | Mr Putin, an ally of Syria, called for more time to be given to the peace plan of envoy Kofi Annan.
The US and UK have called on Moscow to strengthen its condemnation of the Syrian regime since last week's massacre in Houla, where 108 died.
Earlier, Moscow opposed a UN Human Rights Council resolution on Syria.
In an emergency session on Friday, the council condemned Syria over the Houla massacre and called for an investigation.
But Russia voted against the US-backed resolution, arguing that it was "unbalanced".
Meanwhile, a US government website
published satellite images
apparently showing a mass grave in the Houla area.
Correspondents say Mr Putin's latest remarks, made after a meeting with French President Francois Hollande, highlight the divisions between Moscow and Paris towards the conflict in Syria.
Speaking at a news conference, Mr Hollande called for further pressure and sanctions, and said the only solution was for President Bashar al-Assad to resign.
Satellite clues to Houla massacre
Houla: How a massacre unfolded
Timeline: Syria's massacres
He said Mr Assad's regime had conducted itself in an "unacceptable, intolerable way" and had committed acts that disqualified it from power.
"There is no possible exit from this situation except with the departure of Bashar Assad," he said.
Mr Putin, however, questioned calls for the Syrian president to quit.
"Why are we thinking that if we push the current leadership from power, then tomorrow general wellbeing will begin there," Mr Putin said.
"What is happening in Libya? What is happening in Iraq? Has it become safer there? We propose to act in an accurate, balanced manner at least in Syria."
He said the most important thing was to prevent the worst-case scenario of civil war.
There have been calls for more action to be taken in Syria to stop the violence, which has continued despite Mr Annan's six-point peace plan.
Speaking in Oslo on Friday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hit out at Russia saying she did not believe it was acting impartially.
"We know there has been a very consistent arms trade, even during the past year, coming from Russia to Syria. We also believe the continuous supply of arms from Russia has strengthened the Assad regime," she told a news conference.
On Thursday, Western officials confirmed a report that a Russian cargo ship had delivered heavy weapons to the Syrian port of Tartus last weekend.
Mr Putin has insisted that Russia was not supplying Syria with arms "that could be used in a civilian conflict".
Earlier, the UN Human Rights Council said it wanted investigators to identify the perpetrators of the killings in Houla.
In the vote, 41 members voted in favour of the US-backed resolution condemning Syria, while Russia, China and Cuba voted against it. Two other countries abstained and one was absent.
Residents of the village of Taldou, in Houla, said militiamen had been sent in early last Saturday after the Syrian army unleashed a barrage of heavy weapons late on Friday in response to a local anti-government protest.
The UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, said the killings in Houla may amount to crimes against humanity.
She said those who ordered attacks were "individually criminally liable", and urged the UN Security Council to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC), a move opposed by Russia and China.
As Syria is not a state party to the ICC the court has no jurisdiction to indict its citizens without a Security Council referral.
Meanwhile, opposition activists said there had been another mass killing of civilians by pro-government militiamen.
Thirteen factory workers were forced off a bus and executed on Thursday in al-Buwaida al-Sharqiya, near the western town of Qusair, they said.
Several videos posted online showed bodies with severe wounds to the head and stomach, consistent with being shot at close range. | Russia's President Vladimir Putin has resisted diplomatic pressure from Western nations to support tougher action against Syria's government. |
39,484,351 | No footballer has represented Wales 100 times and it is a very proud moment to have reached the milestone.
I have just flown in. I've come to Wales via Seattle, where I have been in pre-season preparation, and before that I was in Melbourne, which is where I last flew into Wales from, for the Cyprus Cup.
I am pretty exhausted from the travel and not entirely sure what time zone I am in, but now all the focus is on Wales.
I think when it comes on Wednesday it is going to be a little bit emotional and maybe a bit overwhelming too. I think that is when the emotion is going to kick in. I am pretty excited already.
My family are going to be at the game against Northern Ireland and it is huge for me that they will be there.
They have been with me for my whole career and are the reason I am where I am and that I am who I am, so if they didn't turn up, there would be questions asked! They deserve this moment as much, or more, than I do.
I never even thought about the possibility of getting to 100 caps, since my first game, I've always just wanted to play for Wales.
Even when I got to 50 caps, I thought another 50 was miles away.
I remember my first game was against Switzerland away in 2006. We won 3-2 and scored a free-kick from a training ground routine, which any footballer will tell you is one of the best feelings in the world, when that comes off. That was my first cap.
To have reached the milestone of 100 now is amazing. I am extremely proud. Football is full of opinions, so it feels nice to become a statistic.
The landscape of women's football, in Wales and globally, has changed dramatically in the time I have taken to make it to 100 caps. It is like a different sport now to what it was then.
Women's football has really jumped levels in the last five years, which is great to see. Ten years ago there was nothing, you literally had to pay to play.
I was extremely lucky because I was seven when I went to my first women's football club.
The Cardiff City Ladies team, if it wasn't for them and the coaches dedication, I would never have got anywhere. There was nothing for women in football back then.
They enabled a seven-year old to achieve their dream and I'll live it by playing for Wales for the 100th time.
I have told Jayne Ludlow, the national team manager, that I am 100% committed to this campaign, I can't say I will play past that, but for this campaign, I believe in what we are doing and I would really love to play in a major tournament. That is the dream.
We don't want to be that maybe team anymore. We want to be the team that makes it.
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I was disappointed when I landed in Wales and caught up with the news to hear the story about David Moyes and what he said to a female BBC reporter.
It is extremely patronising and I can't imagine David Moyes speaking like that if it was to a male reporter.
I don't think he would go to that tone or that way of speaking.
And I think this is something that male managers have to get used to. When a male manager is speaking to a female reporter, the way he speaks maybe has to be different, but it certainly does not have to be patronising. | It is a huge week in my life as I prepare to play for my country, Wales, for the 100th time on Wednesday. |
20,174,221 | Prison officers have been under threat from dissident republicans for a number of years now. There has been a general threat as well as specific threats against some individuals.
A number have had to move home under a government funded scheme after being informed that dissidents were monitoring their movements and they were being targeted for possible attack.
David Black is not believed to be one of those who had been warned.
"It was just a matter of time," was how one well-placed source responded to the news of the shooting.
The government's assessment of the threat level posed by dissident groups was increased to severe in February 2009, meaning an attack was regarded as highly likely.
Since then, dissidents have killed two police officers and two soldiers, and the assumption is that they were responsible for the killing of David Black.
In recent years the police have warned repeatedly that serving officers were the main focus for dissidents. Some prison officers believe the threat to them has been understated.
"There's a sense of anger," said one source. "Prison officers have been worried for some time now that they face an increasing threat, but many feel their concerns have been ignored. Now, they're saying their fears have been realised."
Dissident republicans and their supporters have been at loggerheads with the prison service in recent years in a dispute over the use of strip searching for prisoners entering and leaving Maghaberry high security prison near Lisburn.
There are currently 41 dissidents being held at Roe House in Maghaberry and many are taking part in a "no wash" protest.
Some are smearing excrement on the walls of their cells, others are throwing it out of their cells, and others are refusing to shave.
They say routine strip searching is an unnecessary humiliation and argue that electronic scanners like those used at airports are a secure alternative.
The prison service recently installed two electronic scanners in Magilligan Prison near Limavady and Hyde Bank Wood in south Belfast to test their effectiveness. It has said they may provide an alternative to full body searches.
It is a long running dispute. Back in August 2010, it was announced that a deal had been reached between the authorities and the prisoners in Roe House to end their protest.
Mediators brokered an agreement that included less restricted movement for prisoners and concessions on strip searching. To facilitate this, a new search facility was introduced and modifications were made to the prison exercise yards.
But the dissidents later accused the prison authorities of breaking the terms of the deal and resumed the protest. Since then, there have been growing fears about possible attacks on prison officers.
A prison service drive to recruit more Catholics may have been another motivating factor for those who killed David Black.
Hundreds of long-serving officers are leaving the prison service under an enhanced redundancy scheme, with their places being taken by new recruits.
Just last week the new head of the prison service, Sue McAllister, expressed disappointment at the low number of applications from Catholics for the new posts advertised and said attracting more would be a priority.
Those who carried out this shooting may hope it deters young Catholics from applying.
In terms of who was responsible, there are a number of possibilities.
The Continuity IRA is active in the Lurgan area and was responsible for murdering Constable Stephen Carroll in March 2009. Just a few weeks ago, two men were arrested on the outskirts of the town in a police operation aimed at the group.
A new organisation calling itself the IRA was formed during the summer, bringing together the Real IRA, Republican Action Against Drugs, and a group of non-aligned republicans - a number of whom are believed to be based in the Craigavon area.
As David Black was from Cookstown, the police will also look at the possibility that dissidents based in County Tyrone may have been involved. | There is a sense of shock at the first killing of a prison officer in Northern Ireland for almost 20 years, but not surprise. |
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Mahrez slipped as he took a second-half spot-kick that diverted the ball onto his standing foot before it looped into the net.
Referee Bobby Madley gave a free-kick to Man City because of the two touches.
"The shot was strange but the rule is clear. Two touches, the same as golf," said Man City manager Pep Guardiola.
"It is not normal."
Had the goal stood, it would have made the scoreline 2-2 after Leicester had trailed 2-0.
Shakespeare accepted there were two touches, but felt the penalty could have been retaken because of opposition players encroaching in the area.
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"I didn't see it at the time. It's a freak thing you don't see often," he said.
"To the letter of the law it's a double touch, but he could bring it back for an encroachment from Manchester City so there's a bit of injustice. It's bad luck from our point of view."
Leicester winger Marc Albrighton received a nasty bruise under his eye after being caught by Fernandinho's elbow in a second-half challenge.
Albrighton was unhappy at the incident and was later booked for a wild challenge on the Brazilian.
However, after seeing a replay of the clash, Shakespeare said: "I have sympathy with Marc but there is no intent. It was a competitive challenge. Marc understands that."
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Man City's opener came amid controversy, as Raheem Sterling was stood in an offside position when he stretched to reach David Silva's shot.
Sterling failed to touch the ball, with the goal awarded to Silva, but Foxes keeper Kasper Schmeichel was angered by the decision.
"The Man City player is in an offside position when the ball is struck," he said.
"The ball goes across him, which prevents me seeing. He's stood in front of Christian Fuchs, and he also goes for the ball - so it's three times offside.
"If he's in the six-yard box he's influencing something in there. I think the rule needs to be looked at. He might be onside and get a flick on it and I have to take that into consideration." | Riyad Mahrez's disallowed penalty in Leicester's 2-1 loss against Manchester City was a "freak" occurrence, said Foxes boss Craig Shakespeare. |
37,691,160 | Official statistics showed passengers made 119 million fewer journeys in 2015-16 than the year before, a fall of 2.6%.
London also recorded its first drop in bus use since 2012 as congestion increased.
Transport for London (TfL) said it expected new "Hopper" fares to reverse the decline.
Campaigners blamed congestion, which they said has slowed the pace of buses to almost walking speed, for the decline.
The Department for Transport (DfT) said a drop in bus mileage was "largely due" to a fall in the number of services subsidised by councils.
Bus fares had increased 1.8% but the DfT said this was "similar" to other price rises in line with the 1.6% Retail Price Index of inflation.
There were 4.5 billion journeys made by bus in England in 2015-16, the lowest figure since 2006.
In the capital, bus usage was down 3% in a year, to 2.29 billion journeys.
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Research by the Campaign for Better Transport (CBT) has found subsidies for bus routes had been reduced by £78 million since 2010, leading to cuts in services, particularly in rural areas.
Get the data here
Lianna Etkind, public transport campaigner at the CBT, said: "The news that bus use is falling in London is worrying, but as buses are now moving only marginally faster through the city than the average adult can walk, it's hardly surprising.
"Congestion is bringing London to a standstill and needs to be urgently tackled."
Gareth Powell, TfL's Director of Strategy for Surface Transport, said there had been a "small reduction" in bus journeys due to congestion caused by a number of factors, including development across London and "increased internet delivery traffic".
But "bus network reliability has now stabilised," he said, and the completion of major road projects and the introduction of a "Hopper" fare was expected to have a positive effect on passenger numbers.
A DfT spokesman said: "We provide some £250 million a year to support bus services in England and about £1 billion is spent annually to give nearly 10 million older and disabled people in England off-peak bus travel." | Bus use across England has fallen to its lowest for a decade, new figures reveal. |
36,421,272 | Emergency services were called to Rodway Road, Patchway at about 13:00 BST on Monday. Officers are treating the death as unexplained.
The property is currently cordoned off to allow for an examination to be carried out by a forensic team.
Avon and Somerset Police said a 42-year-old woman has been arrested and remains in custody. | A woman has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter after a woman's body was found in Bristol. |
21,936,927 | About one in every 20 children aged five to 16 has a conduct disorder - persistent and extreme misbehaviour.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidelines outline how to spot and treat these conditions.
They say parents should play a central role in this.
While all children can be naughty from time to time, the behaviour of children with conduct disorders is different.
They persistently misbehave - both at home and in school - and their actions can be extreme and harmful.
As well as stealing, fighting or vandalising property, they might hurt people and animals, for example.
Prof Steven Pilling, who helped develop the guidelines, said: "Children with conduct disorders are different. It's not a bit of tantruming or getting into trouble now and then. It's picking up the 14in TV and throwing it through the window."
He said it was important that parents be taught how to handle this type of behaviour.
"Firmness and saying 'No' is not the solution for these children. We need to get parents to switch the focus from being controlling and punitive to encouraging positive behaviour," he said.
About half of children with antisocial behaviour or conduct disorders not only miss out on parts of their childhood but also go on to have serious mental health problems as adults. Some go on to be repeated offenders.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), who jointly developed the guidelines, say early intervention is essential to break this chain.
Prof Peter Fonagy, a professor of psychoanalysis at University College London who co-authored the guidelines, said: "All children can be naughty, defiant and impulsive from time to time, which is perfectly normal. However, some children have extremely difficult and challenging behaviours that are outside the norm for their age.
"Recognising and accurately diagnosing a conduct disorder is vital to ensuring children and their families are able to access the treatment and support they need to manage the condition."
Fiona is a mother of a child with a conduct disorder. She said: "It is not just the child who is affected by a conduct disorder; it can have a significant impact on their brothers or sisters, their parents, family members, teachers and other people they come into contact with.
"Real practical support and advice is needed to help parents manage their child's condition, such as what to say to calm the child when they are very distressed to avoid inflaming the situation." | A health watchdog has issued guidelines to help parents distinguish between naughtiness and more worrying behaviour in their children that might need medical intervention. |
39,973,999 | Media playback is not supported on this device
The Reds are fourth in the Premier League and host Middlesbrough on Sunday (15:00 BST) knowing victory will earn Champions League football next term.
They last played in the competition in 2014-15 after finishing second.
"The world is not full of players who will make us better immediately but clearly there are a few out there," said German Klopp.
"We have spoken to them.
"We have a really good side when our first 11, 12, 13, 14 players are fit."
The Anfield club have reportedly had a £64.6m bid rejected for Monaco striker Kylian Mbappe and been linked with moves for Roma winger Mohamed Salah, Southampton defender Virgil van Dijk and Fulham left-back Ryan Sessegnon.
Liverpool were top of the table in November and in contention for the title at the turn of the year, but injuries to key players - such as Sadio Mane, Philippe Coutinho and Adam Lallana - at various stages derailed their challenge.
They suffered a shock defeat by Wolves in the fourth round of the FA Cup in January and were knocked out of the EFL Cup at the semi-final stage by Southampton.
But Klopp, in his first full season in charge after replacing the sacked Brendan Rodgers in October 2015, said a return to Europe's elite club competition by finishing in the top four will be a "successful" campaign.
A third-place finish would earn direct qualification for the group stage, while finishing fourth will mean they would have to contest a two-legged play-off match.
Klopp added: "The Champions League, for different reasons, is a wonderful competition.
"You can earn a lot of money there - that is money we did not have last year. That is very interesting and is one part of it, but we are already in a good position.
"We are a club without financial problems and we have money to spend, but it makes sense to think before we spend and that is what we are doing."
Media playback is not supported on this device | Liverpool "have spoken" to transfer targets for next season, says manager Jurgen Klopp. |
36,246,751 | Media playback is not supported on this device
Jay Donnelly headed the hosts ahead but Glentoran replied with a Curtis Allen free-kick and Jay Magee header.
Cliftonville keeper Conor Devlin and Glentoran's Chris Lavery were sent-off for fighting and the Glens were down to nine when Barry Holland was red-carded.
Cliftonville equalised with a James Knowles penalty and got an 80th-minute winner through sub David McDaid.
Cliftonville's win is worth at least £160,000 in Uefa qualification payments.
They took the lead in the 11th minute when Donnelly headed in from close-range after his first effort had come off the crossbar.
Glentoran equalised through a superb free-kick from 22 yards by striker Allen and defender Magee headed in from a Chris Lavery corner five minutes later for 2-1.
Cliftonville claimed they should have had a penalty for hand ball against Jay Magee but referee Raymond Crangle felt the contact had been accidental.
The first half ended with players getting involved in a mass brawl and keeper Devlin and midfielder Lavery were shown red cards in the tunnel.
Glentoran were then reduced to nine when skipper Holland brought down Stephen Garrett in the box.
Jay Donnelly took the resulting penalty but Glens keeper Elliott Morris saved it.
Then came another penalty for hands by Curtis Allen and this time Knowles found the net for 2-2 in the 63rd minute.
In the end, Glentoran were running out of steam and the winner came in the 80th minute when McDaid scored with a shot from just outside the penalty area.
Cliftonville manager Gerard Lyttle: "It was all about digging deep and I have to applaud the players for that.
"To be fair to Glentoran they played their part. They had two players sent off but made it hard for us.
"I am over the moon for everyone involved. The ultimate goal was to qualify for Europe and we have won a cup as well."
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Glentoran manager Alan Kernaghan: "The game was there for us to have but decisions and indiscipline cost us.
"I think the half-time incident hurt us more than Cliftonville. We just could not get going after that.
"I am hugely proud of the players in terms of what they did. They gave it everything and should not be too down on themselves." | Cliftonville sealed a place in next season's Europa League with a dramatic 3-2 win over Glentoran at Solitude. |
28,430,298 | Very quickly, in addition to smuggling weapons, the tunnel operators began importing any kind of sellable civilian wares.
After Israel withdrew from Gaza, the number of smuggling tunnels jumped from a few dozen to hundreds as more and more Gazans got involved in this lucrative business.
Taxes imposed by the Hamas government on the imports were a major source of its revenue. After the Egyptian military overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood government, the new regime shut down these tunnels - this being one of the causes of the present economic crisis in Gaza.
From 2001 the Palestinians began using explosive-filled tunnels to attack Israeli border posts. There were not many attempts to do this because the effort far exceeded the benefit - casualties were light and it was much easier to achieve them by other means.
In 2006, the Palestinians tried something new - a tunnel was dug underneath the Gaza-Israel border and an assault team emerged behind an Israeli border post.
The Israeli soldiers were surprised - two were killed, one wounded and one - Gilad Shalit - abducted.
After taking control of Gaza, Hamas began a project to build a maze of underground concrete bunkers connected with tunnels and multiple entrances and exits underneath the residential areas of Gaza.
These underground complexes are fairly similar in concept to the Viet Cong tunnels dug beneath the jungles of South Vietnam, though the quality of finishing is better, with concrete walls and roofs, electricity and other required amenities for lengthy sojourn.
Maintenance of a concrete tunnel is fairly simple - virtually nil unless there is groundwater that needs pumping. Without the concrete walls and roof the tunnel would gradually deteriorate (in the area of Gaza most of the soil is soft, with very little bedrock) and require re-digging and shoring up.
The smuggling tunnels under the border with Egypt are generally bigger and better equipped to enable continuous operation and transfer of bulky items, whereas infiltration tunnels are meant to be used at most once or twice and only wide enough for an armed man to walk through.
The purpose of the defensive tunnels is to enable the Hamas command structure to reside safely underground while their armed forces conduct a mobile defence against Israeli forces.
Many of the tunnels are interconnected to enable travelling underground from one to the other, with multiple camouflaged openings to emerge above ground in different locations.
This enables surprise attacks on the IDF units from different directions and then disappearing again underground to emerge and attack somewhere else.
The exact extent of these complexes is not known, though the Israeli army estimates there are dozens.
The entrances and probably the tunnels themselves are booby-trapped with explosives. These were first used during the Israeli offensive against Gaza in 2008-09. They were deemed successful so the project was expanded and accelerated.
After the failure of Hamas' rocket forces to inflict significant damage on Israeli towns in November 2012, they decided to build a large offensive-tunnel capability that would enable them to infiltrate assault teams into Israeli villages within a few kilometres of the border or place large bombs underneath these villages.
The IDF knew of this plan but failed to find and destroy more than a few tunnels.
Detecting tunnels requires either detecting the entrance to the tunnel or "seeing" the tunnel itself with various acoustic, seismic or radar detection devices.
Even after detecting an entrance, one does not know the exact route of the tunnel from there to the border.
To hide the tunnel work from Israeli intelligence, the entrances are mostly located on the bottom floor of houses, mosques, schools or other public buildings.
Digging smuggling and offensive tunnels is a long manual process, usually of several months, because the use of motor diggers would create a noise that could be heard by Israeli listening posts.
Removal of the earth from the site is done gradually and camouflaged by various ruses.
As yet no reliable technology has been developed that can cover a wide area and see a man-sized tunnel to a depth of more than a few meters underground.
The tunnels dug by Hamas are usually about 65ft (20m) underground - so, even if you know the approximate location, they are almost impossible to detect.
Therefore to discover the tunnels, the Israelis must either have excellent intelligence from within Gaza or they must go in and search for them house by house.
Destroying a tunnel is a lengthy and somewhat complex operation because just blowing in the entrance or some of the airshafts leave most of the tunnel intact, so Hamas sappers will be able to quickly dig by-pass sections and continue to use the tunnel.
Therefore, the entire length of the tunnel and its branches must be located, mapped and then completely destroyed.
Dr Eado Hecht is a defence analyst and lecturer in military doctrine at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University.
Correction 5 February 2015: This page has been amended following complaints that were upheld by the BBC's Editorial Complaints Unit. | The use of tunnels in Gaza began approximately a decade and a half ago, on the border with Egypt, to smuggle weapons into Gaza under the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) border security. |
39,949,527 | The 20-year-old made 38 appearances for Gateshead this season, having joining in June 2016 after leaving Barnsley.
Smith had played 25 league games for the Tykes in 2015-16 as they won promotion to the Championship.
He has signed a two-year contract with Justin Edinburgh's League One side, providing competition for fellow left-back David Buchanan.
"That's the reason why I've come here, because I feel I can give him competition," Smith told BBC Radio Northampton.
"I can learn stuff off him and make myself a better player, but first and foremost try to take his shirt off him."
Find all the latest football transfers on our dedicated page. | Northampton Town have signed left-back George Smith from National League side Gateshead for an undisclosed fee. |
31,656,670 | What has been leaked overnight is that in some way he will pay for the £2bn-or-so upfront costs with cuts to tax reliefs on pensions.
All of this, right now, begs a huge number of questions.
Here are a few for the Labour leader to answer when he gives the detail of the reform at midday.
Can he make sure that the fee cut doesn't disproportionately help future high earners?
The Institute of Fiscal Studies calculates that a cut in fees from £9000 to £6000 will give almost zero help to graduates who will be in the bottom 50% of earners, such as teachers - in that under the current system they would expect to have much of their student debt written off when they enter their 50s.
Or to put it another way, cutting the fees would largely and exclusively help those who under the current system pay them off rapidly because they are on high earnings.
In other words, there is a likelihood that Ed Miliband will be helping graduates who go to work for hedge funds and Goldman Sachs.
Which he might say is a good thing, if those young hedgies and investment bankers come from poor families.
But if the IFS points out - which it plans to do - that he is disproportionately helping the top 10-20% of earners, that might be embarrassing to him.
There is obviously another set of issues around the funding of our universities - reassuring them that they will have the funds and autonomy to deliver the world class skills that the UK's economic future requires. Many of them have already publicly stated their opposition to the fee cut.
And finally there are bound to be big issues about the fairness or otherwise of whatever further tax raid there is on pension savings.
In recent years, our pensions have been the seemingly bottomless purse from which Tory and Labour chancellors have extracted many billions, from abolishing the tax credit for pension funds on dividends, to progressively shrinking the size of our pension pots, to limiting the amount we can put into pensions each year.
For Labour's shadow chancellor there have however been quite a few options for milking our pensions even more. They include:
If he goes with logic, he may shrink the size of the tax-free lump sum available on retirement. Since it has always seemed a bit odd to some that there should be tax breaks both on saving and on cashing in a pension.
But although limiting the tax breaks to the saving might appear rational, it would certainly cause a sharp intake of breath for those currently approaching retirement and already banking on that lovely tax-free nest egg.
As for limiting tax relief on saving, it could potentially raise billions if it was targeted on all 40% rate earners. But it would be quite a brave Labour Party leader who announced a thinly disguised tax rise for the more than four million households in this tax bracket. And neither Ed Balls or Ed Miliband would presumably wish to sign what some would see as a general election suicide pact. | So as I mentioned a few weeks ago, Ed Miliband is about to confirm his plan to cut student tuition fees from £9,000 to £6,000. |
33,595,370 | An independent panel appointed by Toshiba found institutional accounting irregularities, the firm said in a statement to investors.
Toshiba said it "takes the situation it has caused very seriously" and that it "deeply apologised" to shareholders.
The overstatement was roughly triple an initial Toshiba estimate.
The probe could lead to a restatement of earnings, a board overhaul and potential action by regulators.
"Within Toshiba, there was a corporate culture in which one could not go against the wishes of superiors," the report said.
"Therefore, when top management presented 'challenges', division presidents, line managers and employees below them continually carried out inappropriate accounting practices to meet targets in line with the wishes of their superiors."
The improper accounting practices stretched back to 2008. | Toshiba overstated its operating profit by a total of 151.8bn yen ($1.22bn, £780m) over several years, according to the findings of a probe. |
33,288,684 | The 19-year-old Switzerland Under-19 international, who was out of contract with the English Premier League club, has agreed a four-year deal.
Celtic hope Janko, for whom they will pay United a compensation fee, will complete his medical on Thursday.
Janko spent the end of last season on loan at Bolton Wanderers with former Celtic boss Neil Lennon.
As well as right-back, he can also play as a central defender or a right-sided midfielder.
After joining United from FC Zurich in 2013, Janko made his senior debut in a League Cup defeat by MK Dons in August.
He subsequently made 10 appearances for Bolton, scoring on his debut in Wanderers' win over Fulham in February.
Janko becomes Celtic's second summer signing, central defender Dedryck Boyata having arrived from Manchester City.
Celtic have also had a bid for striker Nadir Ciftci rejected by Dundee United.
Find all the latest football transfers on our dedicated page. | Celtic have completed the signing of right-back Saidy Janko from Manchester United subject to a medical. |
37,470,707 | Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board (ABMU) said patients could face significant difficulties seeing their doctor as the population grows.
The proposals would place GP, dental, research, fitness and library facilities under one roof.
ABMU said move was the best way to "promote good health".
Sian Harrop-Griffiths, ABMU's director of strategy said the proposals were still in the early stages and nothing was set in stone.
"The NHS is facing rising costs, increasing demand and an ageing population, by working across all sectors we aim to tackle these issues by putting prevention and improved health and wellbeing in a joined up way," she said.
Discussions are taking place to see if the wellness centre could be part of the Swansea city centre regeneration plans.
A report being considered by Swansea Public Services Board - a partnership of local agencies including Swansea Council and ABMU - says the hub would help ease pressures at GP surgeries, many of which are out-of-date and "unsuitable" for dealing with modern health care provision.
It warns that problems recruiting GPs teamed with increasing demand threaten the sustainability of primary health care in the city.
Earlier this month the British Medical Association (BMA) warned primary care was in "crisis" in Wales, saying more family doctors could quit unless surgeries get more support.
The proposed centre would provide GP services for 35,000 patients as well as housing dental, sexual health, podiatry, speech and language and mental health services for around 150,000 people.
A GP academy, library, fitness facility, art therapy and computer courses could also be based in the building.
Proposals for the 7,000 square-metre centre are being looked at by Swansea Public Services Board as part of the wider regeneration plans. | Health bosses are hoping to open a wellness centre and GP academy in Swansea to ease the "acute" pressures facing primary care. |
37,652,612 | Nike will provide the London club's kit from the 2017-18 season, after the Premier League team said in May it was ending its Adidas deal six years early.
The deal is reported to be worth £60m a season for the next 15 years, but the club did not confirm any cash figures.
Chelsea said it was an "incredibly exciting and important deal" for it.
Nike will produce strips for the first team, academy and ladies teams, as well as replica kit and clothing for the club's fans.
Like most large Premier League clubs Chelsea is looking to expand its fan, and commercial, base into areas such as East and South East Asia, and also North America.
Chelsea director Marina Granovskaia said: "We believe Nike will be able to support our growth into new markets as well as helping us maintain our place among the world's elite football clubs."
The Stamford Bridge club's deal with Nike is believed to be worth double its previous deal with Germany's Adidas, which was worth £30m a season.
Rivals Manchester United's have the most valuable Premier League kit deal, which it signed with Adidas in July 2014 and is worth £750m over 10 years. | Chelsea has signed a new kit deal with US sportswear giants Nike, in an agreement which marks the largest commercial deal in the club's history. |
35,395,010 | Fire crews were called to the Swindon site on Saturday morning.
Four fire engines and an aerial unit dealt with a fire in the die cast facility which was evacuated.
A spokesman for the firm said: "A small equipment fire occurred...while routine weekend maintenance work was taking place.
"Two associates were taken to hospital as a precautionary measure."
He added: "There will be no adverse impact to production which will continue as normal on Monday morning."
The Japanese firm employs about 2,500 workers in Swindon, which is described as the "global hub" for Honda's five-door Civic model. | Production at Honda's factory in Wiltshire will go ahead "as normal," following a fire which left two workers needing hospital treatment. |
26,624,641 | Another 27 were wounded in the attack in Maymana, the capital of Faryab province, provincial governor Mohammadullah Batash said.
The bomber is believed to have detonated his explosives near the entrance to a busy market.
The attack comes as Afghans prepare to hold presidential elections on 5 April.
No group has so far said it carried out the bombing.
However, Taliban insurgents and the al-Qaeda affiliated group the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan are active in the volatile region.
Mr Batash said the attacker had been riding a three-wheel motorcycle when he detonated his explosives.
"It was a local market day. Hundreds of local farmers and villagers bring their produce. All of those killed and injured are civilians," he said.
Witness Sayed Agha, 43, told the BBC: "I was busy buying bread when I heard a huge bang. I saw dead bodies and blood all around me."
Correspondents say security is likely to be severely tested during the election, where candidates include warlords and former guerrilla leaders from the civil war in the 1990s.
The Taliban have threatened to target anyone who takes part in the polls.
In recent days, the country's election commission has closed 396 polling centres in 15 provinces citing security concerns, says the BBC's Bilal Sarwary in Kabul.
The majority were closed in Faryab province, our correspondent adds.
The last remaining contingent of Nato-led forces is due to leave the country by the end of the year, having handed over security to Afghan forces.
The United Nations says 2,959 civilians were killed and 5,656 wounded in Afghanistan last year, a 14% rise from the previous year. | A suicide bomb attack in northern Afghanistan has killed at least 15 people including women and children, officials have told the BBC. |
37,526,320 | Jackie Walker has faced criticism over comments made at the anti-Semitism event and on social media, and had been under pressure to quit.
Ms Walker told Channel 4: "I certainly wouldn't call myself an anti-Semite."
Labour said it did not comment on individual party memberships.
Earlier, the TSSA union said it would "seriously reconsider" its support for Momentum if Ms Walker remained in place and the group said its steering committee would meet on Monday to seek her removal.
But a spokesman for Momentum, the left-wing grassroots organisation set up in wake of Jeremy Corbyn's 2015 election as Labour leader, said: "Members of Momentum's steering committee are seeking to remove Jackie Walker as vice-chair of the committee."
Ms Walker was previously suspended by the Labour Party over comments made on social media in which she claimed that "many Jews (my ancestors too) were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade" but was re-admitted following an investigation.
But a leaked video emerged on Wednesday of her saying at an anti-Semitism training event: "I came here... with an open mind and I was seeking information and I still haven't heard a definition of anti-Semitism that I can work with". She also questioned why Holocaust Memorial Day was not more wide ranging.
Ms Walker later told Channel 4 News she was not challenging the definition of anti-Semitism but rather "wanted to be clear what we were talking about" at the training event.
Asked if she would describe herself as an anti-Zionist and not an anti-Semite, she said: "Yes. I certainly wouldn't call myself an anti-Semite as I am Jewish and my partner is Jewish."
Manuel Cortes, general secretary of the TSSA union, which backed Momentum and Mr Corbyn's leadership, said on Thursday he was "deeply saddened that a fellow member of our Labour and trade union family holds such anti-Semitic views" and said she should not be allowed to "remain active within our party".
"I am asking Jackie that in the interests of unity she resigns at once from our party and also as vice-chair of Momentum.
"If she doesn't, both the Labour Party and Momentum need to act to get rid of her at once.
"We would seriously need to consider our union's support for Momentum if she is still in post by this time next week."
In an interview with Channel 4 News, Ms Walker said she had not intended to offend anyone.
Asked whether she had thought about resigning, given criticism from some Jewish groups, she said: "Some other prominent Jewish groups, of which I'm a member, think a very different thing.
"What we have to look at when we're talking about this subject, particularly at the moment, is the political differences that are underlying this as well."
Whoever leaked the video "had malicious intent in their mind", she said.
Ms Walker said she was anti-Zionist, rather than anti-Semitic: "Zionism is a political ideology and, like any political ideology, some people will be supportive and some people won't be supportive of it."
What's the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism?
Ms Walker previously had support from six Jewish Labour activists who issued a statement saying she had been subject to a witch-hunt.
Mr Corbyn has denied there is a "crisis" in the party amid accusations of anti-Semitism in its ranks.
Labour MP Naz Shah and former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone were among those to be suspended over allegations of anti-Semitism.
A review of the issue of racism in Labour, led by former Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti, found the party was "not overrun by anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or other forms of racism".
But the report was criticised by Jewish leaders and MPs, who said its credibility was undermined because Ms Chakrabarti was nominated for a peerage by Labour just weeks after its release. | The vice-chairwoman of pro-Corbyn group Momentum has been suspended by the Labour Party over controversial comments she made at a party training event, it has been reported. |
37,849,862 | The report finds that by 2030 the amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere will be some 25% above that mark.
The analysis takes into account the pledges that countries have made under the Paris climate agreement.
Many scientists say that technology to remove carbon from the air will now be needed to meet the Paris targets.
The UN Emissions Gap Report, prepared by an international team of scientists, finds that by 2030, global emissions are expected to reach 54 to 56 gigatonnes of CO2.
The authors say this is far above the 42 gigatonnes needed to have a good chance of staying below 2 degrees by the end of the century, and a long way from the 39 gigatonnes needed to keep to 1.5 degrees as was promised in Paris last December.
A gigatonne is roughly the equivalent of the annual emissions produced by all forms of transport in the European Union.
While the report notes that the growth of emissions from fossil fuel use and industry is now slowing, this scale of carbon would put the world on track for a rise in temperatures by the end of this century of between 2.9 and 3.4 degrees C.
"We are moving in the right direction: the Paris Agreement will slow climate change, as will the recent Kigali Amendment to reduce HFCs," said Erik Solheim, head of UN Environment.
"They both show strong commitment, but it's still not good enough if we are to stand a chance of avoiding serious climate change."
The report suggests that there are some areas where progress can be made. The assessment of the plans of the richer G20 countries indicates that some are in line to deliver greater reductions than planned.
The UN review also suggests that the contributions from cities, businesses and other "non-state actors", as they are termed, could reduce emissions by a few crucial gigatonnes.
The UN also says that ambitious action on energy efficiency in buildings and in transport and other areas could help drive down carbon significantly. Investments in this area were up by 6% in 2015 to $221bn.
But with global temperatures in 2016 at one degree above pre-industrial levels, there is a growing acknowledgement that even the most ambitious attempts will not be enough to keep to the 1.5 degree target in play.
The UN report says that "most scenarios that limit warming to below 2 or 1.5 degrees assume the use of so-called negative emissions technologies in the second half of the century".
This will involve the active and permanent removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by planting trees for example, and by the deployment of technologies like bio-energy with carbon capture and storage, or BECCS for short.
This means growing crops that absorb CO2 and then burning them for energy while capturing and storing the warming gas they produce.
"At the moment most of the discussion is about BECCS, so we need to identify suitable areas to sequester carbon and make sure it doesn't leak out. That takes time and technology," said Dr Ed Hawkins from the University of Reading, UK.
"We need to develop the understanding of what that will do for the climate. If we grow all these biofuels in places does that mean we can't grow so much food everywhere? There are these constant trade-offs that we need to consider."
With the Paris Agreement becoming operational on 4 November, and delegates from almost 200 countries meeting in Marrakech next week to consider the next steps, experts are hoping that governments will not just bask in the glory of a job well done, but will see the COP22 gathering as a chance to push forward with ambition.
"I hope that they will agree to lower their nationally determined contributions," Prof Joanna Haigh from Imperial College London, UK, told BBC News.
"It's fantastic that they got the Paris Agreement but their contributions at the moment are nowhere near the 1.5-degree target.
"I think the momentum is such that countries all understand that something extra now needs to be done. The thought process has moved on a step."
Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathBBC and on Facebook. | A UN review of national plans to cut carbon says they are well short of the levels needed to keep the rise in global temperatures under 2C. |
35,603,163 | The Metro Mass Transit coach reportedly collided head-on with a cargo truck carrying tomatoes near the town of Kintampo on Wednesday evening.
Regional police chief Maxwell Atingane told Reuters news agency that many passengers died at the scene.
He said police were investigating the cause of the crash, believed to be one of the worst in many years.
Joy News, a Ghanaian website, reported that a passenger told police that the bus had been experiencing brake problems.
Investigators said the bus was overloaded, carrying more than 70 passengers rather than a maximum of 63.
The coach was travelling north from Kumasi, the second largest city after Accra, the capital.
Fifty-eight of the 71 were already dead when they were brought to the hospital in Kintampo, said Bismark Owusu Fosu, the hospital director.
A further 10 died after admission, and another three people died at a nearby hospital, he added.
Anger has spread against some people on social media who shared horrific pictures of the aftermath, the BBC's Sammy Darko reports from Accra.
Emergency services are said to have worked for hours to try to free passengers trapped in the wreckage.
President John Mahama offered his condolences to "those who've lost loved ones" via Twitter. | The number of people killed when a bus crashed into a truck in northern Ghana has risen to 71, medical officials say. |
26,558,157 | "We're not making a Smurfs 3 film," said its director Kelly Asbury.
"Our story will explore the beginnings of the beloved little blue creatures in a fun full CG-animated comedy-adventure for every generation to enjoy."
The August 2015 release will follow two live action/CGI "hybrids" in which the Smurfs interacted with human actors.
The new film, Asbury added, "will be stylistically closer to the original artwork created by Peyo".
Peyo was the pen name of Pierre Culliford, the Belgian comic book artist who in 1958 created Les Schtroumpfs, as they are known in their home country.
Asbury's previous films include 2011's Gnomeo & Juliet and 2004's Shrek 2, which he co-directed with Andrew Adamson and Conrad Vernon.
Released in 2011, the first Smurfs film made $142.6m (£85.6m) in the US and Canada and more than $563.7m (£338.4m) worldwide, according to the Box Office Mojo website.
Yet its 2013 follow-up did not perform as strongly, making just $71m (£42.6m) in North America and £347.5m (£208.6m) in total.
It is not known whether US singer Katy Perry will return to provide the voice for Smurfette, the only female in the fantasy village where her mischievous species reside.
Sony Pictures Animation has also announced plans for a fully computer-generated return of spinach-eating sailor Popeye, to be directed by Genndy Tartakovsky of Hotel Transylvania fame. | The third Smurfs film will be a wholly computer-animated affair that will take the popular cartoon characters in "a completely new fresh direction". |
39,774,164 | Media playback is not supported on this device
Briton Joshua, 27, unified the heavyweight division by stopping Wladimir Klitschko in the 11th round of their fight at Wembley on Saturday.
"All sports need flag-bearers," said Hearn, whose son Eddie promotes Joshua for their Matchroom Sport agency.
"Joshua is the finest role model I have seen in sport."
Saturday's thrilling victory - in front of a post-war British record 90,000 fans - means former Olympic champion Joshua is unbeaten in 19 fights as a professional and is now the WBA and IBF world champion.
Woods, 41, won the Masters as a 21-year-old and has since added a further 13 major titles.
The American is credited with changing the face of golf.
"The Joshua effect is very similar to the Tiger Woods effect, where people who are not so interested suddenly become interested, where young people become aspirational to follow in someone's footsteps," said Hearn.
Meanwhile, Tyson Fury has claimed he could beat Joshua with "one arm tied behind my back".
Joshua called out his compatriot, who beat Klitschko on points in November 2015, after his victory on Saturday.
"Styles do make fights but I am sure I can beat AJ with one arm tied behind my back," Fury said in a Sky Sports interview.
'I don't even need a warm-up if he wants this."
Fury, 28, is unbeaten as a professional, with 18 knockouts in 25 fights, but surrendered his world heavyweight titles in an effort to focus on his mental health problems and is currently without a boxing licence and out of condition.
Media playback is not supported on this device | World heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua can do for boxing what Tiger Woods has done for golf in the past 20 years, says promoter Barry Hearn. |
25,455,202 | However, the chief inspector of prisons also praised it as "well led", with competent and caring staff.
He said that the jail - which was built for 317 inmates, but houses more than 500 - was making progress.
Last year, the Prison Reform Trust said Exeter was the fifth most overcrowded jail in the UK, with 530 inmates.
The report, by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons, also highlighted that while prisoners at risk of self-harm were well cared for, improvement was needed, "particularly as there had been three self-inflicted deaths at the prison since its last inspection in 2009".
It said the typical Victorian prison was "old and difficult to maintain", adding there was "limited space and significant overcrowding", both in terms of the availability of accommodation and access to amenities and services.
But Nick Hardwick, chief inspector of prisons, said that, despite these challenges, it was a "broadly good report".
He added: "Overall, and despite some weaknesses and gaps, Exeter is one of the better older local prisons we have seen recently.
"There are clear structural challenges for the prison, not least the poor environment and the lack of space, but the prison is well led, and is not overwhelmed by these challenges. There is meaningful work to tackle risks and a sense that progress is being made."
Michael Spurr, chief executive officer of the National Offender Management Service, said: "Exeter is a safe local prison where staff are working well with offenders.
"There are challenges in running the Victorian prison, but I am pleased that the chief inspector has acknowledged the good work that is being done there, especially in resettlement, respect and safety." | Exeter Prison is "significantly overcrowded" with the use of illicit drugs "higher than expected", an unannounced inspection has found. |
32,115,292 | The firms have all notified their users of the incidents, which varied in approach and do not appear to be connected.
In addition, several Uber users have complained of their accounts being hacked.
However, the car pick-up service said it had "found no evidence of a breach".
The firms have dealt with the attacks in different ways, and BA has been criticised for how it responded.
Complaints about points being stolen from the BA's Executive Club scheme date back at least a fortnight.
One user said their account had been used by someone else to book a hotel room in Spain, while others reported that their list of transactions showed "ex-gratia" deductions that had wiped out their entire credit.
"I checked my account yesterday and found that the mobile number had been changed to a Russian one. I changed it back and my miles are still there. Passwords now changed," reported another member, who appeared to have had a narrow escape.
A spokesman for BA said that it believed only "a small number" of its frequent flyers were affected.
"This appears to have been the result of a third party using information obtained elsewhere on the internet, via an automated process, to try to gain access to some accounts," he said.
"We would like to reassure customers that, at this stage, we are not aware of any access to any subsequent information pages within accounts, including travel histories or payment card details."
Security experts have, however, raised concern that BA initially sent out emails asking users to click on a link to reset their passwords.
"That's a classic trick used by criminals phishing for login credentials," noted security consultant Graham Cluley.
BA said it had removed the link from subsequent emails and suggested concerned members contact its service centre.
The attack on San Francisco-based GitHub - which is used by more than 8 million software developers - has involved an attempt to knock its site offline by flooding it with traffic.
"We are currently experiencing the largest DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack in GitHub's history," systems engineer Jesse Newland wrote on its blog.
"These include... some sophisticated new techniques that use the web browsers of unsuspecting, uninvolved people to flood GitHub with high levels of traffic.
"Based on reports we've received, we believe the intent of this attack is to convince us to remove a specific class of content."
The reports suggest the data barrage was specifically directed at web pages providing China-based users with a way to circumvent local censorship controls.
"It does look like someone in China is fighting back, as we predicted they would, against those who are trying to circumvent the 'great firewall of China'," commented security consultant Alan Woodward.
"Ask most developers and they are likely to be using GitHub in some way, so assuming it is China this looks like their censorship attempts are now having global impact."
When asked about the allegation, a spokeswoman for the Chinese government responded: "It is quite odd that every time a website in the US or any other country is under attack, there will be speculation that Chinese hackers are behind it. I'd like to remind you that China is one of the major victims of cyber-attacks."
Slack reported it was attacked in February.
The US firm provides a way for team members to communicate with each other as an alternative to email.
The service is less than two years old, but was recently valued at being worth $2.8bn (£1.9bn). Were businesses to believe the data it held was insecure then its future would be threatened.
Slack said it believed the hackers had accessed a database that would have allowed them to see user names, email addresses and Skype IDs.
However, it added that passwords - which give users access to posted information - were encrypted in a form that made it "computationally infeasible" for the hackers to unscramble them.
"As part of our investigation we detected suspicious activity affecting a very small number of Slack accounts," it added.
"We have notified the individual users and team owners who we believe were impacted and are sharing details with their security teams."
The company said that it had introduced two-factor authentication as an additional security step, which requires users to type in a code sent to their mobile phone or tablet to access the app.
News site Motherboard has also reported that login details for Uber are being offered for sale for as little as $1.
The BBC was contacted by one London-based user on Sunday who reported that someone else was booking rides in New York using his account without his permission, and had clocked up a $556 bill.
Others have posted similar stories on Twitter.
"We take any issue of this nature very seriously and after investigating have found no evidence of a breach at Uber," a spokesman responded.
"Attempting to fraudulently access and use Uber accounts is illegal and we notify the authorities about such activity.
"We would like to remind people to use strong and unique usernames and passwords and to avoid reusing the same credentials across multiple sites and services." | British Airways' air-miles accounts, the coding site GitHub and the work chat service Slack have all been hit in the latest wave of cyber-attacks. |
35,420,408 | The Devils Hole pupfish survive in 32-degree Celsius water in a rock shaft in Death Valley in the US.
Previous studies suggested they could have become separated as a distinct population more than 10,000 years ago.
But the latest genetic analysis points to the pupfish being resident in their unique habitat for perhaps only a few hundred years at most.
Christopher Martin and colleagues tell a Royal Society journal that the revelation raises interesting questions as to how the animals got into their present location.
There are other pupfish populations in Death Valley but for any of those to have colonised Devils Hole they would somehow have had to cross one of the driest, hottest deserts on Earth.
"My best guess is that they got in there during some extreme flooding event," Dr Martin, a scientist from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told BBC News.
"The ages we've come up with for the Devils Hole fish do overlap with the great flood of 1862, which was the largest rainfall event ever recorded for California/Nevada.
"We also know that pupfish eggs are adhesive and will stick to vegetation, so it's possible they came in stuck on birds' legs."
It is not beyond possibility that the fish were directly moved by Native Americans at some point.
The Devils Hole pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis) were once dubbed the "rarest fish on the planet" because their numbers were so limited. As few as 35 individuals have been counted in the past.
They certainly live a precarious existence. Their rock pool is more than 100m deep, which means they must spawn on a narrow shelf near the surface.
Food takes the form of algae, but this is in short supply for two months of the year when sunlight does not fall on the water's surface. A mass die-off is a regular occurrence.
The geological evidence suggests the rock pool opened to the surface about 60,000 years ago, and that large regions of Death Valley were under water some 10,000 years. This would have enabled pupfish populations in the region to move more freely.
Some of the first genetic analyses that tried to age the distinctiveness of Cyprinodon diabolis looked at mitochondrial DNA - genetic material held in the "energy factories" in cells. This DNA incorporates mutations at a regular rate through the generations, and can be used as a kind of clock. But the approach is notoriously sensitive to the calibration rules that are applied to the analysis.
Early mtDNA efforts suggested Cyprinodon diabolis might have been a separate species for 2-3 million years. But the geological indicators rule this out.
For their study, Dr Martin and his team deployed the very latest genomic techniques, analysing thousands of genetic markers and using demographic models that took into account the variation that exists within and across pupfish populations. Calibration was applied from what appeared to be more solid data based on pupfish diversity in Mexico.
The research estimates that Devils Hole was colonised between 105 and 830 years ago.
"They are special fish," said Dr Martin. "The ecology of the Devils Hole is reflected by the very phenotypic distinctiveness of these pupfish. They have not only reduced aggression and a darker metallic colouration, but they have completely lost their pelvic fins. We don't know whether the loss of this major appendage is due to the effects of severe inbreeding over time or if it's adaptive in this habit."
The study is published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
[email protected] and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos | One of the most extraordinary fish species in world may not be as old as once thought. |
38,263,593 | Lab testing has revealed there have been 1,704 cases so far - 9% higher than the average seen at this stage in the previous five winters.
This will be a fraction of the total number because it only captures people seeking NHS help.
In hospitals, there have been 100 outbreaks of the bug.
These outbreaks cause hospitals to close down beds and whole wards at what is the busiest time of the year.
According to latest figures, over 850 beds are closed because of norovirus out of a total of 100,000.
But Public Health England warned people not to be alarmed, saying the levels being seen were still within an expected range and it may just be a sign that norovirus is peaking earlier this year than previous ones.
Nick Phin, of PHE, said continued outbreaks should be expected.
"Norovirus is a common cause of illness during winter.
"Exactly when the peak in activity occurs will be different each winter, but levels seen so far this year are not unexpected compared with the previous five years."
Meanwhile, NHS England has released it first winter statistics of the year.
The figures, which cover the first four days of December, showed eight hospitals declared a major alert - or what used to be known as red and black alerts.
This happens when hospitals have bed shortages, ambulances queuing outside and patients waiting longer inside A&E.
To cope, hospitals have to start calling in extra staff, cancelling routine treatments, such as knee and hip operations, and diverting ambulances away from their hospital.
The ultimate step is a full closure of A&E, although none of them took this step.
It comes after the BBC revealed this week the number of so-called "trolley waits" - the long delays patients experience waiting for a bed after emergency admission - had risen five-fold over the past five years.
Currently more than one in 10 patients face a wait of over four hours.
John Abercrombie, of the Royal College of Surgeons, said it looked like it would be a "bleak winter" for the health service. | The number of people falling ill with the vomiting bug norovirus in England this winter is at higher than average levels, figures suggest. |
26,737,264 | It said that the implications were new, serious and of such gravity that a commission had to be set up.
"A system was in place in a large number of Garda (police) stations whereby incoming and outgoing telephone calls were taped," it said.
It is understood the revelations could have an impact on past and current court cases.
The government said it was informed of this new information on Tuesday.
However, Irish broadcaster RTÉ has reported that the former garda commissioner Martin Callinan who resigned earlier on Tuesday following a controversy over whistleblowers, had written to the Department of Justice more than two weeks about the recordings.
In a letter to the secretary general of the department, Mr Callinan asked that Minister for Justice Alan Shatter be informed and added that he had consulted with the Attorney General on 11 November 2013.
By Andy MartinBBC Ireland Correspondent
What could not be ignored was the fact that as commissioner, if Martin Callinan did not know about the secret recording of phone calls into and out of police stations, he should have known.
The practice stopped last year, which suggests that some senior people knew about it and brought it to a halt.
The potential repercussions are huge. Calls from prisoners to solicitors may have been monitored, and it is conceivable that the courts may view that as an abuse of process in cases where subsequent convictions resulted from recorded information.
Read more
Martin Callinan said the systems were set up in the 1980s to enable gardaí to record calls to and from control rooms in particular 999 calls, bomb threats and other messages. The practice continued in some stations over the years with recordings retained in the Garda Stations.
In the letter, Mr Callinan confirmed that all recordings except 999 calls ceased nationally on 23 November 2013.
The total number of tapes amount to more than 2,400 and Mr Callinan said he had consulted with the Attorney General and expected to consult with the Data Protection Commissioner
The government has asked for a full, detailed report from its police force, An Garda Síochána, and its Department of Justice. It said the matter was "of significant public concern" and the investigation would be chaired by a senior serving or retired member of the judiciary.
In a report by the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) published in June 2013, there was a reference to the practice of recording all incoming and outgoing calls on a particular phone line at Waterford Garda Station. The report said a court ruled that recordings were not admissible evidence.
"On consideration of the ruling of the court, the Garda Commissioner may wish to re-evaluate his practice regarding the recording of such calls and the consents required if it is to be permissible to use such recordings in evidence," the ombudsman noted.
However on Tuesday, John Redmond from the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) said: "I am absolutely not aware of any recordings - except by ministerial order - I've never come across routine recording."
The Irish Government's statement on Tuesday also said that the government had agreed to the retirement of Mr Callinan. Deputy Commissioner Nóirín O'Sullivan has been appointed as interim Garda Commissioner. | The Irish government has set up an inquiry into allegations of widespread secret recordings by police. |
39,652,372 | The 25-year-old super-bantamweight from Belfast will fight at the 9,500-capacity UIC Pavilion.
Conlan, a former world amateur champion and London Olympics bronze medallist, impressed on his professional debut in New York on St Patrick's Day.
He stopped American Tim Ibarra inside three rounds at Madison Square Garden.
More than 5,000 Irish fans were at the famous New York venue to cheer on the highly rated Conlan.
Conlan forced referee Benjy Esteves Jr to step in when a powerful right hand had his American opponent on the ropes.
He was joined on his walk to the ring by UFC champion Conor McGregor. | Michael Conlan's second professional contest will be staged in Chicago on 26 May with an opponent yet to be confirmed. |
35,808,066 | He says they cannot afford to treat the game as a warm-up for their summer matches with England and New Zealand.
"It's a Test match, it's at home and seriously if you write Italy off, you'll pay the price for it," he said.
Wales have won six of their seven home Six Nations clashes with Italy.
Italy's margin of defeat in Cardiff has averaged over 24 points in those contests, though they earned a draw in 2006.
Italy are playing their final match under coach Jacques Brunel, and have lost all their games in 2016.
"I suppose they are (in transition), there's quite a few teams that are changing whether it be new coaching set-ups or bringing new players in," Charteris told BBC Radio Wales.
But it's an international game, there'll be no lack of motivation from their side of things coming off a defeat like that (58-15 in Ireland).
"Both teams will be out to right some wrongs and it should make for a good game."
Wales are playing for runners-up place in the championship after their 25-21 defeat against England.
Racing 92 lock Charteris, who won his 65th cap off the bench against Ireland, does not believe finishing second will represent a successful tournament for Warren Gatland's men.
Asked if second place would see the current Six Nations campaign regarded as a successful one, Charteris said: "No, because we were trying to win it.
"But if we come second, it's one (place) better than last year.
"Every year we go into the championship trying to win and with the confidence that we can.
"We've come up short this year - we will go again next year." | Lock Luke Charteris is warning that Wales will "pay the price" if they take Italy lightly in the final match of the Six Nations campaign. |
38,345,080 | 16 December 2016 Last updated at 18:46 GMT
America chose a new president, Rio hosted the Olympics and Paralympics, the UK voted to leave the European Union - and that's just for starters!
So why not take a little look back over some of the biggest news stories of the past 12 months?
Check out the video to see some of the moments to remember from this year - and how Newsround covered them. | 2016 has been an eventful year to say the least. |
40,917,801 | Crolla, who faces Burns at the Manchester Arena on 7 October, told BBC Scotland: "I can't wait for the fight.
"There will be a great travelling support from Scotland and I'll be in front of my beloved Manchester crowd.
"I've got a lot of respect for Ricky as a fighter and a person. I'll have to be at my best to beat him."
Crolla lost his WBA lightweight title to Jorge Linares in September 2016 and the Englishman, from Manchester, was also beaten by the Venezuelan in a March rematch.
Burns' last outing saw the Scot lose his WBA super-lightweight title to Julius Indongo in April.
"Everyone who knows boxing, Ricky's not the type to be trash-talking and neither am I," Crolla told BBC Radio Scotland's Sportsound.
"Everyone who knows boxing knows that this is a fight that doesn't need that to sell. Come 7 October in that arena, there's going to be an amazing atmosphere.
"It's going to be some night. They [the preparations] have been going very well and I'm in a very good place, physically and mentally. I'm just looking forward to the fight and believe I could be ready sooner.
"We can't wait for it and the winner, I'm sure, will go on to fight for a world title again. I know that I've got to be at my best to beat him but I'm very confident that's what I will be." | Anthony Crolla says the build-up to his lightweight fight against Ricky Burns is devoid of "trash-talking" because of their respect for one other. |
40,765,712 | The hosts finished on 174-4 despite the efforts off Joe Denly (68 off 50 balls) and Sam Northeast (60 off 34).
Glamorgan's 199-2 was given a blistering start by Aneurin Donald's 50 off 31 balls.
Captain Jacques Rudolph then played a range of inventive shots in his unbeaten 77 from 52 deliveries.
It was his third half-century in seven innings, while David Miller chipped in with 43 off 26 despite Kent's seamers trying plenty of variety in their efforts to drag back the scoring rate.
Denly and Northeast continued the batting dominance with a stand of 89 in 8.5 overs to put the home side in the hunt, but the middle order could not keep the run-rate going against the accurate bowling of Marchant de Lange (1-26 in four overs) and Craig Meschede (1-12 in two).
England batsman Sam Billings did not reach the wicket until the 19th over with the game already sliding away from Kent.
Glamorgan batsman Aneurin Donald told BBC Wales Sport:
"Kent have a pretty strong batting line-up so it was nice for our top four to get the job done. That's what you're looking for in T20 for the top four to get the bulk of the runs, and [for me] to pick up the slack when Colin Ingram fails for once in a blue moon is nice.
"At the top of the order it's your job to get the big scores. I'm the aggressor trying to get us off to a quick start.
"Credit to our bowlers holding their nerve, it shows what a quality outfit we are this year and, if you get to 200, you're going to win more often than not with the experience of our bowling line-up.
"The target's another home quarter-final and trying to get to that Finals Day. I think we're one of the stronger teams in the competition this year and if we play the way we are, we're going to be there or thereabouts."
Kent captain Sam Northeast told BBC Radio Kent:
"When Joe and me were going, we felt we were in the game, but a few overs where you lose a wicket or low overs put us right behind, and it's hard work when the guys come in needing 12 or 13 an over.
"It was never going to be easy chasing that score and we're going to have to be better with the ball. The coaches and bowlers will get together and come up with a plan. We're going to have to have better plans and execute a lot better." | Glamorgan remain top of the T20 Blast Southern Group after they held their nerve to beat Kent by 25 runs in a high-scoring affair at Canterbury. |
29,675,054 | Both were named in Boro's matchday squad for their game against Accrington Stanley on Saturday.
Adams, 20, made three appearances for Brentford at the end of last season, following a loan spell at Barnet, as they won promotion to the Championship.
Clarke, 19, also played three games for the Bees last term, the most recent a 4-1 loss to Colchester in April. | Stevenage have signed midfielders Josh Clarke and Charlie Adams from Brentford on one-month youth loans. |
36,013,563 | The film, in which McCarthy plays an eccentric tycoon, took an estimated $23.5m (£16.5m) on its debut weekend.
Dawn of Justice was knocked to second place in its third week, pulling in an estimated $23.4m (£16.4m).
But when final box office figures are released on Monday, the DC comics "mash-up" could still come out on top.
The margin between the top two films is one of the closest in recent years, according to industry analysts.
Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill's superhero movie has defied poor reviews, having taken almost $300m (£211m) in the US.
The film, in which Affleck plays Batman and Cavill takes the role of Superman, now ranks as the third highest-grossing DC Comics release to date in the US, according to Box Office Mojo.
Its box office haul has now surpassed 2013's Man of Steel, also starring Cavill, which took $291m (£205m). However, Dawn of Justice's takings has dropped by 54% since its first week of release.
The Boss was co-written by Bridesmaids star McCarthy and her husband Ben Falcone.
Critics had not expected it to perform well, but the film has done better than McCarthy's 2014 comedy Tammy.
In third place came Disney's Zootopia with $14.4m (£10m), slipping one spot from last week.
Now in its sixth weekend of release, the animated film featuring the voices of Jason Bateman and Ginnifer Goodwin has made a US total of $296m (£208m).
Comedy sequel My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 was at number four, making $6.4m (£4.5m).
The weekend's only other newcomer, action thriller Hardcore Henry, opened in fifth place with takings of $5.1m (£3.6m).
The Russian-American sci-fi stars Sharlto Copley, Danila Kozlovsky, Haley Bennett, and Tim Roth.
Shot through the eyes of Henry in a style similar to a first-person shooter video game, it centres on a man who is resurrected from death with no memory but must discover his identity to save his wife from a murderous tyrant.
In the rest of the top 10, Miracles from Heaven held on in sixth place with $4.8m (£3.4m) and God's Not Dead 2 slipped to seven with $4m (£2.8m).
The Divergent Series: Allegiant fell to eighth, thriller 10 Cloverfield Lane was at nine and drone drama Eye In The Sky was at 10. | Melissa McCarthy's new comedy The Boss has unseated Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice from the top of the North American and Canadian box office. |
36,674,845 | The 24-year-old has 55 goals in 93 La Liga games since joining from Santos for a reported fee of £48.6m in 2013.
Manchester United and Paris St-Germain were linked with the Brazil forward, whose current deal ends in 2018.
Barca president Josep Bartomeu said: "In the next few days we will finalise an extension." Neymar added: "Very happy to continue living this dream!"
Neymar has also scored 46 goals in 70 appearances for his country.
While at the Spanish club, he has secured two La Liga titles, two Copa del Rey trophies and the 2014-15 Champions League.
Barcelona were forced to pay a £4.3m fine in June because of mistakes in Neymar's transfer from Santos in 2013. | Neymar will stay at Barcelona and is set to sign a new five-year contract, according to his agency NN consulting. |
37,521,168 | The cheapest deals are often reserved for new customers only.
Meanwhile existing customers have been offered deals which can be hundreds of pounds a year more expensive.
The four companies, E.ON, EDF, SSE and British Gas said they were simply responding to changes in the market.
While the British Gas tariff has now been withdrawn, other suppliers are still restricting their offers to new customers only.
Such deals were originally banned by the regulator Ofgem in April 2014. Following a recommendation from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in April this year, Ofgem let it be known it would no longer enforce these rules.
The discovery of such deals has as come a surprise to some leading industry figures.
Ken Geddes is the chief executive of Scottish-based Energylinx, the fourth biggest energy price comparison business.
When the BBC told Mr Geddes about the new tariffs, he declared himself "stunned" by the difference between the prices some companies offered new and existing customers.
Mr Geddes immediately tested a new-customer-only tariff from E.ON, launched in mid-September.
He first applied as an E.ON customer and then as a customer of another company. The difference in the the two prices he got from E.ON was £260.
"Having spent over a decade doing this job, I don't think I've ever seen that differential", Mr Geddes told the BBC. "I'm just gob-smacked as to the difference in price".
Large differences in price between new and existing customers are not confined to E.ON.
In the summer, British Gas launched a new-customer-only one year tariff offered exclusively through Uswitch - the UK's biggest energy price comparison website.
For new customers with average household energy consumption, the British Gas "Home Energy Exclusive Jun 17" tariff cost £735 a year. But for existing customers - barred from that deal - the best British Gas price for the same amount of energy was £989.
That British Gas tariff has now been withdrawn but others are appearing.
The SSE new-customer-only tariff, launched in September, offered new customers on average consumption a year's energy for £759 . For existing customers, SSE's best deal cost £972 - a difference of over £200.
Customers were unlikely to have learned such low-priced tariffs were available from their companies even if they searched Uswitch and Energy Helpline.
That's because such websites start by asking users for the name of their existing energy supplier. New-customer-only deals from that supplier are then filtered out.
As a long-standing customer of EDF, I wanted to find out what tariff I would be offered.
In a web-chat, I was told the tariffs available to me were: "Blue+ Price Protection Sep 2017" - costing £133 more than EDF's new-customer-only tariff, and "Blue+ Price Freeze Sep 2018" costing almost £300 more.
Were these the "very best tariffs EDF offers?" I asked the agent.
"Yes" was the emphatic reply.
When pressed about the much cheaper new tariff EDF had just launched, the agent replied, "I'm very sorry. This is only for new customers - not existing customers".
On Friday, EDF relaunched their new-customer-only deal, cutting the price by around £50 a year. So it's a better deal than before but it's still not for existing customers.
Not all major energy suppliers plan to offer such tariffs.
Scottish Power's commercial director Colin McNeill told the BBC his company would not offer them.
"These tariffs must stop," Mr McNeill said. "We must recognise that we are still not a trusted industry, and perceived sharp practices do the industry no favours."
With Scottish Power, he added: "Any of our customers can switch freely to any of our tariffs at any time."
The four energy companies which have offered the new-customer only tariffs, E.ON, EDF, SSE and British Gas, all say that they are responding to changes in the energy market and that their new tariffs are part of a strategy to serve a wide range of customers.
All four companies declined the BBC's invitation to be interviewed about their new exclusive offers.
Ofgem's chief executive Dermot Nolan told the BBC that Ofgem had acted on the CMA's recommendation "to make energy competition more similar to telecoms because on the whole that will mean lower prices and better deals for consumers". | Four of the UK's largest energy companies have been barring their own customers from some of the best deals for gas and electricity, the BBC's Moneybox programme has learnt. |
30,686,751 | The victim, who was in her 30s, was attacked while walking on Raglan Street, Lowestoft, in January 2005.
Fokrul Islam, 38, from Nevendon Road, Wickford in Essex was found guilty of rape last year at Ipswich Crown Court.
Suffolk Police said the woman reported the attack at the time and this helped secure DNA evidence.
Islam was arrested after he was stopped by the UK Border Agency while travelling from Belfast to Liverpool last year.
Det Con Darren Winchester, from Suffolk Police, said: "Islam's DNA was taken when he was stopped by the UKBA in March 2014 and from that he was identified as a suspect after his DNA matched that taken from the victim in 2005.
"The victim showed immense courage by reporting the rape very quickly and that ensured police were able to secure vital evidence." | A man has been jailed for nine years for dragging a woman off the street and raping her in the back of a vehicle ten years ago. |
38,229,535 | In 2014, a whistleblower sent the email, to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment.
It warned them that the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) was seriously flawed.
In the email, the whistleblower is remarkably clear about where the scheme was going wrong.
The warning was not acted on and the scheme continued on. It was closed earlier this year with a likely overspend of £400m and potentially even more.
The department has acknowledged a series of blunders in how the scheme was set up.
Firstly, the subsidy paid to businesses for the heat that they generated was too high.
It is very likely to be more than the cost of the wood over the 20 years of the scheme - a crucial point missed by civil servants.
Imagine your home heating oil costing you 2p an hour. And for every hour you keep the heating on you get 3p from the government.
That was similar to the flaw within RHI, so we ended up with a scheme where "the more you burn, the more you earn" - a scheme that was not only economically calamitous, but potentially environmentally damaging.
Patsy McGlone, who chaired the DETI committee when RHI was set up, said: "This is the paradox of it, that burn more wood and you get more money.
"It's not an incentive to improve or enhance the environment. It's an incentive to put more smoke up into it."
As well as the rate being too high, the department missed important cost controls introduced in Great Britain.
Firstly tiering - or paying two different rates. In Britain, the rate paid each year starts off high to incentivise customers to switch to a wood-burning boiler. Then it drops off significantly to less than the cost of production - avoiding "the more you burn, the more you earn" issue.
Tiering was not introduced in Northern Ireland. Here, there was one flat rate which was too high.
But by far the biggest alarm bell missed by the department was the warning of a whistleblower as far back as 2013.
She first expressed concerns to then enterprise minister Arlene Foster, who referred her to the team of civil servants in DETI which dealt with energy to investigate.
The woman met them in autumn 2013. The email obtained by Spotlight shows she says she urged them to address the flaws in the scheme.
Nothing was done.
In May 2014, she emailed the department, apparently exasperated.
"What we are seeing on the ground in Northern Ireland is that buildings are using more energy than before because it pays them to do so," she said.
"The flat rate means there is no incentive at all to be efficient, so the heat in buildings is on all year round with the windows open everywhere.
"When we had spoken (referring to the autumn 2013 meeting) you did not believe that people would do this. But believe me it's happening.
"It's got to a stage where it cannot be ignored any longer."
It wasn't acted upon.
The scheme was closed earlier this year after a huge spike in applications in late 2015 finally broke the budget.
Mrs Foster, now Northern Ireland's first minister, did not answer our question about whether she made any other effort to follow up on the claims of the whistleblower.
She pointed to a comment by the chief civil servant in the Department for the Economy, the new name for DETI, who said she had dealt with the whistleblower "entirely appropriately".
But she acknowledged that investigations into the whistleblower's claims "should have highlighted the failings of the scheme and actions should have been taken".
Actions were not taken and the NI taxpayer has been left with a bill for hundreds of millions of pounds.
Enough to pay for the new Omagh hospital, converting the A26 at Frosses in County Antrim in to dual carriageway, the Belfast Interchange Project and the Belfast Rapid Transit system - with £15m left over.
Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt has said Mrs Foster should consider her position over the issue.
"What is now in the public domain proves hundreds of millions of pounds were wasted needlessly, the department was dysfunctional, unaware of the rules, and hapless in seeking solutions," he said.
"This is a scandal prone executive and on this occasion, it comes to a fundamental tenet of democratic government called ministerial accountability. If Arlene Foster believes in it, she must consider her position." | An email that was worth hundreds of millions of pounds to the taxpayers of Northern Ireland and ignored by the Department of Enterprise has been obtained by BBC Spotlight. |
38,286,086 | Media playback is not supported on this device
Cook, skipper since 2012, watched as England lost four wickets for 13 runs on Monday to slump to an innings defeat and series loss against India.
The opener will discuss his role with director of cricket Andrew Strauss.
"You start having questions, of course you do," said Cook. "Naturally, you look at stuff."
The 31-year-old, who expects to meet Strauss following the end of the current series in India, added: "I think Joe Root's ready to captain England. You never know until you actually experience it, because of everything that goes with the England captaincy.
"You're thrown in at the deep end and you either sink or swim. Nothing can really prepare you for it.
"But he's ready because he's a clued-up guy and he's got the respect of everyone in the changing-room. He hasn't got much captaincy experience, but that doesn't mean he can't be a very good captain."
Root's only senior leadership experience has come in county cricket for Yorkshire and as vice-captain to Cook since the summer of 2015.
England have lost four of their last five Test matches - and seven in total during the calendar year - but Cook has been told he will keep his job "as long as he wants it" by coach Trevor Bayliss.
"When you lose, the captain takes a lot of responsibility but he's got broad shoulders," Bayliss told Sky Sports.
"Over the past 12, 18 months we've seen improvements in the way he captains the team."
Cook, who captained England in Bangladesh in 2010 before taking on the role permanently in 2012, has won 24 of his 58 Tests in charge.
He has also overseen 21 Test defeats, including a 5-0 Ashes whitewash in Australia in January 2014 and England's first Test loss to Bangladesh in October this year. | Alastair Cook says he has "questions" about his role as England Test captain, after admitting Joe Root is "ready" to be his successor. |
33,101,959 | Dozens of families did not receive their babies' ashes from Shrewsbury's Emstrey Crematorium from 1996 to 2012.
Earlier this month an inquiry concluded a national inspector should be created for crematoriums.
Now 20 similar cases have emerged from across the country.
Glen Perkins, from the Action For Ashes campaign group, which has been calling for a national inspector to be introduced, said the scale of the issue was "unbelievable".
"I cannot believe it is so widespread," he said.
Patricia Jones said she had never received the ashes of her son Nicky, who was cremated at Gilrose Crematorium in Leicester in May 1980.
She said she was told there would be no ashes because the bones were too fragile.
"Everybody takes it for granted that you're either buried or cremated and there will be a place to go to afterwards, but we had nothing," she said.
She added: "We opted for cremation but nobody said 'because there'll be no ashes, would you prefer a burial?'
"We weren't thinking straight."
Leicester City Council said that, like other authorities, it was unable to recover ashes of babies and very young children at the time of Nicky's cremation.
"Our records show that no ashes were recovered from the cremation of Patricia Jones's son," it said.
"We started being able to recover ashes more effectively in the mid-1980s, and with modern equipment we are now able to recover even the tiniest quantity of remains, which we pass on to families."
Sandra Hawes's son Jordan died during childbirth in 1999. His funeral was held 10 days later at Worthing Crematorium.
But she has never received his ashes and is now using a Freedom of Information request to try to find out what happened to them.
"I was desperate to get my baby's remains home with me," she said.
"Parting with him in hospital whilst surrounded by new mothers and babies had been the most heart-wrenching experience of my life.
"My arms ached for him and I felt like I was abandoning him and needed to get him home again more than anything."
She said the funeral directors told her there were no ashes to collect.
She said: "I was utterly devastated. The grieving process could not be completed and I felt utterly empty."
Andy Edwards, Adur and Worthing Council's head of environment, said the authority had received a Freedom of Information request from Mrs Hawes and was seeking information.
Lisa Bhanu's daughter died 20 minutes after being born in 2009 and was cremated at Banbury Crematorium.
She said she was initially told by the funeral directors there would not be any ashes because her baby was too small.
But, after hearing about cases in the news of ashes not being returned, the 41-year-old contacted Banbury Crematorium and said she was told they had been holding her child's ashes since 2009.
"They told me they had them there and were waiting for me to contact them," she said.
"I feel incredibly angry and let down. I'm happy we've got them back, but I'm frustrated it happened at all."
A spokeswoman for Midcounties Co-operative Funeralcare, which arranged the funeral, said the family signed paperwork asking for the scattering of the ashes to be witnessed and said she did not know why Mrs Bhanu was not contacted.
The BBC has asked the London Cremation Company, the private firm which runs and manages Banbury Crematorium, for a response.
Tom Winder was 40 hours old when he died in September 2007.
His mother Lucy said the funeral director told her there probably would not be any ashes because Tom was so small.
She signed a form that gave Eastbourne Cemetery the right to scatter his ashes without a witness, but said she was vulnerable at the time and did not think of the implications.
"I thought they would at least tell me when they were going to do it," she said.
"We were resigned to the fact we were not going to get them, and, at the time, it was not a priority," she said.
Eastbourne Borough Council said its usual policy was to return ashes when parents requested them.
In a statement it said it would be contacting Mrs Winder to answer her questions. | Grieving parents have contacted the BBC in the wake of the Shropshire baby ashes scandal to relate similar experiences of ashes not being returned. |
37,908,024 | Everton is the second South American coach to win the trophy as IfeanyiUbah beat Nasarawa United 5-4 on penalties in Sunday's final.
His compatriot Paulo Roberto Diaz won both the league and FA Cup with Enugu Rangers in 1981.
It was also a first FA Cup win for the club that has a partnership deal with English side West Ham and play in the same colours as the Premier League club.
"I hope this will open the gate for other Brazilian coaches and players to come here," Everton told BBC Sport.
"I'm very happy to be the first South American coach to win this prestigious trophy in Nigeria because my name could stay in the records for 100 years.
"The club president Ifeanyi Ubah [a billionaire oil magnate] gave me the opportunity to work here and I managed to blend the Brazilian and Nigerian philosophy."
As well as the young coach there are two Brazilian players in the squad and their success has earned them a place in next seasons Confederation Cup.
The 27-year-old is a former Fluminense player and moved to Nigeria at the start of the season and led the team to fourth place in the Premier League.
The youngest manager to win the Nigerian FA Cup says a niggling thigh injury cut short his professional career with Sport Club do Recife.
"I stopped playing and went for my course where I was in the same class as (Atletico Madrid coach) Diego Simeone," said Everton.
"Then I was managing the Fluminense second team before I was approached by the club owner to come to Nigeria.
"Now I want to play with big managers and teams in Africa next year.
One of the club's Brazilian players Alberico Barbosa da Silva is full of praises for his manager and friend.
"This is big for both of us, we are happy to play with fantastic players and in a lovely country," Alberico told BBC Sport.
"We love it here and now we can look forward to competing against big teams in Africa." | Brazilian Rafael Everton Lira is hoping his Nigerian FA Cup Success will pave the way for other coaches and players to follow him to the continent. |
40,936,071 | HMS Queen Elizabeth entered Portsmouth Harbour for the first time at about 07:10 BST following extensive preparations at the naval base.
The 65,000-tonne ship has been undergoing sea trials since setting sail from Rosyth dockyard in Fife, where it was built, in June.
The 900ft (280m) long carrier cannot currently deploy planes but flying trials are due to begin next year.
Addressing crew members and contractors on the flight deck, Prime Minister Theresa May said the carrier was a "true testament to British ship building and design".
"Britain truly has the best sailors, marines and officers in the world. And I believe you deserve the very best equipment and that it what we have with HMS Queen Elizabeth," she said.
"This ship is the symbol of the United Kingdom as a great global maritime nation. Clearly she is a stunning piece of 21st Century engineering."
Live: New aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth arrives in home port
Spectators who gathered on the shoreline to watch the ship's arrival saw flypasts of Royal Navy helicopters, the first featuring a Sea King, two MK2 Merlins and two MK3 Merlins which were then joined by two Hawk jets.
A flotilla of craft followed the behemoth aircraft carrier as she sailed into the Solent before heading into Portsmouth, where, at its narrowest point, there was less than 66ft (20m) clearance on each side.
An 820ft (250m) exclusion zone was enforced by armed police in small boats and a no-fly zone was put in place to prevent the flying of drones around the harbour.
The ship's available company stood at the edge of the vessel, with officers and family members also lining the jetty to welcome the ship.
Louise Bond, 30, from Fareham, whose husband, Petty Officer Greg Bond, 33, is serving on board, said: "It's my first homecoming, it's brilliant, I was up at 2.30am, first in line.
"It's amazing, I wouldn't miss it for the world."
Road closures were put in place in Old Portsmouth, Southsea seafront and parts of the city centre.
Isle of Wight, Gosport and cross-channel ferry services also altered timetables.
Preparations for the arrival of the future flagship of the fleet, and its 700 crew, saw more than 20,000 items ranging from a human skull to sea mines dredged up from Portsmouth Harbour.
The Ministry of Defence said specialist dredging vessels had removed 3.2 million cubic metres of sediment - the equivalent to 1,280 Olympic swimming pools - during the dredging operation carried out to deepen the harbour mouth to enable the Queen Elizabeth to reach Portsmouth naval base.
65,000
Tonnes
£3.1bn
Cost
280m Flight deck length
700 Crew currently on board
155,000 miles Length of electrical cable inside the ship
162db Volume of foghorn
Speaking on board before the journey in to Portsmouth, Capt Jerry Kyd said he felt a "huge amount of pride" ahead of the vessel berthing in its home port.
"It sends the right signals to our allies and indeed potentially to our enemies that we mean business.
"The armed forces are fundamentally an insurance policy for the country and you can't just, at the flick of a switch, decide that you need these capabilities."
The ship has been undergoing sea trials off the Scottish coast and sailed with the USS George HW Bush and her carrier strike group, during Exercise Saxon Warrior earlier this month.
F-35B Lightning fighter jets are due to make their first trial flights from the carrier's deck next year with 120 aircrew currently training in the US.
HMS Queen Elizabeth is still far from being a fully functioning aircraft carrier. But she now looks and feels less of a giant construction project and more like a warship. For the last seven weeks she's been undergoing sea trials.
They've tested everything from the propulsion system to the sewage processing plant. The ship's five galleys have been churning out more than 3,000 meals a day for the 700 crew and additional contractors on board.
According to the captain, Jerry Kyd, the tests have gone "really well" for what he admits is a "prototype". But even he suggests that they'll need more manpower when she's fully operational. The slightly larger US Nimitz class carriers have a crew of more than 4,000.
HMS Queen Elizabeth's first deployment is still a long way off. Though helicopters have been landing on her massive deck - the size of three football pitches - it will be another year before the new F35s will begin flight trials. And HMS Queen Elizabeth won't be fully operational until 2023. | The UK's new £3bn aircraft carrier has docked in its home port. |
36,055,632 | Media playback is not supported on this device
Adams outpointed Norway's Marielle Hansen in Turkey to secure a women's flyweight (48-51kg) spot in Rio.
Compatriots Galal Yafai, Qais Ashfaq, Muhammad Ali, Joe Cordina, Josh Buatsi, Lawrence Okolie and Joe Joyce also secured places with semi-final wins.
Anthony Fowler could make it nine qualifiers on Saturday.
Ireland's Olympic champion Katie Taylor missed out on a chance to guarantee her Rio berth as she lost her lightweight (60kg) semi-final against Yana Alekseevna.
Birmingham's Yafai (men's light-flyweight 46-49kg) beat Spain's Samuel Carmona Heredia, Ashfaq from Leeds (men's bantamweight 56kg) saw off Ukraine's Mykola Butsenko, Keighley's Ali (men's flyweight 52kg) overcame Bulgarian Daniel Asenov, and Cardiff's Cordina (men's lightweight 60kg) beat Ireland's David Joyce.
Londoners Buatsi, Okolie and Joyce made it through in the heavier categories.
Men's light heavyweight (81kg) Buatsi beat Ukraine's Oleksandr Khyzhniak, heavyweight (91kg) Okolie beat Azerbaijan's Abdulkadir Abdullayev, and super heavyweight (91kg+) Joyce beat Hungary's Istvan Bernath.
Liverpool middleweight (75kg) Fowler lost his semi-final but could qualify if he wins the bronze medal bout, with the top three men and top two women in each division winning places in Rio.
After the event in Samsun, male boxers have two more chances to qualify - at the World Series of Boxing event in Bulgaria in May and the final Olympic qualifying event in Azerbaijan in June.
The women have one more chance - at the World Championships in Kazakhstan in May.
Adams became the first women's Olympic boxing champion when she won gold at London 2012, and she is now targeting another landmark.
Victory in Rio would make the 33-year-old from Leeds only the second British boxer to retain their Olympic title after middleweight Harry Mallin in 1924.
"It feels really good to know that I will be defending my title in Rio. It is no longer the Road to Rio - I am going to Rio," said Adams.
"I've qualified and I am ready to defend my title and hopefully become a double Olympic champion." | Olympic champion Nicola Adams led the way as eight British boxers earned places at this summer's Rio Games with wins at the European qualifying event. |
30,600,579 | The Pope urged the refugees - forced to flee their homes by the militant group Islamic State - to "persevere", and said he was close to them in his heart.
At a Christmas Eve midnight Mass at St Peter's Basilica, the Pope called on believers to show more empathy towards family and friends.
On Christmas Day, the Pope will deliver his "Urbi et Orbi" Christmas address.
The call to refugees at a camp in Ankawa was made by satellite phone and broadcast live on Italian TV.
"Dear brothers, I am close to you, very close to you in my heart," he told them, saying he was thinking particularly of children and the elderly.
"Innocent children, children who have died, exploited children... I am thinking, too, about grandparents, about the older people who have lived their lives, and who must now bear this cross."
He told them they were like Jesus, forced to flee because there was no room for them. "I embrace you all and wish for you a holy Christmas," he said.
Advances in Iraq by Islamic State have forced tens of thousands of Christians and people from other religious minorities to flee to Kurdish controlled areas.
Later in his homily during Christmas Eve Mass, the Pope said the world needed more tenderness and warmth.
"The question put to us simply by the infant's presence is: 'Do I allow God to love me?'" he said.
"Do we have the courage to welcome with tenderness the difficulties and problems of those who are near to us?" | Pope Francis has spoken by telephone to Iraqi refugees in a camp near Irbil before celebrating Christmas Eve Mass. |
35,699,161 | In 2004-05 there were 10,145 hip replacements for people aged 59 and below, with 17,883 in 2014-15.
The Royal College of Surgeons says this is partly because doctors are now more confident that replacement joints will be more durable than in the past.
Patients are also said to be less willing to wait.
As a proportion of all hip replacements carried out, the rise among under 60s is small, but the Royal College of Surgeons says it is still noteworthy.
Demand for new hips across all ages has risen - there were 89,919 of the operations in 2004-05 and 122,154 in 2014-15.
Stephen Cannon, vice-president of the RCS, says as hip replacement techniques and prosthetics have improved, so have the numbers of younger patients undergoing this type of surgery.
"It's no longer seen as a last resort.
"As surgeons, we now have more confidence about the wear rate of these prosthetics which allows us to be less restrictive on an age basis."
He said surgeons used to advise patients with hip pain to wait until they were 60 or 65 to have a replacement because the old-fashioned replacements had a shelf-life of about 15 years, meaning the operation might need redoing once in a lifetime - when the patient had turned 80.
"If you look at newer prosthetics, you could do the first operation at 55 and it is going to last for 20 years or more, so you would still only need one revision in a lifetime."
He said another factor might be patient demand.
"Certainly, in my experience, patients do not get fobbed off. They don't want to wait for an operation. They say, 'I can't play a round of golf or tennis and I want to.'"
Mr Cannon said concerns over the safety of a particular type of hip replacement (metal-on-metal) in 2010 did not appear to have affected demand.
He said hip operations had become less arduous. Patients can be back on their feet with crutches on the same day or the day after surgery, and out of hospital within three days post-op. "They're off crutches altogether by six weeks."
Most hip replacements are done if the joint becomes damaged from arthritis or an injury.
Many of the conditions treated with a hip replacement are age-related so hip replacements are usually carried out in older adults.
Mr Cannon says it's not clear if conditions such as osteoarthritis are becoming more common and affecting people at younger ages, but it is worth exploring.
And with an ageing population, he says demand for hip operations could soon outstrip supply.
"The ageing population is a perfect storm. We are not there quite yet, but we might be in 10 years from now. It's a continuing trend."
A spokesman for the National Joint Registry for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man said: "The increase in numbers of under-60s undergoing primary hip surgery is entirely in line with the overall increase in provision of the operation.
"The orthopaedic sector must continue to work to get the first time surgery as right for the patient as possible - especially where younger patients are concerned as they are most likely to need at least one revision surgery in their lifetime.
"It is, of course, heartening and very encouraging that hip and knee implants are lasting ten years or more, with risk of revision lower than 5%.
"Joint replacement surgery offers significant benefits - getting patients back to their chosen lifestyle sooner, free from pain and with improved mobility." | The number of hip replacement operations on people aged under 60 has risen 76% in the last decade, NHS figures for England reveal. |
35,883,899 | Mr Bush, former governor of Florida, dropped out of the race last month after poor showings in state contests.
He said Mr Cruz has shown the ability to appeal to voters and win primary contests, like in Utah on Tuesday.
Republicans must "overcome the divisiveness and vulgarity" Donald Trump has introduced, he said.
If not, the party will certainly lose the White House to Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, Mr Bush wrote in a Facebook post.
"Republicans can win back the White House and put our nation on a path to security and prosperity if we support a nominee who can unite our party and articulate how conservative policies will help people rise up and reach their full potential," he wrote, and linked to Mr Cruz's website.
Mr Cruz, speaking to CNN on Wednesday, said Mr Bush's endorsement proved his candidacy had garnered support among Republicans.
Former 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney also recently endorsed Mr Cruz, strongly urging fellow Republicans not to back Donald Trump, a billionaire businessman from New York with no prior political experience.
Mr Trump, the party's front-runner, currently has the highest delegate count and has said there may be "riots" if he is denied the Republican nomination come the party's convention this summer.
Anti-Trump Republicans are hoping for a brokered convention, in which party officials, not delegates, would chose the nominee, but that is only possible if Mr Trump falls short of the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the nomination.
After contests in Utah and Arizona on Tuesday, Mr Trump has 739 delegates and Mr Cruz has 465.
Mr Trump endorsed Mr Romney for president in 2012, but now Mr Romney calls Mr Trump a "phony" and a "fraud".
When Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, was still in the race, Mr Trump called him "pathological". Now Mr Carson has endorsed him.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who attacked Mr Trump on the campaign trail, backs the businessman now that he is out of the race.
Former Republican presidential candidates Carly Fiorina and Lindsey Graham have also endorsed Mr Cruz.
Mr Cruz has urged Ohio Governor John Kasich to drop out of the race, and said he would probably find a place for him in his administration.
He said Mr Kasich was a "spoiler" by taking votes that could go to him and help the Republicans defeat Mr Trump.
The nasty battle between the leading Republicans worsened this week when Mr Trump warned Mr Cruz he would "spills the beans on your wife" after an anti-Trump group ran ads in Utah featuring a racy photo of Mr Trump's wife Melania from an old GQ magazine spread.
Mr Cruz said in response: "Donald, if you try to attack Heidi, you're more of a coward than I thought." | Former Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush has endorsed Texas Senator Ted Cruz for president, calling him a "principled conservative". |
38,390,524 | Communities Secretary Carl Sargeant said it would help them build on the "very positive start" they had made on new rules which oblige local authorities to prevent homelessness.
The Welsh Government budget sees total funding for day-to-day council spending in 2017/18 rise by £10m to £4.1bn.
Finance Secretary Mark Drakeford said it was a "good settlement" for councils to plan for harder choices ahead.
As promised in October's draft settlement, no council will see its cash funding fall by more than 0.5%, and many authorities will see their first cash increase for three years.
However, the effects of inflation will result in a real terms cut.
The Welsh Local Government Association said it welcomed the fact that some of the "additional pressures" it had identified were "beginning to be addressed", such as an extra £10m for social care.
However, deputy finance spokesman Anthony Hunt said: "The announcement today will still mean that cuts to local public services will continue as we shoulder the heaviest burden under austerity." | Another £6m to tackle homelessness is being given to local councils in Wales. |
35,751,760 | The group, who travelled to the Senedd in Cardiff, are calling for Withybush Hospital in Haverfordwest to have 24-hour paediatric care reinstated.
The unit was downgraded two years ago to a 12-hour, daytime only service.
Children needing to be admitted are now sent to Glangwili Hospital, Carmarthen.
Hywel Dda health board said it acknowledged the petition and had a "significant challenge" in demonstrating the safety of its children's services at Withybush and Glangwili hospitals. | Campaigners who want overnight children's care returned to a Pembrokeshire hospital have delivered a 20,000-signature petition to ministers. |
32,096,340 | The man was arrested by police in Birmingham on Wednesday and was brought to Northern Ireland for questioning.
He faces a number of charges involving drug trafficking and money laundering and is to appear before Newtownards Magistrates' Court.
He was among 15 people arrested in the UK and Italy during the investigation.
Four men have already appeared in court charged with similar offences.
The charges follow the seizure of more than £800,000 of 'skunk' cannabis and cash during searches in multiple locations across Northern Ireland in recent days.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland have carried out searches in Belfast, Greenisland, Bangor, Newtownards and Ballywalter.
They have also been co-operating with police in Italy, where officers uncovered a cannabis factory.
It is believed the total value of the 'skunk' seized in Northern Ireland and Italy was £4.25m and was destined for Northern Ireland.
The four other men who have already been charged - Jian Wen Chen, 29, of Belfast, Jiazhu Cia, 30, of Ballywalter, Yong He, 33, from Belfast and Wei Zou, 32, from Bangor - all appeared in Newtownards Magistrates' Court on Thursday.
The men were among six people, including two women, arrested in Northern Ireland on Tuesday.
The women, aged 29 and 26, have since been released on police bail pending further inquiries.
Eight people were also arrested in Italy and remain in custody. | A 37-year-old man is due in court later over an international investigation into the supply of 'skunk' cannabis to Northern Ireland. |
32,330,902 | Crews fought the blaze through the night at Pirbright after the wildfire started on Wednesday afternoon.
Surrey fire service said the blaze covered four hectares when they were called at midday. Within four hours, it had spread across 30 hectares.
BBC reporter Mike Buxton said the heath was mostly Ministry of Defence land, but surrounding areas were also popular with dog walkers who raised the alarm.
The heath is home to species including the silver-studded blue butterfly, slow worms and lizards.
Surrey Fire and Rescue Service said the fire was brought under control on Thursday morning.
James Adler, from Surrey Wildlife Trust, said: "Following a dry winter... it's this time of year where everything starts to catch fire unfortunately."
He said ground nesting birds and some reptiles are unlikely to survive. | About 40 hectares of heathland have been destroyed by fire in Surrey. |
31,136,050 | Members of the GMB union are taking the action over grading and pay proposals by Cityclean, Brighton and Hove City Council's refuse service.
In January, the staff began a new work to rule over job changes.
The council said a "well-established and consistent process" had been used to determine pay for the city's binmen.
The union said its members would walk out for 11 hours from midnight on 11 February, following a series of stoppages last year.
The union said differences with the council now made it difficult to do anything but "clash head-on".
Mark Turner, GMB branch secretary, said: "Once again Brighton council officers' lack of commitment and ability to finding a resolution has meant GMB members are left again with no alternative other than to take further direct action.
"GMB members will lose money and the people of this city potentially will see rubbish remaining uncollected, something we deeply regret."
Richard Bradley, head of Cityclean, said the firm was disappointed to have been notified of further industrial action.
"We understand that refuse and recycling driver charge-hands are unhappy with the outcome of their job evaluation," said.
"There is a right of appeal against the outcome and we would urge the GMB to follow this process rather than seek to disrupt collections from our residents." | Brighton's refuse and recycling collectors are to go on strike in a long-running row over pay. |
34,001,914 | Life expectancy is now 77.1 years for men and 81.1 for women - up 8 and 5.8 years since 1984.
Statistics published by the National Records of Scotland (NRS) showed 82,440 people came to Scotland from the UK and overseas and 64,860 left in the year up to June 2014.
There were 29,069 marriages, 56,725 births and 54,239 deaths.
The top causes of death were cancer (15,840), ischemic (coronary) heart disease (6,872), respiratory system diseases (6,707), and cerebrovascular disease (stroke) (4,123).
Same-sex couples accounted for 367 of the marriages, while there were 436 civil partnerships - 193 male couples and 243 female couples.
The average age at which people marry for the first time increased by about two years since 2004, to 33.2 years for men and 31.4 years for women.
Other statistics revealed included:
The 2014 records also showed the 1.3% increase in birth rate was the first rise following five consecutive annual decreases.
There were 455 adoptions recorded - about a quarter of what the figure was in the early 1970s.
And in mid-2014, there were 2.42 million households in Scotland, which was an increase of about 169,000 over the past 10 years.
THe NRS report has been published annually since 1855.
Tim Ellis, the registrar general of Scotland, said: "This is a time of substantial demographic change: the population is increasing and ageing.
"The ageing population is the most distinctive current demographic development and will bring both opportunities and challenges.
"Life expectancy at birth in Scotland, while increasing, is lower than in the UK as a whole, and lower than a lot of other developed countries.
"There is also considerable local variation in life expectancy. Good quality data contributes to research aimed at improving the quality and cost-effectiveness of health interventions, and securing lasting improvements to the health of the people of Scotland."
Mr Ellis added: "In the last half of the 20th Century, more people tended to leave Scotland than move here.
"However, since 2001, this has changed, with more people moving to Scotland than leaving. Around 60% of people moving to Scotland are from the rest of the UK, while around 40% are from overseas. Migrants tend to be younger than the population as a whole." | Scotland's population has reached its highest ever total of 5,347,600, according to official figures. |
39,759,421 | Arsenal are sixth in the Premier League and five points behind Manchester City in fourth, with six games to play.
The Gunners boss described February's 5-1 loss to Bayern Munich and the 3-1 defeat by Chelsea as "big knocks".
"We were a bit like a boxer who got put on the floor twice," he said.
"We lost and people interpreted that as them not caring," added the 67-year-old Frenchman.
"No. Maybe it's because they care very much that we were like that - shocked. We were shocked.
"I think the players care. The players have a good mentality. I love the attitude of this team. There's a good atmosphere compared to one or two months ago."
Of Wenger's 49 north London derbies, his Arsenal side have won 22, drawn 20 and lost seven, but Tottenham are unbeaten in each of their past five league games against Arsenal.
Mauricio Pochettino is the first Tottenham manager to remain unbeaten in his first five top-flight north London Premier League derbies. | Arsene Wenger says his Arsenal players have been "shocked" by some of their results this season, but insists his squad are capable to fight in Sunday's north London derby against Tottenham. |
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