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After being diagnosed with chronic migraines which left her in terrible pain and mostly bed-bound, Beth Francis decided to try a holistic approach to tackle her pain.
The 26-year old from Beaumaris on Anglesey embarked on a challenge to swim off the cold north Wales coast for 100 days over winter.
Here, she tells if it helped. | By Gwyneth ReesBBC Wales News
Imagine taking a dip in the north Wales sea during the icy months of winter.
It's what I do, even in the hammering rain or recent days of snow.
So long as the waves and currents aren't too dangerous, and I'm not putting my own or anyone else's life at risk being pulled offshore, then I'm in, headfirst into the waves.
Most of the time I swim off Anglesey - perhaps off Newborough Beach, a three-mile stretch of sand backed by tall pines, or maybe Lligwy, a beach of rolling dunes.
Usually I go in at high tide as it saves a walk down a long beach in just a swimming costume and flimsy towel.
There's hardly ever anyone about, just the occasional hardy surfer or dog walker, wrapped up in coats and wondering what I'm doing.
At the moment, the sea temperature is between 6 and 7C, depending where on the island I choose; the east is warmer.
As I dip under the waves, I take a deep breath - preparing for the cold and knowing that within a few minutes, my whole body will be tingling, numb and red.
More than this, though, I am bursting with adrenalin. Swimming like this makes me feel alive, and it's the best feeling on earth.
Some might think this is a form of persecution I've inflicted on myself. Others ask if I'm doing it because I've lost a bet.
In fact, I am doing this for health and healing.
Because although I might seem and look like a fit and healthy 26-year-old, last August I was diagnosed with a condition that began taking over my life; chronic migraines.
I'd suffered from migraines sporadically since the age of nine, but these were something new.
In the May of 2017, I began having two or three a week, lasting upwards of six hours at a time.
I was in my first year of a PhD in marine biology at Bangor University.
But I began losing days of work.
My migraines escalated throughout the summer, swelling to 28 attacks per month and I became so unwell that even taking a few months off work didn't help.
These weren't just headaches. They would cause tremendous pain and sensitivity to light and sounds.
I would have tinnitus, blind spots, nausea, stomach aches and sometimes become completely numb on one side.
Chronic migraine is classified by the World Health Organisation as one of the most disabling illnesses, comparable to dementia and active psychosis.
And for the majority of sufferers, normal function, including even basic tasks, is impossible during an attack.
My GP and neurologist prescribed differing drugs, but there is no cure for this, and the treatments were only so effective.
I'd always been active and loved the outdoors yet here I was, a young woman virtually bed-bound, despondent, hopeless and becoming less and less myself. I was losing my life.
Eventually, I began looking to the sea - something that wasn't hard to find in north Wales.
It has always played a big part in my life.
As a child, my parents would take me out in their power boat off Pwllheli, and I was building a career out of my love of the ocean.
I knew that I always felt better when I was in, or by, the ocean.
I had also read that physical activity in nature was known to aid people with a variety of health conditions.
In 2009, Prof Michael Depledge and Dr William Bird, from the European Centre for Environment and Health, based out of the University of Exeter Medical School, proposed a notion called the "Blue Gym" - the idea being that the sea can be used as motivation to exercise outdoors to influence health and wellbeing.
They found that regular contact with natural environments provided three major health benefits: reduced stress, increased physical activity and created stronger communities. They also found that people who lived 1km from the coast had much better self-reported health than those who lived inland.
I wanted to try something like that - to see if I could regain some health by connecting more with nature.
Perhaps I'd even be able to shock my body into feeling better and use the cold water as an analgesic?
Knowing how hard it would be, I set myself a challenge, along with my wonderful partner Andrew Clark, 28, to swim 100 days in the sea throughout winter.
We committed to going in whatever the weather, so long as it wasn't dangerous or dark, and would record our adventure.
It wouldn't matter how long we stayed in, we decided, but we must get fully submerged.
Our first swim was on 9 October 2017 - off our local Llanddona beach - long and sandy, and forming the eastern end of Red Wharf Bay.
As we waded in, it felt so cold at 12 degrees, but we knew how much colder it would get over the next 100 days.
We stayed in the water for over an hour, swimming and playing in the waves.
And as we walked back up the sand afterwards, wind whipping at our bare legs and skin stinging from the salty water, I couldn't stop grinning.
Now, five months on and with a considerable drop in sea temperature, we stay in for shorter times, but we don't wear wetsuits.
It means we have the short sharp shock of immersion, but that we can warm up and get dressed much quicker afterwards.
Some of our brave friends have joined us for swims along the way, but mostly it is just us - two heads bobbing in a wild wintry sea, absolutely buzzing on adrenalin.
Despite the cold, it has become the absolute highlight of our day.
People might think it an odd way to combat migraines, but the change in me has been amazing.
Sometimes, I have dragged myself out of bed, eyes half closed, already suffering from a migraine, in order to complete my daily task.
But whenever this has happened, I have found the pain of migraine has dramatically reduced in severity afterwards.
My overall health has improved, and I now have about 16 migraines a month, nearly half the amount compared to when they were at their peak, and the effects aren't as debilitating.
They might last for four or five hours, as opposed to wiping out a whole day.
Obviously, I can't attribute this improvement to the medicine or the "vitamin sea" as I like to call it, in isolation.
To me, both things are acting together and holistically.
I don't think I would have seen this improvement without taking on this challenge.
Fundamentally, this has given me a goal to get up and out of bed, and a long way back to my old self.
I am doing something positive for my wellbeing, and feel so much more in control of my life and my illness.
No longer do I have to accept my life is confined to lying in my bed in pain.
Andy and I are now two thirds of the way through the project, with fewer than 40 swim days still to go.
But we have no plans on stopping.
We have both fallen in love with our daily dip in the ocean, and could not imagine a life without it.
An expert's view - Simon Evans, chief executive of Migraine Action
Migraine is the fifth most disabling lifetime condition in the UK.
Chronic migraine is defined as a minimum of 15 headache days a month of which at least eight are migraine. It can come with visual disturbances, nausea, light and sound sensitivity and in some cases stroke-like symptoms.
While there is no direct evidence that swimming in cold water can help relieve a migraine attack, the reported use of ice mixtures in pain relief in migraine goes back to Victorian times.
Various methods of cold and ice application have been reported on in the medical literature in recent decades with a number of theories as to why they may work.
An article in The Journal of Headache and Pain in 2015 reported good results using an intra-nasal cooling device to reduce pain.
Many of the preventative treatments for migraine were designed for other diseases and are often not well tolerated, so we are delighted that Beth has found relief for her migraine, but we suspect it won't be for everyone.
Cold water swimming - dangers and guidance (NHS Choices):
For more information, visit the RNLI's Respect The Water page.
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First Derivatives, the Newry-based IT firm, has reached a stock market valuation of more than £1bn. | The valuation represents the number of company shares multiplied by the current price of those shares.
First Derivatives share price has risen sharply in recent months from under £30 at the start of October to more than £40.
The company specialises in financial analysis software and now employs more than 2,000 people.
Last year, it increased its profits by 20% to £12.5m on a turnover of £152m.
The firm was founded by Brian Conlon in 1996 and floated on the stock market in 2002.
Mr Conlon is still the single largest shareholder.
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Canadian Joshua Boyle and American Caitlan Coleman were rescued this month after being held captive for five years by a Taliban-linked insurgent group. But what were two W estern backpackers doing in Afghanistan in the first place? | By Jessica MurphyBBC News, Toronto
"Looking back, I think it was two years before we saw any proof they were alive," recalls Joshua Boyle's friend Alex Edwards.
"I had assumed that they were probably dead, and tried to make peace with that."
Joshua Boyle and Caitlan Coleman were kidnapped in Afghanistan in 2012 after venturing into one of the most hostile regions of the war-torn country.
The last email from Boyle, sent to Coleman's parents on 8 October of that year, said they were in a part of Afghanistan he described as "unsafe".
The two were held in captivity for five years, suffering violence and abuse. Boyle says one of the children they conceived during the ordeal was killed by their captors.
Edwards says when he first heard his friend had travelled to Afghanistan with Coleman - who was seven months pregnant at the time - he couldn't understand how they had "done something so appallingly dangerous".
Family and friends have described Boyle and Coleman as naive idealists - a couple with strong convictions and humanitarian inclinations.
In interviews following their release, Boyle said he and Coleman travelled to Afghanistan to help people. He called himself a "pilgrim" on a mission.
He told reporters he went to help "the most neglected minority group in the world. Those ordinary villagers who live deep inside Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where no NGO, no aid worker and no government has ever successfully been able to bring the necessary help".
What exactly the couple intended to do to help is a question that hasn't been answered.
Coleman, 31, grew up in Stewartstown, a small Pennsylvania town about 100 miles west of Philadelphia.
Boyle, 34, was raised in Smith Falls, near Canada's capital city Ottawa.
The two met online, reportedly bonding over a shared love of Star Wars. They married in 2011.
Friends interviewed in 2016 by Philadelphia magazine describe Coleman as a devout Christian who loved travel and had a gentle sense of humour - "big-hearted, relentlessly optimistic, adventurous, funny and flawed".
Boyle - a self-described "pacifist Mennonite hippie child" according to Edwards - has a more contentious past.
He was briefly married to Zaynab Khadr, the sister of former Guantanamo bay inmate Omar Khadr. The union pulled him publicly into the orbit of one of Canada's most notorious families.
The Khadr family patriarch, who was killed in Pakistan in 2003, was an alleged close associate of Osama Bin Laden.
Zaynab herself is well known for her outspoken views, refusing to condemn terror attacks like the London bombings of 2005 or downplaying 9/11.
Omar Khadr, who was caught in Afghanistan at 15 by American forces, was held in Guantanamo for 10 years and charged with the murder of a US soldier.
Critics accuse him of being a radicalised fighter at the time of his capture.
But Omar's supporters considered him a child soldier and Boyle - a human rights advocate - took a deep interest in his case.
His marriage to Zaynab Khadr ended in 2010.
The Associated Press has reported that US officials don't believe Boyle's former ties to the Khadr family had anything to do with the kidnapping of him and his wife.
Before leaving on their Central Asian adventure, Coleman had told friends they would only travel to the "safe '-stans" during their six-month trip. But at some point, that changed.
In 2012, a UK man met Joshua Boyle and Coleman in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan.
Richard Cronin describes how Boyle - after a long night spent discussing historic explorers - convinced him to travel to Afghanistan.
Boyle and Coleman had been backpacking in Russia and the former Soviet Republics of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Afghanistan was next on the list.
"I asked Josh where he wanted to go in Afghanistan and he replied 'all over'.
"He had also said it was safe provided you didn't go to a region where there were foreign troops and the Taliban, namely the south," Cronin wrote in a blog about the encounter.
While in Afghanistan, Cronin learned that Boyle and Coleman had gone missing in the country.
Cronin later told a Toronto Star reporter who covered the couple's lengthy captivity: "I hope Josh and his family get out safely. I have some questions I'd really like to ask them. I'm sure you do too".
In 2013, after months of anguished mystery, the Boyle and Coleman families learned what had happened to the vanished couple.
They had been taken hostage by the Taliban-linked Haqqani network while travelling in the Wardak Province, a mountainous region outside Kabul.
A man believed to have ties to the Taliban emailed the Coleman family two videos of Boyle and their daughter, asking for the US and Canada to do more to free them from their captors.
In the video - the first of four released to the families - they appear tired, dispirited, and dazed.
Coleman had given birth to her first son in captivity.
Boyle and Coleman's families made those first two videos public in 2014 after the release of US soldier Bowe Bergdahl, who had also been held as a Taliban captive, hoping the publicity would help their appeal for the couple's safe return.
The last video released of the two came out just 10 months ago, shortly before Christmas. It showed Boyle and Coleman with two of their children.
In that video, Coleman described their situation as a "Kafkaesque nightmare".
The family was subject to mistreatment and violence during their captivity. In interviews, Boyle says the family was frequently shuffled between locations, often held in rooms not much bigger than a toilet stall.
There were times Boyle and Coleman were separated and beaten.
But Boyle has also said one of their biggest challenges was the daily tedium, the long hours with little to fill them.
In a short email exchange with the BBC, Boyle described passing the time educating their two sons.
"We had always intended to home school our own offspring - we just hadn't foreseen it would be without books, paper or pen... but we made do with what we had, tore up old garbage to make solar systems, splinters of wood to learn multiplying, bottle caps became compasses, etc," he wrote.
He told the Associated Press that they decided to have children in captivity because "we're sitting as hostages with a lot of time on our hands. We always wanted as many as possible, and we didn't want to waste time. Cait's in her 30s, the clock is ticking."
In the intervening years, Boyle and Coleman's family and friends expressed frustration at the apparent lack of interest from the US and Canadian officials, and the media and public's indifference to their plight.
"It doesn't get the attention it deserves, and I have no idea why," a friend told Philadelphia magazine in a 2016 feature about Coleman.
"It's just messed up. She's a person. She has a family. She's not just this 'kidnapped American woman.'"
Edwards says he received mostly disinterest when he tried to get the Star Wars and Firefly fan communities - Boyle was an aficionado of both - to help raise awareness of their case.
In retrospect, he feels it's clear why he couldn't rally people to their cause.
"People don't want to help with something unless they know it's the right thing to do, and there were just too many complicating factors in Josh and Caitlan's situation," he says.
"What were they doing in Afghanistan? What's the deal with the Khadr connection? I tried to answer those questions as best I could, but the fact that they even came up is a huge strike against people caring."
But Edwards says: "The fact that no one seemed particularly concerned about two Canadian children being held captive by the Taliban is a shocking indictment of our society."
In 2015, a retired Special Forces officer testified before a US Senate committee about a plan to rescue to Boyle, Coleman and their children from captivity as part of a larger prisoner swap.
The Green Beret's team had been tasked with trying to help bring soldier Bowe Bergdahl home.
"We also realised that there were civilian hostages in Pakistan that nobody was trying to free so they were added to our mission," Jason Amerine said, mentioning Boyle and Coleman by name in his testimony.
The rescue plan collapsed, though Bergdahl was eventually released in 2014 in a controversial Taliban prisoner exchange.
It seemed that Boyle and Coleman were slowly being forgotten.
So their release after five years of captivity came as a surprise.
On 12 October, Pakistani and US officials confirmed Pakistani troops rescued the family in a successful but risky mission - shooting out the tyres of the car where they were stuffed in the boot.
Boyle, Coleman and their three children were safe and heading home.
Aisha Ahmad, a University of Toronto political scientist who studies jihadist groups, suggests it was no coincidence the timing of the rescue came during a tense period between US and Pakistan.
"The reason the Pakistanis were so willing to pull the trigger is because they desperately needed to mend relations with the new Trump administration," she says.
The family's release netted rare praise for Pakistan from Mr Trump who called it "a sign that it [Pakistan] is honouring America's wishes for it to do more to provide security in the region".
"The Pakistani army and the intelligence community are very realistic in their calculations - they are strategists," says Ahmad. "They care about geopolitics, they play the long game."
On Thursday, CIA director Mike Pompeo told a Washington-based think tank Boyle and Coleman were held in Pakistan during their long captivity, contradicting earlier claims made by Pakistani officials.
After landing in Canada, Joshua Boyle struck out at his former captors.
He says the "criminal miscreants" raped Coleman and killed a fourth child - a daughter - in a forced abortion.
The Taliban have denied Coleman was assaulted and claim the child died due to a miscarriage.
Boyle told the BBC about the one captor he got to know, a man from the West with whom he could "ask esoteric questions on little-known points of Islamic law and history".
After the learning of the rape by some of the guards, the man defected to the so-called Islamic State "try to find a truer jihad" and promised "to try and tell ISIS of the cruelties, acts of disbelief and hypocrisy of the Haqqani Network".
"I offered him my fullest forgiveness, and Caitlan said she would forgive him all his minor sins against her, but she couldn't forgive what he'd done to the children in his blind exuberance for the group at the start," Boyle wrote.
For now, Boyle, Coleman and their three children are adjusting to their newfound freedom in the suburban sanctuary of Boyle's parents' Ontario home.
The children have the resilience of youth and attentive grandparents, and Boyle has said they're slowly adapting to their new circumstances, though the family continues to sleep together in one small room.
"It's not welcome to the western world, it's not welcome to Canada, it's welcome to life," he told NBC's Today programme.
Coleman has not spoken publicly since her release and was admitted to hospital earlier this week with an undisclosed ailment.
Boyle told journalists the couple are focusing on building a safe home for their children and that he remains committed "to do the right thing no matter the cost".
"In the final analysis, it is the intentions of our actions, not their consequences, on which we all shall eventually be judged."
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Julian Assange says he will leave the Ecuadorean Embassy in London "soon". There's been speculation he is suffering from illness, so what is the potential health impact of two years indoors, asks Tom de Castella. | Who, What, WhyThe Magazine answers the questions behind the news
The Wikileaks founder took refuge in the embassy in June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning over alleged sex assaults. He faces arrest if he leaves the building.
Assange told a press conference that he had no access to outside areas. Even healthy people would have difficulty living inside for so long, he said. Claiming he would be out "soon", he was vague on when or why.
Media reports have suggested he needs treatment for a range of health problems - arrhythmia, high blood pressure and a chronic cough.
The biggest implication for physical health of being inside for so long is vitamin D deficiency, says Sarah Jarvis, doctor for the BBC's One Show. About 85-90% of people's vitamin D comes from sunshine. Dozens of conditions have been associated with low vitamin D levels, from depression and aches and pains to osteoporosis and heart disease.
Vitamin D tablets don't seem to have much effect, says Simon Griffin, professor of general practice at Cambridge University. A sunbed or UV lamp would work but over two years this would be inadvisable - they are linked with melanoma, a form of skin cancer. And Assange has already spoken of a "boiled lobster" moment from a sunlamp.
It's unlikely two years inside would damage the body greatly if someone took action to make sure they were getting some daylight, exercise and eating a healthy diet, says Griffin. Air conditioning is unlikely to harm Assange. The most likely harm would be a flattening of mood, Griffin says. Sunlight makes people feel happier. There is a balcony at the embassy - Assange has occasionally addressed supporters from it. Even just exposing face and forearms to the sun regularly would help avoid feeling down, Griffin says.
One thing that's impossible to gauge is Assange's mental state. Maintaining it is all about how you perceive your situation, says clinical psychologist Linda Blair. When he first arrived Assange had evaded capture. He might have felt euphoric. But two years on, he is still there. "It's about an attitude really. It makes us very aggressive when we are denied our freedom."
Some prisoners of war have managed to play games and celebrate the fact they are still alive in terrible conditions, Blair says. "You don't have to feel trapped. Feeling you have control is critical."
Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.
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Police are investigating the death of a man who was seriously injured at a construction site on the Isle of Wight. | David Shayler was working at a demolition site in Atkinson Drive, Newport, on 13 October, when he sustained serious injuries.
The 53-year-old was taken to hospital but died on Wednesday.
The exact circumstances surrounding how he was injured are being investigated by officers and work at the site has been suspended.
"Detectives are working closely with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) as part of this investigation", Hampshire Constabulary added.
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Cuba is a communist state with a vast statue of Christ towering over it. The monument, above the bay in Havana, was completed just before the revolution and never removed. It has recently been restored by the state, the scaffolding dismantled just before the arrival of Pope Benedict. | By Sarah RainsfordBBC News, Havana
But there have been difficult decades in Cuba for Catholics.
The Church was never banned, but the island was officially atheist until 1992. Practising Catholics could not join the Communist Party.
"You had to be atheist to advance. If not, you were [thought] backwards, superstitious," remembers Gustavo Andujar, a devout Catholic.
"There was a time in the early 1960s when churches were harassed. Children would throw stones to harass people during mass. We Catholics suffered in those times but fortunately, they've long gone."
Cuba today is secular, the faithful are free to worship and the Catholic Church is busy reasserting itself.
'Here to help'
Charity work is a key part of that.
Every weekday in a poor, tumbledown neighbourhood of Old Havana, volunteers hand out big cups of milk and bread rolls to more than 40 school children.
The breakfast club is one of dozens of aid projects run by the Church, in a country where so much else is tightly controlled by the state.
"We're not trying to compete with the government," says Oscar Rodriguez, the volunteer in charge. "We're just here to help."
That stance has allowed the Church to reinsert itself, quietly, into society.
It is now running MBA courses inside the old Catholic seminary. Many of the students strolling the cloisters are state-employees, looking for skills to take up work in the growing private sector.
And, on the edge of the city, is the modern peach-pink seminary that replaced it.
Inaugurated in 2010, it is the first new church building permitted since the revolution when religious schools were taken over and many priests fled.
Fifty-two young men are now studying there for the priesthood, trying to cut their country's historic dependence on clergy from abroad.
"This is a country with 11 million people, and only about 350 priests," says seminary rector, Jose Miguel Martin - himself a Spaniard. "We need more."
When the seminary was inaugurated in 2010, President Raul Castro was at the ceremony. His presence was a powerful symbol of the improved relations between Catholic Church and Communist state.
But some argue the Church is not using its unique position and growing influence as it should.
While Cubans are now free to worship, they are still tightly controlled in other areas, such as the right to free assembly.
Dissidents demand more support
Before the Pope arrived, Amnesty International reported a sharp rise in the short-term detention of dissidents by police.
Cuba claims they are paid by the US to undermine the revolution.
The Amnesty report followed the round-up of dozens of activists from the Ladies in White, a group that marches in silence for human rights every Sunday in Havana.
"The Church has a social doctrine, which protects the marginalised and the suffering. But the cardinal stays silent against these abuses," complains Berta Soler, one of the group.
But Berta Soler's husband was one of 75 political prisoners released in 2010 after Cuba's Cardinal intervened with the authorities.
Church leaders point to that as an example of what can best be achieved through quiet diplomacy. After so long operating on the margins, they are wary of any direct challenge to the regime.
"We're not a political party," said Havana's Auxiliary Bishop, Alfredo Petit.
"The Church will not be a flag of justice. We are not here to defend human rights in the first place. Our role is to preach the gospel, that's clear."
The last time a Pope visited this island 14 years ago, many of its vast churches were almost empty. That has been changing slowly ever since.
The Church that Pope Benedict is visiting in Cuba is much stronger. But it is cautious, not entirely secure.
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Cornwall's Eden Project has announced debts of £5m. | The attraction near St Austell said up to 35 jobs were also at risk because of the economic downturn.
Last year it recorded losses of £1.78m, partly blaming the floods of November 2010 which forced it to shut for a week and its ice rink to close for a month.
A redundancy consultation is under way at the site which employs between 490 and 700 people depending on the season.
Gaynor Coley, Eden's managing director, said: "We are overall in debt about £5m - but a £5m debt on a £140m asset with a £20m turnover is a very reasonable level of debt, particularly in this climate."
She added that visitor numbers over the year had been healthy but the project needed to make sure it was fit for the future and offering excellent value.
She also said that the consultation review would look at all levels of staff.
According to the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, visitor numbers at Eden in 2009 and 2010 fell year on year and the project received just over one million visitors in 2011 - down 3% on the previous year.
Malcolm Bell, of Visit Cornwall, said: "We will be looking to see how we can help. I am sure Eden's team will be working hard and creatively.
"It took innovation to create Eden and I am sure that pool of talent will be there to see it through these troubles."
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"It's kind of brought her back again." | By Colette HumeBBC News
Alison Webb had watched her mother Margaret, 73, "slipping further and further away" because of dementia.
Margaret has been using a device called a HUG, aimed at improving the mental well-being of people with advanced dementia - who often experience anxiety and depression.
After it helped her and others, the design team at Cardiff Metropolitan University now want to produce it commercially.
"Every time I came to visit I seemed to be losing a little bit more of her.
"The smiles were less frequent, the recognition of me was slipping away."
Margaret worked her whole life in a bank, brought up Alison alone and enjoyed travelling and spending time with her three grandchildren.
But the smiling, happy, hard-working, loving mother she knew started disappearing before her eyes after being diagnosed with dementia 10 years ago.
In the spring the Sunrise Senior Living home in Cardiff, where Margaret lives, took delivery of 20 HUGs as part of a trial, and she was one of the first people to be given one.
While it looks like a soft toy on the outside, it has a beating heart and speaker that can play chosen music and sounds.
Alison said: "I walked in and Mum was holding the HUG in the dining room and her face was just happy... almost serene and it was lovely.
"The icing on the cake was the music. All my mum's favourite songs are there - musicals, Elvis, Tom Jones, Abba."
Danny Langhorn from Sunrise said: "The HUG is not intrusive to them, it's not a person... they're not feeling threatened.
"They're just able to sit there, listen and in their own time start feeling comfortable."
It was designed by a team led by Cathy Treadaway at the university's Centre for Applied Research in Inclusive Arts and Design, or Cariad.
The idea came about after a visit to a care home in Port Talbot, during a project to design objects for people with dementia.
"Thelma's carers asked us to make something for her, and when we asked them what kind of thing they wanted us to make, they told us the only thing they could think that Thelma needed was a hug, so we went away and came up with HUG," said Prof Treadaway.
Thelma showed improvement within a week: opening her eyes, engaging with other residents of the home, and her falls - which had been frequent - stopped completely.
The team then applied for more funding from the Welsh Government to see if Thelma's response could be replicated.
Dementia is the umbrella term to describe around 100 conditions including Alzheimer's and is the leading cause of death in Wales and England.
About 40,000 people in Wales are living with dementia and there is currently no cure.
Last week the US drug company Biogen announced it was ready to bring a drug to the market which it said could slow Alzheimer's.
But approval could take a year or two and if successful the company aims to initially offer the drug to patients previously enrolled on clinical studies of the drug.
It could be some time before the drug reaches the UK.
But Alison says she's grateful to see her mum Margaret happy again.
"The recognition and the smiles and the happiness seem to have come back which is brilliant, brilliant."
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As Colombia prepares for the second round of its presidential election on 20 June, the BBC's Will Grant examines the impact the US-backed Plan Colombia has had on the country's battle against drug cartels and how much of a role it will have after the election. | The voices on the crackly phone line are talking in code.
"The tourist is on the bus," says the caller to the man at the other end. "Bacano" he replies, Colombian slang for "cool".
The "tourist" in question was a consignment of several kilogrammes of heroin; the "bus" a flight to Europe.
What the drug contact on the phone didn't realise was that he wasn't talking to a "mule", but an undercover anti-narcotics officer. He was arrested within hours.
Another small victory perhaps, for the outgoing government of President Alvaro Uribe in its seemingly endless battle against the cartels and the left-wing rebel group the Farc - whose main income is from the drugs trade.
It is a battle the government says it has been winning in recent years - and one which has been heavily funded by the United States through its controversial military aid programme, Plan Colombia.
"Colombia has shown the greatest reduction in coca cultivations in a decade," said the director of the national police, Gen Oscar Naranjo.
"According to the UN's preliminary report, there are 68,000 hectares [9680sq km] under coca cultivation in Colombia this year.
"Thanks to Plan Colombia and our national security police [forces], that's a little less than a third of what it was in 1999, 1998 and 1997."
But critics disagree and have said that any reduction in the production of cocaine has been temporary at best, and that Plan Colombia has only served to push the problem beyond Colombia's borders.
Dr Arlene Tickner of the University of the Andes in Bogota is one such critic.
She said: "As a drug policy, I think Plan Colombia has been a relative failure.
"If we look at the Andean region as a whole what we see is not only that coca crops are basically the same size as the year 2000 but also that the potential cocaine production from those crops is the same as well.
"There does now seem to be a slow recognition in Washington that it's time to change tack."
"Plan Colombia was never engraved in stone," responded the US Ambassador to Colombia, William Brownfield, when asked whether Plan Colombia would remain a central part of US anti-drug policy in Latin America.
Having seen around $7bn of taxpayers' money invested in military hardware and anti-drug operations in Colombia since 1999, the Democratic majority in the US Congress and the Obama administration are said to want to reduce the military aid, and shift the emphasis to socio-economic assistance.
Mr Brownfield said: "In 1998, we had expected to start with a lot of money and see it gradually reduce over time; and that has happened.
"We had hoped to see a country that first dealt with its security and drug problems, and would then tackle its social development problems. And that has also happened.
"We may have got here pretty erratically and with some bumps in the road, I won't deny that. But the truth is I think we're pretty much where we wanted to be when we set out on the path to Plan Colombia a decade ago."
But human rights NGOs in Colombia say some of those "bumps in the road" the ambassador has referred to have involved serious war crimes by the Colombian military.
Most notable has been the so-called "false positives" scandal in which members of the Colombian military seemingly murdered innocent victims from poor neighbourhoods in Bogota and dressed their bodies up as left-wing guerrillas to claim greater victories in the war on drugs.
'Drastic action'
The leading candidate in the race for the presidency is the country's former defence minister, Juan Manuel Santos.
When asked, he brushed off uncomfortable questions about the "false positives" scandal saying his reaction to the issue was a further reason for the Colombian people to back his bid for president.
"We didn't invent the false positives problems, I eliminated them.
"We took very dramatic action, with total determination and transparency. And with total efficiency because - since November 2008 since I acted against those involved - the reports of 'false positives' has diminished dramatically."
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Colombia this week, where she held talks with President Alvaro Uribe and Mr Santos, who many believe is the Pentagon's favoured candidate because of his promise to continue the current national security policies.
But Mrs Clinton also met the Green Party's candidate, Antanas Mockus, who is hoping to cause an upset in the second round.
"Plan Colombia has had some changes," Mr Mockus said recently. "The change in President Obama's policy goes in the same direction [as mine]...It's more about prosecuting big players in the drugs trade, and from my side, working more closely with small coca producers."
Whoever wins, Mrs Clinton assured Colombians that the security relationship with Washington would remain untouched.
"Obama has a lesser interest in Colombia than his predecessor, but the bilateral relationship has now become so institutionalised that even a new president in the United States would have a very hard time undoing it," said Dr Tickner.
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After two days of counting in the 2021 Welsh Parliament election, Welsh Labour has kept control in the Senedd. | Mark Drakeford, who is set to stay as first minister, has kept his Cardiff West seat with an increased majority.
Labour has been in power since the birth of devolution in 1999, but has never secured a majority.
It was just one seat short of creating history in Wales as the last result came in - but Mr Drakeford was happy winning half of the Senedd's 60 seats.
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Groups are being encouraged to set up "bike libraries" allowing people to borrow bikes for free across Yorkshire. | Community groups, charities and not-for-profit businesses can apply for £500 - £10,000 to set up a scheme.
Successful groups would manage a fleet of bikes that could be borrowed for between a day and several months.
The fund is a three-year project with Yorkshire Bank and Cycle Yorkshire to offer financial and marketing assistance to the community projects.
The first round of funding for bike libraries is available until 27 February.
Old or unwanted bikes can already be donated at 10 Yorkshire locations.
Related Internet Links
Welcome to Yorkshire
Cycle Yorkshire
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Japanese authorities have raised the severity rating of the nuclear crisis at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi power plant to the highest level, seven.
| The decision reflects the ongoing release of radiation, rather than a sudden deterioration. Level seven previously only applied to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, where 10 times as much radiation was emitted.
But most experts agree the two nuclear incidents are very different. Explore the table below to find out how they compare.
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There have been brothels in Nevada since the days of the Gold Rush, but in one of the state's 16 counties that could be about to change. Voters in Lyon County have a chance to put an end to legal prostitution in November, in a ballot coinciding with the country's mid-term elections. Lucy Ash met a veteran Nevada sex worker and heard the arguments for and against. | Air Force Amy totters around the kidney-shaped swimming pool in her high heels to show me the gym where women can work out between clients. She points out the barbecue patio and the Jacuzzi before flinging open a garage door to reveal some dusty quad bikes.
"We've got everything we need right here, even ponies in the stable out the back," she says. "I don't ride them because it's too risky - I need my body to work," she adds with a throaty laugh.
We escape the blinding desert sun for the dimly lit parlour where a pink neon Bunny Ranch sign flickers over the bar. A few girls in lingerie or skimpy dresses are sitting on the crushed velvet sofas hunched over laptops and phones.
This is the most famous of the 21 legal brothels scattered across rural Nevada. Behind the bar there's a corridor, which leads to dozens of bedrooms, each occupied by a sex worker in return for a daily rent.
The Bunny Ranch is set in a scrubby landscape punctuated by gas stations, casinos and gun shops. It lies just inside the Lyon County line. Prostitution is outlawed in nearby Carson City, Nevada's state capital, and other urban areas.
Road signs on the driveway show copulating rabbits and warn that the speed limit is 69mph - just kidding, it says underneath.
When a customer rings the buzzer on the gate, an internal bell summons the sex workers into the parlour for a "line-up". Once he has chosen a woman, she takes him to her room to negotiate a price. The overwhelming majority of clients are men although occasionally couples make an appearance.
Air Force Amy is still, at 53, one of the top earners at the ranch and she says she is pulling in about half a million dollars a year. Airbrushed photos of her in her youth decorate the walls.
With her platinum blonde hair, hourglass figure and bright red nails she looks like the star of a 1980s TV soap. But her breezy talk also reminds me of the 1930s Hollywood sex symbol, Mae West.
"If sex was a sport I'd have a heap of gold medals," she says. "I was born with this crazy talent and I love my job. I see all these guys - we have a good time, they give me money and they take their dirty laundry home with them!"
She admits that she doesn't have much of a home life herself. "Why get married and make one man miserable when I can make thousands of men happy?" she laughs.
Her lack of enthusiasm for family life is understandable. Brought up in rural Ohio, Amy describes herself as a "wild child" who left home aged 13. She used to allow boys at school to pull down her knickers in exchange for their lunch money. She says she can now spot a "john" who is drunk or dangerous because as a teenage runaway, she learned the hard way - selling sex on the roadside to survive.
And yet Amy ended up getting a good job with the US Air Force. By the late 1980s, she was in the Philippines teaching servicemen how to defend a runway in the jungle.
"Some guys didn't like a slick-sleeved, low-rank female telling them what to do," she recalls. "But I was only trying to stop them from getting killed."
Amy says she had some distressing experiences in Asia which left her with post-traumatic stress disorder, and a drinking problem.
After her return to the US, she left the Air Force and began working in lockdown brothels - known to some as "pussy prisons" - where women are forbidden from leaving the premises for the duration of a three-week shift.
Eventually Amy ran into Dennis Hof, owner of the Bunny Ranch, who invited her to come and work for him. He says women in his establishments are free to come and go and he doesn't refer to them as employees - he prefers to call them ICs or "independent contractors".
Brash, bald and blue-eyed, Hof owns a third of all Nevada's legal brothels, and four of those in Lyon County. As he sees it, women like Amy are the successful face of a vibrant, modern industry.
"The girls are businesswomen - we're partners," he says, sitting in the parlour with his arm around another sex worker's waist. This one, known to punters as Honey, is in her 20s, around the age Amy was when she started nearly three decades ago.
"We work together," he adds. "This is a dirty, disgusting, drug-ridden business - until you legalise it."
Find out more
Nevada's legal brothels have been in business since 1971. Once low-key, homely affairs catering to travelling salesmen and lonely truckers, Hof has brought the industry into the 21st Century with a touch of Hollywood glamour and shrewd marketing.
At weekly pep talks known as "tea parties", Hof dispenses his commercial wisdom to his workforce. As in an office or car dealership, the names of the employees of the month are displayed on an electronic ticker tape attached to the wall. Some are praised and given gifts, from toiletries to electronic gadgets, for securing the highest number of bookings.
The atmosphere is part sales conference, part New Age commune. The women, all clutching note pads, have to come up with positive statements such as, "Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud."
Hof constantly urges them to use social media to get more clients through the door. "The girls that post, make the most, it's a fact," he tells them, sucking on his cigar. Whatever the women earn, half goes to the house. And as he boasts in his autobiography, The Art of the Pimp, Hof has profited handsomely.
However, he argues that legal brothels benefit everyone.
"People need to understand that if I owned four McDonald's restaurants in this county, I would pay $1,200 a year in taxes," he says. "I own four brothels, I pay a half a million dollars a year in taxes. That's a lot of money for a small county."
He goes on to claim that his businesses contribute another $10m a year to the local economy by employing chambermaids, bar tenders, cooks, drivers, doctors, hairdressers and others, and says the sex industry boosts tourism across the whole state.
Sure enough, on our first morning at the Bunny Ranch, three men in biker gear ring the buzzer. They are holidaymakers from China's Sichuan Province, 7,000 miles away. "My friends heard about this place and they couldn't believe it was legal," says one. "We came to check it out."
Whether or not tourism of this kind is in Nevada's interests, though, is a moot point. Some argue that the brothels make all women living nearby more vulnerable to assault, increase the danger of sex trafficking, and deter respectable businesses from investing in the area.
So far the brothels don't seem to have stopped economic development in northern Nevada. Tesla's recently constructed $5bn lithium battery Gigafactory, is just a few miles from a legal brothel in neighbouring Storey County.
But the critics argue that more hi-tech industries would come if the brothels did not exist, and that this is where Nevada's future lies. They also have ethical objections.
Brenda Simpson, from the End Trafficking and Prostitution Political Action Committee, says it is time to stop looking the other way.
"You know, it used to be considered OK to bring slaves from Africa," she tells me in the park outside the state legislature in Carson City. "And finally, someone had the courage to say, 'No, we're not going to have slavery.' This is just a different kind of slavery. These women in the legal brothels are slaves."
Ultimately, campaigners like Simpson aim to end legal sex work across the whole state. Lyon County was the only one of the 16 counties where enough residents signed a petition to launch the ballot initiative on brothel closure this November, but if the vote is successful she says other counties are likely to follow suit.
Her group recently launched a campaign called "Close the Meat Market". Posters, leaflets and TV advertisements show women packaged in plastic-wrapped containers like cuts of chicken or lamb.
Melissa Holland, who runs a refuge for abused women in the nearby city of Reno, also doesn't buy the "happy hooker" image.
She says her organisation, Awaken, has helped many women across the state to leave prostitution and find other work.
She quotes a study of a Nevada's sex industry by a Californian academic which concludes that legalised prostitution improves conditions for pimps and brothel owners, rather than for the women who work there. It denounces an almost cult-like atmosphere in many legal brothels, which prevents employees from talking candidly about the dangers they face, including drugs and sexual assault.
None of the women currently working at the Bunny Ranch have anything critical to tell me about their boss or their working conditions. Air Force Amy assures me that she doesn't feel exploited.
"I have made a lot of money out of him too. I couldn't have earned this much on the street and I feel much safer," she says.
In her room, decorated with sparkling silver cushions, she points out the panic button on the wall near the bed.
However, taking Melissa Holland's advice, I approach some former brothel employees.
For the past two years, Jennifer O'Kane has been telling anyone who will listen that she was raped by Hof. She alleges the assault took place in 2011 when she began working at his Love Ranch brothel in Nye County, a couple of hours' drive from Las Vegas.
"He grabbed me by the throat and said now you are mine... all I could do was cry and I beg him to stop," she tells me.
Jennifer says when she first went to the police, they didn't take a proper statement and no number was assigned to her case. Two years ago, she walked into a meeting of Nye County officials and attempted to raise her allegations against Hof, but was silenced.
She says that the district attorney's office told her that even if they investigated further, Hof could not be prosecuted because the four-year statute of limitations had expired.
On the phone, Hof flatly denies O'Kane's version of events. "This is a disgruntled employee that we fired. There's no truth in it," he says, calling her allegations "absurd". He then adds she was "not the demographic of girls that I sleep with anyway" before abruptly hanging up.
On Wednesday 5 September it was announced that the brothel baron is being investigated for alleged sexual assault by the Nevada Department of Public Safety's investigation division, though it's not clear whether this is related to O'Kane's claims or to accusations made by two other sex workers in 2005 and 2009, who also used to work in Hof's brothels.
Hof says those allegations, too are groundless - he believes he is under attack because he had "the nerve" to stand for office. He is running for election to the State Assembly in district 36 around a town called Pahrump, outside Las Vegas. After winning the Republican primary, he started calling himself "the Trump of Pahrump".
"This ballot initiative to shut my businesses down and phony allegations of 'sexual assault' are the work of my political opponents," he tells me. "What they thought was, 'If we go after him, try to take his business away from him, he'll quit.' Well it didn't work. It just made me get tougher. And the election in November is going to be a shoo-in for me."
Meanwhile, Amy is backing up her boss by tweeting about his brothel's open day for the community, "buffet spread provided".
As she feeds apples to the ponies in their pen behind the Bunny Ranch, she is in a reflective mood. I tell her that I read an interview with her back in 2001 in which she said she was going to leave prostitution within a year, because it was taking such a toll on her body and her "joints ached like a football player's". There was a plan to save up and open a real estate agency. So what happened?
"I don't want a new career after this one," she says. "This is it. What I like is making people happy and breaking the barriers to their sexual problems - what is wrong with that?"
She jokes that these days she is "arm candy for 75-year-olds" but she is not ready to throw in the towel.
"I'll keep working here as long as I can still walk… And even if I can't! Maybe I'll be the first prostitute in a wheelchair? I guarantee they will build ramps around this place for me!"
But come November Amy may not have a choice. Her future depends on the people of Lyon County, and whether they vote in November to close the brothels, or to keep them open.
Listen to Assignment: Nevada's brothels face the axe on the BBC World Service
Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.
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Old concrete at Guernsey Airport will be re-used as part of improvements to the site. | About 2,000 cubic metres of concrete and asphalt will be crushed and used as base material for the runway and plane parking areas outside the terminal.
Guernsey Airport said using the old material had financial and environmental benefits.
It is hoped it will remain in place for up to 30 years.
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The British Film Institute (BFI) is celebrating the work of film-maker Alfred Hitchcock with a season of screenings, including nine of his little-known silent movies, restored to their original glory after a painstaking and time-consuming restoration project. We went behind the scenes to see the meticulous work of the BFI conservationists. | By Stuart HughesBBC News
The instantly recognisable figure of Alfred Hitchcock stares out from a giant outdoor poster at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
His jowly face is twisted into a grimace. His index finger points accusingly. More than 30 years after his death, Hitchcock remains one of the towering icons of cinema history.
Taut 1950s and 1960s thrillers such as Rear Window, North by Northwest, Vertigo and Psycho sealed his reputation as "the master of suspense". Hitchcock's early silent films, though, are often excluded from the canon.
For decades, screenings have been limited to festival audiences and small groups of cinema enthusiasts. That is about to change.
The British Film Institute (BFI) has spent three years restoring nine Hitchcock films made between 1925 and 1929. They will be shown at a series of gala events as part of the
London 2012 Festival
taking place alongside the Olympic Games.
"We've been trying to show them for years and we were always frustrated by the condition they were in," says Robin Baker, head curator of the BFI's National Archive at Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire.
"It feels so appropriate at a time when the world's focus is on London that Britain's greatest film-maker, who was born in one of the Olympic boroughs and who made films about London, will be one of the stars."
The restoration process began with a worldwide search for surviving prints of the nine titles. A tenth film made during the period, The Mountain Eagle (1926), remains lost.
Once the fragile reels, some of them made from unstable and highly flammable nitrate film stock, were located and sent to the BFI's National Archive, they were examined and logged shot-by-shot by film restoration experts.
Detective work
It was commonplace in the early years of cinema for versions of a film to be different from country to country.
With no surviving scripts or original camera negatives to work from, however, the restoration team turned detective to help decide what Hitchcock's original vision for each film might have been.
"It's a matter of building up evidence," explains the BFI's Film Conservation Manager, Kieron Webb.
"The way films were produced during the period leaves its mark and you can make judgements about when and perhaps why edits were made.
"You can date the prints and that can help you work out what the film was like on its first release and what was a later change added by someone else."
After being checked, cleaned and repaired if necessary, each frame of film was digitally captured on a £500,000 scanner before being restored and edited using computer software.
Familiar themes
Hitchcock's unique style is apparent even in his earliest films.
The restored works show him beginning to explore some of the signature motifs that were to recur throughout his career.
"The very first shot of The Pleasure Garden, which was made in 1926, features a chorus line of blonde women walking down a spiral staircase," says Baker.
"They come out onto a stage and they are leered at by a group of middle-aged men staring at them through opera glasses.
"Already you have the obsession with blondes seen in The Birds and North by Northwest, the voyeurism of Psycho and Rear Window, even the theatre setting he used again and again in his films," he continues.
"If you went through a checklist of things we describe as 'Hitchcockian' you could tick off about half of them straight away," he adds.
"Hitchcock knew what he was interested in and how he was going to pursue it from day one."
Even before the birth of talking pictures, sound was an integral part of the cinema-going experience.
"At the time it was indispensable - nobody would have thought about silent film without its other component, which was the music," says the BFI's curator of silent film, Bryony Dixon.
During the 1920s, orchestra leaders at individual cinemas would have written a score to accompany each film.
With no original music manuscripts to draw from, the BFI has commissioned scores from leading contemporary British artists such as Soweto Kinch, Mira Calix and Nitin Sawhney.
The new soundtracks will be performed live at each screening.
"There's a big debate about whether you update the music for a modern audience," admits Dixon.
"It's a performance and it's the connection between the visuals and the audience through music that's important.
"If the audience has different expectations than a 1920s audience would have had I think it's fine to reinterpret the music."
New generation
In addition to the nine restored works, a major Alfred Hitchcock retrospective encompassing all of his surviving films will be held at the BFI Southbank in London between August and October.
The BFI hopes the Hitchcock season will burnish the Leytonstone-born film-maker's reputation as a central figure in British artistic and cultural history - and also introduce him to a new generation of film fans.
"There's a similarity between Hitchcock and Charles Dickens, who wrote incredibly commercial, popular novels but also created some of the most brilliant literature ever written in this country," says Baker.
"Hitchcock did exactly the same thing. He created an incredibly commercial, popular cinema but he did it with a profound artistry.
"Too many people still see film as a disposable art form but if you analyse what Hitchcock was doing you can understand the genius at work.
"I think he's at the top of any list of the most important creative artists Britain has ever produced."
The Genius of Hitchcock season opens on Friday 6 July with the world premiere of the restored 1929 film Blackmail at the British Museum in London.
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The last time I noted a quiet-looking parliamentary week ahead, the prime minister went and called an election, so it is with some trepidation that I suggest that next week's agendas in the Commons and Lords look a little short of drama. | Mark D'ArcyParliamentary correspondent
Labour MPs are on a two-line whip for a humdrum week of non-controversial legislation and several general debates, with no sign, yet, of the eagerly-awaited Great Repeal Bill, which will be the centrepiece of the forthcoming Brexit legislation.
There will be yet another mini-reshuffle of the Labour front bench after the departure of six shadow ministers who backed Chuka Umunna's cross-party Queen's Speech amendment to keep the UK inside the EU customs union and single market (interestingly, nine Labour MPs had signed the amendment but did not, in the end, vote for it - suggesting swift action by their whips).
Meanwhile over in the Lords, the voting figures on a similar amendment from the Labour peer, Lord Adonis, were interesting; he was supported by 58 Lib Dems, 25 Labour peers, 16 Crossbenchers and three Conservatives (Heseltine, Hogg and Wheatcroft) plus two "others" - giving a total of 104 votes for, to 172 against in a late night division on a pretty symbolic motion.
It's a respectable showing for Lord Adonis, in the face of a three-line Labour whip against him, but it also suggests that the government will only be in danger if and when the Lords Labour leadership is prepared to weigh in on Brexit votes in the Upper House.
Another interesting set of voting figures were those from this week's Commons election for a deputy Speaker - a poll dominated by Lindsay Hoyle, who won 354 votes, while former Labour chief whip, Dame Rosie Winterton, took 88 and Roberta Blackman-Woods 51.
Mr Hoyle was elected on the first ballot, and his second preference votes were 145 to Roberta Blackman Woods and 145 to Rosie Winterton.....so Mr Hoyle remains the senior Deputy, the Chairman of Ways and Means, and continues to look like the heir-apparent, when Speaker Bercow finally calls it a day.
As the only Conservative in the field, Eleanor Laing was elected without opposition and Rosie Winterton takes over from Natascha Engel, who lost her seat in the general election. Roberta Blackman Woods misses out, this time.
Elsewhere, every question time in the Commons will increasingly become an audition for the ambitious. This includes would-be select committee chairs, Labour dissidents seeking support, and, ever so quietly, for ministers aspiring to higher office.
Here's my rundown of the week ahead:
Monday
In the Commons (2.30 pm) MPs open with Home Office questions - and as usual, any post weekend statements from ministers or urgent questions will be taken at 3.30pm. Already, the Northern Ireland Secretary, James Brokenshire, is expected to make a statement on any developments in the talks on restoring the Northern Ireland executive and the Stormont assembly.
Legislation will be needed to restore the power-sharing agreement, or in the event that the talks fail and direct rule from Westminster is restored. Without new legislation another Assembly election would have to be called.
Then, MPs turn to the second reading debate on the Air Travel Organisers' Licensing Bill - this is a fairly uncontroversial measure to modernise the Air Travel Organisers' Licensing (ATOL) scheme, which provides consumer protection for package holidays that include a flight.
Finally, the Labour MP Keith Vaz leads an adjournment debate on the safety of children at theme parks - after an 11-year-old constituent, Evha Jannath, died when she fell from a "river rapids" ride at Drayton Manor theme park.
In the Lords (2.30 pm), questions to ministers include one from the Lib Dem, Baroness Walmsley, on plans to review guidance fire safety in new and existing school buildings in the light of the Grenfell Tower fire. Then there are debates on the impact of the United Kingdom's development aid budget - and on air quality in London.
MPs open (11.30 am) with Health questions - and assuming no ministerial statements or urgent questions are added to the agenda, they then move on to the second reading debate on the European Union (Approvals) Bill - there's a slightly anachronistic flavour of EU business as usual about this measure, which will approve four draft decisions of the EU Council on such subjects as the participation of Albania and Serbia as observers in the work of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, and on enhanced cooperation between the European Commission and the Canadian Competition Bureau.
There seems to be little expectation of controversy, because there will then be a debate on the newly-published Gibb Report on the chronic problems besetting the Southern Rail franchise. Expect any number of MPs living along their commuter routes to weigh in on the effects of the continuing industrial action and other problems around Southern.
But watch out for a motion on the allocation of Select Committees. This is the new carve-up agreed between the main party business managers, to decide which party provides the chair for which committee. The election means the Lib Dems will be given the Chair of the Science and Technology Committee, but it is possible not everyone will be happy with the share-out.
The list is here: on the order paper.
Once the motion is agreed, the Speaker will announce the dates and timings for the committee elections - the chairs should be elected by the whole House, 14 days after the motion is approved.
Nominations can be submitted as soon as the motion has been agreed by the House until 5pm the day before the ballot, which is held under the alternative vote. It now looks unlikely that the ordinary committee members will be elected (they're chose by the internal processes of the various party groups) until September.
The adjournment debate, on improvements to neighbourhood planning is led by the Conservative John Howell, one of the architects of the coalition government's planning reforms.
Westminster Hall sees its first debates of the new Parliament, with the DUP's Jim Shannon raising the issue of the persecution of Christians and the role of UK embassies (9.30 - 11 am).
The SNP's Alison Thewliss has a debate on the High Court judgement on benefit cap (11am-11.30am) and at 2.30pm there's a debate on the Kurdistan region in Iraq - this will mark debut in this Parliament of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Kurdistan, one of the most quietly effective all-party groups in Parliament with proceedings opened by the new chair Jack Lopresti. The debate will probably be answered by the Middle East Minister, Alistair Burt, who was brought back into government after the election, and is himself a former Vice Chair of the All-Party Group.
The Lib Dem and Orkney and Shetland MP, Alistair Carmichael, discusses support for renewable energy generation in island communities (4pm- 4.30 pm) and the Conservative Derek Thomas raises the safety of riders and horses on rural roads (4.30pm-5.30 pm).
In the Lords (2.30 pm) peers have their usual half hour of questions to ministers and then they debate a report from their International Relations Committee: The Middle East: Time for a New Realism and a European Union Committee report: Brexit: acquired rights.
The Commons day begins (11.30 am) with Cabinet Office questions, followed at noon by Prime Minister's Questions, which now routinely stretches well beyond the scheduled half hour, as the Speaker ensures all the backbenchers listed on the Order Paper get a chance to put their question to Theresa May.
Then MPs turn to a motion to approve the Justice and Security of Northern Ireland Act 2007, extension of duration of non-jury trails, followed by a general debate on Israel and Palestine.
In Westminster Hall there are debates on road infrastructure (9.30am); support for the Srebrenica genocide commemoration (11am); the state pension age for women (2.30pm); working conditions in the private hire industry (4pm) and the political and humanitarian situation in Yemen (4.30pm).
In the Lords (3pm) questions to ministers are followed by the second reading debate on the Financial Guidance and Claims Bill, which aims to ensure people can access free and impartial money guidance, pensions guidance and debt advice. It would set up a Single Financial Guidance Body. Then comes a short debate on the Centenary of the Balfour Declaration - the announcement by the then foreign secretary that the British government supported the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
In the Commons (9.30am) International Trade questions are followed (10am) by Women and Equalities questions - where there may be some after the match analysis of the government's concession on NHS funding for women from Northern Ireland who travel to England for abortions.
Then comes the weekly Business Statement from the Leader of the House, Andrea Leadsom, with MPs keen to discover when key Brexit legislation, particularly the Great Repeal Bill, will be brought before them.
They may also want to know when the long-promised debate on plans to move them out of the Victorian Palace of Westminster, to allow for renovation work, will take place.... if ever.
That will be followed by a general debate on Exiting the European Union and global trade - which will doubtless focus on possible trade-offs between access to the EU single market and Britain's ability to strike new trade deals across the world, post Brexit.
In the Lords (11am) questions to ministers are followed by debates on subjects chosen by backbench peers - first, on the role of businesses, including SMEs, in creating and spreading wealth, improving life chances, and contributing to the communities in which they operate.
Then, peers turn to the government's plans to protect and support victims of domestic violence and abuse, and there will also be a short debate on the promotion of financial inclusion through use of innovative financial solutions and new technology.
And even though the Commons are some way from setting up their select committees, their lordships are swinging into action on the committee corridor, with a hearing of their EU External Affairs Committee (10.05am); on common foreign and security policy after Brexit, where the witnesses include the former defence secretary and Nato Secretary-General Lord Robertson, the former foreign secretary Lord Hague of Richmond and the former EU Commissioner Baroness Ashton.
Neither House sits on Friday.
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As I wheeled my grandad Martin up the ramp and into a taxi which would take him away to the care home, I repeated the white lie my family had agreed might make this painful scenario slightly easier. | By Tom BradaBBC News
"You're going to see the physio who will look after your leg and then you'll be able to get better."
Thankfully his dementia meant that he couldn't fully understand what was happening or where he was going. In fact, he seemed to quite enjoy the novelty of being outdoors for the first time in months. But my granny and I were raw with emotion.
Grandad, nonplussed as to why I might be crying, instinctively reached out to stroke a part of my cheek not hidden behind my face mask. Granny blew him a final kiss and the taxi pulled away, leaving me, Granny and my brother-in-law silent in the middle of the street, awash with guilt and relief.
Well into his 80s, my grandad still looked immodestly young and was frequently challenged for his pensioner ID when boarding a bus. During retirement he spent many years volunteering at an elderly care home, caring for people who were often much younger than him.
But as his 10th decade arrived, so did dementia and things started to fall apart. He'd lose track of his words mid-sentence. Making a cup of tea became a challenge. One time the fire brigade descended after he fed a cracker into the toaster. Family rescue efforts were appreciated by my 92-year-old granny, but in truth they were just stop-gaps - like fixing plasters on a broken leg.
"Ageing isn't for sissies," she warned me.
When lockdown began, the situation only worsened. Grandad had no understanding of the virus and the changes and restrictions it brought. In late June, my grandparents quietly celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary. Just three days later, Martin moved into a care home. The decision was agonising, but by that point, unavoidable.
Our family's situation is not uncommon: more than 300,000 people with dementia are living in care homes across the UK, according to Alzheimer's Research UK. Covid guidelines, which allow limited visiting, at a distance, are designed to keep this vulnerable community safe. But the flipside is families being kept apart from their loved ones, unable to do anything to counter their decline.
Julia Hailes, a writer who lives in Dorset, has struggled to remain in meaningful contact with her 90-year-old mother, Minker. Minker's worsening dementia meant her move to a care home was, at first, a lifeline for her family. But the pandemic has changed everything.
"Before lockdown I would visit mum and she still knew who I was. I'd go and read her poems, we'd sit and listen to music," says Julia. "Now everyone's being kept in their rooms. It's vital for people with dementia to have structure in their day, so that isolation is in some ways worse than death."
Video calls often do little for those with dementia. The notion of holding a "moving picture" of a loved one, as they talk, sounds promising. But it can be a hollow, even disturbing experience.
"Mum's care home introduced FaceTime calls, which I did a few times," says Julia. "But it was horrendous. What good is that when someone is in such a confused state? Part of how I connect with her is holding her hand and giving her a kiss. Weeks later I was eventually allowed to visit Mum in the garden. By that point it felt like I'd lost her - she wasn't even able to speak anymore."
Dr Hilda Hayo, of the charity Dementia UK, says for people with dementia, technology is no match for human interaction.
"Physical contact is such an essential tool in looking after someone with dementia. If someone is agitated, stroking their hands or putting your arm around them can be really helpful. So, for families, not being able to do that is really damaging."
This resonates with my own grandad's experience. Video calls left him more confused than when we'd begun; he could scarcely focus on the screen and struggled to understand where our voices were coming from. The only thing which seemed to cut through was the repetition of a simple message, "I love you, Martin". To which he could still reflexively respond, "I love you too, Bubala."
By the time his home was able to permit visitors, his stark decline was clear to my granny. Sunken-cheeked and unable to speak - he was barely recognisable as the man who had left their home just six weeks before.
The dementia of Philippa Thomson's mother, Marjorie, is so advanced Philippa knew better than to attempt a video call. Before lockdown her in-person visits to the care home would have a restorative effect on her mother.
"We would do relaxing things like colouring in or simple jigsaw puzzles," she says. "I would sit and hold her hand, or brush her hair. And over two-and-a-half to three days, I would see her coming alive."
Government guidelines in England only allow for one person to visit each resident indoors; two if it's outside. But with two older sisters, Philippa has recently been unable to see her mother.
"The carers are amazing, but no matter how good they are, they can't offer that same intimacy or affection. I do feel a huge amount of guilt and frustration. My mother is 97 years old and it's not any kind of life that she's got."
Care homes have borne immense pressures over the past few months. Aware of the burden on both the residents and their families, many made great efforts to maintain a thread of communication. Donna Pierpoint, the manager of a nursing home in Sheffield, described her role in restricting family visits as being "a cross between a prison governor and a headteacher".
In the meantime she's focused the home's efforts on keeping residents as well looked after as possible.
"If someone is being isolated in their room then, you've got to take the stimulation to them," says Ms Pierpoint. "Our staff will go to their rooms and read letters from their family, go through old photographs."
She sends out a weekly email to keep relatives in the loop and uses social media.
"We post pictures on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. We celebrated VE-Day on May 8th. We had a wonderful day and posted pictures so our residents' families could see we were having a good time."
On 1 August my grandad died at his care home. The majority of his 92 years were happy ones, but his final months were not. The home came to the rescue for my family at our time of need and looked after my grandad wonderfully in gruelling circumstances.
But as relatives, there's a lingering guilt that we were unable to provide that support ourselves. We did everything we could to let my grandad know how much he was loved. But we cannot shake the sense that the lack of our loving physical presence may have worsened his decline.
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A road in Northamptonshire was closed for five hours after a lorry became trapped while attempting to drive under a low railway bridge. | The A428 was shut between East Haddon and Great Brington when the lorry crashed into the bridge near Althorp at about 11:00 BST.
Northamptonshire Police said the road was cleared at about 16:00 BST.
London Midland said it had disrupted rail journeys on the Northampton to Rugby line.
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A man has been arrested after rocks were thrown at the windows of Ruth Davidson's constituency office in Edinburgh. | The Scottish Tory leader's office building in Roseburn Terrace was targeted at about 11:40
Ms Davidson, who is on maternity leave until next spring, was not in the building at the time.
A Police Scotland spokesman said: "A 54-year-old man has been arrested following a report of vandalism."
He added that no-one was injured.
The office is also shared by Miles Briggs and Gordon Lindhurst.
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A 14-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a man who was hit by his own car during a robbery. | Restaurant owner Mohammed Islam, 53, was delivering food when he was knocked down in Stockport on 8 January, Greater Manchester Police said.
He was taken to hospital but died from his injuries two days later.
The arrested suspect remains in police custody and was also being questioned on suspicion of conspiracy to commit theft.
Another 14-year-old boy was previously charged with the murder of Mr Islam, who owned the Marple Spice restaurant in Marple, and numerous driving offences.
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It's no easy thing to stick to a New Year resolution - with the best will in the world it's a challenge. | But we know there are success stories out there and we want to hear them.
Did you quit a bad habit, start a business, pledge to help others or take up a new hobby?
We asked you to tell us which New Year resolution you've kept and how you did it.
We have finished collecting your anecdotes and are working on a story.
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"It deeply affected him and his trust in human nature," says Anne Stephenson of her father John Reynolds, one of 95 London medical students who arrived at the notorious Belsen concentration camp in May 1945 to help care for survivors wracked by disease and starvation. | By Judith BurnsBBC News
The camp had been captured on 15 April by British troops who had no idea of the horrors they would find inside when the first tank pushed open the gates.
For the BBC's Richard Dimbleby, the first broadcaster to enter the camp, it was "the world of a nightmare".
About 10,000 dead bodies lay unburied, sanitation was non-existent.
There were 43,000 prisoners still alive, about two-thirds of them women, many so weak from starvation and disease they were unable to move from the huts where they were held and they were dying at a rate of about 500 a day.
The medical students, average age 21, were volunteers, recruited initially to help care for starving Dutch children but who found, just before they were due to travel, their destination had been changed to Belsen.
By the time they arrived at the beginning of May, most of the bodies had been removed but thousands of sick and dying people still languished in the huts.
"People in all stages of disease. Many were dead. Practically all were emaciated," John Reynolds, then a 23-year-old student at St Thomas's medical school, wrote later.
"Nearly all the internees had violent colic or diarrhoea."
They were suffering from a range of diseases including cholera, typhus, tuberculosis, sores, boils and gangrene.
"The people themselves were, on the whole, hopelessly filthy with no sense of decency or pride in themselves, treating the dead as furniture and their beds as latrines."
He carried these experiences with him for the rest of his life, says Anne, herself a doctor and a member of the academic staff at King's College London Medical School of which St Thomas's is now part.
"I remember once, we were all sitting having dinner and he suddenly said: 'I remember a blonde woman and they shot her in the leg. They shot her in the leg.'
"He had post-traumatic stress disorder, honestly. He had terrible PTSD that was never treated."
Led by senior military medical staff, the students helped halve the death rate within a month.
It tested both their medical skills and their personal stamina to an unimaginable degree, according to Westminster student Michael Hargrave, in his diary.
A major puzzle was what to feed the internees.
British army rations were indigestible to starving people and could kill them, a concoction called Bengal Famine Mix, was unpalatably sweet, and intravenous feeding threw some, who feared fatal injections, into panic.
Ultimately, diluted soup and glucose drinks worked best.
Deaths overnight
In pairs, the medical students were allocated to huts where each morning they would separate the living from those who had died overnight.
"The bodies are dragged out by those who can walk and then the Wehrmacht load them on to massive lorry trailers, guarded all the while, and bury them in immense graves," wrote Guy's student John Kilby in a letter to his mother.
Those needing medical help were gradually transferred to a makeshift hospital for 7,000 housed in a military barracks camp.
John Reynolds recounts how the huts were burned down one-by-one until only one was left.
On 21 May 1945 "an official ceremony of the burning of this last hut was attended by all those who worked in the camp... a volley was fired, the Union Jack unfurled and then the hut was burned to the ground by flamethrowers."
A week later, the students' month at Belsen was over and they were sent back to their medical schools.
"These days, of course, you would have a debrief and you'd have post-traumatic stress disorder counselling," says Prof Stephen Challacombe, a professor of oral medicine at King's and a medical historian.
"It was so stark, just, 'Give up your uniforms, you're back in civilian life'."
Of the 95, despite being inoculated, two returned with tuberculosis and seven with typhus.
DDT was used liberally to kill lice and Anne Stephenson says her father always wondered whether the cancers he suffered in later life were connected with the pesticide.
In their later careers as doctors and academics "all the reports, to a person, talk about how magnificent they were", says Prof Challacombe who has delivered a series of lectures on their story.
This year, to mark the 75th anniversary of their endeavour, King's College Medical School, which, as well as St Thomas's, also includes Guy's, and accounts for 34 of the 95 students, is erecting plaques to their memory.
"When they were asked to go, they could never have imagined what they would walk into and do," says Prof Challacombe,
Sometimes audience members bring their parents' letters and diaries from the period, among them Gilly Kenny and Jenny Meade whose fathers, John and Bernard, were among the King's College contingent and remained lifelong friends.
Gilly says it was after her father's death when "we had to clear out all sorts of papers and we came across some that related to his time in Belsen... that it became a bit clearer".
She found the lecture "very emotional... I learned a lot".
Prof Challacombe believes the most difficult time for the students was when the patients were transferred from the huts into the hospital.
"There is a point at which numbers and bodies turn into real people... suddenly individuals in beds as opposed to a mass of individuals lying on a floor...
"They did feel it when those patients that they'd been looking after, trying so hard, then died, I think that would have affected them."
He hopes modern day medical students will take a message from the story.
"I think understanding their sacrifice, understanding their willingness to get involved and to contribute is a real hallmark of medicine.
"I think there's a lesson for me in helping people to understand you can attain those pinnacles and you can contribute, everybody can contribute however insecure they feel at the time."
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A 40ft (12m) mural has been unveiled in Portishead in support of the fight to reopen its disused railway. | The design tells the "railway story" of the North Somerset town, from 1867 and into the future with trains using the line again.
Local artist Aili Purdy was asked to create the painting by businesses and Portishead Railway Group.
A bid by the council for £43m to reopen a link between Bristol and Portishead was rejected by the government in 2011.
North Somerset Council has said reopening the line is still a "high priority".
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A salvage team has successfully re-floated a cargo ship that ran aground on rocks in late March . | The MV Kaami got into difficulty between the isles of Skye and Lewis. Its crew was unharmed.
The ship was carrying pellets of a fuel made from waste.
After its cargo was removed, the boat was re-floated on Tuesday and towed to a dry dock. The journey to Loch Kishorn in the west Highlands took about 14 hours.
Highland Council said it had been monitoring for any pollution reaching the shores of Skye and mainland Highlands.
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Burmese opposition leader and member of parliament Aung San Suu Kyi, who is making her first visit to India in almost 40 years, attended college in the capital, Delhi. Nirmala Khanna, one of her teachers at Lady Shri Ram College for Women, remembers her famous student. | There was nothing remarkable about the young girl in my international relations class.
Not only me, no one in the college thought she would become a world leader and the torchbearer of her country's movement for democracy one day.
I remember I saw her on my first day as a professor at the college on 26 August 1964.
I entered the classroom around nine in the morning and took the attendance. Aung San Suu Kyi was one among the 60 students in the room.
She was an introvert and a quiet student. I remember her as a down-to-earth person despite the fact that she was the daughter of Burma's ambassador to India.
Humble
Her mother, who intermittently visited the college to drop or pick Suu Kyi, was also humble.
The young girl had an obvious interest in international relations.
Though some of her classmates were very forthcoming and frequently asked weird questions apparently to bully me since I was new, Suu Kyi was different.
She took part in college activities like debates and discussions. She was never an extraordinary student, though she was always inquisitive.
Everyone use to call her "Su Chi" and we also used to call her the same way.
She left the college in three years while I kept teaching for 40 years.
There was no word from her. When TV channels and newspapers carried reports of her house arrest, people would ask 'Is she the one you taught?'
We were concerned since she was a student of our college.
The principal used to call me and we used to discuss it sometimes. Suu Kyi made us proud when she took up the cause of democracy in her country.
Later when she was given the Nobel Peace Prize, it made us really proud. Our own "Su Chi" had become a Nobel laureate.
When she was being felicitated in absentia at India's presidential house, I was invited for the programme. But I could not make it since the invitation came at a short notice.
Now that she has come to Delhi and is visiting the college on Friday after 40 years, I have been invited again.
But this time I am suffering with arthritis and it is difficult for me to walk without a stick. Cars, I am told, are not allowed inside the campus for security reasons.
But I would love to see her after all these years. Does she remember me? I don't know.
Nirmala Khanna spoke to BBC Hindi's Salman Ravi
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On Friday, a meteor plunging towards Earth reportedly injured hundreds of people, as the shockwave blew out windows and rocked buildings. Later on Friday, the asteroid 2012 DA14 will make a close pass of Earth, skimming by at a distance of 28,000km. | By Paul RinconScience editor, BBC News website
Astronomers have ruled out any chance of a collision between that asteroid and Earth. But the two unconnected events highlight the potential danger from the primordial material that orbits in our cosmic neighbourhood. So what threat is posed to Earth by all the other cosmic debris out there?
There's no danger from 2012 DA14, but what would happen if a similar-sized rock were to hit us?
We don't know for sure what 2012 DA14 is made of. But asteroids measuring less than 100m across - and made of stony material - are liable to break up high in the atmosphere.
Declassified data from US military satellites (designed to monitor nuclear weapons tests) show that many such rocks burn up with no ill effects on the ground.
But occasionally, one of these "airbursts" can occur close enough to the Earth's surface to cause serious damage.
In 1908, an asteroid or comet measuring tens of metres across detonated about 10km above Siberia. The explosion flattened some 80 million trees over an area of 2,000 sq km (800 sq m) near the Tunguska River - as luck would have it, a sparsely populated region.
One theory proposes that the Tunguska object was a fragment of Comet Encke. This ball of ice and dust is responsible for a meteor shower called the Beta Taurids, which cascade into Earth's atmosphere in late June and July - the time of the Tunguska event.
If an equivalent event had occurred over London, it would have destroyed everything within the bounds of the M25 motorway. So media reports of 2012 DA14 as an asteroid big enough to level a city are not so wide of the mark.
An object of similar size to 2012 DA14 carved out the magnificent 1.2km-wide depression known as Meteor Crater in Arizona. This object was metallic - composed of iron and nickel - ensuring that it reached the ground relatively intact.
Early reports suggest the one that soared across Chelyabinsk in Russia on Friday weighed about 10 tonnes. There was no estimate for its diameter, but it was probably smaller than any of these objects.
These things are just big chunks of rock or metal - how can they have such devastating effects?
The small rocks, or meteoroids, that shower our planet all the time are travelling very fast, perhaps as much as tens of kilometres per second. As already mentioned, most simply burn up in the atmosphere, while the smaller number that survive the plunge to the surface have their velocities slowed drastically by atmospheric friction.
For those heavier than a few hundred tonnes, however, atmospheric friction has little effect on their velocities. A rock with that kind of mass travelling at high velocity will release a huge amount of energy when it smacks into the Earth's surface.
This is because the kinetic energy of the space rock is the product of half the mass and the square of the velocity. In other words, if you double the speed of the object, its kinetic energy will go up by a factor of four.
Though there are other factors which determine the effects of a given asteroid impact, such as the angle of entry and the nature of the target geology, it is not difficult to see why the energy released explosively by the larger classes of space rock can be many times that of a nuclear weapon.
In fact, researchers at Purdue University in the US and Imperial College London have put together a website called Impact Earth! that allows users to input the parameters of the asteroid and find out what effects if would have if it were to hit Earth.
How big can they get?
The asteroid whizzing by our planet on Friday is actually dwarfed by some of the debris out there.
The impact implicated in killing off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago was probably caused by an object some 10-15km wide.
The space rock hurtled through our atmosphere, striking Mexico's Yucatan peninsula. Scientists estimate that the explosive energy released by the impact was equivalent to 100 trillion tonnes of TNT - billions of times more explosive than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The huge crater that remains from the event is some 180km in diameter and surrounded by a circular fault about 240km in diameter.
While rocks the size of 2012 DA14 can potentially have devastating effects on a regional scale, the aftermath of the Cretaceous impact was global and long-lasting.
Initially, the Chicxulub impact triggered large-scale fires, huge earthquakes, and continental landslides which generated tsunamis. Then the hot rock and gas blasted at high velocity into the atmosphere shrouded the planet in darkness. There is evidence for considerable cooling following the asteroid strike; this "impact winter" could have lasted up to 10 years.
An object of this size hitting Earth today could potentially wipe out civilisation.
Statistically, rocky or iron asteroids larger than about 50m would be expected to hit Earth about every century. Asteroids larger than a kilometre are likely to collide with our planet every few hundred thousand years.
How much do we know about what's out there?
There are a number of search networks around the world set up to catalogue the potentially threatening objects in our neighbourhood. One of them is the US space agency's Near Earth Objects (Neo) programme, which manages and funds the search, study and monitoring of asteroids and comets whose orbits periodically bring them close to the Earth.
In 1998, Nasa started compiling an inventory of space rocks larger than one kilometre (0.62 miles) in diameter. But in 2005, the agency was set the much more challenging task of logging objects as small as 140m (460ft) in diameter. The target is to find 90% of them by 2020.
But the close flyby of 2012 DA14, the meteor strike in Russia and the forthcoming approach in November by Comet Ison (unknown before last year) show that there are vast gaps in our knowledge. This issue is dealt with in more detail here.
What can we do if astronomers detect something with our name on it?
One of the best known strategies for dealing with an incoming asteroid - applied by Bruce Willis in the film Armageddon - is to detonate a nuclear weapon near the surface of the object or below it.
The hope is that, in addition to blasting a large chunk out of the object, the explosion would nudge the asteroid off a collision course with Earth. However, if we were unlucky, this could fragment the space rock, potentially sending multiple chunks heading towards our planet.
Another strategy is to slam a spacecraft into the object to knock it off course. The European Space Agency (Esa) has designed a mission called Don Quijote, which will study the effects of just such a collision in space.
With a longer lead time, a spacecraft could be sent to intercept a space rock and fire its engines to slowly push the object off its current trajectory. Firing lasers at the surface of the asteroid might also be a way to deflect the rock.
Another, more surprising idea, is to fire balls of light-coloured paint at the object to increase its reflectivity. The pressure of light particles bouncing off the reflective coating, acting over time, would divert the rock off its path.
However, there is no firm timetable either for Don Quijote or other missions to test strategies for asteroid deflection.
How do I see the 2012 DA14 flyby?
The 45m-wide asteroid is not quite bright enough to be visible with the naked eye, but it can be observed through good binoculars between 1800 and 2200 GMT. It is best viewed from Europe, Australia and Asia, but will be whizzing by fast.
Astronomer and journalist Stuart Clark says it will be "crossing an area of the sky as wide as the full moon roughly every 30 seconds".
The asteroid will only be visible from some regions on Earth. Click through these maps produced by Dr Geert Barentsen, of the University of Hertfordshire, to see when the asteroid should be visible in different areas:
For skywatchers in the UK, the graphic below indicates roughly where in the northern sky to try to spot 2012 DA14.
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A man has been charged after threats were made to football fans on social media. | Tweets appeared about attacking fans at the League One play-off semi-final between Portsmouth and Sunderland at Fratton Park on Thursday.
North Yorkshire Police said Kieron Richardson, 22, from Northallerton, North Yorkshire, had been charged with making threats to kill.
He is due to appear at York Magistrates' Court on 7 June.
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Leo is 10 years old. For most of his life he's lived as a girl, but this summer he began to speak openly about his sense that this didn't feel quite right. With research help for his parents, he's decided he is non-binary - in his case, both masculine and feminine - though for the moment he dresses as a boy and has taken a male name. This is Leo's story in his own words. | I'm not a boy.
I thought I was a boy, because I'm not entirely a girl. We tried that for a bit, and I thought: "No, this is not right."
Then we did some research and we found the word is gender non-binary... and it really works, it's just me.
I don't know what age I was when I identified that I wasn't feeling right.
Actually I told my teacher first. I got really frustrated because I asked why none of the girls got boys' parts in a play that we were doing. It wasn't right.
I pulled her over and said: "I'm not a girl."
Find out more
Hear Leo's story on the iPM programme, broadcast at 05:45 and 17:30 BST on Radio 4 - catch up on BBC iPlayer Radio
She didn't think I was lying. But because it's not very common at all, I don't think she entirely thought that was how I was feeling.
I brought up the conversation with mum. I knew that mum would be totally supportive, but because I didn't know if this was actually how I was feeling, it felt like I should wait until I was sure. But then I didn't think that would do any good either.
I was quite nervous.
Mum was completely on board. Totally interested.
"What would be your name if you were a boy? You've always been more attracted to boys, would you be gay man or a straight man?"
In some families, they're just going to laugh, they're not going to believe. Or they don't know how to react, so they don't react. I don't how I would cope.
So I'm really lucky. It's so great that I have these two wonderful parents.
At school everyone was absolutely great. My teacher told the class, and all my friends were like: "Oh wow. That's really interesting."
Because we're 10 and nine, it just doesn't affect anything.
We just play, we don't actually talk a lot about personal stuff.
Me and one of my friends - who's a girl - were playing in the sandpit.
She was like: "So are you a boy?"
More from the Magazine
Non-binary people are those who don't feel male or female. They may feel like both or like something in between. They may have a gender that changes over time or they may not relate to gender at all.
A guide to transgender terms (June 2015)
"No, I'm not a boy or a girl. I'm non-binary, so I'm in the middle."
She said: "So you're neither?"
I actually don't think I'm neither. I'm both.
I really want to use the boys' loos because it's more right than using the girls. I'm not allowed to and I think I should be able to.
I can understand because there are lots of older boys using the loos who might be a bit worried about someone (being there) who doesn't have what they have.
I still feel that "he" doesn't feel particularly right. I feel more right as "ze" or "they", but they draw attention to me and my gender when we're trying to have a conversation about trousers.
When I'm older, I'm going to make that decision again, instead of just sticking with "he".
There isn't a body of the two genders. I just wish there was some way in the middle.
When I grow up it's going to be harder for me to say I'm not a girl.
At the moment, I do wear a bra. But if I wear a sports shirt I can kind of get away with it.
Breasts are the main thing people notice. I do correct people when people use the word "boy" and "she".
I say: "I'm sorry, I'm not a boy or a girl." And leave it at that.
If they ask questions, I answer, but it doesn't have to be the centre of attention.
It's not even the most interesting thing about me.
I really like the idea of having a beard. I really like the idea.
You can put hair from your head into your chin, and it grows like a beard.
People with girls' bodies use it. My friend's dad told me that it works. Maybe he made a mistake.
If there was a way of doing that without getting hormone blockers and male hormones... but then again people would say: "Look at that MAN'S beard."
I don't want people to associate me with one gender or another.
But I know they will, I don't think there is any way of escaping that.
I'm feeling a lot happier than before. I'm feeling a lot more relaxed and I'm feeling able to talk about it without being all shy.
I don't need people to understand.
I just need people not to be rude.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent visit to five Central Asian countries has reinvigorated India's traditional ties with the region. BBC Monitoring's Vikas Pandey analyses the PM's whirlwind tour and India's interests in the region. | "We see an important place for Central Asia in India's future," Mr Modi said in Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek.
The statement shows his government's stress on increasing Delhi's footprints in the region.
Dr Athar Zafar, Central Asia analyst at Indian Council of World Affairs, says India's academic, business and diplomatic community always wanted Delhi's ties with the five nations to go beyond cultural exchanges.
Has Mr Modi achieved that?
He says the PM has certainly been successful in signalling India's interest in playing a bigger role in the region.
During Mr Modi's visit, India signed several deals in energy, trade, culture and security sectors with the five nations.
Energy
The five Central Asian countries became independent in 1990s and have made steady economic progress in the past two decades.
The region is known for its resources like hydrocarbon, mineral deposits, hydroelectric power potential and gold.
India signed a fresh deal with Kazakhstan to secure 5,000 tonnes of uranium supply over the next four years. Kazakhstan is the world's largest producer of uranium and the deal has ensured a steady supply of fuel for India's 21 operating nuclear reactors.
India's state-run oil firm ONGC Videsh Limited has a minor stake in Kazakhstan's Satpayev oil blocks. Mr Modi wanted additional blocks for India's investments, but no specific announcement was made by the two sides on this front.
The Indian PM, however, said, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev "responded positively to my request to consider additional mature blocks".
In Turkmenistan, the long-awaited TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) gas pipeline was discussed and Mr Modi termed the project as a "key pillar" of economic engagement between the two countries.
The pipeline plan may face hurdles because of the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan. But the two countries have showed their sincerity in realising the project that would bring gas from Central Asia to South Asia.
Trade
The economic development of Central Asia, specially in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, has sparked a construction boom and development of sectors like IT, pharmaceuticals and tourism.
India has expertise in these sectors and deeper cooperation will give a fresh impetus to trade relations with these countries. India's trade ties with Central Asia have been performing well below their true potential.
"India's struggle to reform its economy, reconstruct relations with major powers after the Cold War and reconstitute ties with neighbours meant Central Asia was never high on Delhi's foreign policy agenda," writes C Raja Mohan in the Indian Express.
Poor connectivity has also contributed to the below-par trade between India and Central Asia.
But Dr Zafar says India has found a way to solve the problem. Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan recently inaugurated a railway line connecting the two countries with Iran.
"India has invested in Iran's Chabahar port and that will allow Indian products to reach Iran and then to Central Asia through the rail link," he explains
The successful nuclear deal between Iran and major world powers will also make it easier for Delhi to do business with Tehran.
Central Asian countries have shown their keen interest in allowing India to play a bigger role in the region. Russia has been a dominant force in the region and China has also made inroads into the region in recent years.
But the five capitals want to diversify their foreign relations and believe that India's presence will help them achieve their aim. And Mr Modi seems to have leveraged Central Asia's quest for diversification to India's advantage.
Security
Tajikistan, Turkestan and Uzbekistan share borders with Afghanistan and fear that any instability in the neighbourhood will affect them.
India's has traditionally stayed away from playing any military role in Afghanistan. But experts say Mr Modi may have to find a middle path to play "military diplomacy" in the region.
"Mr Modi also needs to end India's traditional reluctance to embark upon an expansive military diplomacy in the region. Overcoming India's inertia will certainly take a while. But Modi is well positioned to make a fresh start in Central Asia," writes Mr Mohan.
Central Asian countries are also "nervous" about the growing influence of Islamic State militant group in the region. The PM has convinced the leaders of the five nations that India stands united in their fight against the jihadist group.
Culture
India and Central Asia have a rich history of cultural exchanges.
Mr Modi emphasised in all the five capitals that India is interested in promoting more cultural activities.
He also signed deals to promote tourism between India and the region.
Indian filmmakers can use the stunning landscapes of Central Asian countries at a relatively low cost.
As one analyst said, the appearance of Central Asia in Bollywood films will be an indication that Mr Modi's tour has been successful.
BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.
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Have the US elections really influenced Brexit talks? | Katya AdlerEurope editor@BBCkatyaadleron Twitter
Some say the UK slammed on the brakes in negotiations this week, as the government hedged its bets on who would end up in the White House.
Not so, say UK government sources.
That's not the impression we have, say EU voices close to the talks.
Trump or Biden?
Clearly, a no-deal situation with the EU would be a bit easier for the government to sell in the short term with Donald Trump in the White House. While a trade deal with the US is proving (unsurprisingly) tough for the UK to negotiate, Mr Trump could probably be relied on to make some very positive noises.
Joe Biden, unlike President Trump, has had no contact with the prime minister, warm or otherwise. Relations with the UK, while of interest, would arguably be pretty far down his list of immediate presidential priorities.
With his roots in Ireland, Mr Biden would also likely support US lawmakers who've insisted the Irish protocol contained in last year's Brexit divorce deal must be fully respected. This is because of its importance in maintaining an open border on the island of Ireland and, by extension, in safeguarding the Northern Ireland peace process.
In September, just after the UK government introduced the Internal Market Bill which had provisions to override parts of the Irish protocol, the influential Speaker in the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, said the UK could forget a trade deal with the US, if it did anything to undermine the peace process.
The UK government has defended the clauses in the Bill, calling them a safety net, but the stance of a significant section of US lawmakers is unlikely to shift with these elections.
Why did pace drop off?
Despite this, the UK insists the slow-down in negotiations with the EU this week were fully independent of the drama unfolding in the US.
Apart from anything else, the UK is not displaying signs of wanting to pursue a no-deal strategy. Of course anything is possible but, if that had been the plan, why return to the talks at all after the prime minister's very public walk-away last month?
Understanding what happened this week - as always - depends who you speak to.
No-one denies the pace of talks dropped off. Or that big gaps remain on the three naggingly outstanding points of divergence: fishing rights, competition regulations and how a trade deal would be governed.
Brussels sources point the finger of blame at the UK. They wonder aloud whether Downing Street is hedging its bets on the best, or least terrible timing to make the concessions necessary to agree this deal.
EU diplomats can see the difficulties Boris Johnson is already facing with his backbench MPs over a separate subject: his handling of the Covid-19 crisis.
The question in Brussels is: Is the prime minister, loath to make an uncomfortable situation unbearable, waiting to sign a deal with the EU until all backs are up against the wall, time-wise, for domestic political reasons?
"Mr Johnson is certainly not delaying because he's personally involved in haggling over herring or other fishing issues!" remarked one well-placed EU contact.
"I can't believe he can be waiting for [the EU] to cave in on competition regulations," retorted another EU insider. "He must have understood by now we're not going to leave our single market exposed. The reasons for the slow-down must lie closer to home," came another EU-insider comment.
But the UK rejects this analysis too.
'UK mandate is clear'
Sources speak instead of the "natural ebb and flow" of negotiations and insist the UK has continued to play a constructive role in talks.
"The thing is, the EU only describes negotiations as constructive when we are agreeing with them," noted one UK contact wryly. "Obviously, we're not always going to do that. The UK mandate is clear."
More from Katya:
It's important to note that trade talks have not broken down altogether this week.
They continue at a technical level on Thursday and Friday, though you could question the value of this. As I've often noted in this blog, high-level political input rather than more technical discussions are needed, to sign off on the difficult compromises required of both sides to get a deal done.
The two lead negotiators, David Frost and Michel Barnier, are expected to talk by phone, and "intensive" negotiations, including the continued drafting of joint legal texts on issues already agreed, are then scheduled to resume in London on Monday.
There's talk too of more possible contacts next week between the prime minister and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Repeatedly, the word used to describe the negotiating timetable is "fluid".
If you're looking for any kind of certainty, it's that the latest in a long, long line of Brexit deadlines - this time it was the EU saying talks had to finish by 15 November - is about to be smashed and extended.
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Thousands of people lined the streets of London to welcome in the Year of the Dog at the capital's annual Chinese New Year celebrations. | Dancers and dragons joined a parade around Chinatown before performers took to the stage in front of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square.
Martial arts displays, music shows and cultural activities were also held in streets across the West End.
The event is the biggest Chinese New Year celebration outside of Asia.
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A PSNI file on its investigation into potential health regulation breaches at the funeral of a former Sinn Féin councillor in County Tyrone last year is now being considered by prosecutors. | By Julian O'NeillBBC News NI Home Affairs Correspondent
Police had said mourners at Francie McNally's funeral in Ballinderry blatantly ignored rules around crowds.
The investigation into the April 2020 ceremony has taken 10 months to complete.
The file has been passed onto the Public Prosecution Service (PPS).
It contains evidence related to two individuals at the event which happened at the height of the pandemic.
A crowd of around 200 attended Mr McNally's funeral.
A file on the investigation into the funeral of senior IRA figure Bobby Storey is also with the PPS for consideration, dealing with 24 people, including the deputy first minister, Michelle O'Neill.
There is no timeframe for decisions in either case.
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People have been urged to keep an eye out for "unusual and enigmatic" whales off the Welsh coast after scientists were told about a number of sightings. | Long-finned pilot whales typically live in large groups in deep waters beyond the edge of the continental shelf in the Atlantic.
But they occasionally come closer to the British Isles for food.
Research charity Sea Watch Foundation said there had been four sightings in a week - "a very unusual occurrence".
Kathy James, sightings officer for Sea Watch Foundation, said: "We'd love people to get out there to look for these enigmatic whales and report any sightings to us."
Dr Peter Evans, director of the research charity, said pilot whales typically live in large groups and feed on oceanic squid or shoaling fish.
"It is likely that an abundance of a particular prey species brought them into Welsh coastal waters on this occasion," he added.
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A murder investigation is under way after a six-month-old boy died when he went into cardiac arrest. | Police were called to Walnut Close, Bilston, West Midlands, shortly before 14:00 BST on Sunday 12 June.
The boy was taken to hospital but died a short time later.
A 24-year-old man and 23-year-old woman arrested on suspicion of murder have been bailed, West Midlands Police said. A post-mortem examination is under way to determine the cause of death.
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If you are one of the thousands of firms - and millions of jobs - that rely on the £423bn annual trade in goods between Britain and the EU, today you may be feeling a little brighter. | Kamal AhmedEconomics editor@bbckamalon Twitter
Yes, it is still far from clear that the EU will even go part of the way to accepting the government's offer of a "common rule book" on that goods trade.
Or, in a technologically indistinct future, whether it ever allow a "third country" to be responsible for collecting its own customs tariffs.
But the White Paper on UK-EU relations has at least put that goods relationship at the heart of attempts to secure a future trade deal.
The Government has said it will be willing to fully abide by EU rules and regulations, even though after March 2019 it will have no formal say in how those rules are constructed.
Business groups that rely on goods trade have been supportive.
The EEF manufacturers' group described it as a "further step forward".
Yet when it comes to the UK's £1.4 trillion services sector - which makes up 80% of the economy - it is a very different matter.
Here the Government has called for "regulatory flexibility" out of the EU services single market and admitted that "this means that the UK and the EU will not have current levels of access to each other's markets". In other words, there are costs attached.
'Real blow'
That has brought strong words of protest from the financial services sector, and more specifically the City, which relies on friction-free access to the EU for much of its business.
"Today's Brexit white paper is a real blow for the UK's financial and related professional services sector," said Catherine McGuiness, head of policy for the City of London Corporation.
"With looser trade ties to Europe, the financial and related professional services sector will be less able to create jobs, generate tax and support growth across the wider economy. It's that simple."
It seems the Government has made a calculation. If there is no agreement on regulatory alignment on goods, chaos at the ports - and economic damage - could ensue.
Essential supply chains - such as those used to produce millions of cars - will be disrupted.
And there will be no solution to the "no hard border" on the island of Ireland. That has to be headed off.
On services, the risks are less clear. In sectors such as finance, law and legal - Britain is a global leader, the government says. As such, its services enjoy high levels of global demand.
The City has a large trade surplus with the EU, and the Bank of England, for example, has always made it clear it believes the EU needs Britain more than Britain needs the EU when it comes to governments and businesses raising finance across the continent.
The huge growth markets for financial, technology, legal and business support services are China and the rapidly growing emerging economies of south-east Asia, as well as America and India.
'Cherry picking'
The government believes Britain can make progress on services trade deals outside the EU, where services trade grew by more than 73% between 2007 and 2017.
"Essentially the UK has accepted it will not have access to the single market in services," Michael Gasiorek of the UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex told me.
He said that asking for single market access for goods and services together would "almost certainly" be rejected by the EU as "cherry picking" - particularly as the government has rejected free movement of people, a third principle of the single market.
"Because single market access in goods is needed to resolve the Irish border issue, the UK government is accepting no single market access in services. Instead the government wants to negotiate services access in particular sectors," Dr Gasiorek said.
"This is analogous to the approach taken by the EU in its [free trade] deal with Canada. Given that services comprise around 80% of the UK economy, and over 40% of UK exports, inevitably this will have a negative impact on services trade and consequently investment."
The UK appears to want a close deal on goods - and is willing to sacrifice services to get it.
Read more from Kamal Ahmed here
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Before taking office, Donald Trump called the war in Afghanistan a "total disaster". But last August he changed his mind and announced that the US would stay until the war was - in his words - "won". Military commanders see air power as key to the hoped-for victory, and have assembled in the country what they say is the biggest drone squadron ever. | Justin RowlattChief environment correspondent@BBCJustinRon Twitter
I'm lying in the belly of a KC-135 "stratotanker", peering down at the snowy IS-infested mountains of north-eastern Afghanistan.
Suddenly the first wasp-like F16 fighter jet comes into view. It delicately positions itself under the boom that hangs down from the back of this flying fuel tank and - moments later - has locked on. The "Viper" is now taking on hundreds of pounds of aviation fuel a second.
We are so close I can see the pilot glance up at me, yet - unbelievably - this intricate ballet is playing out at high speed and thousands of feet up.
A couple of minutes later, its tanks full, the fighter arcs away and another noses up to take its place.
The scene is so dramatic, beautiful and bizarrely serene it is easy to forget its real purpose - wreaking havoc and death among the insurgent fighters that have been making steady inroads in Afghanistan since the Nato combat mission here ended in December 2014.
KC-135 "Stratotanker"
The sense of being insulated from the conflict is hard to shake.
Back on the tarmac at Kandahar airbase, I watch an MQ-9 wobble uncertainly out on to the runway.
The "Reaper" drone is surprisingly flimsy-looking, but this strange creature with its domed fuselage, distinctive downward slanted tailfins and rear-mounted propeller is probably the most controversial aircraft in America's entire fleet.
The MQ-9 represents asymmetrical warfare at its most stark.
Critics say these "unmanned aerial vehicles", as the US Air Force prefers to call them, alter the moral calculus of war by taking the pilots out of the planes, thereby converting deadly conflict into something more like a video game.
Maj Gen James B Hecker has the buzz cut, square jaw and easy manner you'd expect of a senior US Air Force officer. I'm worried he might be uncomfortable talking about the ethics of the drone war. But, as we sit in the shade of some sand-coloured camouflage netting alongside the runway, it becomes clear he's actually keen to talk about this notorious aircraft.
As he talks, I realise why.
He explains he's spent thousands of hours in the air-conditioned comfort of an airbase base back home in the US watching the footage from the array of high-tech cameras and sensors that are packed into the MQ-9.
"I've spent weeks looking at a single compound in Afghanistan," he tells me.
"You kinda get to understand the patterns of life. You get a sense of belonging. You're kinda in touch with them when you watch them for so long.
"You watch dad playing soccer with his son, you watch him flying his kite with his daughter and kiss his wife goodnight. And you watch him sleep outside in the summer when it is hot."
He pauses, giving me a moment to consider this chillingly intimate image.
I imagine the invisible aircraft, thousands of feet above the scene, its blank eyes staring down at the banal routines of family life.
"Then dad would go out and plant an IED" - a home-made explosive device - "that might kill one of our soldiers, and then we would have to take him out."
He says this without any apparent emotion, and pauses again.
"We have to do that. We know that son, that daughter, will never have a dad again, OK? And that wife will never have a husband. Now that's the last thing we want. But what we won't stand for is for the Taliban to go in and kill a bunch of innocents. And that's what they are doing right now - blowing up innocent people."
This idea of unblinking surveillance backed up by deadly force is, of course, the most potent of propaganda.
The message back home is that these drones are precise, even surgical tools, dispensing death only when the target has been identified with certainty.
The message to the insurgents is very different - "We are always watching, you are never safe."
Find out more
The vast drone squadron America has amassed here - along with all the other aircraft - is evidence of the massive increase in the intensity of the air war that is a key part of President Trump's new strategy in Afghanistan.
Another key part is building the offensive capability of Afghan forces.
According to the commander of US forces here, Gen John Nicholson, the message to the Taliban is simple: "Reconcile or die."
What he means is, "We will continue the fight until you are willing to negotiate some kind of peace."
But it is a message the Taliban have heard before.
The truth is, the war here in Afghanistan has always been giddyingly unbalanced.
Killing has always been easy for the coalition forces.
Seventeen years into this conflict, the real challenge remains trying to create real momentum towards peace and stability.
And the commanders here really do believe that is happening now.
Other observers insist peace remains as elusive as ever, despite the technical wizardry bearing down on this fractured country.
Read more
The most feared bomber plane of the 20th Century is still going strong after 60 years in service in the US military - from Vietnam to Afghanistan. And she will keep on flying until 2044. How does this 1950s behemoth survive in the era of drones and stealth aircraft?
Read: America's iconic war machine
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Police have charged a woman after concerns were raised about practices at a fox hunt. | It follows an event which took place in the Scottish Borders in October last year.
A short police statement said the 42-year-old woman would be the subject of a report to the procurator fiscal.
PC Andy Loughlin, wildlife crime officer for the Lothians and Scottish Borders, said they took all reports of wildlife offences "very seriously".
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A penguin chick has been successfully reared at an Isle of Man wildlife park for the first time in about a decade. | The Humboldt penguin recently appeared from its nest box and swam for the first time.
A spokesman for Curraghs Wildlife Park said staff were delighted with the new arrival, who has been named Charlie.
South American Humboldt penguins are classed as "vulnerable" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The species breed on the continent's Pacific coast, and on islands belonging to Chile and Peru.
The spokesman added: "Improvements to the enclosure and the keepers' hard work has really paid off."
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On the 39th floor above Canary Wharf, overlooking London's finance centre, I found a cash machine with a difference. This ATM chews up your £10 notes rather than spewing them out, and in return you get a computer code. This is the world's first Bitcoin cash machine and if the people showing it to me are to be believed, it shows us the future of money. | Rory Cellan-JonesTechnology correspondent@BBCRoryCJon Twitter
I found it at the Bitcoin London conference, the biggest event about the crypto currency yet staged in the UK. The crowd at this event is young, mostly male - and often evangelical about the subject they have come to discuss.
These are interesting times to hold a Bitcoin conference. The currency has seen wild gyrations, with new investors rushing in, then rapidly finding that prices can go down as well up. Regulators have been taking a closer interest, particularly since another innovative currency scheme, Liberty Reserve, proved to be a haven for criminals and money launderers. And on Tuesday, some of the biggest investors in Bitcoin, the Winklevoss brothers of Facebook fame, have announced plans to float a business based on the virtual currency.
If you were looking for reasons to be either cheerful or cynical about the prospects for Bitcoin, you could have found both in the conference room high above Canary Wharf.
What struck me was how professional, intense and deeply knowledgeable about their subject most of the speakers seemed. The professionals have moved in. "It's not a bunch of 16-year-olds in basements any more, it's institutions," as one speaker put it. There were lawyers, venture capitalists and software developers, as well as people who had just put a lot of their own money into Bitcoin.
There was plenty of hype about the prospects for the currency:
Other speakers predicted that Bitcoin would become the natural means of exchange in African countries, where so many people have mobile phones but so few have bank accounts. And another described how Iceland, already a digital pioneer, could switch entirely to Bitcoin.
The strong libertarian tendency that is a characteristic of Bitcoin enthusiasts was on display too, with speakers railing against regulation in the United States: "Stay the hell away from the US" was the advice to a query from someone wanting to know where best to set up a Bitcoin business. Somewhat surprisingly, a lawyer who worked in this field told the conference that the EU was five years ahead in the way it thought about framing policies for Bitcoin and other virtual currencies.
But amidst all the enthusiasm, there were still questions about the long-term viability of the idea and how likely it was to enter the mainstream. One sobering moment came when a software developer described how he'd lost 7,000 Bitcoins because they had not been backed up properly to his computer. That had cost him about $200,000 which he would never see again. "You get over it," he told the crowd.
And the sheer complexity of getting and spending Bitcoins is another issue. Asked how the attractions of the currency would be communicated to the public, one speaker said everyone would need to learn computer science. Good luck with that...
For myself, I am beginning to get the hang of how you obtain the virtual currency - it is spending it which is the bigger problem. I already had a Bitcoin wallet on my phone, which meant using the ATM at the conference was relatively simple. I showed the machine the barcode which is the public address of my wallet, and once I'd inserted a £10 note into the slot, it popped up as roughly 0.2 Bitcoin on the phone screen within seconds.
In all I had 0.7 Bitcoin - worth about £43 at Tuesday's exchange rate. And by this time I was hungry. Sadly, nowhere nearby seemed to take Bitcoin in exchange for food. Evangelists for the crypto currency say it's flexible, durable, secure and transportable. Now all they need to do is make sure it's useable.
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The wife of a man who was driven to hospital in Birmingham with a fatal stab wound has paid tribute to her "gentle giant". | Giovanni Lewis, 28, was left outside Heartlands Hospital at about 19:45 BST on 18 October.
A post-mortem found he died from a stab wound to the heart.
West Midlands Police said a 27-year-old man from Shard End who was arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of murder had been bailed pending further inquiries.
Mr Lewis's wife said her heart had been "ripped apart".
"Words cannot express how I feel right now, I do not know how I'm going to get through this, he was my soulmate," she said.
Related Internet Links
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Oh Kil-nam's life was ruined by his decision to defect to North Korea. Seventy years old, he still does not know the fate of his wife and daughters - either dead or imprisoned in a labour camp. | By Robin BanerjiBBC World Service
In 1985, North Korean agents approached Oh Kil-nam and suggested he defect.
The agents offered him an important job working as an economist for the North Korean government and promised to provide free treatment for his wife's hepatitis.
Oh took the offer seriously. He had just completed his PhD in Germany on a Marxist economist. Back at home in South Korea, he had been active in left-wing groups opposed to the country's authoritarian regime.
His wife Shin Suk-ja was horrified by the idea of going to the North and opposed it from the start. "Do you know what kind of place it is?" she asked. "You have not even been there once. How can you make such a reckless decision?"
But Oh replied that the Northerners were Koreans too - they "cannot be that brutal", he told her.
So at the end of November 1985, Oh, his wife and two young daughters travelled via East Berlin and Moscow to Pyongyang.
When they arrived at Pyongyang airport, Oh began to see he had made a mistake in coming. Communist party officials and children clutching flowers were there to meet them. But despite the cold of a North Korean December, the children were not wearing socks and their traditional clothes were so thin that they shivered. "When I saw this I was really surprised and my wife even started to cry."
Communist party officials drove Oh and his family to what they described as a guest house. The building was inside a camp in the mountains and guarded by soldiers. There was no treatment for Shin's hepatitis and no job for Oh as an economist. Instead, for several months, North Koreans indoctrinated them in the teachings of The Great Leader Kim Il-sung, the founder of the current regime.
Oh and his wife began working for a North Korean radio station. "My wife began as a broadcaster but she was not able to carry on for long. Her health had deteriorated and at the same time she was quite critical of the North."
Oh was less independent. "I began to read scripts based on party directives - in the end, I was like a parrot."
While he was there he came across South Koreans who had been abducted, including two air stewardesses and two passengers from a Korean Air Lines flight that had been hijacked by North Koreans in 1969.
Oh was approached to go on a mission abroad. He was to be based in the North Korean embassy in Copenhagen, from where he could do what had been done to him - lure South Korean students in Germany to the North Korean embassy.
When Shin heard about the plan she was furious. "I remember the two of us talking about it softly under the blanket. I told my wife that by fulfilling this mission, we would preserve our livelihood in North Korea. But she slapped me in the face."
Shin said they would have to pay the price for his mistakes - he could not entrap others.
"She told me I had to find a way to escape when I got to Europe, that there would be a way to rescue the family."
On arriving at Copenhagen airport, Oh managed to escape from North Korean control. "I approached the immigration desk. I had a little piece of paper on which I had written: HELP ME. I explained that the passport they were seeing was not my real passport, that my real name was Oh Kil-nam, and that my real passport had been confiscated in North Korea."
After two months in jail in Denmark, the Danish authorities sent Oh to Germany. There he tried to free his family, but with no luck. "My biggest mistake was not to approach the German Foreign Ministry directly."
For Shin and her two daughters, Oh's defection was catastrophic. They were taken to Yodok concentration camp, where the North Korean government imprisons its enemies. The conditions in this slave labour camp are reportedly as bad as anything in Nazi Germany or Stalin's Gulag.
For a time, Oh heard nothing about the fate of his family. Then in February 1991 he managed to get six photographs of his wife and daughters and a tape cassette with a message from them.
"On the tape my daughters were telling me how much they missed me and my wife was saying that perhaps it would be OK for me to come back now."
Oh suspected a trap. "North Korea was trying to stop me from heading back to South Korea because I had experience of working in its propaganda division. I knew a lot of its secrets, including the fact that many people from South Korea, who were kidnapped and taken to the North, were working there."
But nonetheless the realisation that he could not get back in touch with his family was devastating. "By that time I had completely given up. My whole body was just broken down."
In 1992, he returned to South Korea. "I felt that my death was not far away. I just wanted to be close to my brother and my sister on my death bed."
Oh did not die but nor has he ever heard from his wife and daughters again. He does not know whether they are alive or whether they died in the prison camp.
"I do feel that I may be able to meet my family again, but it is just a hope, a glimmer of hope inside a dark tunnel.
"I hope there will come a day when I can meet my family again, hug them and embrace them, and cry tears of happiness. If it does happen it will be the happiest day of my life."
Oh Kil-nam spoke to Outlook on the BBC World Service
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Blue Plaques linking prominent historical figures with buildings around London are celebrating their 150th anniversary this year with singer Freddie Mercury and footballer Bobby Moore receiving memorial plaques. Do you have a plaque on your home or workplace? | The plaques were founded in 1866 and there are now over 900 dotted around the capital and eight outside London with the scheme currently run by English Heritage.
The first blue plaque granted to the poet Lord Byron in 1867 was destroyed when his house in Holles Street, Cavendish Square was demolished and the longest surviving plaque from the same year commemorates the French Emperor Napoleon near St James's Square.
Did you move to a building with a blue plaque because of the prestige attached to it? Or did having a plaque on your building encourage you to find out more about the celebrity in question?
We'd like to hear your stories and see photos of blue plaques outside your homes and workplace. You can contact us in the following ways:
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One-hundred-and-fifty years ago, several months after the end of the American Civil War, the Confederate ship the CSS Shenandoah sailed up the River Mersey to surrender in Liverpool. But why was the last belligerent Confederate flag of the war lowered in the city, thousands of miles away from the deserted battlefields of America? And what was Liverpool's connection with the rebel forces of the South? | By Paul BurnellBBC News
In what was a curious footnote to four years of carnage, on 6 November 1865 a figure in a grey Confederate uniform strode into Liverpool Town Hall to surrender formally.
James Waddell, captain of the CSS Shenandoah, was a former US Navy officer who had resigned his commission on the outbreak of war.
It was for very good reason Waddell chose to surrender the vessel in Liverpool - where it had been purchased, outfitted and registered the year before - as he could have been hanged for piracy if he returned to his homeland.
In the months before their voyage to Liverpool, Waddell, along with his Confederate officers and British sailors, had been wreaking havoc on whalers, as part of the Confederacy's strategy of targeting unarmed merchant vessels.
During its short life as a Confederate vessel, the Shenandoah sank or captured 38 merchant ships.
In June 1865, and with the crew unaware the war had already ended, the Shenandoah fired the last shots of the war in the Bering Sea off Siberia.
"It was the 19th Century version of the Japanese soldier who was found on a Pacific island thinking the Second World War was still on," said Dr Thomas Sebrell, visiting lecturer in history at the University of Westminster.
But on 2 August, as the ship headed for San Francisco stalking a vessel carrying gold, Waddell and his crew encountered another Liverpool ship, Barrocouta, sailing out of San Francisco Harbour.
They were shown newspaper reports confirming the war was over and Waddell decided to take the ship to its registered port of Liverpool.
Arriving to what local newspaper the Liverpool Mercury called "considerable excitement" on 5 November, the Shenandoah sailed up the Mersey and moored alongside HMS Donegal.
The next morning Waddell surrendered to the Donegal and lowered the war's last belligerent Confederate flag.
Later that day, the formal notice of surrender was delivered to Liverpool Town Hall by Waddell, where he met the Lord Mayor of Liverpool.
The American Civil War
Liverpool was a hotbed of Confederate support - a fundraising event at the city's St George's Hall had raised the equivalent of nearly a £1m for Southern prisoners-of-war held in Union camps.
Dr Sebrell said: "Visitors who enter 19 Abercromby Square [later the residence of the Bishop of Liverpool], now part of the University of Liverpool, will likely not understand why there are Confederate and South Carolina symbols in the moulding, ceiling paintings and ornamental features.
"This house, built by Charles Kuhn Prioleau [a prominent cotton trader], boasts the most valuable Confederate art and architectural pieces in the world, and most of them are now well-preserved.
"The fact that some of the South's most wealthy and prominent cotton-trading firms had offices based in Liverpool destined the city to become a hotbed of pro-Confederate activity throughout the four-year conflict," Dr Sebrell said.
The CSS Shenandoah
Source: The Officers of the CSS Shenandoah - Angus Curry
Rifles, cannon, uniforms, munitions and medicine were sent across the Atlantic from Liverpool in a bid to beat President Abraham Lincoln's naval blockade of his country's southern and eastern coastline.
Local historian Roy Rawlinson said the city's sympathies were clearly not with the Union.
He said: "It is said more Confederate flags flew over Liverpool than Richmond [the city in Virginia was one of the Confederacy's capitals].
"Years later the British sailors would talk about 'their ship' and 'their war'."
And so while the Shenandoah may have been welcomed in Liverpool, the British Government was less enthused by its return.
Dr Sebrell said: "They wanted to avoid a diplomatic incident and wanted the matter dealt with quietly."
Foreign Secretary Lord Clarendon did not want attention to be focused on the British crew members on the ship.
"Sailors were simply asked of their nationality, upon which each put on a fake Southern accent and lied, and they were all also paroled," Dr Sebrell said.
"Whitehall, intentionally, avoided a diplomatic quagmire and international embarrassment."
For Waddell, his time in Liverpool lasted longer than he might have anticipated as he was taken ill on the evening after the surrender.
He spent two bedridden years at the city's Royal Hotel, until he gradually recovered from his illness.
An amnesty in the USA in 1867 meant Waddell was able to return to his native Maryland where he died aged 61 in 1886.
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Councillors have voted to demolish a Bournemouth seafront building which has been described as an eyesore. | The Imax Waterfront building will be pulled down from this autumn to create an "open air event space" for drama, live music and sport.
In 2010 the council wanted to lower the building to reclaim views, but received "no suitable bids" from developers.
The demolition will cost £2m using money left over from its original £8.5m budget.
The building opened as an Imax cinema in 2002 despite protests from residents against the plans but closed three years later.
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Cult comic character Frank Sidebottom has inspired a film starring Michael Fassbender, while a documentary and biography are also in the works. Four years after his creator Chris Sievey died, why is Frank's legend growing and who was the man behind the mask? | By Ian YoungsEntertainment reporter, BBC News
The giant home-made head. The ridiculously nasal Mancunian voice. The anarchic and absurd humour. The deliberately naff pop songs.
That was Frank Sidebottom.
He was an unmistakable and irrepressible creation who found a following in the 1980s and '90s on late-night student telly and Saturday morning children's shows, as well as on the comedy circuit.
He was a strange mixture of eccentric comedy creation, surreal performance artist and cartoon character come to life. While he attracted a devoted following, he was destined to remain a cult concern.
So it is stranger still that he should have inspired a film featuring Hollywood stars Michael Fassbender and Maggie Gyllenhaal, which gets its UK premiere at the Sundance London film festival on Friday.
The film, titled Frank, was co-written by journalist and broadcaster Jon Ronson, who spent three years playing keyboards in Sidebottom's Oh Blimey Big Band in the late 1980s.
In his movie, Fassbender plays a musician called Frank who wears an oversized comic-book head.
That, however, is where the similarities with the original Frank Sidebottom end. In the film, the title character is a misunderstood musical genius as opposed to a purveyor of Bontempi-swing novelty pop songs.
The Frank of the film hails from Bluff, Kansas, rather than Sidebottom's native Timperley, Greater Manchester. He also has a disconcertingly deep voice.
Ronson changed the character because he did not want to make a straightforward biopic of Sidebottom and his creator. Chris Sievey, who was consulted before his death in 2010, did not want that either.
Sievey guarded his true identity and was worried that, in a straight biopic, "the reality of Chris would somehow undermine the mystery of Frank", Ronson says. So the writer kept the name and the head but fictionalised the rest.
However, Sievey's real story is arguably more interesting than the version that is about to hit the big screen.
Before Frank Sidebottom was born, Sievey was desperate to make it as a musician.
Aged 15, he hitch-hiked from Manchester to the Apple Records headquarters in London with his brother and staged a sit-in before engineers eventually let them record a session.
With his post-punk band The Freshies, Sievey was on the fringe of the late-1970s Manchester scene.
"He was just a really nice, amiable chap," remembers Mick Middles, who wrote for music magazine Sounds and is now writing a biography titled Out Of His Head.
"All the other Manchester musicians were very competitive and he didn't seem to be. He was just nice to be around."
Sievey wrote countless letters to record companies and got countless rejection letters in return. Undeterred, he set up his own label.
But the closest they got to the charts was number 54 in 1981. After The Freshies split, Sievey kept making music while also experimenting with the newfangled art of computer programming.
In 1983, he released the solo single Camouflage. On the B-side was the audio data for "the world's first computer promo", a music video created entirely using the Sinclair's blocky graphics.
But his music career was going nowhere. Sievey was an all-round, restless creative spirit and in the early 1980s Frank Sidebottom started to take shape.
"I think he tried every which way to be successful, and for whatever reason it just wasn't happening," says David Arnold, Sievey's road manager for the last five years of his life.
"I think he got to a point where he thought, 'Shove it. I'm just going to do something that entertains me.' Fortunately he came up with the Frank thing and people liked it."
Arnold is now working with director Steve Sullivan on a documentary about Sievey titled Being Frank.
Frank took off, appearing on Piccadilly Radio in Manchester, children's TV programme No 73, Anthony H Wilson's Channel 4 game show Remote Control and slots on BBC Radios 2 and 5.
He supported boy band Bros at Wembley Stadium in 1989 (disastrously by all accounts) and reached the peak of his fame with his own TV series, Frank Sidebottom's Fantastic Shed Show, on ITV in 1992.
Sievey was deadly serious about staying in character as Frank Sidebottom when he was wearing the fake head.
"If he had the head on and you called him Chris, he would just ignore you," says Arnold. "I think he went above and beyond the call of duty with that.
"Everything would change - his body language, the way he sat, the way he moved, the way he talked. You were with another person.
"It didn't matter whether there was just one person there or five people or 500 people. When the head was on, you were in Frank's company. Chris was gone."
When his drawings, models and animations went on exhibition at Chelsea College of Art and Design in London in 2007, Sidebottom turned up to the opening.
"He splashed paint all over the walls at this opening," Middles says. "The people running it ran up to Chris afterwards and said, 'Why the hell did you do that?'
"He said, 'What are you asking me for? It was Frank.' That was how he lived his life.
"He used to write letters from Chris to Frank. He had two sets of handwriting. And he'd post them. Things like that he'd do all the time."
So to what extent was Frank Sidebottom just an act, a part Chris was playing? Or did it become an alter ego, a completely different persona?
"You've got to be careful not to psychoanalyse him too much because it might be wrong," Jon Ronson cautions.
"But my feeling is that if Chris was incredibly chaotic and Frank was incredibly innocent, there's got to be a reason for that, right?
"And to encase yourself in this fake head… there has to be a reason. It was safer. Frank was a calmer, safer place to be than Chris."
David Arnold describes Chris and Frank as two separate identities. He says: "I think they were two different people with some interests that crossed over - namely The Beatles and Thunderbirds.
"In some ways they were polar opposites, in that Frank was very childlike, very innocent. Chris was very the much rock'n'roll lifestyle, let's say."
Sievey's "rock'n'roll" exploits were a world away from Sidebottom's innocent life.
Mick Middles describes how Sievey "did the whole drink and drugs thing as much as any rock star you could think of".
While Frank Sidebottom was enjoying his mid-1990s heyday, a remarkable cast of Sidebottom sidekicks began to overshadow him in the limelight.
Sievey had asked his brother-in-law's friend Caroline Aherne to voice the part of Frank's neighbour Mrs Merton for a radio show. Mrs Merton went on to get her own TV show before Aherne achieved comic greatness with The Royle Family.
Chris Evans, who was a driver for Chris/Frank, became a household name as a DJ and TV host. Ronson found success as a writer and presenter, while Mark Radcliffe - another band member - is now a BBC Radio 2 and 6 Music host.
"He did become a little bit embittered, naturally, I think," Middles suggests.
Sievey was too undisciplined to build on his success, Ronson believes. "Because he was quite chaotic he didn't see things through to the end," he says.
'Couldn't get rid of him'
"Somebody like Caroline Aherne was really focused. She would work at Mrs Merton or The Royle Family until it was brilliant.
"Chris was more chaotic and scatterbrained and was just a twig in the tidal wave of whatever was happening that day. I think that was ultimately to the detriment of his art."
Sievey put Sidebottom into retirement after his fortunes dwindled in the late 1990s and began working as an animator on children's shows like Pingu and Bob the Builder.
But the giant head came back off the shelf in 2005. "He couldn't get rid of him," Mick Middles says. "I think Chris resented Frank because Frank just kept coming back.
"Chris wanted to do other things. He wanted to make films and do lots of other stuff but eventually he had to go back to Frank because Frank was the only way of making a decent living.
"The story's quite sad towards the end, not just with his illness but because he was drinking and doing everything heavily."
Sievey died of cancer in June 2010. He left behind three children and an ex-wife.
Novelty act or genius?
Reckless with money, Sievey was virtually penniless when he died. When word got around that he was to have a pauper's funeral, Sidebottom's army of fans mobilised to raise £15,000 in 24 hours.
Their devotion continued with campaigns to raise a slightly surreal statue of Sidebottom in leafy Timperley and to fund the Being Frank documentary.
Today, fans and friends insist Sidebottom was more than just a novelty entertainer.
Steve Sullivan says he sees Sievey and his creation as "a performance artist, or as a work of art", while Mick Middles describes him as an outsider artist.
After Sievey died, Mark Radcliffe said he was "one of the very few people I met whom I would call a genius".
Jon Ronson agrees. "It's certainly how I saw him back when I was plucked from obscurity to join a band," he says. "I thought I was in the presence of genius."
Frank screens at the Sundance London film festival on 25 and 27 April and will be released in the UK on 9 May. Being Frank and Out Of His Head are due out later this year. Jon Ronson's book Frank: The True Story That Inspired The Movie is out now.
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The lynching of a 50-year-old Muslim man in a village in northern India sent shock waves around the country. But inside the village itself there is a disturbing lack of remorse which is an ominous sign for India, writes Senior Executive Editor of NDTV India, Ravish Kumar. | How can all this be normal? How can life on the streets of Bisada village go on, as if nothing happened here, and whatever happened was not wrong? It has been two days since a massive mob pulled a man out of his house and killed him.
Before killing Mohammad Akhlaq, they made him run to the farthest corner of his home. They broke down his door with such force that instead of giving way at its hinges, it cracked right down the middle. They smashed a sewing machine and used it to beat him to pulp.
Their blood boiled in such seething rage, and that hot blood flowed into their hands, giving it such inhuman strength that they bent the grills that barred the top-floor windows as if they were made of flimsy wire.
Could such fury, such bestial savagery have ridden on just a rumour that Mr Akhlaq had eaten beef?
Bisada village has never had any history of communal tensions that can explain this killing. Nobody here has a criminal record.
Dadri district where Bisada is located, is right next to Delhi. The village is clean and well-maintained.
No shame
How is it possible that no one looked bothered by what had happened here? How is it that I didn't find a single person who looked ashamed or had even a shred of remorse? Why was no one distraught that thousands of people from the village were transformed into a killer mob?
By the time I reached Bisada, most of its young men had disappeared. Some families said their sons were unwell. Others said their sons were not in the village. The villagers blame four or five outsiders for instigating the violence.
On the day of the killing, an announcement had been made over the temple loudspeaker, and within minutes thousands had collected outside Mr Akhlaq's house. The narrow street could not have held them all. The mob must have spilled over, all across the village.
Yet, when I asked why so many people listened to a small group of outsiders, I was met with silence. No one saw this massive crowd. No one recognised them. Everyone says those who have been arrested are innocent.
Only the courts can decide who is guilty, but the manner in which Bisada village has returned to normalcy makes me think that the police will never be able to identify the people who made up that murderous crowd.
In any case, when have the police ever been successful in such cases? Even if forensic investigations identify whether it was beef or mutton, what difference will it make?
The crowd has already delivered its judgment. It has already killed Mr Akhlaq.
How can his daughter forget how her father was beaten to death in front of her? His old mother was also beaten by the crowd. There are deep wounds on her eyes.
The Dadri incident will get lost under the glory of some foreign trip or some clever rhetoric in an election rally.
The youth factor
But, those of us who can think need to think today. What has happened that we are unable to rationally explain things to today's youth?
Elders in the village say, even if it was beef, it was for the police to take action. But the young men of Bisada go straight to the issue of sentiment and beliefs.
The way they react to emotive issues clearly shows that someone has already done some spadework here. Someone has planted the seeds of a poisonous tree, which is bearing fruit in their minds now. They are not even willing to listen to the prime minister's statement that communalism is poisonous.
Prashant is a typical young man who wanted to take a selfie with me. He is an engineer.
As soon as the selfie-session ended, Prashant said no one should play with anyone's sentiments.
Prashant appeared to be a good boy, but it seems that he has no remorse about Akhlaq's death. Instead, he asked us why after the partition, when it had been decided that Hindus would stay in India and Muslims would go to Pakistan, did Gandhi and Nehru ask Muslims to stay back in India? I couldn't help but feel dismayed. These are the typical beliefs that keep the pot of communalism boiling.
Prashant and I had a heated argument, but I lost. People like us are losing arguments every day.
All I could do was ask Prashant to reconsider his views and read a few more books, but he is convinced that he's right.
I wonder who would have taught Prashant to think like this?
Did someone come amongst these young men before they coagulated into the mob that night?
We do not understand what is happening around us. We are not able to make others understand.
The sparks have been spread across our villages. Young men with their half-baked sense of history want me to pose with them for selfies, but are not willing to even consider my appeal that they give up their violent ideals.
Our politics has become a collective of opportunists and cowards.
I had gone to Dadri to cover Mohammad Akhlaq's death. On the way back, I felt I was carrying another corpse inside me.
A longer version of this story appeared onndtv.com
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Sunderland band Frankie & The Heartstrings, Flintshire's The Joy Formidable and London grime MC Tempa T are amongst the acts confirmed to play on the BBC Introducing stage at Radio 1's Big Weekend. | Alan Pownall, Django Django, Beatbullyz, Envy and My Tiger, My Timing will also play at the event which takes place at Bangor's Faenol Park on 22 and 23 May.
The main stage and In New Music We Trust stage have already been announced and will see performances from Cheryl Cole, Rihanna and JLS.
Fans have until 7pm on Monday 3 May to take part in the ballot for free tickets to this year's festival.
Full line-up for the BBC Introducing stage at Radio 1's Big Weekend:
SATURDAY 22 MAY
Paegeus Bridge
Y Promatics
Alan Pownall
The Wonder Villains
Menis
What Would Jesus Drive?
Joy Formidable
Tempa T
SUNDAY 23 MAY
Yr Ods
Django Django
We Are Animal
Pete Lawrie
Beatbullyz
I Am Austin
Ute
Envy
My Tiger My Timing
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It's a small town 150 miles to the east of Dallas, with a certain sleepy charm. Its 25,000 inhabitants boast that it was the birthplace of boogie-woogie, played an important role in the Civil War, and was at the centre of the development of the Texas Pacific railroad. But why would I - or anyone else, for that matter - want to spend time in Marshall, Texas? | Rory Cellan-JonesTechnology correspondent@BBCRoryCJon Twitter
"You're here for the rocket docket," guessed Geraldine Mauthe, when I popped into the Marshall Conference and Visitor Bureau on my arrival. And she was right - the rocket docket refers to the speedy system (and speedy is relative) for dealing with patent cases which has made this small town's court famous or feared, depending on whether you're a plaintiff or a defendant.
I had come to Marshall as part of a Radio 4 investigation into what has gone wrong with the US patent system. For this town at the centre of the Texas Eastern District is now one of the world's busiest places for patent litigation.
As Palo Alto and Mountain View are to software engineers, so is Marshall to patent lawyers - a place where you can be sure of plenty of business.
Two of the town's most prominent attorneys, Michael Smith and Sam Baxter, acted as my guides to the place and its premier industry. Mr Smith acts mainly for defendants, Mr Baxter principally for the plaintiffs, but each has built a pretty lucrative business on patent litigation.
As we stood on the main square, looking across at the old courthouse, Mr Smith explained that it all started with a local company, the semiconductor maker Texas Instruments.
"They were looking for a place where they could get patent claims heard. And the federal courts in Dallas were buried under a lot of drug trials."
So they came to Marshall for a speedier hearing. "They filed the cases here for about 10 years and they were very happy with it. And then everyone else followed suit."
It was what the locals call a triple digit day, when temperatures soar above 100F (37.8C), so I was grateful to step into the air conditioned former 1930s garage which houses Mr Baxter's law offices.
Right next door to the courthouse, this lovingly restored building with its exposed brick walls and wooden floors becomes a hive of activity when a trial is on.
"We have about 50 people working on a case," he explained. "We have a kitchen to feed them all, we have our own graphics people doing all the graphics for the trial - it's sort of a cottage industry. "
And that doesn't come cheap for either side in a patent case. It can cost anything from $6m to $12m for a trial, says Mr Baxter. "If you got that many lawyers in a courtroom and the meter's running on every one of them, it is probably not unusual for the clock to be running at $2m a day in a courtroom."
No wonder, then, that many smaller companies just agree to pay a licensing fee rather than ever get involved in a patent case. But for Marshall, the regular influx of as many as 100 lawyers for one of the big cases has been a boon. The fine old 1900 county courthouse has been restored, and is being used again when the regular state court across the road is occupied.
Many of the town's office buildings are used by dozens of so-called patent trolls - companies that exist merely to litigate and find it useful to have an address - though no meaningful operations - in the district where they seek to bring cases.
One evening I got talking to some locals in a restaurant on the main square, one of just two places you can drink alcohol in Marshall - once you show your driving licence and sign up to be a member of a club. It was boogie-woogie night, and although it was quieter than normal because the judge was out of town and no patent cases were underway, there was a decent crowd.
Just about everyone I met had some involvement with the patent business, mainly as jury members. They were all quite proud of their town and seemed bemused that anyone might think the patent system was not working well for the US. And of course there is an economic benefit.
"It's good for hotels, it's good for restaurants, it's good for lawyers," one man told me.
But one of those lawyers, Mr Baxter, said there was more to Marshall's passion for patents than just self-interest. In this part of the country, respect for property rights was very strong - and the argument that many patents were now owned by people who litigate rather than invent products held no sway for him.
"If you bought a piece of property that is real estate, and it turns out that it's got oil or gas underneath, nobody ought to be able to tell you that you can't take advantage of that."
In a state which has built its fortune on oil, the very idea that you could not exploit a piece of property like a patent was "anathema to the free enterprise culture".
On my visit to Marshall, I found only one dissident when it came to the patent industry.
In the town's computer supplies store, I asked the young owner the same question I put to everyone I met here - what makes this town famous? "Slavery? Religious ignorance? Nutbaggery?" were his first guesses, indications perhaps that he didn't quite fit in.
And when I mentioned the patent business, he said he hoped the town was not proud of that - it might be good for business but it wasn't good for the overall economy "because you've got companies being sued into oblivion".
That view of a system which has seen patent litigation soar in recent years is now gaining wider acceptance in Washington DC, where politicians right up to President Obama are talking of reforms. But in Marshall, where a patent is a piece of property to be defended with every means possible, and $2m-a-day lawsuits are fought just about every week, most people hope that reform doesn't arrive any time soon.
Patently Absurd is on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday 20 August at 20:00 BST, or catch up with iPlayer
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A man has been released without charge after being arrested on suspicion of a stabbing murder, police have said. | Officers were called to Raven Crescent, in Ashmore Park, Wolverhampton, at about 05:15 BST on Friday following reports of a disturbance.
A man in his 30s was pronounced dead at the scene and three men were arrested nearby.
The two other arrested men remain in police custody.
West Midlands Police said gunshot sounds heard in the area were believed to have been due to a car on fire.
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Can football managers learn from successful business leaders and vice versa? | Robert PestonEconomics editor
I have been examining the commercialisation and globalisation of top flight football, for a new two-part series on Radio 4 called "Among the Managers", which I've made with David Stenhouse of BBC Scotland (the first part is broadcast at 1100 on Wednesday, 4 January).
Among the footballing and business stars I interviewed, two stood out for me as particularly gripping: one with "Big" Sam Allardyce, manager of West Ham (which I will return to on another occasion); the other with Harry Redknapp, manager of Tottenham Hotspur.
As a third-generation Arsenal supporter, it worried me that I thoroughly enjoyed chatting to Mr Redknapp - although there was small consolation in his confession that he grew up a Gooner (he told me the most exciting match he ever saw at Highbury was Arsenal versus Manchester United on the weekend before the 1958 Munich Air Crash).
It was Mr Redknapp's reminiscences of how football used to be that resonated most. But he also said a couple of newsy things, so I had better get those out of the way.
And the next England manager is...
There has, for example, been a good deal of speculation that he may be offered the England manager's job, when Fabio Capello steps down next summer. So I asked Mr Redknapp whether he wanted to be England manager.
Here is what he said: "It's a difficult one. You know I've said so many times it's the pinnacle for any Englishman to want to manage their country... I would like to see an English manager manage England. I would like to see that... When Fabio Capello finishes, I would like to see them give it to an Englishman."
So not exactly a "no, nay, never". That said, there is something about the rhythm of the England job that he would not find appealing: "I enjoy the day to day, coming in to work with players, going out on the training pitch every day, seeing the players, being involved every day. I don't know if seeing players once every six or seven weeks, it would be different for me and I'd find it very difficult. I'd get very bored I would imagine, you know. I haven't got too many hobbies, except for a round of golf occasionally."
But: "If it came along it would - it would - it would be difficult to turn it down I think for any Englishman."
So if I were a Spurs supporter (absurd idea) I would be a bit anxious that the club's outstanding manager of recent years could be serving out his final season.
Globalised football
Also, since he's right at the centre of Premier League action, his views on the future of football are worth noting - and what he says is that globalisation for the biggest clubs is work in progress: "We're getting more and more foreign owners into the country now.
"I don't know where it's all going to be in 20 years time... I can see us playing Premier League games all round the world on a regular basis. If you're from China or you're from India or Russia and you own a club, you're going to want to take your club back to where you come from... I think it'll almost be a world Premier League".
Football, but not as we knew it
But it was when Mr Redknapp talked about his playing days at West Ham in the 1960s, and also his early managerial career at Bournemouth that I became particularly enthralled, because it showed quite how much the game has changed within the span of one man's career: "When I first came into it, as a manager at Bournemouth, you know you were responsible for almost everything.
"You had a secretary and you had the manager. And the manager would do the transfers, you would do the contracts with the players, you would negotiate the contracts with the players, you negotiate all the transfer fees with the different managers at different clubs... Whereas nowadays we've all got chief executives, you've got chairmen who are all hands on and really the business side of the club is completely run by them.
"I mean from my point of view, I run the football side of it. I go out today and I take the training, with the coaching staff, we work with the players, I pick the team. I decide who we buy and who we sell. But when it comes to actually doing the negotiating, the chairman, and the chief executive, or specially the chairman at this club, Daniel Levy, he'd be responsible for doing that.
"He would discuss the terms with the selling club or whatever... and he would do all the deals with them. I wouldn't be involved in it. I couldn't even tell you the wages of a player at this club. You know the wages are something that he negotiates.
"You probably have as much idea of what they earn as what I do. I don't even bother to ask him, to be honest with you. It's all done now chairman to chairman or chief executive to chief executive."
Motivating the team
So what happens if a player feels he isn't paid enough? Who deals with that?
"They go directly to the chairman. They've all got agents. Agents go to the chairman; the agent would ring the chairman... The player wouldn't do it, he wouldn't speak to the chairman... If I found out players were going directly to the chairman I wouldn't stand for that. Because if they've got any kind of problem, they should come to see me, as far as I'm concerned... They would go through their agent when it comes to a new contract; their agent would deal with the chairman and between them they would sort out the problems and whatever needs to be done."
So with players earning so much and managers not controlling the purse strings, there has been a change in the way that someone like Mr Redknapp motivates his team. The contrast with how he was motivated to do well by Ron Greenwood, when he played alongside the Hammers' greats, Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters, could hardly be greater: "You are dealing with more fragile characters now because they're all super highly paid young guys.
"You haven't got the control that you [as a manager] might have had a few years ago. The main control you have is that you pick or don't pick 'em. But in terms of the money they earn now, it's gone beyond all belief. And it keeps getting more and more difficult.
"You don't have that control that my manager would've had when I was a young player, when at the end of the year, you'd sign a new one-year contract. Whether it was Bobby Moore, whether it was Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters - who played in the World Cup final - they'd go in to see the manager. You didn't have an agent. You'd sit in the manager's office and he'd give you maybe a five or 10 pound a week rise.
"And you went home and you thought 'fantastic'. You'd go home and tell the wife 'I got another £10 a week, which is great'. You know we could certainly improve our standard of living and things were moving in the right direction for everybody.
"Nowadays it's different. The [player's] agent goes to the chairman and they go home and say well I got you another £20,000 a week... You haven't got the power that the manager had you know over me or over the rest of the players when we were younger."
'I don't drink with them'
Here is where Mr Redknapp summarised a social and economic revolution in football: "You know they move in different circles. We'd maybe go and have a lager after the game. They'd probably go and have a bottle of £200 champagne or something. I don't know, I'm not sure, I don't drink with them. But it's very, very different, the way they live now.
"We were all brought up living amongst the supporters, if you like. You know Kevin Bond who works with me, his dad John played twenty-odd years at West Ham. He lived 50 yards away from West Ham football ground, in a little terraced house, so the game would finish, he'd walk across the road and he was home. And we all lived in terraced, or semi-detached houses you know...
"Now they all live in beautiful houses. They don't live near the football ground any more, and they probably have very little contact with the average punter now."
Don't shout, don't scream
So how do you get the most out of young men who have everything?
"You know I think players will respond more by you telling them how good they are, rather than telling them what they can't do. I find it's no good shouting and screaming at players and telling them 'you're rubbish and you can't do this', because that doesn't help anybody... Before a game, I go up and have a quiet word with Luka Modric and say: 'Hey Luka, they've got no-one who can live with you today... You can run this game for us... You can destroy this team, you're a different class to anybody they've got'.
"Players, I think they respond to that. Whether it's Gareth Bale, I say 'this right back, he'll be scared stiff of you today Gareth, you know. He can't live with you, he's going to have to foul you because he can't stop you. You know keep running him, just run him to death'. And I think players respond to that, much rather than coming in at half time and shouting and screaming at players, that used to happen.
"Lots of managers would come in and shout, and holler and throw cups of tea at players and God knows what, and threaten them. And that's gone now."
'Leagues within leagues'
So is it all now about the money? Is it impossible for a team that isn't owned by a billionaire or which doesn't have a global fan base to win at the highest level?
"I'm in a fortunate position. I'm in one of the top six teams, where we can buy good players. Okay, we can't compete with Man City, Chelsea, in terms of wages or transfer fees, you know. Man United again will be a step up from us.
"Even Liverpool, you know wage-wise, we wouldn't be anywhere near Liverpool, our top player wouldn't get anywhere near the top player at Liverpool... Our top player would probably be round half what the top players at Liverpool, top player at Liverpool could earn.
"But then again you have to look where we are and then you look down the league, and then you look at some of the other clubs lower down, and look at their resources, what they have to spend. We're on a different level to them.
"So there are leagues within leagues almost in the Premier now. It don't matter how great the coach is, you know. Roberto Martinez is fantastic at Wigan but he can't win the league, it's impossible... because he hasn't got the players, and he can't afford to buy the players. As great a coach as he might be, he can work every afternoon, every night, every morning, coaching the players, working with them, but you can only get out of the players what you can get. Otherwise there's no reason why a Rochdale shouldn't win if it was about coaching or motivation... It can't happen.
"The teams with the best resources are the teams that win the league. Every year you haven't got to be a genius to say well, Man United, Chelsea, Man City this year will win the League. Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham could pull off a shock. But they're the six teams that will be up there scrapping away for the top four spots. If anybody else breaks into that it would be a big surprise."
But here is what stops Mr Redknapp, and I suppose many of the rest of us, becoming bitter about the apparent triumph of money in the game. He doesn't think his players have been corrupted in the most fundamental sense: "The thing is they love to play football, that's why they started out. They're young lads who want to play. So when we go out there this morning, if you come and watch us train, you would see players playing absolutely as though their lives depended on it this morning. They train, they work. If you finish up with a little game at the end of eight or nine a side, they'll play and want to win like they do when they're playing Arsenal on a Saturday."
Among the Managers, BBC Radio 4, part one at 1100 on Wednesday, 4 January.
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In our monthly feature, Then and Now, we reveal some of the ways that planet Earth has been changing against the backdrop of a warming world. Here, we look at the effects of extreme weather on a crucial reservoir that supplies water to millions of people in northern California.
| By Mark KinverEnvironment reporter
This year is likely to be critically dry for California. Winter storms that dumped heavy snow and rain across the state are not expected to be substantial enough to counterbalance drought conditions.
Lake Oroville plays a key role in California's complex water delivery system.
This 65km-square body of water north of Sacramento is the second-largest reservoir in California.
Not only does Lake Oroville store water, it helps control flooding elsewhere in the region, assists with the maintenance of water quality and boosts the health of fisheries downstream.
In 2014, more than 80% of California was in the grip of an "extreme drought". Against this backdrop, Oroville's capacity fell to 30% - a historic low level.
As the water level receded to hundreds of feet below normal levels, ramps and roads no longer reached the water's edge.
More worryingly, the reservoir - when full - provided enough water for an estimated seven million households, as well as providing power for hydroelectricity facilities and irrigation for agricultural land.
'Unusually destructive'
The dry conditions didn't start in 2014, however, there had been a drought for years prior to Oroville recording its historic low level.
Indeed, the US space agency's Earth Observatory had warned that the multi-year drought was having a wider impact on the region. Among its effects was a contribution to "unusually active and destructive" fire seasons and poor yields from agricultural land.
"There is strong evidence from climate models and centuries of tree ring data that suggest about one-third to one-half of the severity of the current drought can be attributed to climate change," observed Benjamin Cook, a climate scientist from Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.
Agency scientists added that the data suggested a "megadrought" might already be underway in this region - and that it could last for decades.
The latest update from the US Drought Monitor in December 2020, showed that much of the country's western states were gripped by extreme or exceptional drought, with Nevada, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, Colorado and western Texas being the worst affected.
The Drought Monitor releases maps showing the parts of the country with prolonged shortages in the water supply. It is produced jointly by the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).
From one extreme...
Climate change is not just about a warmer world, it also means that the planet will see more extreme environmental conditions and weather. So, for example, episodes of flooding will increase, as well as episodes of droughts.
Lake Oroville was a perfect illustration of how these extremes can threaten our existing infrastructure.
While the lake's levels reached a historic low in 2014, the reservoir's vast embankment dam - the tallest in the US - was pushed to breaking point in February 2017.
Following fierce storms in the surrounding mountains, water was flowing into the lake at a rate of roughly one-and-a-half Olympic-size swimming pools each second.
Communities downstream had been evacuated, with more than 100,000 people being ordered to leave their homes.
Officials were struggling to allow water to flow out of the lake because the main spillway - a structure that provides controlled releases of water - and the emergency spillway had been eroded and damaged.
Yet they had to continue sending water down the valley because the reservoir was reaching capacity and there was a sense that there could be a "catastrophic failure" in the structure.
In the space of two years, the lake went from an unprecedented low to a capacity that had not been experienced before. Water cascaded over the emergency spillways, which had not previously been required.
Traditionally, the lake was replenished by meltwater from a thawing snowpack in surrounding mountains, whose river systems fed the reservoir. June was the month when the reservoir was expected to reach its yearly maximum level.
However, in 2017, it was rain that caused the intense water flow. The reservoir had reached capacity in February, rather than the middle of the year, as usually happened.
Scientists again suggested that the event fitted into the paradigm of a warming world.
Speaking at the time to the Guardian newspaper, Prof Roger Bale, from the University of California Merced, explained: "With a warmer climate, we get these winter storms, which dump rain rather than snow."
The United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) said that the "frequency and intensity of droughts, storms and extreme weather events are increasingly likely above 1.5C (above pre-industrial levels)".
Failure to keep the global average temperature rise to below 1.5C, as outlined in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, is likely to result in more of the world's reservoirs or flood defences being tested to breaking point.
This is a stark warning for world leaders, who will be gathering once again this year at the UN's annual climate summit (COP26) - to be held in Glasgow.
The meeting, which had to be postponed by a year because of Covid, will seek to raise global ambition on tackling climate change - with a view to keeping temperature rise within the 1.5C limit.
Our Planet Then and Now will continue up to the UN climate summit in Glasgow, which is due to start in November 2021
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Voters in the southern African state of Angola go to the polls on 31 August in the first general election since the coming into force of the country's new constitution. This abolished direct election of the president, removed the post of prime minister and limited presidential tenure to two five-year terms. | The election is taking place amid complaints from the opposition that the date of the election - just three days after celebrations for the incumbent president's birthday - gives the sitting government an unfair advantage.
How is the president elected now?
Each political party must submit a list of their National Assembly candidates to the constitutional court. The person heading the list of the winning party is automatically elected as president.
The change from direct election was made in January 2010 by a parliament dominated by the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA).
Every Angolan citizen over the age of 18 is entitled to vote. Voter registration is compulsory and some 9.7 million voters out of an estimated population of 21 million have been registered ahead of the elections.
Voters will directly elect 220 members of the National Assembly for a five-year term. Members of the Angolan diaspora will not be able to vote after the National Electoral Commission (CNE) in July decided to cancel their participation.
The process will be overseen by the CNE, but the Constitutional Council will announce the results and is the final authority on electoral matters.
Nine political parties and coalitions are taking part in the poll, but the two main contenders are the MPLA and Unita.
MPLA
The MPLA has dominated Angolan politics since independence from Portugal in 1975, and is favourite to win. President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has been in power since 1979, is likely to secure the presidency as the limit on numbers of terms served cannot be imposed retrospectively.
The party has a tight control on state institutions and its officials have close ties with the Angolan business elite. It has considerable campaign funds and control of key state institutions, including the military and media.
UNITA
Unita is a former rebel group that fought the MPLA-led regime from 1975 until the killing of its leader Jonas Savimbi by government forces in February 2002. It subsequently signed a peace agreement with the government, ending one of Africa's longest-running civil wars.
It has since become the main opposition party, but was weakened in March 2012 by the defection of senior officials who left to form the Broad Consensus for Angolan Salvation - Electoral Coalition (Casa-CE).
Unita leader Isaias Samakuva has said "democracy is finally coming to Angola. It is coming to Angola with Unita in power". He has promised to form a government "based on competence and not party affiliation".
Angola last held parliamentary elections on 5 September 2008 in which the MPLA secured 82% of the vote, winning 191 of the 220 seats. Unita won 16 seats, down from the 70 it held in the previous legislature. Voter turnout was 87%.
Economic hardship and poor governance remain core issues. There have been numerous demonstrations by youths and war veterans, protesting about economic misery in a country where the cost of living is among the highest in the world.
President Dos Santos has promised economic growth and a fairer distribution of wealth, while Mr Samakuva has said he "would embark on a national emergency programme" to tackle unemployment, housing, health care, education and social security.
Unita has threatened to protest about the CNE's "electoral fraud". But MPLA spokesman Rui Luis Falcao Pinto de Andrade affirms the body's independence, while acknowledging that it is "facing some difficulties", which he says it will resolve.
Meanwhile, the Casa-CE alliance has complained that "the number of voters is unclear" and Unita has reported various irregularities in voter registration to the CNE.
The media have come under fire with accusations that the state media have been favouring the MPLA, but the complaints have been rejected by the media regulator, the National Social Communication Council (CNCS).
And the opposition media have been criticized over programme content, with the CNCS questioning the "accuracy" of information on Unita's Radio Despertar and faulting it for using "aggressive" language in its talk shows.
Civil war veterans have threatened to blockade the polls if the government fails to pay them; an offer of $500 (£320) dollars a month has been rejected. Demonstrations in support of their claims have been suppressed by the authorities.
Meanwhile, Unita has alleged that the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) and the Rapid Intervention Police have moved into pro-opposition areas "to create fear and coercively persuade people" to vote for the MPLA.
However, FAA chief Gen Geraldo Sachipengo Nunda has told FAA personnel that they should "behave with full respect for the constitution, with strict discipline and completely in line with the decisions regarding military conduct before, during, and after the election".
MPLA supporters have also been accused of harassing their opposition counterparts - sometimes violently - in various parts of the country.
The leader of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) team of observers, Tanzanian Foreign Minister Bernard Membe, has called for those running in the elections to show tolerance and moderation. The African Union has also sent a team of observers.
BBC Monitoringselects and translates news from radio, television, press, news agencies and the internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages. It is based in Caversham, UK, and has several bureaux abroad. For more reports from BBC Monitoring, click here
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Australia's national day of celebration has drawn much criticism recently from those who say it causes unfair hurt to indigenous people. But the controversy, like Australia Day itself, has evolved over many years, reports Sharon Verghis from Sydney. | More than most other nations, perhaps, Australia has a relaxed relationship to its national day.
Australia Day, on 26 January, commemorates the day in 1788 when Captain Arthur Phillip, commander of the First Fleet of 11 British ships, arrived at Sydney Cove to signal the birth of the colony.
On Friday, many in this nation of 24 million people will once again gather on beaches and around barbeques to celebrate.
From regattas to camel races, flip-flop-throwing carnivals to outdoor concerts, Australians will mark a public holiday more popularly treated as a late summer festival than the solemn national day its founders intended it to be - a unifying celebration of the good fortune of being Australian and the values that bind the nation: democracy, freedom, independence, a fair go, mateship.
But what does 26 January really mean for Australians and how did it come to be?
An old and new celebration
Like all national days, the significance attached to Australia Day has changed over time.
It is also, in its current form, relatively new. Not until 1994 was there consistently a national public holiday on 26 January, rather than on the nearest Monday.
In 1818, New South Wales (NSW) formally marked 30 years as a colony with a triumphant 30-gun salute, the first official celebration of the date. It became an annual public holiday there in 1838 and remained a NSW-centric commemoration for many years.
But by 1888, 26 January had become known as "Anniversary Day" and was a public holiday in all capital cities except Adelaide.
The inauguration of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901 reinforced momentum for a foundation holiday. By the 1920s, Anzac Day had become a national holiday but was regarded as a day of sombre commemoration of Australia's war casualties rather than a celebration.
The search for a national day that fit this latter description continued - ending in 1935 when all states of Australia agreed to adopt a common name and date.
In the 1980s, the Australian government began to take an increasingly prominent role and established the National Australia Day Committee. By 1994, all states and territories began to celebrate a unified public holiday on the actual day for the first time.
How opposition was voiced
Australian historian Prof Kate Darian-Smith, from the University of Tasmania, says that Australia Day, now far from its roots, sparks a sometimes heated annual public debate about cultural identity, history and what it means to be Australian.
"In the commemorations in 1938, and then in 1988, there were restagings of the arrival of the First Fleet to Australia - and we would not see this now," she says.
"Australia Day had become a politicised flashpoint for discussion about how we should celebrate the past, and recognising what the day means for indigenous people."
For indigenous Australia, a historic protest came during sesquicentenary (150 years) celebrations in Sydney in 1938, when more than 100 Aboriginal people gathered for a conference to mark the "Day of Mourning".
But the notion that indigenous Australians had been "robbed" of their land by the colonists was even acknowledged in the 19th Century by Henry Parkes, a NSW premier.
In 1988, a protest march of more than 40,000 indigenous and non-indigenous people took place in Sydney, entrenching a tradition of "survival day" and "invasion day" concerts, marches and protests which continue today.
Indigenous protest has continued to grow, mirroring similar movements surrounding days commemorating European colonisation, such as Thanksgiving in the US. It has dovetailed with heightened political and community activism coalescing around a "change the date" campaign.
The push has been spearheaded by the left-wing Australian Greens and others who regard the date as more divisive than unifying, making Australia Day the antithesis of the harmonious national festival organisers had intended.
Grassroots protests within the last year have ranged from some local councils in Melbourne dropping their Australia Day events, to radio station Triple J moving the unofficial soundtrack for Australia Day - its iconic Hottest 100 - to a different date.
Patriotism for Anzac Day
Australians don't appear to be particularly fixated on maintaining the 26 January date.
A recent poll found that 56% of those surveyed didn't mind when it was held as long as there was a national day of celebration. Nearly half (49%) believed Australia Day should not be on a day that is offensive to indigenous people.
Over the years, suggested alternatives have included 27 May, the date in 1967 when indigenous people were finally allowed constitutional rights, and 1 January, the day Australia's constitution came into force. Even 8 May - a pun on "mate" - has gained popular support.
But Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has ruled out any changes, expressing his disappointment at the "divisive" actions of Australia Day reformists.
Interestingly, says Prof Darian-Smith, there has been an upsurge of millennial-fuelled patriotism for Anzac Day, a day of remembrance for Australian and New Zealand forces who served and died in military conflicts.
"In fact, Anzac Day, sometimes called Australia's secular holy day, has increasingly become the day that national fervour is most expressed," she says.
To many, it holds less historical baggage, is more inclusive of migrants and indigenous veterans, and "is a day embraced very much by a younger generation - the turnout at Anzac ceremonies has become bigger and bigger each year".
But Australia Day retains support from the nation's biggest political parties. "A free country debates its history - it does not deny it," Mr Turnbull has said.
Sharon Verghis is a freelance writer based in Sydney
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A jury has retired to consider its verdict in the case against the parents of a Muslim convert dubbed "Jihadi Jack". | John Letts, 58, and Sally Lane, 57, are accused of sending or trying to send their 18-year-old son Jack £1,723 after he joined Islamic State.
Old Bailey judge Nicholas Hilliard QC told jurors to consider "only the evidence you have seen in court".
Mr Letts and Mrs Lane deny three counts of funding terrorism.
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Aah, the 2010s... Do you remember them? | By Paul GlynnEntertainment & arts reporter
Back in that golden age when we were all still able to listen to music in bars, cafes, shops, stadiums, at the gym and (sometimes) even at the office.
Now with the first Easter of the 2020s on lockdown, PPL and BBC Radio 2 can reveal the top 40 most-played songs, on UK TV and radio, of the last decade.
DJ Scott Mills will countdown the list of "absolute bangers" - led by Adele and Bruno Mars, with three appearances each - on the station on Monday.
"The top 40 most-played songs are the sounds that radio producers and broadcasters have consistently played throughout the last decade and will evoke many memories for all of us," said Peter Leathem, boss of the music licensing company which compiled the chart.
'Universally loved'
Jeff Smith, head of music at Radio 2, added it's "packed with universally loved, sing-along pop hits that really do stand the test of time".
The new data suggests broadcasters mostly favoured songs by male solo artists, with 22 nods compared to 14 solo female tracks, while American stars outweighed home-grown performers by 18-14.
Bands and groups accounted for 12 of the tracks, while that most modern phenomenon of the "collab" yielded seven hits.
And British outlets, it seems, also preferred to give airtime to songs released that decade (34 out of 40), with just a few from the noughties and Natalie Imbruglia flying the flag for the 1990s on her own, with Torn.
Rihanna, Coldplay, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry all made the top 40, however that's the last you'll be hearing of that lot in this article. Because we're about to dip straight into the top 10, which features two Brits, two women and two Pharrells.
The top 10 most-played songs of the 2010s on UK TV and radio:
10. Sex On Fire - Kings Of Leon
First up, pop pickers, is a song that you've almost certainly heard a wedding covers band butcher since its release in 2008.
It gave the Nashville guitar slingers their first UK number one, and their first Grammy win too, for best rock performance by a group.
In 2017, they told Radio X how they would one day explain the song's saucy lyrical content to their kids.
"It's Socks on Fire," said drummer Nathan Followill. "Uncle Caleb's socks caught on fire one night when I was drying them out on the heater."
Use Somebody, another track off their fourth album, Only by the Night, also made the top 40.
9. Forget You - CeeLo Green
As many of you will have noticed, this is actually the broadcast-friendly version of the Atlanta singer's 2010 track, written in collaboration with Bruno Mars and several others.
The song, which was a dig at the music industry, ironically won him a Grammy award for best urban/alternative performance.
Billboard reviewed it at the time as sounding "as sunny as a '60s Motown hit and as expletive-laden as an early Eminem song".
CeeLo was last seen, or heard rather, performing as the monster on the surreal ITV show The Masked Singer.
8. Counting Stars - One Republic
The US pop-rock band topped the UK charts for the first time in 2013 with Counting Stars, which frontman and songwriter Ryan Tedder penned when he was trying to come up with something for Beyonce (who is notably absent from this chart).
The song's accompanying video has now been viewed well over 2.9 billion times on YouTube, making it the streaming site's 14th most-viewed video ever.
Not enough music videos contain crocodiles these days, do they?
7. Uptown Funk - Mark Ronson, ft Bruno Mars
The second biggest-selling song of the decade - on streaming and physical sales - is also the second big royalty cheque on this list for the Mars man, and gives us our first Brit too.
London-born US producer/DJ Ronson, and the Hawaiian singer bagged the Brit award for best British single for Uptown Funk in 2015, when it felt like it was never off the speakers, anywhere.
Fun fact: after its release though, they were legally made to credit The Gap Band as co-writers, due to the song's resemblance to the their 1979 party hit, Oops Up Side Your Head.
Bruno's other songs, Locked out of Heaven, and Just the Way You Are, also appear on the top 40.
6. I Gotta Feeling - Black Eyed Peas
"Tonight's the night / Let's live it up" sang B.E.P in their 2009 hit, and I'm sure we all intend to follow that advice if we're ever allowed out again.
The track was produced by superstar French DJ David Guetta and arguably saw them both at the peak of their powers.
After singer Fergie left in 2015, the band went on to perform the song as part of a medley before the 2017 Champions League Final in Cardiff. However, the performance, which included fireworks, ran over time and forced the kick-off to be delayed by several minutes.
Fair to say they've had better nights.
5. Can't Stop The Feeling! - Justin Timberlake
As well as singing the film Trolls' lead song, JT played the worrywart Branch in the DreamWorks animation.
In an interview with TheWrap, he said, like his character, he was pulling his hair out over the prospect of producing a hit for some colourful mythical creatures.
"This wasn't just like writing a song for a movie - it was writing a song for characters that are going to sing it in the movie," he said. "That part had to work, and that's the part that made it a task that none of us had ever done."
He needn't have worried, as the song - which he debuted live at the Eurovision song contest - won the Grammy Award for best song written for visual media.
Having been released in 2016, this is actually the most recent track in the top 10, which is weighted in favour of older songs - because its surveying plays over a whole decade - and perhaps helps to solve the mystery of the missing Ed. Sheeran's stellar 2017 track, Shape of You, came in in 38th.
4. Get Lucky - Daft Punk, ft Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers
Combining the musical might of the French electronic duo, the US hip-hop star and the legendary guitarist, it was only ever going to end one way, wasn't it? Choon.
Stevie Wonder even added to the talent pool by joining them on-stage to perform the modern disco-hit at the 2014 Grammys, where it won record of the year and best pop group performance.
It topped almost every chart in the world, selling a million equivalent copies in the UK in just 69 days.
"When I think how it happened, too, with people who I like a lot, that we just decided to go into the studio and do something," Rodgers told the Official Chart Company. "And then it turns out like this? It's absolutely remarkable, because no-one was prepared for this!"
While attempting to Get Lucky is very much against current government guidelines, dancing around your kitchen to that funky bass-line is not.
3. Moves Like Jagger - Maroon 5, ft Christina Aguilera
Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine attempted to brighten up one of the dullest Super Bowls in recent history by going topless as sang this ode to his hip-thrusting abilities, last year in Atlanta.
The 2010 track peaked at number two in the UK but topped the US charts, meaning Christina Aguilera became only the fifth female to score number one singles in three different decades, after Janet Jackson, Madonna, Spears and Cher. But it still wasn't enough for her to get invited back to the "greatest show on earth" to perform.
Incidentally, last year, Sir Mick Jagger - the 76-year-old Rolling Stone referenced in the song's title - posted a video of himself dancing at home following heart surgery, to prove he still had his signature moves.
The Los Angeles band's other big hit of the decade, Payphone - featuring rapper Wiz Khalifa - also gets a mention in the top 40.
2. Rolling In The Deep - Adele
The opener from Adele's Brit award-winning second album, 21, was essentially her big comeback track following the breakthrough success of her debut, and also the moment she became a real star in the States too.
The gospel-tinged vibes of the pounding 2010 track saw her pick up three Grammys - record and song of the year, plus best short-form music video.
The visuals found her alone in an abandoned room which soon began to fall apart, like the relationship she was singing about.
After Mark Ronson, the Londoner is the only other British-born artist (and second woman) to appear in the top 10... and he mostly grew up in New York.
Someone Like You and Set Fire to the Rain, from the same blockbuster album, also made the top 40 mix.
1. Happy - Pharrell Williams
So there you have it! An upbeat and inoffensive top 10.
The appearance of Mr Williams' second ubiquitous earworm of the 2010s confirms there is no room at all at the top table for Drake, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber or Ariana Grande. Possibly as while they are popular with younger audiences, radio and TV has to appeal to a much broader listenership.
Happy was another track written for an animated film; namely Despicable Me 2, and it fast became the eighth biggest-selling song in UK chart history.
A live rendition of the song eventually scored the singer/rapper a Grammy, after he previously lost out in the best original song category to Let it Go, from Disney's Frozen. "When they read the results, my face was... frozen," Pharrell told GQ magazine. "But then I thought about it, and I just decided just to... let it go."
With Lucky and Happy enjoying great success, we look forward to seeing which of the remaining seven dwarves he'll name his hits after in this new era.
(Joke... we know Lucky isn't one really).
Scott Mills presents the Most Played Songs of the Decade on Radio 2, at 14:00 BST on 13 April.
Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected].
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A UN-backed war crimes tribunal has convicted Liberia's former President Charles Taylor of aiding and abetting rebels in neighbouring Sierra Leone. He first came to international prominence after an interview on the BBC's Focus on Africa programme with its then editor Robin White, who looks back at Charles Taylor's rise and fall. | New Year's Days are usually a bit thin on news and much of the discussion in the Focus on Africa office on New Year's Day 1990 was along the lines of "how on earth are we going to fill the programme?"
And then, Charles Taylor called.
He claimed to have invaded Liberia and was on his way to Monrovia to overthrow President Doe.
I'd never heard of Taylor, or his Patriotic Front movement but he sounded plausible.
Liberia was not a happy place to be in 1989.
It had been run for the previous 10 years by Samuel K Doe, an illiterate army sergeant who ended more than 100 years of rule by the True Whig party - by parading government ministers through the streets of Monrovia, naked, and then shooting them dead on the beach.
Doe was incompetent, brutal, tribalistic and possibly cannibalistic. He rigged an election and locked up the opposition. Unsurprisingly there had been several attempts to get rid of him.
So Charles Taylor's call was not a total surprise.
I interviewed him and we put him on air. The rest, as they say, was history.
The Focus on Africa radio programme broadcast on the BBC World Service became the focal point for the coverage of Liberia's chaotic civil war.
Everyone wanted to be on the programme.
Scarcely a day went by without a warlord or a government spokesman or a peacekeeper or an eyewitness calling us to ask that their voice should be heard.
Flamboyant and clever
I thought and, I think many Liberians thought, that Taylor's war would be short, sharp and successful.
He had the backing of Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and some of Liberia's near neighbours.
He had money, guns, and ammunition and, at first, considerable popular support.
But it took him more than eight years to make it to the presidency - by which time thousands had died and the country lay in ruins.
Charles Taylor's appeal was obvious.
He was the complete opposite of Doe: Flamboyant, clever and well educated.
And, above all, he could talk.
Liberians love a talker and he was the mother of all talkers. He was the "Liberian Lip"; the "Monrovian Motormouth".
He knew how to deal with the media.
He never held a press conference unless he had something important to say.
He never called us if he didn't have a story to tell - and he rationed his appearances.
Many listeners think that he was constantly on BBC Focus on Africa bragging about his latest successes.
In fact, during those many years of war, he only phoned six times.
Taylor's progress was at first dramatic. He took Nimba country and then moved on to other targets like the vital iron mining town of Yekepa.
His army grew. He was endorsed by prominent Liberians abroad such as Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberia's current president.
Monrovia beckoned.
But then his advance stalled.
His Patriotic Front movement split down the middle after he quarrelled with Prince Johnson, the man who finally killed Doe.
And other liberation movements, like Ulimo, sprang up to muddy the waters.
Ecomog, the West African peacekeeping force, moved in to try and establish some kind of order and Taylor was left stranded in his regional capital, Gbarnga, pretending to rule half of the country.
Pyrrhic victory
Umpteen peace conferences later, Taylor finally got his prize - he won the 1997 presidential election.
But it was a pyrrhic victory.
Liberia had been destroyed and the people demoralised.
He had no money and he was an international pariah. He needed money to finance his private army, the Anti-Terrorist Unit.
But he couldn't beg or borrow - so he had to steal.
He chopped down Liberia's forests and shipped off timber to Marseilles, and he flogged off any minerals and diamonds he could lay his fingers on.
It did him no good.
Already copycat rebel movements like Lurd were on the march and, like Taylor before them, were calling us at Focus on Africa to claim military successes.
The writing was on the wall.
I first met Taylor face-to-face in the Executive Mansion in Monrovia in 2000.
He could still talk the talk, but in person he is not so impressive: Small, slightly moth-eaten, with not very well designed stubble on his face.
He denied masterminding the RUF rebellion in Sierra Leone and rejected American claims that he was dealing in "blood diamonds".
He told me: "There is a satellite over Liberia every 48 minutes. The United States can take a picture of a matchstick or even a safety pin. But they don't have any evidence of anything".
But the connections with Sierra Leone were obvious.
Amongst the praise singers milling around Taylor in the Executive Mansion when I was there were RUF supporters who made no attempt to hide their identity.
Taylor loved danger, loved plotting, loved scheming, loved meddling.
It's hard to believe that he didn't have some finger in the Sierra Leonean pie.
But the abiding mystery for me is this: Why has Charles Taylor been tried for what he did in Sierra Leone? Why is he not held to account for what he did to Liberia and Liberians?
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A man has been extradited from the United States in relation to a fatal attack in London's Trafalgar Square. | Lucas Antunes, 21, has been flown back to the UK after being charged with the manslaughter of Desmond O'Beirne, 51, who died from injuries he suffered in the early hours of 3 June, 2017.
He has become the second person to be charged over the death.
Antunes will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on 28 September.
Luis Abella, 22, of Marshall Court was charged with manslaughter on 15 August and last appeared at Southwark Crown Court on 3 October.
A trial date is yet to be set, the Met Police has said.
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Matt Barnard's favourite memory of the recent Christmas holiday period was receiving a thank you letter from the 10-year-old daughter of a friend who'd been over for a meal. "I'm stunned you got me to like kale. I never knew I could like salad," she wrote. | By Katie HopeBBC News, Davos
The products had come directly from Mr Barnard's South San Francisco farm.
It's a nice anecdote. Of course, food you've grown yourself tends to be fresher and taste nicer than the same stuff from the supermarket.
But Mr Barnard's ambitions are a lot bigger than providing friends and their children with nice lunches. He is the chief executive of Plenty, a high-tech, agricultural start-up that he co-founded six years ago.
He may only have two farms currently, with a third due to open later this year, but they are test pads for a much more ambitious global expansion plan. "Plant science artificial intelligence training centres" is how he describes them.
Pole planting
The crops are grown upwards on vertical poles, enabling them to produce higher yields on much smaller areas of ground, and the farms are indoors, meaning the weather has no impact. LED lights provide the equivalent of sunshine.
The plants don't even need soil, instead they are fed by nutrient-rich water and there's no need for pesticides because there are no pests in this carefully controlled environment.
For Mr Barnard, farming is a return to the family business. He grew up on an orchard but says he never expected to work in the industry because he "didn't enjoy growing up without any control over my livelihood".
On his farms it's now all about control.
The amount of water, ratio of minerals, humidity levels and different types and durations of LED light are all being varied and tested.
"By giving plants different versions of perfect environments, we have the ability to influence the way they taste," he says.
'Bowling balls'
The farms' small size means they can also be close to, or even within, big cities, dramatically reducing the distance produce needs to travel before it is eaten.
He believes that fresh produce "gets a bad rap" because most fruit and veg crops are chosen for their durability, rather than their flavour.
"Look at the iceberg lettuce. It's got no flavour and no nutrition, but it's the largest cash crop in the US because it's like a bowling ball making it resilient in the field and truck. That's what the supply chain dictates," he says.
Local farms like his are able to grow more delicate and varied types of produce because they don't need to be as robust.
"Working to produce food for people not trucks," is how Mr Barnard puts it.
High energy
He is optimistic that people will automatically choose to eat more veg if it tastes better.
Such farms could also be part of the solution to obesity and to feeding a growing global population when we're running out of space to grow crops economically, he believes.
As futuristic as it sounds, this kind of farming isn't new. There are similar companies elsewhere such as Jones Food Company in North Lincolnshire, Intelligent Growth Solutions in Scotland and the Growing Underground business in London. Internationally there are rivals such as Aerofarms in the US.
Plenty of such farms have also failed, with critics saying the high cost of the energy required to run them stops them being commercially viable.
Mr Barnard says it's an industry that is easy to enter with off-the-shelf systems, but argues that Plenty's use of machine learning and data is what makes it different.
He says external changes, including a sharp drop in the cost of LED lighting, has also helped make it viable, with the farms more reliant on light than heat.
Reconnecting
It's easy to be sceptical, but he's been backed by some serious investors, raising $200m (£154m) from some big names, including Japanese media giant SoftBank, Alphabet's Eric Schmidt and Amazon boss Jeff Bezos in 2017.
Prof Tim Benton, an expert in food systems from the University of Leeds, agrees there is a role for companies like Plenty, but says they are unlikely to replace conventional horticulture.
"On average, if you divide global agricultural land by the number of people on the planet, each person uses a football pitch of land to crop the food we eat. Even if vertical farming stacks space high, it would be difficult to replicate even a big chunk of this space within cities. So, whilst part of the solution, it is not THE solution," he says.
But like Mr Barnard, Prof Benton agrees vertical farming is one way to reconnect people with food, "converting it from a commodity that is plastic wrapped, cheap and 'waste-able', into something real, something local, something nurtured during production".
Plenty's farms currently grow leafy green plants including kale, sweet lettuces and salad leaves, which require less energy compared to more substantial crops such as potatoes.
The crops are distributed via online retailers, at special events and given to a small number of consumers to trial.
Shelf life
Mr Barnard says Plenty only sells its produce when it can do so at "median organic pricing or better".
Of course, that is still much higher than rival non-organic produce, but Mr Barnard denies that his farms are simply producing tasty food for the middle class.
Lab tests have shown the produce has a longer shelf life and he says that means people will waste less, which makes it more affordable.
"Our mission is pretty ambitious. We've shown that it is possible at large scale relative to efficiency. Now we have to go about the hard work of building a business."
That's why he's here at Davos to spread the word and secure further investment for his plan.
Mr Barnard expects the business to accelerate after 2020, with expansion "likely to be outside the US".
In the end, he will judge his success on whether he manages to "meaningfully change how people think about fresh produce" as something enjoyable to eat.
So has he persuaded his own children, aged 11 and 13, to take an interest in veg?
"More and more so. Both are eating more over time," he says.
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A teenager has been arrested in connection with the death of a man in South Lanarkshire. | Frank Sinclair, 61, was found dead near Riverton Drive in East Kilbride at about 20:40 on Saturday 19 January.
Police confirmed that a 16-year-old boy had been arrested and charged in relation to the death.
He is due to appear at Hamilton Sheriff Court and a report has been sent to the procurator fiscal.
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Jersey politicians have broadly backed proposals for the reform of the island's healthcare system.
| All but one of the States members voted for the policy, although individual proposals and how they will be funded will need to agreed by the States.
The changes would include more care in the community and increased funding for services like doctors' surgeries, and dental and opticians' services.
It also involves the building of a new hospital costing more than £430m.
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About 25 cars on a fast ferry to Jersey were damaged in high winds and waves as the Condor Express sailed from the UK.
| Condor Ferries said three crew members had minor injuries during the crossing from Poole to Jersey via Guernsey.
There were winds of about 65 knots off the coast of Alderney at about 17:00 BST on Thursday.
On arrival in Guernsey the Jersey passengers were transferred to the traditional boat the Commodore Clipper which arrived in Jersey later.
The extent of the damage to the cars is not yet known.
Charlotte Milner who was on board the boat said: "Fifteen foot waves, screaming children, roof falling apart, hands down worst journey of my life."
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A 21-year-old man stabbed to death in Liverpool has been named by police.
| Kyle John Farrell was found with a stab wound to his chest at a house on Charlecote Street, Dingle, at about 05:00 GMT on Friday. He died later in hospital.
His family said he was a "devoted father and loving son" who will be missed by all his family and friends.
A 21-year-old woman has been arrested by Merseyside Police on suspicion of murder.
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Calling off a scheduled meeting with international donor agencies in Kilinochchi Tamil Tigers urged the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) to make the international community aware of the findings on the attack that killed the LTTE's Eastern political wing leader. |
Dinasena Ratugamage who visited rebel held Kilinochchi reported that the LTTE flag was flying at half mast and black flags were hoisted in Kilinochchi while solemn music was played through the public address system.
In a statement issued on Tuesday the LTTE political wing said that the killing is "is a serious violation of the Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) that provides for the travel of unarmed LTTE members" in territory under government control.
The statement came while the body of the slain Tiger leader Eliyathambi Lingarajah alias Kaushalyan along with five others were brought to the Batticaloa teaching hospital.
Shanthi Selvadurai reporting from Batticaloa said that the bodies escorted by SLMM personnel were given security by the Sri Lankan Military.
District Administrative officer Daya Mohan speaking to journalist in Batticaloa said that this attack would not have been possible without the knowledge of the Sri Lankan military.
"LTTE" responsible
He said that "traitors dressed in military uniform" have carried out this attack.
Denying any involvement in the killing of the senior LTTE leader sri Lanka military spokesman Brigadier Daya ratnayake said that the LTTE should bear the responsibility of the deaths of its own people.
He said that the LTTE leaders have been warned by the Sri Lankan military about travelling in government held areas as there was a threat to Tigers since the Karuna group split from the LTTE in last April.
Adding that the military provided security for LTTE leaders for the past three years, the spokesman said that state security was not informed of Kaushalyan's Monday tour.
However, the Sri Lankan military said on Monday that the vehicle including Kaushalyan entered government held territory on Monday (07) afternoon across the Omanthai military check point.
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By 2020, all the British soldiers stationed in Germany will have come back to the UK, the Ministry of Defence has announced. But the offspring of soldiers who stayed on after World War II or returned there in the years that followed are making their mark in German society, says Chris Bowlby. | Helmut Kohl, Gerhard Schroeder, Angela Merkel.
The roll call of recent chancellors in Berlin has a properly Germanic ring to it.
So it would be a bit of a shock if one of the future occupants of that post was named… David McAllister.
But that is just what could happen, as Mr McAllister, currently prime minister of the state of Lower Saxony, is one of the brightest prospects in Germany's Christian Democratic Union party.
He is tipped to do very well on the national scene too.
So why Mr McAllister?
He is part of a fascinating and increasingly prominent group in German life - the children of former British soldiers who opted to live permanently in Germany after World War II.
It is hard to obtain precise figures for this group. But there are many thousands of soldiers who did not return home after their military service ended, deciding they preferred life in Germany. Many have German wives or partners.
In Mr McAllister's case, his Scottish father, who had been in the British army during World War II, returned as a civil servant with the British occupying forces in Cold War Berlin.
He formed a relationship with a German woman, and they had a daughter in 1960.
But they were not allowed to marry until 1964 as in early post-war decades, marriage between Brits and Germans was much frowned upon by the British authorities.
Mr McAllister, born in 1971, recalls early confusion about his identity. His first years were spent in a kind of British bubble in West Berlin.
"I felt British", he recalls. Mr McAllister attended British schools, listened to British broadcasting and spoke English every day to his father, who read the Daily Telegraph rather than a German newspaper.
But when he read Victor magazine's war stories and played with other school boys, he could not understand why the Germans were always the baddies.
Diversity
Later, when the family moved to what was then West Germany, Mr McAllister went to a German secondary school. He then took the key decision to do his military service with the German army - though he retains dual citizenship.
He later pursued a German political career, rising swiftly to his current post, where he sits in an impressively grand office in the Lower Saxony capital, Hannover.
I asked him whether Germans, hearing his name, ever doubted where his loyalties lay? Only occasionally, he said, did he get emails or even "nasty letters". They came mostly, he added, "from elderly men of the very far right".
His rise to prominence, he adds, reflects a new Germany that many outside the country have failed to appreciate. "Germany is becoming more diverse", he says.
He points out that the current German Vice-Chancellor and head of the Free Democrat Party, Philipp Rösler, is of Vietnamese origin.
And the national leader of the Green party is a Turkish-German, Cem Özdemir.
So maybe the British Germans like Mr McAllister will make their mark too?
But if they are ever more influential in German life, where would that leave all that popular prejudice, where Brits and the Germans see each other as permanent rivals - whether in politics or, say, sport?
Football matches between England and Germany are one place where these rivalries are still played out.
If he had to attend such a match as future German Chancellor, Mr McAllister would have no doubt where his loyalties lay. Thanks to his Scottish father. he is a keen supporter of Scottish rather than English football, and Glasgow Rangers in particular - as well as supporting the German national team.
But there could be a worse twist for England fans. When their team inevitably lose to the Germans on penalties, the winning goal might be scored by one of Germany's top young players - one Lewis Holtby.
Yes, you've guessed it, he has a British dad who served in Germany with the RAF, and a German mother.
He could have played for England, but opted instead for Germany, which nurtured him, speaking of his pride when hearing the German anthem at games of the Under-21 team he captains.
These younger generations of mixed British and German background are a far cry from the tensions when British forces first arrived after World War II.
Many soldiers regarded the Germans as evil enemies, and they obeyed strict rules enforcing "non-fraternisation" with local civilians. Couples like Mr McAllister's parents had to struggle to keep their relationships despite official disapproval.
But over the decades, there has been much mingling between the two communities.
British forces based in Germany are due to depart finally in the next decade. But they will leave behind British Germans in their multi-thousands, increasingly prominent in a fast-changing German society.
And they may offer a much better idea of the British-German future than the hostile memories of the 20th Century past.
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The 75th anniversary of D-Day, when British, American and Canadian forces landed in France to drive out the occupying German army, will be a special one for a dwindling group of people - those who were there at the time. The BBC's Emma Jane Kirby met a US veteran and two French civilians. | What 96-year-old Jake Larson remembers most about D-Day is the feeling of exhaustion. Well, the exhaustion and his first taste of champagne.
"Let me tell you the story!" he says from his home in California as we chat on the phone. "You'll love this story!"
Seventy-five years on and Jake's vintage tales of war are still as effervescent and sparkling as the bubbly he used to knock back in Normandy. For 65, perhaps for 70 years, he refused to speak about his experiences on the French coast - when he left the US Army in 1945, he was demobbed with "the shakes", he says. But when he did allow the cork to pop, suppressed memories frothed and spilled over in Technicolor.
Jake had joined the National Guard in Minnesota aged 15. He'd lied about his age in the hope he'd get paid there and then - he'd only signed up because he'd wanted 10 cents for a cinema ticket to watch the latest Gene Autry film with his cousin. But national guardsmen were among the first to be conscripted into the US Army, and by 1944 Jake was a sergeant. When someone found out he could type, he was quickly shipped to the US Army's HQ in England to become a clerk, typing up the loading orders for the Normandy invasion plans of the US V Corps.
"Man, I was so tired!" he remembers. "No-one had slept on the 4th or 5th [of June] and the seas were so rough we were turning and turning and everyone was sick. But on 6 June, maybe around 06:30, it was time to go in and here we were landing at Omaha beach with the water up to our necks and machine-gun fire on all sides. It was a shooting gallery."
The sea, he says, was red with the blood of soldiers who had stepped on mines and he recalls having to push floating bodies out of his path to shore. After scrambling up the beach, he hid trembling behind a small sandbank and trying to calm his nerves with a cigarette, he asked the soldier crouched behind him for a match. When the man didn't reply, Jake nudged him and saw there was no head under the helmet.
Find out more
Time just evaporated that day, Jake reflects. He remembers setting up a command post by the cliffs, digging himself a foxhole to sleep in and by seven o'clock that night he was dropping with fatigue. That's when he was told by his commanding officer that he was to be in charge of the night shift.
The next morning - Jake's longed-for bedtime - the guns roared again and more tanks rolled up the beach.
"I couldn't sleep with that noise!" he protests. "I just couldn't sleep and man, I really needed to rest!"
It was the locals who helped Jake out. As he stumbled away from the beach towards the village, French civilians rushed out to greet the liberators, hugging the soldiers and plying them with Normandy cheeses and other local fare.
"There was Camembert!" delights Jake. "Am I even pronouncing that right? It was delicious, that Camembert cheese, but I didn't know how you ate that thing - I was just a farm boy from Minnesota! Then they gave us champagne! Wow! Man! Did you ever drink champagne?"
Jake giggles down the telephone line.
"I used to drink a whole bottle of that champagne every morning! We were out in the open and they (the Germans) were shooting at us and we were shooting back - and the noise! And I needed to sleep! Well that champagne was quite a thing - you drink a bottle of that and you could fall asleep! It was amazing stuff!"
At her home in Angers, 90-year-old Thérèse le Chevalier claps her hands together in delight when I tell her about Jake and his champagne cure for insomnia.
Back in June 1944, Therese was a 15-year-old boarding school pupil, but when a cousin working for the Resistance hinted to her mother that something significant was about to happen on the Normandy coast, Thérèse's mother ordered her home to Bernières-sur-Mer, the stretch of coastline known to the Allies as Juno Beach.
As Jake Larson would have been clutching his stomach and vomiting in the rolling transport ship as he waited to land at Omaha Beach, Therese was hunkered down with her parents and little sister in a trench at the back of her yard, waiting for the ground to stop trembling with the bombing and gunfire. And as soon as it did, they went into the street.
"The joy! The amazing feeling when we saw all those soldiers!" she exclaims. "The first were Canadians and some had their faces blacked up to avoid being spotted. And there were all kinds of weapons coming by, tanks and jeeps!"
Later, while her parents were busy, she and her little sister sneaked away to look at the sea and were startled to find it packed with boats sporting silver anti-aircraft kite balloons.
"It's strange," she reflects. "But I don't remember seeing corpses or anyone injured on the beach. My 15-year-old self did not understand death, did not believe in death, so maybe I just blocked it out."
She does remember being chased away by soldiers who warned her that the beach was dangerous and there were things going on there which were not fit for a child to see.
But for the most part, Thérèse sparkles as she speaks of her memories of D-Day and her joy is absolutely infectious.
"Everyone was in the street," she tells me. "They were so happy because first of all we were liberated, we felt free, but really because we were alive! That whole day was a wonderful feeling of life."
Therese's mother opened up her house to the soldiers to welcome them and to try to warm them up.
"Of course, we pitied those poor things," Thérèse says, her hands cupping her face. "Because they were all wet from walking in the sea - oh, we felt so sorry for them! My mother boiled water all day for their tea and we made them coffee." She shakes her finger, correcting herself. "Well we didn't have coffee by then, of course, I think it was barley we gave them."
Thérèse shows me a photograph of herself taken around the time of the D-Day landings and I look at an image of a beautiful, confident young woman with masses of thick, dark hair piled high on top of her head.
"Oh yes!" she laughs coquettishly. "My hair was my pride, my crowning glory!"
The soldiers were clearly enchanted by this pretty 15-year-old and gave her sweets and biscuits from their rations. But the gift she remembers most clearly is the little tin of chocolate they gave her, which could be heated up as a drink.
Therese closes her eyes in ecstasy as she recalls tasting it, watching the battalions of Canadian and British soldiers.
"Honestly," she sighs, "I never drank such a chocolate in all my life!"
That evening, she says, the soldiers pulled a piano from a bomb-damaged house into the street and one of them played for the village. Thérèse doesn't remember the exact tunes he played but she knows it was something joyful.
"Because we danced!" she laughs. "We danced until the evening came."
While we chat, Thérèse's husband Pierre watches us quietly, occasionally sighing and shaking his head. His experience of the liberation was very different from his wife's because he lived 20km south of Bernières-sur-Mer, at Caen, which would endure a further two months of heavy bombing before the Germans were defeated.
A French liberator
On 6 June 1944, 21-year-old Leon Gautier was one of 177 elite French commandos who took part in the Normandy landings with the British 4 Commando unit.
He was one of the first men to step on to Sword beach - the British soldiers were "gentlemanly", he says, and allowed the French to land first. He was distraught when the photo of his English girlfriend, Dorothea, got wet in the sea. Later, in a trench, he repaired it with the sticking plaster from his first aid kit.
He remembers meeting a few French civilians near Sword beach and laughing when they presumed he was British and tried to speak to his unit in English. They told him they were scared of repercussions when the Allied forces left. "We will not go back," he told them. "This time it's for good."
The historian Anthony Beevor once described the Battle of Caen as being "close to a war crime", but Pierre does not want to criticise the Allied forces, he just says that life was "very, very hard" for Caen's civilians, who were almost starving by the summer of 1944. For two-and-a-half years, Pierre and his parents slept in their cellar to survive. Many of their friends and neighbours were not so lucky.
"There were many, many dead at Caen," he reminds me. "And we knew nothing about D-Day. That night (6 June) the bombs fell non-stop. We imagined something might be happening but we didn't know it was accompanied by soldiers landing on the Normandy coast. All we saw were German reinforcements passing by - and, later, trucks returning from the front full of dead soldiers."
Eventually, Pierre's parents decided to evacuate to the countryside.
"The first D-Day soldiers I saw would have been in August," he says. "American soldiers - a battalion of black American soldiers - gave us chewing gum but passed by quickly. We didn't have physical contact or conversation with the Americans. We were liberated without really knowing it." He shrugs.
"And Caen didn't get better from one day to the next. We had no electricity, no water - everything had been bombed to bits."
Thérèse has been busy shelling peas for lunch while her husband talks but she comes over to join us now and interjects that while she had the pleasure of seeing the liberation, her husband saw only the war.
Pierre smiles at us sadly.
"There was no joy," he admits. "Even after the ceasefire in 1945, the people weren't spilling over with joy. I don't remember any laughter in the streets. I think mentally, we were all rather crushed."
Pierre and Thérèse will return to Normandy for the 75th anniversary of D-Day just as they have done many times before. And for the first time since the war ended, 96-year-old Jake Larson will be back in France too, to pay his respects at the cemeteries where his fallen comrades are buried.
"I'm the luckiest man alive," he tells me emphatically. "We lost 2,400 men on Omaha beach that day, men I walked over, men who died to spare me." His voice trails off. "There's a feeling of guilt in that," he admits. "So now it's time to pay my respects and to thank them for their sacrifice."
Jake Larson is now the only survivor from his regiment - the "last man standing", as he jokes. Pierre and Thérèse too are painfully aware that in another 10 years there may be only a handful of civilian witnesses like them.
"Young people don't know about D-Day, they don't care about the war," says Thérèse with a wry smile. "To them it's just history. But when you live that history, it's very, very different."
Thérèse Le Chevalier's story is featured in In Their Footsteps, an exhibition at the Juno Beach museum running until 11 November 2019
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Pokemon Go may be the biggest game on the planet right now, but its little monsters first sprang on the scene in the mid-1990s. The BBC's Heather Chen remembers the unique emotional connection the game made with its earliest users. | Some girls loved Hello Kitty. Others played with Barbie. I grew up with Pokemon.
For many '90s children, video game characters were almost like friends.
I was nine when I first discovered the game. So for me, Pokemon Go wasn't just the start of a craze. It was more than just soaring share prices and renewed interest in the Japanese gaming giant.
This was the news that would reawaken an entire generation of aspiring Pokemon masters, now adults.
Pokemon Go fever is a result of many things: a clever concept with smartphones, a viral marketing campaign and not forgetting the franchise's powerful emotional connection with fans.
Nostalgia is indeed a huge part of the formula, but there are other more emotional factors that could help explain Pokemon madness.
Read More
Childhood dreams, now on your smartphone
Playing the first version of Pokemon back in 1996 meant relying on our trusty Game Boys - and a lot of imagination.
As young and aspiring trainers, we would roam around different worlds in search of rare Pokemon to fill our Pokedex encyclopaedias and learn more about our favourite monsters.
Many of us shared the same daydream: what if Pokemon were real?
Pokemon Go fulfils the fantasy we had growing up of seeing pocket monsters roam our world.
And swapping our Nintendo consoles for smartphones, hunting for Pokemon has now been revolutionised and brought to life.
To be the very best (like no one ever was)
There is still a thriving Pokemon nostalgia community online.
We share memes, reblog Tumblr posts and swap stories of our first battles - both wins and losses - and Pokemon memories, like this one.
But the nostalgia doesn't stop there. Many also remember the hit cartoon show on weekends which took users on new pocket monster adventures.
And who could forget its catchy opening theme, with its uplifting message about doing your best to chase your dreams?
"I wanna be the very best
Like no-one ever was
To catch them is my real test
To train them is my cause
...
Pokemon, gotta catch 'em all!"
Being different is okay
But one of the most important lessons I learnt from playing the game, was that you don't need to follow the same path as everyone else to be the best.
You choose your own unique starter Pokemon and are strategic.
Many of us grew to love our first Pokemon which would even go on to become our friends.
I cannot emphasise how important a decision this was: the monster would become your first ever Pokemon, the one who you'd go into battle with.
Electric rodent Pikachu was always a fan favourite. Some liked cuddly grass Pokemon Bulbasaur but an even more popular choice was baby fire dragon Charmander which seasoned players gravitated towards. With the right training and attention, it could go on to evolve into one of the game's most powerful creatures.
It also happened to be the Pokemon of choice among all my friends. So I knew I had to be strategic if I wanted to defeat them.
Water extinguishes fire and I became a water Pokemon trainer, starting with a Squirtle who I named Bubba.
We went on to win many gym battles and claim badges together, all with the help of my heat-resistant army.
Finding him in the real world (while looking for my mail) was a dream come true.
And now I can't wait to see all my Pokemonsters again.
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A wetland area the size of 100 football pitches which is designed to attract wildlife has opened to the public. | The Beckingham Marshes reserve in the Trent Valley, on the Nottinghamshire Lincolnshire border, has taken three years to complete.
The RSPB said the creation of pools and wet ditches over 350,000 sq metres (86 acres) has already attracted lapwing, water voles, owls and hares.
It was a joint initiative between the RSPB and the Environment Agency.
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The thirst in the hall for him to do well was tangible. | Laura KuenssbergPolitical editor@bbclaurakon Twitter
Some members of the party have wanted to hear a speech like this for years.
And although he never really expected to be doing one of the most high profile, hardest jobs in politics, if Jeremy Corbyn was nervous, he didn't show it.
And goodness me, the audience was pleased to see him, applauding for two minutes on their feet before he even said a word.
Inside the hall his clarion calls, as he even highlighted, "strong message here", were eagerly received, even though I caught the eyes of a fair number of stony-faced MPs.
Promises to end austerity, to defend human rights, to oppose cuts to tax credits, to end "Tory gerrymandering" played well to the home crowd, and will have delighted the many, many thousands of supporters who signed up over the summer with the express reason of giving him their backing.
And by mentioning, repeatedly, his mandate and firm intention to reform the party, it is clear that he wants to change how Labour works fundamentally, abandoning control and command that came to dominate the party from the mid-nineties.
Instead he wants to spread power across the party, including to his new supporters. Inside the movement, this excites and alarms, perhaps in equal measure.
But having found himself unexpectedly their leader, was Jeremy Corbyn ready to take advantage of the chance to tell the rest of the country what he would do with power?
Conference speeches like this are one of the very few opportunities that opposition leaders have not just to display their agenda, but to connect to the wider public, whose votes they ultimately need.
Team Corbyn created the expectation that he would play to this, extol his love of British values, his belief that the majority agrees with him. He did, up to a point.
But here, there was a conflict in his speech.
It was the speech of an activist, a protestor, Jeremy Corbyn the campaigner, a list of the causes he passionately believes in, not a programme for government.
He hardly mentioned how to balance the books, there was little appeal to those outside the party.
This speech was a long way from Ed Miliband's "squeezed middle", and a million miles from the New Labour call to Middle England.
And aside from a few passages about encouraging entrepreneurs, this was a speech that could have been delivered at one of the packed-out rallies during the leadership contest itself.
With the Labour party so demoralised after its election defeat perhaps a zealous campaigner in its comfort zone is precisely what it needs.
Mr Corbyn has recruited an army of new supporters.
And he has broken the rule that politics is the art of the possible, by achieving a victory that his party's establishment thought impossible.
But after today, the anxiety of many MP s in the party who want to understand how that translates to the rest of the country remains.
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President Barack Obama sat down with the BBC's North America editor, Jon Sopel, to discuss Britain's role in the world, his upcoming trip to Africa, and Mr Obama's plans for his remaining time in the White House. | Below are some of the biggest takeaways from the BBC's exclusive interview.
UK-US RELATIONS
At the beginning of his presidency, there was talk that the much-vaunted "special relationship" between the US and UK had grown cold. But almost eight years later, the loving feeling has certainly returned (if in fact it ever left), with Mr Obama praising the "outstanding partner" he has in UK Prime Minister David Cameron. He was insistent the UK had a vital role to play in both the European Union and the fight to stabilise Syria.
AFRICA
"We have heard that in the US they have allowed gay relations and other dirty things." So says William Ruto, the deputy president in Kenya - hardly the kind of talk that would fly in the US, where the right to marriage was recently extended to gay Americans across the country. But Obama says he has no tolerance for intolerance, and will push a more inclusive agenda on his trip.
IRAN
Mr Obama scored a victory when the US struck a nuclear deal with Iran, but finding neutral ground with Tehran might have been the easy part. Now he has to get Republicans in Congress on board with the plan. His critics say lifting sanctions will result in more money flowing to Hezbollah and the Assad regime, further destabilising the region. But Mr Obama says Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has incentive to modernise the economy.
GUN LAWS
The tail-end of Mr Obama's presidency has brought a looser, more candid commander-in-chief. Witness his last press conference, where he virtually dared reporters to ask him tough questions about the Iran deal. With the BBC, he openly discussed the biggest frustration of his presidency - his inability to pass any gun control reform.
RACE RELATIONS
When Mr Obama sang Amazing Grace on a stage full of black ministers at the funeral for one of the victims of the Charleston shootings, jokes flew on Twitter that he had achieved a "peak black" moment. It was a long time coming for many who hoped to see Mr Obama more fully engage with issues of racism during his presidency. But with little over a year left in office, he has been more assertive about dealing with race relations - and says the country has evolved on race since he moved into the White House.
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Scots have cast their ballots in the Holyrood election, but don't need to stay up all night as Covid-19 restrictions have put paid to the usual overnight count. With votes to be tallied across Friday and Saturday, when will you know the result in your local area - and when will the overall winners be declared? | By Philip SimBBC Scotland political correspondent
Friday, 7 May
Counting will kick off from 09:00 on Friday morning, with the Electoral Management Board projecting 48 of the 73 constituencies to be tallied that day.
The full lists can be found here, or you can look up your local results here:
A modern browser with JavaScript and a stable internet connection is required to view this interactive. More information about these elections
Who won in my area?
Enter your postcode, or the name of your English council or Scottish or Welsh constituency to find out. Eg 'W1A 1AA' or 'Westminster'
Friday's constituencies include both the most marginal and safest seats from 2016, and eight of the SNP's top 10 target seats.
These include the Labour defences of Dumbarton, Edinburgh Southern and East Lothian, none of which have a majority exceeding 3%, and the Conservative seats in Ayr, Edinburgh Central, Dumfriesshire and Eastwood.
If the SNP manage to pick off the lion's share of these seats, they will feel good about going into Saturday and winning a majority.
This will particularly be the case if they can gain ground without suffering defeats in any of their own more marginal seats - Angus North & Mearns, Moray and Perthshire North are those with single-digit majorities.
The reverse is also true of course - if the SNP struggle to gain many of these marginal seats or lose some of their own, the path to a majority narrows.
By the end of Friday, it should be fairly clear which way the wind is blowing - but there will still be plenty to play for on Saturday.
Saturday, 8 May
If all goes well on Friday, the remaining 25 constituencies will count on Saturday - with the most marginal contests being between the SNP and Conservatives.
The most marginal constituencies to count on Saturday are again SNP-Tory contests, with the SNP hoping to pick off Aberdeenshire West and Galloway&West Dumfries, both with majorities under 5%.
There are a few chances for the Tories to fight back too, with the SNP defences of Perthshire South& Kinross-shire, Edinburgh Pentlands and Aberdeen South and North Kincardine all having single-digit majorities.
Once each region has declared all of its constituencies, we will also start to get results from the regional lists - which could be pivotal for the overall result, as well as questions over who claims second place and the fate of smaller parties.
How does Holyrood's electoral system work?
Before we turn to the regional results, a quick note on how they are worked out.
Scotland is divided into eight electoral regions, with the 73 constituency seats scattered across them. Each region elects an extra seven MSPs from lists submitted by the parties - voted for via the peach ballot paper - giving a total of 129.
The idea of the list system is to make the outcome of the election more proportional.
Once the constituency results have been declared, you divide the number of list votes each party has won by the number of seats they have already won in that region, plus one. So if a party has won nine seats in an area already, their list vote tally is divided by 10 - making it 10 times harder for them to win a seat from the lists.
There has been particular focus on the list system in 2021 thanks to the emergence of some list-only parties which encourage tactical voting, leading to a debate over whether this is "gaming the system" or simply testing the limits of the rules.
Regional list results
Timings for the counts remain very much up in the air, given we don't yet know how difficult it will prove to stack up ballots in line with Covid-19 restrictions.
But under current plans, with the exception of the big centres of Glasgow and Edinburgh, most of the count centres only have one constituency to finish off on the Saturday.
This means they could well finish up quickly - and indeed simultaneously, if there are similar numbers of ballots to count in each constituency.
Which regions will declare first?
It is hard to say, but the Highlands and Islands - normally one of the last regions to come back in an overnight count due to the vast and varied geography of the area - only has one seat to count on Saturday.
Similarly there will only be one seat left to count from the West Scotland region - so it is possible these two will be able to declare their full regional lists first.
Other regions have at least a couple of constituencies still to polish off before they can run the equations and calculate list seats. Mid Scotland and Fife could be next in line with three seats to count, all at separate locations.
However, this is largely guesswork, and a lot will depend on how the Covid-safe procedures play out at count centres. There will be four constituencies counting at the Emirates Area in Glasgow on Saturday, and three at Ingliston for the Lothian region.
South Scotland also has four counts still to run on Saturday, as does North East Scotland - with two of the latter at P&J Live in Aberdeen, which may delay matters from a logistical standpoint.
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Fancy dinner and a photo with David Cameron? | That was what was on offer recently for wealthy business figures at an event in China - as long as they stumped up about £12,000.
Mr Cameron featured on social media adverts for the Shanghai International Ball and Leaders' Forum, which took place earlier this week.
A photograph of the former prime minister was accompanied by a price in Chinese renminbi.
A spokesman for Mr Cameron said the event in question had actually been the Global Alliance of SMEs' Women Leaders Forum. He did not comment on the advertised pricetag.
Mr Cameron is also due to meet China's President Xi Jinping during a visit to the country as he prepares to launch a new investment fund aimed at boosting trade links.
As prime minister, he hosted President Xi during a state visit to the UK in 2015, which was described by both sides as the beginning of a new "golden era" in relations.
Mr Cameron was UK prime minister from 2010 to 2016. He resigned after being on the losing side of the referendum which saw the UK voting to leave the European Union.
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Single mother-of-four Vicky Price lives in Henleaze, Bristol and has been juggling running her own business with home-schooling. She says she is relieved her children are going back to school on Monday and hopes it is the start of a new routine for the family. This is lockdown life in her own words. | "So school's back next week, although I think the older ones have got a bit of a staggered day. I'm really looking forward to it.
"It's been a long and exhausting few weeks and it's felt longer than it has been.
"I don't know whether that's because in the last year they've been to school for one term.
"Everyone's bored, everyone's had enough, everyone's experiencing it slightly differently.
"Things I'm not going to miss include: Peppa Pig on whilst I'm trying to work, Lego being all over the floor and food bowls being left around and the table being full of home-school work.
"I'm not going to miss any of that.
"I guess even though they're going back, the one thing I'm apprehensive about is: is this it now or are they going to be back home again?
"Because I don't think I could do it for a third time.
"I love having them here but I've been getting up at 05:00 to get work done so that for the constant interruptions I have during the day I can manage my workload.
"They need to see their friends and they need a routine and they need to be out the house a bit and hopefully we'll all get back into some good routines."
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These days we have access to a huge array of medicines to protect us from pain, disease and death. But, as Michael Mosley has been discovering, the source of many of our more remarkable medicines have been deadly poisons. | Take a look at this picture.
It is the most poisonous substance known to man. A couple of teaspoons would be enough to kill everyone in the UK. A couple of kilos would kill every human on earth. It is so dangerous that it is manufactured in military installations and at around £100 trillion per kilo it is also the most expensive substance ever made. Yet despite being so toxic and so costly it is in huge demand. Many people pay large amounts of money to have it injected into their foreheads.
It is botulinum toxin - better known as Botox - a toxin produced by bacteria first discovered in poorly prepared sausages during the 18th Century. It was named after the Latin for sausage - botulus.
On the LD50 toxicity scale, which measures how much of a substance you would need to kill half the people it is given to, Botox measures just 0.000001 mg/kg. In other words you need would need around 0.00007mg to kill a 70kg man like me. Or to put it another way, a lethal dose for me would weigh less than one cubic millimetre of air.
Botulinum toxin kills its victims by causing respiratory failure. It is a neurotoxin - it enters nerves and destroys vital proteins. This stops communication between nerves and muscles. Only the growth of new nerve endings can restore muscle function, and that can take months.
Its main claim to fame is that it will iron out wrinkles in ageing faces and does so by destroying the nerves that cause frowning. The quantities used are tiny - a few billionths of a gram, dissolved in saline. In the name of science I tried Botox a few years ago.
It certainly smoothed away the wrinkles but it also gave me a weird expression, until the new nerve endings grew.
But botulinum toxin is far more than simply a vanity product. It is extremely useful for treating a number of medical conditions, ranging from eye squints to migraines, excess sweating to leaky bladders. In fact there are currently more than 20 different medical conditions that botulinum toxin is being used to treat. More are being discovered all the time.
Botulinum toxin is just one example of extraordinarily dangerous poisons that have useful medical applications. Captopril, a $1bn antihypertensive drug, was developed from studies made on snake venoms. Exenatide, marketed as Byetta, is an effective and extremely lucrative drug used to treat type-2 diabetics. It comes from studies of the saliva of the Gila monster, a large venomous lizard that lives in the south-western US and Mexico
But the impact of poisons on modern medicine go deeper than simply providing new forms of treatment. One poison in particular helped shape the entire modern pharmaceutical industry.
In Victorian Britain, life insurance was a booming industry. This easy money led to a surge in murders, many of them by poison.
One of the most high profile cases was a woman called Mary Ann Cotton who, in 1873, was tried for multiple murders. She had been married four times and three of her husbands, all heavily insured, died. The one who survived seems to have done so because he refused to take out insurance. So she left him.
In all, 10 of her children died of what seemed to be gastric-related illnesses. Each must have been a tragic loss, but fortunately for Cotton most were insured.
Her mother, her sister-in-law, and her lover all died. And in each case, she benefited. By 1872, the unfortunate woman had lost an astonishing 16 close friends or family members. But there was one left - her seven-year-old stepson, Charles. She tried to give him away to the local workhouse but they wouldn't have him. So young Charles soon died.
The manager of the workhouse, however, got suspicious and contacted the police. They soon decided Cotton must have poisoned the boy and thought they knew how she'd done it - with arsenic.
Arsenic oxides are minerals and as a poison are almost unrivalled. They are tasteless, dissolve in hot water and take less than a hundredth of an ounce to kill. Yet in the 19th Century, marketed as a rat poison, arsenic oxide was cheap and easily available. Children would blithely collect it from the shops along with the tea, sugar and dried fruits.
The trial of Mary Ann Cotton would hinge on whether they could find traces of arsenic in the body of her stepson. Forensic science was still in its infancy but they did have a good test for arsenic. This was because there was an awful lot of arsenic poisoning around.
A sample from the boy's stomach and intestines was heated with acid and copper. If arsenic was present, the copper would turn dark grey and, when placed on paper soaked in mercury bromide, produce a tell-tale yellowy-brown stain.
When they tested the body of poor little Charles they discovered that he had indeed died of a lethal dose of arsenic. Cotton was convicted of his murder and hanged in Durham Jail. She was never taken to trial for the mysterious deaths of her mother, three husbands, two friends and 10 other children.
It was a rash of murders and poisonings like this one that led first to the Arsenic Act and then to the Pharmacy Act 1868. This act ruled that the only people who could sell poisons and dangerous drugs were qualified pharmacists and druggists.
So it was from poisonings, accidents and murders that the modern legitimate business of pharmacy finally emerged. And one compound - arsenic trioxide - has also found a legitimate medical use, as an anti-cancer agent.
Pus, Pain and Poison is on BBC Four, Thursday 17 October at 21:00 BST and you can catch up oniPlayer.
Follow @BBCNewsMagazine on Twitter and on Facebook
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Offshore helicopter operator CHC has said it does not plan to make any redundancies despite losing a major contract.
| However, the business, which has a base in Aberdeen, said it cannot rule out job losses in the future.
The reassurance comes after oil firm Apache opted not to renew its agreement with CHC.
The helicopter operator said the Apache contract accounted for less than a fifth of its business.
It hopes the slack will be taken up by existing and new clients when the contract ends in eight months time.
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Visitors to Aberdeen's Christmas Village would like to see more stalls, greater variety and a bigger event in future years, say organisers. | It comes after the 2017 event was moved to Broad Street from Union Terrace, where it began in 2015.
A survey of visitors found that more than 80% wanted to see the concept continued in 2018.
That was despite visitor numbers to last year's village dropping from about half a million in 2016 to 400,000.
The report, brought before Aberdeen city councillors, said 32% of visitors who responded to the survey thought the village was better or much better in 2017, while 28% said it was worse or much worse.
Kate Timperley, from organisers Aberdeen Inspired, told councillors they were looking to "extend the footprint" of the village to make it "bigger and better".
Related Internet Links
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A combination of Brexit and heightened expectations of another Scottish independence referendum have brought economic arguments back to the fore. Some arguments will be familiar from 2014, but important factors have changed: the rest of the UK is no longer 'the status quo' option. Choices made at Westminster would force an iScotland into stark choices between its biggest market, to the south, and a European future. But do the economic arguments matter? | Douglas FraserBusiness/economy editor, Scotland
From one constitutional logjam to another: Brexit's first stage may have been resolved by the election, but the question of Scotland's constitutional future is now hard to ignore.
If there is to be another referendum on Scottish independence, what role would the economy play this time?
It was, arguably, the decisive issue in giving 'no' the majority of votes in 2014. It certainly dominated much of the long debate leading up to that vote.
The Fraser of Allander Institute has published its own take in the wake of the Westminster election, along with its regular commentary on the economy.
The commentary comes with its regular forecast: weak growth in Scottish economic output this year, of 0.9%, but picking up next year, to 1.3%, and 1.4% for the two years after that.
This is based on the expectation that a clearer path to Brexit has been opened by last week's election result. Business could start investing in the expectation of a smooth transition out of Europe.
But if the government heads back to the threat of a "no deal" departure at the end of 2020, the Strathclyde University forecast says to prepare for a "sharp slowing" of the economy.
Familiar arguments on independence
On that question of a Scottish independence referendum, the institute's director, Prof Graeme Roy, who used to work at the heart of the Scottish government's economics team, argues that some arguments would be familiar.
One side will say Scotland has the resources and the potential to be matching the growth rates and lower income inequalities of smaller European nations.
The other will say that the United Kingdom offers economic security, and a pooling of resources to support public spending at current levels, including social security.
Those for independence will welcome the observation that there is no longer a "status quo". Leaving the European Union is risky for the economy. So is independence. A referendum could be fought as a battle between two unknown outcomes, so there would be a more level playing field.
After Brexit, the UK could become better or worse off, depending on policy decisions and business activity.
It could take some time (no-one knows how long) before we find out which it is to be. And the transition could be costly and painful for those industries tied into European markets and supply chains.
Exactly the same could be said of Scotland after independence. It could help Scotland become more prosperous than it would otherwise have been. Or it could do the reverse. It depends on the arrangements for departing the UK, and on the policy choices made at Holyrood.
A more challenging option
That much should be a lot clearer to voters after three-and-a half years of grinding through the minutiae of the Brexit process. Constitutional change is complex: its outcomes unclear.
In the case of Brexit, it's put a lot of business investment on hold, or simply frightened it away. So heading down a similar path of potential economic dislocation could change voter perceptions of independence if there's another Scottish ballot.
In 2014, the case for independence came with the assertion that Scotland could quickly become established as a member state of the European Union.
That would put it within a single Europe-wide market and a customs union, making trade seamless between Scotland and the rest of the UK, and also between Scotland and the rest of the European Union.
There would be no tariffs, no border posts, and they would share common regulatory standards, decided by agreement of 29 EU members, meeting in Brussels.
But with England and Wales out of the single market and customs union, EU membership becomes a more challenging option for Scotland.
'Scotland may face a stark choice'
Depending on the extent of divergence decided at Westminster, Scottish firms trading with the rest of the UK - which buys twice as much from Scotland as the whole of the rest of the world - would be under pressure to align instead with the regulatory framework set in Brussels.
That sounds technical. In practical terms, think of farm output. Westminster may choose to align its trade with the USA, which has different regulations on genetic modification of crops and food safety standards (chlorine-washed chicken, anyone?) and trade is heavily constrained by tariffs.
Or take financial services, at present completely integrated across the UK. If the City of London is required to take its lead from the USA or shifts its focus to trade with Hong Kong and Singapore, the EU could resist that, requiring Scotland to weaken that cross-Cheviot integration.
As Prof Roy puts it: "Scotland may face a stark choice between aligning to the EU trading bloc or the UK bloc, with implications for trade and migration."
We should now be more aware, following the Brexit debate, that such a choice is rarely, if ever, made on the terms of the smaller partner. Trade negotiations are not between equals, and outcomes reflect that.
The Strathclyde University economist adds that the public finances have not gone the way of the independence movement. The Scottish government's own numbers estimating tax raised in Scotland, and public spending, continue to show an unsustainably large gap.
In 2014, a careful choice of boom years for offshore oil and gas made it look like that would close the gap. It's not been looking that way in the past five years. There are billions of pounds in oil tax revenue that could flow annually into the Scottish exchequer under independence, but they are far from closing the fiscal gap.
The SNP case has shifted to treating offshore oil and gas as a windfall rather than a fiscal necessity. And with climate change a rising priority, the pressure will surely grow for the industry to be wound down.
A shift towards radical change
According to Prof Roy, the most significant difference with the 2014 campaign is a shift from a continuity narrative to one of quite radical change.
Five years ago, Alex Salmond and the 'yes' campaign could portray independence as requiring very little change, at least of the type that would be disruptive or threatening to people's finances.
We were reassured that the currency would remain the same, the border would be open, and Scotland and England would share regulation of finance and much else besides.
That's not so easy to argue after Brexit. The SNP's new currency is already a more complex offer: use sterling, but without any joint controls, get ready for Holyrood to create a Scottish currency, and from there, decide if it's in the country's interests to join the euro.
That's harder to sell on the doorstep, particularly one owned by a resident with a mortgage, pension and savings all in sterling.
Do the economic arguments matter?
For what it's worth, I'll add two further factors. One was barely addressed in 2014, and still isn't clear: to balance the public finance books and to make Scotland more prosperous, where does economic growth come from?
The case was made five years ago, and again by the SNP's Sustainable Growth Commission, led by Andrew Wilson, that Scotland could and should grow faster, matching similar European nations.
But the case has been less clear about how that can be achieved, and what trade-offs would have to be addressed. A lower tax regime, for instance? How would productivity be boosted more effectively? Employment law tilted towards the demands of employers or those of trade unions? What level of public ownership of strategic industries?
Finally, the Brexit experience has presented us with a big question of whether the economic arguments matter.
Presented with expert economic opinion that warned of the impact of departing the EU, Leavers simply dismissed them as scaremongering and Project Fear (a term borrowed from the 2014 Scottish campaign).
Even if there is some pain, we were being told by Leave voters that the sacrifice would be worth it to get out of Europe.
Arguments about democracy and identity trumped those about economics. And so it may turn out to be with Scottish independence.
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Two men have been arrested on suspicion of murder after a woman was found dead at a house in Cheshire. | The 55-year-old, believed to be a local woman, was found at a property on Meriton Road in Handforth, near Wilmslow, in the early hours of Sunday.
Two men, aged 43 and 51, from Wilmslow, are in custody being questioned, Cheshire Police said.
A 57-year-old man from Handforth is being held on suspicion of assisting an offender.
Police have asked for anyone with information to contact them.
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A £20m redevelopment of a leisure centre in Bridlington has been given the go-ahead by councillors. | East Riding Council said it expected work on the Leisure World facility to begin in the New Year.
It will be built on the site of the current building with construction expected to take about 18 months.
The centre will have three pools while Sport England will provide temporary facilities at Bridlington Sports Centre during building work.
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Leisure World
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The Public Prosecutions Service (PPS) insists it takes decisions on whether to prosecute cases involving the legacy of the troubles "without fear, favour or prejudice, in strict accordance with the Code for Prosecutors". | By Mark DevenportBBC News NI Political Editor
It was responding to criticism from MPs in a Westminster Hall debate yesterday.
It was alleged that the current system is disproportionately focussed on soldiers and police officers.
A Conservative MP complained about the treatment of a former soldier.
Sir Henry Bellingham said the soldier from the Life Guards regiment had previously been told he would not be prosecuted.
However, he argued that the situation had changed after the appointment of Barra McGrory as Director of Public Prosecutions.
Using parliamentary privilege, Sir Henry pointed out that Mr McGrory represented Martin McGuinness in the Saville inquiry, adding: "this is the person who is prepared to move away from credible evidence to political decision making, which I find very worrying.
"It has to be stopped. There are potentially 278 more cases involving the security forces.
"I do not want any more veterans to be dragged out of their retirement homes any more than I want Sinn Féin councillors to be dragged out of council chambers."
In response the Public Prosecution Service said: "the Westminster debate reflects the political interest in historic criminal cases potentially involving military personnel.
"A number of such cases have been referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions by the Attorney General of Northern Ireland and have been the subject of investigation by PSNI Legacy Branch.
'Without fear, favour or prejudice'
"When these investigation files are submitted to the PPS, the Test for Prosecution is applied without fear, favour or prejudice, in strict accordance with the Code for Prosecutors.
"While political representatives may have an interest in such cases, the public can be assured of the rigour of the processes put in place by the Director of Public Prosecutions to ensure that this will never be allowed to influence the proper taking of prosecutorial decisions.
"It is disappointing to note the unfounded nature of some of the comments made in this debate and we would wish to remind those in public office of the responsibilities they hold to maintain public confidence in the criminal justice system," it added.
During the Westminster Hall debate the Northern Ireland Office Minister Kris Hopkins, who has himself served as a soldier in Northern Ireland, agreed with unionist and Conservative MPs that the current system in Northern Ireland is imbalanced in its treatment of soldiers and police officers.
Mr Hopkins said: "The almost exclusive focus on the actions of the state is disproportionate and must be challenged and redressed if we are to deal with the past in a way that is fair and balanced and allows victims and survivors to see better outcomes than the current piecemeal approach."
Correcting the 'imbalance'
The Northern Ireland Office minister argued that the creation of a new Historical Investigations Unit (HIU) would correct this imbalance.
Mr Hopkins said he believed the implementation of the proposed new body "will make the situation better for victims and survivors, and will be the only chance we have of prosecuting terrorists who murdered soldiers and police officers along with other innocent victims".
Mr Hopkins said: "The HIU will not focus on the deaths caused by soldiers, as the investigations systems in Northern Ireland do today.
"Instead, it will take each case in turn and will investigate the many hundreds of murders caused by terrorists, including the murders of soldiers."
The minister told MPs: "It is clear that the status quo is not working well enough for victims and families, and it is time that progress is made.
"This should create a more proportionate approach in dealing with the past and ensure that the balance of investigations is rightly on the terrorists who caused so much pain and suffering, rather than disproportionately on the brave soldiers and police officers who sacrificed so much to protect us."
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Forty-six years after they split, The Beatles are responsible for one in every 100 jobs in their home city of Liverpool. That was one of the standout statistics of the group's financial legacy released in a report this week. BBC News looks at the numbers behind the Fab Four. | By Daniel WainwrightBBC News
Can't buy me love
A Liverpool City Council report found the enduring popularity of John Lennon, Sir Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr still supported some 2,335 jobs in the city.
Latest figures from the council show there are about 230,800 jobs in total in the city. So that means about 1 in every 100 jobs in Liverpool relies in some way on The Beatles. That is not bad for a band that broke up in 1970.
We can work it out
The £82m impact of The Beatles
1 in 100
jobs in Liverpool are connected with interest in The Beatles
2,335 roles sustained by Fab Four
230,800 jobs in total in Liverpool
1m to 2m visitors a year said The Beatles were why they came
This might, however, be an underestimate, according to Professor Richard Evans from Liverpool John Moores University, because the figures do not take into account the marketing value of the brand or the number of people staying at non Beatles-themed hotels.
The report also could not put an exact figure on how many visitors a year cite The Beatles as their main reason for visiting. Local entrepreneurs put it at about one million. The Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership, made up of business and council leaders, say it is two million.
Day tripper
Tourism is the most obvious place to find jobs connected with The Beatles. According to researchers from the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University, about a quarter of a million people a year pay to visit The Beatles Story while The Cavern Club, where the Fab Four made their name, admits 800,000 people a year for free to listen to live music.
The childhood homes of John Lennon and Sir Paul McCartney also attracted 10,400 visitors between them on minibus tours. Numbers are controlled because the houses are in residential areas.
Ticket to ride
The Beatles Story has the largest permanent exhibition on the band
4 million
visitors since 1990
70%+ from overseas
10,400 a year visit Lennon and McCartney's childhood homes
135 staff employed between The Beatles Story, Cavern Club and Fab Four-themed museums
And when it came to tours of the places that inspired The Beatles - the Strawberry Field children's home and Penny Lane to name but two - an estimated 15 to 20 coaches a week come to Liverpool for this reason.
Out of tour guides who responded to a survey for the report's authors, about a fifth had specific "Beatles-related qualifications".
I'm only sleeping
One in 10 hotel rooms in Liverpool city centre has either an overall Beatles theme or the building hosts major Beatles events, which the report says is 553 in total.
However, there is a big difference between the biggest of those hotels, the 402-room Britannia Adelphi, which hosts events connected with International Beatles Week, and those dedicated to and themed around the band's legacy.
The latter includes the 110-room Hard Days Night Hotel, with pictures on the walls and suites dedicated to Lennon and McCartney. The Lennon Suite even has a white piano.
There is also the Yellow Submarine, a boat at the Albert Dock painted yellow and branded Fab Four but made as a copy of the submarine in the Sean Connery film, The Hunt for Red October.
Additionally, there is the Penny Lane Hotel, the Sefton Park Hotel, home to original band member Stuart Sutcliffe, and Epstein House, once the home of Beatles manager Brian Epstein's father.
"And that's an invitation...
...to make a reservation"
£13m
annual turnover by Liverpool hotels with Beatles themes and events
400 jobs in 6 hotels that host major Beatles events or have band decor
65% of overseas visitors say The Beatles are key reason for staying
£23m cost of developing the 110-room Hard Day's Night Hotel (pictured)
All things must pass
McCartney founded the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, alongside its principal Mark Featherstone-Witty, in 1996. It cost £20m with the funding coming from McCartney and various other sources.
Liverpool Hope University also has a close association with The Beatles, running a "Beatles, Popular Music and Society" masters degree.
Between them the institutions take about 735 students a year. And those students spend money. About £10.3m a year, in fact, goes into the wider economy.
Do you want to know a secret?
£10.3m
spent locally per year by students of the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts and Liverpool Hope University
15 to 30 students take the Beatles, Popular Music and Society MA at Liverpool Hope University each year
£500,000 made by the university from the MA or Beatles-related activity
1,000 international students went to Sir Paul McCartney's LIPA 2006-13
720 full time students at LIPA
Here, there and everywhere
The overall impact of The Beatles may well be higher than the £82m the academics and economists arrived at. They stripped out economic benefits they said would have materialised anyway and those which benefitted the wider 'city region' around Liverpool or the rest of the UK's economy in general.
So how much do The Beatles still contribute to the UK or indeed the world?
"Calculating the equivalent value at national and global level would be a substantial, expensive undertaking because it would involve media monitoring of coverage in many different kinds of media and in the many countries where The Beatles are known," the report said.
"The sums involved would undoubtedly be enormous. For example one radio station in Mexico plays Beatles music for an hour every day. Four TV documentaries about The Beatles recently screened in China were watched by 70m and a further 50m viewed them online."
Finding out, then, would be a whole other magical mystery tour.
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"The first time I saw my brother, I just froze. | By Shaili BhattBBC News Gujarati
"I couldn't say anything. We sat down on the sofa in his house. There was silence. Then I started to cry.
"The first words he said to me were 'don't cry'. Then he took my hand. Everyone who was there cried as well. It was a magical moment."
Kiran Gustafsson was 33 when she met her twin for the first time.
It was an unexpected twist to an already emotional journey. Kiran had returned to India to search for her biological mother. The last thing she expected to find was a missing twin.
Growing up in Sweden with her adoptive family, Kiran says she had warm and loving parents who gave her everything a child could want.
Her parents - retired teacher Maria Wernant and businessman Kjell-Ake - had always been open about the fact that she had been adopted from an orphanage in Surat, a city in the western Indian state of Gujarat, when she was three.
'Something was always missing'
Kiran says she has no memories of those early years.
"My parents never made me feel different. They always told me to be proud of what I am. I couldn't ask for anything more in my upbringing," she told the BBC.
Yet, she admits, she always felt something was missing. She was jealous of the connection between her two younger siblings for instance. She felt they were close to each other in a way they never would be with her.
As she grew older, she says that feeling of emptiness intensified. Finally she spoke to her family about it. They were very supportive and in 2000 the entire family undertook a trip to Surat.
She visited again in 2005, this time with her college class as a part of a course on sociology and human rights.
But these trips left her with more questions.
Back home in Sweden, she researched more about her adoption, found out more details about the orphanage she was adopted from. By 2010, she had made the decision to look for her biological mother but was not sure how to go about it.
"My parents were OK with my decision. They told me they were proud of me and they loved me," she said.
But she followed through on her decision only six years later.
In 2016, Kiran, now a career counsellor, found herself attending a lecture by Arun Dohle, the co-founder of the Netherlands-based NGO Against Child Trafficking. Like her, he was from India. Like her, he had been adopted.
In his talk, Mr Dohle outlined his own legal battle to get information about his biological mother in India.
Inspired, Kiran began communicating with Dohle. He connected her with child protection worker Anjali Pawar who agreed to help.
Through her inquiries, Ms Pawar was able to uncover Kiran's mother's identity. Her name was Sindhu Goswami and she had been employed as a domestic servant in Surat.
She also found that Kiran had been almost two when her mother had left her at the orphanage. But she made frequent visits to meet her there. She had also given the officials her work address.
Armed with this information, Kiran returned to India in April, accompanied by a friend. She met her mother's former employers but the information they gave her was not enough to go on. They couldn't tell where she was now, or if she was even alive. But they did give her a photograph.
"We look like each other," says Kiran.
Those were emotional days for Kiran. But the biggest shock was yet to come.
Ms Pawar had managed to find Kiran's birth certificate. And that was when she found out she had a twin brother.
"It was unbelievable. The questions about feelings of connection and belonging were answered. I was shocked. It was amazing,'' Kiran said.
She decided to start looking for her brother.
This was thankfully, not a difficult search. He had been adopted by a Surat family and was currently a businessman.
Meeting him was not easy though. It turned out his family had never told him he was adopted. They were reluctant to tell him. It took a lot of persuasion to get them to agree.
Eventually, the twins met in an emotional reunion.
"We discovered each other, but we still have so many questions. There is still sadness," Kiran says.
She says that her brother, who has asked not to be identified in the media for now, told her "that he had the exact same feeling that something was missing in his life."
"When we said goodbye that day it was still surreal so we didn't say much."
The siblings decided to meet at Kiran's hotel the next day to talk some more.
"He told me he was afraid of losing me again. And he didn't want to see me leave for the airport, so he left early," Kiran said.
"When we parted, he gave me a hug and just left with his father. In that moment I felt so empty. But he promised me that we would celebrate our next birthday together in Sweden."
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A second teenager has been arrested after a tent, which had a homeless woman inside, was set on fire.
| The woman was uninjured in the incident in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent on the evening of 29 December.
The 16-year-old was arrested on suspicion of arson after Staffordshire Police released an image of somebody they wished to talk about the incident.
Another 16-year-old boy remains on bail after being arrested on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life.
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EastEnders actress Rita Simons juggles playing Roxy Mitchell with being mum to six-year-old twin daughters - one of whom, Maiya, is slowly losing her hearing, meaning Rita and her husband must make some agonising and life-changing decisions on her behalf. | When Maiya was six months old, doctors found that she was missing nerve endings and parts of her cochlea in her ears.
Over the years, her hearing has deteriorated so that she has lost hearing in her left ear and can only hear loud sounds in her right. But with two hearing aids in, she can hear people talking.
Rita and her husband, Theo, had hoped that she would be able to hold on to her hearing, but doctors have warned them she is likely to lose it all. Added to this, any bang to Maiya's head could accelerate the deterioration. This has led Rita to "panic" at any playground fall.
"We feel we are constantly walking a tightrope that we could fall off of at any point with no given warning," said Rita.
"We are just constantly trying to preserve, preserve, preserve and sometimes it seems so pointless because unfortunately it may all be futile in the end.
"It seems so unfair but it is what it is, isn't it?"
Singing and dancing
A typical day in Rita's house sees Maiya and her twin sister Jaimee putting on shows for family and friends, donning a vast array of costumes.
Maiya says she wants to be "a fairy, a vet or a show-player" her word for actress, when she grows up.
It is her love of music, singing and performing that Rita realises will play a major part in their decisions about her future.
Maiya has grown up in a hearing world and the family have yet to engage with the deaf community. But with the news about Maiya's likely total hearing loss, Rita and Theo decided they needed to address what is the best way forward for her.
Should they introduce Maiya to the deaf world, learning sign language and sending her to a special school? Or try to maximise her hearing with technology, implants and artificial sound. Or a mixture of the two?
"People say you must engage with the deaf community, but we haven't felt we needed to," Rita explains.
"Her life is very full. She goes to ballet, street dance, she does all these things without anything having to be designed especially for deaf kids, so we haven't engaged."
The National Deaf Children's Society believes it is vital that deaf children and their families get all the unbiased, comprehensive information that they need to make informed decisions. And other parents of deaf children can have valuable insights as they have lived through all the highs and lows that parenting can bring.
Rita realised she and Theo would need to meet some of those directly involved to understand the issues fully.
Trish Thompson is mother to seven-year-old Paris, who is deaf. She urged Rita to consider British Sign Language for Maiya, pointing out how important communication is for deaf children and that Maiya might have been hiding her hearing problems.
Many in the deaf community see British Sign Language as their own language and part of their cultural identity. For some,cochlear implants are controversialas they are seen as a rejection of deaf culture.
"My feeling is it's like an abuse of a child to put a cochlear implant in," one of Trish's deaf friends told Rita. "They are too young and they won't understand what it is."
"I feel fairly resentful of being called an abuser," Rita responded, managing to still smile.
"People in the deaf community have a strong view and I don't disagree with them, I just want to know why. Give me your reasons as to why I should do what you say I should do."
Spirit and perseverance
While Maiya has been doing well at mainstream school, she gets very tired because she has to concentrate so hard. This has led to tantrums.
And her first experience with a sign language teacher did not go well. Maiya ended up walking away bored.
Rita was told by a head teacher at a special school for deaf children that it could be a better option for Maiya, if she started noticing signs that her daughter was not happy or things were distressing her at her current school.
But the visit left an emotional Rita in tears.
"It upsets me because those kids just get on with life - they don't see themselves as having anything wrong with them, it's their spirit and their perseverance. It's like looking at my child," she said.
"I'm very reassured to know that if the time came, and I needed to, this is here. There is a conflict now because I do know there is somewhere out there that can enhance her learning experience.
"I'm really surprised at how much Maiya could get out of a place like this."
Rita also witnessed a nine-year-old boy called Jack having his hearing tested for the first time after having implants.
A cochlear implant is a surgically-implanted electronic device that can improve hearing by stimulating the auditory nerve.
Although an implant cannot restore hearing to normal, it does give the sensation of sounds. It would only be suitable for Maiya when her hearing aids stopped working.
As Jack began to recognise sound, a big smile spread across his face. Rita was touched by his reaction.
"I definitely went into this thinking it was a big intrusive contraption and it's all a massive nightmare but looking at Jack and his reaction - it's going to change his life for the better."
Bridget Harley, at the Ear Institute in London, helped Rita decide by asking her to put herself in her daughter's position: "How would Maiya feel if she had to go without her hearing aid for a week?"
"Devastated," replies Rita immediately.
Rita and Theo felt they had explored the issues as thoroughly as they could. They even spent a day wearing ear plugs that reduced the hearing to what Maiya experiences.
Finally, Rita believed they had found the best way forward in the best interests of singing and dancing Maiya.
"Regardless to what anyone from the deaf community says, and I understand everyone has their own opinion - I cannot fathom for the life of me, and I've tried, if sound is on offer why you wouldn't take it."
Rita Simons: My Daughter, Deafness and Meis on BBC One at 22:40 on Tuesday 20 March, repeatedwith sign languageat 01:20 GMT Wed 21 March. Watch online afterwards at the above links.
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Hostile historians may come to regard Donald Trump's presidency as an aggregation of the lesser traits of his predecessors. | By Nick BryantBBC News, New York
The bullying of Lyndon Baines Johnson, who demeaned White House aides and even humiliated his Vice-President Hubert Humphrey - forcing his deputy once to recite a speech on Vietnam while he listened, legs akimbo, trousers round his ankles, on the toilet.
The intellectual incuriosity of Ronald Reagan, who once apologised to his then White House Chief of Staff James Baker for not reading his briefing books with the immortal excuse: "Well, Jim, The Sound of Music was on last night."
The shameless lies of Bill Clinton about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
The paranoia of Richard Nixon, who in his final days railed, King Lear-like, at portraits hanging on the White House walls.
The incompetence of George W Bush, whose failure to master basic governance partly explained his administration's botched response to the aftermath of the war in Iraq and also to Hurricane Katrina.
The historical amnesia of Gerald Ford, whose assertion during a 1976 presidential debate that Eastern Europe was not dominated by Moscow was a forerunner of Trump's recent endorsement of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
The strategic impatience of Barack Obama, whose instinct always was to withdraw US forces from troublesome battlefields, such as Iraq, even if the mission had not yet been completed.
Even the distractedness of John F Kennedy, who whiled away afternoons in the White House swimming pool with a bevy of young women to sate his libido, a sexualised version, perhaps, of Donald Trump sitting for his hours in front of his flat-screen TV watching friendly right-wing anchors massage his ego.
At the midpoint of Donald Trump's first term, historians have struggled to detect the kind of virtues that offset his predecessors' vices: the infectious optimism of Reagan; the inspirational rhetoric of JFK; the legislative smarts of LBJ; or the governing pragmatism of Nixon.
So rather than being viewed as the reincarnation of Ronald Reagan or Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Trump gets cast as a modern-day James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce or William Harrison. Last year, a poll of nearly 200 political science scholars, which has routinely placed Republicans higher than Democrats, ranked him 44th out of the 44 men who have occupied the post (for those wondering why Trump is the 45th president, Grover Cleveland served twice).
Though the president has likened himself to Abraham Lincoln, who posterity has deemed to be greatest of all presidents, this survey judged him to be the worst of the worst. Even the conservative scholars, who identified themselves as Republicans, placed him 40th.
Were it not for his braggadocio, Donald Trump might receive a more positive historical press. A recurring problem, after all, is that he gets judged against his boasts. He can point to a significant record of right-wing accomplishment.
Tax reform. Two Supreme Court nominees safely installed on the bench. The travel ban. The bonfire of federal regulations. Criminal justice reform. Legislative action aimed at ameliorating the opioid crisis. Nato members ponying up more cash. Annual wage growth is at a nine-year high. 2018 was the best year for job creation since 2015. Many of his campaign pledges, such as the renegotiation of the Nafta free-trade agreement and the relocation of the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, have been kept. Promise made, promise kept is one of his boasts that regularly rings true.
Often, though, he blunts the impact of authentic good news with inflated claims. US Steel is not opening up six new plants. He is not the author of the biggest tax cut in American history. Besides, the trade war has penalised US manufacturers and farmers, and in 2018 the stock market suffered its worst year since the 2008 financial meltdown.
This market volatility highlights other Trump tendencies contributing to his poor reviews: pointing to a buoyant stock market as a metric of personal success, the downside of which is the downswing; and blaming others when things go south, in this case the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell. Trump sits in the Oval Office behind what's called the Resolute desk, hewn from the timber of an abandoned British warship and first used by John F Kennedy, a former navy man himself. But on it you will not find the desk sign favoured by Harry S Truman: "The Buck Stops Here."
This America First president is himself an American first. Indeed, a further reason for the disdain of historians is because, historically speaking, his administration has been like no other. The chaos of staff turnover - two secretaries of state, two secretaries of defence, two attorneys general, three White House chiefs of staff, and a revolving door of senior West Wing aides. The foreign policy by tweet. The chumminess with adversarial authoritarian leaders, such as Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin. The blurring of ethical lines supposedly separating the Trump White House from the Trump business empire. The Russia collusion investigation, which has raised questions, so far unsettled, about his true allegiance.
Read more from Nick
Nor have we ever witnessed a US leader who has so flagrantly flouted the normal rules of presidential behaviour. The playground nicknames. The Twitter tirades. The ugly slurs - "horseface" for Stormy Daniels, a former porn star with whom he was once apparently intimate. In response to indictments in the Mueller probe, he has sometimes sounded more like the boss of a crime family. "A rat" is how he described his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, deploying the lingua franca of the Mafioso.
Though he claims to offer exemplary moral leadership, even conservatives have criticised his presidency for being a profile of amorality, whether in response to the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi or the neo-Nazi torchlight protest in Charlottesville. One of my abiding memories from the past two years came in the lobby of Trump Tower during that extraordinary press availability held a few days afterwards, when he suggested a "very fine people" equivalence between far-right protesters and their opponents. Standing next to me was an African-American cameraman, who abandoned his tripod so that he could join reporters in hurling questions, something that rarely, if ever, happens at press conferences. "What should I tell my children?" he shouted. "What should I tell my children?"
With each bizarre press encounter and each ALL CAPS tweet, it can sometimes feel as if America is living through some historical counterfactual. It is as if the right-wing populist Pat Buchanan managed to beat George Herbert Walker Bush to the Republican presidential nomination in 1992 and, on the strength of his fiery culture war speech to the GOP convention, went on to beat Bill Clinton. Buchanan launched his insurgent campaign with a plea to put "America First" and used the mantra "Make America Great Again." Or maybe the Trump presidency is what a Perot administration might have looked like. Ross Perot, who also sought the presidency in 1992, was another populist billionaire and deep state conspiracy theorist. Yet even Buchanan and Perot, one suspects, would have been more orthodox.
This alternative history feel to the Trump presidency partly explains why some of the dystopian "Could it happen here?" novels, such as Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and George Orwell's 1984 have received a "Trump bump" in sales. Phillip Roth's The Plot Against America has also become a touchstone work. It imagines as president the aviator Charles Lindbergh, the telegenic spokesman for the isolationist "America First Committee," who turns the USA into a more authoritarian state.
These dystopian analogies, however, are often not analogous. Donald Trump's America is not Margaret Atwood's Gilead, or George Orwell's Oceania. And just as the billionaire unwisely compares himself to the heroes of history, a trait which inevitably invites ridicule, his more strident critics over-reach when they liken him to history's worst villains. He is not a modern-day Adolf Hitler, nor an American Mussolini.
When Donald Trump took the oath of office, nobody should have been surprised that an anti-politician would morph into an anti-president. In 2016 Americans rejected politics as usual. And diehard supporters still throng his rallies, wearing Make America Great Again caps and chanting for him to build the wall and lock up Hillary Clinton. His approval ratings among Republicans remain strong - 88% according to Gallup. His overall approval rating - 37% according to Gallup - is on a par with Ronald Reagan's at the two-year mark.
Yet the rally chants of "four more years" remain a wish rather than a prophecy, and the setbacks suffered by the Republicans in November's congressional elections point to an underlying weakness: the disaffection of moderate Republicans, who were never enthusiastic about Donald Trump but who refused to countenance Hillary Clinton as president. Trump remains the only president in the history of the Gallup poll not to crack the 50% threshold.
Because Donald Trump is unwilling to accept he is anything other than an A+ president, the grade he has bestowed upon himself, he is not prepared to adopt the kind of correctives that have saved troubled presidencies. JFK learnt from the disaster of the Bay of Pigs and the bullying he received from Nikita Khrushchev at the Vienna summit in 1961, which was followed in short order by the Soviet construction of the Berlin Wall. Confronted a year later with the Cuban Missile Crisis, he was less trusting of his generals, who urged airstrikes, and less willing to be pushed around by Khrushchev.
More on the Trump presidency
Bill Clinton, who was accused of liberal over-reach during his first months in office and was punished as a result in the 1994 mid-term elections, tacked back to the political centre in time to win re-election in 1996. This is not a learning presidency.
Incumbents can also benefit from self-doubt, a trait Donald Trump seems to regard as a character flaw. Presidents also usually grow in office. But while there are physical signs the 72-year-old is ageing - unable to holiday in Florida over Christmas, he has looked especially tired these past few days - there is little sign he is maturing.
It does not help that so many senior figures within his administration and his party treat him like a child monarch. The cabinet meeting where holders of the highest offices of state went around the table lavishing praise upon the president felt like Pyongyang on the Potomac. Vice-President Mike Pence has perfected the devoted gaze of the prototypical political wife. Senior Republicans, who privately roll their eyes, have been admiring, even sycophantic, in his presence.
For the most part, international leaders have also opted for obsequiousness. Not only did Theresa May rush to Washington to invite Trump for a state visit - a state visit that has still not been diarised - she telephoned him on Air Force One to congratulate him after the mid-term election, even though the Democrats regained the House of Representatives. All this after Trump has frequently undermined her leadership over Brexit and trampled over the special relationship. One of the reasons Mr Trump is said to look so contemptuously upon Angela Merkel is because she makes so little effort to conceal her contempt for him.
At the two-year mark, it is usually clear how incumbents will leave their mark on the presidency. After the torpidity of the Eisenhower years, Kennedy made the office more youthful and glamorous. Johnson, that shrewd "Master of the Senate", brought the executive and legislative branches into closer alignment. Nixon consolidated more power in the White House, accelerating the trend the liberal historian Arthur M Schlesinger Jr dubbed "the imperial presidency."
Ford reversed much of that process, even going as far to drop the playing of "Hail to the Chief" when he made an entrance. The cardigan-wearing Jimmy Carter, who used to go from room to room turning off lights to save energy, suburbanised the White House. Reagan, who restored many of the ceremonial trappings, erased the lines between politics and entertainment.
Clinton, in the age of Oprah, made the office more empathetic, narrowing the emotional distance between the presidency and the people. Obama set a new standard for ethical behaviour - motivated in part by the African-American mantra of working twice as hard to get half as far - and also made the presidency more hip.
By abrogating behavioural customs, Donald Trump has made the presidency more uncouth and less trustworthy. By departing from executive and managerial norms, he has made domestic and foreign policy-making more impulsive and disorderly. By fraying traditional alliances, he has made the US presidency more isolated. By threatening to declare a national emergency in the funding row over his wall along the Mexican border, he has also indicated a willingness to discard constitutional norms that could mean exceeding constitutional limits.
The cumulative effect of this has been to make the Oval Office a focal point of perpetual turmoil and uncertainty, with the White House hostage to the changing whims and temper of its occupant. Governing sometimes feels secondary to winning political and cultural battles, and slaying opponents. His presidency has become a roiling permanent campaign.
Will his impact bring about more permanent changes? That will depend, to a large extent, on whether or not he wins a second term. Defeat in 2020 would represent a repudiation of his leadership style. Victory would be validating. Yet even as a one-term president, Trump would have changed the character of the presidency and US politics more broadly.
While it is hard to imagine America's 46th or 47th presidents unleashing the same barrage of insults, there are already signs of a "Trump effect" on political discourse. Many mid-term races featured unusually ugly rhetoric. Hours after being sworn in as a new Democratic congresswoman, Rashida Tlaib used a profane epithet as she called for the president's impeachment.
What is known as the Overton window, the broadly agreed parameters of acceptable public discourse, has shifted to the right. I well remember the moment during the 2016 campaign when an email from the Trump campaign dropped into our inboxes announcing he would ban all Muslims from entering the United States. Initially we thought it might have been a hoax, for it seemed so far outside the mainstream of American political thought. Now, though, calls for a Muslim ban would raise eyebrows and provoke protests but hardly drop jaws.
The phrase "Trump has normalised the abnormal" has itself become a cliché. Still, though, I am constantly struck by how many Trump stories and scandals that ordinarily would have launched months, even years, of critical coverage for previous presidents sometimes barely last a single news cycle.
More long-lasting could be the debasement of facts as the basis for debate and policy formulation. By its own admission, this administration has sometimes deployed what the White House aide Kellyanne Conway memorably labelled "alternative facts", starting on day one with false claims about the size of the inauguration crowd. Since then, the Washington Post has listed more than 7,000 presidential falsehoods. But an unsettling lesson of the Trump presidency is that post-truth politics can be highly effective, especially when it comes to shoring up a political base.
As for chaotic governance, future administrations will surely be more stable in terms of staff turnover, and more orderly when it comes to forming and executing policy. But it is easy to imagine Trump's successors pushing the bounds of executive authority in ways that breach constitutional norms, especially now that gridlock on Capitol Hill has become such a permanent feature of Washington politics.
Obama, to a howl of protests from congressional Republicans, relied heavily on executive orders, the flourish of his presidential pen. Trump has gone a big step further by threatening to invoke emergency powers to bypass a hostile Congress. Stress tests for the US constitution, even full-blown constitutional crises, could easily become more commonplace.
The Trump presidency's first drafts of history - most notably Bob Woodward's bestseller Fear - have painted a portrait of unprecedented dysfunction. If former senior administration officials pen honest participant histories - say former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, ex-Secretary of Defence James Mattis or former chief of staff John Kelly - they are likely, if their parting comments offer any guide, to add more detail and texture to that same picture.
If some of the renowned presidential biographers turn their attention to Trump - maybe Jon Meacham, David McCullough or Michael Beschloss, who in the past have rescued the reputations of under-rated presidents such as George Herbert Walker Bush and Harry S Truman - they are unlikely to deliver laudatory manuscripts.
The histories already written, along with those taking shape, will someday be housed in the Donald J Trump Presidential Library, an addition to the 13 existing presidential libraries that form part of the National Archive.
Will it be a landmark to US greatness or a modern-day American folly? Even with two years left to run of this history-defying presidency, most Americans, one suspects, have already made up their minds.
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Police have offered a reward of £10,000 for information leading to a conviction over the murder of a 24-year-old man who was found at a squat. | Billy Henham's body was found in a building in North Street, Brighton, at 16:30 GMT on 2 January.
A post-mortem examination revealed the 24-year-old died following a sustained assault.
Mr Henham, from Henfield, West Sussex, was last seen at 18:00 at a New Year's Eve party held at the site.
His family paid tribute to their son, saying his "guardian angel sadly lost sight of him" the night he was killed.
Five people arrested in connection with his death were released by Sussex Police under investigation.
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More heavy fighting is reported between government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels in northern Sri Lanka. | A defence ministry statement said that at least eighteen guerrillas and one soldier were killed in clashes in the Mannar district.
Another report, quoting military sources, said a further seventeen rebels had been killed in the Welioya area, where seven
soldiers also died.
There's been no word from the rebels.
Accounts of the fighting in Sri Lanka are always hard to verify, because journalists are not permitted to visit front line
areas.
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Politicians, public bodies and the business community have been reacting to the news that Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has resigned in protest at the handling of a botched heating scheme that is likely to cost the taxpayer £490m. | Here is a selection of their comments:
Outgoing First Minister Arlene Foster
"I am disappointed that Martin McGuinness has chosen to take the position he has today.
"His actions have meant that, at precisely the time we need our government to be active, we will have no government and no way to resolve the RHI problems.
"It is clear that Sinn Féin's actions are not principled, they are political.
"Let me make it clear, the DUP will always defend unionism and stand up for what is best for Northern Ireland and it appears from the deputy first minister's resignation letter that is what annoys Sinn Féin the most."
Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire
"The UK government has a primary role to provide political stability in Northern Ireland and we'll be doing all we can over the coming days to work with the parties to find a solution to the current situation.
"The position is very clear. If Sinn Féin does not nominate a replacement to the role of deputy first minister, then I'm obliged to call and election of the assembly within a reasonable period.
"I would urge the leaders of the political parties to come together and work together to find a solution to current situation and we'll be doing all that we can with the political parties and the Irish government to that end."
Justice Minister Claire Sugden
"A reasonable resolution could have been achieved which leads me to believe that this crisis goes beyond RHI and points to a more intractable situation.
"The DUP and Sinn Féin's inability to work together is a fundamental flaw not envisaged in the Good Friday Agreement and will continue to burden the people of Northern Ireland as long as their best interests come second to entrenched party politics.
"Today is a dark day for Northern Ireland. I am truly fearful for our future."
Ulster Unionist Leader Mike Nesbitt
"If this was just about RHI, Sinn Féin would hang in, they would hold the DUP and the first minister to account, they'd take steps to introduce cost controls and they'd support a public inquiry into what went wrong.
"But this is not about RHI - it's about Sinn Féin. We've now had 10 years characterised by disappointment, debacles and scandals.
"They are incapable of governing this country. They cannot see the greater good. The Ulster Unionists fought hard in 1998 to get these institutions up and running. We saw devolution as being for the benefit of the people.
"I don't know what Sinn Féin and the DUP have in mind [following the resignation], but it's very clear they'll do what's good for the parties, not what's good for the electorate."
SDLP Leader Colum Eastwood
"It looks like we're heading towards an election and that's happening because of Arele Foster's arrogance.
"But if people want an election, let's have it, because people need to hear that we still have no programme for government and now we have costs spiralling out of control with RHI.
"We also now won't have a public inquiry into all of this. We agree with Martin McGuinness when he tells us the DUP have disrespected the nationalist community. But some people wanted to stand side by side with the DUP, holding their hand.
"If DUP and Féin aren't prepared to hold people accountable for the RHI scandal, lets have the electorate hold them to account."
Alliance Party Leader Naomi Long
"This changes nothing.
[It] really is a case of 'any lengths' to avoid doing the job of running the country, setting a budget, preparing for Brexit."
TUV Leader Jim Allister
"I've long said mandatory coalition would implode. Today it has. It's time to move on.
"The people of Northern Ireland deserve good government.
"There's no point trying to glue back together something that will never work."
Green Party Leader Stephen Agnew
"I'm disappointed at the inability of the two parties to deliver stability to Northern Ireland.
"We've nothing to fear from an election. As one of the parties that highlighted concerns about RHI from the beginning, I believe people will realise the constructive role we have played.
"But I believe and election is not what the people of Northern Ireland want. Today can only be a bad news day for Northern Ireland.
"I hope in a a week's time, we're hearing a better story and that the other parties step up and deliver what's required."
People Before Profit MLA Foyle Eamonn McCann
"I think it was an inevitable thing to do and when things become inevitable in politics then it is right for them to happen.
"It was clear to us that there was no mechanism for dealing with the RHI scandal within the machinery of Stormont as it stood.
"I believe that we cannot live any longer with the petition of concern and a number of the other aspects of the machinery of Stormont and we also can't go on without putting right at the centre issues to do with the economy and society which have been marginalised.
"Everybody seems to assume that the DUP is coming back to Stormont with the same strength and numbers, we shall see whether that happens."
Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams
"Martin McGuinness has led from the front in the Executive for the last 10 years, defending the integrity of the political institutions and realising the potential of the Good Friday Agreement.
"In spite of the provocation, disrespect and arrogance from the DUP, and the failures of the British government to fulfil its responsibilities over that time, Martin McGuinness has always put the people and the political process first.
"This is in contrast to the DUP who have been acting to undermine equality and partnership.
"The money squandered in the RHI project belonged to unionists as well as other taxpayers.
"It is money which should have been used to end poverty and disadvantage or to build public services. No minister responsible for such bad governance in any other administration would be still in office."
Former Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers
"Arlene Foster took a reasonable approach. I don't think it was necessary to have an election to make sure this was all properly investigated. I believe the fundamentals of the devolved settlement are strong."
Nick Coburn, President, Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce
"Having remained as positive as we can for as long as we can, there is presently a very deep sense of frustration at the instability which now characterises our political institutions.
"The hope and optimism which greeted the Fresh Start Agreement has dissipated. Business confidence stalled because of the uncertainty regarding Brexit and the change of the US Administration.
"The current political situation adds to this uncertainty and will have a negative impact on economic and social development.
"Meanwhile, the global economy is growing, so too are the economies in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, where they are working on ambitious economic growth plans.
"The sad reality is that Northern Ireland is falling behind, and we need political stability to deliver the ambitious plans set out in the new Programme for Government and Export Matters Action Plan to grow trade."
Angela McGowan, Director, CBI Northern Ireland
"The business community is not seeking to comment on the specifics that have given rise to today's events, other than to underline that there has seldom been a more important time for all our citizens to have a strong well-functioning Executive.
"Ahead of the triggering of Article 50, expected in March, Northern Ireland urgently requires strong leadership and representation as the UK negotiates its future relationship with the EU.
"It is vital that our collective voice is heard during this crucial period to achieve the best possible outcome for all of our citizens.
Margaret McGuckin, Historical institutional abuse campaigner
"We have waited for years. The launch of the HIA report is scheduled for 20 January...and now it will gather dust.
"I started this campaign, nine years I am doing this, and now the government collapses on us again. I am angry and hurting for everybody."
Alison Suttie, Liberal Democrats, Shadow NI Secretary
"The stability of the devolved institutions in Northern Ireland is more important now than ever, given the challenges presented by Brexit. This needs cool heads and calm leadership.
"A peaceful society, politically stable institutions and a strong economy are intricately bound together.
"The people of Northern Ireland must have confidence that there is a coherent, cohesive and collective government that is open, accountable and working in the best interests of the whole of Northern Ireland."
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More needs to be done to tackle landlords unfairly targeting students with deposit deductions at the end of their tenancies, the National Union of Students (NUS) has said. For some renters, amounts can total hundreds of pounds. | By Catherine Wyatt and John OwenBBC Victoria Derbyshire programme
"I think landlords look at us and think we're just these dumb kids who don't know what we're doing," Jessica Hickey tells the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme. "It's not fair, it's not OK."
The University of Lincoln graduate has been challenging her deposit deduction - amounting to £1,600 between four housemates - for two months.
Strictly speaking, landlords and letting agents can make deductions only up to the total amount of a tenant's deposit but Jessica's have added an additional £400 fee to the £1,200 they have held back.
"They decided we've not left the property in a fit state," Jessica says. "Even though we've been there for two years, they've not allowed for wear and tear.
"We've been charged for weeding, we've apparently left the garden in not a fit state even though we had the next-door neighbour come over with his strimmer."
Jessica says they have also been charged for issues they themselves reported to the landlord earlier in the tenancy, asking for them to be fixed.
She says not having their deposits returned has had a serious impact on some of her housemates. One was relying on the money to go towards the deposit on a house he was purchasing. Another has been unable to put a down payment on a car.
"The £300 was a stepping stone to leave university with... and it's all been put on hold," she says.
Scheme 'ignored'
There are legitimate reasons for landlords and letting agents to deduct deposits - such as unpaid rent or direct damage to property - but the Victoria Derbyshire programme has heard from dozens of students who say they are being penalised beyond this.
The Tenant Fees Act was introduced earlier this year to protect renters from unfair agency fees but it does not cover the issue of deposit deductions.
Landlords are obliged to put deposits into the government-backed Tenancy Deposit Scheme at the beginning of a tenancy, which helps resolve any future disputes.
But students say this requirement is often ignored or the procedure for challenging a decision leads to a long delay - during which time their entire deposit is withheld- and many challenges end with them losing out anyway.
Benjamin McNeil, in Cardiff, also has a battle to recover his deposit.
His letting agents deducted £900 of his and his housemates' £1,400 deposit.
This includes:
The case has now been resolved, with the housemates receiving £500 of the disputed amount - but Benjamin says it has caused unnecessary stress.
"After you graduate, you don't want to spend the next two months contesting to get every penny back," he says.
According to NUS's 2019 Homes Fit For Study report, just 61% of surveyed students who paid a deposit said they had received it back in full at the end of their tenancy:
The NUS is now calling for a tightening of legislation in this area.
"What we're seeing more and more is unfair contracts," says the organisation's vice-president, Eva Crossan Jory, "landlords charging for things that are the result of wear-and-tear or where students have complained about something not working, the landlord doesn't fix it and then at the end of the tenancy tries to charge them for the breaking of said appliance.
"The government should be doing more to penalise landlords when they do break the law."
Currently, the government advises tenants to check their deposit is:
Meera Chindooroy from the National Landlords Association told the BBC: "Most landlords do not take unreasonable deductions from deposits, with an NUS survey last year showing that the majority of students [61%] who pay a deposit have it returned in full.
"It's important that students understand their responsibilities in looking after the property - and that if they disagree with the landlord on damage, they can raise a dispute."
Some students are now fighting back.
In Lincoln, graduate Natasha Hopewell was threatened with deductions amounting to almost all of her deposit and is now creating a forum for students in the city to warn others about bad practice.
"We got together and we made a website where students can review their student accommodation providers," the founder of CribAdviser says.
"It's all anonymous but it means students can warn one another of difficult letting agents and take control of our own tenancy by taking an informed decision."
For those who feel mistreated, like Jessica and Benjamin, such initiatives may be a welcome start.
"It seems to be part of the process that landlords will try and get money out of you because they know most people won't fight it," Benjamin says.
Follow the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme on Facebook and Twitter - and see more of our stories here.
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The man charged with finding a solution to the problem of airport capacity in the South East says he expects "significant expansion" at Stansted over the next 10 years but he says there's no demand to build another runway there. | Deborah McGurranPolitical editor, East of England
Announcing Heathrow as his preferred choice for a new runway, Sir Howard Davies said: "At the moment Stansted is only carrying 20m passengers where it could take 35m, so the market is telling you that's not currently a preferred solution."
All airports around London, especially Essex's Stansted Airport, and to a lesser degree Luton and Southend, will get much busier, he added.
"Our modelling shows that in the period before the new runway comes into operation, which won't be for at least for another decade, there will have to be significant expansion at the airports which have got the capacity to expand at the moment, principally Stansted. It will be important that other airports around London take the strain."
Sir Howard's report accepts that another runway as well as the new one at Heathrow, may be needed in the UK by 2050 but to the surprise of many observers, he refuses to name a candidate.
"A wide range of options should be considered, for example, Stansted and Gatwick, and airports outside London and the South East, such as Birmingham and Manchester," he said in his report.
No New Runway
His report has been welcomed by MPs around Stansted, who are now convinced that after years of uncertainty, the idea of a second runway is now definitely off the table.
Sir Howard notes that the airport has begun an £80m terminal redevelopment. It is also trying to grow its mix of airlines and attract long-haul routes and he notes Stansted's strategic importance to the wider London airport system.
He clearly believes the airport has an important role to play, but not one big enough to warrant another runway.
He was very complimentary about the proposal for a new runway at Gatwick, which he ended up rejecting. Sir Howard said it was "do-able" and would bring economic benefits but this must surely mean that the airport is now in pole position when discussions begin about another runway.
It is also interesting that his report notes that there may be a case for reviewing the planning cap that currently limits Stansted to 35m air movements a year. It states that "the commission does not have any view as to the outcome of any such review".
Back to the drawing board
Sir Howard also welcomes the recent decision to allow Luton to expand, and the recent success of Southend.
The problems of poor rail links to all our airports also came in for criticism and the report calls for improvements. He seems to suggest this could be holding airports back from realising their full potential.
So the conclusion for the east seems to be - no new runways but busier airports. It is news which will come as a relief to those living near our airports but the anticipated increase in traffic will also give rise to concern from environmental groups.
They will worry about noise and pollution levels and will fight any attempt by the airports to increase flights. The region's business community will be broadly happy with the report, in particular the appeal for better rail links.
But just one word of warning. The recommendation to build at Heathrow is just that - a recommendation.
The government will have to make the final decision, expected in the autumn and there are a host of political problems surrounding that decision. If ministers reject Sir Howard's report, everything will be back in the melting pot again.
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Horse owners are being given the chance to have their animals micro-chipped at a reduced rate.
| Durham Constabulary is working with the British Horse Society (BHS) to promote a horse identification event in Bishop Auckland.
To encourage responsible ownership, microchipping for £10 is being offered to owners who can produce a current horse passport.
The event is at Bishop Auckland Community Fire Station on 14 January.
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The local elections on 6 May offer voters across England the chance to have their say. But for people living in Buckinghamshire, polling day will be their first opportunity to vote since the county's unitary authority was launched in April 2020. | The new authority replaced Buckinghamshire County Council, Aylesbury Vale, Chiltern, South Bucks and Wycombe District Councils.
The BBC has spoken to one candidate from each of the Conservatives, Green, Labour and Liberal Democrats who are standing in the unitary election in Chesham about their plans for the town are if they are elected.
Alan Booth, Green
Alan Booth hopes to "free the town of potholes".
"They're just out of control and lead to quite a lot of issues regarding road space for cyclists, drivers and pedestrians," he said.
The 52-year-old said he would take funding being targeted at building new roads to "maintain the ones we already have".
"The other thing affecting us locally is HS2," he said.
"It is a significant thing, it is just over the hill and the Green Party has always been opposed to it and it will continue to be a major component of what we do."
The Chiltern Green Party coordinator said he would also work to protect the greenfield land in the area from development.
Mr Booth said the underpass on St Mary's Way in the centre of Chesham needed to be "fixed once and for all".
"There's been issues with flooding which has led to questions about whether it's safe, and it keeps being closed and then reopened," he said.
Qaser Chaudhry, Conservatives
For Qaser Chaudhry, the "number one priority is highway issues".
The Conservative candidate said if elected he would lobby for additional funding to improve local roads and the drainage systems.
"We also need to do more to fix potholes," he said.
Another key area for the former mayor of Chesham was "protecting the green belt".
"There is lots of development going on and it is a challenge," he said.
While Mr Chaudhry said the area had "quite good schools", supporting local primary and secondary schools to "improve education" was also something he considered a priority.
He said he would also lobby for additional funding to support local business.
"I want to improve communication with local residents, improve the high street and local businesses and support community projects," he said.
Pat Easton, Labour
Pat Easton said she believed "coming out of Covid, we need to change the way we do things".
The 62-year-old said she would like to set a local target to reach carbon net zero by 2030.
"We need to reduce the number of local car journeys and make it easy for people to do that," she said.
Ms Easton said she would create a network of safe cycle routes, improve safety for pedestrians and invest in an "integrated green bus service".
Housing is another priority for the Labour candidate.
"We stand for development of affordable and social housing on brownfield sites," she said.
Ms Easton said she would like "high density housing in the middle of town" which was good quality and met environmental standards.
"Social housing shouldn't be poor quality," she said.
Frances Kneller, Liberal Democrats
Frances Kneller said the Liberal Democrats in Chesham were concerned about the future of the green belt.
"We know it's really important for its beauty and environmental aspects," she said.
The chair of Chesham Youth Centre said she would want to take a "very proactive role in the development of a new local plan to ensure the green belt is protected".
Ms Kneller said the Liberal Democrats would want to "reverse the £2m planned cuts to tackle potholes and then double the investment to £4m to make pavements safer".
The party would also like to "reduce waste" by scaling down the number of councillors in the unitary authority "from 147 to under 100".
"We could save £2.4m a year and we could do a lot with that," she said.
"We could fix the potholes, invest more in adult social care and even open up the tips seven days a week rather than five."
Ms Kneller, who also works with the Chiltern Toy Bank, said she would also "support small and medium shops and businesses through the Covid recovery stage".
Other candidates standing in the unitary election in Chesham:
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If the chancellor is to be believed, the Crown Prosecution Service generates a million print-outs per day - that's an awful lot of paper and an awful lot of ink - and an example of the kind of "waste" in central spending that George Osborne wants to clamp down on. | By Gary O'DonoghueChief political correspondent, BBC Radio 4
But his aim to save a further £11.5bn from departments in 2015-2016 will not be met by cutting out a few toner cartridges - it will require some very difficult decisions in sensitive spending areas such as the armed forces and the police.
Mr Osborne insists he has made a good start with the seven settlements he has announced so far. But it still leaves him with 80% of the cuts to find, and 29 days to do it.
It is complicated by the fact that 60% percent of government spending is also protected from any cuts, lying inside the "ring-fence" established by the government at the beginning of the parliament.
So the NHS, schools and overseas aid are safe from the current Whitehall wrangling - although these are exceptions that even some members of the cabinet have argued against.
That means that the big budget departments yet to agree a deal with the chancellor include the Home Office (£8bn a year), the Ministry of Defence (£26.5bn), Business (£15bn) and the money distributed to local government (£23.9bn).
Transport could also be vulnerable as it spends almost £5bn a year and is one of those departments that always gets it in the neck when a chancellor of the exchequer comes calling.
There has been pressure to look again at the welfare budget - which accounts for a third of all government spending annually, including pensions. But this is where the politics intervenes.
The Liberal Democrats have refused to allow any more cuts to welfare unless the Conservatives agree to look at the benefits that go to the elderly, such as the winter fuel payment and free television licences for the over-75s.
David Cameron promised at the last election not to touch those things during the current parliament and he calculates that breaking his word would be politically impossible.
The added complication for the chancellor is an understandable focus on security and counter-terrorism following the killing last week of Drummer Lee Rigby.
Mr Osborne made clear on Tuesday morning that he would not do anything to endanger the security of the country, though, tellingly, he also said that did not mean these big departments should not be expected to find savings in the way they operate.
The chancellor was keen to point out that the first seven deals with departments meant he was well on track to deliver agreements with the others.
He also insisted that the cuts would not impact frontline services. The Home Secretary, Theresa May, and the Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, will, no doubt, take some convincing.
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The men of Workington have found themselves in a spotlight of sorts - or a flurry of political headlines at least - after a think tank marked them out as a key election target. Workington Man is 2019's Worcester Woman. But who is he? And what do men in Workington - a former mining town on the Cumbrian coast - think of the stereotype? | By Bob CooperPolitical reporter, BBC Cumbria
According to Onward - the right-of centre-think tank that gave birth to the creation - Workington Man is older, white and Northern.
The imagined poster boy for "middle England" likes rugby league and Labour. He voted for Brexit and feels the country is moving away from his views.
Workington resident Tony Bland, 66, would like to see industry return to his home town, which has a rich industrial history of coal mining and steel making.
He said: "A lot of the big traditional industries have gone.
"I'd love to see more investment in the place, in this area, instead of it all being down south."
He says he'll be voting Conservative in December, and has done so in the past.
Allan Mitchell, 53, a civil servant from Workington, said people were "offended by the Conservatives' northern stereotyping", adding: "This may backfire."
"People expect a campaign, but they don't like being patronised," he said.
"I'd expect all the parties to target voters in some way, and with Workington being a fairly marginal seat I can understand the Conservatives looking for any angle to gain more votes.
"The idea that we're all simple northerners without the university degrees they seem to think are standard, and all attend rugby league matches at the weekend, is causing widespread offence. It's a cliche that belongs in the 1970s."
Workington, which has a population of about 25,000, has been Labour for the last century except for a brief spell in the 1970s.
Since the constituency was created in 1918, the Tories have never won the seat at a general election.
Conservative MP Richard Page held the seat for three years following the 1976 by-election, and has been the only non-Labour MP to ever represent the constituency.
Labour's Sue Hayman held the seat at the last general election in 2017 with 21,317 votes, ahead of Conservative Clark Vasey's 17,392.
An estimated six in 10 voters in the town voted Leave in 2016.
Paul Wright, 53, said: "I don't think there'll be many people voting Tory in Workington, despite Brexit.
"I think there's more distrust of the Tories than there is of wanting Brexit."
Paul said he wanted to remain in the EU and would only vote Labour because voting for the Liberal Democrats would be a "wasted" vote.
But supporting Remain is a minority view in Workington - the Brexit Party topped the polls in the area in the European elections.
Geoff Bates, 59, says he is "definitely" voting for Nigel Farage's party.
"Getting out of Europe, the people have voted for that. Why's it gone over three years?" he said.
But if Geoff really is representative of "Workington Man", his answer to whether he would vote for Boris Johnson will worry Downing Street: "Oh definitely not. He's a fruitcake. I want Farage."
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One of the more unusual sights of the coronavirus pandemic has been that of cruise ships drifting around in the English Channel, apparently abandoned at sea. But why are they there? And how did they become a holiday attraction? | By Hazel ShearingBBC News
Paul Derham is welcoming passengers onboard when he picks up the phone. It's business as usual for his small passenger ferry in Dorset today. But when the wind dies down he'll be back to his latest venture: sightseeing tours of cruise ships anchored off England's south coast.
"It's a two-and-a-half hour trip," he says. "We have a really good trip out of it, actually."
During the coronavirus pandemic, ships that usually spend the summer cruising the Mediterranean and Caribbean islands have instead found themselves lingering, near-empty, in the Channel.
They have been anchoring off the coast from Portsmouth to Plymouth, and at night they illuminate the horizon.
The arrival of the UK's "ghost ships", as one Twitter user called them, has transformed the view from the coast and fascinated locals and tourists alike. They have now become a tourist attraction in their own right, with people paying to see them up close.
"I knew people would be impressed," Paul says of his mini-cruises. The 62-year-old spent around three decades sailing cruise ships around the world before he bought the Mudeford Ferry, near Christchurch. He was even deputy captain on one of the ships he now takes his customers to see.
"We whacked it on Facebook one day," he says of the idea. "We advertised two trips and we filled up within two hours."
The cruise industry was hit early in the pandemic, when the virus first swept the Diamond Princess, in Japan and then the Grand Princess, in the US. Passengers were quarantined at sea after hundreds contracted the virus onboard.
Holidays were cancelled and empty boats had to go somewhere. So why have so many ended up in the Channel?
Ships have to pay fees to berth, meaning an already crippled industry would be losing even more money if they docked in ports.
The Port of Southampton - a departure port for many UK cruises - declined to say how much it charges, citing "commercial sensitivities", but said it has "remained open during the pandemic". "Ultimately, whether cruise ships anchor off the coast or alongside in the port, it is their choice," a spokeswoman said.
But space could also be an issue. Southampton has four cruise ship terminals, and can take up to six in exceptional circumstances.
P&O said its ships remain at sea because Southampton, which is also its home port, does not have room for all of them.
The ships do need to dock every so often to refuel and stock up on supplies for the reduced crew on board. The Cruise Lines International Association said how often they refuel depends on the ship and the type of fuel used. While they are designed to be able to run for two weeks, they "can last much longer".
There are about 100 crew currently on each of the P&O vessels off the south coast, the company said. That is likely to include crew in the engine rooms, as well as cleaners, electricians, chefs and medics. To put that number into context, P&O's largest liner - the Britannia - has capacity for around 5,000 guests and crew.
Professor Richard Bucknall, director of research at University College London's department of mechanical engineering, says it "isn't possible to have any ship at anchor without a crew on board".
He said that is because of dangers of "anchor drag", or ships drifting at sea, due to severe weather.
Although they are anchored, they don't switch off all of their generators.
They need to keep a diesel-powered generator running in order to maintain things like safety systems and lighting for the crew on board, says Dr Tristan Smith of University College London's Energy Institute, who specialises in shipping.
"The power requirements will be significantly lower than when operating at sea with passengers, both because they won't be using the power for propulsion or for the wider passenger comfort and 'hotel' services."
"If they have full tanks before going to the anchorage, they will be able to run at lower power output for many weeks if not months without having to refuel."
So is it bad for the environment?
Dr Smith says it would actually make little difference to green house gas emissions if ships docked in ports rather than anchored at sea, but the impact on air pollution would likely be greater.
More on cruise ships and coronavirus
He says the best way to reduce the environmental impact of cruise ships in ports is for them to connect to local electricity grids, or shore power, when they berth - which should allow them to shut down onboard power generators.
But shore power is not yet available at many ports, including Southampton, meaning the ships would still need to use their own generators - even in port.
"Particulate matter and nitrogen oxide emissions, which can impact health of local populations, would be emitted closer to where people live and work, and therefore be more likely to impact the quality of the air they are breathing," he explains.
Back in Christchurch, Paul is looking forward to his next outing.
The captain of one of the cruise ships parked off the Dorset coast has even started to wave back at his tours using what he describes as a six-foot-long hand made of plywood.
And his tours remain popular. "On all the trips we've done, we have a round of applause when we arrive at Mudeford Quay."
Are you currently on a ghost cruise ship? If you'd like to share your experience, please email: [email protected].
Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist.
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Kim Jong-un became leader of North Korea in December 2011, succeeding his late father Kim Jong-il. His appointment took the Kim dynasty rule into a third generation. Explore the family tree to find out about the country's enigmatic and powerful first family.
| Kim Jong-il (d)
Kim Kyung-hee
Chang Song-thaek (d)
Kim Jong-nam (d)
Kim Sul-song
Kim Jong-chul
Kim Jong-un
Ri Sol-ju
Kim Han-sol
Kim Jong-il (d)
Kim Jong-il was one of the most secretive leaders in the world. Tales from dissidents and past aides created an image of an irrational, power-hungry man who allowed his people to starve while he enjoyed dancing girls and cognac.
But a different picture was painted by Sung Hae-rim, the sister of one of his former partners in her memoir, The Wisteria House.
She describes a devoted father and a sensitive, charismatic individual, although she admits even those closest to him were fearful of him.
North Korean media depicted him as a national hero, whose birth to the country's founder, Kim Il-sung, was marked by a double rainbow and a bright star.
Kim Kyung-hee
The youngest sister of the late Kim Jong-il and the wife of the man formerly regarded as the second most powerful figure in North Korea, Chang Song-thaek.
She has held a wide range of important Workers' Party positions including being a member of the all-powerful Central Committee.
Her promotion to four-star general made Kim Kyung-hee the first North Korean woman ever to achieve such status.
Analysts say Kim Kyung-hee and her husband were seen as mentors for the new leader Kim Jong-un when he came to power in 2011. But news of her husband's execution in December 2013 suggests the most significant upheaval in North Korea's leadership since Mr Kim succeeded his father.
Chang Song-thaek (d)
Chang Song-thaek was married to Kim Kyung-hee, the younger sister of the late Kim Jong-il. When the inexperienced Kim Jong-un became the new leader in 2011, the couple were widely thought to be acting as his mentors.
In December 2013, the powerful uncle - who sat on the country's top military body - was denounced by the state-run news agency for corruption. Images were shown of him being removed from a Politburo meeting by uniformed guards. He was then executed.
Mr Chang's execution is the biggest upheaval in North Korea's leadership since Mr Kim succeeded his father.
Kim Jong-nam (d)
Born 10 May 1971
Kim Jong-nam was Kim Jong-il's eldest son.
Sung Hae-rang, the sister of Kim Jong-nam's deceased mother Sung Hae-rim, has written in her memoir that Kim Jong-il was extremely fond of Kim Jong-nam and was pained to be away from him. Like his half-brothers, Kim Jong-nam studied at an international school in Switzerland.
But his chances of succession appeared to be ruined when, in 2001, Japanese officials caught him trying to sneak into Japan using a false passport. He told officials that he was planning to visit Tokyo Disneyland.
Some analysts argued that he may have been forgiven by his father, as there is precedent for the regime reinstating disgraced figures after a period of atonement. Confucian tradition also favours the oldest son.
But in a rare interview in 2009, Kim Jong-nam said he had 'no interest' in succeeding his father.
In February 2017, Kim Jong-nam died in mysterious circumstances in Malaysia.
Kim Sul-song
Born 1974
Kim Sul-song is Kim Jong-il's daughter born to his first wife, Kim Young-sook.
Reports say she has worked in the country's propaganda department, with responsibility for literary affairs.
One South Korean report said she had also served as her father's secretary.
Kim Jong-chul
Born 25 September 1981
Kim Jong-chul studied at an international school in Switzerland. He works in the WKP propaganda department.
His mother, Ko Yong-hui, is said to have been the North Korean leader's favourite consort.
However, Kenji Fujimoto, the pseudonym of a Japanese sushi chef who spent 13 years cooking for Kim Jong-il, has written that the leader considered his second son 'no good because he is like a little girl'.
Kim Jong-un
Kim Jong-un, the second son of Kim Jong-il and his late wife Ko Yong-hui, was anointed 'the great successor' by Pyongyang.
Like his older brothers, he is thought to have been educated abroad.
A Japanese sushi chef who worked for Kim Jong-il for 13 years up to 2001 said that he 'resembled his father in every way, including his physical frame'.
Speculation that he was being groomed to succeed his father had been rife for years.
Since taking power, he has presided over a long-range missile test, North Korea's third nuclear test, and most recently the execution of his uncle, Chang Song-thaek.
He married Ri Sol-Ju in 2009 or 2010 and the couple are reported to have had a daughter, Ju-ae, in 2012.
Ri Sol-ju
Ri Sol-ju was introduced as Kim Jong-un's wife in state media reports about the opening of an amusement park in July 2012.
Reports simply said he attended the event with his wife, 'Comrade Ri Sol-ju'.
Little more is known about Ri Sol-Ju, although there has been much speculation about her background since pictures first emerged of Kim Jong-un with an unidentified woman. There is a North Korean singer of the same name, but she is not now thought to be the same person.
Reports say the couple got married in 2009 or 2010 and Ri Sol-Ju is since reported to have given birth to a daughter, Ju-ae, in 2012.
Kim Han-sol
Born 16 June 1995
The grandson of Kim Jong-il and nephew of leader Kim Jong-un has said he wants to 'make things better' for the people of his country.
Kim Han-sol spoke of his dreams of reunification of the two Koreas in an television interview in Bosnia, where he is studying. Kim Han-sol said he had never met his grandfather or uncle.
He described an isolated childhood spent mostly in Macau and China, after his birth in Pyongyang in 1995. In the future, he said he pictured himself going to university and then ''volunteering somewhere''.
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More than 300 million people living in 256 districts are affected by drought in India after two years of sparse monsoon rains. BBC Hindi's Ajay Sharma travels through seven states to find that the drought has changed India's villages and their residents. | When I started my nearly 7,000km (4,349 miles)-long road journey from the southern state of Karnataka in October, my brief was simply to report on how poor rains were changing India's rural landscape.
I had no inkling that I would be witnessing the making of a drought, that would change a country and its people.
The change is writ large in the wrinkled face of the 101-year-old widow, Hanumanthi: a face that symbolises the endless struggle of India's rural poor.
Is India facing its worst-ever water crisis?
Searching for water in drought-hit India
India's water refugees
I met her in Hunchinal village in the southern state of Karnataka.
Hanumanthi, who owns a small patch of land, told me she was going to "die soon because there was nothing to eat".
She told me that she had nothing, and nobody, to care for. There were no tears in her eyes, and no bitterness in her voice.
Her neighbours said she could survive but only if the rains came. But the weather gods had not relented for three consecutive years, so these were high hopes indeed.
It's been seven months since I met her, and I have no idea what happened to Hanumanthi.
But I knew then that what I saw on my journey was a chilling warning of what lay in store for India's farmers and their families.
In the southern state of Telangana, Anjamma, a 29-year-old widow, told me how her husband Ailappa killed himself because he could not repay a debt of around $400.
He took this money for the revival of his cotton crop, but it failed.
She told me he was running a high fever, and didn't tell her that he had drunk insecticide.
This is a story I heard over and over again. The names change, but little else. The vicious cycle of drought and debt has consumed India's poor and marginalised farmers.
Growing debt
Two years ago, when the figures were last recorded, there were 12,360 farm suicides in India.
This year the situation may actually be much worse if the monsoon plays truant again. On top of that, the price of cotton, the main crop grown in these areas, has fallen to record lows.
In a village in Medak district of Telangana, I noticed there were hardly any men, only women and children.
I learned that many had run away because of the growing debt. Nobody knew where they were.
When a body is found in the nearby areas, the women here say their hearts sink. And they all ask the question: could he be my husband?
In just five days, I came across cases of two farmer suicides. These deaths are recorded, but the stories behind them are not.
Drought has dried up the lands, and people are having to move out in large numbers in search of food and work.
In the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, I found a village still waiting for electricity, and men waiting for wives.
The villagers were using kerosene lanterns, there was no water and no power. Nobody wanted to marry their daughters into this village, so an army of bachelors - aged between 25 and 65 - waited for brides.
Grim situation
In another village in Maharashtra state, I saw many farmers who had long, flowing beards simply because they couldn't afford a shave.
Seven months on, the situation in many of India's states remains grim.
Many are dying a slow death. But one man's tragedy is another's opportunity and many are also trying to make a fast buck by illegally exploiting the dry river beds for sand.
When a house in one of the villages in Jhansi district, in Uttar Pradesh, caught fire, there was no water to douse the flames. The local water bodies had all gone dry.
The experts say this is a man-made drought: poor water conservation and poor long-term water policies are mainly to blame. Deficient rains have only made things worse.
A drought is not just about parched lands and parched throats.
It's also about parched lives. Not everyone dies, but it wreaks havoc with the lives of those who survive, and takes the joy out of living.
When I look back on my 15-day-journey through seven drought-hit states, I get this sinking feeling that we have slipped too far down, and clawing our way back will not be easy.
And my memory returns to the faces of the widows, Hanumanthi and Anjamma, and all those whose lives have been changed by this drought.
You can hear more on this story on BBC World Service's Fifth Floor programme. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03vnycs)
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The mood was somewhere between football match and rock concert. | By Lucy WilliamsonBBC News, Lyon
Tiny brooches pinned to the chests of 3,000 supporters flashed blue, white and red in the dimmed auditorium; impromptu renditions of the French national anthem flowed across the crowd, interspersed with boisterous chants of "on est chez nous" - "we are at home" - the unofficial slogan of the National Front (FN).
Marine Le Pen, or Marine as she is known in the party branding these days, has been trying to soften the FN's image to broaden its appeal.
The party's election manifesto, launched this weekend, has dropped its commitment to bring back the death penalty and toned down its language on immigration and the EU. The euro is never once mentioned by name.
But Ms Le Pen's core message was largely the same, an end to open borders, multiculturalism and free-trade.
"The objective of globalisation is to turn people into simple consumers or producers," she told the crowd.
"Countries are no longer nations but markets. Borders are erased… everybody can come to our country and this has caused a drop in salaries, cuts in social protection to be cut, and a dilution of cultural identity."
Read more:
Cultural identity plays well with many of her supporters; it was her condemnation of fundamentalist Islam that drew some of the biggest applause today.
Some accuse her of building an "anti-Islam coalition" of voters, targeting women, gay couples and Jewish voters, to try and expand her base.
Ms Le Pen's promises, to leave the euro, hold a referendum on membership of the EU and give French nationals priority when it comes to jobs and housing, have won her enough support, polls suggest, to win the first round of the presidential contest.
Her problem, as always, lies in winning the second. In the run-off, her rivals have always managed to attract votes from other parties; Marine Le Pen has not.
Now, with the centre-right candidate Francois Fillon currently battling a financial scandal, she could end up facing the liberal former banker, Emmanuel Macron - a man running his first ever election campaign.
If so, France will be faced, in three months' time, with the prospect of choosing its next president from two political outsiders.
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The Rt Rev Justin Welby, the current Bishop of Durham, has been officially confirmed as the next Archbishop of Canterbury and will be enthroned in March. There has been reaction from a number of senior Church leaders and other notable figures.
| The Archbishop of York, the Rt Rev John Sentamu
"The tipsters and lobbyists' predictions can now return to silence. The appointment of an archbishop is neither akin to a horse race nor a presidential campaign, and it is a relief that the rumour-mill, which has been grinding out misinformation, has now ground to a halt.
Bishop Justin Welby has many gifts and unique experience to bring to this daunting office. More importantly he, like Archbishop Rowan, is a man of God. I have been praying for him, will go on doing so with renewed vigour, and will continue to work with him as a brother and friend in Christ. He can count on the same brotherly affection and co-operation that I have given Archbishop Rowan.
This country and our world need a missionary to share with them the all-encompassing message of the love of God in Jesus Christ, who rose gloriously from an ignominious death. That is the great role to which Bishop Justin has been called."
The Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols (Leader of Roman Catholics in England and Wales)
"I know that Bishop Welby will bring many personal gifts and experience to his new role. As the future Primate of the Church of England, I am sure that his ministry, like that of his predecessor Archbishop Rowan Williams, will provide an important Christian witness to this country over the coming years.
In fidelity to our Lord Jesus Christ's prayer that his followers may all be one, I hope that we will endeavour to strengthen the bonds of Christian friendship and mission already established between the Catholic Church and the Church of England.
I look forward to working closely with Bishop Welby in the service of the common good and in the common witness we can give to all the people in our land."
The Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks
"I send warm congratulations to the Right Reverend Justin Welby, Bishop of Durham, on his appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury. I wish him blessings and success as he takes on this important role and look forward to working with him closely, as I have done with his predecessors, to continue strengthening Jewish-Christian relations in Britain.
Archbishop Rowan has served his office, and the Church of England, with great distinction, integrity, courage and grace. It has been an honour to work alongside him over the past decade and I consider it a particular privilege to call him not just a valued colleague in faith, but a true friend."
Prime Minister David Cameron
"The Church of England plays an important role in our society, not just as the established Church, but in the provision of education, help for the deprived and in furthering social justice.
I look forward to working with the archbishop in all of these areas and I wish him success in his new role."
Director of Changing Attitude, the Rev Colin Coward
"He does need to take very seriously the desire of gay and lesbian Christians to have relationships blessed in church and honoured and recognised by the Church and that includes both civil partnerships and, ultimately, equal marriage.
On the whole the Church is a safe place (for gay and lesbian Christians) but it's just that we are not fully equal alongside everybody else in the Church and it's certainly not a safe place in other parts of the Anglican Communion.
Homophobia is having a disastrous effect in places like Uganda and Nigeria and that is something that Rowan Williams has had to try and confront, not very successfully, and I hope Justin Welby's steeliness demonstrates itself in relations to the Communion and that he has the confidence to say to people that such behaviour against lesbian and gay people really is intolerable.
He is a man of real intelligence. He clearly is very thoughtful about things. He comes from a background in the world of oil and I hope that he will have learnt there that there are some things which are really intolerable, whether you are a Christian or somebody from the secular realm."
The Bishop of Chichester, the Rt Rev Martin Warner
"Bishop Justin has many gifts and a rich experience of life to this calling.
"He faces a daunting task, but the priority he attaches to a spiritual life of prayer, to reflection on the Bible and dependence upon the holy spirit will sustain him, as will the love and support of his family and friends. To that support I add my own and my prayers for his future ministry."
Andrew Carr, Church of England lay reader, Dartford, Kent
"I... feel Justin Welby will inherit the Anglican Communion in an unhappy state, some of which is self-inflicted.
There should be no issue with women bishops. If God calls people into ministry to serve in this particular way, and he does, then their gender is irrelevant. They have been called to serve, let them do so.
Some of the best teaching I have received both verbally and in writing has been by women and the Church does itself great harm by blocking/ignoring their calling and ministry.
Homosexuality remains an issue made complex by ignorance and prejudice. There are many gay people in the church I'm part of and serve in, and all are welcome.
If we as Christians believe that Jesus loves us, died for our sins on the cross and rose again offering life to all who believe in him, then why do we the Church exclude so many on the basis of orientation?"
The General Bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the UK, His Grace Bishop Angaelos
"We are well aware of the significant challenges that face Bishop Justin as he takes on this new role, but are also prayerfully confident that, led by the Holy Spirit, the Lord will provide him with wisdom and discernment to faithfully serve the Church of England, the worldwide Anglican Communion, and above all, the Church of God.
Based on the strong fraternal relations between our Churches in the United Kingdom, both as leadership and people, and on my own personal relationship with Lambeth Palace, I look forward to our continued collaborative efforts on matters that unite us and our congregations."
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair
"My Faith Foundation and I would like to express our delight at the appointment of Bishop Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury.
He will bring to the Church of England and the Anglican Communion a rich experience and spirituality alongside a deep commitment to building harmonious interfaith relations.
His knowledge of the Church in Africa, and particularly in Nigeria, will make a profound contribution to the life of the Anglican Communion in the years to come.
We wish him well in the difficult task of leading the Anglican Church, healing divisions between people of faith, and continuing in the tradition of his predecessor of spiritual leadership in Britain."
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It was one of the worst school shootings in American history, but some people insist that the Sandy Hook massacre never happened. They post YouTube videos and spread rumours online, and their false theories have been repeated by a media mogul conspiracy theorist who has been linked to Donald Trump. Now, after years of harassment, the families of the victims are fighting back online. | By Mike WendlingBBC Trending, Sandy Hook
Leonard Pozner clicks on a YouTube video showing his street and the outside of his home. The camera zooms in on his balcony, and his address and a route to his door flash up on the screen.
There's no narration on the video - but there doesn't need to be. The message is clear: "We know where you live."
Because of videos like this one - there are dozens on YouTube, and more appear ever day - Pozner doesn't want to disclose the city where he now lives. He's had death threats and has moved several times in recent years.
Leonard Pozner has been targeted because he's fought back against trolls and conspiracy theorists who make sweeping and false allegations about the murder of his son.
"Noah was just a regular six-year-old child," says Leonard, who's also known as Lenny. "I dropped him off that morning - it really was an ordinary day of getting the kids ready for school.
"Then an hour-and-a-half later it was just the worst nightmare. Worse than any nightmare I could have imagined."
The nightmare began on 14 December 2012 when a young man named Adam Lanza killed his mother and then drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School. In a matter of minutes, he shot dead 20 children and six adults, before taking his own life.
Even in a country where mass shootings are common, Sandy Hook stood out. The pupils were so young, and there were so many of them. Hundreds were traumatised - and many still are - after witnessing the carnage and its aftermath.
And yet despite extensive investigations and a report which determined that Lanza acted alone, conspiracy theorists have constructed a fake alternate reality in which the whole thing was an elaborate hoax, staged by the government to try to introduce strict gun control laws.
They seize on small inconsistencies between initial news reports from the chaotic scene and the facts. The more extreme among them have targeted the families of Sandy Hook victims. There have been at least two arrests linked to the hoax theories. On Wednesday, a warrant was issued for a Florida woman who is accused of harassing Lenny Pozner.
"We're a luckier family," says Hannah D'Avino, whose sister Rachel was a behavioural therapist at Sandy Hook Elementary School. "I personally will get about like three death threats a year because we don't speak up that much."
On a sunny, late winter's day in New England, Hannah sits in the stately Newtown Public Library, down the road from where her sister was murdered. She recalls her sister's spirit, her profound positive influence on her life, and her work with autistic children.
Her voice is subdued, but quivers with quiet determination.
"My sister was murdered 11 days before Christmas and I consider myself lucky because I don't have a stalker," she tells me. "That's the situation I'm in right now."
Some of the conspiracy theorists are regular visitors to this small hamlet in suburban Connecticut. In addition to the death threats and harassment directed at Lenny, Hannah and others, they've made videos of the school and local area and ask questions of locals and family members, and have posted the footage on YouTube.
And their theories have been picked up by one of America's most popular conspiracy theorists, a man who has been linked with President Donald Trump.
The online storm has prompted Lenny to form a volunteer network to track and take down the conspiracy theory videos and websites.
And other Sandy Hook residents are pleading with President Trump, asking him to speak out and help stop the madness.
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Wolfgang Halbig lives in a big yellow house in a sunny, lavishly landscaped gated community in Florida. He's a retired school administrator and safety advisor, and he says that when he first heard news of the Sandy Hook shootings, he was sitting in a chair in his living room, drinking coffee.
"My hairs stood up," he says. "Because they're not protected in the elementary schools."
Halbig donated money to the Sandy Hook families. But he soon became both obsessed with the tragedy - and, somehow, convinced that it never happened.
"I think 14 Dec 2012 is an event that was in planning for a long, long time," he tells me. "I think it probably took them two, two-and-a-half years to write the scripts for all the participants that were invited to participate in that exercise - or drill as I will call it."
Halbig has since devoted years of his life to "exposing" what he thinks is a government plot. He started a website. He's revealed personal information about the victims of his attacks, including names, addresses, legal documents and financial information. And he's personally travelled to Sandy Hook a number of times.
"I call it an illusion. The biggest government illusion that's ever been pulled off by [the US Department of] Homeland Security."
In his office, ghoulish blown-up pictures of the crime scene mingle with pictures of his family and his days as an American football player. His so-called evidence consists of a string of tiny details, small anomalies which are for the most part easily explained by the inchoate nature of a horrific breaking news event.
"I'll be honest with you," he says, "if I'm wrong, I need to be institutionalised."
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Conspiracy theories are a perennial feature of American life. But now they can be picked up by extremists and spread virally through social media. And that process has been fuelled by America's deeply partisan political environment.
Hundreds of videos online are pushing false Sandy Hook narratives. Collectively, they have millions of views. Falsehoods are repeated by Twitter accounts and on Facebook.
Still, the theories might have stayed quarantined in some of the darker corners of the internet, were they not picked up and amplified by one of America's most popular conspiracy theorists.
Alex Jones is a talk show host and the founder of the multimedia portal Infowars. Regular listeners and readers are used to his rants on everything from 9/11 to attacks across Europe. And on several broadcasts he embraced the Sandy Hook conspiracy theorists. Less than two years after the attacks, he welcomed Halbig on his programme and talked about an Infowars story headlined "FBI says no one killed at Sandy Hook".
"Internet sleuths immediately took to the web to stitch together clues indicating the shooting could be a carefully-scripted false flag event, similar to the 9/11 terror attacks, the central tenet being that the event would be used to galvanize future support for gun control legislation," the story stated.
He returned to the theme several months later on his radio show: "I've had the investigators on, the state police have gone public, you name it - the whole thing is a giant hoax. And the problem is, how do you deal with a total hoax? How do you even convince the public something's a total hoax?"
Later he said: "Sandy Hook is a synthetic, completely fake with actors, in my view, manufactured. I couldn't believe it at first. I knew they had actors there clearly but I thought they killed some real kids, and it just shows how bold they are, that they clearly used actors."
The liberal think tank Media Matters for America has listed other instances of Jones accusing the parents of murdered children being actors or casting doubt on the Sandy Hook investigation. Matt Gertz of Media Matters says that online and on air, Jones has an audience of about 8 million.
"It's kind of remarkable, but believing that Sandy Hook was a hoax is actually fairly small ball for an Alex Jones conspiracy," Gertz says. "He thinks that a set of global elites are planning to murder 80% of the world populace and enslave the rest of them. He has claimed that the federal government has a weather machine that they use to target tornado strikes on unfriendly populaces.
"He is sort of the nexus for what's really a distributed network of conspiracy theorists who are on Facebook or on Twitter or using sites like Reddit or 4Chan or 8Chan."
Jones, who did not respond to repeated requests for an interview, has also been linked to President Trump. In late 2015, Trump appeared on Jones's radio programme. At the end of a half-hour interview, the candidate told the host: "I just want to finish by saying your reputation's amazing. I will not let you down, you will be very very impressed I hope.
"And I think we'll be speaking a lot... a year into office, you'll be saying 'Wow, I remember that interview, he said he was going to do it, and he did a great job.' You'll be very proud of our country."
Former Trump campaign advisor Roger Stone regularly appears on Jones's show, and reportedly was the person who introduced the presidential candidate and the talk show host.
Trump has retweeted Infowars reporters and stories (for example here and here) and stories of dubious provenance that first appeared on the site have regularly shown up in Trump speeches and tweets.
To take just one example: in November 2016, Trump tweeted: "In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally."
The message repeated an allegation with scant basis in fact - a story that had appeared on Infowars earlier that month.
Trump has not endorsed the Sandy Hook conspiracy theory, nor has he spoken about Jones's claims that the massacre was a hoax. The White House did not respond to a number of requests for comment, including a series of questions about the relationship between the president and Jones.
Jones himself has tried to make the most of his connections to Trump. He claims the president called him shortly after winning the election and has spoken to him since, although the the New York Times reported that a Trump aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, "played down the frequency of their contact".
"It is surreal to talk about issues here on air and then word-for-word hear Trump say it two days later," Jones said on his radio show in August 2016. "It is amazing."
Gertz, from Media Matters for America, says that there is evidence that Jones does talk with the president. But he cautions that both men have had a history of pushing conspiracy theories and presenting "alternative facts".
"So trying to nail down for sure what their relationship is, based on the statements that they say about each other, is pretty dicey," he says.
Less than two weeks after the 2016 presidential election, Jones posted a video which he declared was his "final statement" on Sandy Hook. In it, he claimed he had been unfairly treated by the media.
"I've always said I'm not sure what really happened, but there's a lot of anomalies and there has been a cover-up of what did happen there," he said.
"There is some evidence that people died there," he said. "I don't know what the truth is, all I know is the official story of Sandy Hook has more holes in it than Swiss cheese."
He then played a montage of news clips and material from his Sandy Hook programmes over the years, including footage of Wolfgang Halbig. He did not include his "Sandy Hook is a synthetic, completely fake with actors" quote. In signing off, he took another swipe at parents of murdered children who spoke to the media in the aftermath of the attacks.
"If children were lost in Sandy Hook, my heart goes out to each and every one of those parents and the people who say they're parents that I see on the news. The only problem is, I've seen a lot of soap operas, and I've seen actors before, and I know when I'm watching a movie and when I'm watching something real. Let's look into Sandy Hook."
In front of his computer screen in his undisclosed location, Lenny Pozner is taking on the conspiracy theorists. He flicks through a YouTube page and points out a new video.
"Look - this was just posted," he says. "It's a hoaxer type video - it's insulting, it has images of people who were connected to the tragedy."
The thumbnail picture has a photo of his son Noah's headstone. There's text on the picture which reads: "empty grave". In the video, there's a picture of Lenny himself.
"Here's a photo of me taken two days after my child was killed and I'm being called a liar fraud and terrorist," he says. "That's how they vilify people."
Lenny used to be a casual Infowars listener - he liked to listen to conspiracy theories as entertainment. That's how he initially found out that his son's murder was being denied by the conspiracy theorists.
At first he tried to engage with them through a Facebook group. But soon the mood among the hard-core hoaxers hardened.
"The only people that would come into the groups were trolls," he says. "They were just coming in for their own amusement... after that I decided that the most important thing would be to start taking down content that's spreading this information," he says.
Every day, Lenny scrolls though reams of conspiracy minded content, complaining to social networks and attempting to get videos and posts taken down using network rules about copyright, decency and harassment. And he's created an organisation, the Honr Network, to help the fight against the hoaxers.
After four years of pain, compounded by the harassers and the conspiracy mongers, people in Sandy Hook are tired - and some of them are asking the president to step in.
I meet Eric Paradis, a local Democratic Party official, in a bar down the road from Sandy Hook. One of Paradis's daughters was at Sandy Hook Elementary on the day of the shooting - she survived.
Although Alex Jones has not been involved in the harassment of the families, Paradis says the president could use his influence to push Jones and the conspiracy theorists to the fringes, and help stop the harassment of Sandy Hook victims.
"The town committee wanted to put a letter together asking the president to denounce these hoaxers and tell them look… these are real children who died," he says.
His letter is still under consideration by local officials. It reads:
"[Jones] continues to spread hate and lies towards our town, towards the people and organizations who came to help us through those darkest days. Jones repeatedly tells his listeners and viewers that he has your ears and your respect. He brags about how you called him after your victory in November. Emboldened by your victory, he continues to hurt the memories of those lost, the ability of those left behind to heal."
The letter goes on to ask Trump to "intervene and stop Jones and others hoaxers like him". Paradis says he and other Democrats tried to avoid making the letter about Trump's larger political agenda.
"I really do think he can help us put a stop to it, because he does have a unique position with these hoaxers," he says. "If he can help us out then that's fantastic and a Democrat [like me] would be very grateful if he could."
Lenny Pozner continues to take action against the trolls. He's filed a lawsuit against Halbig, alleging invasion of privacy. Halbig is fighting the suit, which is just getting underway, and says that if he loses, he'll check himself into a mental institution.
Lenny turns back to his computer, where he spots more conspiracy theory videos. So will he ever stop trying to fight the hoaxers?
He takes a deep breath and a long pause.
"I don't know," he says. "I would like not to have to do this. I would like to just leave it alone and feel the memory of my child is sacred and other people are also treating it that way," he says, "but as long as they're not - I feel I need to defend that memory."
Blog by Mike Wendling
With reporting by Sam Judah
You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending, and find us on Facebook. All our stories are at bbc.com/trending.
Read more from Trending: The disturbing YouTube videos that are tricking children
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By the end of this year Myanmar should have been free of narcotics. Instead, production of opium is soaring and the East Asian country, once part of the fabled Golden Triangle, is the second largest producer in the world. Axel Kronholm investigates why. | Proposing a toast at the end of a successful meeting is not an unusual practice in many parts of the world. A handshake suffices for most people. For others it may involve knocking back a glass of the local hooch.
In Chin state, those attending a village meeting on agricultural development are invited to take a hit of opium.
A rusty tobacco tin is passed round as village elders, farmers and even the staff of a local non-government organisation (NGO) use a toothpick to scoop up a tiny dark, gooey pellet of raw opium - and swallow.
Scattered on the slope of a mountain, Mualpi is a village of 175 households overlooking the Manipur river in north-western Myanmar, also known as Burma.
Small-scale opium cultivation has existed here for a long time. About half of the families in the village are involved in opium farming. The surrounding mountaintops are dotted with light green patches of poppy fields.
It's been used as a medicine to treat diarrhoea, dysentery and other ailments.
But over the last decade commercial poppy production has taken hold. Since 2006 opium production has nearly tripled in Myanmar.
Growing trade
The opium is refined into heroin inside the country and then exported to its neighbours. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (Undoc) estimates the market value of last year's total production to be around $340m (£220m).
As a result Myanmar can now lay claim to the dubious honour, after Afghanistan, of being the second largest producer of opium in the world. It now accounts for almost 25% of the world's total production.
Right up until the end of the 20th century, the mountains of Myanmar, which was part of the so-called "Golden Triangle" with neighbouring Laos and Thailand, was the largest supplier of opium. The region was then overtaken by Afghanistan.
Demand from China, but also Australia and Japan, is one factor behind the rise in production in Myanmar over the last decade.
The single biggest driver in this turnaround is the growth of demand in China where Undoc estimates that 70% of the heroin produced in Asia is consumed by more than a million users.
Another part of the puzzle is poverty. Ranked 150 out of 187 countries in the UN's Human Development Report, Myanmar is one of the poorest countries in Asia.
Poverty is particularly grinding in rural areas, with insufficient investment in infrastructure and an underdeveloped agriculture sector.
"Farmers see opium cultivation as a way to secure their income and provide for the family," says Tom Kramer from the Transnational Institute, a Dutch organisation that has reported on the production and trade of drugs in south-east Asia.
"It's also a very useful medicine in areas with limited access to healthcare and other medicines."
At the village meeting in Mualpi, several farmers said they grew opium. One of them, a man in his late 40s wearing a creased cap and a cheerful grin, says that for most people growing poppy is not a choice, but a necessity.
"We do it to survive," he insists. "The income you get from growing maize or vegetables is very low, and can't compare with opium."
Indeed, growing opium can reward farmers handsomely for relatively little work. The season is short - only four months from planting to harvest - and it's easy to transport the product.
Buyers will travel to opium-growing communities to buy the drugs, while farmers must transport maize or other agricultural products to the market to turn a profit.
"Some buyers will even provide the capital up front for farmers to cultivate the opium," adds Mr Kramer.
But this lucrative business is not without risk. As opium is cheap and readily available in the communities that grow it, addiction has become an issue.
Two hours south of Mualpi, in Tonzang, pastor Philip Suang Kho Thang has come to collect a building permit for a rehabilitation clinic for opium users.
"There is no help available," the pastor says, as his trembling hands hold up photographs of seemingly unconscious and intoxicated youngsters.
"It's sad to see how the youth is dragged down into this," he adds. "Old people suffer too, as their children stop providing for them and instead just smoke opium all day."
A carpenter in Tonzang, who used to grow opium, says he stopped because he was worried his children would get hooked.
"I still miss having all that money, especially when someone in our family gets sick or when the kids want a new toy," he says.
"But at least I don't have to worry about my children getting addicted any more."
While demand and poverty fuels the business, conflict and a corrupt and weak state makes it all possible.
Opium is cultivated in remote mountainous areas, where long-term conflict between ethnic rebels and government forces has made law enforcement difficult.
Furthermore, all sides - the army, rebels and militias - each take a poppy tax from the farmers, so have little incentive to end the activity.
Mr Kramer argues that eradication programmes don't work.
"There is no evidence that eradication actually reduces cultivation on a larger scale," he says.
"Globally, opium cultivation levels have only increased in the last 30 or 40 years despite massive efforts of eradication.
"It does however have many negative effects. It feeds corruption and hurts poor communities that are deprived of their main source of income."
After the high, the downer
As cultivation for this season's crop gets under way, further pressure on incomes is already being felt.
At a meeting last week of researchers and opium farmers from across the country, growers said that falling prices and higher labour costs on top of more aggressive "tax" collection has made the business less profitable.
The recent floods and landslides in regions like Chin state have further worsened the outlook.
After failing to meet its own deadline of eradicating poppy production by this year, the government in Myanmar's capital city Naypyidaw has extended it to 2019.
However, observers say, this pledge is as doomed as the last one. With few other sources of income available the farmers' options are very limited.
The opium farmer in Mualpi says it would make the villagers' lives worse if the police managed to destroy their poppies.
"What will we live off then? We would all be in debt and simply have to grow more opium next year to make up for the loss," he said.
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