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India's deadly Covid-19 second wave has devastated big cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow and Pune. Hospitals and crematoriums have run out of space, and funerals are taking place in car parks. But the pandemic has now firmly gripped many smaller cities, towns and villages where the devastation is largely under-reported. | By Vikas Pandey & Shadab NazmiBBC News, Delhi
Rajesh Soni spent eight hours taking his father from one hospital to another in a tuk-tuk in Kota district in the northern state of Rajasthan on Tuesday. He couldn't get an ambulance and the rickety vehicle was his only option. At 5pm, he decide to end his search for a hospital bed as his father's condition was deteriorating. He then "left everything to fate" and came home.
"I am giving him medicines at home, but I am not sure that he will survive. We have been left to die on the streets," Rajesh said. He says several private hospitals even "conned" him and took money to do tests, only to tell him later to take his father away as there were no beds.
"I am not a wealthy person. I spent whatever I had to pay the tuk-tuk driver and to hospitals. Now I am going to borrow some money to get an oxygen cylinder at home."
Such stories have become common in Delhi, the worst affected city in India, but similar accounts are now coming in from smaller cities and towns across the country.
The BBC looks at what's happening in five different states to see how fast the virus is spreading there.
Kota, Rajasthan state
The city and surrounding district has reported more than 6,000 cases in the past week, and 264 deaths since the pandemic began - but 35% of those happened in April alone.
Up to 7 April, it was taking 72 days for the number of cases to double, but now it's 27 days.
All oxygen beds were occupied, and only two out of the district's 329 ICU units were free on 27 April. A senior journalist in the city told the BBC that hospitals were overrun and "this suggests that the actual numbers are much higher".
There is an acute shortage of oxygen and drugs like remdesivir and tocilizumab. The district is home to many coaching centres for students from all over the country taking exams to get into prestigious medical and engineering colleges.
But the students have left and the district is now in turmoil and largely away from the radar of national and international media. The journalist said the city's hospitals were not ready for what he described as a Covid tsunami. He said there was an urgent need to add "more oxygen and ICU beds before more people start dying on the streets".
Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh state
The city, also known as Prayagraj, had recorded 54,339 cases up to 20 April, but it has registered a 21% increase since then, adding 11,318 cases in the past week.
About 32% of the reported 614 deaths in the city happened in April alone. There is no official data on healthcare facilities in the city, but several people the BBC spoke to said they had been unable to find a bed for their loved ones.
Several calls and written questions to the city's chief medical officer about the shortage of beds went unanswered. A senior journalist in the city said the actual death toll was much higher as cremation and burial grounds were functioning day and night.
Yogi Adityanath, the state's chief minister, recently said there was no shortage of drugs, hospital beds or oxygen, but experts say the reality on the ground is vastly different.
Social media is awash with posts from people from the state pleading for beds, oxygen and drugs like remdesivir. The chief minister has also warned that action will be taken against any private hospital that "falsely reports" an oxygen shortage.
An employee of one small private hospital told the BBC that arranging oxygen had become difficult, but he would not complain because he feared retribution.
"But I fail to understand why would any hospital falsely report a shortage. It makes no sense," he said.
There have also been reports about deaths due to oxygen shortages in the state. Several other districts and villages in Uttar Pradesh are also reporting that hospitals have run out of beds.
Ashish Yadav's father is in a critical condition in Kanpur district but he is unable to get him a bed and he doesn't even have access to a doctor.
"I have begged and pleaded everywhere, but nobody helped. Nobody is picking the helpline numbers that have been advertised," he told the BBC.
Kabirdham, Chhattisgarh state
The central Indian district did not have any active cases of Covid-19 on 1 March. But it has added almost 3,000 cases in the past seven days.
Kabirdham district hospital has seven ventilators but there are no trained doctors to operate the life-support machines. According to government data, the district hospital should have 49 specialist doctors, but it has only seven. There is also an acute shortage of nurses and lab technicians.
Local journalists say that the district is not able to handle really sick patients as it did not prepare to manage the sharp uptick in cases. Several people have died without getting proper treatment in the district.
Bhagalpur and Aurangabad
Bhagalpur district in the eastern state of Bihar is also badly hit. It has recorded a 26% increase in its caseload since 20 April, and the number of deaths increased by 33% in the same period.
Only Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College (JNMC) has ICU beds in the district, and all of its 36 units were occupied on 28 April. More than 270 out of 350 oxygen beds in the hospital were occupied.
A senior official from the hospital told the BBC that out of its 220 doctors, 40 had tested positive in the past 10 days and four of them died. This has added to the pressure on the hospital.
Aurangabad district in the west of the state is also badly hit. It has recorded more than 5,000 cases since 5 April, and six people died in the same period, according to official data. But senior journalists in the state say the actual numbers are higher as testing is a major problem in smaller towns and cities. Many people become critical and die without ever being able to get tested for Covid-19. Such deaths don't go into official data.
Sumitra Devi struggled to get a test done in Aurangabad. She couldn't get an RT-PCR test done for days as her condition continued to worsen. Hospitals refused to admit her without a positive test result.
So her family took her to a small private hospital in a nearby district where she tested positive, but the hospital said she was critical and they didn't have facilities to treat her. The family then took her to a big hospital in the state's capital Patna where she was made to wait for several hours.
She died in the ambulance.
Nainital, Uttarakhand state
The tourist district in the Himalayas is struggling to cope with the rising number of cases. At least 131 out of its 142 ICU beds were occupied on 27 April and only 10 out of its 771 oxygen beds were free.
It has reported more than 4,000 cases and 82 deaths in the past week. The district is particularly finding it difficult to handle the rise because it also receives patients from remote towns and villages where healthcare facilities are negligible.
A local doctor, who did not wish to be identified, said "the situation was dire and he was terrified".
"We are in this situation because the government didn't plan to augment facilities in remote areas. I am worried that many people in remote Himalayan areas will die and we will never hear about them. They will never show up in statistics."
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Wristbands have long been synonymous with music festivals, but what was once a simple, colourful loop of material now increasingly contains contactless technology. This allows music fans to pay for food, drinks or merchandise but festival directors are now taking the technology further, into the realm of "gameification". | By Chris LongBBC News
This summer, Cheshire's Bluedot festival is celebrating the innovation behind the first lunar landings 50 years ago. But its organisers are hoping to make their own giant leap, taking contactless technology on its first tentative steps into the creative world.
Festival director Ben Robinson says it will allow visitors to check-in at stages, talks and stalls, creating a "mission log" they will be sent after the event, listing what they saw and giving further information.
Ultimately, he hopes to turn festivals into immersive gaming sites - something akin to Pokemon Go - where, alongside enjoying the festival site, visitors can unlock exclusive rewards. This might include entry to a restricted area for visiting a number of check-in points or free dishes if enough food is purchased.
Acts and artists can investigate creative uses, linking the wristbands to interactive apps and existing technologies, such as augmented reality, to give attendees something beyond the usual festival experience.
The technology, which is also used in contactless bank card payments, has been widely adopted at festivals in the US and Europe, but several medium-sized UK events have also now embraced the idea, using it to eliminate cash and cards from their sites.
Steve Jenner, managing director of Playpass, which makes the wristbands, said: "Rewards could include bonus credit to be spent in the event, merchandise, access to a restricted area or the right to camp in a premium location the following year."
So what do music fans make of the use of the technology? Dan Salter, editor of music magazine website Echoes and Dust, regularly attends festivals and says he broadly supports the idea, providing it does not start to interfere with the whole point of a music festival - the acts on stage.
"The danger is that you get analysis that tells you 80% of your audience went to see Band X so you should book loads of bands that sound like Band X," he says.
"Much like the Spotify algorithm that serves you a never-ending stream of stuff it thinks you will like, data can stop exposing you to that thrill of hearing something new and different."
He also says that, while not using cash at festivals is "an inherently good idea", he has "reservations" about preloading wristbands with funds, because of something called "breakage".
"That is where people load money on that they never end up redeeming. Most retailers view this as an excellent stream of effectively free money... but it is scamming the punters who are already paying an on-site premium."
Those are not the only concerns levelled at the contactless technology. The well-documented issues at Download in 2015, when a system that required online connectivity failed, have made other festivals cautious about adopting technology and experts also question the security of the system.
Mohammad Hammoudeh, an IT expert at Manchester Metropolitan University, says while the wristband itself holds very little information, it links the visitor to their registration data, which raises a number of concerns.
"You can read that tag using a standard mobile device... so somebody could duplicate it - and as it's contactless, you only need to be within a certain proximity.
"Also, the visitors are potentially being profiled and this is viewed by the security community as an invasion of privacy."
Mr Robinson says Bluedot have been "quite surprised" by the concerns raised as they "thought the audience would be slightly more with us".
The system they are using provides only "blind data", he says, which means there is "no GPRS [and] no tracking".
"It's simply a device that will tell us how many people bought how many beers and at what time and such like [which is] data that a standard EPOS (electronic point of sale) system would track."
Mr Jenner says the concerns over data are understandable but unnecessary.
"It's worth noting that in the events we have worked with, none have shown an interest in using the data to see how many hot dogs Bill consumed on a Saturday."
He says they use "a global encryption standard used by the military... that has only ever been hacked or cloned in a theoretical situation, never in real life" and only use any data collected for "assisting visitors with customer service enquiries".
He adds that "under no circumstances would we ever promote, sell or support a breakage model".
"This goes completely against our ethos of putting the visitor first and would undermine acceptance of our technology."
Mr Robinson says Bluedot's use of contactless technology is not just about innovation, but also futureproofing.
"I was at Burning Man (in the US) and there was no cash at that - everyone just swapped things.
"It's a really interesting thing to be at a festival and suddenly find that you don't have a pocket full of change and you're not looking at notes.
"Perhaps in the future, there won't be any cash, so let's see how that feels."
Bluedot takes place between 18 and 21 July.
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Forget Indyref2, what about Indyref3? | Laura KuenssbergPolitical editor@bbclaurakon Twitter
What?
Only a couple of days ago, Scottish Secretary Alister Jack said that there was no way the UK government would permit another referendum that would give Scottish voters the chance to leave the UK, unless they were prepared to wait a very long time, and by a long time perhaps he meant as long as 40 years.
That's because, the passionately fought referendum in 2014 was billed as a "once in a generation" choice.
As things stand, the UK government has to give consent for another vote to take place, and you can read about the legal position here.
No one seems, however, to have told Sir John Major that's the official position of the Conservative and (remember) Unionist Party. Or perhaps they did, and he merrily ignored them anyway.
After all, the former prime minister has on many occasions made it abundantly clear that he believes that Brexit is a mistake of epic proportions, and that he has little time for Boris Johnson's government or style of doing business.
Where they do however agree is that Scotland should stay in the UK, and the union is well worth protecting.
That's why Sir John's suggestion of holding not one, but two public votes, on Scotland leaving the UK is striking.
What Sir John's suggesting is a referendum on whether to ask the hypothetical question. Then a period of working out what Scotland outside the UK would look like before another vote to decide if it's what Scottish voters want in practice - try before you buy, if you like.
In the last few weeks, well before Sir John's remarks, there has been whispering in Westminster about the possibility of granting the SNP another referendum on independence if they secure a majority at the critical elections for the Scottish Parliament in May.
It was described to me as a "call their bluff" referendum, to push the SNP into another poll quickly, possibly around this time next year.
Now first off, that is not because anyone in the government actually wants to have another referendum, or split the UK apart, but there is what one source described to me as a "very high risk" temptation to force a vote on the SNP before they actually want to move - the power of surprise, if you like.
And secondly, importantly, while there is anxiety among union circles about conversations where this option has been gamed out, it is rejected in very strong terms by figures who would be involved in making such a high-stakes decisions.
"No one credible" is making an argument for such a vote, one senior official said. Another insider describes it as "insane".
For the UK's unionist parties, the primary task is to try to hold off an SNP majority in May so the question doesn't arise for real.
But given that polls suggest the SNP is likely to be dominant, the reality is what is politely described as a "lot of debate" inside government about what to to do in that circumstance.
In political parlance, that means there are a lot of pretty tricky conversations going on with no obvious conclusions, while some describe it less politely than that.
And some involved in those contacts describe a rather patchy approach in government - "the Cabinet Office (where Michael Gove has responsibility for this) wants to lean in".
But there's a sense that Number 10 would simply rather it all went away - keen not to allow another agonising constitutional question to dominate the early years of their term in charge, far less to allow for the possibility that having taken the UK out of the EU, Boris Johnson then opened the door to the end of the union.
While he is no friend of Number 10, nor frankly someone with sway over this government, Sir John's intervention might again stir up the conversations about whether saying no, no, no can really hold.
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Communities are being urged to help stop the spread of a plant which is "causing havoc" on Dorset riverbanks. | Dorset Wildlife Trust said Himalayan balsam was causing erosion and destroying the habitats of creatures such as water voles.
It grows very quickly and smothers and destroys native plants.
The trust is asking people who live near streams and rivers to pull out the plant, which has distinctive pink trumpet-shaped flowers.
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Libraries are more than buildings with books in. They are free gateways to infinite worlds and providers of help, advice and unexpected acts of kindness. As part of We Are Middlesbrough, the BBC has been finding out how the town's central library cares for its people. | By Francesca WilliamsBBC News
Occasionally, when librarian Jennifer O'Donnell was somewhere in Middlesbrough's Central Library, maybe putting books away, she was called back to the lending desk.
She was needed for something almost definitely outside her job description.
"An old lady used to ask for a hug when she came in to collect her books," she says.
"She lived alone and I think she just wanted a little contact."
Librarians regularly have stories like this.
Middlesbrough has 11 libraries, some prettier than others. But the town's central library is a Victorian treat with a reference section that doesn't look like it's changed since the building opened in 1912.
Scottish-American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie had a soft spot for libraries and donated the £15,000 cost of building it.
On a warm afternoon in May the book shelves have a few people browsing the thrillers and romances but every computer is in use.
Robert Kaczkowski is sitting reading Islam for Dummies, part of a series of reference books that takes in subjects as diverse as parenting, carpentry and Shakespeare.
"My friend is a Muslim and I'm just trying to understand," he says.
He likes the central library because it's quiet.
"It's quite enclosed, it means you get a bit of privacy," he says.
"I don't like those libraries where it's open plan and everyone's watching you."
Author Glen James Brown also likes a quiet library.
He lives up the road in Chester-le-Street but pushed Middlesbrough on to the fiction bookshelves with his novel Ironopolis, set on a council estate amid the town's industrial decline.
Like many authors, he's not sure he would have become a writer had he not spent so much time in his local library as a child.
"I loved stories and I loved reading because of libraries," he says
"I still remember the thrill of going down there on a Saturday and the smell of the place.
"It's an access for anybody, from any walk of life. I mean, books cost money to buy. Not everybody has a lot of money."
Brown accepts the importance of creches and community hubs in today's libraries but he mourns that the "books come second".
"It's kind of this weird multi-use space now," he says.
They are still safe havens, but books "aren't top of the list now", he thinks.
But they still provide help, advice and information.
The men who call Ms O'Donnell from noisy pubs asking her to settle a bet still get what they need.
Some come for other reasons.
She once woke up someone "with the imprint of the keyboard still on their face, swearing blind that they were not asleep".
The computers are ICT officer David Harrington's area.
They are a big part of the library now, sitting rather incongruously in the Victorian building among its old card-filing cabinets and wooden desks.
People use them for submitting job applications, honing their CVs, practising their driving test theory, applying for benefits.
For some, it's the first time they've gone near a computer and it is a bit of a shock.
"As well as being newly unemployed they're also being forced onto a PC," Mr Harrington says.
They need help - emotionally as well as practically - and "sometimes you find yourself being a social worker", he says.
But computers can only do so much.
He quotes author Neil Gaiman: "Google can bring you back 100,000 answers - a librarian can bring you back the right one."
Richard Bailey has brought his daughters Isabel and Imogen.
They're allowed something like 13 books now, he thinks. Far more than the four it once was.
In the end, it comes down to what they can carry.
Despite their proliferating computers, libraries are a useful tool against the assault of the internet, he thinks.
"It's drilling it into my daughters that you can pick anything," he says.
"Get them out of the mindset of head stuck in phone."
Central Library knows its audience, too, it seems. Young readers are offered a holiday reading challenge, with rewards and - highly rated by Isabel and Imogen - a magician.
Isabel, collecting a stash of books about gymnastics, likes the relative silence, compared to home.
"I really like it because it's quiet and peaceful," she says, pointing out peace is not something her little sister will let her have normally.
Imogen, sitting nearby, is oblivious, quietly absorbed in her book.
This article was created as part of We Are Middlesbrough - a BBC project with the people of the town to tell the stories which matter to them.
For more information about We Are Middlesbrough follow #BBCWeAreMiddlesbrough on social media. You can also email us [email protected]
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The Muslim festival Eid al-Adha - which means "feast of the sacrifice" - began on Sunday evening and is marked by special prayers and feasts.
| Each year Muslims gather for the occasion that commemorates the Prophet Ibrahim's willingness to sacrifice his son on the command of God. Ibrahim was eventually given a lamb to sacrifice instead.
Eid al-Adha usually begins on the last day of the Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
It is the second Islamic festival of the year, and follows Eid al-Fitr which marks the end of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting.
Here is a selection of pictures of celebrations from around the world on Monday.
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As dusk falls in the Elqui Valley, a packed minivan rumbles up a winding trail into the hills, high above the gleaming orange lights of Vicuna - a small town at the heart of Chile's recent boom in astrotourism. | By Frederick BernasElqui Valley, Chile
After 40 minutes on the dusty road, lined with scrawny bushes, cacti and rocks, the van arrives at Pangue Observatory. Opened in 2008, it is one of about a dozen tourist observatories scattered around Chile's northern regions, which have some of the clearest skies in the world.
"I used to go on 'astronomic safaris' with my Canadian friends. We would take a telescope, drive into the valley and observe all night long, so I knew foreign visitors were interested," says Cristian Valenzuela, one of Pangue's two founders.
The other is Eric Escalera, a professional astronomer who left his native France six years ago. "Over there, tours are impossible," he says. "It's a disaster with all the clouds and climate problems."
Pangue offers stargazing sessions with a $45,000 (£26,750) telescope that range from three hours to a whole night. The largest group size is 15 and programmes are designed for enthusiasts who know more than your average tourist.
Across the valley, hundreds of visitors per night flock to the municipal observatory at Cerro Mamalluca, which opened to the public in November 1998 as the first project of its kind.
"Back then, it was just an experiment - our first tour had two people," says guide Luis Traslavina, as the observatory's spherical roof slides open to reveal a vast panorama of planets, constellations, galaxies and the occasional shooting star.
"I've worked here for 16 years, and there's never been a day when nobody came."
Although many newer observatories have sprung up, Mamalluca's popularity is not wavering: Last year, it welcomed more than 45,000 of the region's 150,000 visitors.
The telescope was donated by Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, a nearby scientific complex that houses the world's largest camera.
Every weekend, Tololo's doors open for tourists who marvel at the huge 570-megapixel instrument used to study dark energy and the expansion of the universe.
A series of even more ambitious projects is coming to Chile in the next few years. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, a camera boasting 3,200 megapixels, will catalogue the entire visible sky and publish images online - allowing anyone with a computer to zoom through space and potentially make discoveries.
The Giant Magellan Telescope and the European Extremely Large Telescope will bring more groundbreaking technology and global prestige.
And Chile already has the $1-billion ALMA radio telescope, an array of 66 antennae in the Atacama Desert that probes the cosmic origins of life.
By 2020, the government estimates it will host 70% of the world's astronomical infrastructure.
Gazing at the sky
As tourists are sure to continue following the scientists, entrepreneurs have been finding creative ways to capitalize.
Elqui Domos is a hotel designed with the stars in mind. Dome-shaped rooms feature removable ceilings that open onto the sky, and observatory cabins with glass roofs are also available.
Many more hotels provide telescopes for guests to use, but Alfa Aldea hostel recently built a small amphitheatre in the middle of a vineyard.
During nightly tours, wine, snacks and blankets are handed out while a guide talks about space history. Groups then get a chance to see more with telescopes.
"It's a family experience - I like that children are encouraged to participate," says Maria Celeste Valenzuela, a teacher from Santiago.
"The best thing was looking at the sky, sheltered by your blanket, surrounded by nature and listening to the sound of crickets."
But tourism also brings development and the danger of light pollution.
The neighbouring beach towns of La Serena and Coquimbo, about an hour away from the Elqui Valley, are growing rapidly; this region's population has swelled to over 700,000, adding more than 200,000 people in the last 20 years.
Mining is another boom industry.
Anticipating this risk, in 1999 the government issued a decree to regulate light emissions across northern Chile.
Provisions include power limits for public lighting and that street lamps are shielded to face away from the sky.
Last year, new rules were added to cover neon signs, billboards and LED or plasma screens, along with stricter guidelines for sport and recreational facilities.
Chile is also working with a group of astronomers in lobbying UNESCO to add major astronomy sites to its World Heritage List.
The aim is to establish a link between science and culture - the S and C in UNESCO - to preserve locations connected with studying the history of mankind.
Several "Windows to the Universe", including the Coquimbo region, have been identified, along with four categories of astronomical heritage.
"When I first arrived in La Serena, in 1969, I could see the Milky Way from the town square," says Malcolm Smith, an astronomer involved in the UNESCO initiative. Today it is no longer visible.
"Protecting the future is awfully hard, and they have changed a lot," Mr Smith continues, "but there is still more to do. Chile has to make these decisions for itself".
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Record numbers of an endangered species of turtle have hatched on a beach in northern Mexico, believed to be the result of reduced human activity during the coronavirus pandemic. | The indigenous Seri community in Sonora state said it released more than 2,250 baby olive ridley sea turtles into the Gulf of California.
The community usually releases about 500 of the small creatures every year.
Fishing and tourism limits mean their beach nests have not been as disturbed.
The olive ridley sea turtle, which is under threat globally, lays its eggs on the beaches of a number of Mexican states between May and September.
The species is considered to be facing a high risk of extinction in the wild.
Mexico banned the capture of sea turtles in 1990, and there are stiff penalties for anyone caught hunting them.
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Corby has been dubbed "little Scotland" ever since scores of Scots migrated south to work in the steelworks in the 1930s. On Sunday, the town's annual Highland Gathering will host their own mock independence referendum. But how Scottish is Corby? | By Vanessa BarfordBBC News
If you search Wikipedia for Scotland's southernmost settlement it comes up with Cairngaan in Wigtownshire.
But the title has, at least in terms of repute, long belonged to the Northamptonshire town of Corby, more than 200 miles south of the Scottish border, in the heart of England.
The rather unlikely association between this English town and Scotland began when Glasgow-based Stewarts & Lloyds constructed one of the UK's largest steelworks in Corby in the 1930s.
Britons from all over the UK migrated to Corby in the steel rush, but a downturn in the Clyde Valley's steel industry led to a stampede of Scots. And they kept coming. By 1961, a third of Corby's population had been born in Scotland, according to the Census.
With them came their Scottish traditions, dialect and culture. And also Highland dancing and bagpipes. And a love of haggis and Irn-Bru.
It wasn't long before Corby was dubbed "little Scotland".
But 35 years after steel manufacturing in Corby ceased, how Scottish is "little Scotland" today?
About 12.7%, if 2011 Census figures are a good measure. It found that 7,765 of the town's population of 61,255 were born in Scotland.
However, when it came to how the population described its national identity, 5,585 people in Corby said "Scottish only". By comparison, 33,018 people described themselves as "English only" and 10,299 people said they were "British only".
But the census doesn't necessarily tally with local perceptions.
Steve Ireland, 64, who used to work in a whisky factory and the RAF in Scotland, but is English and now lives in Corby, maintains the town is very much still a "mini-Scotland".
"There's a huge number of Scots in Corby - first, second and third-generation Scots. And you can get anything here that the Scottish get - Irn-Bru, Scotch pies, square sausage. All you have to do is speak to people to realise most people have a link to Scotland," he says.
Steve Noble, whose parents moved down from Glasgow in 1970 to work on the steelworks when he was 10 and is the landlord of the White Hart pub, agrees many families in Corby still feel Scottish.
"I'm Scottish and my wife is from Aberdeen. My children were brought up with Scottish habits, my daughter used to highland dance. That's the template of the town - most families are like that. The Scottishness is diluted, but you identify with your roots," he says.
Stroll around the town, and it doesn't stand out as particularly Scottish. There are chain stores and pound shops. Supermarkets and pubs. Cafes, chippies and a McDonald's. That could be anywhere in Scotland. But it could also be anywhere in England or Wales or Northern Ireland.
But dig a little deeper, and there are signs of Scottishness.
The most striking is the Corby accent, or mixture of accents. Some sound Glaswegian. Others seem to have a slight Scottish twang. And there are those that speak with a broad Scottish accent.
Then there's the food and drink. Buckfast, Tennent's and Special Brew are all on sale in corner shops. Scotch pies sit on supermarket shelves. Almost every shop sells Irn-Bru (Asda says Corby consumes more of the fizzy drink than anywhere else outside Scotland).
Bradbury's butchers sells everything from haggis and black pudding to Scottish beef links (sausages) and Aberdeen butteries (very buttery rolls with flaky pastry).
"About 80% of everything we sell has a Scottish-based origin. We make our own traditional Scottish black pudding and haggis, fruit puddings, mealy puddings [white pudding] and Scottish potted hock [a kind of set pork dish]," says owner Gavin Bradbury, who was born in Corby but had Scottish grandparents.
"A lot of the things that are north of the border are very popular with 90% of my customers - everybody in Corby has a real connection to Scotland due to the town's great sense of Scottish community," he says.
Up the road, Caroline Murray, manager of the new Corby cafe, says she sells 70% more Scottish breakfasts - which include a square sausage, tattie scone and black pudding - than English breakfasts. "About 90% of my customers are Scottish. They love the mega big breakfast," she says.
Most of the clientele at the Corby Candle pub next door are also Scottish, or Scottish descendants, according to 24-year-old Paul Fyfe, who works behind the bar. Some of the customers are in Celtic football shirts. Scottish ham and lentil soup is the soup of the day.
What do people in Corby think about not having a vote in the referendum?
Ian Brown, born in Corby, Scottish parents: "I think the vote should be bigger than it is. There are lots of English, Irish and Welsh that work a lot in Scotland who it will impact who should get a say."
Robert Smith, 55, born in Glasgow, lives in Corby: "I feel sick that I can't have a vote. I love Corby, it's given me a job, a home. But I was born in Scotland. I want to go back there when I retire."
Michael Walker, 29, born in Corby: "I'm from a Scottish family. I was brought up in Corby but I often work in Scotland. I don't think people that have lived in England all their lives have a right to vote, but I'm not sure how it would affect my work if Scotland votes for independence."
James Lewis, 50, born in Scotland, brought up in Corby: "I don't think anyone that has been out of Scotland for a while, X amount of years, should have the vote - because how can we vote on somebody else's future when we are not part of that country?"
"The pub doesn't do Sunday roasts. Everything in Corby revolves around the Scottish. The chip shop up the road will batter absolutely anything - Snickers, Mars Bars, pizzas, Creme Eggs, Chewits," he says.
The town has more explicit Scottish ties. The Corby Trades and Labour Club, with Younger's Tartan Special on draught and old photos of Glasgow on the walls, is one such Caledonian encampment. The tartan-carpeted, saltire-saturated Grampian Club is another.
The latter organises big celebrations for Burns Night, Hogmanay and St Andrew's Night and boasts its own pipe band.
The town also has six highland dancing schools, according to Mark Pengelly, the Englishman who is organising the town's Highland Gathering and mock referendum on Sunday. "That's more than many Scottish towns with the same population as Corby," he says.
Another sign of Corby's Scottishness is the number of Celtic and Rangers football supporters. "We've got second and third generation Scots walking around in Celtic and Rangers tops. More people probably go to watch them than watch the Corby Town football club," he says.
Corbei: A pre-Scottish history
Source: www.corby.gov.uk
Corby's Scottish culture makes the town feel very different from neighbouring towns such as Kettering or Northampton, he adds.
And yet Pengelly concedes Corby is changing.
Asda used to have an entire aisle of Scottish food, but today the tinned haggis and Tunnocks' tea cakes share their display with Indian, Mexican and Polish products in the World Food Section. It's the same story in the new Tesco. The town, which in 2011 had 2,227 residents who were born in Poland - 3.6% of the population - also has a sizable Polish shop.
Ian Brown, who was born in Corby after his parents moved there from Peterhead in 1961 for the building trade, believes the town is already a "mini city".
"There are lots of multicultural roots in Corby. Welsh. Irish. People from former Yugoslavia came after the war. Now there are Polish, Portuguese. It's a massive multicultural population in Corby, it's not Scottish," he says.
However, Pengelly isn't concerned that Corby's Scottish culture could become so diluted that it disappears.
"There aren't many towns where you can go in to all the cafes, pubs and clubs and ask for an Irn-Bru, or ask for Scottish pies and haggis in your fish and chips, and hopefully that will continue forever," he says.
Perhaps he should take some comfort from the experience of David Laird, who opened a new cafe called Picnic Lounge in Corby two months ago.
"We started with unusual drinks - Duff beer, glass bottle drinks, flavoured crisps. But ultimately people from Corby want things like Irn-Bru, so we started stocking it and changed interesting crisp flavours back to salt and vinegar. And yes, Irn-Bru is one of our best sellers," he laughs.
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Bullies tore a 10-year-old's hearing aids out before stamping on them in a "hateful" attack, police said. | The boy was chased and pushed over by a group of six older boys, who tore the devices from the boy's ears and destroying them, police said.
West Midlands Police appealed for information on the "unprovoked" assault on "a defenceless young boy".
It happened between 18:15 and 19:00 BST on 28 September, on Lister Road, Beechdale, Walsall.
Sgt Adam Hicklin said the boy was left "very frightened and shaken" and his hearing aids would cost several thousand pounds to replace.
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A loggerhead turtle that washed up on a County Donegal beach and was being looked after at an aquarium in Portaferry, County Down, has died. | Staff at the Exploris aquarium said that despite their attempts to save it, the turtle, which had hypothermia, died during the night.
It landed on Irish shores after being blown off course from the Gulf Stream into the colder North Atlantic.
Aquarium staff named it Columba.
Tanya Singleton, who works at Exploris said they knew it would be a battle to save the turtle. Staff tried to raise its core temperature, and treated it with antibiotics.
"He was still spending long, long periods being very inactive and very lethargic so we were quite concerned that there were underlying problems there that we just didn't know about."
Colulmba will now be taken for a post-mortem to discover what caused his death.
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An iPhone stolen at a Foo Fighters gig led to the discovery of more than 30 missing mobiles after police used a tracker app to locate it. | The device was stolen during the band's concert at Sunderland's Stadium of Light on 25 May.
Northumbria Police found the phones at a house in Whitley Bay hours later after using a GPS locator app to find it.
A 25-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion of theft.
Det Insp Dave Swinburn said the force advised concert goers to be "extra vigilant" and recommended smartphone owners install tracking software on their devices.
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The team behind Aberdeen's bid to be UK City of Culture in 2017 has been in London to answer follow-up questions about the city's application.
| Aberdeen has applied to become the next city of culture, alongside 10 other towns and cities.
The agency running the Department for Culture, Media and Sport competition has been seeking extra details from all the applicants.
A spokesman for Aberdeen 2017 said they had given a good account of themselves.
Comedian Billy Connolly is among those who have already backed Aberdeen, alongside singer Emeli Sande, percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie and author Stuart MacBride.
Dundee is the other Scottish city in the running.
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A UN-backed court has convicted a member of the militant group Hezbollah of being involved in the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 21 others in a car bombing in Beirut on 14 February 2005. | Salim Ayyash was one of four men accused of conspiring in the attack who were tried in their absence by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) in the Netherlands.
A panel of judges found the three other defendants not guilty of all counts.
The judges also said there was no direct evidence that the leadership of Hezbollah or the Syrian government played a role in Hariri's death. Both denied involvement.
Salim Jamil Ayyash
Verdict: Guilty on all counts
Ayyash was convicted of five charges, including conspiracy aimed at committing a terrorist act, committing a terrorist act by means of an explosive device, and the intentional homicide of Rafik Hariri with premeditation by using explosive materials.
The 56-year-old was related through marriage to Mustafa Badreddine, according to the pre-indictment. Badreddine, a former Hezbollah military commander, was charged by STL prosecutors alongside Ayyash, but was dropped from the indictment after he was killed in Syria in 2016.
Ayyash was alleged to have co-ordinated the physical perpetration of the attack and, together with Badreddine, the surveillance of Rafik Hariri.
In the attack, a suicide bomber detonated a large quantity of high explosives concealed in a van as Hariri drove past Beirut's St Georges Hotel.
Ayyash was accused of purchasing the van, and of having played a role in preparing a false claim of responsibility to shield the real conspirators.
Prosecutors said Ayyash and the other defendants had used five mobile phone networks to plan, prepare and execute the attack, and that Ayyash had one of six mobiles used by the "assassination team".
Ayyash's court-appointed defence lawyers said the prosecution's case relied on circumstantial evidence that did not support the allegation that he used phones attributed to him and did not prove his involvement in any of the alleged activities underlying the conspiracy.
But Presiding Judge David Re said the court was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that prosecutors proved Ayyash's guilt.
"Mr Ayyash had a central role in the execution of the attack and directly contributed to it," he stated. "Mr Ayyash intended to kill Mr Hariri and had the required knowledge about the circumstances of the assassination mission, including that explosives were the means to be used."
Hussein Hassan Oneissi
Verdict: Not guilty on all counts
Mr Oneissi was acquitted of five charges, including conspiracy aimed at committing a terrorist act by means of an explosive device, and being an accomplice to the felony of intentional homicide with premeditation by using explosive materials.
The 46-year-old, along with co-defendant Assad Hassan Sabra, was accused of having participated prior to the attack in the selection of a suitable individual - Ahmed Abu Adass, a Palestinian man - to make a false claim of responsibility, and of having participated in his disappearance. Mr Abu Adass has been missing since 16 January 2005.
Prosecutors also alleged that Mr Oneissi and Mr Sabra acted together immediately after the bombing in order to disseminate statements falsely attributing responsibility, and to ensure the delivery and subsequent broadcast of the video-taped false claim of responsibility to the Al Jazeera news network's Beirut office.
Al Jazeera received a video in which Mr Abu Adass said he planned to blow himself up on behalf of a what prosecutors said was a fictional Sunni fundamentalist group called "Victory and Jihad and Greater Syria".
Mr Oneissi's defence team said prosecutors had not proven he was involved in preparing the allegedly false claim, nor his alleged role in the disappearance of Mr Abu Adass.
Assad Hassan Sabra
Verdict: Not guilty on all counts
Mr Sabra was accused, along with Mr Oneissi, of preparing the false claim of responsibility.
The 43-year-old was acquitted of five charges, including conspiracy aimed at committing a terrorist act and being an accomplice to the felony of intentional homicide with premeditation by using explosive materials.
Mr Sabra's defence lawyers said the evidence against him was "not only wholly circumstantial, but of the weakest variety", and that it was clear the prosecution was unable to demonstrate his criminal involvement, knowledge or intent.
Hassan Habib Merhi
Verdict: Not guilty on all counts
Mr Merhi was not initially part of the trial. In February 2014, the case against him was joined with the case against Salim Ayyash and the other accused.
The 54-year-old was acquitted of five charges, including conspiracy aimed at committing a terrorist act and being an accomplice to the felony of intentional homicide with premeditation by using explosive materials.
He was accused of having co-ordinated, together with Mustafa Badreddine, the preparation of the false claim of responsibility, and to have been in contact with Salim Ayyash in relation to the preparations for the attack.
Prosecutors alleged that Mr Merhi also worked with Hussein Oneissi and Assad Sabra in order to make a false claim of responsibility for the attack and ensure its broadcast.
Mr Merhi's defence team said prosecutors had not proved any of the counts against him, and that their case was based on telecommunications evidence which was seriously defective in terms of reliability.
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John Williams is a single father and full-time carer for his 10-year-old son, who has autism and cerebral palsy. Both of them dread school holidays but have learned how to manage them, he says, through a process of trial and error. | School. Holidays. Two words that on their own are fine, but together strike fear and horror in to parents throughout the land. For my 10-year-old autistic son, who craves the familiarity and consistency of routine, the lack of sameness, and change of pace that holidays inevitably bring, can make them an even more testing time.
"Please complete the holiday diary to tell us what you did over the Easter period," said a letter he arrived home with on Friday. It turned out to be an exercise book. An exercise book! Forty-two pages.
He's only off for two weeks. What do you want us to have done?
"On Monday we trekked across the Himalayas to discover a new breed of toad before popping over to South America on Tuesday to save the rainforest."
What's wrong with: "We spent the entire fortnight in our pyjamas watching CBeebies, eating all our meals off the lounge floor with our hands"?
But unless you want to be made to feel like you're top of the Bad Parent Class, trips out are the order of the day. We've tried different outings over the years, some with more success than others.
London's Natural History Museum is a place of wonderment and beauty... unless you're an eight-year-old who can't differentiate between reality and make-believe.
For The Boy, as I'm calling him for the purpose of this article, to save his blushes, it's just a big mortuary filled with dead animals, apart from one very much alive, animatronic Tyrannosaurus Rex, that nobody sees fit to warn you about. We've only been once.
Libraries are good. They're quiet, often tragically empty places nowadays. The Boy likes their calmness.
The one nearest to us has really high ceilings. So if you stand in the middle of it and scream really loudly when you can't have the same Doctor Who book you've borrowed for the last 18 months, you get a brilliant echo that goes on and on and on - long after the security guard has asked you to step outside.
There's one trip we've become good at though - 10-pin bowling.
Bowling alleys have a consistency that The Boy finds reassuring. The lights aren't too bright, there's an airiness to the place and there are no surprises. You bowl the ball. It knocks things down. They get up again. Time after time.
But even then, our visit is not like most people's. So, if ever anyone fancies taking The Boy bowling for the school holidays, here's a crash course on how to make the trip a success:
John William's blog, My Son's Not Rainman, is written to accompany his comedy show of the same name, currently touring the UK before a run at this summer's Edinburgh Festival .
You can follow the BBC's Ouch! blog on disability on Twitter and on Facebook
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When Joan Rivers landed her first UK show Can We Talk? in 1986, British make-up artist Mark Easton was called in to do her make-up. He went on to work with her for many years and has shared his memories of those times with the BBC. | I remember her very first words when I went in to her dressing room at the BBC. She said "Hi, what's your name?" and I said, "Mark". And then she just said "Ok, hit that face!".
I was doing high fashion and motion picture stars at the time but I got the job because my agent Michael John used to look after all Cher's wigs at his salon in Beverly Hills and Joan and Cher were very close friends. Every time she came to England I looked after her.
She had a book tour coming up and they asked me to go to the States. She was doing a coast to coast tour with the Oprah Winfrey show and David Letterman and that's when the news broke that she had split with Johnny Carson [when she left The Tonight Show to front a rival talk show] and there was a big ruckus there.
She was a hugely funny woman and always up for a joke. Travelling coast to coast in the back of a limo, she had her scriptwriting team with her and the banter would be going on all the time to create her material. There were quips but I can't say she told jokes all the time. She'd talk about books, she was incredibly well read, and she'd be talking about her daughter Melissa and life in general.
She was incredibly generous. When I was in Hollywood with her, they'd put me up in a very nice place, all expenses paid. I wanted to see the Guggenheim museum and it was closed, so she just phoned them up and they opened it up especially. We just drove up there and had lunch when it was completely empty. Her house on Bellagio Drive in Beverly Hills was a beautiful home, she was a very sophisticated lady. And a tough business woman, she probably had to be to stay at the top like that.
At that particular time, she'd had work done. She'd probably have an acid wash [peel] every now and again, but it was not an obsession with her. All ladies of a certain age in Hollywood, if they wanted to continue working, they had to look good. Often we'd go for dinner at Le Gavroche or somewhere like that and we'd all eat and Joan would have a glass of white wine and a plate of pills!
I just loved her as a human being, she was such a smashing lady, but she would be quite wicked sometimes. I remember we were in Chicago staying at the Four Seasons and we were coming down in the lift, and the lift was packed, and she said: "I must phone [Barbra] Streisand, she's just had an operation on her throat - she's never going to sing again!".
And then she'd just sail out in her mink coat, with a wink and a smile in her eye - and that was Joan. She'd be like, "that will be in the press tomorrow". But it was all in good fun. All the people she sent up knew it was all part of the act and they'd be on the phone the next day and having supper together.
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A British team is developing a car that will capable of reaching 1,000mph (1,610km/h).
Powered by a rocket bolted to a Eurofighter-Typhoon jet engine, the Bloodhound SSC (SuperSonic Car) vehicle will mount an assault on the land speed record.
Wing Commander Green is writing a diary for the BBC News website about his experiences working on the Bloodhound project and the team's efforts to inspire national interest in science and engineering.
| By Andy GreenWorld Land Speed Record Holder
The secret's out now - we're planning on our first UK hybrid rocket firing on 3 October.
I have to confess to being slightly nervous about the event. It's all very well us running the world's largest "Engineering Adventure", promising to share all of the data as we go, and promising to conduct key tests in public, but doing our very first high-pressure firing with the world's media present, when we don't know exactly what will happen - what could possibly go wrong?
Actually, it's probably not a lot. We've previously fired the hybrid in the US at a lower pressure - about 20 Bar (300 psi) - and all was well.
Next month we're going to use the Cosworth F1 engine and pump, doubling the feed pressure to 40 Bar (600 psi), which will hopefully make a lot more noise and flame - and a lot more thrust.
This will be the next step in the development of the hybrid rocket, up to its eventual limit of around 76 Bar (1,100 psi), at which point it should be delivering about 12 tonnes of thrust - the sort of power that Bloodhound SSC is going to need to get up to 1,000mph.
The hybrid firing requires a number of things to work together.
First the Cosworth engine has to be running at high power, which is not as easy as it sounds. The engine is driving the rocket pump through a fixed gearbox, so it's a bit like a F1 car pulling out of the pits in top gear - the engine will struggle to accelerate, and we will need to get the ratios exactly right to get to full speed.
The Cosworth/pump system won't be running at full speed for next month's test, but we will still learn a lot about the pump performance.
Once the pump is running, it will be pushing high test peroxide (HTP - concentrated hydrogen peroxide) under high pressure (40 Bar for this test) through the catalyst pack.
To give you an idea of the pressure involved, I've just measured the palm of my hand - it's about 1/100th of a square metre (10 cm by 10 cm). Hence, a pressure of 40 Bar (ie 40 times atmospheric pressure) on the palm of my hand would exert a force of about 4 tonnes. That's the weight of three saloon cars on the palm of my hand. 40 Bar is quite a lot of pressure.
The 80 layers of silver oxide mesh in the cat pack will break down this high-pressure HTP to release oxygen, water and heat (at about 600C).
The rocket fuel (a complex rubber compound, known as HTPB - you don't want to know the long name!) should then burn furiously in this hot oxygen, blasting out of the rocket nozzle and producing the required thrust.
If, that is, the engine, gearbox, pump, valves, cat pack and fuel grain all work as we expect... Want to know what's going to happen when we press the button? Watch the TV news on 3 October, or go to Bloodhoundssc.com on the day and watch the live stream. Wish us luck!
While this hybrid development event is important, it's not critical for next year's running.
Our aim for 2013 is to get the car supersonic in South Africa, to test the aerodynamics, chassis, steering, suspension, systems, etc, and make any improvements that we need before going for 1,000mph in 2014.
To get the car supersonic (and ideally up to 800mph) next year, the car's EJ200 jet engine only needs about half of the hybrid rocket's power. This can be delivered by using HTP only, and running the rocket as a "monopropellant".
The HTP is still forced at high pressure though the cat pack, but is then fed straight to the rocket nozzle, without using any of the HTPB fuel. The hot oxygen/water vapour mix will produce several tonnes of thrust by itself - it's not nearly as impressive (have a look at a previous monopropellant test and you'll see what I mean), but it's all that we need for next year.
Elsewhere, the manufacture of major parts of the car continues apace.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm getting quite excited by seeing the various finished bits of Bloodhound coming out of various moulds and jigs. We are watching the gradual birth of a 1,000 mph car - something that the world has never seen before.
Cytec has delivered the first cockpit hatch and is now busy on the larger carbon fibre bits for the cockpit and nose of the car.
Meanwhile, the team at Hampson's is equally busy completing the metal chassis bits for the back half of the car.
If you haven't already paid your £10 to put your name on the fin, then now's the time - we'll be building the fin very soon.
The aerodynamics research is still a busy area for the team. This may seem odd, given that we've fixed the final shape of the car, but there is a lot that we still don't know.
We are doing a number of modelling runs at different speeds, giving us a better idea of how the car should handle as it speeds up and slows down. We are also working out the loads over the whole car, panel by panel, so that the design team can properly stress the panels.
Too weak and the bodywork could fail, too strong and the car is heavier than it needs to be - so this process is key to the final bodywork manufacture.
We're also starting to look at where we want to put sensors on the car. Given that Swansea University has been the centre of the aerodynamic modelling, they obviously want some data to validate their computer models.
Their first look at this has produced a "wish list" of 144 different pressure sensors for Bloodhound SSC. That sounds about right, given how complex the computer model is.
Now we've got to work out where all the other system, load, temperature and vibration sensors are going to go, before wiring the car (with several kilometres of wiring) early next year.
It's going to be a long list of sensors. So whatever your particular technical interest in our car, you will have plenty of data to look at when we start running next year.
One man who would have appreciated this data-intensive approach to record breaking was Neil Armstrong. During his visit to the BloodhoundTechnical Centre two years ago, he emphasised the value of instrumentation on the car, and the need to include it during the build. We were sad to say goodbye to Neil last month, but his advice remains a great way to sum up our approach to extreme record breaking.
Good news from South Africa. The precision grading of the causeway is under way and the results look great.
The grading is being achieved with a very specialist piece of equipment - a road grader equipped with lasers - and driven, they assure me, by the best grader driver in South Africa.
The man-made causeway has been my biggest worry in preparing the surface of Hakskeen Pan for Bloodhound.
This kind of "heavy engineering" on a dry lake bed, to return it to its original flat surface, is outside our experience (it's outside anyone's experience!).
Now that the Northern Cape team has completed the work, I'm feeling much happier about it. The annual rains (due to start at the end of the year) will complete the job of returning the surface to its natural state. Then, thanks to the Northern Cape Government, we really will have the world's best race track.
Our Education Programme is, of course, a key part of Bloodhound, with over 5,000 schools already in the programme and some 500 volunteer Bloodhound Ambassadors to support them.
If your school hasn't signed up to this (free!) programme then please do it today - the feedback we get from schools is all about how exciting the kids find the science and technology of 1,000mph, which is just what we're after.
We're also working on other ways to get the education message out there - and it's not always pleasant work.
Last week I was at Silverstone with the Bloodhound Radical, showing a couple of journalists (from The Sun and Radio 1) how I'm going about training for Bloodhound by improving my driving skills.
While we were there, a BBC team were making a new education-based series on how human beings cope with extremes. The Radical at Silverstone is a good way to do this - the car will regularly pull 2G round the high-speed Grand Prix circuit track.
To demonstrate how the varying g-forces can affect your body, they had myself and their presenter in two identical Radicals, as passengers for six racing laps... blindfolded, just to make it harder!
The aim was to find out if, given my fighter pilot background, I can cope better with the resulting physical stress than Tim the BBC presenter.
Good news, our on-board stress monitors showed that I can - so I get to keep my job. However, we both felt a little queasy and unsteady after the experience (even if we didn't admit it on camera).
Next month, I'm taking Tim flying to find out how he copes with some proper g-forces in my world - can't wait.
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MPs debate plans, opposed by many religious groups, for same-sex marriage next week. Ahead of that occasion, the government has published its assessment of the possible wider impacts. Here are eight ways it believes the bill might change things: | By Ed LowtherPolitical reporter, BBC News
1. Economic stimulus
Lavish spending often accompanies a wedding, and so a large increase in the number of marriages taking place each year would create a significant boost to certain parts of the economy.
Beneficiaries might include ceremony venues, cake manufacturers, function band agencies, and hoteliers.
The government estimates the total economic stimulus could be as much as £14.4m - but thinks it is more likely to be closer to £0.
"As the demand for same-sex marriage is uncertain, and because these economic benefits are not guaranteed to be additional (for example, the spending on a civil partnership or marriage ceremony may not be additional if the couple and guests cut back on spending in other areas), we use zero benefit as our best estimate," it explains.
2. Transgender spouses and the law
Also facing increased demand for its services is the Gender Recognition Panel, which furnishes transgender people with certificates documenting their gender transitions.
At present, it is impossible for a member of a married couple to change gender and remain legally married.
So the government is anticipating a "noticeable increase" in the panel's workload as "those who may have changed gender some years ago but decided not to apply for legal recognition, since they wished to remain in their existing marriage", adapt to the change in the law.
3. Health benefits
During its consultation on same-sex marriages, the government received evidence from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, which said lesbian, gay, and bisexual people (LGB) people experience more mental health problems and a greater likelihood of drug addiction than heterosexuals.
Ministers believe that discrimination against LGB people partially accounts for this phenomenon.
The removal of discrimination against same-sex couples in the current legal definition of marriage, the government argues, might therefore improve public health.
4. IT upgrades
A number of Whitehall departments will need to tweak their computer systems to enable them to administer services properly to same-sex married couples.
The biggest impact will be felt at the Home Office, which oversees the registration of marriages, civil partnerships, births and deaths.
The government estimates that necessary changes to its online registration system will cost £2m.
Lower costs will fall on the Department for Work and Pensions, which will need to adapt its systems to cope with changes to pension entitlements, and the Ministry of Justice, which will need to alter the courts' "FamilyMan" IT system.
5. Tourism boost
If the government's plans become law, the UK will join a select group of 12 countries where same-sex marriage is legal.
The Lesbian and Gay Lawyers Association told the government in its consultation to prepare for a "modest boost" in tourism as a consequence.
"We are aware that same-sex couples from the UK travel to places like Canada to get married because they prefer this to a civil partnership. We expect that if marriage is open to same-sex couples in England and Wales, couples especially from elsewhere in Europe will come here to get married here," it said.
6. Re-training registrars
Those who will be conducting same-sex marriages will need to get to grips with the new system.
The government assumes that they will need between two and seven hours' training each - "time which could have been spent on other tasks", it notes.
7. Who to tell and how
"Currently, if a person discloses that they are in a civil partnership rather than a marriage, they automatically disclose their sexual orientation," the government says.
People in same-sex marriages will have greater discretion over how, when, or whether to divulge this information.
Recent research suggests that one in five LGB people think they have been harassed at work because of their sexual orientation, the government says.
8. Societal benefits
Same-sex marriages might encourage greater acceptance of same-sex couples in society, the government believes.
This would be good for society as a whole, ministers have concluded, by helping to create "a more inclusive society where there is more choice and acceptance".
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Starbucks is everywhere, but not in Italy. | By Manuela SaragosaBusiness reporter, BBC News
Yet Starbucks' founder, Howard Schultz, came up with the idea for his coffee chain whilst sipping espresso in a Milan bar.
So what? you may say. He took a good product, repackaged it and globalised it.
But to many Italians, the coffee served by Starbucks and other branded outlets is as far away from proper Italian coffee as you can get, despite the Italian-sounding offerings on their menus.
Now - time for disclosure - I am part-Italian and like most Italians, I like to think Italy represents the height of coffee culture, the standard against which all coffee should be measured.
When Italian friends and family shudder in disgust at the idea of sullying their precious cappuccino with a dash of hazelnut syrup or a sprinkling of cinnamon, I nod knowingly.
At home I have a moka machine, which is to the Italian kitchen what the kettle is to the British. As far as I'm concerned, the cappuccinos, lattes and espressos served in branded coffee chains taste scorched and bitter, a shabby imitation of the real thing.
But am I missing the point? Is my palate so provincial that it hasn't caught up with the changing tastes of the global coffee market? Because it appears that not only has Italian coffee been taken out of Italy, but the Italian is also being taken out of the coffee.
The International Coffee Organization says that globally consumption has grown by nearly 42% since the beginning of this century. So we're drinking more of it than ever before, which explains the expansion of many coffee chains in the past few decades, but we're not drinking it in the Italian way.
"I think a caricature of Italian espresso was what was exported," says award-winning barista James Hoffmann of London's Square Mile Coffee Roasters. He's part of a generation of highly-trained baristas driving innovation in the sector through more sophisticated espresso-based brews.
"Global espresso culture is now a long way from what is considered traditional Italian espresso," Mr Hoffmann says.
Coffee by numbers
8.5bn
kilos of coffee is consumed globally every year
50%
rise in global coffee production since 1990
Finland has the highest per capita coffee habit at 11.4kg
Italians drink much less per year consuming 5.8kg
In the UK we are relatively light coffee drinkers at 2.8kg
You'd never, for example, ask for a latte in Italy. If you did, you'd get served a glass of milk. Neither would you ask for an espresso at a bar; "un caffe" is all you need to say. Coffee and espresso are synonymous in Italy.
Then there's the Australian "flat white", a halfway house between a Starbucks-style latte (25-35ml espresso shot topped by large amount of hot milk) and a macchiato (25-35ml espresso shot and a drop of hot, usually foamy, milk). The "flat white" has gone global, so much so that recently it replaced the cappuccino on Starbucks' menu in some parts of the US.
What's more, Italians don't lounge around in coffee shop armchairs sipping cappuccinos while browsing the internet. Instead they perch at the marble-topped counters of Italy's ubiquitous bars - not cafes - and throw back "un caffe" on the go.
Still, when it comes to taste and brewing style, Italy is trying to reclaim ground. The Italian Espresso National Institute or INEI was set up to protect Italian-style coffee drinking.
"International chains of cafes are spreading, calling the coffee they serve Italian espresso," writes INEI's chairman Luigi Zecchini on the organisation's website. But, "behind our espresso... there is a unique and unrepeatable culture."
INEI is even offering certificates to those who do it the "right" (for that read: Italian) way.
Are they fighting a losing battle? "Good roasting techniques and good cup-tasting protocols are becoming more and more international," says Jeremy Challender of London's Prufrock Coffee, another award-wining barista.
You can hear him teaching me how to make the perfect cup of coffee if you click here.
In any case, many top baristas also turn their noses up at what's served in branded coffee chains.
Square Mile Coffee's Mr Hoffmann says it's all down to the way the beans are roasted. Many chains roast their coffee darker which gives it a bitter flavour. Roasting lighter can achieve a more complex taste, but get it wrong and the coffee tastes sour.
"I think the theory is likely that consumers' tolerance for bitterness is higher than their tolerance for sourness," Mr Hoffman says."Hence the larger companies are erring on the side of caution."
But it also comes down to the raw beans themselves, and on this front Italy doesn't fare as well as many speciality coffee shops outside of the country.
Part of the problem is with the price of "un caffe". Most Italian bars will not charge more than one euro a cup.
"Such a low ceiling means the raw coffees in Italy are generally a little more commoditised, and there isn't the option to purchase more high quality coffee," Mr Hoffmann adds.
Italian flavour is held back too by the way the coffee is brewed. Bars there have a typical dose of around 7 grams of ground coffee per espresso, with very little variation. Speciality coffee shops will often use a lot more coffee - from 8 to 20 grams for a single espresso - yielding a more intense coffeeas a result.
That may be, but I still think I'll be sticking to home-brewed coffee from my trusted moka machine. And I'll continue to drink it the Italian way.
That means a short, sharp shot of espresso in the morning, perhaps even after dinner, but certainly no cappuccinos after 11am or any milk-based coffees after a meal. It doesn't agree with the digestion. Every Italian knows that.
Manuela Saragosa is a presenter on The Food Chain on BBC World Service. You can still hear her programme about the globalisation of the coffee industry here.
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Items from a zoo's archive have been released to mark its 180th anniversary. | Bristol Zoo, which opened in 1836, has raided its archive to uncover films and photos.
They include footage of children being taken for rides on Asian elephant Rosie - a resident at the zoo from 1938 until her death in 1961.
The zoo said it believes many of the artefacts, which have been in storage for decades, have never been shown to the public before.
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A man has appeared in court charged with the murder of a 19-year-old who was found stabbed to death. | Joshua Harling, from Oxford, was found with a fatal chest wound in Chinnor Road, Thame, Oxfordshire, on Wednesday.
Nathan Braim, 19, from Thame, appeared at Oxford Magistrates' Court and was remanded in custody to appear at the city's crown court on Wednesday.
A man, 19, and 15-year-old boy who were arrested on suspicion of murder have been released on conditional bail.
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A councillor has been re-elected as leader of Flintshire council, following the local elections. | Aaron Shotton, who was first elected leader in May 2012, represents the Connah's Quay Central ward.
The council saw Labour secure the most votes - 34 - at the elections earlier this month but the party failed to achieve a majority.
Councillor Bernie Attridge has been re-elected deputy leader.
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Three months after the popular uprising that forced President Hosni Mubarak from power, the BBC's Jeremy Bowen returns to Cairo, where the heady days of revolution have given way to old tensions and fresh concerns. | The new headquarters building of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is a magnificent, freshly painted office block, adorned with its symbol of the Koran flanked by two curved swords.
For anyone who visited the Brotherhood's pokey, shabby offices during the Mubarak days the place is a revelation.
The Brotherhood has a new swagger. Outside the building were shiny, expensive cars belonging to some of the businessmen who back the Brotherhood.
Inside, under golden chandeliers, sat elderly veterans of the Brotherhood's struggles on ornate sofas and armchairs, talking discreetly.
Among them, holding court, was a former leader who spent 30 years in jail.
Unusually for old men, they were discussing the future, not the past. One of the new facts of life in post-Mubarak Egypt is that so far, the Muslim Brothers are the revolution's biggest winners.
"I am very optimistic," says Osam al-Shabini, one of the group's younger activists.
"We are looking to build our country very fast, especially in the economic section and to share in all political activities in Egypt."
Sectarian strife
It is harder to find such optimism around the more secular protesters who were prominent in Tahrir Square during the 18 days in January and February that changed the Middle East profoundly.
This week the preoccupation was a series of sectarian clashes between Coptic Christians and extremist Salafist Muslims that killed 12 people, injured more than 200 and left a church gutted by fire.
Many fear that bloodshed between Muslims and Christians (who make up around 10% of the population) is just another symptom of discord in a society that is turning out to have even more serious problems than Egyptians expected.
"Sectarian violence is one of the things that scare people about what happens next," said Dina Samak, Egypt editor of al-Ahram newspaper.
"You can't have a safe transition to democracy if you have sectarian violence and Islamic political forces dominating the political scene."
One of the bellwether moments of the revolution was when al-Ahram, the regime's mouthpiece, dropped the dictator and backed the protesters.
The traffic outside the newspaper's towering, cavernous offices is worse than ever. Cairo's residents say that their fellow motorists are even less willing to follow the rules of the road than they were before.
The police have never really returned to the streets, and those who are there are not respected or even feared.
Poverty
The sectarian clashes happened in Imbaba, one of the poorest parts of Cairo. It is a quarter dominated by 10-15 storey concrete tenements.
Alleyways barely wide enough for a donkey cart run between them, and laundry festoons the concrete canyons.
Like everywhere poor and overcrowded in Cairo, children play near piles of uncollected rubbish, bakers' boys on bikes balance great trays of bread on their heads and the place throbs with enough human energy to power the city if somehow it could be tapped.
Life for Egypt's poor was never easy, but it has got harder since the revolution.
Food prices have doubled. Unemployment for young people hovers around 30%. Many of those who have jobs are under employed and earn very little.
The soldiers and riot police who were deployed in the area were jumpy. The military has been running Egypt since President Hosni Mubarak resigned.
Diplomats here say senior officers worry that the army was not designed to run a country in flux. The pressures of being in power, they fear, might even split middle ranking officers from the generals.
Impatience
Outside Cairo's main television centre, on the corniche that runs along the Nile, Christian protesters were chanting slogans against Field Marshal Tantawi, who heads the army council that has the real power here now.
"Tantawi, you're with the oppressors, not the oppressed," one chant went.
The crowd was just a few hundred, but the chants reflect increasing concerns among veterans of the Tahrir Square protests about what happens next.
"I am a little bit frustrated because the message that was sent from Tahrir Square - all of us uniting into one nation - is not being heard," says one protester, Fadi Phillip.
The unexpected high of the triumph over the Mubarak regime has been followed by a crashing low. The reality of trying to build a new society is much harder than expected.
But there is probably a bit too much impatience.
It has been, after all, only three months since Mr Mubarak was forced out. It is only a matter of weeks since he and his sons were placed under arrest.
Elections for a new parliament and a new president are going to be the best indication of the way that Egypt is going.
The parliamentary elections, assuming they go ahead, are due for September. The presidential poll might not now happen before next year.
The poll will be a test. Will the votes be fair? Will they happen at all? And will Egyptians, unused to an election that changes anything, be prepared to accept the results?
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"It felt like we were watching a soap opera." | By Manish PandeyNewsbeat reporter
That's how Wade Crouch sums up the last four years of watching events in America unfold from the north of England.
From a president who loved to tweet, to Black Lives Matter protests and a riot at the Capitol building - "it's been eventful", he says.
The 27-year-old Texan now lives with his wife in Yorkshire.
"I feel like I was protected from it by the Atlantic Ocean. It was literally shielding me," he tells Radio 1 Newsbeat.
As the era of President Trump comes to an end and Joe Biden prepares to be sworn in, how do Americans in the UK reflect on one of the most dramatic periods in their country's history?
Watching a divided America
For Blake Robinson, it's been disappointing to see the level of division in the past four years.
"It's really highlighted how people have felt about ethnic and minority issues in particular."
Now living in London, she calls Washington DC her home town and says she's felt that divide through her own relationships.
"I had so many friends that I never knew felt a certain way about issues. And it almost felt like they had no shame in acknowledging their bias."
Blake, 27, blame Trump for empowering divisive voices.
"He brought out this group of people that had never really had a voice before. And really bolstered this really awful sense of racial and prejudice bias."
For Wade, the feeling of division can be seen in lots of issues, from dealing with coronavirus to politics.
The presidential election suggests the US is a country very much divided - with Joe Biden and Donald Trump getting more than 70 million votes each.
Wade says politicians only trying to appeal to their own supporters "keeps the temperature up" and encourages division.
"It sets the tone of the conversation. And that's what keeps them from working together to find common ground because they don't need to.
"The last four years have been exhausting to watch."
Inspired by togetherness
Wade feels it's easy to focus on the "more painful stories of division" from back home but says there have been some positives too.
From the Black Lives Matter protests to the women's marches, he's found it "inspiring to see people come together" in difficult moments.
"Americans believe things could be better. And they took to the streets, spoke their voices, and made their voices heard."
Blake agrees and says minority communities felt like they'd had positive discussions.
"You even see things on Netflix, they have the black voices section, so there's promotion of the arts and inclusion."
'An eye-opening time'
For 23-year-old Maddie Norwood, the highlight of watching the last four years has been important issues around inequality becoming more openly talked about.
With George Floyd's death and clashes in Charlottesville having an effect worldwide, "it's been a really eye-opening time for our nation".
Originally from North Carolina and now in London, Maddie feels issues that were "buried under the surface are becoming looked at publicly".
They didn't begin four years ago, Maddie says, "but people are finally becoming aware of just how deep these issues are in America".
And she's pleased with how many more people have become politically engaged back home.
"It's a positive thing for democracy. People who hadn't originally had been willing to talk about politics, have been willing to now."
Looking ahead, Wade thinks the US is "at a turning point".
He wants people in the US to become less hostile in its discussions so "society can become more compassionate for each other".
"I think we first need to take the temperature down, and be able to look at someone with an opposing viewpoint not as the enemy, but as a neighbour who just has a different opinion."
Wade looks at his own relationship with his father as a sign of progress.
"We've now been able to see each other's differences and find somewhere in the middle and not look at each other's views with hostility."
Blake is optimistic looking at the diversity in the incoming Biden presidency.
"When you think of American politics, you tend to think of old white men. Including people that look different, have different backgrounds, ethnicities, stories and lineages is important.
"Because that's truly a reflection of the American population."
Maddie adds: "The next four years will hopefully be a time of the great divisions in our country slowly being healed."
Follow Newsbeat on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.
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Green space needs to be protected when considering a new site for Jersey's hospital, a community group says. | Sites being considered include the People's Park and Overdale.
Christian May, from the West of Town Community Association, said he didn't think People's Park was an appropriate option as it would mean the public losing important open space.
A decision on where the new hospital will go is expected from the health minister in the new year.
Politicians voted in 2013 to build a new hospital after the island's health authority argued the existing building was out of date and needed to be replaced.
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Pizza has conquered the world, but the art of a "pizzaiuolo" - twirling the dough and baking it in a wood-fired brick oven - is less well known outside the Italian city of Naples. | That could now change after the UN's cultural body gave it world heritage status, which aims to raise awareness of traditions around the world.
The pizzaiuolo craft has been handed down for generations, Unesco said, and encompasses the social ritual of songs, stories and gestures that takes place between pizza makers ("pizzaiuoli") and diners in working class Neapolitan neighbourhoods.
Italy had argued that the practice was part of a unique cultural and gastronomic tradition.
"Victory!" tweeted Maurizio Martina, Italy's minister for agriculture, food and forestry. "Another step towards the protection of Italy's food and wine heritage."
Pizza-makers in Naples celebrated by handing out free pizza on the streets. Two million people had signed a petition to support the pizzaiuolo application, the Association of Neapolitan Pizzaiuoli head Sergio Miccu said.
"After 250 years of waiting, pizza is humanity's heritage, its intangible heritage. Congratulations to Naples, congratulations!" pizza-maker Enzo Coccia told the BBC.
'Criminal' pineapple
The traditional Neapolitan pizza has two classic versions.
One is the Margherita with tomato, mozzarella, oil and basil, which has the same red white and green colours as the Italian flag and is believed to have been named after Italy's Queen Margherita of Savoy.
The other is the Marinara, with tomato, garlic, oregano and oil.
Locals profess bafflement at foreign topping innovations such as pineapple, which appears on the Hawaiian.
"I think, and I hope, that this could be the chance to make foreigners understand how pizza is made, without Nutella or pineapple," Matteo Martino, a customer at a Naples pizza restaurant, told Reuters news agency.
On Twitter Alex Iatoni from Bergamo in northern Italy said: "It's good that pizza has been recognised as UNESCO heritage. But now we must insert the pineapple in the list of crimes against humanity."
Endangered traditions
The pizzaiuolo craft was up against 33 other traditions seeking to join Unesco's list of "intangible heritage", set up in 2003.
Others to be included are:
The list already includes some food traditions, including Turkish coffee culture and the gingerbread craft of northern Croatia.
Altogether it contains more than 350 traditions and crafts, ranging from better known practices such as Spanish flamenco dancing and Indonesian batik fabric making to more obscure items such as a Turkish oil wrestling festival and a Mongolian camel coaxing ritual.
Unesco has also placed six traditions on its urgent safeguarding list, which means they will get support to prevent them disappearing.
They were declining for reasons including the spread of technology and disdain for cultural practices among young people, Unesco said.
The endangered traditions include a Turkish whistled language, which helped local people to communicate across long distances and rugged topography, that was under threat from mobile phone use.
Other practices to receive resources include Botswana's Dikopelo folk music, songs about herding and milking from Colombia and Venezuela, Mongolian traditional worship, the Taskiwin martial dance from Morocco and traditional poetry recitals from the United Arab Emirates.
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The art world has been mourning the death of Lucian Freud, arguably one of the UK's most highly regarded and respected artists. Lucian was not only a great artist but he came from a family which has excelled and continues to do so in many different professions.
| By Rebecca CafeBBC News
The most famous Freud was Sigmund, the figurehead of the family, and one of the great thinkers in modern history. As founder of the discipline of psychoanalysis, he created an entirely new approach to understanding - and treating - the unconscious mind.
But since his death in 1939, his offspring to this day have carried on the family name to great heights in a variety of fields.
In politics, David Freud - now Lord Freud - is the current parliamentary undersecretary of state for work and pensions, while Matthew Freud is an influential public relations chief who is married to Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of media mogul Rupert.
In the arts, Lucian Freud's heritage lives on with his daughters Bella and Esther, who are famed for being a highly-regarded fashion designer and novelist respectively.
Another prominent family member no longer with us was Sir Clement, Sigmund's grandson who had a varied career as a culinary expert, humorist, columnist, broadcaster and Liberal MP.
But the Freuds are not the only family whose achievements put the average family to shame.
There is the Redgrave acting dynasty, headed by Michael, his children Vanessa, Corin and Lynn and grandchildren Jemma Redgrave and Natasha and Joely Richardson.
In the US, political dynasties have become the norm - headed of course by the Kennedy and Bush families.
But the Freuds are unusual in that their achievements are in such a wide range of fields.
'Golden child'
According to Ivan Ward, deputy director of the Freud Museum, this may be because of the ideas first espoused by Sigmund Freud and his belief in independent thought as well as the importance of being told from an early age that you are special.
Sigmund, who was Jewish, lived in Austria, which came under Nazi rule after being annexed by Germany in 1938. He, his wife and youngest daughter were forced to flee their Vienna home to London after being targeted by the Nazis. His four sisters, who stayed behind, later died in concentration camps.
According to Mr Ward, the sense of conflict of living in opposition was something which inspired Sigmund's independence of thought.
"The upheaval of having to leave Vienna, and the Holocaust where four of his sisters died in concentration camps - all those things would have had an impact," he said.
"He was the oldest boy, and his mother used to call him the 'golden child', so there was a sense of being the favourite and the oldest boy in a Jewish family pushed him on to his achievements.
"How it gets transmitted to following generations is hard to say."
As a father, Sigmund was "tolerant and encouraged creativity and the ability to think", said Mr Ward.
"Try and picture the scene of Freud with his children when they were small; he's trying to establish himself and he's struggling and working all hours.. it's hard to say he spent a lot of time with his children, he probably didn't.
"But you get the feeling that when he did, he treated them with a seriousness and complexity that some people don't think about when it comes to relating to children."
And in Sigmund's own words: "If a man has been his mother's undisputed darling, he retains throughout life the triumphant feeling; the confidence in success, which not seldom brings actual success along with it."
'Responsive genes'
But do genetics play a role in a family's success?
Marcus Pembrey, a professor of paediatric genetics at University College London, said that although genetics can influence things like intelligence, it does not do it directly.
"Genetic differences between genes make them highly responsive to environment but whether this is a good thing depends on the environment," he said.
"If it's one where there's underachievement then they will adopt that and achieve nothing, so it works for better and worse."
He said the Freuds probably have genes which are highly responsive to the environment around them so as their family is full of people who have distinctive achievements, children in the early years of development pick up on this.
Tim Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology and director of the department of twin research at King's College in London, argues that genetics do have a role to play in success but not usually in the same profession.
"Identical twins rarely succeed in the same fields," he said.
"For success, you need a basic minimal IQ - which is 60% genetic - but also the environment which usually includes a role model and teacher or family to drive you.
"You also need motivation and the will to practise hard from an early age. These traits are partly genetic but can be improved with training."
According to family relationship therapist Julia Armstrong, the first seven years are key times in a person's development as things such as parents, friendships and schooling all have an impact.
"If at that point a person is given the permission to shine, there is a natural expectation that life is going to offer opportunities.
"We've all got the capacity to be whatever we want to be, and nature depends on that being encouraged, so if a child's preference or talent is recognised, then they are more likely to grow into their creative self."
She said a child in a successful family can go in one of two directions - they can excel once they discover what their own talent may be, or they can feel the pressure and go the other way and not live up to expectations.
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Tributes have been paid to a motorcyclist who died after she was involved in a crash in Pembrokeshire. | Debbie Anne Rodgers, 41, died at the scene of the crash on the A487 at Felindre Farchog.
Police said Ms Rodgers' Yamaha 125cc motorbike was involved in a collision with a Vauxhall Astra at about 15:50 GMT on Friday.
Ms Rodgers' family said she was a "beautiful independent traveller" who was "always planning her next trip".
Police have appealed for any witnesses to come forward.
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Aberdeen's Craiginches prison is closing its doors, with inmates moving to the new HMP Grampian in Peterhead. | Craiginches opened in the 19th Century but, along with Peterhead Prison, it is now closing to make way for the new modern facility.
The Aberdeen jail witnessed the last man to be executed in Scotland.
Henry "Harry" Burnett died at the hands of the hangman on 15 August 1963, for murder.
Governor Audrey Mooney said: "The prison has had its day.
"It goes out with a fantastic reputation but the buildings are very very old.
"We need to move to a new facility."
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A cyclist who crashed during a mountain bike race on the Isle of Man suffered head and neck injuries, his inquest has been told. | Nigel Park fell off his bicycle near Ballacraine during the End2End Mountain Bike Challenge on 8 September.
The painter and decorator from Glen Mona was pronounced dead at the emergency department of Noble's Hospital.
Coroner Jayne Hughes said the 71-year-old had suffered "multiple injuries".
Investigations into Mr Park's death were still ongoing, Mrs Hughes added.
Adjourning the inquest, she passed her condolences to his family, who did not attend the hearing at Douglas Courthouse.
Mr Park was a regular participant in the annual event, which takes competitors along a 47-mile (75km) route from the Point of Ayre at the island's most northern tip to Port Erin in the south.
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Mark Murphy is watching old Rolf Harris videos and Lesley Dolphin is taking tap dance lessons - it can only mean that the Big Night Out is coming back! | The Spa Pavilion in Felixstowe will once again be the venue for the evening of entertainment on 7 November.
BBC Radio Suffolk staff, local talent and experienced professionals will all be donating their skills - with proceeds going to Children in Need.
After appearing as Elvis and Benny Hill, Mark will turn his hand (or leg) to Rolf Harris's Jake the Peg sketch.
Lesley has offered to learn to tap dance - with her first public appearance to be at the 900-capacity venue.
Breakfast Show presenter Terry Baxter will compere the evening.
More acts are being booked, but comedian Richard Whymark, the For One Night Only Orchestra and illusionist Great Sangrini have been confirmed.
Tickets cost £12.50, with at least £10 going to Children in Need.
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A man has died following a fire in a domestic garage in Sutherland.
| Emergency services were alerted to the blaze in Golpsie's Main Street at about 17:40 on Friday.
Scottish Fire and Rescue Service crews from Golspie, Dornoch and Helmsdale battled for more than three hours to bring the fire under control.
The fire service and Police Scotland have begun an investigation into the cause of the blaze. Police said it was not believed to be suspicious.
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Spain's unemployment total remained at 4.7 million in August, government figures show, with the jobless figure dropping by just 31 people last month. | The tiny reduction means the jobless total has now fallen for six months in a row.
Spain's unemployment rate is 26.3%, the second highest in the eurozone and only below Greece where the jobless rate is 27.6%.
The eurozone's unemployment rate stood at 12.1% in July.
The lowest rates of unemployment in the eurozone are in Germany, at 5,3%, and Austria, which has a jobless rate of 4.5%.
While the eurozone as a whole emerged from recession in the second quarter of 2013, growing by 0.3%, Spain's economic output fell by 0.1% in the quarter.
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Cocaine use in England and Wales is at a 10-year high, with middle-class users accused of fuelling the drugs trade. The Victoria Derbyshire programme met two mothers who described how their addiction affected their lives. | By Louis Lee RayVictoria Derbyshire programme
"I would go around to friends' houses who were single mums," says "Suzie".
"I'd have my baby in the carrier on the floor and I'd be sneaking up to the toilet to do a line. Or we'd be doing it on the kitchen side."
Suzie had issues with cocaine addiction at university, but it spiralled when she felt out of her depth as a lonely new mother.
Tired of living a secret life as an addict, the businesswoman decided to have another child believing pregnancy would force her to stop. But it didn't work.
"I met up with my friend the evening before my 20-week scan and she was with a guy at the time who was a dealer, in effect.
"He held my hand out and he put a rock of cocaine in my hand, and I was absolutely powerless to not do it.
"I can remember the next day - when I was getting my scan and this baby is going absolutely nuts in my belly - just thinking to myself, 'I've done that to you".
'Lovely house'
One of the UK's leading providers of private addiction treatment says it has seen a 128% increase in the number of cocaine addicts since 2015.
Last year, UK Addiction Treatment (Ukat) treated 504 powder cocaine addicts, up from 221 four years ago. Meanwhile, NHS mental health admissions related to cocaine use have trebled in the last 10 years.
"Jane," who became addicted to cocaine when she became a mother, says: "We had a lovely car, and house, mortgage, and three really well-brought up children."
She and other school parents would arrange play dates during which they would use cocaine, twice a week.
When she split up from her husband and had access to more money following their separation, her drug use took a more serious turn.
"Before I know it, I'm bringing men home, using in the bedroom and sneaking them out, with my son asleep next door," she says.
"Then six o'clock in the morning would come and I would be like, 'Oh my god, I've done it again'... the alarm going off, having to get my son to school.
"Quite often, he would not go."
For Suzie, life finally hit rock bottom.
"I got several grams of pure cocaine and a couple of bottles of wine," she says.
"I came home and basically shut myself in my bedroom and used the whole evening."
The next morning she had a fit.
"I had these paramedics in my bedroom and I can remember just sobbing my eyes out, saying, 'I want to die. Please just let me die'."
She says she repeatedly tried to stop using, finally attending a private rehab centre.
"I just threw myself into recovery," she says. "I slowly, slowly got better."
"All those years I'd just been a burden to my family, now I was finally able to make a dent on repaying some of that."
'I would've died'
Jane managed to quit with an addiction support group, influenced by witnessing the change being clean had on others.
"They all had bright smiling faces. There were mums talking about how they're present for their kids, and I was like, 'I want that'."
It came just in time - she says she realised she had not been looking after her children or home properly.
"I think if I hadn't have stopped, my kids would've been taken away, or I would've died," she says.
Ukat chief executive Eytan Alexander said cocaine was associated with having a good time, but in reality had the opposite effect.
"It ruins lives, tears families and friends apart and for some, is a gateway to even more potent substances like crack and heroin," he said.
"The perception of cocaine needs to change, and fast, to prevent this country from spiralling into a cocaine addiction crisis."
Last year, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick criticised "hypocritical" middle-class cocaine users who cared about fair trade and organic food, but who, she said, were fuelling the drug trade - which in turn has been linked to child exploitation and trafficking.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid agreed, saying such individuals "may never set foot in a deprived area, may never see an act of serious violence" but were "adding fuel to the fire" of rising knife crime on UK streets.
'I just didn't care'
Jane is sceptical that such warnings would have made her stop using.
"I've got some friends that used it very cautiously and felt guilty about it, but all of my guards just went and I just didn't care."
Suzie agrees, saying she was "very aware" of the repercussions of her cocaine use, but that - when heavily addicted to the drug - she would not have been swayed.
She does, however, hope the message gets through to casual users.
"A bit of education around where this stuff actually comes from might make them think twice," she says.
For information and support, visit the BBC's Action Line website.
Follow the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme on Facebook and Twitter - and see more of our stories here.
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For the first time in months, people have been allowed to leave the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus emerged before spreading across the world. The authorities have hailed this moment as a success - but residents had markedly different experiences of what is arguably the largest lockdown in human history. | By John SudworthBBC News, Beijing
It took 76 days, but Wuhan's lockdown is now at an end. The highway tolls have reopened, and flights and train services are once again leaving the city.
Residents - provided they're deemed virus free - can finally travel to other parts of China.
"During the past two months, almost no-one was on the streets," delivery driver Jia Shengzhi tells me.
"It made me feel sad."
Wuhan has endured one of the most extensive and toughest set of quarantine restrictions on the planet. To begin with, people were allowed out to shop for food but by mid-February, nobody was allowed to leave their residential compounds.
Delivery drivers became a vital lifeline.
"We sometimes received phone calls from customers asking for help such as sending medicines to their ageing parents," Mr Jia says.
As the head courier at one of e-commerce company JD.com's Wuhan delivery stations, he worried that such an order wouldn't reach the customer on time if sent via the normal method.
"So, I rode on scooter, went to the pharmacy, picked up the medicine and took it to his father. "
It's a story of pulling together in a crisis that would be music to the ears of the Chinese authorities.
Anger as criticism muted
But you don't have to look hard in Wuhan to find voices that are not quite so on message.
"The cover-up by small group of Wuhan officials led to my father's death. I need an apology," Zhang Hai tells me, before adding: "And I need compensation."
His 76-year-old father, Zhang Lifa, died of Covid-19 on 1 February, having contracted the virus in a Wuhan hospital during routine surgery for a broken leg.
"I feel very angry about it," Mr Zhang says, "and I believe other victims' families are angry too."
In the early days of the outbreak, officials silenced doctors in the city who voiced concerns about the spread of the virus.
But Mr Zhang is particularly angry that, even today, the authorities still appear to be trying to mute criticism of their actions.
Before he could pick up his father's ashes, he says he was told that officials had to accompany him throughout the whole procedure.
"If we were allowed to go unaccompanied then the families would be able meet, discuss it together and ask for an official explanation," he says.
"We also used to have a WeChat group for victims' families, but the police disbanded the group and the organiser was taken to the police station."
Mr Zhang has refused to collect his father's ashes and says he'll do it, alone, at a later date.
"Collecting his ashes is a very private thing, it's a family thing, I don't want other people to be with me," he says.
'Do not blame our government'
Mr Jia, the delivery driver, says none of his family or friends became infected by the virus.
It's a testament to the effectiveness of the lockdown which, despite doubts over the accuracy of the official figures, has undoubtedly slowed the infection rate dramatically.
Over the past few weeks, some of the restrictions inside Wuhan have been slowly relaxed with some people being allowed out of their residential compounds and businesses beginning to reopen.
Now the final step has been taken and Wuhan's transport links to China have been restored.
But although there's evidence that there may be other ways to contain the spread of infection other than harsh lockdowns, both men believe China is on the right path.
"Generally speaking we have won, but we can't become complacent," Mr Jia says.
"All citizens should continue to protect themselves by wearing masks, taking their temperatures, scanning the mobile health code apps, always washing hands and avoiding gatherings."
In the balance between containing the epidemic and restarting the economy, the risk of another spike in infections remains.
Mr Zhang, who blames local officials for his father's death, insists he has no axe to grind with the national government.
Foreign governments though, he insists, are not free from blame.
"Westerners cannot blame our government for their severe death toll," he says.
"They didn't want to wear masks at the beginning dues to their habits... they have a different set of beliefs and a different ideology from us."
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After a police officer and a community support officer were convicted of misconduct in a public office over their response to a disabled man's calls for help, what is life like on the Bristol estate where he was beaten to death, two years on? | By Dickon HooperBBC News Bristol
It's quiet on Capgrave Crescent in Brislington, Bristol when I visit on a wet November morning.
The flat where Bijan Ebrahimi lived has another tenant now and there is nothing to indicate it was the scene of an horrific crime in July 2013.
Iranian-born Mr Ebrahimi was hounded by a mob who gathered outside his ground-floor council flat, chanting abuse, after wrongly branding him as a paedophile.
But police called to the scene arrested him instead, while the mob cheered. Days later, he was beaten to death and set alight by a neighbour, Lee James.
Mr Ebrahimi's family say he had been the victim of racism and he had been "let down" by the police for years.
Two years on and workmen hoist scaffolding on the three blocks of flats which flank the small green space where Mr Ebrahimi was attacked.
There's no sign of the residents when I visit. Many do not answer the door when I knock.
'Up to no good'
Those that do, do not wish to be interviewed on camera. Two women tell me Capgrave Crescent is "a friendly place" and what happened to Mr Ebrahimi "could happen anywhere".
But others paint a picture of anti-social behaviour and drug use. "Ninety per cent of people won't answer the door to you, they are up to no good," one man says. "There's a lot of drugs and burglary here."
Another man from the wider area told me that, like Mr Ebrahimi, he had also been abused - for being different. He said police were "not interested".
"It's very rough here, there's drugs everywhere," he said.
"You find needles in the kids' play area and dog foul everywhere. People don't care about this area anymore," he said.
"After the Ebrahimi death, things have just spiralled down to even worse situations because people think they can get away with stuff."
Bristol East MP Kerry McCarthy said the man's story "reflects what I've heard from other people about life on that estate".
"There are very clearly major problems - they've been going on long before the Bijan Ebrahimi murder and it's a constant battle - obviously the police are stretched, the council are stretched - trying to get the attention of the authorities to do something about it."
'Significant impact'
Alex Raikes, from anti-racism charity SARI, said Mr Ebrahimi had dealt with racial harassment "by a large number of people in his neighbourhood" for years.
She said: "There were other people suffering in his area who have been too frightened to come forward. Bijan was one of those brave, courageous people that said: 'I'm not going to suffer in silence, I'm going to tell people what's happening. I want justice, I want these people to be dealt with."
Avon and Somerset Police and Bristol City Council say the area has been given priority, with weekly meetings try to identify problems and address underlying tensions.
They say the man we spoke to was being supported and was a priority for rehousing.
Insp Nigel Colston, who is in charge of neighbourhood policing for south Bristol, said Mr Ebrahimi's murder had had a "significant impact on people" in the area. The police's challenge, he said, was to "make sure that people continue to feel safe" with officers working together with those in the neighbourhood.
"Brislington is no worse than many other parts of south Bristol," he said.
"Yes it has occasional issues... sometimes people's perceptions of what is going on are far worse than what is actually going on."
Brislington East is not the most deprived ward in Bristol by some way, it ranked 22nd most deprived out of 35 wards in 2015.
Neighbourhood crime statistics suggest anti-social behaviour is still the most frequently reported crime - 254 times in the year to October 2015, 16 of which were on Capgrave Crescent and Capgrave Close.
It is not vastly better or worse than surrounding neighbourhoods. But violent crime is up 45% this year, compared to the previous 12 months and concerns have been raised about the closure of Brislington Police Station - just around the corner from Capgrave Crescent - following budget cuts.
Councillor Mike Wollacott said media focus on the estate had been difficult for residents, who were "trying to put it behind them".
"It was a shock for the whole community. But they shouldn't be defined by that. It was one individual who was particularly volatile who created that situation."
Additional reporting by Emma Griffiths.
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The latest Electoral Office statistics show a marked increase in the issue of proxy and postal votes for the Westminster election in Northern Ireland. | By Mark DevenportBBC News NI Political Editor
11,707 proxy votes have been issued - that is 1,787 up from the 9,920 proxies appointed for the March assembly election.
23,682 postal votes have been issued - up from the 19,670 sent out in March.
Fermanagh South Tyrone tops the table for both proxy and postal votes issued.
1,707 proxy votes and 2,981 postal votes have been issued in the constituency.
Other constituencies with high levels of applications include Mid Ulster and West Tyrone which are especially high for postal votes, and Newry and Armagh and Foyle which are high for proxy votes.
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Police called to reports of a rave in a forest found up to 100 people there. | North Wales Police said it visited Clocaenog Forest near Ruthin, several times on Saturday and Sunday and officers monitored the situation to stop it getting bigger.
There were no arrests and attempts were being made to identify the organisers, it said.
The 15,000 acre (6,000 hectare) forest lies in Conwy and Denbighshire and is home to a red squirrel population.
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If you'd listened only to question after question in the Commons on Monday afternoon, protesting loud and long at the prime minister's compromise, you might wonder why she just doesn't pack up and go home. | Laura KuenssbergPolitical editor@bbclaurakon Twitter
How on earth can Mrs May turn round the wave of resistance?
Has she finally met her impossible task?
In private, many MPs are even more caustic about this compromise deal getting through than they are in public - and that's saying something.
And among the number of the sceptics are plenty of ministers too.
Whether they are ministers who think the plan will fall and are then willing to resign and then push for staying in the EU's single market and customs union...
....or whether they are Brexiteers in government who think Theresa May's made her own rotten luck by sticking too close to the EU...
...or even members of another group - those who look at the deal and think it's a grim, but realistic compromise, but then look at the numbers and think it just can't pass.
But while there might be fewer of them, there are still some brave souls in government who think there is a chance the deal can pass.
That's why the PM will be spending every day for the next fortnight determinedly arguing for the deal, and putting the case again and again. And then, yes, again: that in her view this deal is the only show in town.
And while MPs, certainly her supporters, might have grimaced at the torrent of criticism this afternoon, there is no sense at all at this stage that the prime minister has any intention of moving away from her position.
In fact, as the days get more desperate, in some of her public appearances and press conferences, she seems strangely more at ease, joking about forgetting journalists' names. Maybe, at long last, she has been able to settle on a simple Brexit message that she is actually comfortable with: in her view it's this deal or disaster.
And having manoeuvred herself into this position, she has no choice but to keep going. Her political fate rests on whether she can pass the deal. The stability of her government and, she would argue, the country too.
'Ruthless management'
And everything about her track record tells us, as her colleagues privately confirm, the prime minister's style is to be stubborn and unbending; a weakness as well as a strength.
Along with what will undoubtedly be ruthless management of Tory MPs, No 10's plan is to relentlessly and publicly use the fear of the unknown - worries about political chaos - to bring colleagues into line.
It may work. It may well not. But Theresa May will not fail because she didn't try.
We know now the vote that will make history takes place on 11 December.
We may not know until that very moment which way it will go.
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A teenager has been shot in the leg in Sheffield. | Emergency services were called to Spital Lane at 00:10 BST and found a 16-year-old boy with a gunshot wound.
He was taken to hospital where he remains in a "serious but stable condition".
A large cordon remains in place at the scene as detectives investigate. South Yorkshire Police has urged witnesses and anyone with information to contact the force.
Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].
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A cyclist has died in a crash with a car. | Greg Cameron, 51, from Brampton, was in collision with a grey Nissan Almera at the junction between Main Street and Front Street in the town.
Cumbria Police is appealing for witnesses to the crash, which happened at about 10:15 BST on 27 August.
Officers are especially keen to speak to a pedestrian who saw the crash but left towards Front Street before leaving her details.
Follow BBC North East & Cumbria on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].
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Late May in Singapore. The United States' newest warship - the USS Freedom - is tied up alongside at the Changi Naval Base and defence ministers from around the region are heading for the opulent Shangri-La Hotel. The region's only annual security forum - the Shangri-La Dialogue organised by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) - is back in town. | By Jonathan MarcusBBC defence correspondent
It gets under way after a year that has seen not just growing maritime tensions but also unanswered questions about the future of some of the key relationships in the region, not least the all-encompassing strategic encounter between the United States and a rising China.
The Director General and Chief Executive of the IISS, John Chipman, told me that such tensions were becoming all too frequent.
"Every year seems to produce an awful lot of tension in the Asia-Pacific," he says.
"Certainly in the last four or five years, we have been confronted by North Korean missile tests or launches and all sorts of controversy over the South China Sea - the East China Sea this year has been particularly busy," he notes.
"So the Shangri-La Dialogue offers an opportunity," he argues, "to pause the button for a moment and have all the defence ministers of the region and those who have a stake in Asia-Pacific security to discuss what the problems are and how they might begin to address them more effectively.
"We started this dialogue in 2002," he explains, "because there was no place where defence ministers of the Asia-Pacific region could meet."
The Shangri-La Dialogue, he insists, "is always there to stretch the envelope to ensure that as many countries who have a stake in Asian-Pacific security do meet at least once a year".
Maritime tensions, territorial disputes in Asia's contested waters and unease at a more robust and assertive China will all figure as part of the debate.
So, too, will charges of Chinese hacking raised most recently in the United States and Australia. An expert meeting on cyber-security is one of the few sessions that will be strictly off the record.
The Dialogue will see a host of bilateral ministerial meetings in the margins of the conference.
'Re-balancing'
The new US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel - who had a key role in backing the establishment of the dialogue over 10 years ago - will hold trilateral meetings with the defence ministers of South Korea and Japan, and separately with Australia and Japan.
Secretary Hagel will also be visiting the USS Freedom - a ship which symbolises Washington's pivot or re-balancing towards the Asia-Pacific, after more than a decade of wars focused upon Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Freedom is the first of a new class of vessel - controversial because it has had so many teething problems - but nonetheless a sign of where US naval power is heading.
It's a ship that can operate for extended periods away from its home port - the Freedom will be in Singapore for some 10 months.
It is small and agile, intended to carry out a range of functions, from surface warfare to mine-counter-measures and anti-submarine warfare.
Its shallow draft enables it to operate close to shore, hence its name: the Littoral Combat ship. It's a vessel intended to operate alongside the ships of Washington's allies in the region.
US spokesmen insist that the re-balancing towards Asia has a diplomatic and economic aspect every bit as important as its military dimension.
But it is the military side that has caught Beijing's attention. It is increasingly concerned by the "pivot" which many Chinese analysts see as a thinly-disguised attempt to contain China's rising power.
'Mutual suspicions'
When President Xi Jinping of China heads to California next week for a summit with his US counterpart, he will be looking for a new strategic relationship with Washington. By this, the Chinese mean a willingness on the part of the US to accept China's growing regional role.
China will also be represented here at the Shangri-La Dialogue, not by its defence minister, but by the deputy chief of Staff of the Peoples' Liberation Army, Lieutenant General Qi Jianguo (a man who, John Chipman of the IISS is quick to point out, has ministerial status in the Chinese system. He also happens to be China's head of military intelligence).
China, the IISS director general told me, says that it "values the Shangri-La dialogue as independent, fair and open".
"The IISS," he notes, perhaps a little mischievously, "looks forward to the day when the chairman of the Central Military Commission, that is to say, the Chinese president, might deliver the keynote address here."
While insisting that it wants more co-operation with Beijing, there is no sign that the White House is willing to give up its position as the dominant military player in the Asia-Pacific.
Analysts fear that mutual suspicions between the US and China risk stoking tensions in a region which, at times, already resembles a maritime tinder box.
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A boy who fell from a moving limousine in Powys has been released from hospital after receiving treatment. | He was taken to Princess Royal Hospital in Telford, Shropshire, following the incident at 13:15 BST on Saturday on the A470 between Caersws and Carno.
The Welsh Ambulance Service said the boy had "non-life threatening injuries" following his fall from the Rolls Royce limousine.
He was released from hospital on Sunday afternoon.
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It was as sudden as it was unexpected. | Tom EdwardsTransport correspondent, London@BBCTomEdwardson Twitter
Today London Mayor Boris Johnson announced an extra £8.3m would be given to the bus companies if they sorted out the £500 Olympics bonus dispute with their drivers.
I have watched strikes for years and they normally follow a set pattern.
This was something unprecedented. The mayor has intervened. Not directly in the dispute, but he's put his oar into the murky waters of the deal itself.
He has persuaded the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) to part with more money to grease the wheels.
Just last week Olympics minister Hugh Robertson said the contingency could not be used for industrial disputes. It seems there has been a change of heart.
What I have been told is Transport for London (TfL) approached other mode operators including Serco on the DLR many months ago about the cost of running extra services during the Games.
TfL asked the ODA for £93m. But insiders say bus companies didn't think there would be an extra cost for the services they'd have to put on.
That seems incredible considering the Unite union has been talking about the £500 driver bonus for months. Either the bus companies did not take the threat seriously, or they did not have adequate planning, or they chose to ignore it or thought TfL would sort it out.
None of the options leaves them covered in glory.
So what now? Will it be enough? Are the unions on the back foot now? What will the train companies think considering some of them have forked out on bonus deals from their own coffers?
Certainly now TfL and the mayor have intervened in this way, the unions will want them to be even more involved. Is there time to avert the strike? At the moment it's still on.
Let me know your thoughts.
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More than 200 miles of broken pavements are to be repaired across Surrey as part of a multi-million pound revamp of the county's footpaths.
| Surrey County Council has allocated £20m for the repairs, which will be carried out over six years.
It has prioritised footpaths outside schools, hospitals and shopping centres.
Cabinet member for highways John Furey said some paths are "dangerous" and inaccessible to disabled people.
Pavements listed for early repairs include Southway in Guildford, Godstone Road in Caterham, Windfield in Leatherhead and Banstead Road in Ewell.
The authority said some paths would be smoothed over, while the worst would be "torn up and reconstructed from scratch".
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"I don't want to live like this, no-one should live like this - but I don't have any options," says Polly Richardson who finds herself at the sharp end of the lack of affordable homes in England. | By Michael BuchananSocial affairs correspondent, BBC News
For more than a year, she has lived out of a small camper van.
"This is my home. I've two sets of clothes in a box. I've got my cups and saucers in this drawer, my pans under this bed, and I have a little camping cooker.
"Winter time was horrendous because there was no heating."
The 59-year-old grandmother of four from East Yorkshire is one of half-a-million households that aren't even counted as waiting for a council or housing association property, according to the National Housing Federation.
New research commissioned by the Federation from Heriot-Watt University says the real number of people in England waiting for such homes is 3.8 million, representing 1.6 million households, or 500,000 more than is indicated by official government data.
"I've got belongings in people's garages," says Polly.
She spent years working as a retail manager but after taking time off to look after her sick father, and then having a big argument with her sister, she found herself being forced to move into the van in March 2019.
"Without a job, you can't have a house. Without a house, they won't give you a job. I'm hoping somebody out there will give me a job," she says.
The National Housing Federation say 90,000 homes for social rent need to be built each year for the next decade to meet demand but, according to official figures, just 6,338 such homes were completed in 2018-19, down 84% since 2010-11.
The main advantage of social housing - where either the local council or a housing association are the landlord - is that it's more affordable than private rented accommodation, typically around 50% of market rents, and usually offers a more secure tenancy.
"What we are seeing is an escalating need for social housing and a lack of supply," says Kate Henderson, chief executive of the National Housing Federation.
"Investing in social housing would boost the economy, it would create thousands of jobs, it would support supply chains in the construction industry and it would provide better, more secure, safe housing for people in need."
The lack of suitable properties leaves large numbers of families living in overcrowded accommodation.
Abigail McManus, a 27-year-old single mother lives in a two-bedroom flat in Leeds with her three young children - two daughters aged six and two and a little boy who's five months old.
Leaving her house is a daily grind as she struggles to manoeuvre her double buggy down the stairs.
Abigail has been bidding weekly for a three-bedroomed ground floor property for years, without success.
She says the council are encouraging her to search further afield to increase her chances being allocated somewhere suitable to live.
But she says: "My whole family live on this estate, so I'd like to try and stay as close as possible.
"As a single parent, who doesn't drive, it would be hard for me to get anywhere and I'd feel more isolated than I already do, if I move too far from this area."
When she was prime minister, Theresa May altered the way in which councils could use funding to allow them to build more homes.
Her government predicted the change would lead to 10,000 new council houses each year, a figure that hasn't been reached since 2013-14.
While local authorities believe building that number is possible, experts say the pandemic could create problems in the construction industry.
The Ministry of Housing said it "didn't recognise" the figures in the new analysis carried out by the National Housing Federation, describing them as a "major overestimation".
It also highlighted its £11.5bn investment in affordable homes, to be spent between 2021 and 2026, some of which will be used on building homes for social rent.
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A cannabis farm with 200 plants worth about £168,000 has been found by police.
| Cleveland Police said officers discovered the farm on Lancaster Road in Hartlepool on Thursday following a report of suspicious activity.
A force spokeswoman said two men aged 34 and 53 were arrested on suspicion of production of a class B drug.
Det Con Mark Coverdale encouraged members of the public with information about drugs to contact police.
He said: "We will act upon it."
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Voting is underway in Indian-administered Kashmir in the region's first elections since Delhi revoked its special status last year. But the polls are unusual even by Kashmir's stormy standards. BBC's Aamir Peerzada reports from Srinagar. | "There is no democracy in Kashmir," declares 32-year-old Rabia Khursheed.
Ironically, Ms Khursheed is contesting the first ever direct elections for village councils in 20 districts of Jammu and Kashmir. The region's councils, earlier staffed by lawmakers, will be directly elected for the first time. And their members will be charged with local planning and governance, from roads to schools to hospitals.
These councils, at the base of India's democratic pyramid, make up the world's largest exercise in direct elections.
But Ms Khursheed is unimpressed.
"We don't have any option other than contesting [the polls]. Otherwise what will happen to our future generations?" she asks.
This mix of defiance, frustration and resignation is all too familiar in the Muslim-majority valley. It has long had a tense relationship with India - successive governments have failed to fight militancy in the region without giving the Indian army powers that have led to decades-worth of allegations of human rights abuses.
The rift only widened in August 2019 when the Bharatiya Janata Party-led federal government unilaterally abrogated Article 370, a constitutional provision that guaranteed Kashmir some autonomy. The move - accompanied by a severe communications and internet blockade, and the detention of MPs, activists, journalists and community leaders - was met with protests and global criticism. It was also seen as part of the BJP's right-wing agenda - the party's divisive rhetoric and politics have long been accused of targeting the country's Muslims.
With these elections, the first since the controversial move last year, the BJP hopes to gain a foothold in the valley.
"For Delhi, these elections are very significant. For Jammu and Kashmir, not very significant because the election has been instituted under an appointed ruler, not an elected one," says historian Siddiq Wahid.
He adds that it's an attempt by the BJP to seek "legitimacy".
The party is up against a united opposition and disgruntled population that is sceptical of the elections as a whole.
An unusual election
For the first time, some seven opposition parties have allied to contest the polls together. And their goal is to fight to restore Kashmir's special status.
"The election just a distraction from the real issues that has caused a sense of betrayal and alienation amongst people here," says former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). She was freed by Indian authorities in October, more than a year after her detention.
Then there are independent candidates like Ms Khursheed. She says she doesn't wish to associate herself with any political party, but she also says she has campaigned to hard to stem the BJP's rise.
Ms Khursheed is among more than 2,000 candidates in the fray for 280 seats in Jammu and Kashmir. The elections are taking place over eight phases, six of which have already concluded. Her seat in north Kashmir's Baramulla district went to the polls on 7 December.
Some 5.76 million people are registered to vote but Kashmiris have shown little enthusiasm compared to previous elections.
"The BJP has made a big deal about these elections by sending central ministers to campaign in Jammu. These are just village-level elections. And for common people there is little enthusiasm," says Anil Gupta, a journalist based in Jammu.
The Hindu-majority Jammu region has seen higher voter turnout, often crossing 60%. In the valley, it has remained below 41%. The lowest single phase turnout so far - 1.9% - has been recorded in south Kashmir's Shopian district, where militancy has always been rife.
Campaigning in south Kashmir, which is especially volatile, has been challenging and unusual.
Mass campaigns have been difficult not just because of the pandemic but because of a spike in militancy and political violence. At least nine BJP workers were killed by suspected militants this year, prompting officials to guard candidates round the clock. They have been moved to hotels or government guest houses, where they have been living under tight security.
"It's not possible to provide security individually to every candidate that's why they have been shifted to such accommodations," an official told the BBC.
"I have to give advance notice to police about my visit and when they think it's feasible security-wise then I get the clearance and police escort. I can't blame the police, they are doing this for our safety," says Nazir Ahamad Dar, 46, a BJP candidate in Pulwama, another south Kashmir district that has consistently seen low voter turnout..
He says he has only visited his constituency four times until now and and each time, he only had two hours to campaign.
Campaigning happens door-to-door and involves a police escort. And candidates complain that they aren't given enough time on the ground, but officials say they are doing everything they can given the security concerns.
But the opposition allege a more sinister agenda.
Former chief minister, Omar Abdullah, tweeted that the local administration was "going out of its way to help the BJP" and was "locking up candidates opposed to the BJP, using security as an excuse".
"If the security situation isn't conducive to campaigning what was the need to announce elections?" Mr Abdullah said.
But authorities denied the allegations, saying no candidate has been stopped from campaigning everyone was given adequate security.
Fear and mistrust
There is heavy security around polling booths, and voters are being frisked before they cast their ballots.
"We have to be alert," says an officer outside a polling booth in Shopian's Keller constituency.
A group of young men loitering outside the booth say they were not there to vote, but to "keep an eye on people who are coming to cast their votes".
One of them says that only the elderly are voting because "they still believe in the old party cardre, but we don't, so you won't see many youngsters voting".
"We know all the elections and parties are same, nothing will change with this," says another of them. They all wished to remain anonymous.
Those who did vote said they were hoping for development.
"We want development in our area and now we have a local representative contesting and that's why I voted, I think it will be easier for us to reach out to him now," said 20-year-old Mohammad Altaf from Shopian.
A group of women in south Kashmir said they were voting for roads because it takes a two-hour walk just to meet the candidates. "We don't have electricity, our kids are not able to read and write in the evenings. Our lives have been ruined but we don't want our children to go through this. I will vote for that," said Fareeda Akhtar.
And then there were those who voted so they have someone to call when security forces come knocking on their doors.
"If the police or the army picks up anyone here, there is nobody we can go to ask for help. I think I can at least go to the person I voted for to ask for help. That's why I voted today," said a 48-year-old voter who didn't want to be named.
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A shopping centre in Cardiff has been put up for sale - with a £33m price tag. | Queen's Arcade shopping centre, visited by 10 million shoppers a year, was originally developed in the mid-1990s.
Addington Capital bought the 150,000 sq ft (13, 935 sq m) shopping centre, which fronts on to Queen Street, in March 2011 but is now looking to sell.
The Post Office and Halifax Bank are based at the centre.
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After the death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Thailand is preparing for Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn to succeed him on the throne. The king's declining health seemed to coincide with the beginning of a decade-long political crisis, writes Serhat Uenaldi, and in the end Thai democracy died long before the king. | The king himself helped kill off democracy in the fateful year of 2006, when he endorsed a military coup against the popular Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and gave royal assent to an interim cabinet.
Mr Thaksin, a telecommunications billionaire, had been swept to power in the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis. He managed to get Thailand's economy back on track by introducing mildly redistributive policies that benefitted people in previously neglected provincial areas. As a result, he became the first prime minister to complete a full term in office. His popularity soared, partly at the expense of the monarchy.
Previously, King Bhumibol had been regarded as the supreme patron of rural Thailand, initiating hundreds of development projects. With Mr Thaksin's rise many came to realise that an elected leader could improve their lives and lead to real structural change. They no longer felt dependent on a supposedly benevolent monarch who ruled by birthright.
But royalists began to fight back, spearheading a movement against Mr Thaksin which they formed in late 2005. Thaksin, however, proved resilient, backed by the majority of Thais. Poll after poll showed his apparently unbeatable popularity.
Without Bhumibol's blessing, he could never have been ousted by a coup in September 2006. Its leaders were granted an audience with the king immediately afterwards which was a clear sign of royal support.
If due democratic processes had run their course, Mr Thaksin's economic policies may or may not have proven unsustainable, and his negative human rights track record may have become unacceptable to the majority of Thais. That would have been for the voters to decide. But Thailand's royalists appear to have made that decision for them.
Seen in this light, it seems easy to conclude, as some have done, that King Bhumibol was the one to blame for the political mess that followed. In the wake of the 2006 coup, criticism directed at him as the country's most potent anti-democratic player mounted. Mr Thaksin's supporters, journalists and academics began to examine his political track-record critically, in spite of the existence of a law against defaming the monarchy which allows for up to 15 years imprisonment for each act deemed insulting to the king or a member of his family.
Royal charisma
However, the question of whether man makes history or whether history makes a man - a king, in this instance - looms large over the assessment of King Bhumibol's reign. Is it justified to hold him responsible, or was he in actuality a weak king who simply found himself at the centre of forces that were even bigger than the demi-god he was supposed to be?
As so often, the truth lies in between. Thailand's turbulent politics can be best explained by the interplay between King Bhumibol as a leadership figure and Thai society at large. The point is that the king could not have become invested with the authority he had if that authority had not served the purposes of broad sections of the Thai people.
When King Bhumibol acceded to the throne in 1946, the Thai monarchy was at a low point after a revolution that ended absolute monarchy in 1932. The king's star only rose when military dictators started again to actively cultivate the charisma of the royal institution to promote royalism to fight communism in the 1950s. Royal traditions were invented or revived, the monarch was paraded around the countryside and abroad, old beliefs in Buddhist and Hindu sources of royal strength were nurtured.
In the king's name
And this is how King Bhumibol's reign worked. The enormous power he seemed to hold was in a way given to him by those Thais who drew on royal charisma as a source of legitimacy. The king's advice was what people made of it and what people made of it depended on their interests.
Whenever unionists rallied against privatisation by parading images of the king, whenever slum dwellers on royal land referred to their historical bond with the monarchy to counter threats of eviction, whenever a bureaucrat devised a scheme with reference to the king's guiding words of wisdom, whenever businesses attached a royal emblem to the front of their headquarters, whenever military generals purported to protect the king while carrying out coups against civilian governments, they were at the same time strengthening their own position and entrenching the centrality of the monarchy.
An example of this was the king's repeated but failed attempt to instil a so-called "sufficiency" mind-set in his people through his vague concept of a "sufficiency economy" - focus on balanced development that stresses environmental and social responsibilities as much as conventional measures of economic progress. But while environmentalists and opponents of neo-liberalism used the idea to back their calls for a more sustainable and less exploitative economy, nostalgic social conservatives claimed royal sanction for their vision of a country eternally fed by rice farmers who were content with their lot.
Opponents of a welfare state and advocates of the free market needed only refer to the king's approval of trade and consumption in the context of sufficiency. In his 1998 birthday speech, King Bhumibol, the nation's biggest capitalist, was quick to clarify that people's frugality should not be excessive and that the consumption of luxurious goods was permissible - a message well-received among Bangkok's middle and upper class.
And certainly it was not the king alone who killed Thai democracy. It was the people who profited from his stamp of approval for the coup. They feared that Thaksin was a threat to the monarchy, and therefore to their own source of legitimacy.
But coups did not solve their problems. In King Bhumibol's later years, more and more Thais started to question the power of the king because Mr Thaksin had indeed initiated a slow drift away from power based on royal charisma towards leadership based on democratic legitimacy.
Consequently, the authority derived from latching on to royal charisma has weakened. It is doubtful that the next Thai monarch will be able to restore the carefully calibrated symbiosis between the monarchy and those sections of the Thai public who had for decades benefitted the most from working towards it. Rumours of the death of that symbiosis might not be exaggerated. Then, Thai democracy might rise again like a phoenix from the ashes.
Serhat Uenaldi is the author of Working towards the Monarchy: The Politics of Space in Downtown Bangkok.
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At the end of January Ade Alabi made a big investment. He bought a four-storey building with two ballrooms, three restaurants, a night club and a radio station, just down the road from Minneapolis's Third Precinct police headquarters. | By Barbara Plett UsherBBC News, Minneapolis
By the end of May it was gone, a heap of rubble and ashes, consumed by the inferno that destroyed the police station and many of the businesses around it.
The image of the burning precinct, abandoned by police in the face of angry and violent protesters, signalled for him that something different was happening in Minneapolis.
This was the station where the four policemen charged in the killing of George Floyd worked. The explosive reaction to his slow and gruesome death, his neck pinned to the ground by an officer's knee, created momentum to change the way not only the city, but the country, is policed.
Nearly five months on, however, ambitious policy efforts to address police violence in Minneapolis have slammed into bureaucratic roadblocks and public opposition.
In the charged atmosphere after the Floyd killing, city counsellor Alondra Cano says she "knew in my gut that we had to do something different… to send a message nationally that would rupture through the traditional approach", to police misconduct.
Reform hadn't worked, she said. It was time now to transform.
So in early June a majority of city council members took a step that shook Minneapolis and drew national and international attention. They pledged to dismantle a policing system long accused of racism, and build something new - "to end policing as we know it".
They then proposed an amendment to the city's charter to put on the November ballot. It called for replacing the police department with a new entity of community safety and violence prevention.
The proposal was short on detail but council members said there would be a public engagement process to fill in the blanks.
Instead, they faced public opposition, most vocally from North Minneapolis, a largely black neighbourhood, which saw a dramatic rise in gun crime and robberies after Floyd's death. Residents have become so alarmed they are suing the city.
"We have historically had victims of violence by police," said Cathy Spann, a community organiser, at a recent neighbourhood gathering. "But we are under siege right now with gunfire every single night. The council has to bring in extra force to stop this from happening!"
The consensus at the backyard gathering was that the council's declaration had emboldened criminals and demoralised the police department. Whatever the case, dozens of officers have left the force, quitting or claiming medical leave.
"We want to reimagine community policing, desperately, to save the lives of our young black and brown men and women," said Jon Lundberg, whose house was hit by random gunfire last week.
"But what we need now is to reinstitute some systems of control. Because right now it's off the hook, it's off the chain."
Some city counsellors have begun to backtrack given the backlash. Cano is not one of them.
She says the proposal was meant to set the direction for a complex and lengthy process.
"Now is where we should be digging deeper and tackling those very important questions around why are we seeing an increase in gun violence and robberies and we shouldn't shy away from that," she says.
"That doesn't mean what we did on 7 June doesn't work. What that means is that we're in it and that we need to stay committed and dedicated to solving long-term problems that even our police officers can't solve."
But those efforts have been set back by the city's charter commission, an appointed state body, which determined that the police amendment was too vague, and put off any vote for another year.
In the meantime the council has taken some steps. It diverted $1.1m from the police budget to newly formed community patrols. And Minneapolis has instituted some incremental reforms, such as banning police chokeholds.
But Dave Bicking, a veteran activist against police violence, says the council's radical move has done more harm than good.
"The diversion of that pledge and the city charter amendment I think are steps that took away from the chance to make short-term changes to the behaviour of the police department that would have made a difference," he says, citing in particular investigation of and discipline for incidents of misconduct and excessive force.
In South Minneapolis, another community caught in the line of fire is trying to make its own sense of the city's upheavals.
Ade Alabi has banded together with others in the neighbourhood to try to preserve the diverse and distinctive character of the commercial district around the Third Precinct. In the face of enormous rebuilding costs, they are fighting to keep it in the hands of the community rather than lose it to a handful of corporate property developers.
They too, talk about transformation, hoping to bring more minority business owners into their corner of the city, and create more cultural and social space. It's something that lawyer Daniel Kennedy, who's part of the collective, calls "an opportunity that nobody wanted".
The battered police station sits abandoned on this block of destruction. One option being discussed is to hand it over to the community.
If nothing else, the killing of George Floyd has shifted the conversation about the function of a police force, even as it has starkly exposed how difficult that is to change.
"I don't want to go back to normal," says Meena Natarajan, the owner of a theatre company and another member of the group, "because normal was racist."
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More than 100 private aircraft are booked to land at Alderney airport for this year's Fly-in, organisers have confirmed.
| The event had been running for 20 years before it was cancelled in 2004 because of a lack of entries.
The Fly-in, which involves light aircraft enthusiasts congregating on the island, starts on 28 June.
The Alderney Flying Club has appealed to islanders for accommodation because hotels and B&Bs are fully booked.
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Single people in need of a home are the least likely to be prioritised by local authorities. But could one-person micro-homes be an answer - or is expecting people to live in a box, and be grateful about it, a step too far? | By Bethan BellBBC News
Nearly a quarter of a million single people have experienced homelessness in the past 12 months.
These include the most visible sector of homeless people, the rough sleepers; as well as those living in temporary accommodation, like shelters or hostels, provided by the voluntary homelessness sector. Then we have the "hidden homeless" who stay on the floor of friends and family, the "sofa surfers" and the squatters.
Perhaps communities of micro-homes such as one recently granted planning permission in Worcester - where each unit has a floor space of just 17.25 sq metres - could offer a solution.
According to the British Property Federation, micro-homes can be defined as "not conforming to current minimum space standards".
But the charity Homeless Link says "the main aspiration of people who are homeless is to have a home of their own".
So should we start to think inside the box?
Accommodating single people in small spaces is not new - shipping containers have been used to house homeless people for decades. But shipping containers are not purpose-built, are often cold, poorly ventilated and - crucially - are storage crates, not homes.
Benjamin Clayton, head of strategy at Homes England, the government's "housing accelerator" and formerly a fellow at Harvard University, says micro-homes are "clearly not the solution to the housing crisis, but they might be a handy resource in the meantime.
"Tiny houses could be particularly helpful in getting homeless people into safety. Housing charity Crisis estimates that the cost of a single homeless person sleeping rough in the UK is £20,128 per year, which is depressing money down the drain."
It makes financial sense to help homeless people, or, ideally, prevent their plight in the first place.
In an illustrative report At what cost? commissioned by Crisis, that annual price tag of £20,128 includes interaction with the criminal justice system (about £7,000), visits to A&E and stays in hospital (about £8,000), and support from homelessness agencies.
And that's before the human cost. Lacking a settled home can cause or increase social isolation, create barriers to education, training and paid work and undermine mental and physical health.
Mr Clayton suggests Britain should experiment along the lines of some communities in the US, where charitable groups have supplied micro-homes to help homeless people.
"Around 8,000 people slept rough on the streets of London in 2016-17, a number which has doubled since 2010," Mr Clayton says.
"Surely units in homelessness hotspots in London, Manchester, Birmingham and elsewhere could provide a real, albeit temporary, alternative.
"Of course Britain needs more and better real houses. In the meantime, though, we should take tiny houses seriously, especially for those who have no house at all."
Not everybody is happy with the idea though.
One of the newest developments to receive planning permission is a set of 16 iKozie units, which will be erected in Worcester some time next year. The original plans for the site were more ambitious, but vigorous opposition from residents worried about infrastructure, parking and antisocial behaviour led to the proposal for 30 units being trimmed down to 16.
Objections lodged with the council ranged from allegations that the iKozie residents would not be in paid employment and therefore a drain on the public purse, to concerns about space for charging points for hypothetical electric cars in the future.
Of the 16 units, five will be in the control of the city council's housing department, and it would be up to the council to decide who on the housing list should be allocated a unit.
Single adults with no children or specific vulnerabilities tend to fall between the cracks when it comes to finding them somewhere to live. There will always be someone considered a higher priority.
But these homes for one, loosely based on the cabin of a luxury yacht, could fill a gap.
Each £40,000 home will be 17.25 sq metres and have a fully-equipped bedroom, shower room, living area and kitchen. The floor space of the units is half that set out in government guidance, but the company behind iKozie argues that the design, and the fact the units are not meant to be long-term homes, means their size is not a problem.
"A lot of affordable homes don't come with a cooker or flooring, and lots of people aren't brilliant at interior design," says the director of iKozie, Kieran O'Donnell, who is also a trustee of the housing charity The Homeless Foundation.
"With the iKozie, everything is fitted in. There are distinct 'zones' for living, eating and sleeping, and there is no wasted space."
Mr O'Donnell says the units would not be used to house the "street homeless", but would be for those moving on from supported living or "trapped in an HMO [home of multiple occupation]". The iKozie would provide transition accommodation for someone before they moved into the open market.
"It's not meant to be a long-term fix. I see the timeframe for people living there to be about two years-ish - perhaps giving people time to save for a deposit or even a mortgage," he says.
"At the same time, they're building up a track record of paying rent and for utilities, which can be shown to housing associations or whoever when they move on to the next stage."
The businessman is open about the fact that this project is likely to prove a financial success for his company - and he's currently looking for more sites on which to put more iKozies.
"We also think these will be in high demand for students or maybe older people who are downsizing."
The five affordable units would be rented at the local housing allowance rate - about £99 a week - while the remaining ones would be available for rent at the market rate of about £125 a week.
People living there would be subject to a strict set of conditions, Mr O'Donnell says. The units would be for single occupancy only and iKozie would monitor the site.
This in turn could free up space in a hostel or supported living accommodation.
So in concrete terms of helping the homeless, the effect will be modest - but could pave the way for further projects.
Stephen Robertson, CEO of the Big Issue Foundation, says spiralling private rent has led to "a rough sleeping crisis, a humanitarian crisis" and even small initiatives like the iKozie development are valuable because of the lessons of the experience.
"There has been a massive increase in tented accommodation - people simply have nowhere to go," he says.
"The iKozies are small but they look fairly well designed and nobody is forced to live in one. They're not in themselves the answer - social housing is.
"If you look at the scale of the problem, this is just a drop in the ocean. But it is self-sufficient living, not being abandoned in a shed. Taking action where the environment is hostile is important - especially the learning that comes from it.
"We can find out from the development whether the project is scalable and replicable. I see it as an innovation; not more than that, but it is an innovation.
"It will be an improvement on many people's current situation.
"It is an alternative for people who don't have an alternative."
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Coronavirus is changing London. Some of it may be temporary, as the capital adjusts to the presence of an invisible killer, some of it will be more permanent. | By Raphael SheridanBBC London News
It is more than 100 days since the prime minister ordered the nation to stay at home and the country is experiencing a severe recession "the likes of which we've not seen", according to Chancellor Rishi Sunak.
Some restrictions are now being lifted but no one quite knows how London will recover and how coronavirus will alter the way we live and work.
And quite how the city recovers depends in part on how it can navigate the shorter-term crises that are hurtling towards it.
Transport for London (TfL), who runs the capital's transport network, received a £1.6bn government bailout in May after its fares income fell dramatically but that will only keep the wheels greased until September, when a second bailout looks inevitable.
Likewise restaurants, hotels and bars have quarterly rents and it's feared few have the means to cough up. The new "one metre plus" rule has given them a fighting chance of survival but many businesses are living hand-to-mouth.
London's economy is staggeringly large: its economic output is measured in hundreds of billions of pounds. But strip away its institutions, markets and buildings and you are left with ordinary people, whose behaviour has changed - whether voluntarily or not - because of coronavirus.
And when London's citizens change their behaviour in sufficient numbers, the city changes too.
The worker
Becca, 33, charity worker
Before coronavirus I'd be up at 6am or even earlier at times, to commute to The City from Hackney. Ninety per cent of the time I'd cycle in to avoid the Overground and Victoria Line as it's always packed but cycling on London's roads isn't fun. It's busy and stressful. I remember getting to the end of the week and being absolutely exhausted.
Now I'm working from home I feel I have so much more life. I genuinely feel like I have more space and time than there ever was before.
I'd be keen to do it a little bit more just to cut out the tiredness that comes with the commute.
But I also think it depends on your personality - some people have enjoyed aspects of it, but others haven't. It's a mixed bag. Particularly when you lead a team, which I do, it's hard to bring a group of people with you when you're not there in person.
It should be stressed that many Londoners do not have the luxury of working from home, who do not work in offices, and who may have no choice but to travel on the Underground and bus network.
But the decision of those to stay away from their workplace more often, will have far-reaching economic consequences.
The think tank Centre for Cities has carried out studies into how many people could potentially work from home. Chief executive Andrew Carter said they found "in London about 40% of the workplace could work from home".
That equates to over two million people.
This will mean the ways by which we travel will be radically affected. About half of TfL's money comes from fares.
"If you assume the numbers of journeys are going down, then you have to increase fares," Mr Carter said.
That is already scheduled for January as part of TfL's bailout but any rise will affect Londoners whose jobs cannot be done from home.
"It's a social justice issue too, because poorer people don't have cars and they're going to end up paying more. It affects poorer people because they're more reliant on it," he said.
Many of these people work in the section of the economy that supports the more office-based sector - such as chefs, baristas, taxi drivers, retail workers.
To earn their living, they rely on an army of commuters crushing together like battery chickens on the morning Tubes and buses, to spend money throughout the day.
But as some businesses close and others decide a large headquarters are unnecessary when its staff can work from home, it could mean the centre of London becomes hollowed out in the coming months.
The business
Ben Carter, managing director of City Pantry (owned by Just Eat)
Our business model is very simple: to deliver food from restaurants to offices. That includes breakfasts, lunches, catering for big meetings, hospitality and events. We were feeding hundreds of thousands of people on a monthly basis.
Suddenly, overnight we were all working from home and we were seeing order after order cancelled. Ninety percent of the offices were shut down and London is our biggest customer base. We had to get on the front foot and future-proof the business because social distancing is here to stay.
Business has fundamentally changed and once we came out of that first week of shock we absolutely wanted to carry on and do everything we could to support our restaurant partners. Obviously it's a full-on job, it's all about a team effort.
We're all working from home - we've had to adapt and support people with kids and those who don't want to stare at a screen all day.
It's a concern but the reality is that restaurants come and go all the time, it's a fluid sector, but we're doing all we can to support the industry. We wouldn't be here without them.
We've been resilient, we'll keep moving to adapt. I'm optimistic about the future but I'm mindful that everything can unwind very easily.
Inner London is famed for its restaurants, bars and hotels. Kate Nicholls, as the chief executive of lobby group UKHospitality, has the unenviable task of navigating the sector through the crisis.
There are problems everywhere:
But a problem further down the road, is if City workers decide that a 04:30 alarm is a little too early to begin the commute into town and opt instead to work from the kitchen table.
"It's those who work in The City offices - it's the lawyers, the financiers, those are the people who spend in hospitality. They spend a lot and spend regularly.
"The people who can afford to work at home for longer are more cautious about their health and even if they go back, the business lunch isn't going to be happening, not any time soon," she said.
In this delicate ecosystem, high-end restaurants seem particularly vulnerable.
But has the lockdown forced a more permanent change in people's behaviour?
"That's a very difficult question," says Dr Sander van der Linden, a social psychologist at the University of Cambridge. "Some people will fairly quickly return to normal - lots of people are eager to return to normal."
He stresses he does not want to crystal ball gaze but thinks social distancing might be a difficult behaviour to change because people have been exposed to it long enough to "internalise" it.
"You know you're going to catch the virus from other people, so as soon as you realise you're in a crowded space people might feel odd about it," he explains.
He doesn't think rigorous hand-washing and face masks will become permanent features of life but some people will be reluctant, for a time at least, to get back on the Tube "even when the risk is reduced".
So with a more cautious population, how might the restaurant industry survive?
Andrew Carter thinks Londoners might see pop-up restaurants and more street-markets as the food scene attempts to adapt. A similar trial has been conducted in Lithuania's capital Vilnius.
Kate Nicholls is not as confident. Her view is that Londoners will have fewer places to choose from, with higher prices and any measures to help will not work unless people feel confident travelling into the city centre.
It is by no means certain that inner London will become hollowed out. Like many others, Richard Brown, deputy director of Centre for London, told the BBC: "What I wouldn't give to be able to go into the office."
But if fewer people work or play in the centre of town then in the medium or long term land prices might drop and commercial rents decrease.
Some offices might, for a time, remain empty before new companies move in or their uses will simply change.
Mr Carter likens it to a kind of "reverse Shoreditch", the area around Brick Lane was inhabited in the late 1980s by artists and creative types because it was cheap and ideally located.
They were soon replaced by financial services firms. So put that in reverse and he thinks Canary Wharf, the bastion of the financial services sector, could become more mixed as new businesses take advantage.
And fewer people in inner London could mean the capital's suburbs doing comparatively well.
"You might see services springing up and doing better in outer London town centres," Mr Brown explains. "City centre shops have seen a huge fall-off and local shops have done well."
A similar phenomenon has been observed in Sweden's capital, Stockholm. The mayor, Anna König Jerlmyr, told the BBC in April "local centres are flourishing, when people are not going into cities."
That might be good news for London town centres like Stratford and Croydon, although how they will cope with the looming recession is a different question.
As the city grapples with the pandemic, London's businesses must work out how to exist with coronavirus. If shops or places of work must be emptier for public health reasons, how do they continue to function?
Mr Carter thinks one option will be for the capital to become a 24-hour economy.
"You'd expect businesses to be thinking very clearly and making arguments that we have to be a 24-hour city, not because it's the nice thing to do but it's the only way to have a business community," he said.
Mr Brown thinks it "may be one of those things where a trend has just been accelerated slightly".
And the acceleration of existing trends is probably how coronavirus will change the city: fewer people than expected using public transport, more people working from home, more people cycling, more people shopping online and all to the detriment of physical stores across the capital.
Over the coming months, the lives of London's citizens will change. Some people reading this article will lose their livelihoods and others will prosper.
But Mark Kleinman, professor of public policy at King's College London, thinks the city itself will weather the storm.
"Cities are very complex things. London does have a lot of assets in terms of its brand and the reputation of its institutions means it's still seen as a successful, global city," he explains.
Mr Brown believes something similar. "After 9/11 there were people saying that no-one will go to cities anymore," he said.
"I know people after 7/7 who said they'd never take the Tube but a few years later they did. So people do revert. I think London will be relatively resilient."
Mr Kleinman points to the rapid way that London changes. How just 60 years ago, if you stood by the Thames in east London, you would hear the voices of dockers, the industrial whirr of cranes and the unloading of cargo from across the world.
"It used to be a manufacturing and goods city, it had the largest docks in the world. And over a relatively short period it's changed from a successful manufacturing city, to a successful services-based city. So cities do adapt," he said.
It is impossible to know for certain the extent to which the pandemic will permanently alter the lives of Londoners and, by deduction, its economy.
The capital must first experience, then recover from, a severe economic recession. A vaccine or drug treatment may be found, or it may not.
"This is probably the most significant thing that's happened in our lifetime," says Mr Brown.
But if one walks around the City of London and remembers what those ancient streets have seen - plague, fire, the Blitz, Spanish influenza - then it seems that the capital will, as a metropolis, find a way through this 21st century crisis.
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Elvedin Pasic was the first witness to give evidence in the war crimes trial of former Bosnian Serb army chief Gen Ratko Mladic at the International Criminal Court at The Hague. The BBC's Anna Holligan heard his testimony. | The events he was describing happened two decades ago.
Elvedin Pasic was a schoolboy at the time. But he spoke as though it were yesterday.
Initially, the smartly dressed survivor made valiant efforts to suppress his tears: conscious that the man accused of being responsible for his suffering - the deaths of his father and uncle - was sitting just metres away.
But his voice betrayed the emotional agony he was reliving in court.
As he recounted returning to his village, after the bombings and shellings that had forced his family to flee, Mr Pasic spoke in staccato bursts.
Homes had been burnt down; old people too frail to leave had been burnt to death; his pet dog had been shot by Serb soldiers.
The memory of finding his dog was too much. The witness, now 34, could no longer hide his anguish or the trauma of being forced to remember and relive that moment.
Throughout his testimony he never once looked to his left where the accused sat silently, watching.
Rare smile
Before this first witness was led into courtroom one, Ratko Mladic had at first appeared to be in a rather jovial mood.
Glancing out at the journalists watching him from the public gallery, he seemed surprised to see such a large audience.
He appeared pleased, sharing a joke and a rare smile with his defence team.
When Elvedin Pasic entered, the former Bosnian Serb commander sat forward on his chair, as though trying to get a closer look.
Elbows on the desk, chin in his hands, there was no obvious emotion. But he was paying attention.
Occasionally, he wiped his eyes and mouth with a tissue: a gesture that could be interpreted as an emotional reaction but was probably more physical, related to his poor health.
The survivor's testimony is significant insofar as it relates to one of the first massacres committed by Serb forces in Bosnia.
The prosecution aims to use personal recollections provided by the witnesses to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Ratko Mladic was involved in the planning and implementation of these crimes.
They have to show that he was responsible for the forces engaged in trying to ethnically cleanse - through evacuation or murder - an entire Muslim population from huge swathes of lands that the Bosnian Serbs wished to turn into an ethnically pure Greater Serbian Republic.
Today, the tears of one survivor showed that time has done little to numb the pain.
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Nelson Mandela's biography The Long Walk to Freedom became an international bestseller and is being made into a film. But the famous book may never have seen the light of day if it wasn't for the bravery and persistence of another Robben Island inmate. | By Karen AllenBBC News, Johannesburg
"We were housed in individual cells, each cell had a window looking out into the corridor. Warders patrolled day and night, lights were on 24 hours a day."
Mac Maharaj was one of four long-term prisoners on Robben Island secretly collaborating on the first draft of the autobiography of Nelson Mandela - along with other Africa National Congress activists Ahmed Kathrada and Walter Sisulu.
"Mandela had to write every night. He wrote on average 10-15 pages with very little reference material - he wrote by discussion and recollection," says the 76-year-old.
"The next morning it would circulate to Kathrada and Sisulu for their comments, which would come back to me to transcribe. And the next night he would write another 10-15 pages."
Both men would sometimes feign illness so they could stay in the grounds and spend their time working alone in the prison quadrangle. Writing was strictly a night time affair, but this was their opportunity to discuss the copy and the edits.
Their determination to write overcame the fear of being caught.
"We were living in a society where the history of our struggle was not covered anywhere - not even in academia. Everything in history was the history about the white man.
"So that in itself was an exciting exercise to put down on paper the life of one man who was so central [to the struggle], and whose autobiography was really a political autobiography. One had a sense that Mandela had already become a national and international figure and that it would be an inspiration to read our history."
They used thin sheets of lined A4 paper from a stash of stationery available to prisoners, many of whom were studying for degrees - Mr Maharaj included.
"I had to transcribe it into a form that I could hide. We used both sides of [the paper], and we used tiny handwriting."
Mr Maharaj's painstakingly scribbled transcriptions were hidden amongst his study materials - 60 sheets of paper concealed in the covers of a handmade file that was used to carry statistical maps.
Meanwhile, Mr Mandela's handwritten copy - the original draft of the book - was put into tin containers and buried in a vegetable patch.
One October afternoon Mac Maharaj was unexpectedly called to the prison offices and told he wouldn't be returning to his cell. He would be moving on - leaving without his belongings.
After a moment of panic, he began arguing with the guards - demanding to return to pack up his books and study materials, which contained the all-important transcriptions.
Still apparently oblivious of his clandestine work with Mandela, the guards allowed him to leave with some books, which contained some of the writings. And thinking on his feet, he hatched another plan.
"I had the presence of mind to say, 'My books are lent out, exchanged with people and there are books in my cell that don't belong to me. So go to Kathrada, go to Sisulu. Ask them to help to pack my books.'"
Mr Maharaj was not allowed back to his cell, and was shipped off Robben Island, but his fellow inmates managed to get the rest of the transcripts out, still undiscovered in his books and his file. Out of prison but under house arrest, he was reunited with his boxes two months later in December 1976.
Soon after he left prison, the guards began to build a wall at the spot in the prison garden where Mandela's own papers were hidden. The tins were found, and the handwriting on the manuscript was tested - implicating all four men, although only the three still incarcerated could be punished.
After six months of house arrest, Mr Maharaj slipped out of the country and headed for the UK. The secret file had been sent on ahead, to be delivered into the safekeeping of a trusted friend, anti-apartheid activist Rusty Bernstein.
In the summer of 1977, the men met in central London along with another close cohort, Yusef Dadoo. The file was hidden in the Communist Party offices where Rusty worked. After a cup of coffee in a tearoom on nearby Goodge Street, Mr Maharaj finally had the file in his hands.
"I ripped the covers and out came all these pages. Rusty and Dadoo - both their mouths were agape. It was mission accomplished. We had successfully smuggled it out. It had come out intact."
This affirmed the wisdom of having two copies of the manuscript. The original script handwritten by Mr Mandela had been discovered in Robben Island and now forms part of the Nelson Mandela Foundation's archives in Johannesburg. But Mr Maharaj's transcript had survived.
It had to wait another 18 years before being read by millions around the world, because the ANC were firm in their belief that the precious transcript had to wait until after Mr Mandela's release from jail, to see the light of day.
But it formed the framework for his hugely successful autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom published in 1995.
On page 572, Mr Mandela himself pays tribute to the importance of Mr Maharaj's transcript in forming the template of his bestseller.
"Although it was not published while I was in prison, it forms the basis of this memoir."
Mac Maharaj told his story to the BBC World Service history programme, Witness. Listen to this episode via iPlayer or download the podcast.
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Across the Mediterranean, people smugglers are advertising their services on Facebook, promising safe passage to migrants desperate to reach Europe. Their pages offer a glimpse into a smuggling network that spans three continents, generates hundreds of millions of dollars, and has become, in effect, an alternative asylum service for the EU. | By Daniel Adamson and Mamdouh AkbiekBBC World Service
"With the beginning of the new season we have a range of journeys on offer. Turkey Libya Italy, $3,800. Algeria Libya Italy, $2,500. Sudan Libya Italy, $2,500… The boats are all wood… If you have questions, contact me on Viber or WhatsApp."
This is not an ad from a travel brochure. It's a Facebook update posted by a people smuggler, Abdul Aziz, from the Libyan port of Zuwara on 21 April. Abdul Aziz is just one of hundreds of smugglers now using social media to promote their services to migrants and refugees trying to reach Europe.
Their pages advertise everything from fake documents to safe passage by land, air, or sea. Many are illustrated with photos of luxury cruise liners or crisp new passports, and include package deals - "Kids go free" is a popular offer - as well as glowing testimonies that purport to be from migrants who have made the journey.
But behind the glib promises and the slick online communications is a ruthless real-world web of smugglers and con men who thrive on the vulnerability of the migrants.
This web extends not only across the Mediterranean and the Middle East but deep into sub-Saharan Africa. Abdul Aziz alone claims to have agents in "almost every Arab state" and says "if people can't get here to Libya, I have legal and illegal ways to get them into the country."
The network that links a boat-runner like Abdul Aziz to a passport forger in Istanbul or a truck driver in Eritrea is an underground, ever-shifting configuration of personal contacts, criminal gangs, and one-off business deals that runs across national borders and is almost impossible to police.
The adaptability of this system only makes it more efficient: last year some 220,000 migrants crossed the Mediterranean, most leaving Libya in smugglers' boats before being rescued at sea by the Italian coastguard or navy. Since the start of 2015, another 35,000 have reached Italy. More than 1,800 have drowned in the attempt.
There is nothing new in this. African migrants have been sailing from Zuwara for at least 30 years. But the proliferation of Arabic-language smuggling pages on Facebook reflects a surge in demand from Syrian and other Arab migrants since the uprisings of 2011, as well as a growing confidence among the smugglers themselves, many of whom post their mobile phone numbers online or field enquiries via online messaging apps.
Abdul Aziz, who spoke to the BBC via Skype, said that between 10 and 20 people contact him through his Facebook page every day. "Until 2012 we didn't use social media at all," he said. "Now, it accounts for between 30% and 40% of my business."
The collapse of the Libyan state has also emboldened the smugglers, allowing them to promote themselves online without fear of arrest. Abdul Aziz laughed at the suggestion that his Facebook page might attract the attention of the authorities. "What authorities? There aren't any authorities. There isn't even a regime. There's nothing."
Giampaolo Musumeci, an Italian journalist who has written a book about North Africa's smuggling gangs, sees their growing social media presence as "part of the marketing operation for the biggest illegal travel company in the world."
According to Musumeci, this "company" made something between 300m and 600m euros (£235m-£470m; $215m-$430m) last year from those trying to get into Europe, and now constitutes an unofficial asylum service for people whose lives have been derailed by poverty, chaos, and war.
"What I'm selling," a Pakistani smuggler in Italy told Musumeci, "is the dream of Europe."
For many of those who arrived in the EU last year, it's a dream that could not be realized through legal channels.
Take Ayham al Faris, a Syrian translator and anti-Assad campaigner who fled his country in fear for his life in October 2011. Before he left, Ayham tried to apply for a visa from the French and Austrian embassies in Damascus. He got nowhere. Later, after he had reached Turkey, Ayham approached the German, Australian, and Bosnian embassies with the same request. "They didn't even say, 'We don't have programmes for you, we can't give you a visa now,' or something like that… They just say, 'Send us an email,' but when I send them my email they just throw it away."
Faced with this wall of bureaucratic indifference, Ayham made his own way into Greece, where he used Facebook to contact a Syrian smuggler called Hafez. "He said he can take me wherever I want, no problem, it's easy for him. The most important thing is that you have your money in your pocket."
Despite the sales patter, Hafez failed to get Ayham out of Greece. Eventually, Ayham bought a fake passport from another smuggler and, at the 11th attempt, got on a flight to Paris. He has now been granted asylum in the Netherlands.
It's a case that illustrates the crux of the problem: people smugglers are responding to a demand for asylum that Europe's politicians are unwilling to meet. As long as this situation persists, says Musumeci, the smugglers will always find a way into the fortress.
"They're thinking about how to get into Europe 24 hours a day… They communicate. They stay in touch. They change routes… one of these guys told me, "We study Europe, we study the laws, and the more you close the borders the more money we're going to make.'"
New EU proposals to distribute migrants across member states and break up clandestine networks might help to reduce people smuggling within Europe. But Musumeci says it will do nothing to stop the boats coming across the Mediterranean. Dealing with that, he argues, will require a whole new level of engagement with the political turmoil in parts of Africa and the Middle East.
"Migration is going to force us to deal with these international issues… We need to focus on Libya, Eritrea, Somalia, Syria. It may sound naive, but it's the only way to stop the influx… We'll never stop this just by closing the doors. I've talked to dozens of migrants, and these people are willing to die to get into Europe."
Despite the obvious difficulties, European countries are still trying to solve the problem at the level of policing. Europol, the EU's law enforcement agency, recently launched an intelligence program, JOT Mare, which is supposed to disrupt or dismantle the smuggling networks that are bringing so many migrants across the Mediterranean.
A spokesperson for Europol confirmed that their agents will look at the online presence of the smugglers: "JOT Mare is focussing on all modi operandi used by facilitators of irregular migration in the Mediterranean Sea, including the use of social media."
He conceded, though, that "Europol has no operational cooperation agreement with Libya" - the point of departure for the vast majority of migrants.
In Zuwara, Abdul Aziz hadn't heard of JOT Mare, but didn't sound too worried. "It's just words on paper. I'm not afraid, because it's meaningless. How are they going to follow me? Are they going to come to Libya? If they try, it would be considered an invasion. Are they going to catch me outside Libya? I don't go outside Libya. And if I do go, they won't know about it."
Facebook: a window into the people smuggling business
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When Stormzy stood on stage at the BRIT Awards in February this year and delivered his stinging rap criticising the government's handling of the Grenfell Tower Fire, the then 24-year-old grime artist from Thornton Heath, south London, achieved something that is almost unheard of for a working-class, young black man from "a place where success doesn't happen." | Will GompertzArts editor@WillGompertzBBCon Twitter
He had won.
And not just the Album of the Year award for Gang Signs & Prayer.
He had won something much more elusive. He had won the Establishment's respect (the government quickly issued a statement about the actions it had taken in response to the Grenfell tragedy), the right to speak and be heard: a seat at the table where the national conversation takes place.
In that moment Michael Omari, or just plain Mike to his friends and Stormzy to you and me, became a significant player in British culture.
It was the latest chapter in his remarkable story, which you can read all about in his lyrics, or in the many interviews he has given. But not, I can report, in his new book, Rise Up: The #Merky Story So far.
Rise Up is not an autobiography, or a revelation-filled memoir.
There are no stories about outrageous pop star extravagances, or torrid tales from his teenage years. There is the briefest of mentions of being stabbed, of the police kicking in his front door, of a friend's suicide, of mental health issues, "I was mad depressed for a while… I'd just be sitting in my house. No-one would see me for days, or weeks …I was so broken-spirited."
But these are fleeting asides that are neither explored nor explained. A frank outpouring of the soul it is not. In fact, it's more like a business book charting the rise of #Merky, the lifestyle/entertainment brand Stormzy has created with a close band of brothers and sisters.
We hear from many of them in first-person extracts taken from interviews by co-author Jude Yawson, who has structured their reminiscences into chronological order, starting in the late noughties when an ambitious yet unfocussed Mike is about to leave school.
Given that all involved in the publication are friends or acquaintances it will not surprise you to learn that at times it can come across more like a piece of brand communications than a warts-and-all account into the trials and tribulations of setting-up a company. In many instances such an approach would result in an extremely dull piece of vanity publishing. But that is emphatically not the case here.
Rise Up is not only a decent read; it is a very important book.
The voices we hear from - young, gifted and largely black - are all too rarely heard. These are people who typically have to listen to a daily diet of media negativity about their communities without the opportunities to respond.
Stormzy's success, and the choices he is making (such as the #Merky Books collaboration with Penguin to publish new writers), is providing a much-needed platform for those from working-class, inner-city backgrounds to speak out and give vent to their talents.
Rise Up is #Merky Books's first publication, and a fitting one too. It is not simply about great achievements against the odds. More importantly, perhaps, it provides a detailed roadmap, and possibly the confidence, to readers not blessed with resources and contacts, who, like the #Merky founders, want to get on and make a contribution: to fulfil their talents and ambitions.
It is truly inspiring to read about the accomplishments of Team Stormzy, realised largely without money or expertise, but with bucket loads of intelligence and hard work. Trust, friendship, instinct, vision, discipline, networks, empathy, resilience, courage, risk, and humility are all ingredients in the making of their business. The uncompromising pursuit of excellence and a relentless desire to "grow" professionally is what has driven it forward.
Stormzy is clearly the leader; he is the one setting the standards:
"I demand high standards from myself, and from everyone I'm working with… If someone is bringing me down, or getting in the way of me doing something the way I need it to be done, I won't have it. Some of them have a name for me, 'Smoky Mike', when I get vexed and I tell them off."
We hear a tiny bit more about 'Smoky Mike' towards the end of the book from his close friend Flipz:
"He's [Stormzy] a good guy, and he's a smart guy, and he knows what he wants. And he puts energy and ambition into all of us. It might not be in a nice way sometimes, but we know what he's trying to do."
And that's it.
There is no further talk of what "might not be nice" about Stormzy's management style. Why not? We know it can't all be light, there has to be some shade. It would be instructive to understand how he operates when things are not going to plan. I'm guessing there's a bit of Sir Alex Ferguson's infamous "hairdryer treatment" going on: a slightly less glowing account would negate the need to speculate.
Stormzy's plan is clear.
He wants to emulate Jay-Z's success both as a musician and an entrepreneur ("I'm Not A Businessman, I'm A Business, Man"). He also wants to make a difference, using his money and position to help others. This philanthropic agenda was evident in the announcement this summer that he's funding two scholarships for black British students at Cambridge University.
He is still only 25 years old, there will be plenty of bumps along the road, but if anyone can deliver on Stormzy's ambitions it is the man himself. His confidence is unshakable, his vision is clear, and his pioneering attitude deserves support and respect:
"I am 100 per cent sure that I'm a world-class artist. I've always had a mad point to prove, because getting that respect as a black musician in this country is not easy. Where's our Kanye? Where's our Kendrick? Where's our Prince? It's not to say we need that, but where is the spectrum of talented black British musicians who can really stand up against the rest of the world."
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On a hot bank holiday weekend 25 years ago, 20,000 people descended on land in the shadow of the Malvern Hills. The word was spread by an answering machine message: "Right, listen up revellers. It's happening now and for the rest of the weekend, so get yourself out of the house and on to Castlemorton Common... Be there, all weekend, hardcore." | By Jerry ChesterBBC News
To say the event spiralled out of control is an understatement.
What started out as a small free festival for travellers not only went down in history as the biggest illegal rave ever held in the UK, but resulted in a trial costing £4m and the passing of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act.
The resulting publicity also had drastic consequences for the "alternative" lifestyle of the so-called New Age Travellers who started the event and for the underground rave movement who gate-crashed it.
The travelling community had been intent on holding the latest in a series of small events, having successfully held the so-called Avon Free Festival at Inglestone Common in Gloucestershire in the 1980s and early 90s.
In the weeks leading up to that fateful May bank holiday in 1992, they had tried and failed to stage festivals in both counties and in Somerset, where the police had repeatedly moved them on.
Retreating, they considered their options in a lay-by on the A38 in Gloucestershire, where it was decided to take their 10-mile long convoy out of the county, into Worcestershire and on to Castlemorton Common, near Malvern.
Libby Spragg was in one of the first vehicles to arrive at the site on the 22 May.
The 24-year-old joined the New Age Travellers in 1987 and had been to previous events across the West Country, including Inglestone.
She said the festivals were a chance "for networking, finding new work opportunities and just meeting friends that you couldn't really see at any other time", after a winter spent living and working on farms.
"Ingleston Common [had] one small stage, no dance music, and was part of the small free festival scene that had been bubbling along since the 60s."
Castlemorton should have continued that theme, she said, a low-key gathering for roughly 400 travellers.
What they hadn't banked on was the thousands of people who had heard about the event through word-of-mouth, media coverage and the infamous telephone message.
Carl Hendrickse, whose band Back to the Planet played at the festival, said a large number of people had been regularly travelling up and down the M25 to raves.
"People were not being given the right to gather," he explained.
"There were no facilities for people to come and dance, gather with like-minded people, and that is why they started happening illegally, because there were no proper facilities for people to have these kind of events."
Carl Loben, editor of DJ magazine, said in a world before mobile phones, the answering machine messages were key to spreading word about the raves.
"There was often just a message left on a party [phone] line that people could call after a certain time in the evening," he said.
"And it would say the rave is at [some location], meet at [this] junction of the motorway, or meet in the service station, and you'd go in convoy."
Mrs Spragg believes the combination of a gloriously sunny bank holiday and the promise of a ready-made party was what drew ravers to Castlemorton.
"You were getting [sound system collectives like] Spiral Tribe and the big [underground] DJs of the time latching onto the idea to take it out doors and the free festival scene was a real "no brain" way to do that," she said.
"They could see what was happening with the travellers and [knew] they could turn up.
"[It wasn't] helped by the media to be honest - if they hadn't said anything it would have just stopped as it was.
"But as soon as you start putting it out on the television that there's this huge party everyone jumps in their car and just turns up."
And so the underground warehouse rave scene arrived, with its big sound systems in tow.
Mrs Spragg says there was "some resentment" among the travellers who felt their event had been "taken over" and part of the festival was declared a "raver free zone".
But while the travellers felt surrounded, so did those living on the common, such as Mary Weaver.
"On the bank below the hills it was tightly compacted, and as you went down by our [farm] pond there were double-decker buses lined up all along there," she remembered.
"It was very disruptive because no-one could get in or out - not with a vehicle.
"They had some very loud sound systems and they played very loud music, but in actual fact the music didn't worry me that much, because I like music.
"But it did other people, it drove [them] mad. It stopped about five o'clock in the morning and it started up about midday."
News of the festival spread locally, helped by the volume of the music, which could easily be heard in Malvern 10 miles (16km) away - a fact former resident, Tim Holloway, can attest.
"I was coming back from an all-night party in Malvern and walking back at about five in the morning I could hear this booming beat - I had no idea what it could be," he said.
"Later someone told me there was this massive rave on Castlemorton Common.
"We rode through on motorbikes and I was stunned, it was just enormous. We took it all in, soaked up the atmosphere - it was just an enormous party - a gift when you're 21."
Clare Buchanan, who was on a gap year, heard about the festival when some of those en route stopped at the supermarket in Malvern where she worked.
"They looked like full-on hippies, which is what I wanted to be," she recalled.
"My and a friend went along to investigate what was going on. We were dropped off and there were two policemen at the end of the road across the common.
"There was a very chilled atmosphere."
But by Saturday night, West Mercia Police had arrived and put up a cordon.
Officers were stationed with Ms Weaver and fellow resident Audrey Street who said she "never went out once" the whole week.
She described how the single track road across the common was completely blocked in places by the encampment and the complete absence of toilets had another unwanted effect.
"Every time I went out there were people in the field toileting - every time you looked out there were men with their trousers down," she said.
The ravers drifted off once the weekend was over but the travellers remained at Castlemorton until the Friday, partly to try and clear up, Mrs Spragg claims.
"I think a lot of people were depressed about the mess and the waste, that's why so many [of us] stayed behind and tried to clear up.
"Although people don't think it, the traveller ethos at free festivals was "leave no trace" - you went there, you had a party you cleaned up.
"In fact I was one of the many people who used to take wild flower seeds, and that would be the only thing I left - that sounds like I'm a real hippy but that was the vibe," she said.
But there was no chance revellers would ever again have the opportunity to "leave no trace".
As the festival wound down, police faced angry questions at a public meeting in Castlemorton village about how they had responded.
In a press conference on the Friday after the common had been cleared, then Chief Constable, David Blakey, defended his "softly softly" approach.
"Faced with... the number of people that were there, there was no way I'm going in with riot shields, with public order gear, to move them off," he said at the time.
Officers arrested about 50 people over the course of the festival - mainly for drug offences - and 10 were taken to court for public order offences. The case cost millions and saw all the defendants acquitted, though one other person did plead guilty to the same offence.
The force later admitted they had been "caught off guard" by the sudden arrival of so many people.
Determined not to have history repeat itself, the following year they set up roadblocks across the area, with 300 officers being fed from a special kitchen set up in the village hall.
The Malvern Hills Conservators - the charity set up to look after the hills and commons - obtained an injunction which enforced a five-mile "exclusion zone" for convoys of vehicles around Castlemorton during the bank holiday weekend.
Others called for long-term powers to stop raves and free festivals, including Castlemorton's then-Conservative MP Sir Michael Spicer, who even raised the matter in Parliament.
Then in 1994, the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act was passed, giving police the powers to stop vehicles anywhere within five miles (8km) of a rave and turn them away.
It also included rules targeting gatherings of more than 100 people listening to music at night and even went as far as delving into genres, said Prof Robert Lee from Birmingham Law School.
"One of the most bizarre things is that they tried to define what music was, including wholly or mainly repetitive beats played time and time again," he added.
Mrs Spragg, who gave up travelling in 1995, says what happened at Castlemorton had an adverse effect on the community she belonged to.
"The travelling scene did carry on but it was a very different change of lifestyle for people - they moved onto farms instead of living on free sites so much, and people were a lot more scared.
"If it had been a big event, [which] had been staged [and] had cost thousands of pounds it would have been all right.
"But because it was poor people, with no money, doing something they haven't been granted permission for, suddenly it was the crime of the century.
"It did mean the end of the travelling scene in a lot of respects."
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The President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa, has stressed the importance of different parties maintaining a clear policy towards the betterment of the country. | He said the parties should approach talks with the Tamil Tigers armed with experience from others and respecting others’ opinion.
The president made these remarks after launching a series of workshops to discuss the forthcoming talks with the Tigers in Geneva, Switzerland.
Senior ministers from ruling SLFP, Minister Ferial Ashroff, EPDP leader Douglas Devananda, JVP and JHU representatives, senior officials of the government and the commanders of the security forces attended the workshop.
A statement issued by Chandrapala Liyanage, Co-ordinating Secretary to the President said the president is to meet professionals, entrepreneurs, religious leaders, civil society leaders and representatives from the north east before January 22 talks.
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This is a full transcript of Do We Drown or Rocket to the Surface? as first broadcast on 29 June 2018 and presented by Beth Rose.
| BETH - Hi, it's Beth Rose here with the latest BBC Ouch podcast. This week I spoke to Rich Osborn. He spent a perfect summer working as a scuba diving instructor in Cyprus when he was 21, but his summer came to an abrupt nightmarish end when during a deep dive with three friends their oxygen ran out. The group had a decision to make: drown there and then or rocket to the surface and face the consequences of the bends. For Rich that meant a crushed spine.
[Interview begins]
So, yeah, if you want to tell me first off what life was like when you were a teenager, where you grew up, what you were interested in?
RICH - So, for me growing up I've always been around and about Edinburgh for all of my years. I was very interested in outdoor pursuits; I was mad into my skateboarding, snowboarding, just generally getting out on my mountain bike and just embracing nature and the outdoors really. I had a great childhood and stuff. We're very lucky where we live here in Edinburgh; there are lots of green spaces and hills around about. Obviously the spinal cord injury hasn't really stopped that, that fire for outdoor activities and stuff.
I was looking to be an engineer. I carried on with that but then found a different passion, like a different path for me, so scuba diving I went into that during my holiday break from school, so summer holidays and stuff. I used to go out to Cyprus, I had friends there, I just used to work in the kit room at a scuba diving centre throughout the summer holidays and that kind of instilled the love of scuba diving, and then my career trajectory changed to that.
BETH - How old were you when you got into the scuba diving the first time?
RICH - My first ever dive I was 14 years old, and then I got into and done my instructor examination by the time I was 18.
BETH - Was it from when you were 18 you would spend longer periods out in Cyprus?
RICH - Uh-huh.
BETH - And then did you get a job out there?
RICH - Yeah, that's right. At the time it was seasonal so I'd do from about April through to November, I'd do the full season once I'd finished my school and things. Just things kind of took off living quite a nice lifestyle in Cyprus; sunny every day when you get up and it's living the dream. It was excellent.
BETH - And what kind of stuff were you doing?
RICH - Taking out certified divers, so that's people that have already done their basic qualification so they have an understanding of scuba diving and all the principles that go along with that, all the safety. So, I'd take them out on dives, tours around the local reefs and shipwrecks and things that we've got around Cyprus. I'd also do courses, so that's everything from the classroom work all the way through to the pool sessions, so confined water so you can practise it in a safe environment, and then open water sessions for practising the skills that you've learnt in a safe environment out in an open water environment.
BETH - So, you were obviously having a great summer, and then one day something a bit unusual happened. Tell me what happened.
RICH - That's right. It was our day off so me and a couple of the other people that I worked with, so all dive professionals, we decided to go a little bit deeper than normally. Obviously we're all trained in deep diving and stuff like that. And just decided yeah, let's try this. Obviously being young you want to kind of push the limits a little bit.
BETH - How deep are we talking?
RICH - So, about 40 metres or so. If you imagine 30 metres is the usual depth you'd go in recreational scuba diving, and 40 metres is slightly deeper, obviously you need to be deep dive trained for that. There were four of us on the dive. We'd all planned thoroughly before the dive obviously. But what happened was a disparity between what was planned in terms of breathing rates and what actually happened on the dive. So, a couple of people ran out of air before they'd planned to run out of air, if you know what I mean.
BETH - So, it was a surprise was it?
RICH - Yeah, it was an absolute surprise. Obviously as you go further down every breath you take in off the tank you're breathing more of the air because it's condensed because of the pressures, so you're breathing more in. They unfortunately ran out of air.
BETH - At that point what were you thinking? Is that not routine but is that kind of expected?
RICH - It's not routine but you're prepared for it. From there we were breathing breath for breath off of the two remaining tanks that had air in them, and we were coming up slowly as you have to do with scuba diving, so we were coming up slowly.
BETH - No element of panic or anything at this point?
RICH - No, no element of panic. And then we got to about 25, 30 metres safely, and then from then we were all out of air. So, from that point you make a decision: do you drown basically or do you rocket to the surface and risk decompression sickness.
BETH - The fact that all the air was out tell me what was in your mind at that point? And were you able to communicate with the other guys down there with you?
RICH - Yeah, as we're all dive professionals we've got extensive training in how to communicate under water and things like that. There are also little slates and pencils that we all carry with our dive gear so that if we can't communicate with hand signals we can write down what's going on and get the message across to everyone that's diving.
From there you get a little bit kind of panicked, but the way that decompression sickness affects individuals it's to do with your physiology and your make up. From there obviously we rocketed to the surface obviously on a couple of breaths and stuff, and then we all got to the surface, and once on the surface I knew near enough instantly what had happened: my back started to tighten up a little bit. It felt like when you need to crack a joint when it's stiff, so it felt very, very stiff. So, I was trying to kind of move myself about to see if it would crack and relieve the stress that was on it. From there the nausea and vomiting started and coordination went. Obviously with the sky being blue and the sea being blue I was kind of a bit disoriented and rolling around and trying to get some breath, and then swimming back towards the shore because we weren't far from the shore. My legs, obviously I was swimming on my back, started to slow down and eventually stopped. And from there finally got to the shore helped out by some surface support people that we had there, and popped into the back of a truck and then whisked off to the recompression chamber, the hyperbaric chamber.
BETH - And did you know in your heart and mind what had happened, how potentially bad a situation you were in?
RICH - Yeah. I knew that I had decompression sickness, because obviously having done the extensive training I knew exactly what had happened. It was tough to get my head around initially but I knew what had happened; I knew it was a pretty bad variant of decompression sickness.
So, what happens with decompression sickness is it often affects you in your elbows and your shoulders and knees, sometimes it gives you kind of a skin itch, and that's usually the way it affects you. But it can result in paralysis and death in extreme circumstances. And this guy, that doesn't do things by halves, ends up with a full-on spinal decompression, commonly known as the bends.
BETH - I've heard of the bends before, I'm sure loads of people have; I've heard the bends inflicting this sort of injury. Normally yes, sickness and that's what you expect. So, tell me how would you describe how the nitrogen or the gas bubbles react, what's different to us being on the surface when you shoot through water?
RICH - When we're on the dive we'd be breathing the same air that's around us right now. That's what's in your tank. That predominantly comprises of two things: so the nitrogen and the oxygen. Your body uses up the oxygen while you're scuba diving but you have to come up slowly from scuba diving because the nitrogen still remains in your system. It's not like you're at the surface where it can just disappear as you're walking around; because you're under all that pressure with all the water on top of you you have to come up very, very slowly to let it dissipate.
Now, what happened in my situation we had a rapid ascent from 35 metres or so up to the surface the nitrogen bubbles have got caught in my spinal column and as I've come up to the surface they've expanded whilst lodged in my spinal column and crushed my spinal cord. The analogy that I often use, or often did use when I was teaching it was kind of a fizzy pop drink: you shake that up and if you open it very, very slowly the bubbles expand but they don't fizz up and over the top; whereas if you open the bottle very, very fast the bubbles they fizz up and spill over. So, it's the same principle with scuba diving really: the nitrogen bubbles that are in your system you come up slowly to give them time to dissipate from your system. But in our situation obviously as I rocketed to the surface they got lodged in the spinal column and expanded and crushed my spinal cord.
BETH - Can you just describe what you could see or what you felt or what you thought at that point where you checked your oxygen tanks and all of you were out?
RICH - Yeah. You look round at your colleagues and stuff like that, and there was a little mix of kind of fear and unknown I guess. Because obviously we prepare for with extra air and things like that, but in this instance there were disparities in the breathing rates and stuff.
BETH - Was there lots of sign language involved?
RICH - Yeah. Obviously when you're scuba diving and stuff you've got basic commands, so popping your hand up, palm out, for stop and then the okay symbol - everyone knows those. But there are a lot more advanced ones, so frantically kind of trying to sign to one another. And as I said, we have slates and stuff so scribbling down notes, thoughts and plans and things like that before we rocketed to the surface.
BETH - What were the plans?
RICH - The idea was to try and slow down the ascent as much as humanly possible, because obviously the faster you come up the worst off. So, tried to think about how we were breathing, so talking about exhaling lots because obviously when you're coming up the gas expands, so that principle applies to the air that's in your lungs as well. So, effectively just try and breathe out the entire way up from 35 metres rather than taking any breaths in - obviously we couldn't take any breaths in because of the air being completely out. Our training just kind of kicked in to slow the ascent as much as humanly possible given the situation.
BETH - And when you say slow the ascent how quickly did you get from 30 metres up to the surface?
RICH - It seemed like a matter of seconds but I'm sure it wasn't that. It all went very, very fast. We tried to slow it as much as possible. Some people, as I say, that had the fear kick in a little bit more in this situation they were trying to kind of go a little bit faster than we would like, so it's just trying to maintain that rate of ascent that it's not too fast, not too slow. Obviously we've only got one breath to do it on but we don't want to go up at light speed. So, it's finding that middle ground.
BETH - And is it a case of holding your breath?
RICH - No, it's exhaling on the way up. So, if you were to hold your breath, if you imagine the same principle that I talked about earlier, so it affects your lungs, so if you were to hold your breath the air that was remaining in your lungs would expand as you came up from the pressure as you came up. Obviously the pressure would release and the gas would expand that's within your lungs, and if you were to hold your breath that would just stretch your lungs and do damage to your lungs.
BETH - Wow, I didn't realise that. That's a hard thing to do to sustain over that many metres.
RICH - It's a constant exhale but at a rate that you're not running out of air. If you're coming up quickly you don't want to take a massive breath in, so you want to maintain kind of a slow exhale, much as the situation can allow.
BETH - So, before you ascended did each of you take one last breath?
RICH - Yes, so you take the one last breath. Obviously as the tank decreases in the air that's in it you can feel the breathing getting tighter through the mouthpiece, what we call the regulator, you can feel the breathing getting tighter through that, so you know the tank's just about dry. So, it's one last breath and then a slow exhale whilst ascending to the surface faster than normal.
BETH - Is it quite a battle with your mind and your theory I guess in that you know that you have to go slowly but you want to get out of there as soon as possible?
RICH - But everything in your body is screaming to get to the surface so you can breathe, yes, it's quite an internal battle.
BETH - So, you were taken to the local decompression tank. How long do you spend in there? How big is it? What's it like?
RICH - Recompression chamber is about double the length of an average male, so 12ft, maybe something like that. And it's quite wide so you could get maybe three or four people lying side by side. What the recompression chamber does is it's a sealed unit, they fiddle about with the pressure, so what they effectively do is take you back down to the depth that you were at, so they apply pressure to your body similar to the depth that you were at when you started the ascent and bring you up slowly whilst administering oxygen to you at various points at pure 100% O2 this time, rather than the air mix that's around us now as oxygen is a great healer for the body. So, that's kind of how the recompression chamber works.
BETH - And how long were you in there?
RICH - I was in there for about six hours a day, and I did that for a week after just to make sure that all the nitrogen bubbles that were trapped in my body were all dissolved and things like that and I was back to being as normal as possible.
The issue with the recompression chamber is all about the time getting into the recompression chamber from when you surface. Now, unfortunately in Cyprus there's only a couple of recompression chambers for the island and my nearest one was about a three, four hour drive away, so that's quite a substantial amount of time from ascending and surfacing to getting into the recompression chamber. And by that time the damage that was done to my spinal cord couldn't be reversed. It was a matter of kind of just making sure that all the nitrogen bubbles had gone from my spine.
BETH - At what point were you told that your spine was permanently damaged and the extent of it?
RICH - So, that was when I was in my rehabilitation in Glasgow Spinal Unit. So, that was quite early on after they'd done pin tests; they prick you with a pin to find out where you're feeling and level of injury and things like that, combined with MRIs, combined with consultants and their opinions, and obviously the doctors at a place called Divers Alert Network, who have my diving insurance and safety stuff. So, they all kind of got together, looked at the evidence and then a decision was made and it was relayed to me that there wouldn't be any prospect of walking again.
BETH - And what was that like?
RICH - Well, I've always been a bit of a weird glass half fuller regardless of the situation. It wasn't so bad. I've always looked at life as a series of hurdles or challenges to be overcome. This is the new normal and then you just embrace it and go from there, start again.
BETH - What happened to the other three divers that you were with?
RICH - Two of them were absolutely fine. There was one individual that had a little bit of nitrogen build up in his elbow; a little bit of oxygen sorted that out. This guy who doesn't do things by halves gets a full on spinal bend. But yeah, it's fine. As I say, you take what life throws at you and then you put a positive spin on it. Well, that's what I do.
BETH - And were you frustrated that the others got through it unscathed? I mean, at 21 I don't think I would have been so positive as you. Was it tricky at times?
RICH - There were little moments when it was frustrating but nothing major for me. The only times that I got frustrated was in the early days just after getting out of my rehabilitation stint at the spinal unit, and just things like trying to get things out of top cupboards was a little bit frustrating and then you'd get a bit annoyed with that, and then one thing would seem to lead onto another thing and it would just be an awful day. The way I kind of look at things is, I'm very good at kind of compartmentalising stuff, so I just go to sleep, maybe have a little cry, cry it out, and then wake up the next day and it's a new day and then you just go from there.
BETH - Are you still in contact with the other three?
RICH - Yeah, yeah, still speak to them on regular occasions.
BETH - And did it kind of bond you that you'd been through this?
RICH - Yeah, I think a situation like that does bond you, yeah.
BETH - That sounds very impressive because were you 21 at this point?
RICH - 21 yeah, yeah.
BETH - 21. Did you just think okay, I'm just going to carry on with my engineering and my outdoor activities or did you come up with a new life plan?
RICH - Yeah. I wanted to get into sport. I'm a huge advocate of sport being a great rehabilitation tool, so I kind of threw myself into sport at the start. Obviously being a bit of a water baby I started my swimming up again and I got back into the scuba diving as well after about a year, and now I teach disability scuba diving, a bit of basketball, a bit of hand cycling and just anything I can throw myself into.
BETH - And how hard was the rehab, what kinds of things do you have to go through? And also do you know what your exact injury was? We haven't mentioned that yet.
RICH - My exact injury is a T4 incomplete. For everyone who's not familiar with the spine, you can break it down into four main areas, so if you imagine up at the top of your neck it goes from C1 to 8, so that's the cervical vertebrae. So, one at the very top down to eight, and that's the big point at the bottom of your neck, so that's the eighth vertebrae. If you feel at the back of your neck the big point that comes out that's the eighth vertebrae that comes down so that's cervical. And then the main part of your back, the thoracic spine, that runs from T1 to 12. Again, that's the vertebrae. And then it goes L1 to 5, so that's the lumbar part of your spine. And then right at the very bottom, so your coccyx, the fused part, is the sacral part of your spine, so that's S1 to 4. My injury is at T4, so the main part of my back, thoracic spine and then the fourth vertebrae down.
The incomplete part of that, you can either complete or incomplete, complete means no motor or sensory function and incomplete means motor or sensory or both.
BETH - And how does that work for you?
RICH - I can't walk at all; I'm in a wheelchair all the time. But the incomplete part for me is I have a small amount of movement in my right ankle, so I can flex my right ankle, but that's all I've got in terms of motor function. In terms of sensory function the way I would describe it is if you go out and play in the snow and you get really, really cold arms and then somebody touches you on your arm you know exactly where they're touching you but it doesn't feel quite normal. That's pretty much what I've got all over my lower limbs.
BETH - Okay, so from T4 downwards. But above it's…?
RICH - Maintain kind of normal feeling and function, so I have full arm function. I'm a paraplegic which means I still have arm function, but leg function is gone and some internal organs have a bit of paralysis but generally maintain their good working order.
BETH - Okay, you really have worked around everything that's been thrown at you, and you're saying that you got into your activities once more. And you are off to climb Snowdon.
RICH - Yeah, very soon.
BETH - Tell me a bit about that and how that works, how you're doing it?
RICH - Well, as I was saying before, I've always been into kind of the outdoorsy stuff. I'm really looking forward to the Snowdon Push Challenge where I'm doing it with a team of able-bodied individuals from a firm called Leigh Day, so that'll be good. I'm doing it in an adapted chair, so it's a standard wheelchair pretty much but with mountain bike tyres on the back, so big grippy tyres. I'm very much looking forward to the challenge. It'll be tough but we've all been training hard, me and my team for it, so hopefully we'll maybe get up to the top and I can get that feeling back of a sense of achievement, being at one with the elements and things like that.
BETH - I think there are 14 teams going up. It's Saturday 6th July and you're all fundraising for the charity Back Up which helps people with spinal cord injuries. How hard is it really going to be for you, Rich? You're sat in an adapted wheelchair. It's your team, isn't it, or do you have to put some effort in as well?
RICH - Yeah, there's going to be a lot to do with the team, but I've been working hard because you want to contribute, you want to push as hard as you can. But there are some parts on the mountain that I physically won't be able to do myself, so that's where the team comes in helping lift me up and over certain big boulders and things. It will be tough but I'm very much looking forward to the challenge, both from a personal standpoint and from raising money for a wonderful charity that I personally know does so much amazing work.
BETH - So, you're going up Snowdon which is the highest mountain in Wales, which is 3,560ft.
RICH - That's right.
BETH - Do you have to come back down again?
RICH - Yeah, so all the way up and all the way down. I'm not entirely sure how long that will take; I would imagine seven, eight hours, something like that.
BETH - Well, I wish you all the very best for that. It sounds exciting.
RICH - Yeah, thanks so much.
[End of interview]
BETH - It's quite a tale and hopefully Rich will successfully ascend and descend Snowdon when that adventure comes around. As always we love to hear from you. You can find us on Facebook, just search BBC Ouch; we're @bbcouch on Twitter; and of course you can email us [email protected].
Now, the Ouch team is currently in the middle of reading an incredible bunch of stories that you've written for this year's BBC Ouch Storytelling Live event at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival which will be hosted by Lost Voice Guy. The deadline for entering your stories has long since passed, but you can still apply for free tickets. Just go to bbc.co.uk/showsandtours.
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Is Formula 1 too physical for women to be able to compete? | By Tom GerkenBBC UGC & Social News
Carmen Jorda from the Women in Motorsport Commission has come under fire after she told ESPN that a "physical issue" was the barrier preventing women from competing in Formula 1 or Formula 2.
The former F1 development driver's comments have been derided by people in motorsport, including 2009 F1 world champion Jenson Button who said she was "not helping proper female racing drivers".
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The 'proper female racing drivers' Button was talking about may have included stockcar racers Pippa Mann and Leilani Muenter, who both thanked him for "standing up for female racers".
Christina Nielsen, the first woman to win a major full-season sportscar championship in North America, wondered about Jorda's credentials in Formula 1 and Formula 2 as she didn't "recall her competing in either classes, which seems relevant to make a judgement".
And Supercars Australia racer Simona De Silvestro said she "never felt physically disadvantaged" in a Formula 1 car.
Some people on social media agreed with Jorda, with one calling for an end to "virtue-signalling" and asking "who can judge the physical barrier better, Carmen Jorda a female driver, or Jenson Button a male driver?".
While another said he wasn't "into supporting a process that sets women up for failure in order to cultivate some sort of equality illusion".
But Susie Wolff, who became the first woman in 22 years to take part in a Formula 1 race weekend in 2014, shared the message that "motorsport doesn't care about gender".
Wolff's photo in the post show her with Michele Mouton, the president of the Women in Motorsport Commission, and GP3 driver Tatiana Calderon, who was announced as Sauber's F1 test driver for this season on Tuesday.
And Lee McKenzie, who presented Inside F1 for BBC News, was disappointed that Jorda's comments were overshadowing Calderon's achievement.
Additional reporting by Chris Browning.
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It's 25 years since the Soviet Union pulled its troops out of Afghanistan. The US is due to remove most of its forces at the end of the year. So what have these and other Afghan campaigns taught us? | By William DalrympleKandahar, Afghanistan
Last Ramadan I drove through the badlands outside Kandahar to see the house where President Karzai grew up. I was the guest of the president's brother, Mahmoud Karzai.
"It has changed beyond all recognition," he said as we drove into the village of Karz. "This mosque I remember. I used to play with Hamid over there. But where is our house?"
The driver pulled up. "This is it?" asked Mahmoud. "It cannot be."
We got out in a flat field of dried mud, surrounded by mud-brick houses. Mahmoud's bodyguards fanned out while Mahmoud climbed on a small eminence. "The driver's right," he said. "This is our home." He gestured at the empty space.
"What happened?" I asked.
"The Russians," he replied.
"Why?"
"Any clan prominent in the mujahideen had their property demolished. These houses were where my cousins lived. The night the Soviet governor demolished our house, they were all lined up. Then they were shot. Every last one of them."
It is now the 25th anniversary of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, and it is perhaps a good moment to compare the Soviet and American interventions.
On the surface, the two invasions are quite different - the Soviets came to extend the Soviet Empire while the West, we are told, intervened after 9/11 to root out the terrorism and bring democracy. Yet there are many uncomfortable similarities.
Both the Russians and the Americans thought they could walk in, set up a friendly government and be out within a year. Both nations got bogged down in a long and costly war of attrition that in the end both chose to walk away from.
The Soviet war was more bloody - it left 1.5 million dead compared to an estimated 100,000 casualties this time around, but this current war has been far more expensive. The Soviets spent only $2bn (£1.2bn) a year in Afghanistan while the US has already spent more than $700bn (£418bn).
Moreover this time arguably less has been gained. Twenty-five years ago the Soviets withdrew leaving a relatively stable pro-Soviet regime in place - Najibullah's government collapsed only when the Soviets cut off supplies of weapons a full four years later.
But 13 years after the West went in to Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaeda and oust the Taliban, America and its Allies find themselves about to withdraw with neither objective wholly achieved.
What remains of al-Qaeda has moved to the Pakistani borderlands, and elsewhere, while the Taliban have a major influence over maybe 70% of southern Afghanistan. That share can only increase later this year when the British and the Americans withdraw most of their troops.
There is another precedent to this war. For the last five years, I have been writing a history of the First Anglo-Afghan War which took place from 1839-1842.
The book tells the tale of arguably the greatest military humiliation ever suffered by the West in the East. The entire army of what was then the most powerful nation in the world was utterly destroyed by poorly-equipped tribesmen.
On the retreat from Kabul, of the 18,500 who left the British cantonment on 6 January 1842, only one British citizen, the assistant surgeon Dr Brydon, made it through to Jalalabad six days later.
The parallels between the current war and that of the 1840s are striking. The same cities are being garrisoned by foreign troops speaking the same languages, and they are being attacked from the same hills and passes.
Not only was our then puppet, Shah Shuja, from the same Popalzai sub-tribe as President Karzai, but his principal opponents were the Ghilzai tribe, who today make up the Taliban's foot soldiers.
It is clearly not true, as is sometimes said, that its impossible to conquer Afghanistan -many Empires have done so, from the ancient Persians, through Alexander the Great to the Mongols, the Mughals and the Qajars.
But the economics means that it is impossible to get Afghanistan to pay for its own occupation - it is, as the the then Emir said as he surrendered to the British in 1839, "a land of only stones and men".
Any occupying army here will haemorrage money and blood to little gain, and in the end most throw in the towel, as the British did in 1842, as the Russians did in 1988 and as Nato will do later this year.
In October 1963, when Harold Macmillan was handing over the prime ministership to Alec Douglas-Home, he is supposed to have passed on some advice.
"My dear boy, as long as you do not invade Afghanistan you will be absolutely fine," he said. Sadly, no one gave the same advice to Tony Blair.
It just seems to prove Hegel's old adage that the only thing you learn from history is that sadly no one ever learns anything from history.
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A tree surgeon who pulled a woman from the wreckage of a burning car has been awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal at Buckingham Palace. | Luke Ridley, 30, from Amesbury, Wiltshire, climbed through the boot then used his pick axe and handsaw to free the woman and drag her to safety.
Mr Ridley said he remembered being afraid the car might explode.
After receiving his award from the Prince of Wales, he said the experience at the palace had been "surreal".
Mr Ridley recalled seeing the car, which had flipped onto its side, on fire on the A303, near his home town in November 2018.
"It was a huge blaze... luckily she was able to stand up on her own and I just grabbed her and dragged her out," he said.
He joked that the fire service had tried to recruit him as a volunteer firefighter, but said he is going to stick with his day job.
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Greek police have stepped up efforts to catch illegal immigrants in recent months, launching a new operation to check the papers of people who look foreign. But tourists have also been picked up in the sweeps - and at least two have been badly beaten. | By Chloe HadjimatheouBBC News, Athens
When Korean backpacker Hyun Young Jung was stopped by a tall scruffy looking man speaking Greek on the street in central Athens he thought it might be some kind of scam, so he dismissed the man politely and continued on his way.
A few moments later he was stopped again, this time by a man in uniform who asked for his documents. But as a hardened traveller he was cautious.
Greece was the 16th stop in his two-year-long round-the-world trip and he'd often been warned about people dressing in fake uniforms to extract money from backpackers, so while he handed over his passport he also asked the man to show him his police ID.
Instead, Jung says, he received a punch in the face.
Within seconds, the uniformed man and his plainclothes partner - the man who had first approached Jung - had him down on the ground and were kicking him, according to the Korean.
In shock, Jung was by now convinced he was being mugged by criminals and began shouting for help from passers-by.
"I was very scared," he says.
It was only when he was handcuffed and dragged 500m (500 yards) up the road to the nearest police station that he realised he was actually under arrest.
Jung says that outside the station the uniformed officer, without any kind of warning, turned on him again, hitting him in the face.
"There were members of the public who saw what happened, like the man who works in the shop opposite the police station, but they were too afraid to help me," he says.
Inside the police station, Jung says he was attacked a third time in the stairwell where there were no people or cameras.
"I can understand them asking me for ID and I even understand that there may have been a case to justify them hitting me in the first instance. But why did they continue beating me after I was handcuffed?" he asks.
Jung was held with a number of migrants from Africa and Asia who had also been rounded up as part of the police's anti-immigration operation Xenios Zeus - named, strangely, after the ancient Greek god of hospitality.
The operation aims to tackle the wave of illegal immigration which over the last decade has changed the face of Athens's city centre.
It is thought that up to 95% of undocumented migrants entering the European Union arrive via Greece, and because border controls make it hard to continue into the rest of Europe many end up stuck in the country.
According to some estimates, immigrants could now make up as much as 10% of the population.
This has been an enormous shock for the country which, until recently, was more familiar with outward rather than inward migration. Now, in the grip of a crippling economic crisis and with a welfare system in meltdown, the government lacks the resources to support this new growing population.
Few people are in any doubt that Greece needs an effective programme to manage its undocumented migrants.
Lt Col Christos Manouras of the Hellenic police force says operation Xenios Zeus, launched last August, has slowed down the flow of illegal immigrants. Anyone who looks foreign, or who has aroused suspicion, may be stopped, he says.
"If someone is stopped by the police and they do not have a valid means of identification we will accompany them to the station until their nationality can be determined," he explains.
"I think that is normal and I would expect Greeks to be subjected to the same treatment abroad."
But while more than 60,000 people have been detained on the streets of Athens since it was launched in August 2012, there have been fewer than 4,200 arrests.
And some visitors to Greece have been detained despite having shown police their passports.
Last summer, a Nigerian-born American, Christian Ukwuorji, visited Greece on a family holiday with his wife and three children.
When police stopped him in central Athens he showed them his US passport, but they handcuffed him anyway and took him to the central police station.
They gave no reason for holding him, but after a few hours in custody Ukwuorji says he was so badly beaten that he passed out. He woke up in hospital.
"I went there to spend my money but they stopped me just because of my colour," he says. "They are racist."
It is impossible to determine how many people have had a similar experience - but enough Americans for the US State Department to issue a warning to its citizens travelling to the country.
It updated its website on 15 November to warn of "confirmed reports of US African-American citizens detained by police conducting sweeps for illegal immigrants in Athens", as well as a wider problem in Greek cities of "unprovoked harassment and violent attacks against persons who, because of their complexion, are perceived to be foreign migrants".
Tourism is a major source of revenue in Greece, especially important at a time when many other businesses are going bust. Anything that deterred visitors in large numbers would be a disaster for the economy.
The Greek Foreign Ministry spokesman Grigoris Delavekouras responded to the State Department warning by issuing a statement that "isolated incidents of racist violence which have occurred are foreign to Greeks, our civilization and the long tradition of Greek hospitality."
It is not only tourists who have been affected.
In May last year a visiting academic from India, Dr Shailendra Kumar Rai was arrested outside the Athens University of Economics and Business, where he was working as a visiting lecturer.
He had popped out for lunch, and forgotten to take his passport with him.
"The police thought I was Pakistani and since they didn't speak English they couldn't understand me when I tried to explain that I am from India," he says.
When passing students saw their lecturer being held by police and lined up against a wall with a group of immigrants they were horrified and rushed inside to tell his colleagues.
Despite protests from university staff who insisted they could vouch for him, the police handcuffed him and marched him down to the police station.
"Some of my Greek colleagues were almost crying with embarrassment," Rai recalls.
"I understand why the police need to ask for identity documents, they are just doing their job. But I think they are too aggressive - in my country only criminals are handcuffed."
He was eventually released but there was an outcry in the Greek media which asked why an esteemed academic invited to the country to share his knowledge should be humiliated in such a way.
Rai says he experienced no racial prejudice during his time in Greece, and does not accuse the police who arrested him of racism.
But in a report for 2012, the Racist Violence Recording Network, a group consisting of 23 NGOs and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, called on the Greek government to "explicitly prevent police officers from racially motivated violent practices" referring to 15 incidents where "illegal acts" had taken place.
There have been a number of reports alleging strong support among the police for Golden Dawn, the ultra-right party that soared in popularity last year, winning 18 seats in June parliamentary elections.
But police spokesman Lt Col Manouras insists that voting preferences are a personal issue.
"Whatever a police officer may feel in their private life, when they come to work and put on the uniform they assume the values of the force," he says.
Greek police have absolute respect for human rights and treat people of all colour and ethnicity as fellow human beings, he says.
"Of course I cannot rule out the possibility that a police officer may have acted improperly," he adds, "but this would be an isolated incident."
He said he could not comment on the cases of Hyun Young Jung and Christian Ukwuorji, as they are under investigation. The Greek Foreign Ministry did not respond to requests to discuss the cases.
When Jung was released from police custody without charge just a few hours after being detained, he says one officer shouted after him, "Hey Korean, go home!"
Instead Jung went straight to the Korean Embassy in Athens and returned with the consul to confront the men who he said hit him.
It took five further visits to the police station, an official complaint from the embassy to the chief of police and 10 days of waiting before the officers involved in Jung's case were named.
Meanwhile the backpacker had published his story on a travellers' blog read by more than 60,000 people.
The case turned into a full-scale diplomatic incident with the Korean ambassador to Greece requesting a meeting with the minister of Public Order, and the Greek Chief of Police, to insist on a fair investigation and just punishment for the officers involved.
Jung, who is now on the last leg of his travels in the US, is still waiting for the police verdict but says that whatever the outcome he will never go back to Greece.
"I travelled through Azerbaijan, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Armenia but I never felt in as much danger as in Athens," he says.
"Whenever people ask me if they should visit Greece I tell them to go to Turkey instead."
Christian Ukwuorji, who also lodged an official complaint against the police with the help of the American Embassy, has now been waiting for more than six months for an outcome.
He would like to see the men who hit him prosecuted, but says he holds out little hope of any justice.
"The police there are very corrupt and nothing will be done about it," he says. "I have learned that this is how Greece is."
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The killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden is a huge blow to the organisation but as guest columnist Ahmed Rashid reports, its decentralised nature means it has the potential to carry out attacks on any number of targets. | There have been cheers and jubilation in the US and elsewhere in the West, but capital cities around the world are already bracing for the repercussions of Bin Laden's killing.
Hundreds of dedicated and would-be jihadis will be mourning and swearing to give their lives in revenge for his death at the hands of US special forces in the city of Abbottabad.
There is little doubt that the death of Bin Laden is a huge blow to al-Qaeda.
But at the same time the network has moved over the years from a highly centralised hierarchy - with recruiting, training and orders all scrutinised by its top leaders - to something much more loose and amorphous.
Franchise
Today al-Qaeda's philosophy is one man, one bomb. It does not need another 9/11 to make its mark.
One bomb in Times Square in New York placed by a dedicated suicide bomber or a bomb in a New York subway - both attacks were attempted in in recent years - are big enough indicators that al-Qaeda is alive and kicking.
Al-Qaeda has been a franchise for many years.
Anyone can join it by planting a bomb somewhere. Almost anyone can come to Pakistan or Afghanistan and be offered training with key al-Qaeda allies such as the Pakistani Taliban or the Afghan group headed by Jalaluddin Haqqani.
The facilitator in Pakistan's cities has been Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) - a banned militant group which previously fought in Kashmir but now attacks many different targets and helps al-Qaeda.
After 9/11 it helped hide many senior al-Qaeda figures and it may well have played a major role in hiding Bin Laden.
Pakistan has refused to go up against al-Qaeda allies like Haqqani because they were operating in Afghanistan not Pakistan.
Likewise, allies like LeT are close to Pakistan's intelligence services because their main target is Kashmir and India.
Thus the threat is there.
Before 9/11 there were no known al-Qaeda cells in Europe except for the one in Hamburg which launched those attacks.
Sleeper cells
However, today every single European country has an al-Qaeda cell. Hundreds of Muslims with European passports have travelled to Pakistan's tribal areas for training and returned to Europe.
After the arrest of three Moroccans in Germany last week for planning to plant bombs in public places, German authorities admit that over 200 German citizens have had training in the tribal areas and many of them have returned to Germany.
The same is the case in Britain, Scandinavia, France, Spain and Italy.
The fear now of random suicide bombings in subway or train stations in the US or Europe is particularly high.
So is the threat of plane hijackings and bombings of Western military targets and embassies in the Middle East, where they are already a frequent target.
There is also the possibility of the amateur jihadi placing a bomb in a supermarket.
Other kinds of attacks are also likely.
Some may be carried out by dedicated long-term jihadis who have been placed amid Western societies and who now may spring into action with a plot and target that they have been working on for years.
Such lone attackers have been found in the US before, with individuals travelling to the tribal areas for training and then returning to a major US city and trying to carry out an attack.
These have usually been foiled by law enforcement agencies at the last moment.
South Asia risk
Afghanistan, Pakistan and India are also particularly at risk from more organised attacks.
In the former, the al-Qaeda influence among dedicated jihadis like the Haqqani group is still strong.
Pakistan is also extremely vulnerable to attack. Despite a constant spate of denials from the Pakistani authorities - which have now been proven wrong - al-Qaeda recently had its base in Pakistan.
Al-Qaeda and its affiliated Pakistani groups will be determined to launch a bombing campaign in Pakistan in memory of Bin Laden. This will heighten tensions in a country that is already beset with power shortages and an economic crisis.
Finally al-Qaeda and its allies may find this the right moment to create major divisions between India and Pakistan by launching another Mumbai-style attack on Indian territory.
This would aim to take the heat off the hunt for al-Qaeda members in Pakistan.
The Middle East also remains a big vacuum for al-Qaeda because of the ongoing Arab revolt.
It is still a prime target for al-Qaeda as it seeks to gain influence and clout among the new generation of leaders who have emerged in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and the Gulf states. But this task will be much more difficult after Bin Laden's death.
Clearly Bin Laden's death will give intelligence agencies around the world many clues and leads to catch other leaders, but al-Qaeda will not disappear overnight.
Ahmed Rashid's book, Taliban, was updated and reissued recently on the 10th anniversary of its publication. His latest book is Descent into Chaos - The US and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia.
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A British team is developing a car that will be capable of reaching 1,000mph (1,610km/h). Powered by a rocket bolted to a Eurofighter-Typhoon jet engine, the vehicle will first mount an assault on the world land speed record (763mph; 1,228km/h). Bloodhound should start running on Hakskeen Pan in Northern Cape, South Africa, in 2017. | By Andy GreenWorld Land Speed Record Holder
As Project Bloodhound starts its preparations to run the car in South Africa next year, the many complex pieces of our "Engineering Adventure" are gradually coming together.
This month, at the Farnborough International Airshow, we did our first "test load" of the full-size show car into the 747 freighter aircraft that will take the car, and all of its support equipment, to South Africa next year.
We're very lucky to have the support of the new British cargo airline, CargoLogicAir, and their brand new 747-8F.
This is the biggest 747 ever, and can carry an amazing 138 tonnes of cargo in a loading bay 60m long (think the length of a tennis court, then double it, then add another 12 metres. It's huge).
As discussed in last month's diary, getting Bloodhound SSC and all its support equipment out to South Africa is a massive challenge.
We will be surface-shipping about 15 container loads (around 100 tonnes) in advance, while we start to do our "slow speed" (200+ mph) UK runway testing at Newquay Aerohub.
Then we will fly the car, its road trailer, and the rest of the support equipment out to South Africa.
That's 100 tonnes to move 9,000km by air, so that we can crack on with getting the car up to around 800mph (and a new outright World Land Speed Record, of course) next year.
CargoLogicAir's 747 freighter is just what we need to make all of this happen. Having tried it at Farnborough, the good news is that Bloodhound SSC fits nicely!
Now that we have sponsorship secured and a target date for record runs of next October, the engineering plan is starting to show the detail that will get us to South Africa.
The first order of business is for us to split the "dry build" car down to its component sub-assemblies.
Every part will then be assessed for any remaining work (including final machining, painting, etc.), before being put into our stores at the Bloodhound Technical Centre down in Bristol.
The dry build process is very useful for checking that everything fits together as planned (it's amazing how things never quite look the same when they jump off the screen and become a solid part).
It also allows us to check the things that are almost impossible to measure on a computer screen, like the space available to fit, service and (if necessary) replace a component.
For example, the car's jet fuel tank fits well, but we can't remove the access hatch on top once it's installed.
Inside the carbon fibre tank there is a flexible fuel bladder and, if this starts to leak for any reason, it will be a nightmare to fix.
It's an easy job to modify the tank lid now, so that's what we'll do, just in case we need to access the bladder out on the desert.
When everything is off the car, finished and painted, we'll start the reassembly process, getting the car ready to run for the first time.
If you want to see this process in action then join our 1K Supporters' Club and come down for one of our open days.
As well as the strip down of all the existing components, we still have a few bits left to manufacture.
Major items are the big (and highly stressed) composite components, including the airbrakes and winglets.
As these are safety-critical items, they will be given plenty of attention to make sure we get them right.
The airbrake function sounds fairly obvious - put a couple of large flat plates out into the airflow to slow the car down.
They just need to be enormously strong to cope with five tonnes of aerodynamic load.
To make sure we can control the airflow, including the turbulence at supersonic speeds, the airbrakes are a fairly complicated shape, with a slightly curved surface and lots of holes to manage the frequency of the supersonic "buffet", or turbulent flow, behind them.
If you want to see how they are intended to work, have a look at our simple airbrake animation.
The winglets also sound like simple devices to make, with a fairly flat shape and straight edges.
However, if we need to trim out any residual aerodynamic loads, they may have to take several tonnes of force at some point.
Add a big safety margin and these carbon-fibre "mini-wings" need to be immensely strong.
Now add to the complexity by building in some surface pressure tappings (sensors), so that we can measure the air pressure distribution over the winglets.
This is a very good way to measure precisely where the shockwaves are forming, and moving, as we go supersonic.
A shockwave is literally a "shock" change in the air pressure (it's this sudden change in pressure that your ear detects as a loud bang - the so-called "sonic boom"), so the pressure changes on each winglet show us where the shockwaves are sitting.
We're not quite done with the winglet design yet, though.
There are a number of areas where Bloodhound's mission statement has a direct impact on the engineering, and this is one of them.
We are going to "Create a unique, high-technology project, focused around a 1,000mph World Land Speed Record, share this Engineering Adventure with a global audience and inspire the next generation by bringing science, technology, engineering and mathematics to life in the most exciting way possible".
A big part of sharing our Engineering Adventure with a global audience will involve video, including live streaming every time we run.
This means cameras, and lots of them.
Bloodhound SSC will be carrying 12 different on-board video cameras, including cameras on the tips of the winglets.
This is where the "Adventure" adds to the engineering task, as the cameras have to be built into the winglet structure.
With all these cameras on board, we aim to make BLOODHOUND SSC the world's fastest ever outside broadcast studio.
We've already tested the desert comms system (which made for an amazing piece of video footage), but we still need to beam the signals off the car.
A South African company called Poynting has made us some very special aerials to broadcast the signal.
These will be mounted on either side of the fin, broadcasting the video and data sideways to the 70m-tall Bloodhound mast that MTN has installed at Klipkolk, some 14km away.
The aerodynamic fairings for these aerials will need to be "transparent" to the high-frequency transmission signal, so they are made from a quartz fibre composite.
Although not as strong as carbon fibre, for instance, the quartz fibre will allow the video and data signals to pass through it.
The leading edge of the "strake" (the bit at the front of the fin, where it joins on to the top of the car) will also need to be transparent to radio, as this is where the car's VHF radio aerial will sit.
Another major work package for next year's runs is the testing and installation of the car's rocket system.
With the 12 miles available on Hakskeen Pan, the EJ200 jet engine will get us up to around 700mph before we need to slow down again, so getting to supersonic (760+ mph) speeds next year will require a bit more thrust.
To keep it simple for our first year of testing, we'll be using a "monopropellant" rocket system.
This is essentially leaving the hybrid fuel grain (i.e. the rocket fuel) out of the motor, and just using the energy contained in our high test peroxide (HTP) oxidiser.
HTP is amazing stuff, used mostly for the chemical industry, as it is a very powerful oxidiser. Chemically, it's a water molecule (H2O) with an extra oxygen atom stuck on to make H2O2.
Forcing the HTP through a catalyst (we're using 80 layers of silver oxide mesh) will break down the bonds to release some (very hot) oxygen and lots of H2O (in the form of steam - it comes out at about 600C).
The hybrid rocket then uses this super-heated oxygen to burn the synthetic rubber fuel, generating the thrust needed for Bloodhound to reach 1,000mph.
Even without the fuel grain fitted, the HTP alone will generate nearly 50% of the thrust, which should be more than enough to get us supersonic.
We're aiming for around 800mph next year.
Of course, it's not quite as simple as just leaving the fuel grain out.
Next year's "mono" rocket will need specialist parts, and lots of testing, to make sure that it works as advertised. After all, this really is rocket science.
That is something the thousand of students who took part in the Bloodhound Model Rocket Car Competition will understand.
Over 5,000 teams took part and our congratulations go to the Littlehampton Academy team, who clinched the national title with an impressive 48.4mph from their car "Slim Jim" (even the name sounds aerodynamic).
If you want to take part in the 2016/2017 competition, then you've got until October to register here.
Each team will get a free rocket car kit, and the excitement of doing their own science experiment, complete with electronic data recording, powered by a solid rocket. I don't know about you, but that sounds more fun than any science lesson I ever did.
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A trailer loaded with pigs has overturned after a tyre blowout on the M1 motorway. | The trailer, being towed by a Land Rover, ended up on its side after the incident near junction 44 of the motorway on Monday morning.
West Yorkshire Roads Policing Unit said the driver of the vehicle and the pigs in the trailer were all safe.
The carriageway of the road was blocked for a short time between Stourton and Rothwell on the south side of Leeds.
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A houseboat believed to have been built by an environmentalist in Canada has washed up on an Irish beach. The vessel is thought to have drifted across the Atlantic, and was spotted as late as September in Portugal Cove-St Philip's in Newfoundland. | The coastguard was alerted by a member of the public who spotted the caravan-sized structure floating on the coast.
The boat is believed to have been built by eco-adventurer Rick Small, from Thunder Bay, Canada.
Inside the the vessel there is a note that reads: "I, Rick Small, donate this structure to a homeless youth to give them a better life that Newfoundlanders choose not to do! No rent, no mortgage, no hydro".
Mr Small gained attention in his native country after previously fitting out a three-wheeled bike with solar panels, which powered him across 7,000 km of Canada.
Michael Hurst, an officer in charge of the Ballyglass Coast guard in County Mayo, was tasked with securing the unusual vessel.
Describing the out-of-the-ordinary rescue mission, he said: "The shape, itself, is very unusual, because of the size of it. I initially thought it might be a caravan."
After checking the vessel had nobody on board, his team secured it from drifting back out and contacted the local council and customs service.
Mr Hurst described the insides of the vessel as "habitable" and believes it was fitted with an electric motor to run off the solar panels on the houseboat's roof.
Samantha Arden from Conception Bay, Newfoundland, saw the abandoned vessel in Portugal Cove-St Philips at the end of July. It is believed it drifted from there across the Atlantic.
Timothy John Ewart, another Conception Bay resident and keen sailor, described finding the vessel on a beach near his home one day last year.
He spoke to Mr Small where he told him of his plans to sail across the Atlantic.
"The boats steering system was only a piece of plywood bolted to a PVC pipe. And the motors barely had enough power to move."
"I never saw him again"
He recalled his last encounter with Mr Small in 2015: "When he left our area he was standing on top using a long 2X4 (piece of wood) to push his way out because the current was stopping the boat."
The vessel has now been taken ashore onto Cross Beach in County Mayo.
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On 5 November, the people of Bento Rodrigues in the south-eastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais heard a deafening noise when the nearby Fundao dam holding waste water from iron ore mining collapsed. | In what is one of Brazil's biggest environmental disasters, about 62 million cubic metres of mud spilled from the dam and flooded a vast area.
At least 17 people were killed. Two are still missing.
The cause of the burst is still unclear but the Brazilian government has filed a lawsuit against Samarco, the joint venture between mining giants BHP Billiton and Vale, which owned the dam.
The area was closed off for four weeks while rescue workers and investigators searched the mud.
A month after the disaster, Brazilian journalist Nina Neves and photographer Ismael dos Anjos travelled to Bento Rodrigues and nearby Paracatu de Baixo to examine the damage caused.
It was afternoon when Bento Rodrigues was swallowed by a river of mud.
The residents, who had had no warning of the impending disaster, could do little more than run for their lives.
The force of the mud took everything in its path, bending metal and flattening homes.
The site has been abandoned since the mud flow hit.
Children's toys and people's belongings are scattered throughout the village, a stark reminder of the lively village Bento Rodrigues once was.
Some areas of Bento Rodrigues look like twister has torn through it, with metal rods and pieces of wood littering the ground.
The force of the mud flow carried washing machines far from the homes where they once stood.
But some smaller items, such as these religious statuettes, survived the impact.
Behind the ruins of Bento Rodrigues's school, the swings are suspended in mud, giving a strange illusion of motion in the deserted village.
Paracatu de Baixo was the second village in the path of the mud flow.
Residents here were luckier than those of Bento Rodrigues as they received some warning of the disaster and could take refuge.
No-one died here, but a tree left standing bears the marks of the mud and shows the height it reached.
Some residents have been back to look for remains of their belongings in the rubble, but most found very little that was salvageable.
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Mass surveillance of citizens without their knowledge is on the rise in America. This is the story of how one city fought back - and is teaching others how to do the same. | By Brian WheelerBBC News, Washington DC
A deprived port city, across the bay from San Francisco, with a history of high crime rates and radical politics, Oakland has seen its share of policing scandals over the years.
Surveillance of ordinary citizens and protest groups - from the Black Panthers in the 1960s to Occupy Oakland in the 2000s - is nothing new in California's eighth largest city.
"Police-community relations in Oakland are terrible," says Ali Winston, a reporter with the East Bay Express. "They have been terrible for a long time."
But Winston and his colleague Darwin BondGraham were still not fully prepared for what they would discover in the summer of 2012, when they were going through court records and council papers.
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"We saw some things that raised questions. Why are they running fibre optic cables out there? That kind of thing," says BondGraham.
Winston recognised the name of a security company on a council agenda and knew immediately what they were dealing with - a Domain Awareness Centre.
Most cities, including Oakland, have cameras monitoring traffic intersections and public areas. But a Domain Awareness Centre, or DAC, is far more sophisticated. It is still based around a bank of screens, but the camera feeds are augmented by data from weather reports, shipping movements, social media chatter, email records, emergency calls and other data sources.
The port of Oakland had been given federal funds in 2008 to build a DAC as part of a post-9/11 push to protect critical infrastructure from terrorist attack.
At some point, the city council decided to extend the system to cover the whole of Oakland and its population of 400,000 people.
"The feeling from the port seemed to be, 'We are building these really cool systems, why don't we make them city-wide?'," says BondGraham.
Hundreds of new cameras would be installed across the city and data would be incorporated from number plate readers, gunshot-detection microphones, social media, and, in later phases, facial recognition software and programs that can recognise people from the way they walk.
The city said it needed an early warning system to give "first responders" a head start when dealing with emergencies like chemical spills and earthquakes, as well as major crime and terrorist incidents.
But privacy campaigners in the city were alarmed at the thought of the Oakland Police Department having access to an all-pervasive real-time surveillance network - particularly one that did not have a policy on what data would be stored and for how long.
The public backlash began in the summer of 2013, just as Edward Snowden's first leaks about the National Security Agency's spying activities were hitting the headlines.
Snowden ignited a "huge" public debate about privacy and data, says Brian Hofer, a former civil rights lawyer who led efforts to curb the DAC, which had barely registered as an issue when the plan to expand it citywide had first come before the city council.
Hofer was a relative latecomer to the Oakland Privacy campaign, deciding to get involved after reading a December 2013 article in the East Bay Express, based on thousands of leaked emails between city officials, which suggested that the real purpose of the DAC was not to combat violent crime but to monitor and track political protesters.
He was among dozens of Oakland residents to speak out against the DAC at a marathon city council meeting on 4 March 2014, at which the fate of the system would be decided.
By now, stopping the Oakland "spy centre" had become a cause celebre among former Occupy protesters. Some of them waited their turn, their faces covered by masks, to vent their anger.
The meeting also heard from members of the African American community, who argued that the DAC would be used to justify police violence in black neighbourhoods, and from Oakland's large Muslim community, who were concerned that the DAC would be used to spy on them.
What linked them all was a visceral distrust of the authorities and a feeling that they did not want to live in a city where they would be constantly monitored as they went about their business. A PowerPoint presentation by city officials on the alleged benefits of the DAC did nothing to mollify them.
With the city council tied on the issue, Oakland's then mayor Jean Quan, who had originally been in favour of the DAC, used her casting vote to back a motion that would dramatically scale it back so that it would be focused solely on the port, as originally planned.
The public gallery erupted with cries of "shame" - the majority of those present that night had wanted the DAC scrapped altogether.
But others believe the city's leaders caved in too easily to the protesters.
"Occupy are the people that don't want the cameras," says Nancy Sidebothan, who chairs a neighbourhood crime prevention committee in Central East Oakland.
"It's not the ordinary citizens. We want cameras. We want our safety. Because you can't walk down your street without worrying about whether someone is going to randomly shoot at you. Every night you hear gunshots going off."
Oakland is a high-crime city, averaging 109 homicides a year for the past 45 years. Many residents and businesses have invested in their own security cameras and are happy to share their contents with law enforcement.
"If you don't want government to put cameras downtown, what are you hiding from, that you think is going to get picked up on a camera?" says Sidebothan.
Brian Hofer agrees that security cameras can prevent crime but says there is no evidence that mass surveillance does. And he argues that police departments only turn to "shiny gadgets" when relations with the public they are meant to protect, and on whom they rely as witnesses, have broken down.
"Instead of trying to repair these relationships we are just throwing more surveillance equipment at the problem. We are smart people here in Oakland. We have Silicon Valley right up the road and we just think all these new tools are going to solve our problems but it just doesn't work."
The city council's decision to limit the DAC was a victory for Oakland Privacy and Hofer, who has since been elected chair of the city's first Privacy Advisory Commission, which has been given the task of scrutinising every new piece of equipment the police department wants to buy.
He says he has had a largely positive response from city officials and police chiefs, and is working with other Bay Area administrations to improve accountability. Oakland Privacy is also in talks with campaigners in New York and Baltimore - where concern about secret police surveillance of poor, black neighbourhoods is, if anything, even higher than in Oakland - about how they can fight back.
"It is not about prohibiting the use of surveillance equipment, it is about narrowing its scope," he says.
Hofer's committee began public hearings last month into Oakland Police Department's use of Stingrays - fake phone masts that can be used to track suspects.
This is a level of accountability that exists in few other places in the US, where, according to American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) national executive director Anthony Romero, surveillance equipment is "acquired in secret and used in secret" often without the knowledge of elected officials, let alone the public.
Last week the ACLU launched proposed legislation in 11 US cities, including New York and Washington DC, that would, if passed, establish community control over police surveillance.
The initiative is inspired, in part, by the Black Lives Matter campaign, although many of the guidelines, such as an annual surveillance audit, come straight from the Oakland Privacy playbook.
"People of colour have long been the targets of government surveillance - but today's technology makes it more concerning than ever," said Alvaro Bedoya, executive director of Georgetown University's Privacy and Technology Centre at the launch of the scheme.
"Communities are being confronted with the very real possibility that law enforcement is tracking them wherever they go - at work, school, places of worship and political gatherings.
"People need to feel safe in their neighbourhoods, and this new effort is an important step in the process of taking back control."
Equipment catalogue
Many of the systems being offered for sale to law enforcement agencies across the US, and around the world, were developed by defence giants for use on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. Here is a small selection:
Stingray fake phone masts
About the size of a suitcase, Stingrays work by pretending to be a phone tower in order to strip data from nearby devices, enabling police to track suspects without a warrant. They are also capable of accessing the content of calls and texts. The next generation of the device, Hailstorm, is now on the market.
Number plate readers
Police cars mounted with automatic number plate readers are thought to be in use in many US cities, gathering data on the location and movements of drivers. Research in Oakland found black neighbourhoods were being disproportionally targeted.
Crime prediction software
Software is being used by police in the US and UK that analyses crime statistics to predict where it will happen next. Microsoft, IBM and Hitachi are among the big players moving into this market. The latest Hitachi "crime visualisation" software - effectively a Domain Awareness Centre on your computer desktop - is being trialled in Washington DC and is demonstrated in this YouTube video. There is also growing concern about the use of social media analysis software, which monitors hashtags such as BlackLivesMatter and PoliceBrutality to identify "threats to public safety".
Surveillance enabled light bulbs
LED light bulbs marketed as energy-efficient upgrades to existing light bulbs on city streets that can contain tiny cameras and microphones linked to a central monitoring station.
Through the wall sensors
These use radar to peer through the walls of buildings - currently precise enough to show how many people are in a particular room.
X-Ray, or 'backscatter" vans
Mobile units that use X-ray radiation to see underneath clothing and car exteriors.
Aerial surveillance
The use of light aircraft to record continuous high definition footage of a city - recently discovered, and stopped, in Baltimore, following a public outcry. Police departments across the US, and in cities around the world, are also buying drones for surveillance.
Listening devices
Shotspotter microphones have been around for more than a decade and are thought to be in use in at least 90 US cities. They are designed to improve police response times but there are concerns they could be used to listen in to conversations.
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As Cuba slowly opens up its economy to the rest of the world, more and more Cubans are learning English. The Cuban government has made proficiency in English a requirement for all high school and university students. As Will Grant reports from Havana, that approach differs from the Cold War, when Russian was the preferred foreign language. | At the annual Havana Jazz Festival, the audience members, much like the music, were a mix of international and Cuban.
Sitting on plastic chairs at the open-air venue, visitors from the United States, Europe and China mingled with local jazz aficionados.
On stage, a saxophonist who lives in Denmark was reunited with some old Cuban friends.
At such an international event, the common language is generally English.
Many Cubans are already learning the language themselves, and if not, they are trying to make sure their children are.
'Nyet' to Russian
Morning assembly at Jesus Suarez Gayol Secondary School on the outskirts of Havana begins with the school's anthem.
The school is named after one of the guerrillas who fought alongside Ernesto "Che" Guevara but these teenagers are growing up in an increasingly different Cuba to the one Jesus Suarez did.
For a start, a certain proficiency in English is now a requirement for all secondary school children and university graduates.
During the Cold War, students could choose between learning English and Russian but Cuba's educational authorities told the BBC they now consider English a necessary skill for all of the nation's youth.
"As an international language, English has always had a place in our curriculum," says Director of Secondary Education Zoe de la Red Iturria.
"But we are now rolling out new techniques to evolve our learning of the English language," she adds.
But language-teaching methods remain quite traditional, relying heavily on textbooks, parrot-fashion repetition and with only very limited Internet access.
Olga Perez, national adviser for English teaching in Cuba, says the authorities are hoping to tackle that last issue.
"It would be very good for us if we had the internet in the schools. And we hope that in the future, we'll not only have the internet, we're also dreaming of installing language laboratories in every school."
And it is not just in the classrooms that English can be heard more frequently but on the streets of Havana, too.
Making conversation
In what was a record year for tourism to Cuba, many Cubans have tried to teach themselves English without the help of any formal classes.
Darvis Luis sells second-hand books and posters to tourists. He says he learnt English entirely through computer games, music videos and rock songs.
"I have to make conversation because I need to make money to eat," he says in easy-flowing, fast English.
"I have to learn how to speak with them and I have to get better and better. I tell them a story because books aren't so easy to sell. So you have to make them believe in what you're saying."
Resources for Anglophiles and budding English-language students like Darvis Luis are limited in Cuba.
One place they can go is Cuba Libro, the island's only English-language bookstore.
Nestled in the leafy Havana district of Vedado, it is the brainchild of US healthcare journalist and long-time Havana resident Conner Gorry.
Ms Gorry says that after some initial misgivings, local residents "welcomed us with open arms" once they saw "the free cultural programming, high-quality literature and community outreach" on offer.
"Literature is not subversive," she says. "A Cuban government-run publishing house just published George Orwell's 1984 and that's available in state-run bookstores."
"With increased tourism and increased business connections to the wider world, the Cubans are encouraging people to learn English. So we've become a resource," she adds.
In the past months, as well as the jazz festival, Havana has hosted the annual film festival and the international ballet festival.
It is at events like these that the thaw in relations with the US seems clearer than ever.
The decision by the Obama Administration and the Castro government to rebuild their diplomatic ties has undeniably brought Cubans and Americans closer together.
It has also brought about some potentially lasting collaboration in science and the arts.
There are people on both sides who fear those steps could soon be reversed, especially in light of comments made to that effect by President-elect Donald Trump.
For now though, the young students at Jesus Suarez are just keen to keep improving their ability to communicate with the rest of the world.
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So, farewell then, 50 pence tax rate. | By Ian PollockPersonal finance reporter, BBC News
You caused "massive distortions". So next year you will be cut down to size - 45p in the pound.
After counting the pounds and pennies for your first year of operation - 2010-11 - the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has decided you were not worth having after all.
Chancellor George Osborne was gleeful in telling Parliament that you had raised only £1bn or so extra - rather less than the £2.5bn or so that Labour had predicted back in 2009.
"HMRC find that an astonishing £16bn of income was deliberately shifted into the previous tax year - at a cost to the taxpayer of £1bn, something that the previous government's figures made no allowance for whatsoever," the chancellor said.
"Self-assessment receipts this year are below forecast by some £3.6bn, while other tax receipts have held up."
So is this true, and why did the Revenue take so long to come to that conclusion?
The penny drops
After all, this is what a variety of economists, business people, Tory MPs and some think tanks had been saying ever since the new 50p rate started in April 2010.
In fact the HMRC was ordered by Mr Osborne last year to analyse the tax receipts for 2010-11.
And these can only be scrutinised now because the self-assessment system means that about nine million taxpayers only paid the tax they owed for that year at the start of February this year.
About 90% of these returns are now in. And the 300,000 or so additional rate taxpayers are almost certainly all going to be in the self-assessment system.
The HMRC's main conclusion is that some wealthy people took much greater steps than anticipated to avoid paying the tax, at least in the first year.
The main method was for owner-directors of companies to take dividends from investments in the previous tax year when the highest rate was still 40p in the pound.
"The conclusion that can be drawn from the self-assessment data is therefore that the underlying yield from the additional rate is much lower than originally forecast (yielding around £1bn or less), and that it is quite possible that it could be negative," HMRC said in its60-page report.
Fast movers
The latest figures are still estimates and the Revenue says there is a still a margin of uncertainty about its figures.
They hinge not just on counting how much income tax came in for 2010-11, but trying to guess how much would have been garnered if the 40p rate had still been the top rate in force.
One key problem highlighted for tax collectors is that these days it much easier for highly-paid people to simply move from one country to another to save tax.
"International labour mobility has increased in the last 15 to 20 years as both legal impediments and general migration costs have been reduced, which means the adverse affect of high rates of personal taxation on both inward and outward migration to the UK and tax revenues can be significant," HMRC says.
Top earnings slump
Much of the HMRC's report involves extrapolating from academic theories and past academic research to guess what the effect of the 50p rate might have been.
But a key fact leaps out of chart 5.1 on page 27.
The HMRC thinks that the total declared taxable income of those earning more than £150,000 a year slumped from £116bn in 2009-10, to £87bn in 2010-11.
Not all of that can be attributed to a new 50p tax rate. But HMRC reckons some of it can.
"The model suggests that if the additional rate had not been introduced, total net incomes for those with incomes over £150,000 would have been around £107bn," it says.
"This compares with the observed total income figure of £87bn, a difference of £20bn."
Why was that? We go back to the pre-emptive measures taken by people who could control their incomes.
"The analysis suggests that between £16bn and £18bn of income was brought forward to 2009-10 to avoid the additional rate of tax," HMRC says.
"The magnitude of the forestalling demonstrates how responsive high income taxpayers are to changes in tax rates."
The final result
Stripping out the effect of all this evasive action, the HMRC finally estimates that the "true" effect of the 50p rate was to increase the income tax take, but only by £1.1bn.
Even that is uncertain, it says.
And an alternative calculation suggests that the "true" tax take might in fact have fallen as a result of the 50p rate coming into effect.
Ronnie Ludwig, of accountancy firm Saffery Champness, was not surprised by the Revenue's findings.
And he warned that there might be more disappointing tax collection figures to come, with the 50p rate now about to live on for a third year.
"I am surprised at the delay in implementing the 45p rate for another year," he said.
"We will have another year of some people minimising their income and maximising their spending on items that are tax deductible," he added.
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In the midst of the pandemic, a small piece of cloth has incited a nationwide feud about public health, civil liberties and personal freedom. Some Americans refuse to wear a facial covering out of principle. Others in this country are enraged by the way that people flout the mask mandates. | By Tara McKelveyLeawood, Kansas
Bob Palmgren tried to be polite - at first. He told a customer he had to wear a mask inside his restaurant, RJ's Bob-Be-Que Shack in Mission, Kansas. The customer, a man in his forties in a Make America Great Again (MAGA) cap, had flashed a gun and said that he was exempt from a state-wide mask requirement. He said that he could explain the exemption in the law to Mr Palmgren.
Mr Palmgren, a former marine, told the customer that he was not interested in continuing the conversation. Mr Palmgren was not swayed by the customer's gun, either. "Coronavirus doesn't care if you have a gun or not," said Mr Palmgren, describing his conversation with the customer. "I said: 'Now get the hell out of here.'"
The argument in the restaurant reflected a deep divide over requirements to wear masks in this country. People in Kansas, along with those who live in more than half of the country, are now required to wear masks in public as part of an ongoing effort to slow down the spread of the virus. But some people have been fighting against the mandate.
The wearing of masks has become a catalyst for political conflict, an arena where scientific evidence is often viewed through a partisan lens. Most Democrats support the wearing of masks, according to a poll conducted by researchers at the Pew Research Center.
Most Republicans do not. The Republicans are following the lead of the president: Trump has been reluctant to wear a mask, saying that it did not seem right to wear one while he was receiving heads of state at the White House. He put a mask on in public for the first time during a visit to a military hospital earlier this month.
The battle over masks has escalated during the final weeks of the campaign season. The general election is in November, and activists in both parties, Republican and Democrat, are working feverishly to ensure victory at the polls. Some of them have faced off on the issue of masks: as Timothy Akers, a public-health professor at Morgan State University, a historically black college in Baltimore, says: "We're seeing politics and science literally crashing."
The dispute over masks embodies the political dynamics of the campaign. It also reflects a classic American struggle between those who defend public safety and those who believe just as deeply in personal liberty.
The conflict over masks is tense, volatile and deeply personal. Mr Palmgren, the owner of RJ's Bob-Be-Que Shack, was trying to follow the state mandate when he got into the argument with the gun-toting customer.
Other stories about the masks have unfolded across the country. When workers in a Michigan pizzeria told a customer that she had to wear a mask, she made an obscene gesture, kicked someone in the restaurant and, according to local authorities, fled the police.
A fight over masks led to gunfire outside a Los Angeles grocery store, according to authorities, and a rapper named Jerry Lewis was killed.
The fight over masks is playing out against a backdrop of a health crisis that has reached historic levels. More than 3,544,000 people in the US have tested positive for the virus, according to the World Health Organization, and at least 137,000 people have died.
The divide between those who wear masks and the anti-maskers, as they call themselves, has become increasingly sharp. In interviews in the Midwest and across the US, people dug in their heels and defended their position, whether for or against the wearing of masks. Many of those interviewed sounded deeply mistrustful of people on the other side and blamed them for the nation's economic and public-health crises.
Resentment was palpable in the voice of Susan Wiles, a retired sign-language interpreter, as she described what happened to her at her local supermarket, Publix in Vero Beach, Florida. Mrs Wiles, who has an autoimmune disorder, was riding in a motorised cart in the produce department when a worker "jumped back", she says, and gave her "a glaring look".
As she recalls: "He yelled: 'You're not wearing a mask.' It was quite a commotion. Another guy joined right in and said: 'She's a menace to society. Get her out of here.' Then he yells: 'Why don't you just go attend a Trump rally?'"
As it happens, Mrs Wiles has been to the president's rallies. A Trump supporter, she says that she does not wear a mask because she believes that the concerns about Covid-19 are overblown. "Sure, there's a virus," she says. "But people die of the flu every year." When it comes to the pandemic, she says: "I don't fall for this. It's not what they say it is."
Since her confrontation at Publix, the supermarket chain has introduced a formal policy requiring customers to wear masks. It goes into effect on Tuesday. Walmart, CVS and other retail stores across the US have already put a mask requirement in place. This makes it harder for Mrs Wiles and other anti-maskers to stand by their principles. Yet some persist.
Neil Melton is a construction-project manager who lives in Prairie Village, Kansas, and he admires Mr Trump. When it comes to masks, Mr Melton does not think they are effective: "There's really nothing you can do to hide from the virus." He also believes that the mask mandates in Kansas and other states are an example of "government over-reach". He explains: "There are people in power who want to see what people will submit to."
The disease has been spreading rapidly in recent weeks in Oklahoma, South Carolina, Georgia and other conservative, Republican-leaning states where economies opened up early and where people are less likely to wear masks.
The way that Americans in these states and other parts of the country chafe at the mask requirement evokes a time when people here were first told to wear seat belts and not to smoke in restaurants. Americans initially resisted those restrictions, too. But now they follow these safety guidelines. Many have not yet taken to wearing masks, however.
One Trump supporter, Crystal Lynn, an administrative assistant in Fairfax, Virginia, says she does not like wearing masks because they make her skin break out. Besides that, she says that she does not think that masks work: "It's a false sense of security." She puts on her seat belt when driving because she knows they can save your life. But masks are not "in the same category", she says: "I don't think a mask protects you in any way."
The anti-maskers have expressed their views loud and clear. Yet overall people here accept the wearing of masks and have embraced them more readily than those who live in the UK. Nearly 60% of people in the US said they would always wear a face mask when they go outside, according to Covid-19 Behaviour Tracker. In the UK less than 20% said the same.
People who study infectious diseases have been struggling to make sense of the political divide over masks and understand the public reaction to the health guidelines. "Some people don't wear masks because they say that they don't 'work' - quote, unquote," says David Aronoff, the director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. "There are other people who see masks as a violation of their rights."
The views of anti-maskers are not shared by public-health experts. They say that wearing masks helps stop infected people from passing the virus on to others. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said recently in a webcast that if everyone in the US started wearing masks "right away", the epidemic would be brought under control within two months.
Their advice on masks has changed over the past several months, however, and at times it has been confusing. Earlier this year, public-health officials told people not to wear masks because they were concerned there would not be enough facial coverings for health-care workers. By late spring, scientific understanding of the virus and its transmission had changed, and so did the advice for the public.
This is what drives Democrats crazy. They believe that masks can help prevent the spread of infection and that if people covered their faces in public then the country could get back to normal faster.
For Matt DiGregory, a restauranteur who lives in Bernalillo, New Mexico, and his employees, the cost of the pandemic has been sharp. He closed down a number of restaurants because of the economic downturn. Of his 550 employees, only 60 are left.
Masks, he says, are required for all those who visit the restaurants that remain open. If a customer does not have one, the workers have extra masks for them to wear while they are inside the building. "I think masks are the only way we are getting out from under this," Mr DiGregory says. "I'm incredibly sad that there's a political divide on this, and that there's people who think it's a hoax."
Some in Kansas and other states agree with Mr DiGregory even when they do not share his political views. Mr Palmgren, the owner of RJ's Bob-Be-Que Shack, likes the way that Mr Trump has been running the nation. But unlike the president, Mr Palmgren is not ambivalent about masks. Mr Palmgren insists that everyone in his restaurant has a face covering.
Several days after his encounter with the MAGA-cap-wearing, gun-toting customer, Mr Palmgren sounds more disappointed than angry about the incident. Mr Palmgren says the customer gave Trump supporters a bad name. Recalling the customer's demeanor, Mr Palmgren says: "That doesn't make MAGA look good."
Later that day, Mr Palmgren stood outside the restaurant. He called out to someone who was heading for the front door and told them that they needed a mask. For Mr Palmgren, the requirement is non-partisan and non-negotiable.
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India unveiled the world's biggest solar farm earlier this year and has quadrupled its solar capacity in the last three years, bringing electricity to millions of off-grid households. But what are the innovations that could see solar replacing fossil fuels completely? | By Padraig BeltonTechnology of Business reporter
Rameshwarlal Choudhary, a 45-year old farmer, and his wife Dakha, 40, live with their two children in a small shack near the village of Solawata in India's Rajasthan.
Their home has thatched walls, a tin roof, and one side is completely open to the elements.
Until six months ago, they were part of the 44% of India's rural households who lack electricity.
Now, through a 40-watt solar panel perching on a tree branch outside the hut, they have enough power for three lights: one inside the house, one in the fields, and one on a tree above the roof.
"With the extra light we can study until 10 pm," says their daughter Pooja, a 17-year-old student.
And her parents can farm and milk their cows beyond sunset - around 5pm - for the first time.
"The light also helps keep snakes, rodents, and scorpions at bay," says Ramjilal, their 20-year-old son who is also a student.
This one small example is emblematic of how India is going solar in a very big way.
In November, the country unveiled the world's largest-ever solar farm at Kamuthi, in Tamil Nadu.
It stretches across 2,500 acres, and its 2.5 million solar modules are cleaned each day by a team of robots, themselves solar-powered.
While countries like Britain and Germany have seen new solar installations slow after the withdrawal of government subsidies, India and China are ramping up their installations.
India quadrupled its capacity in the last three years to 12GW (gigawatts) - 1GW can power about 725,000 homes.
This will almost double again this year, with India adding 10GW in 2017; another 20GW is in the pipeline.
China is installing solar panels at a similar clip; its capacity leapt to 77GW last year, up from 43GW.
As recently as 2010, there was only 50GW of solar capacity installed in the entire world.
"This installation of solar power is much higher than anyone could've believed just a few years ago," says Josefin Berg, senior analyst for the IHS solar research group.
"The cost of the technology has dropped much faster than anyone anticipated," she says, "but the main decline has been in the technology advances."
Solar panels are just not that efficient.
A major problem is that about 35% of the sun's light is reflected off the panels rather than being absorbed and converted into electricity,
So could biomimicry - copying structures already found in nature - help the panels become more light absorbent?
One research team in Finland thinks so. It has been studying leaf structures to find out how they do it.
Prof Marko Huttula and senior research fellow Wei Cao at the University of Oulu studied 32 different types of leaf structure to see which absorbed light the best.
"Corn seems to be the winner for light absorption," says Prof Huttula. "That kind of makes sense because it is very fast growing."
Using what they'd learned, the pair designed a polymer coating featuring patterns of what Dr Cao calls "nanodots". This polymer is then applied on top of silicon cells.
So far they have succeeded in reducing the percentage of light lost through reflection from 35% to 12%.
Decreasing wasted light this way increases solar panels' energy output by up to 17%, they claim.
Now they are working on scaling up the process with collaborators in China.
Even with costs of solar cells dropping, there are pretty large leaps forward in efficiency needed before solar energy can broadly supplant fossil sources, says Dr Ross Hatton, an associate professor of physical chemistry at Warwick University.
Today's commercial solar cells convert only about 16% to 20% of the sun's energy into electricity.
Solar cells based on semiconductors with both organic and inorganic parts - called perovskite solar cells - might boost this up to around 30% if combined with conventional silicon technology.
Perovskites can also be made as flexible, lightweight films, meaning they are both cheap and easy to install in a wider variety of places.
But a downside is that they tend to disintegrate in humid conditions.
"I would say that there would be a very significant cost advantage over silicon, but it's also about the utility - silicon can't be used on the tops of automobiles, or on the cover of your laptop," says Dr Hatton.
Also, they "could be fabricated using a roll-to-roll process - it's how you print a newspaper - and is a very well established technology," he says.
Several university spin-offs, like Oxford PV and Eight19 in the Cambridge Science Park, have said they aim to market perovskite solar cells this year.
Another problem with solar is that at a domestic level, installing it is still a cumbersome process - and many householders don't much like how the panels look.
This is why Tesla boss Elon Musk unveiled a new design for solar panels that resemble traditional roof tiles.
And Austrian start-up Smartflower has designed a neat, all-in-one solar unit that sits in your garden, tracks the sun like a sunflower, and folds itself up for protection at the end of the day or in poor weather.
The Smartflower, which costs from £13,560 ($17,660), produces enough electricity to power a standard household of four people, but needs five cubic metres of space. So the company is developing a smaller version for people with less external space.
They have sold the device in Europe since 2014, and last year in the US as well.
The firm is also developing an "internet of things" capability for the product so that the Smartflower can switch household appliances on and off depending on how much solar electricity is available.
With the cost of solar continuing to drop around the world and efficiency improvements - however modest - coming through, the future of this renewable tech looks bright.
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Stuart Hall, jailed for indecently assaulting 13 girls, was the exuberant host of TV game show It's A Knockout, the voice of lyrical football reports on BBC radio and the face of regional news in the north-west of England for more than 25 years. | As a broadcaster, Hall was eccentric, erudite, egotistical - a distinctive personality who could balance light entertainment buffoonery with sports and serious news.
But there was a dark secret behind the on-screen persona. Over two decades, he was an "opportunistic predator", according to police, who molested girls, one as young as nine.
Born on Christmas Day 1929 in Ashton-under-Lyne in Greater Manchester, Hall later recalled how his father, a baker who had survived the Somme in World War I, beat him for playing chicken with trains.
At school, Hall directed plays, chaired the debating society and almost became a footballer, having been offered terms by Crystal Palace.
But, he liked to recount later, the £20 a week in winter and £10 a week in summer on offer "wouldn't have kept me in tarts and fags".
He developed a passion for motor cars and became an amateur racing driver.
"I was a dilettante, a rake, louche. I thought the world belonged to me," he once said.
"I raced cars. I had an Austin Healey. I had the silk scarf. I fancied myself, there's no doubt about it. Mind, I never won a race."
His commentary career began when he decided the PA announcer at a race track was too laid-back and had a go himself.
He married Hazel in 1958 and their first son Nicholas was born the following year. But Nicholas had a hole in the heart and died in his father's arms in a hospital waiting room as an infant. The couple went on to have two more children.
In 1959, Hall joined the BBC as a reporter on Radio Newsreel and Sports Report. His first game for Sports Report was an eight-goal thriller between Sheffield Wednesday and Leicester City.
"Alas, the game was shrouded in fog," he later recalled. "I didn't see a single goal. I made it all up."
Becoming host of the corporation's nightly Manchester-based regional TV news programme seven years later, he bridged hard news and jocular features and befriended figures including Manchester United legend George Best.
"Manchester was the place to be in the 60s and I was its Boswell," Hall said. "I was in there, Slack Alice and the other fleshpots - we had nightclubs here to rival Las Vegas. And Bestie was its hub.
"We'd rouster till dawn. When Bestie started absconding, [then Manchester United manager] Matt Busby rang me and said, 'Where's George?' I knew of course, but I wasn't letting on. So we did the contrite interview on the telly and presented him back to Matt."
Hall hosted the local news for 25 years and was the face of the region for the rest of the country during regular link-ups with national show Nationwide.
On leaving the BBC, Hall took the hot seat on the regional news show with rivals Granada.
He was also the original host of A Question of Sport, which was only broadcast in the north at first, and found fame across the UK and beyond for compering It's A Knockout and its European version Jeux Sans Frontieres.
Described by Hall as "the Olympic Games with custard pies", the slapstick game show would feature binmen dressed as oversized penguins doing battle with tax collectors dressed as giant chefs, all accompanied by Hall's irrepressible laugh.
Fifteen million viewers in the UK watched teams get muddy while tackling greasy poles, log-rolling and bungee runs.
Although the programme was cancelled in 1982, in 1987 he presided over a regal one-off, It's A Royal Knockout, which featured Princes Edward and Andrew, Princess Anne and the Duchess of York, and went down in history as a major embarrassment for the Royal Family.
However, Hall kept the costumes and the rights to It's A Knockout and travelled the world staging corporate contests long after the demise of the TV version.
He continued his sports career, and said the highlight came when he accompanied Liverpool FC to the 1977 European Cup Final.
Having had his press pass ripped up by the host Italian broadcaster, Liverpool manager Bob Paisley offered to smuggle him in with the club. Hall spent the match sitting on the Liverpool bench wearing the number 14 shirt.
While most sports journalists conformed to a formulaic style, often resorting to cliche, Hall became famous for his esoteric and evocative radio reports.
He claims he invented the phrase "the beautiful game" and would pepper his dispatches with Shakespeare and Shelley quotes and florid metaphors.
Throughout his career, a series of mishaps, misjudgements and bizarre events meant Hall regularly appeared in the press for more than his broadcasting.
In 1978, he appeared as a witness in the trial of a policeman who was drunk and had drugs in his system after visiting Hall's house. The constable claimed the tranquillisers in his bloodstream had been secretly administered by Hall - which the presenter, who was not charged, denied.
In 1980, he punched a fellow judge in a beauty contest and the same year helped save the life of a boy who had hit his head on a diving board while on holiday in Portugal.
In 1981, he launched a travel agent in Manchester City Centre but was obliged to change the name of Stuart Hall International Travel when the acronym caused offence.
He was a "name" - or backer - of Lloyd's of London insurance but almost went bankrupt as a result in 1989 after a series of global shocks.
"I've lost a fortune at Lloyd's, so what?" he later said. "I laughed at it. I was taken for a sucker by folk cleverer than me. But I laugh. Life isn't a career, it's a stumble from crisis to crisis."
In 1991, he was cleared of shoplifting sausages and a jar of coffee from his local Safeway supermarket - an incident he put down to being "absent-minded" as a result of the burglary of his beloved watch collection.
When asked in 1993 whether his frequent appearances in the headlines were a sign of recklessness, he replied: "I am a wild man. I am a total maverick. I know that."
Despite hoping for the return of It's A Knockout, his TV career stumbled through the 1990s and 2000s, when he hosted short-lived series like the travel show Travellers Check and antiques programme Going Going Gone.
He was made an OBE for services to broadcasting and charity at the end of 2011 and continued to provide football reports for BBC 5 live until his arrest on rape and indecent assault charges in December 2012.
After initially denying the allegations, Hall pleaded guilty in May 2013.
As he was sentenced to 15 months in jail, he was told by Judge Russell: "There is a darker side to you, one hidden from public view until now, and a side which you were able to conceal taking advantage of your status as a well-liked celebrity."
He admitted 14 charges of indecent assault between 1967 and 1986. One count of rape, which he denied, has been left to lie on the court file.
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Two 17-year-old boys have been arrested on suspicion of murdering a man who was stabbed in the neck after a row with motorbike riders. | Trainee supermarket manager Adam Ellison died in hospital hours after the attack in Market Street, Prescot, Merseyside, on 4 November 2017.
The 29-year-old had been on a night out with three cousins and a friend.
A 22-year-old man, of Huyton, was also arrested for theft of a motor vehicle in connection with the murder.
The two youths, who are both also from Huyton, have now been released under investigation, said police.
After the stabbing, the offenders fled on the motorbike in the direction of a Tesco store.
Mr Ellison's partner Rebecca Cunliffe said they planned to get married and he was saving for an engagement ring at the time.
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You might not think the local elections have anything to do with your health - but beyond schools and waste collection, looking after some of our most vulnerable people is an issue that newly-elected councillors will have to quickly get to grips with. | By Steve DuffyBBC news
Local authorities have a vital role - and legal obligation - in providing social care, as well as other social services.
But they face challenges in the years ahead:
The Health Foundation last year estimated pressures on social care in Wales would rise by about 4.1% a year over the next 15 years due to population changes, the nature of complex and chronic conditions and rising costs.
This will require the budget to almost double to £2.3bn to match demand which has big implications for councils already dealing with tighter budgets.
An independent research programme, Wales Public Services 2025, led by Cardiff Business School but involving councils, health boards and other organisations, is looking at long term challenges.
Its latest report estimates that on current population projections, local councils need to be spending at least an additional £134m by 2020-21.
This would bring the spending per capita on social services for the over 65s back to levels of seven years ago. This is an equivalent to a year-on-year growth rate of 2.5%.
"Projections suggest that there will have to be a near doubling of spending on local authority social services for older people by 2030," said the report.
Michael Trickey, Wales Public Services 2025 programme director, estimates that under-pressure local councils have already cut back on spending on neighbourhood services by a third - £40m - in areas including sport, leisure, libraries, open spaces and parks.
He believes a "long term" approach is needed by UK and devolved governments to address the social care conundrum.
"A lot of the work into the policies and the options available has already been done but government has not wanted to deal with perhaps some of the difficult decisions needed," he said.
"But it has come back again and now it has to really get a grip or we'll be back into crisis again in a couple of years' time."
But what about the private sector? There are struggles here too - with some residential and home care providers failing.
Last month, the UK Homecare Association reported a "real sense of desperation".
BBC Wales found 13 of Wales' 22 councils had seen contracts handed back to them. The proportion with returned contracts - 59% - compares to a UK average of 48%.
The Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) has welcomed relative protection for social care spending by Welsh Government in recent years - including an extra £20m following the Chancellor's Budget - but is worried it will not keep pace.
Chief executive Steve Thomas said: "For new councillors, in terms of the challenges ahead - the pressures on social care budgets will be the biggest headache you face.
"It's not just about the care of elderly people either, there are also the demands of caring for our looked after children.
"Most people don't use these services; if you've a council with a 175,000 population, it might be only 5,000 using those services - but social care is expensive."
He welcomed the prime minister's intervention in the issue and said it was a time to consider other solutions - whether social care insurance or taxation - so the burden did not fall on local councils or Welsh Government.
"The danger is if this is not addressed over the next 10 or 15 years, local authorities could be left just as social care agencies."
Analysis by Owain Clarke, BBC Wales health correspondent
An ageing population is often talked about in terms of being an extra burden on services but could there also be opportunities?
Far more people aged over 65 now work full-time.
Also, the charity King's Fund estimates older people also contribute financially through a variety of other routes - from their spending power to volunteering.
So one way of mitigating the challenges of an ageing population is to help individuals contribute to society as long as they can - put another way - to live healthily for longer.
It is argued the services councils provide are essential to that.
Housing, leisure centres and libraries have arguably a much greater role to play than the NHS and social services in keeping us healthy in the first place.
So, even if health and social care spending goes up or is protected to meet the needs of an ageing population, councils are worried other "preventative services" will continue to bear the brunt of cuts. And this could mean bigger problems down the line.
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Poole's Twin Sails Bridge has reopened after a technical problem arose following overnight repairs. | Engineers experienced problems reopening the £37m bridge after planned work to the structure's hydraulics system and a number of test lifts.
The road was eventually reopened at about 14:30 BST.
The bridge has suffered many problems since it opened in April 2012 including being shut to traffic 38 times in its first six months of opening.
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Any woman who has ever felt judged over her decision not to breastfeed her baby will have welcomed a statement issued by the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) this week.
On Tuesday, the organisation said if a woman decides to formula-feed her baby it is her choice and must be respected.
But before the introduction of the feeding bottle in the 19th Century, women who were unable or unwilling to breastfeed turned to another option - a wet nurse.
Here, a mother-of-three from Caerphilly shares her experience of breastfeeding other women's babies. | By Nicola BryanBBC News
Samantha Gadsden knows breastfeeding can be a contentious issue - especially when the baby you are feeding belongs to another woman.
She has been volunteering her time - and her breasts - to other women's babies since first becoming a mother herself 10 years ago.
"I can't even remember any more how many booby brothers and sisters my children have," the 47-year-old said.
She first acted as a wet nurse to help out a friend whose baby was in hospital. The woman's older baby was not allowed to stay on the ward and had never used a bottle.
"She phoned me because she was pretty desperate for someone to have him.... I said 'fine but how am I going to feed him?'.
"She said 'I was kind of hoping that you'd feed him', so that's what I did."
She has also breastfed a friend's baby while babysitting: "She asked me because she knew I'd feed the baby. It's just easier because a lot of these breastfed babies aren't used to bottles."
Another time she responded to a new mother who was looking for donor breast milk online: "She had twins and they were starving... She was in hospital, she'd had an operation and she couldn't feed and couldn't pump... they were throwing up formula.
"I said 'I haven't got a pump but I've got a pair of boobs so, if you're that desperate, I'll feed your babies'.
"We're quite firm friends now. That was a couple of years ago and we've just been on holiday."
She said she had never experienced jealousy from the mothers of the babies she has fed: "If someone's asking you to feed their babies, it's because they need help and you're giving it to them, so no."
Ms Gadsden works as a doula - a woman who gives support, help and advice to another woman during pregnancy and during and after the birth.
But she said the wet nursing was completely separate to her paid work and she would never accept money for feeding another woman's baby.
"It's not a professional thing, it's something I do as mother-to-mother support," she said.
"[Wet nursing] is not something that I would do for money. I don't think particularly that doing it for money is wrong, to be honest, because everything has a value, but personally, no."
She has had varied reactions when people learn about her wet nursing: "If they're in the breastfeeding community or my friends it's 'that's amazing, it's so lovely that you do that for other people' but other people are 'oh my God'.
She has had particularly strong reactions when people find out she had fed babies after meeting the mother online: "[They said] 'she didn't even know you, you could have been anything, you could have had anything, you might have had Aids'.
"For a start, most breastfeeding women have just been through the NHS screening programme themselves and they're not all out there having orgies and suddenly developing these weird diseases.
"And to a certain degree, if you're going to ask somebody to give your baby milk, there's got to be an element of trust there in the first place."
She is certain there are many more wet nurses out there, and more women would use them if they knew it was an option : "I think a lot more of it goes on than we know about - people just don't always say about it."
The National Childbirth Trust said wet nursing was "not common in the UK" but acknowledged some women informally feed other women's babies.
In a statement it said: "Some people may find the subject of wet-nursing uncomfortable. There is no legal reason, however, why women who wish to wet nurse or use a wet nurse cannot do so, and NCT believes that women setting up an agreement between themselves to do this should be supported in their decision."
Public Health Wales, the body overseeing health and wellbeing in Wales, said mothers should aim to give their baby nothing but breast milk for the first six months and continue to provide it at least until their baby's first birthday.
It said if a mother's own milk was not available the next best thing would be donated breast milk, but those sharing milk should be aware of the risks which include the transmission of blood-borne viruses and other infections, the transfer of chemicals, and the bacterial contamination after collection.
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"Of all the world leaders who have visited Britain, only Nelson Mandela and the Pope have addressed bigger public gatherings than Narendra Modi's rally at Wembley," boasts a spokeswoman for the UK Welcomes Modi organisation. | By Andrew WhiteheadFormer BBC India correspondent
It is billed as a grand community reception, and 60,000 Modi supporters - almost all of Indian origin - are expected to crowd into the sports stadium in north London on Friday afternoon.
It will be his first visit to Britain as prime minister and many in the Indian community have been eagerly awaiting this moment.
"People are going mad for Modi, Modi, Modi," says CB Patel, a London-based publisher and columnist and longstanding supporter of India's prime minister. "I call it Modimania."
Wherever Mr Modi goes - and he has spent a lot of time globetrotting in the 18 months he has been in office - he seeks to talk directly to the Indian diaspora.
He has drawn huge crowds at venues ranging from New York's Madison Square Garden to Dubai's cricket stadium, as well as many smaller events in places ranging from the Seychelles to Paris.
The gathering at Wembley just a few days after the Hindu religious festival of Diwali is expected to be his biggest yet.
The organisers say they can't meet the demand for the free tickets.
The cost is being met largely by donations - 10,000 people are said to have contributed - along with businesses that are both supporting the event and paying to advertise.
Not all the 1.5m people of Indian origin living in Britain are cheerleaders for Mr Modi and his Hindu nationalist party, the BJP.
A Modi Not Welcome campaign is organising protests during his visit, complaining of religious intolerance and an autocratic style of government.
Part of his purpose, say these campaigners, is to create a worldwide network of Hindu right-wingers - something they regard as worrying.
But there is broad enthusiasm among the Indian diaspora for Narendra Modi. Here's why:
The courting of Indians abroad is in part about money. The 30 million Indians living outside the country contribute an estimated $70bn (£45bn) to the economy each year in remittances.
Narendra Modi has already taken steps to encourage diaspora investment in India, as well as making it easier for those with foreign passports to spend time in what many regard as their mother country.
Some wealthy Indians overseas are also said to contribute generously to political parties back home.
Political financing in India is notoriously murky, and views differ about how important diaspora money is to the BJP - but academic experts say there is little doubt that right-wing movements do well from this source of funds.
Modi meets Indians abroad:
While in London, Narendra Modi will want to remind David Cameron that India may prove a more reliable Asian ally than China, whose president, Xi Jinping, recently enjoyed a conspicuously successful trip to Britain.
As a head of government, Modi won't get the full pomp and pageantry that greets heads of state such as President Xi.
And while the British government's overture to China is seen as a bold and distinctive foreign policy initiative, there's not the same diplomatic buzz about the Indian leader's arrival.
But British MPs and political leaders - many of whom are being invited to the Wembley event - are bound to be impressed by Narendra's Modi's ability to mobilise large numbers of supporters.
It is not often a UK politician attracts a stadium-size crowd.
Andrew Whitehead, a former BBC India correspondent, is honorary professor at the University of Nottingham and at Queen Mary, University of London.
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This is a full transcript of "Alex Jones will kill me if I tell you..." Ouch, Invictus Games, as first broadcast on 26 October 2018.
| Presented by Beth Rose
Jingle: BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts.
BETH - There's been sun, sea and sport in Australia this week.
Oh, and a whole load of medals and camaraderie at the Invictus Games in Sydney.
And at BBC Ouch we didn't want you missing out on all the gossip, so we, well me, Beth Rose, thought we'd bring you a bonus podcast and head all the way down under to Sydney, via the power of a mobile phone, to chat to our old friend, JJ Chalmers. How are you, JJ?
JJ - I'm very good, thank you. And thanks for travelling all the way via the medium of a mobile phone.
BETH - I know. We did try some other technology, but hey, mobile phone was the best way forward.
JJ - Well yeah, I mean airplanes work too, but it does take a long time to get here, is what I would tell you.
BETH - I mean, how's it been? It's been a whole week of competition.
JJ - It's been amazing.
And you're right, it's sort of getting towards the end, all bar the singing of course, we'll have a nice big closing ceremony too, but the competition has been amazing.
It's been everything that we kind of expected.
It has been Invictus, it's been this magical sporting competition which is also much more than sport, amazing stories everywhere.
And we've done it upside down in beautiful weather.
BETH - Have we had any really standout performances?
JJ - Well, the UK team has done very well across the board, and we've won lots of medals everywhere and there have been some phenomenal, phenomenal individual performances.
We had a guy, Martin Tye, he lifted 206 kilos in the power lifting.
That's the first person in the Invictus Games ever to lift more than 200 kilos.
But he does it in his wheelchair.
And if somebody had told me before I was disabled, had showed me a video of him doing it I would have been like, oh he couldn't be doing that, he's in a wheelchair, whereas now I just see this absolute monster.
BETH - But there's been a few stories this week about the PTSD effect.
JJ - Yeah.
BETH - I think, was there a helicopter that went over and…?
JJ - Indeed. Paul Guest, who's a UK tennis player, has linked up with a Dutch player and they created a team they called Team Unconquered, and basically during one of their matches a helicopter began to circle above and his emotions began to get the better of him.
And effectively he began to break down, he began to lose his composure.
Obviously his Dutch partner, who he'd never really met before until they were on a court together, took him over to one side, they both had an embrace, had a moment.
I believe that they sang the title track from 'Frozen'. You wouldn't believe it, but it's true.
They sang that and that was sort of the moment that got them through it.
And, beautifully, at that point in the match they were behind and they went on to win it.
I mean, this is stuff of Hollywood movies really.
BETH - It is.
JJ - But it's wonderful and it's true. And things like that happen here.
BETH - Because also, am I right in saying, because you put out a tweet earlier in the week, you've got your family out there with you, and your daughter flung her shoe away and off it went into the hedges.
You had to kind of face something from your background as well?
JJ - Yes, we were moving between venues and she kicked one of her shoes off.
So when we got to the other end, we realised that the shoe was gone, so the next thing I was sort of traipsing back across the Olympic Park, which is very big by the way, trying to find it.
And I'm looking round in all the sort of shrubs and undergrowth, and when I was down there I saw a sprinkler head, a sort of watering system that keeps this place looking lush.
And it reminded me of the 2014 Games when one of my friends was getting off his bike at the Olympic Park in London.
He was stood there next to one of these sprinklers.
Now, to him it looked like an antipersonnel mine, and he let out this huge shriek, and I remember sort of grabbing him, you know, and just being like, "It's all right, it's all right."
Now, luckily the ones here in Australia are sort of bright pink, the ones there were kind of green and black which looked identical to these antipersonnel mines.
We used to call them toe poppers.
And in the 2014 Games somebody had to go round and put a cone on every single one of these, but it's a sort of reminder that you have so many unforeseens because ultimately you're dealing not with your normal brand of competitor at a sporting competition like this, these aren't elite athletes, these are individuals who have lived through tremendous amounts and are wearing the scars, whether that's physically or mentally.
BETH - Do they put a few things in place?
JJ - There's some wonderful things in place.
Each team has psychologists sort of on hand, but the most wonderful thing I've seen here this week is assistance dogs.
There are 12 labrador dogs that are all around the park and they're just there to be patted basically, and if anybody ever feels a little moment where they need a bit of companionship and a bit of destressing they can go over and they can just cuddle into one of these dogs.
BETH - You are in a bubble when you're out in a foreign event.
So you're not sure how much is getting over here.
But JJ, you're prime time TV at the moment.
I mean BBC 1, I don't know, 7:00, 7:30. Eight o'clock last night, 8pm for a whole hour, I mean, that's big, that's making a real impression isn't it?
JJ - Yeah, absolutely. And we know that if we put this on the TV the people that want to watch it would find it, but actually there's so many messages within it that we want to educate people about it.
And so that's why BBC One have got this commitment for putting it in a prime time slot to make sure that that inherited audience off of the back of the 'One Show' or 'EastEnders' or whatever it is ultimately stumbles across it and hopefully falls in love with it.
BETH - Because actually, one of the things I'm interested in to find out, so obviously you're co-hosting with Alex Jones, who does the 'One Show' and like loads of other stuff, and is obviously very popular, and as far as I'm aware she doesn't have a disability.
So she's like in the same position as me, which my team like to tell me I'm the token able bodied person on BBC Ouch. So she's kind of similar.
I mean, what's it been like for her? I don't know, has she learnt a lot? Has she found situations difficult?
JJ - Absolutely. You know, Alex is, first of all we know how fantastic she is, she is arguably, or probably unarguably, one of the best presenters in the country, if not the world.
But it's been very interesting being partnered with her because we sit in very different ends of the spectrum, in that I have an understanding of disability, having lived it, I have an understanding of Invictus, having lived it, but at the other end of the spectrum Alex comes in as the curious person who ultimately is the type of viewer that we're trying to get.
You know, of course she's learned a lot. I mean she'd kill me for telling you this, but we've been joking all week, you know, day one of this thing she went to shake my friend, Dave Watson's hand, a triple amputee, stuck her hand out, went for his hand, hand's not there, went for the forearm, forearm's not there either, sort of worked up the arm and got to the shoulder.
And then just shook his shoulder, to which, you know, Dave's a legend and he just kind of went, "Well, no one's ever done that before."
These are fairly unforseens, shall we say.
BETH - What was Alex like? What did she do?
JJ - Oh, you know Alex, she just laughs it off.
She was mortified inside but Dave took it like a champion and didn't make a big deal of it because all that's going to do is have a negative effect.
You know, Alex now knows that all right, actually so you've got a left hand.
The problem we sometimes have with disability is we jump down people's throats too quickly and say, "Oh, you can't say that or that," rather than going, "Oh, by the way, we don't say that anymore," or, "We don't shake somebody's shoulder."
So instead of vilifying people we should be educating people, and that's what these Games try to do.
BETH - Also, have you happened to learn a tremendous amount from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan, who have been out there? And who you kind of know.
JJ - Well, they've been around.
I had a great interview and a little catch up with them at the beginning of the week about wow, you know, this was something that started four years ago in London but we didn't really know what the future of these Games would be.
Here we are now, four years later, in Sydney, a lot has happened in that space.
And now he's married and he's having a kid, so yeah, a lot's changed.
BETH - A lot has changed. Have you got any exclusives for BBC Ouch?
JJ - No, I don't.
BETH - Oh.
JJ - I genuinely don't, and if I did I would be giving it to BBC Ouch, you know that.
BETH - I do know that. [laughs]
JJ - But, no.
BETH - So, four years is how long it's been going on, and I was looking at the dates.
I've got my notes here, like a proper journalist. So, you had 2014 was London.
Two years later, Orlando. Then it picked up, so Toronto 2017, Sydney 2018, and now The Hague 2020.
Is there a method to that madness, like dates-wise?
It's a bit haphazard.
JJ - Ah, yes. 2014 was meant to be a one-off. So there was one year to sort of, you know, go all right, actually there's an appetite for this and let's go out there and have a bidding process.
In that process, Orlando came forward, so did Toronto and so did Australia, but at the same time we got to the end of Sydney and thought, well maybe this is the end, shall we just take this and put it in a box and say, "In times of war break glass and then we can get it back out".
And actually what we discovered, there are always people, unfortunately they are serving in the military who are going to get ill, they're going to get cancer, or going to have road traffic accidents, so there is a continued need for it.
And so the plan now is to have a two year cycle, The Hague being 2020.
And actually, when I was a young marine, Mark Ormrod, who's a marine triple amputee who's, 10 years he's been a triple amputee now, or over 10 years, he's competing at these Games and won a whole bunch of gold medals for Team UK and he was injured long before I was.
So I knew when I was a young marine that actually, this is what happens, you know, triple amputees are a result of war.
But I was able to see him on his prosthetics running across the country, cycling round it, doing incredible things.
And actually there was a part of me that was already inspired by an individual, long before I found myself in a similar situation.
And so I was taking strength from him in my day-to-day life, you know, then I get blown up and I become friends with the guy.
So it was quite a nice thing.
He's a bit of a rock star if I'm completely honest.
BETH - And what about the idle gossip and the general vibes when, maybe the sport's over or the media teams are released from the studios?
Anything to tell us? Confess?
JJ - Well, I mean we are working a fairly relentless schedule here because we're upside down.
So right now I'm looking at my watch, it's 8 o'clock at night here and I'm about to go over to the studio and start rehearsals, because we record our programme at the very end of the night when ABC, the local broadcaster is finished. We share a studio with them.
But during the day we've got to be across the sport, we've got to be across what's happening.
Most importantly because it's not just about who wins at these games, the greatest moment of these games can come from somebody coming last, so you've really got to be watching every moment of it to try and get what we call these Invictus moments, where somebody sacrifices their chance of winning a race to help somebody across the line, whatever it may be.
So we're very much living in that bubble right now.
But we're nearly there, we're nearly across the line ourselves and I'm pretty sure we'll be able to let loose and probably have a good cry then.
BETH - Oh yes, you must enjoy every last moment and kind of the weeks after when you reflect back on it.
Well thanks so much, JJ, for chatting and giving up your precious half hour when you could have been having, I don't know, a hot dog or something.
JJ - Yes, well actually I am quite hungry, maybe I will get a hot dog.
BETH - Another of those free meals that you managed to get in Korea?
JJ - Well, you know me, you know me. I'll catch up with you on the other side.
BETH - Yes, please do.
JJ - Look after yourself.
BETH - And you.
JJ - JJ Chalmers, out.
BETH - Well, thanks so much to JJ for giving up his final half hour before he goes and does the TV programme.
You can still watch the last few days of competition of the Invictus Games, and there's loads of stuff online if you want to catch up with those amazing stories.
This is your bonus podcast, so I hope you enjoyed it.
It was great catching up with JJ.
Do get in touch though. As always, BBC Ouch on Twitter, just search BBC Ouch on Facebook.
On Instagram we're bbc_ouch_disability.
And of course there's always email, [email protected].
Jingle: BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts.
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Cardiff's first statue of a named woman forgotten to history is to be decided by a public vote.
Five women have been shortlisted for the artwork which will be placed outside BBC Wales' new headquarters at Central Square.
The women, none of whom are still living, are Cranogwen, Lady Rhondda, Elizabeth Andrews, Elaine Morgan and Betty Campbell.
BBC Wales is profiling the lives of each of these women and the public can vote online until 21:30 GMT on Wednesday.
Here we look at the life of Elaine Morgan. | By Carolyn HittJournalist & broadcaster
Elaine Morgan was a woman of many talents who changed the world from her desk in Mountain Ash.
Excelling in both the arts and science, she became a top TV writer, a feminist icon and a ground-breaking evolutionary theorist.
Born into a poor mining family in Hopkinstown in 1920, she won a scholarship to Oxford University. When she arrived, they heard her valleys accent and assumed she was applying for a job as a cleaner. But Elaine became a star student, chairing political societies and honing her literary skills.
After graduation she taught for three years with the Workers' Educational Association. Married with three sons by the 1950s, she began writing plays to help make ends meet.
One of the first women to make an impact in the male-dominated world of the small screen at this time, her first television scripts were accepted before she even owned a TV set.
In a career spanning 30 years, she won a host of awards and scripted some of the best-loved dramas in television history - including How Green Was My Valley and The Life and Times of Lloyd George.
Sian Phillips, who starred in How Green was my Valley, explained her screen-writing gift: "There was a time when the writer was king and she was one of the stars. If you saw that name on your script then you really wanted to do it."
She added: "Elaine was a wonderful plotter. She was a very good storyteller for a start, so nobody ever had to do any tweaking. Not a word."
Elaine's script for a Horizon documentary about Joey Deacon, the disabled fundraiser, won her the Prix Italia in 1975 while her serialisation of Vera Brittain's wartime memoir, Testament of Youth, won her the Royal Television Society's writer of the year award in 1979.
In the 1970s Elaine switched her focus to science, taking on the might of the male-dominated establishment with a new theory of human evolution.
In her book Descent of Woman, she argued human evolution wasn't just about the mighty male hunter - females were an equally vital part of the story.
The Descent of Woman was an instant global best-seller. Feted in America as a feminist heroine, Elaine's book became a key text in the Women's Liberation movement. In the States she became something of a celebrity as she was invited to promote the book on television in a coast-to-coast tour.
Global impact
She went on to publish several more books on evolution - including The Aquatic Ape (1982), which again captured global attention; The Scars of Evolution (1990); The Descent of the Child (1994); The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis (1997) and The Naked Darwinist (2008).
Championed by Sir David Attenborough, she was still being invited to discuss her ideas across the world well into old age. More than a million people viewed the Ted Talk that Elaine gave at the age of 89 when it was put on the internet. Closer to home, she wrote her award-winning Western Mail column into her 90s.
She was appointed OBE in 2009 and the same year was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
A Valleys girl to the end, she made a global impact but never left her Welsh roots behind.
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A man has been arrested on suspicion of a serious sexual assault in Ipswich last year.
| A woman reported that she had been sexually assaulted by an intruder inside her home in the Chantry area on 5 June, 2011.
A 66-year-old man from Ipswich was arrested earlier, Suffolk Police said.
A spokesman said he had been taken to the Martlesham Police Investigation Centre where he awaited questioning.
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Nigeria predicts that Boko Haram will soon be defeated, but the militant group's ties with Islamic State mean that would probably push the fighters further into neighbouring countries, writes BBC Monitoring Africa security correspondent Tomi Oladipo. | The Nigerian military has been in overdrive in trying to control the narrative of its war against Boko Haram in recent weeks.
It says it has cornered the jihadists and the conflict will soon be over - in line with its mandate from President Muhammadu Buhari to end the crisis by mid-November.
Boko Haram's eccentric frontman Abubakar Shekau has not appeared in a video since February, when he threatened to disrupt the elections.
The following month he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group (IS) in an audio message and since IS also reached out to their Nigerian counterpart, Shekau has taken a back seat.
Shekau has released similar audio clips to disprove reports about his death, although the fact that he is not visible leaves room for speculation among the army that they have killed him, as they have claimed on several occasions.
His retreat from the forefront signifies that Boko Haram, also known as IS West Africa Province, now takes orders from the further up the IS hierarchy.
Nonetheless, there was recently room for another message to once again defy the Nigerian government, which sparked the realisation in the military that this game of cat-and-mouse was going nowhere.
Defence spokesman Colonel Rabe Abubakar described Shekau as "irrelevant" and urged Nigerians "not to lose sleep over the concocted audio rhetoric of the waning terrorist sect which is a usual antic of a drowning person struggling to hold on to anything to remain afloat".
Overall, Boko Haram's propaganda campaign has waned since the beginning of the year, when it used social media to promote sleek videos showing speeches and attacks.
The latest video, released to coincide with the Eid al-Adha festival in late September, is poorly produced and appears to show fighters praying but there is no indication of how recent all the footage is.
It has been two years since the US placed a $7m (£4.5m) bounty on Shekau's head but neither he nor his top commanders have been found.
As long as that is not achieved, the group will be able to rethink its strategy, recruit, rearm and develop new methods of operating.
The jihadists have shown that they can continue to inflict significant damage even with few but deadly explosions.
In one recent triple attack, they killed more than 100 people in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, where they were formed in 2002.
Boko Haram at a glance
Using football to tackle Boko Haram
Who are Boko Haram?
The global concern for the missing Chibok schoolgirls still gives Boko Haram a bargaining chip.
The news of their abduction grabbed the world's attention in a way the deaths of thousands before were unable to.
The resulting scrutiny, as well as criticism from human rights organisations, means that the Nigerian military has taken a more cautious approach to the conflict than it did in the early days, when there were frequent allegations that the military was involved in widespread human rights abuses.
The new chain of command means that it is now more difficult than ever before for the insurgent group to agree to dialogue with the government
As the conflict escalated, Nigeria needed cooperation from its neighbours to secure the borders but this would inevitably come at a cost for Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
Each of these allies has now been attacked, as the IS militants look to extend their reach in West Africa.
Nigeria remains a priority for the Islamist fighters but what was initially a local conflict is changing.
If indeed Boko Haram is defeated in Nigeria, the fact that the group is now part of a wider international network means the campaign of violence could escalate in the neighbouring countries, particularly Chad and Niger, which have broader expanses of land, far more porous borders and are closer to Libya, where IS began its expansion in Africa.
For now, the coalition of the African Union-backed Multinational Joint Task Force should be reminded that a wane in the intensity of Boko Haram attacks says little about the strength of the group as a whole.
While aiming to end the conflict, President Buhari should learn from the mistakes of his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, who gave a series of failed deadlines to defeat the militants.
Mr Buhari's government, like many Nigerians, will be hoping for a speedy resolution but by now they know better than to be naive.
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India is in full election mode: voting began on 11 April, and the final ballot will be cast on 19 May with results out on 23 May. Every day, the BBC will be bringing you all the latest updates on the twists and turns of the world's largest democracy. | On Friday... India's defence minister disputed former officers over 'warship holiday' claim
What happened?
India's defence minister has criticised ex-officers who had dismissed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's claim that former PM Rajiv Gandhi and his family used India Navy's INS Viraat aircraft carrier for a "holiday".
Nirmala Sitharaman told reporters that there was extensive media coverage between December 1987 and May 1988 that reported about the alleged "private party".
"They [the ex-officers] probably chose not to know about it," she said, adding that these former officers were under the "domain" of Mr Gandhi at the time.
Vinod Pasricha, who commanded the INS Viraat when Mr Gandhi was the prime minister in 1987, had said Mr Modi's claim was "completely false".
Other retired and high-ranking officers have also refuted Mr Modi's claims. Admiral L Ramdas, a former chief of the Indian Navy, said that "no ships were specially diverted for the personal use of the Gandhi family".
The officer told Indian media that Mr Gandhi, the father of current Congress party president Rahul Gandhi, was in the Lakshwadeep island on "official work" at the time.
Mr Modi made the comments during a campaign rally in Delhi on Wednesday. He repeated the accusation on Twitter, attaching a magazine article from 1988 as proof.
The Congress party has also rejected Mr Modi's claim.
Why does this matter?
Mr Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been consistently attacking Rajiv Gandhi and his policies. Mr Modi earlier said that the former PM was the "number one corrupt" man in the country when he died.
But the officers' statements have cast doubts over Mr Modi's recent claim.
His slurs against Rajiv Gandhi - twice within the span of a week - have already elicited widespread criticism from opposition leaders and analysts.
Ms Sitharaman's strong defence of the PM shows that the BJP is not going back down on its accusations.
It's also clear that as the campaign comes to an end - only two more phases of polling remain - things are getting personal between the Gandhi family and Mr Modi.
On Thursday, PM Modi targeted Rajiv Gandhi...again
What happened?
Prime Minister Narendra Modi once again accused former PM Rajiv Gandhi of wrongdoing - this time, he said Mr Gandhi and his family had used INS Viraat, a naval aircraft carrier, to take them to an island for a "family holiday".
He alleged that the warship was diverted from its position protecting India's maritime border to transport the family and stayed at the island at their disposal for 10 days in the 1980s. He also accused Mr Gandhi of using naval officers for personal security during that time.
Mr Modi made the comments on Wednesday during a campaign rally in Delhi. He also tweeted the accusation, attaching a magazine article from 1988 as proof.
The Gandhi family has not responded to the allegation as yet.
Why does this matter?
This is the second time this week Mr Modi has accused Rajiv Gandhi, the father of current Congress party president Rahul Gandhi. Earlier this week, he had said Rajiv Gandhi was the "number one corrupt" man in the country when he died.
Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a suicide bomber in 1991 during a campaign rally.
Mr Modi's comments drew widespread criticism from various opposition leaders and commentators but he had refused to back down.
Rahul Gandhi's only response had been a tweet in which he warned Mr Modi that his "karma" awaited him, before signing off with a hug.
His sister Priyanka Gandhi has been more combative though. In a tweet in Hindi she said, "The prime minister who seeks votes in the name of martyrs has insulted the martyrdom of a good and righteous man in a flurry of uncontrolled slurs. The people of Amethi [Rahul Gandhi's constituency] will give him a reply, for whom Rajiv Gandhi gave his life. Mr Modi - the country never forgives those who cheat."
However, the Gandhi family has not responded to Mr Modi's latest allegation.
On Wednesday, Rahul Gandhi apologised to the top court
What happened?
India's main opposition Congress party president Rahul Gandhi "unconditionally apologised" to the country's Supreme Court for wrongly attributing a campaign jibe on PM Narendra Modi to its judges.
In an affidavit to the court, Mr Gandhi said he had "unintentionally and inadvertently" used the court's name to show that Mr Modi was corrupt.
The comment in question was made on 10 April when Mr Gandhi said that the court's decision to re-examine an earlier verdict clearing the government of corruption charges in the Rafale jets deal proved that the "chowkidar" or watchman - a term Mr Modi has adopted in his campaign - was indeed a "thief."
Why does this matter?
Mr Gandhi's apology came in the middle of an intense electoral battle between Mr Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Mr Gandhi's Congress.
His comment saw the BJP almost immediately file a case in the top court, which saw him being ordered to explain his statement and also issue an apology.
He replied to the notice, saying he "regretted" attributing his statement to the court.
But the BJP's lawyer told the court on 30 April that Mr Gandhi's reply "fell short" of an apology. The court then gave Mr Gandhi time until 10 May to issue a formal apology.
The Congress party said that Mr Gandhi had apologised to the court and not to Mr Modi.
Mr Gandhi has often alleged that corruption happened in the jet deal and Mr Modi favoured some businessmen.
Read more about the jet deal here.
...the Grand Alliance held a massive rally
Tens of thousands of people showed up for the Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance) rally in Azamgarh, a constituency in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
"There is constant cheering and clapping as supporters flash victory signs," says our correspondent Geeta Pandey, who is at the rally.
The opposition alliance, which has seen two of the state's most powerful regional parties set aside their political feuding and band together against Mr Modi, is confident that they will emerge victorious, she adds.
Here are a few scenes from the rally:
And Narendra Modi defended his slur on Rajiv Gandhi
What happened?
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi refused to back down from a statement where he attacked former PM Rajiv Gandhi, saying that when he died, he was the "number one corrupt" man in the country. "Your father [Rajiv Gandhi] may have been declared Mr. Clean by his courtiers. But he died as "Bhrashtachari No.1," Mr Modi said at a rally in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
Rajiv Gandhi, the father of current Congress party president Rahul Gandhi, was assassinated by a suicide bomber in 1991 during a campaign rally.
Mr Modi's comments were roundly criticised by not only the Congress party but also leaders belonging to other opposition parties. However in an interview, Mr Modi defended his comment, saying he was stating a "fact".
Why does this matter?
The Indian prime minister's broadside on Rajiv Gandhi has taken many by surprise.
It has elicited condemnation not just from the Congress party, but other regional opposition leaders, political commentators and even former political opponents of Rajiv Gandhi.
Writing an opinion for the Indian Express newspaper, Rajmohan Gandhi, who fought an election against Rajiv Gandhi in 1989, said "If there were some in India in 1991 who thought of Rajiv as India's most corrupt person, I did not meet them. No MP, whether in government or opposition, seemed to think of Rajiv as personally corrupt. All were shaken by the brutal assassination of a fine human being and grieved over it."
More than 200 professors from India's elite Delhi University have signed a letter condemning Mr Modi's remarks.
Some analysts have said that the prime minister's comments were a sign of "desperation" and showed that he "knew" his party was not going to perform as well as expected in the ongoing election. Others say that he is merely ensuring that he polarises the electorate against a resurgent Congress to ensure that his victory is not a marginal one.
Whatever the reason, Mr Modi has dug his heels in. He has not only refused to back down but he has also "challenged" the Congress party to make the final two phases of the poll about Rajiv Gandhi and his corruption.
Rahul Gandhi's only response was this tweet which has been praised by many commentators:
His sister Priyanka has been more combative though. In a tweet in Hindi she said, "The prime minister who seeks votes in the name of martyrs has insulted the martyrdom of a good and righteous man in a flurry of uncontrolled slurs. The people of Amethi will give him a reply, for whom Rajiv Gandhi gave his life. Mr Modi - the country never forgives those who cheat."
On Tuesday... Kashmir voters 'rejected' polling and a cyclone caused a political storm
What happened in Kashmir?
The Anantnag constituency in Indian-administered Kashmir, which saw a militant attack in February that killed more than 40 Indian troops, has recorded a dismally low voter turnout at 8.7% in the fifth phase of India's marathon election.
In 2014, 29% of the registered voters had showed up to cast their ballot in Anantnag, which includes Pulwama town where the attack took place.
The fifth phase concluded elections for all six seats in Indian-administered Kashmir, which witnessed an overall turnout of 44%.
Why is this important?
The voter turnout reflects the battle of narratives in the constituency. Several separatist leaders had called for a boycott of the polls, while political parties and the Election Commission had appealed to people to vote in large numbers.
Anantnag is the only constituency in the country where polling was held in three phases due to security concerns.
"This year was different," Kashmir-based journalist Riyaz Malik told BBC Hindi.
"The Pulwama attack and the tensions with Pakistan dominated the elections. Kashmir has only six seats so it is not as electorally important as other bigger states, but despite this, the region was at the centre of the election rhetoric."
The suicide attack in Pulwama in February, claimed by a Pakistan-based militant group, brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have consistently raised the Pulwama attack during the campaign.
The BJP has often said that Mr Modi's government took a decisive action to "avenge" the attack by sending Indian jets inside Pakistani territory.
Analysts say that Mr Modi and his party could witness a "boost" in votes after making national security one of their main electoral planks.
But Mr Malik believes that this "muscular narrative" may have actually "instilled fear among the locals" in Kashmir.
He added that boycott calls from separatists were common, but locals would still show up and wait in line to vote.
"There is a strong sense of dissatisfaction, which has probably contributed to a low voter turnout this year."
Cyclone Fani was back in the eye of the storm
What is happening?
Cyclone Fani, which struck India's eastern coast last week, has become a subject of political bickering between India's PM and a regional leader who has ambitions of becoming the next prime minister.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi after he accused her of "playing politics" over the cyclone.
Mr Modi had accused her of not being serious about assessing the damage caused by the cyclone.
The cyclone killed at least 16 people and destroyed thousands of homes in eastern India last week.
Why does this matter?
The verbal duel between the two leaders reflects the tough electoral battle their parties are fighting in West Bengal.
Ms Banerjee's Trinamool Congress won 34 out of 42 seats in the state in 2014, while Mr Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won two seats. The BJP's may have won just seats but its vote share went up in a state where it hardly had any presence.
In 2019, Mr Modi has reportedly set a target of winning 23 seats, and that seems to have sparked a series of verbal confrontations between the two leaders.
The most recent one started when Mr Modi accused her of not taking his calls to set up a meeting to review the damage caused by the cyclone.
"I tried to talk to her [Ms Banerjee] but her arrogance is so much that she refused to talk to me. I kept waiting with hope that she will call back but she did not," Mr Modi said at a rally.
In reply, Ms Banerjee said she did not consider Mr Modi "the country's PM".
"I do not want to be seen with him on the same platform. I will speak to the next prime minister. We can take care of the cyclone damage by ourselves. We do not need the centre's [federal government] help ahead of polls," she said.
But this wasn't the first time the two leaders have aired their "differences" in a very public manner.
Ms Banerjee protested in the streets of the state capital, Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), in February against what she called the federal government's "intimidation and threats".
You can read more about her standoff with Mr Modi's government here.
On Monday, there were few voters at Kashmir suicide attack town
What is happening?
A constituency in Indian-administered Kashmir which saw a militant attack in February that killed more than 40 Indian troops was among the 51 seats where people are casting their votes on Monday in the fifth phase of polling in India's mammoth general election.
Pulwama district, which is part of the Anantnag constituency, was one of the areas going to the polls, but there were very few people turned up to cast their vote.
The suicide attack in Pulwama in February, claimed by a Pakistan-based militant group, brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war.
Voting is was held under tight security amid calls for a boycott from separatist leaders.
Why does this matter?
Posters calling the election a "sham exercise" was seen in many places in the districts, reported Kashmir-based journalist Sameer Yasir.
As polling booths opened at 07:00, anxious election staff and security forces were seen waiting for voters, our reporter said.
"The streets looked deserted. At certain booths, few voters showed interest in coming out to cast their votes. In the morning, a polling station in Pulwama's Rahmoo village also came under attack from militants, who lobbed a grenade at it."
Elections in Kashmir traditionally see low voter turnout.
Many people in the territory do not want it to be governed by India, preferring instead either independence or union with Pakistan.
High unemployment and allegations of human rights abuses by security forces fighting insurgents have aggravated the problem.
"We don't believe in Indian democracy and its farcical elections here," said Mumeen Ahamd, 28, a Pulwama resident.
All political parties and the Election Commission have appealed to people to vote in large numbers.
The main contenders in the area are former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, the National Conference's Hasnain Masoodi and the Congress party's Ghulam Ahmad Mir.
Gandhis up for re-election
What is happening?
India's main opposition Congress party president Rahul Gandhi, former Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and home minister Rajnath Singh were some of the big names who faced the ballot on Monday.
Voting is took place in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Indian-administered Kashmir.
Why does this matter?
Because it was a battle of big names and there was a lot of prestige on the line.
Rahul Gandhi took on federal minister Smriti Irani in the Amethi constituency of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
Amethi will be particularly closely watched as it is the Gandhi family's bastion. Mr Gandhi won the seat in 2004, 2009 and 2014, and his mother, Sonia Gandhi, won it in 1999.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said it was confident of defeating Mr Gandhi in his own backyard.
But Congress is expecting another win, with party officials pointing to the fact that Mr Gandhi comfortably defeated Ms Irani in 2014.
India politicians are allowed to contest more than one constituency and Mr Gandhi is also contesting from Wayanad in the southern state of Kerala, where voting has already taken place.
Sonia Gandhi is running in Raebareli - a seat in Uttar Pradesh that she won in 2004, 2006, 2009 and 2014.
India votes 2019
Coverage from previous weeks:
How do you vote in the election?
Here's a video explaining everything that happens inside a polling station - and what happens to your vote after that:
Ask a question
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About 1,000 acres (404 hectares) of new orchards are to be planted in Herefordshire as part of a £2.5m investment in the local cider industry. | Birmingham-based Aston Manor said it had agreed 25-year contracts with 25 growers in the Malvern area.
The company said some 350,000 extra trees would be planted after it doubled cider sales in the past three years.
It said Herefordshire growers had been targeted due to the quality of apple crops.
The firm is already supplied by 300 acres of orchards in Malvern and the new planting is expected to take a few years to complete.
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It was made famous as the King's Road in fantasy drama Game of Thrones - but now the road through the Dark Hedges could be closed to traffic permanently. | The Department of Infrastructure at the Northern Ireland Executive has proposed banning vehicles.
It said the plans were in the early stages of consultation.
Earlier this year, the County Antrim road was temporarily closed after high winds ripped up two trees causing them to collapse.
The department said it intended to publish a "notice of intention" to for the proposal in the autumn.
"Following discussions with Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council and other interested parties, the department has agreed to take forward an order prohibiting vehicles using Bregagh Road," it said.
The iconic tunnel of trees near Armoy has become a major tourist attraction since featuring in the smash-hit television series.
The trees were planted by the Stuart family along the entrance to their Gracehill House mansion.
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Down the decades, the SNP has deployed sundry formulae to stress their promotion of Scottish interests. One thinks, in particular, of the campaign arguing that the black gold in the North Sea was "Scotland's oil". | Brian TaylorPolitical editor, Scotland@tannadiceladon Twitter
Today, at the party's election launch in Edinburgh, Nicola Sturgeon essayed a new version. The SNP, she said, was "Scotland's Remain party".
Now, self-evidently, this is primarily a method of addressing Brexit - the core, defining issue of this entire contest. A way, further, of positing the SNP firmly on the side of retaining membership of the European Union.
But there is a second, equally expected, element. Which is to place Brexit in the context of the SNP's primary aim. Scottish independence.
It can sometimes be difficult for the SNP to get a dog in the race when the contest is for Westminster. By dint of simple arithmetic, they cannot hope to form the UK government. That has, sometimes, left them open to a charge of irrelevance when it is a UK election.
Mostly, they counter this rather successfully by offering to provide a voice for Scottish concerns in the Palace by the Thames. But, this time, they have a precise syllogism which has simultaneously afforded them salience and attracted critical attack from rivals.
The syllogism is this. Brexit is a Bad Thing. Brexit is the creature of a broken Westminster system. It cannot be reformed; Scotland must leave Westminster through the door marked independence. Thus, will an independent Scotland be able to reverse Brexit.
Hence Scotland's Remain party. At the launch today, there was an evident enthusiasm among the SNP ranks, including among candidates who were eagerly swapping stories of individual doorstep encounters in their patch, along with canvass returns.
Now, again evidently, there will be those who will challenge Ms Sturgeon's analysis. However, let us confine ourselves for now to conundrums which arise directly from the deliberate conjunction of the Brexit argument and independence.
Balance of power
It strikes me the SNP has two particular challenges in that regard. Firstly, there will be supporters of independence - and thus potential SNP voters - who also opted to leave the European Union.
Secondly, there will be Remain voters who are tempted by the SNP's stance on the EU - but are inimical in principle to independence.
Party strategists concede these two challenges arise - just as they acknowledge that the party was ahead of the curve in 2017 in seeking to build an independence case on the Brexit vote, at that stage.
Now, though, they are adamant that they can find ways round both conundrums. Not completely, but partially and in a fashion sufficient to bring success beyond the 2017 outcome.
First the independence-minded Leavers. The tactic here is to appeal to their fundamental backing for independence, hoping that exerts a stronger pull than their opposition to the EU.
The other group may be more tricky still. There are some who are so hostile to independence that it will deter them from voting SNP, regardless of the party's EU stance.
But others may be persuaded that the SNP will be firm advocates for Remain - and, crucially, may win or retain more Commons seats than the Liberal Democrats. Others still may be so scunnered by Westminster's handling of Brexit that they are more open than in the past to the option of Scottish independence, or at least to contemplating a further choice through indyref2.
And both groupings - independence-minded Leavers and independence-sceptical Remainers - will get a core argument from the SNP. That of "agency". The argument that an independent Scotland could exert influence within the EU comparable to that pursued by countries like Ireland and Denmark. Creating, perhaps, a different EU.
What then, if this combination of arguments works? What if the SNP gain seats and find themselves in the position of holding the balance of power in a hung Parliament?
Nicola Sturgeon was asked if she would contemplate a deal with Boris Johnson, if promised indyref2. Her answer was: "No." The aim was to eject Mr Johnson from Downing Street.
That position is, of course, in line with the SNP's long-standing antipathy to the Conservative and Unionist Party.
There are practical causes too. The Tories also deliver a flat No, when asked if they would contemplate indyref2. Further, an SNP which coalesced with the Conservatives, whatever the prize, might then find added difficulty in persuading Scots to opt for independence.
Jeremy Corbyn, then? Here, Ms Sturgeon has an alternative difficulty. When asked about the Labour leader, her attitude veers between contumely and dismissal.
She does not rate him. Indeed, with an ironic grin, she noted that, were she asked to choose the leaders of the three main UK parties, none of the present incumbents would pass the test.
But still she does not rule out a deal with Jeremy Corbyn, or Labour, in the event of a hung Parliament. She has a shopping list which seems to grow by the day - from anti-austerity economics through the enhanced devolution of benefits through action on climate change.
But top of that list is a further referendum on independence. Might Mr Corbyn be persuaded to adopt that?
Like Bing Crosby, trilling about the Merry Go Run Around, he won't say no and he won't say yes. It isn't a priority, we are told. No deal, no pact. Labour would govern as a minority and challenge others to cast their votes on individual issues.
But then successive members of Team Corbyn cloud the issue once more by hinting it might arise a bit down the road.
Would Ms Sturgeon be willing to wait? Perhaps - although she insisted at the launch that the timetable should be determined by the Scottish Parliament, not at Westminster.
This potential accommodation, of course, does not operate in a vacuum. Particularly in Scotland, each of the other parties is advancing a case with regard to these twin issues of Brexit and independence.
The Scottish Greens, who had their campaign launch today, back independence and oppose Brexit. But they also want this election to be firmly about climate change and the environment.
Jo Swinson has been campaigning for the Liberal Democrats in Fife North East this afternoon. The Lib Dems claim that the SNP commitment to the EU is only skin deep, that their true interest is independence.
This claim - contested by the SNP - is designed to prise that Nationalist syllogism apart, to detach opposition to Brexit from support for independence.
The Scottish Tories take a different tack, while also responding to the SNP position. They ask voters with pro-Union sympathise to corral around the Tories. In short, they seek a role as the principal Unionist opponent of the SNP and Nationalism.
In particular, the Tories seize on those occasional comments from Team Corbyn to suggest that Labour cannot be trusted to thwart indyref2.
All of which, of course, is deeply frustrating for Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard. In vain does he struggle against two internal contradictions.
Firstly, he wants to advocate remaining in the EU. But Jeremy Corbyn, while committed to a second Brexit referendum, will not commit to Remain. In fact, to the contrary, he talks about negotiating a "sensible" alternative Brexit package which would indicate the direction of his thoughts.
Secondly, Mr Leonard needs to project a clear verdict on independence. His colleague Lesley Laird today denied that the party had conceded anything on the issue.
Snag again, as noted above, is that that does not quite square with those occasional comments from Team Corbyn. Comments which also perhaps suggest that Mr Corbyn feels he may need support from the SNP, while both parties rule out a formal deal.
All of which puts the Scottish Question front and centre in this UK contest. Alongside, of course, Brexit.
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It's been two months since the US declared a national emergency over the coronavirus outbreak. The death toll from Covid-19 now stands at more than 83,000 - and tens of millions of Americans are out of work. | Anthony ZurcherNorth America reporter@awzurcheron Twitter
There has been a robust ongoing debate over whether the US was adequately prepared for a pandemic and if the proper steps were taken as the virus began to appear on American soil.
Ever since mid-March, however, most government officials have acknowledged that the magnitude of the crisis required a response of enormous scope.
The unprecedented lockdowns imposed in much of the country were designed to slow the spread of the virus, prevent the nation's healthcare system from being overwhelmed, buy time for further preparations and protect Americans particularly at-risk of serious health complications.
This is how some of those efforts have succeeded - and failed.
SUCCESSES
A flattened curve - somewhat
First, the good news. The patchwork of shutdowns and social-distancing across almost every US state has succeeded in stopping the exponential spread of the virus. In hard-hit states like New York, Michigan and Louisiana, the pandemic's growth curve has bent downward. What was once a runaway crisis in these hotspots has been controlled.
Next, the concerning news. Outside of those three states, the rest of the US has continued to see an overall rise in the infection rates, albeit not nearly as sharply as before. Taken together, the chart of new cases in the US seems to have reached a plateau, but perhaps not a stable one.
And now some bad news. According to the Washington Post, states that have begun a partial reopening have seen their number of cases increase the most compared to those that have kept them in place. And an unreleased Coronavirus task force report leaked to NBC News indicates that cities in the interior of the US, including Des Moines, Nashville and Amarillo, all recently have seen more than 70% week-over-week increases in cases.
So while the efforts at restricting movement and business have been one of the success stories of the past six weeks, this success could be short-lived if it's not followed by a rigorous testing programme that includes extensive contact-tracing for those found to be infected.
"I think we're going in the right direction, but the right direction does not mean we have by any means total control of this outbreak," Dr Anthony Fauci, head of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a White House Coronavirus Task Force member, said in Senate testimony on Tuesday.
Ventilator surplus
When asked to cite an administration accomplishment in its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany pointed to ventilators - the medical devices used to help patients breathe when they can no longer do so on their own.
"The success story is that this administration mobilised the greatest efforts since WW2, that we provided something like 4,000 ventilators to New York," she said. "Not a single American died in this country for lack of a ventilator."
The US government spent several billion dollars on contracts for new ventilators, and the president used a 70-year-old law, the Defense Production Act, to prod auto manufacturer General Motors to switch to ventilator production and streamline supply-chain issues for other manufacturers.
In the end, the ventilator crunch never materialised - because of increased supply, low-use states sharing their stockpiles, lower demand and a shifting view by healthcare professionals of the machine's benefits given the low survival rate of those who used them.
"I think they were able to share the ventilators from places that didn't need them to places that did need them quite effectively," says Gerard Anderson, a professor of health policy at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health. "There have been no place that I'm aware of that have had a severe ventilator shortage."
In a 25 April tweet, Trump called the US "the king of ventilators" and has since offered to ship surplus machines to countries in Latin America, Europe and Africa, affirming that the ventilator supply is now a source of pride for the administration.
Hospital capacity
On 18 March, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued a dire warning. Within 45 days, New York City would need 110,000 hospital beds to treat those suffering from the coronavirus, and it only had 53,000 available.
Donald Trump subsequently dispatched the hospital ship Comfort to New York to increase the city's capacity, and the state converted the Javitz Center - the site of Hillary Clinton's 2016 election-night party-turned-wake - into a 2,000-bed medical facility.
In the end, New York hit a peak for hospitalisations on 12 April at 18,825 - well below the worst-case scenarios. The numbers have been in decline ever since.
Across the US, the healthcare system has been strained in some states, such as New Jersey, Maryland and Massachusetts, but it has held up to the increased demand.
"In a clinical sense, it was a tremendous success," says Anderson. "They were able to handle all the patients that arrived. They might have had to wait, but all the patients that needed intensive care tended to get intensive care."
The dire warnings of medical triage akin to what took place in northern Italy failed to come to pass - at least for now.
Vaccines and treatments
Multiple vaccines for the coronavirus have already begun clinical trials on humans. According to the World Health Organization, there are more than 100 possible vaccines in various stages of development around the world.
Original predictions were that it could be more than a year and a half before one was proven effective and ready to use. Now the hoped-for date is sometime in the beginning of 2021.
"From a vaccine development, we are doing incredibly well in that we've got a large number of entities trying to develop the vaccine," says Anderson. "The concern is, do we take that first one that is available, or wait for something that is probably better?"
Until a vaccine is developed and widely distributed, the best-case scenario for governments contemplating how to respond to the pandemic will be to limit its spread and protect those most vulnerable. Life in the US - and across the world - will not be able to return fully to some semblance of normalcy until that day is reached. Fortunately, it seems, progress is being made.
Meanwhile, the antiviral drug Remdesivir has been found to shorten the average hospital stays of coronavirus patients from 15 days to 11.
"Although a 31% improvement doesn't seem like a knockout 100%, it is a very important proof of concept," Anthony Fauci, head of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said last week. "What it has proven is that a drug can block this virus." It's the first therapeutic drug to have documented evidence of effectiveness.
MISTAKES
Overhyped treatments
For weeks, Trump - echoed by many prominent conservative commentators - touted the potential medical benefits of the anti-malarial drug chloroquine.
Some healthcare facilities and providers rushed to stock up on supplies, leading to widespread shortages. In one nursing home in Texas, patients were administered the drug without family consent, as county public-health officials raced to try to head off an outbreak in their jurisdiction.
Further studies have since indicated that the drug is ineffective at best, however, and could lead to life-threatening complications for some who used it.
"You have to rely on the science," says Anderson. "Pushing things too quickly into the market sphere in an emergency situation can be very dangerous."
During a press conference in April, the president speculated about the use of disinfectants or ultraviolet radiation to kill the coronavirus inside infected humans. The president was widely criticised - and mocked - for his off-the-cuff remarks, as some states reported an increase in calls to poison-hotline numbers.
While scientists and public health officials have had a prominent role on the White House's coronavirus task force, the president has occasionally veered away from their guidance to offer his own armchair medical opinions. When those views have translated into government action, or led to life-threatening behaviour, they have made the implementation of science-based policy more difficult.
Lack of PPE production/supply
When a nurse visiting the White House last week told the president that supplies of personal protective equipment (PPEs) like gloves, facemasks and gowns have been "sporadic but manageable", the president replied: "Sporadic for you, but not sporadic for a lot of other people".
For months, however, there have been widespread reports of healthcare workers having to make do without the proper protective clothing or forced to reuse existing supplies. Many Americans outside the medical profession have resorted to fashioning make-shift masks from scarves and coffee filters, as protective items are even harder for them to find.
The shortage in protective gear has been caused, in part, by virus-related disruptions in the supply chain from manufacturers in China, says Anderson. Administration efforts to ramp-up domestic production have had mixed results. A US national stockpile, not designed for such a widespread pandemic, was quickly depleted.
Trump initially told states it was primarily their responsibility to acquire the needed supplies, quipping that the federal government was "not a shipping clerk". That left many states bidding against each other on the open market for protective gear and, on occasion, facing federal government seizure of shipments they had ordered for themselves.
"Project Airbridge", a recently ended administration programme to subsidise air shipment of protective supplies from overseas manufacturers, had little transparency. The government boasted that more than a million items were shipped, but a Washington Post investigation found little evidence of where the supplies ended up.
While domestic production of protective gear has increased in recent weeks, there are still concerns that the distribution network is uneven and needed supplies aren't reaching front-line healthcare workers quickly enough.
Testing shortcomings
On Monday afternoon, Trump stood in the Rose Garden in front of banners declaring "America leads the world on testing" and told the gathered reporters that "we have met the moment, and we have prevailed".
He touted the $11bn the federal government would be giving to states to ramp up their testing programmes, and the 9 million coronavirus tests that have been given in the US so far, including a current rate of more than 300,000 a day.
Although he boasted that the US now surpassed South Korea, long held up as an exemplar of coronavirus response, in per-capita testing, the cold reality is that the Koreans ramped up their testing in February and March. The US may have caught up, but by now the virus has claimed more than 80,000 victims and spread across the nation.
"We treaded water during February and March," Republican Senator Mitt Romney said during a Senate coronavirus hearing on Tuesday. "I find our testing record nothing to celebrate whatsoever."
The administration's case has been complicated by a pattern of overpromising on testing - only to come up short. On 10 March, Vice-President Mike Pence promised that the US would hit 4 million coronavirus tests a week. That number wasn't achieved until the end of April. (Pence says he was talking about tests distributed, not processed).
In mid-March, Trump touted a public-private partnership to offer drive-through testing at shopping centres across the nation. A month later, only a handful had opened.
Even now, the US has only tested 2.74% of its population, which puts it well behind many industrialised nations. And even the current, higher rate of test is not near the mark of 900,000 a day that a Harvard University estimate indicates is necessary to reliably identify potential virus hotspots across the country before they become major outbreaks.
Inefficiency in economic aid
Since the coronavirus outbreak hit America, the US Congress has appropriated more than $3tn to address the crisis. A large portion of that spending has been to soften the pandemic's blow to the economy, in the form of lost jobs and productivity from nationwide lockdowns and closures.
These measures include hundreds of billions of dollars in low-interest loans to businesses that can be forgiven if they don't lay off workers, direct cash payment to Americans and additional support for the unemployed.
It turns out that authorising the expenditures - done by large majorities in Congress - was the easy part. Getting the cash to the right places, on the other hand, has proven more difficult.
The rollout of the small-business programme was riddled with delays and confusion from both the private banks authorised to make the loans and applicant businesses. There also were questions about why massive corporations, restaurant chains, wealthy universities and politically-connected businesses received funds - that is, before the money ran out and had to be replenished by another congressional appropriation.
"A big problem with the relief response in the US is that it relies on many private sector intermediaries to deliver support to individuals, including in particular large corporations including large public corporations with access to financial markets," says Anat Admati, an economics professor at Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
"Meanwhile, the small business loans programs have created distortions in terms of who gets access to loans and under what terms, with insufficient accountability."
The loan programme has operated smoothly compared to the state-run unemployment system, on the other hand. Some states have fallen behind in providing what should be weekly payouts to laid-off workers. In Florida, the online registration system became so overwhelmed, the state began only accepting paper forms - and the line of applicants in some places stretched for blocks.
Francis Creighton, president of the Consumer Data Industry Association, cautions that given the massive amounts of money being spent to prop up the US economy, some difficulties were to be expected.
"The point is to get the money out the door," he says. "I think that everything they've done has been really, really good. The underlying question is if anything is going to be enough given the unbelievable situation we find ourselves in."
Democrats and Republicans in Congress have talked about a third round of economic stimulus, although both sides remain far apart on where to go from here.
The coronavirus crisis has dragged on for months now, but the government responses - both good and bad - have a long way to go.
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The US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Robert O Blake, is to arrive in Sri Lanka on Wednesday for talks with
the Sri Lankan leaders. | “Assistant Secretary Blake will have consultations with the Sri Lankan government, political parties, business leaders and
civil society,” a statement by the US embassy in Colombo said.
Mr. Blake is to visit Maldives on Thursday. He is expected to discuss the political uncertainty in the atoll nation, in his
first visit to the Maldives as Assistant Secretary.
Apart from the political leaders, Mr. Blake will meet civil society representatives, anti-trafficking activists, and religious
leaders in Male, the statement added.
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Has Britain cut defence spending too much in recent years? Are our armed forces stretched too far or should we accept we are no longer a military world power? I decided to find out for The Editors, a programme that sets out to ask challenging questions. | By Caroline WyattDefence correspondent, BBC News
On Monday, the Pentagon revealed plans to scale back the US Army to its lowest level since before World War Two, as the US and Nato forces - including Britain's - edge towards the end of the war in Afghanistan.
The US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel recommended shrinking US forces from 520,000 to between 440,000 and 450,000, a proposed cut of some 13% by around 2017. Congress must still approve the move.
British forces are undergoing a similar process, with a 20% reduction in regular army numbers from 102,000 to 82,000, between 2010 and 2018, announced following the UK's defence review in 2010, along with a proposed rise in the number of reservists.
The Royal Navy and the RAF were also cut, though by a smaller proportion.
Skilled work
Critics of the 2010 defence review have long argued that the cuts to defence spending left significant gaps, and made the UK a less reliable ally for international partners such as the US.
Above all, they wondered whether the cuts meant the UK had given up on its global ambitions, and its desire to project power beyond these shores.
At a dockyard in Rosyth, in Fife, it would seem those ambitions are far from being abandoned when it comes to the aircraft carriers of the future.
A ship bigger than any the UK has built before is taking shape in the dry dock there, offering skilled work to thousands.
So big is the nation's newest aircraft carrier that one of the future ship's company, Lt Cdr Harvie Montgomery, is working on a GPS system to help its crew navigate the many floors. The ship feels like a small noisy city already, as workers weld and drill.
HMS Queen Elizabeth is due to be handed over in 2017, and the aim is for the Royal Navy to be flying F-35 Lightning II jets from her not long afterwards - if all goes to plan, though both complex projects have suffered delays.
The second carrier, HMS Prince of Wales, should be finished after that, with both ships in the hands of the Royal Navy by the end of 2019.
Yet it is still not clear whether the UK will be able to afford to run both carriers, which might seem odd for a nation that still - just - boasts the world's fourth largest defence budget.
Defence Secretary Philip Hammond says he is keen for the UK to use both carriers, rather than mothball one, but that is a decision for the next defence review.
"My personal view is that having invested well over £6bn in two aircraft carriers, we ought to do everything we can to ensure both are available to the Royal Navy so that we can have a carrier continuously available," he says.
Unequivocal 'yes'
And what of the aircraft to go on board?
"We haven't made final decisions on numbers but we're clear we will need 48 to sustain the carrier force. That's the number we expect to buy," he says.
After years of headlines following the 2010 defence review, which cut 8% from the defence budget and resulted in the sell-off of the Harrier jet force, two of the nation's three aircraft carriers for scrap, as well as thousands of military redundancies, have we cut too deep?
Former Welsh Guardsman Simon Weston, who suffered terrible injuries in the bombing of the ship Sir Galahad during the Falklands War in 1982, gives an unequivocal "yes".
He still feels a strong connection to the armed forces, and believes passionately that the cuts to the Army have gone too far, from 102,000 to 82,000 regular soldiers by 2018, with a planned boost to the number of trained reservists to 30,000.
"We now have far too few people to do the role. We're relying too heavily on the TA or reservists, as they've tried to rebrand them. And it's not working," he believes.
"The biggest problem is that the cuts and redundancies are being made, but you need to have well-trained regular soldiers to send to any conflict straightaway. If you bring regular numbers down to 80,000, then that really means a fighting force of 20,000 with 60,000 soldiers to support them and carry out logistics," he points out.
"The knife is being pushed too deeply in defence. The Territorial Army have been magnificent, but it takes a heck of a long time to prepare people for war with the skills and the talents needed to be able to serve on the front line. For that, you need regulars. It concerns me greatly," he says.
His concerns are echoed by many still serving within the armed forces but what do defence experts think?
'One-shot force'
Prof Mike Clarke, director general of the Royal United Services Institute, says: "We have full spectrum forces, which mirror American forces but at one-tenth the size, for which we pay about one-tenth the cost.
"But our numbers are now very small, and the question is: can we keep alive a small version of America?"
That debate has already begun ahead of the next defence review, due after the general election in 2015.
Prof Clarke says: "The real problem is that we have a one-shot force. That is, we can send our forces to war, they can go to a conventional war but they can't stay. Is that sufficient? And if we prepare them for a one shot war, as we did in 2003 or the Gulf in 2001, are they then in the right structure to do all the things we want them to do?"
He adds: "We've cut too far for our present level of ambition. We are still a very big military power. We spend the fourth biggest budget in the world, but we don't get the fourth biggest forces for it. So we either have to scale back our ambitions, or we've got to say: it is important to do those things, and - come 2015 - we will spend more on defence, something in the order of £2bn to £3bn more than we were planning to. That is the choice that defence planners face."
'Real argument'
Over the next few years, the Royal Navy will be the beneficiary of much of the current equipment spending in defence, with the carriers, Type 26 frigates, and potentially the submarines to carry the successor to the UK's Trident nuclear deterrent system - another key decision being left for the next government.
"We are on the cusp of a real argument that goes back to something we used to talk about in the 1930s, as to whether we should be predominantly a land power or a maritime power. It's going to be very difficult to say, 'We have elements of everything, we can do it all.' I don't think we can," Prof Clarke believes.
"Informed opinion within the defence business is beginning to line up around whether we need a more overt maritime strategy built around the carriers, or whether we need a ground force strategy with a modernised army with new equipment."
The recent cuts, and last year's vote in Parliament not to engage British forces in Syria also had an impact on opinion abroad.
"That's led people in some other countries to ask - is the UK a serious military player any more? A series of relatively small issues led to the perception that we are not the power or the reliable ally for the US we once were ten years ago," says Prof Clarke, who adds: "I think it's a misperception, but it is there."
'Pedal hard'
When we interviewed Mr Hammond he had just returned from talking to his inundated constituents in Surrey about flood defences.
He has ensured the armed forces took a role in helping the civil authorities, as they did at the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Does he think the defence budget has been cut too far?
"I hope the signal that we're sending is that the UK is committed to living within its means. You can only build a strong and sustainable defence on a strong and sustainable economy," he replies.
"There is a balance between equipment on the one hand and manpower on the other, and there is a challenge there for the medium term about the balance between equipment spending versus manpower spending," he adds.
Mr Hammond says: "I'd like the defence budget to be bigger. I'd like to have a bigger military, who wouldn't? But where we are at the moment is a position we can sustain.
"It requires hard work and careful management, but it is sustainable. We can deliver the outputs that we're mandated to deliver in Future Force 2020. The budget will allow us to do that. It is not allowing us to put our feet up while we do it. We're having to pedal very hard to make the savings, deliver the efficiencies that make it possible to have that capability within the budget envelope."
And he finished with a warning to the Treasury over any future cuts: "I'm not sure that we'll be able to deliver those outputs if we got much smaller. But at the current level of resource, it is something we can do."
Viewers in England can watch it on BBC One at 23:20 GMT on Monday 24 February or catch it later on the BBC iPlayer.
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A sheep that got two of its legs "well and truly stuck" in a bridge's grid was rescued using sunflower oil. | The ewe was spotted by a dog walker off Pontycapel Road in Merthyr Tydfil.
RSPCA inspector Gemma Cooper said she asked the dog walker to fetch some sunflower oil from home when she was unable to free the animal.
The sheep only had superficial wounds to its legs and was "walking well" after its release on Boxing Day, she said.
"After coating her legs with the oil I was able to free her safely within a matter of five minutes," Ms Cooper said, adding: "It was a very satisfying moment."
The sheep was later reunited with its owner.
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The InShops centre in Belfast's High Street is set to close, it is understood. | The centre manager said they were told on Thursday and that the news had not been expected.
There are 25 shops in the centre, employing 60 people. They have been given until 26 June to leave.
The shopping centre is owned by the French company Group Geraud.
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Tech entrepreneur TJ Rodgers made billions of dollars founding silicon chip maker Cypress Semiconductors, now he has turned his sights to wine-making, and is on a quest to make the best Pinot Noir in the New World. | By Neil KoenigSeries Producer, The Life of Luxury
A collapse in the roof of a gigantic tunnel being driven into a hillside sounds like a pretty dramatic event.
But the entrepreneur TJ Rodgers is calm as he recalls what happened.
"It's not like you see in the movies with rocks flying, and stuff like that.
"It will kill you but it's kind of a slow motion thing, and you can walk [away] and stay in front of it," he explains.
He is speaking inside one of three giant caves that house his winery high in the Santa Cruz mountains in California.
The construction of the facility was a monumental task, taking years and requiring advice from experts in digging tunnels under the Austrian Alps.
Occasional cave-ins were just one of many challenges.
The location was so remote that it was impossible for concrete to be driven in without it setting first. Instead, they had to drive in a concrete-making plant which they assembled on site.
And the reason for all this intense effort? "Our mission statement is to make the best Pinot Noir [wine] in the New World," says Mr Rodgers.
He is certainly not someone to do anything by halves. He founded the huge silicon chip maker Cypress Semiconductors in 1982, and subsequently built it into an enterprise worth billions of dollars.
The silicon chips that Cypress makes are found in millions of mobile phones and many other devices. Chips are also found on the bottles produced at the winery, which is called Clos de la Tech.
TJ Rodgers, who recently stood down from Cypress, first became interested in wine in his youth. Pinot Noir proved to be his favourite, in particular that made in Burgundy.
He wanted to know more, so he travelled to France, visiting vineyard after vineyard in Burgundy.
Despite the bemused responses from some vineyard owners, Mr Rodgers says he learnt a lot from his time in France.
Back in California, his interest blossomed into a passion. He set about trying to make wine himself, and he enlisted the help of his wife, Valeta Massey, who now spends much of her time on wine-making.
Mr Rodgers first experimented with a vineyard at his home. Later, after the purchase of the site in the Santa Cruz mountains, the venture became more ambitious.
The plan was to aim for the highest possible quality. The best way to do that, Mr Rodgers decided, was to copy the wine-making process used in Burgundy in the 1830s.
This meant using techniques such as foot-crushing the grapes, and being as gentle as possible with the wine at every stage.
Pumps are avoided. Instead, the facility is a "gravity winery", explains Mr Rodgers. The three enormous caves are arranged one above the other, so after fermentation in the topmost cave the wine flows through pipes downhill into barrels in the second cave for the next stages of the process.
Despite the emphasis on traditional methods, technology also plays a role. For example, many real-time measurements are taken during fermentation, and special devices are used to measure moisture levels in the field, helping to ensure the crops get exactly the right amount of water.
But Mr Rodgers is quick to add that modern techniques are only used where appropriate: "the technology is not to supplant the old process, the old guys were pretty smart."
TJ Rodgers is far from the only wealthy individual to try his hand at pushing the boundaries of wine-making in California. But are ventures like his little more than the wine-making equivalent of vanity publishing?
Not necessarily, says Aaron Pott, a wine-maker and consultant who has worked at the top end of the industry in France and California. With the right vineyard, and skilled staff, he says, it is perfectly possible to make excellent wine.
Mr Pott adds it would also be a mistake to assume that only ancient vines can produce good output. "Great wine can be made from young vineyards," he says.
But while it may be feasible to make high quality wine, making money in the process is more difficult, according to both Mr Rodgers and Mr Pott.
For one thing, there is the high cost of setting up facilities like those built by Mr Rodgers and other wealthy people in California. Quite apart from the cost of the land and buildings, the equipment can be expensive.
Take, for instance, the French oak barrels used at Clos de la Tech - these cost $1,000 (£774; 876 euros) each.
Then there is the question of yield. The downside of aiming for high quality, says Mr Rodgers, is that output will be small.
"Our yield up here is one tonne per acre. If you go to a commercial farm in Napa you see five tonnes per acre, and if you go to Modesto you see 12 tonnes per acre. Ok so right there, the war's over with regard to economics. Your wine's going to be expensive," he explains.
Nevertheless, although economics may present a challenge, benefits can flow from what Mr Rodgers and others like him are doing, says Mr Pott.
Whilst in some ways it may make it harder for smaller concerns like his own to compete, Mr Pott believes that the emergence of wealthy wine-makers in California has helped "to raise the bar" of quality - and that ultimately is a good thing for the industry.
TJ Rodgers and Valeta Massey say they have enjoyed their venture immensely, and that they have learnt a lot about wine in the process.
Perhaps the biggest lesson for them has been the prime importance of the starting point - the grape.
"The French have a phrase - 'the wine is made in the field'.
"The wine has a certain potential defined by the grapes in the field and… the best you can do is take 100 per cent grapes and make 100 per cent wine. And all wine making is downhill from there," he says.
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What does Norwich have in common with Edinburgh, Bristol, The City of London, Paris and Barcelona? The answer is that by next spring they will all have a blanket speed limit of 20mph (32kph) in their city centres. | Deborah McGurranPolitical editor, East of England
Norwich is the first place in the region to slow down the traffic on every road in the centre and there was a sense of history being made as the vote was taken by the city council's highways committee.
"This is quite emotional for me," admitted committee chairman, Steve Morphew. "I remember 15 years ago using the phrase '20's plenty' during a campaign in Norwich. These things take time but its moment has finally arrived."
The decision to impose the limit on every road within the inner ring road, widen footpaths and install speed bumps across the city centre had cross party support.
Conservative county councillor Nigel Shaw said: "I have been pushing for 20 mile an hour limits on these roads since 2002. It is going to make the area much safer for pedestrians and cyclists."
Local Green Party councillor Simeon Jackson said: "This will be appreciated by residents who don't want to block access to the city centre but want a better quality of life."
At the same time a series of new cycle paths are being put into the city centre.
According to Rod King of the campaign group '20's Plenty', 20% of the country now has 20mph speed limits and he says a number of other towns and cities are considering blanket speed limits in their centres.
"Our culture is changing," he said. "I think there's a growing acceptance that 20mph is the right limit on residential streets. 70% of drivers support it and it makes such a difference to the general ambience of a town centre."
Although Cambridge and Ipswich have significant 20mph zones not all of their centres are covered by the limit, Norwich is to have the first blanket ban.
In a consultation carried out by Norwich City Council, 67% of those who responded welcomed the proposals.
"I hope it gets even more people out of their cars and cycling responsibly," said one respondent.
"As a driver I find it confusing to have a mix of 20mph and 30mph zones. It would be much easier to have the whole centre at 20mph," said another.
But those who objected worried that the move, which is costing £400,000, will deter people from entering the city and they questioned if the new limit would be properly enforced.
"I cannot see the need for a 20mph limit," complained one resident. "You are spending money for the sake of it."
Another added: "What is this fixation with cyclists - there are other users in the city?"
The vice chairman of the highways committee, Bert Bremner, accepted not everyone would be happy but he said there would be benefits for drivers.
"As a motorist, I have no problem with this," he said. "I can cruise along at 18mph and see my miles per gallon dial go up. This is fantastic news."
Rod King from '20's plenty' is currently overseeing 270 campaigns in towns and cities across the country to reduce speed limits.
"Attitudes are changing," he said. "It's excellent what's happening in Norwich and I think it won't be long before other places in the east follow suit."
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A man has died after being found with serious injuries at a house in Birmingham. | Police said they were called to an injured man at a house in Hunters Road, Lozells in the early hours of Sunday. He died later in hospital.
Two men, both aged 43, have been arrested, one on suspicion of assault and the other on suspicion of wounding.
Police have launched a murder probe and are appealing for witnesses.
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"Let him go!", "Russia will be free!", "Lyosha, we are with you!" chanted hundreds of Alexei Navalny's supporters, who turned up outside a Moscow police station on Monday, despite the -20C cold. | By Anastasia Golubeva & Sergei GoryashkoBBC Russian
They were mostly students, young professionals and NGO activists. "Lyosha" is the familiar short form of Alexei.
The Khimki police station, on the northwestern edge of Moscow, was hastily converted into a courtroom to receive Russia's best-known opposition activist. A judge ordered that he stay in custody for at least 30 days.
Mr Navalny - survivor of a near-fatal nerve agent attack last August - was detained soon after his plane landed in Moscow on Sunday. Despite the risk, he insisted on returning to Moscow from Berlin, to continue his anti-corruption campaign against President Vladimir Putin.
There were chaotic scenes when his plane was diverted from Vnukovo - the airport where his supporters had gathered - to Sheremetyevo, which is near Khimki.
His supporters believe his detention shows how worried the authorities are about his potential to change the balance of power in Russia.
His anti-corruption network targets a mainly young audience on social media, with videos on YouTube and Instagram watched by tens of millions, rivalling Russian state TV.
The protesters in Khimki included local councillor Antonina Stetsenko, holding a poster demanding freedom for Mr Navalny, in a solo picket outside the gates.
Solo pickets have become a common form of protest, as the penalties for staging mass protests have got tougher in Russia. Other protesters showing solidarity with Mr Navalny in Khimki on Monday were more dispersed, so better able to flee the police if necessary.
Mr Navalny is accused of violating the terms of a suspended sentence he received for embezzlement - a case he rejects as fabricated in order to silence him.
The protesters included Tatiana Usmanova from the NGO Open Russia, a pro-democracy group set up by ex-oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who famously fell out with President Putin more than a decade ago.
She described how local people came out to ask about Mr Navalny and brought hot tea and sandwiches for those outside in the freezing cold.
"Khimki is our new Minsk!" she wrote on Facebook, referring to the months of mass protests in the capital of Belarus. Those protests have not removed President Alexander Lukashenko, a Putin ally, but have brought international condemnation down on him.
"It is -20C outside, so it's hard to stay out for more than 20 minutes at a time. Local people are letting us warm up inside their blocks of flats!" Usmanova wrote.
Poisoning 'the last straw'
On Sunday a prominent film director - Vitaly Mansky, whose Putin's Witnesses was shown at the London Film Festival in 2018 - turned up at Vnukovo to greet Mr Navalny on his return.
He said the heavy police presence at the airport showed the authorities' concern about Mr Navalny's popularity.
"They can detain him or arrest him, or take him away, but this movement cannot be slowed down or broken. I am here to witness historic moments. The fact that the authorities are so terrified of him is great, I am glad. Their fear is bringing their end closer," he told BBC Russian.
Many who support Mr Navalny complain of a lack of respect for the rule of law. His poisoning and the Bellingcat investigation, which pinned the blame on FSB state security agents, proved a turning point for many.
"I'm not all that political, but this was the last straw." BBC journalists heard that comment from many people, who said that seeing proof that a Russian citizen could be attacked on Russian soil had forced them to change their opinion.
President Putin has dismissed Mr Navalny as an "unimportant blogger" and the Kremlin denies involvement, and rejects the Western conclusion that Novichok - an extremely toxic Russian nerve agent - was used in the attack last August.
Pop songs
A large crowd of Navalny supporters gathered at Vnukovo to greet him on Sunday, before his plane was diverted.
The authorities were taking no chances: about 10 large police vans parked close to the terminal and the international arrivals zone was cordoned off from the rest of the airport.
Many people who came to meet friends and relatives were left outside, waiting in the freezing cold. One man had come to meet his girlfriend arriving from Turkey. "This is fascism!" he shouted.
Inside, a different crowd appeared - young people who said they were fans of Russian Instagram star and pop singer Olga Buzova.
But it was not clear why her fans - singing some of her hits - were there at the same time as Mr Navalny's supporters. According to Buzova's social media, she was spending the day in St Petersburg and had no plans to return to Moscow that evening.
About 60 people were reportedly detained at Vnukovo and some complained of rough treatment by the police.
By the time his plane had landed at Sheremetyevo about 50 supporters had got there to greet him.
But his wife Yulia only managed to snatch a kiss before police led him away. She told the people around her: "Thank you for coming here and earlier to Vnukovo.
"They are so afraid of Alexei that they have paralysed all flights into Moscow this evening, inconvenienced so many people. He is just a man who came back home. The most important thing Alexei said this evening is that he is not afraid. And I am not afraid. And I call on you not to be afraid."
The BBC's Kateryna Khinkulova contributed to this piece.
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The Borders Common Riding season is under way. But what is it all about? Here are 10 things you need to know.
1. The Borders: It's aye bin | By Sandy NeilReporter
A Lowland Scots saying sums up the Scottish Borders: "It's aye bin", meaning "It's always been". The old Border country's Common Riding traditions have evolved over 900 years into one of Europe's biggest equestrian spectacles. Yet the 11 towns' annual festivals are little seen or understood by the outside world, which obliviously drives through - north to Edinburgh or south to England. So we just get on with our own thing, in a land time forgot. Every week from June to August without fail, thousands of Borderers cheer hundreds of horse riders galloping around their towns, and witness curious rituals like snuff thrown from a window in Hawick, or, in Langholm, a salted herring hammered to a barley bannock with a 'twal-penny nail'. Why? Well, it's emotional, and never more so than this year, when townsfolk remember their fallen exactly 500 years after the Battle of Flodden in 1513.
2. Safe oot, safe in
The Border Common Ridings, like others in Scotland surviving in Langholm, Biggar, Lanark, Musselburgh and Linlithgow, began early in the 12th century as 'Riding the Marches', when young burgesses on horseback inspected their burgh's common land to check neighbouring landowners had not encroached its boundary. Townsfolk needed this 'commonty' to graze livestock and grow harvests to survive and prosper, so any unlawful houses, walls or crops were destroyed, often by 'the haile community'. Riding the Marches flourished in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Stirling, Dundee, Inverness and Arbroath between the 16th and 18th centuries too, but they endured in the Borders long after they ceased to be essential. The reason why the Scottish Borders continues these 'marches of history', and has became known as the 'home of the ridings', is rooted in the wars between Scotland and England, and the badly-behaved Border reivers.
3. Britain's wild west
As a local walking festival advert once put it: '500 years ago visitors didn't walk in the Borders - they ran for their lives'. Sandwiched on the frontier between two battling kingdoms, the lawless Border valleys became our island's bloodiest - our very own 'Wild West'. Border reivers were no more than mafia gangsters on horseback, loyal not to their king but to their 'family' (not 'clan'). Scott, Kerr, Nixon, Armstrong and Elliot were among the hundreds of families who raided, robbed, kidnapped and murdered each other, and their tribal English rivals. This criminal society 'shook loose the border', where national feelings became almost meaningless. The reivers (from the old Scots 'to steal') bequeathed the words 'bereave' and 'blackmail' to the English language, but, more positively, the insecurity of life endowed each Border community with a fiercely independent identity, loyalty, and rivalry, asserted with civic pride every year in their distinct Common Riding traditions.
4. Stoorifits and gutterbluids
In Peebles people divided into 'gutterbluids', the town's established natives, and 'stoorifits', the resident incomers. Borderers still feel an intense belonging to their town, thanks to the notorious reivers. The uncertainty and dangers of living in a tribal territory ungovernable by Edinburgh or London, close to a shifting Anglo-Scots border and marauding armies, only worsened the threat to the isolated Border burghs. Townsfolk were forced together for mutual survival and defence, creating close-knit communities with a sense of shared responsibility. Riding the marches, the vigilant cavalcades risked their lives protecting their land and people: Selkirk's first provost John Muthag, plus his bailie James Keyne, were murdered defending the burgh lands in July 1541. The Royal and Ancient Burgh named Muthag Street in his honour during the World War I - a conflict, like Flodden, from which many young 'Souters o' Selkirk' failed to return. Today's common ridings attract thousands of locals and 'exiles' or 'colonials' coming home to pay tribute to the sacrifices and labours of those who have gone before.
5. The Battle of Flodden, 1513
While all Common Ridings share this element of riding round the town boundaries, harking back to the ancient Riding of the Marches, the traumatic defeat at Flodden field on 9 September 1513, when an estimated 10,000 Scots and King James IV lost their lives fighting Henry VIII's English army under the Earl of Surrey, still resonates emotionally in Selkirk and Hawick's traditions, and in the modern Coldstream Civic Week. As Border bard Sir Walter Scott wrote of Flodden in his 1808 poem Marmion: "Tradition, legend, tune, and song / Shall many an age that wail prolong." Coldstream Civic Week stages a spectacular, moving ride out to the battlefield itself, just over the Tweed and the English border at Branxton, where the 'Coldstreamer' lays a wreath at the Flodden Memorial. Selkirk's 'Royal Burgh Standard Bearer' represents Fletcher, the only Selkirk man to return from Flodden alive, while Hawick Common Riding recalls Flodden's aftermath in 1514, when Hawick lay at the mercy of triumphant, pillaging English soldiers. A handful of callants defended the town by slaying an English raiding party at Hornshole, and their captured flag (or a replica) has led the town's marches ever since. But surprisingly, despite the Borders' turbulent history, there is never any anti-English feeling in the Common Ridings. That's not what they're about at all.
6. Jethart's here!
The Border Common Ridings are a complex subject, having developed different traditions and meanings over a long time. The oldest festivals in Selkirk, Hawick, Lauder, and Langholm in Dumfries & Galloway, have an uninterrupted history since the original riding of the marches, but inspections of the boundary are now symbolic, often marked by the principal cutting a sod of turf. The newer ride-outs in Galashiels, Jedburgh, Melrose, Kelso, Coldstream, Duns and Peebles, all about 100 years old, are based on proud events in each town's history. Peebles Beltane Festival revives a medieval summer fair, Galashiels' Braw Lad and Lass ride to Gala's first parish church, and the Duns Reiver's cavalcade rides to Duns Law, where General Leslie's Covenanting Army camped in 1639 to resist Charles I's imposing the Church of England on Scotland. Jedburgh (or Jethart) Callants' Festival re-enacts one of the last battles between England and Scotland, the 1575 Raid of Redeswire in the Cheviot Hills, won when notoriously fierce Jed men arrived, shouting their war cry 'Jethart's here!'. In 1523, the terrified younger Earl of Surrey, son of the Flodden hero, called Jed's fighters: "the boldest and hottest men that ever I saw in any nation".
7. Rally roond oor Cornet!
Every spring a 'principal' is democratically elected by townsfolk, or nominated by ex-principals, to be the symbolic leader of the year's riding, honoured with carrying the town's flag. In the 'Honest Toun' of Musselburgh, it is said the election of the 'Honest Lad' attracts more votes than a General Election. The principal, usually an unmarried, native lad of admirable character and riding skills, is given a different name in each town: Reiver (Duns), Braw Lad (Galashiels), Cornet (Hawick, Langholm, Peebles, Lauder), Kelsae Laddie (Kelso), Melrosian (Melrose), Royal Burgh Standard Bearer (Selkirk), Whipman (West Linton), Jethart Callant (Jedburgh) and Coldstreamer (Coldstream). Becoming 'king for the day' is the greatest honour a young man can receive from their town, and almost certainly it is the proudest and most memorable day of their young lives: "a dream come true," many report. "Common Ridings are all about emotion," Gala rugby commentator Richie Gray coached Hawick Cornet Chris Ritson this year in 'The Hut', where Hawick horsemen drink rum and milk, and sing Hawick's song 'Teribus' from the burgh's battle cry 'Teribus ye teri odin', which gives local folk their name 'Teries'. Nearing the end of his big day, at the relaxing horse races up the moor, which often follow the riding of the marches, Cornet Ritson described the overwhelming emotion as best he could in Lowland Scots: "It's better felt than telt."
8. Unsullied and untarnished
The flag, which symbolises the town and its honour and traditions, is revered like a holy relic. At a 'Colour Bussin' ceremony early on Common Riding morning in Selkirk (or "the nicht afore the morn" in Hawick) the cherished banner is presented to the principal by the provost, who wishes the riders "safe oot, safe in" around the marches, and charges him to return it "unsullied and untarnished". A Lady Busser (or the Cornet's 'Lass' in Hawick) ties ribbons in the principal's chosen hues to the Royal Burgh Flag, recalling the ancient custom of a knight's lady tying colours to his lance before battle. Traditionally principals are unmarried, perhaps because riding the marches was a dangerous business, or it symbolises they are 'married' to the town while in office, like a priest to the church. Some of Selkirk's Royal Burgh Standard Bearers have remained bachelors for more than a dozen years waiting their turn to bear the Royal Burgh Flag. Hawick's swallow-tailed 'Banner Blue', inscribed in yellow '1514' and 'HC' standing for 'Hawick Colour', is a replica of the English original seized by Hawick callants at Hornshole in Flodden's aftermath 500 years ago. Losing your flag to the enemy was a humiliating blow, and many Border legends revolve around captured banners: Jedburgh's guild of weavers claimed to possess an English standard from Bannockburn (1314), and a Highland one from Killiekrankie (1689). To help the principal perform his duties, he is helped on the ride-outs and charging 'chases' by Right- and Left- Hand Men (often aspiring, or ex-principals), and in Hawick by an older married 'Acting Fither', to keep a friendly paternal eye on youthful spirits.
9. This day, we hae done a guid thing!
Common Riding day traditionally begins in the very early morning, testifying to the pre-industrial origins of the ridings. Hawick begins with the 'Snuffin'': a curious custom seeing boisterous callants scrum to pinch handfuls of snuff from a ram's horn, harking back to the days when troops were given snuff before going to war. A horse was like a car to a Border reiver: fast transport for a speedy getaway, and a powerful status symbol. The reivers' deep rapport between horse and human remains in the Borders, today called 'Scotland's horse country'. Ridings also survived here thanks to the countryside's accessibility, only a few minutes walk from town centres, which means Borderers can keep horses cheaply and easily, often riding from an early age down quiet lanes and streets, to turn into talented and experienced adult horsemen. "I've been riding since I could walk," says 28-year-old Selkirk's Royal Burgh Standard Bearer Martin Rodgerson, who has so far ridden 21 Common Ridings - the first aged four. Even practice rides, called 'ride outs', require stamina: Hawick's moorland Mosspaul 'ride-oot' measures 24 miles, while Jedburgh's Redeswire ride is a 25-mile return journey to the site of a skirmish on the Anglo-Scottish Border.
10. Huzza!
And finally, as Langholm's Fair Cryer says as he nails a fish to a bun: "I'll away hame and hae a bannock and a saut herring to my denner by way o' auld style. Huzza! Huzza! Huzza!" But before I ride hame for ma rum and milk, here's how the Border common riding dates are calculated every year:
Hawick (Thursday, Friday and Saturday after the first Monday in June)
Selkirk (Friday after the second Monday in June)
Melrose (Third full week in June)
Peebles (Third full week in June)
Galashiels (End of June, sometimes the first weekend in July)
Jedburgh (Ends second Saturday in July)
Duns (First full week in July)
Kelso (Middle of July)
Langholm (Last Friday in July)
Lauder (Ends first Saturday in August)
Coldstream (First full week in August)
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A woman found injured at a house in Doncaster has died, sparking a murder investigation. | The victim was found at a property on Dryden Road in Balby at about 23:30 BST on Friday night.
A spokesperson for South Yorkshire Police said the woman in her 20s was found with serious injuries and died at the scene a short time later.
A 45-year-old man has been arrested and officers are appealing for anyone with information to contact them.
The woman's family has been informed and formal identification is expected in the coming days, the force added.
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